Lord of Stormweather

CHAPTER 20

I'm getting too old for this.

The thought kept returning to Thamalon's mind like some refrain from one of the operas Shamur adored so much. He hoped his predicament would turn out better than it did for the characters whose tragedies were sung in the amphitheater of the Hulorn's Hunting Garden.

He pressed his ear against the door and listened-yet again-for any sounds of inhabitants in the room beyond. He'd been doing so all morning at dozens of secret doors, and each time he heard voices or footsteps nearby, his heart skipped a beat.

It was only a matter of time before he blundered into the wrong room and revealed that he'd been skulking through the Sorcerer's no-longer-completely-secret passages.

Apart from the incredible difference in scale, the hidden corridors of Castle Stormweather were remarkably similar to those in Stormweather Towers. They weren't exactly the same, but they reinforced Thamalon's notion that this grand bastion and his own relatively modest manor home were fraternal if not identical twins.

How he could accept those similarities and deny the likely relationship between the Sorcerer and his son, Thamalon did not know. Nor did he care to examine the question too closely. It was a matter of faith and intuition, and Thamalon preferred to leave it that way.

Thamalon heard nothing beyond the door. He estimated that he'd wound his way through the servants' quarters and was near a kitchen or one of the lesser feasting halls. He sniffed for some smell of roasting meat or baking bread, but either he'd misjudged his direction or else the secret door sealed too tightly to allow odors to pass through.

He searched briefly for a sliding panel that might reveal a peephole. There were many such devices in his Stormweather, some of which had proven quite useful in spying on those who awaited his arrival before a trade meeting. Thamalon felt utterly no guilt in the subterfuge, which he assumed his competitors also employed. To his way of thinking, anyone so foolish as to discuss trade secrets in his rival's home deserved what he got.

Unfortunately, Thamalon had found precious few spy holes in the monstrous reflection of Stormweather Towers. Perhaps they were simply impractical in walls more often constructed of granite than of wood. Or maybe, Thamalon thought, the Sorcerer had other means of spying on his guests.

Thamalon felt exposed. He wondered whether the Sorcerer was even then observing his guest's ostensibly clandestine explorations.

He put his faith in the hope that the Sorcerer's resumption of his hunt would keep him sufficiently distracted throughout the afternoon. The man had already brought down two of the great skwalos, but Thamalon's dwarf friends had told him to expect no fewer than six catches before the Sorcerer gave up his slaughter. If catching them was as demanding as the contest Thamalon had witnessed the night before, he felt reasonably sure the distraction would prevent the Sorcerer from scrying through a basin like the one Lady Malaika used to observe his hunting.

Satisfied that the room beyond was unoccupied, Thamalon raised the brass latch and eased the door open a few inches. The room was bare of furnishings, and Thamalon realized it was a continuance of the secret corridors of Castle Stormweather. Inside he found two more latched doorways and a spiral staircase descending below the ground floor.

At last, Thamalon thought.

He'd been hunting for a passage down to the wine cellars, and to the chamber below.

The Ineffable Vault.

He'd not yet decided what to do when he reached the forbidden chamber. He'd questioned Lady Malaika on its function, but she claimed to know its powers only because the Sorcerer had told her of them long ago, when they were young and shared all their secrets. She had no first-hand knowledge, and no further advice except to caution Thamalon against detection.

That was superfluous advice.

The stairs led to another chamber on what Thamalon judged must be the level of the cellars. The Vault was at least another twenty feet down, yet the stairs descended no farther. He found another door, listened for voices, and carefully went through.

Thus he continued through the cellar level of the castle until at last he heard the sound of human voices.

Screaming.

His first instinct was to retreat. After his initial panic, Thamalon realized that there were other kinds of places traditionally lodged underground. Aside from treasure vaults and wine cellars, after all, there were dungeons.

The Stormweather in which he'd grown up had included such a place. Its six cold cells were reserved for drunks and brawlers among his father's guard. Thamalon smiled at the memory of his own brother's brief incarceration in the dungeon. Perivel had staggered down to the prison to impress a couple of wenches he'd lured home. The big man was drunker than he realized, for the doxies locked him into one of the cells and demanded he pay bail to be released. Once he handed over the last of his coin, the women blew him a pair of kisses before running back out to spend their new bounty. Luckily for Perivel, Thamalon had been the first to hear his hoarse bellowing the following evening. Had their father discovered how easily his eldest son had allowed himself to be tricked, he might have left him in the cell for another tenday.

When Thamalon rebuilt Stormweather Towers years after the rest of the Old Chauncel razed the original, he saw no reason to restore the dungeon. Any offense worthy of confinement called for dismissal, in his opinion. Anything less could be left to the discretion of the captain of the guard.

Thamalon never thought his father cruel for using the cells-his dungeon was simply a prison. No one ever suffered more than mild privation and bland food in the dungeons of Stormweather Towers.

Not so in the castle.

The sounds Thamalon heard through the walls were a melody of pain. The staccato cracks that punctuated the screams could be only the rhythm of the lash. Thamalon had heard such sounds before, in public punishments for crimes of property and contract. Witnessing those that crossed on Uskevren business was his repellent duty. Unlike some of his peers, he had never developed a taste for human suffering, however deserved.

Revulsion wrestled with his curiosity. As was becoming typical for him, wonder prevailed. Thamalon moved slowly toward the horrid sounds.

He came to an alcove much like an opera box with four chairs situated on steps before three shuttered windows. The sounds of torture came from beyond the louvered panels.

Thamalon tried to swallow away the disgusting taste that came to his mouth as he considered the implications of the viewing box.

He knew he should leave immediately, but he felt the compulsion of one who passes a horrible spectacle in the street and cannot resist turning to watch it. Thamalon lifted one band of the shutters just enough for a peek into the yawning maw of the Abyss.

The Sorcerer's dungeon was the size of Talbot's playhouse. Like the Wide Realms, it was a circular structure with stepped rings descending to a central platform. Dozens of cells surrounded the theater in stacks five high. Inside more than half of them lay dirty, naked humans and elves. Five or six more prisoners hung limply in spiked cages dangling from the ceiling.

The torturers were brawny men wearing red cowls over their heads. They moved methodically among the screams, like battlefield surgeons undaunted by the chaos around them. One drew the lash over the red back of an elf chained to a bloody frame. Another pressed a glowing brand shaped like a lightning bolt into the armpit of another big man-perhaps a recalcitrant member of the Vermilion Guard. Two more turned the wheels on a rack that stretched an elf until his shoulders popped out of their sockets. The elf didn't move or speak. Thamalon guessed he was already dead.

He closed the shutter.

Perhaps there were more clues to be gleaned by spying on the place, but Thamalon could bear to see no more of it. He endorsed discipline and punishment, but this was wicked work.

The nasty taste in his mouth had trickled into his stomach. He felt queasy for a moment, then suddenly much better. Whatever guilt he'd felt about betraying the Sorcerer's hospitality had evaporated. All that remained was a fierce desire to escape that infernal place and return home. If that meant harming the Sorcerer by opening his precious vault, then that was only added value.