“Agreed,” said Lianshi, crossing to her door and disappearing inside. “Give me one second.”
“Ah, it’s bad luck,” sighed Leonis, rising to his feet and squeezing Scorio’s shoulder apologetically. “But we’re not done for yet. We’ll slip down to the other end of the hall, then take the long way to the cellar in question. If they come looking for you, they’ll guess you took off and raise the alarm, but they’ll not look for you where we’re going.”
“Good,” said Scorio, trying to reassure himself. “Good. So… I didn’t realize she was the Hell Whip. She seemed…”
Leonis pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “Yep. Exactly. Imagine facing her in a fight.”
“She can summon a hammer, you said?”
“Big as she is and wields it as if it weighed less than a feather. Amongst many other abilities. She’s a Dread Blaze.” And he shook his head as if that said it all.
“All right,” said Lianshi, emerging in a set of more practical robes. She’d twisted her hair into a thick bun and was jabbing ornamental sticks through it to hold it in place. “Let’s go.”
Leonis handed Scorio a sack, then opened the door softly and slipped outside.
Lianshi lightly touched his arm to hold him back and stepped out next, so that Scorio emerged last.
Together they crept down the hall, away from the stairway, the dim lighting working in their favor. Once they rounded the corner, however, Leonis straightened his back and marched boldly forward, greeting the occasional stranger they passed with a nod or quiet exchange.
Heart pounding, Scorio followed, and they led him quickly and confidently down several more levels and finally into the basement region that was comprised of a tangle of low-ceilinged rooms. At the door to the first Leonis drew out a lantern and lit it from the closest wall torch, then led them through the storerooms, pausing occasionally to check a rolled-up map.
“Here,” he said at last, stepping into a small room whose contents were shrouded in dusty white sheets. “The chute should be behind that far wall.”
“Look at the floor,” said Lianshi softly, and in the light of the lantern, Scorio saw a path of recent footprints through the dust and grime, leading from their doorway to an innocuous spot between heavy shelving.
“Subtle,” said Leonis, moving forward, lantern held high. “But I’m glad for the confirmation.”
“How many people know about this passage?” asked Lianshi. “You think other students?”
“Not first years like us,” said Leonis confidently. “Unless the Houses tell such secrets to their sponsored favorites. Now. The map didn’t actually reveal how we trigger the door to open.” He raised the lantern and scrutinized the rough stone wall. “Suggestions are welcome.”
“It can’t be overly complex,” said Scorio, stepping up beside him and running his fingertips over the wall. “Not if people are coming and going so frequently.”
Lianshi moved up to Leonis’s other side, and together the three of them examined the rough stone wall.
“Here,” said Lianshi, “look, there’s a gap in the mortar around this stone.”
Leonis bent down to look. “Should we press it?”
In response Lianshi did just that, depressing the fist-sized rock until a click sounded from within the wall and a vertical segment only a few feet wide slid inward. The outer edge of the “door” followed the contours of the rocks so that it appeared more a piece of a cunning jigsaw than anything else.
“That was simple enough,” said Leonis, surprised.
Scorio pushed the door in further to reveal a dark space. Focusing his darkvision, Scorio made out a narrow chute with handholds carved into the rock. “I guess the real protection comes from it being hidden down in this cellar. We go up?”
“Up,” breathed Lianshi, wiping her hands on her hips. “According to the map, we climb it three stories.”
“Up it is,” said Scorio, handing Leonis the sack and stepping inside, reaching for the first handhold. The stone was gritty, the cut slanting down into the rock to make grabbing it easier. He began to climb, and quickly realized just how narrow the chute was; Leonis was going to have trouble squeezing his way up.
“I’ll go last,” said Leonis, moving into the chute so that the lantern light filled the tight space with a warm glow. “Provide light for us all. Don’t like to trust in my darkvision yet.”
Scorio resumed climbing, the sound of his breath harsh in the enclosed space, handhold after handhold, nerves causing him to race up. He reached a claustrophobically narrow passage that branched off the chute and kept going. Passed a second, leading off in the opposite direction, and then stepped out into the third. Shuffled in deeper to make room for Lianshi, and then peered around as Leonis appeared, lantern raised high.
“Douse the lamp,” whispered Lianshi. “We don’t want light to shine through any cracks and give us away.”
Leonis grunted as he eased himself into the narrow passageway and killed the light.
“The exit is just down that way,” said Lianshi. “Feel along the wall as you go. I don’t know how it’s supposed to be marked.”
Scorio did as he was bid, focusing his gaze on the impenetrable dark till gray outlines appeared, revealing the walls on either side. Shuffling along the foot wide space, he palpated the wall as he went, till his fingers brushed across a vertical crack.
“Might be it,” he breathed, stopping and feeling around some more till he found a stone latch. “Ready?”
“Don’t take so long reincarnating this time if we die, all right?” Leonis’s voice was rough with humor and nerves. “I don’t want to go another sixty lives without the pleasure of sneaking you into ridiculously tight cracks.”
“Shh,” admonished Lianshi.
Scorio pulled on the latch till he heard another click, and the wall before him drifted forward an inch, revealing a vertical line of softer darkness. Palm on the stone he pushed till the crack widened and allowed a dim light to filter into their passage.
Silence.
Scorio pushed again and slipped out through the crack onto an ornate balcony that wrapped around the inside wall of the basilica high above the floor. He dropped into a crouch to get some cover from the stone balustrade and after releasing his darkvision, glanced around rapidly.
The inner wall was segmented into endless coffers, each spanning nearly from floor to ceiling and easily two yards wide. There had to be a hundred up and down the length of the balcony here alone. Ivy grew across some of them, had been torn from others.
Beyond the heavy balustrade, the immensity of the basilica yawned; Scorio crept forward and peered out through the curved balusters at the void below. The Archspire rose, imperious and solitary in the center, while the biers radiated out from its base in two series of curves winding in opposite directions, each bier sitting at a certain angle from its neighbor to create the illusion of interlocking spirals.
It was like gazing into a dream, a memory he’d examined, a sequence he’d played through so many times during his idle hours that to see it again was startling, surreal; he searched amongst the biers for his own, only to feel a hand slide gently onto his shoulder.
“Come back from the balustrade,” whispered Lianshi, drawing him away. Leonis had left his lantern inside the narrow passageway and was in the process of carefully closing the secret door without allowing it to click shut altogether. “Guards are stationed at each exit below and do constant patrols.”
“Right,” whispered Scorio. “Right. Just… never mind.”
In the gloom, he made out her sympathetic smile, and they turned to the coffer that rose behind her. “This is… Locker 244. You said you were 37, right?”
Scorio nodded.
“Looks like we need to go down to the first balcony, then. Leonis?”