“I’ve found a gap just ahead,” said Thren. “I can feel it with my hands. The tunnel’s shifted vertically, and just over the gap I can feel a sort of ladder. Climb carefully. I don’t know how far down that tunnel goes…”
“Will do,” said Haern. He waited until he heard movement, then continued on ahead. Thren grunted, there was the sound of rocks clacking and falling against one another, and then silence. Haern made sure to check every movement carefully, sliding his hands along the stone before advancing. Sure enough, within another ten feet, he felt his hand move right off the stone, feeling only open air. Pulling back, he felt for the exact edge, then slowly advanced toward it. Now closer, he reached out again, and the inability to see what he was reaching for, yet knowing he leaned out over an unknown pit, made his stomach twist and dance. When he touched a wall, followed by a steel rung just beneath it, he let out a sigh.
“I’m just above,” he heard Thren say. “Tell me when you’re safely across.”
“I will.”
Haern grabbed the rung, braced himself, then extended his other hand. The weight pulled him over the chasm, and he felt himself hanging, feet on the edge, hands on the rung. By his guess, the pit beneath him was only a few feet wide, but being unable to see, he felt like it was a thousand. Another breath, and then he took a blind step. He dropped, pivoting along the rung so that he swung toward the wall of stone. He expected to find more rungs, but instead, his feet hit smooth stone, and he dangled there, clutching the steel with both hands. He was on the bottom rung of a ladder, he realized, and if he planned on getting anywhere, he needed to stop panicking. It was just darkness, he told himself. Darkness was his friend. Something about the confined spaces messed with his mind, and again he wished he could see, if only the tiniest of light, so he could find his bearings.
Planting a foot against the wall, he pushed off it as best he could and reached up for a second rung. He found it, and telling himself to not even think of letting his grip slip, he pulled himself up higher. A grunt, another kick, and he ascended again. The fourth time, he was able to put a knee on the rung, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Are you across?” he heard Thren ask from up above.
“Yes,” Haern said, pressing his forehead against one of the rungs, immensely comforted by its smooth, cold feel. “Yes, I’m on the ladder.”
“Good.”
He heard a rustle of movement, and Haern shifted so instead of his knee, his foot was on the bottom rung, and he was eager to begin his climb up through whatever unknown shaft they’d found themselves in. He reached up to grab another rung, then felt his heart leap into his throat as a hand clasped his wrist.
“I’m sorry,” said Thren.
His father flung out Haern’s wrist, and at the same time, he felt a heavy weight crash against his right arm. Before he could even brace himself, another kick hit him in the face, then his left hand. Balance lost, he fell, still reaching for a rung. Twisting, reaching for the other side of the tunnel they’d come from, he scraped his fingernails against smooth stone, and then he was falling, falling. So stung by the betrayal, so frightened of the unbreakable darkness, Haern never screamed as he plummeted into the unknown.
CHAPTER 17
Luther sat in an uncomfortable wood chair, a book open before him and his back to the door, when he heard the faint metal click of the lock opening. He paused in the middle of turning a page, and as he held the coarse paper between his fingers, he let out a soft breath.
“At last,” he whispered.
A dagger jammed through his left hand resting atop the desk, spearing through his palm and pinning it to the wood. Into his mouth pressed a heavy cloth, gagging him as its wielder shoved his head backward, allowing a longer blade to push against his exposed throat. Luther let out a moan at the pain, from both the stab wound and the awkward angle his neck was forced into. Above him he saw no one, just his drab ceiling. The cloth tasted of dirt and blood, and it built up a cough he had to struggle to suppress.
“I know the power a man like you can wield,” said his intruder. “The moment I hear anything that sounds remotely like a prayer or spell, I will cut open your throat and leave you to bleed all over your book. Am I understood? Say nothing, just blink twice.”
He did so, feeling remarkably calm despite what he knew was to happen. Carefully, he raised his free hand, allowing his intruder to take it, wrench it behind his back, and bind it to the chair. When that was done, the blade returned to his throat.
“Remember, not a single sound that makes me nervous.”
Out of his mouth came the cloth, and Luther gave a soft sigh.
“Thren Felhorn,” he said. “You’ve finally arrived.”
To Luther’s right was his bed, and sliding into view was an older man clothed in plain colors and wearing a pale gray cloak. His hair was short and blond, his face marked by scars and age, yet his blue eyes still seemed to shine with life. He sat on the bed, sword still in hand.
“It seems I have,” he said. “You’ve been playing dangerous games, priest.”
Luther smiled despite the pain spreading up his hand from the dagger. With the blade still in him, the bleeding wasn’t as bad as it could be, but even the slightest twitch of his fingers dramatically increased its agony.
“As have you,” he said. “There are few with the skill, and the audacity, to come to the Stronghold in search of prey.” He did his best to look over his shoulder at the door. “I take it the guard posted there is dead?”
Thren twirled the sword in his hand.
“He is.”
“A shame. Mihir was a good man.”
“He died a quick death, if that makes you feel better.”
Luther chuckled.
“Little can make me feel better, Thren. I fear my capacity for joy has been permanently ruined.”
Thren ignored him, instead continuing to twirl the sword, slowly, his fingers in masterful control of the leather and steel. He stared at Luther, analyzing him, judging him.
“Why?” he asked.
Luther shifted, trying to find a measure of comfort, given one hand was stabbed and bleeding and the other roughly tied behind his back.
“Such a large, vague question,” he answered. “One my order has devoted a great many of its years to solving. Could you be more specific?”
“I’m in no mood for jokes or sarcasm, priest. You know who I am, which means you know why I’m here. You sent the Sun Guild into Veldaren with aims to kill me. I want to know why.”
“Untie my hand, and I will tell you,” Luther said.
Thren tensed, the twirling of his sword halting.
“I am no fool,” he said.
“And neither am I. You are here, which means I am a dead man. But even if I could, I would make no move against you. I’ve been waiting for you, Thren. Waiting for you to do the impossible, and to come to me, because truth be told, I need you alive. Why else would I have come to you in a dream to show you the way?”
Thren looked undecided, and it was clearly an emotion he was unaccustomed to. Debating wordlessly with himself, at last he sat up from his bed, cut through the ropes holding Luther to the chair, and then sat back down on the bed. The dagger he left embedded.
“There,” he said. “Now talk. Why did you want to destroy my Spider Guild?”
“I had no animosity toward your guild in particular,” Luther said. “I needed all of the guilds weakened so the Sun Guild might come in as I requested. You were the strongest of them, the one most likely to withstand their arrival. I expect you to be familiar with such a role by now, Thren. The tallest must first duck the swing of a reaper’s scythe.”
“And the Widow?”
Luther thought of what he’d known of Stephen Conning-ton, and he shook his head sadly.
“A poor child with a horrific past,” he said. “His mind was damaged beyond repair. I did my best to contain his more vile habits, to direct them to better uses, but over such distance, my control was limited.”