Up these steps went the two, and came into another chamber filled with twisting murk. And a heavy wooden trapdoor, horizontally hinged so that it could close off the stairwell, stood open against the wall. Again, window slits with open shutters allowed some wavering torchlight into the writhing darkness, and Elyn could perceive that they appeared to be in an alchemical laboratory, for alembics and vials and other vessels sat upon tables, and jars filled with arcane substances and labelled with a writhing script lined shelves above. Each of the tables had drawers, and now and again a chest was placed against the walls.
“You search in the darkness, Thork,” said Elyn, sheathing her saber, “I’ll look in the light.”
They pulled drawer after drawer, seeking the Kammerling, but within they found minerals and dried plants, dead animals mummified, and substances that they could not name. Books filled with the same writhing script were unearthed, and so too were rough gemstones, precious and semiprecious. Leaves and liquids and metals there were, as well as various ores and powders and unseen things sealed in small metal tins. Tools were found and glass burners filled with a clear fluid that Thork named zhar, an incendiary liquid that burned with incredible intensity. And they opened the chests to find more ores and minerals, more plants and desiccated animals, Human bones as well as those of Rutcha, and some that could not be named. And they measured to see if any of the chests held false bottoms in which the Kammerling could be hidden, to no avail.
Long they searched and thoroughly, for an hour or more, and in this room they found the opposite side of the metal door that led into the fortress walls, barred. . but no Kammerling did they find.
And all about them the darkness seethed with unheard rituals.
Across the chamber from where they entered, another open staircase pitched upward, and they climbed these steps to come into a smithy. Hot coals were in the forge, ruddy light struggling with the shadows, pressing back the blackness. Here, too, another stairwell trapdoor stood open against the wall, but the window slits were sealed tight, yet whether against the wind or daylight, they could not say.
And the two searched this chamber for the Kammerling, as well. There were anvils and quenching tubs, one stained with a dark redness, and Elyn shuddered to see such. A myriad of tools there were: hammers and tongs and chisels, wedges, great pliers and shears, instruments for bending sheet metal at sharp angles as well as round bars of various diameters for hammering iron and other metals into curves. Ingot molds there were, and large crucibles. Too, there were small tools, some tiny, for fine work, for shaping jewelry, and minute crucibles as well.
Strangely, to one side squatted a throne facing one of the tables, a great large blood-red chair with dark twisted arms ending in upturned clutching claws, the seat placed as if to watch work at the bench. Yet on the table were broken pliers, and bent tongs, an old rusted forge hammer with cracked helve and broken peen, blunted chisels, and other such. Thork noted it curiously, then, shaking his head in puzzlement, renewed his search.
And Elyn and Thork looked into every drawer and bin, and another hour or so disappeared into the night and still no Kammerling did they find. . … and the silent mad tittering darkness seemed to scoff at their efforts.
Again, stairs mounted upward on the opposite side of the room, and Thork and Elyn climbed through the curling murk and past an open trapdoor to the next floor, where they found a window-sealed, taper-lit chamber-dark struggling with light-that seemed to be a library of sorts, for it was filled with shelves laden with writings: great tomes and thin pamphlets there were, and scrolls tied with ribbons of various colors, thick books and papyrus sheets, rune stones and clay tablets. And some of the books seemed to be covered with the skins of animals: scaled, short-furred, leather, and some that Thork with loathing declared were Human or Dwarf or Elven skin, he knew not which. At one place along the wall, ensconced among the twisting coils of darkness were a desk and chair, and a slant-top sketching table and tall stool, and a bronze oil lamp for illumination; and the pen-and-ink drawing pinned to the table was a study of some hideous creature, flayed.
And once more they found no Kammerling; and the shadows writhed obscenely and shouted silent oaths as time fled irretrievably into the past.
At the head of the next flight was a door, locked, not a trapdoor this time, but one that stood upright; and it was carved with strange symbols, for the most part unknown to either Elyn or Thork, though some could be recognized to represent stars, and the Sun partially eclipsed by the Moon, and one of the great hairy stars-harbingers of doom-its long tail streaming out behind.
Thork carefully examined the lock, and then began to probe at its mechanism with a hooked metal spike slipped out from a pocket in his belt. Long he labored, yet at last the latch clicked.
Easing the door open, they peered into the final chamber within the tower, a room at the very peak of the ebon turret. Portions of the chamber were lit by luminescent globes dangling from chains, from which the gyring shadows seemed to shrink, to withdraw; yet elsewhere ebon pools and blots of darkness clotted, blocking all vision, including Thork’s. Elyn’s soul recoiled at the thought of entering this sinister room, yet to find the Kammerling she had little choice. “Let’s go,” she murmured to Thork, and stepped across the threshold.
Now the silent twisting blackness seemed to be shouting curses at them, and laughing madly and mouthing unheard threats, and screaming a noiseless alarm through the night; and its dark coils reached outward and clutched at them, as if trying to smother, to strangle the two, to bind them and hold them as would a spider’s web. Yet inward pressed Elyn and Thork, and they found that they were within Andrak’s living quarters.
They discovered a bed and chairs and tables, and a desk against the wall. And carefully, they searched them all, working their way slowly around the room. There were astrolabes, and strange circular devices engraved with stars and moons and suns, and they all rotated on separate but finely geared tracks. And there were more books with strange sinister writing. There were crystals of all types, some hung on chains, and stone tiles carven with runes, and arcane cards marked with pictures of pentacles and cups, wands and swords, and other such, some with drawings of creatures and towers and skeletons and fools, warriors and Kings and Ladies, and succubi and incubi and daemons. And on one table they found twelve bleached skulls, ranging in size from very large to small. “Aie!” wailed Thork, pointing at the largest skull in the collection. “This is most wicked, for surely that be the head of an Utrun, a Stone Giant. Andrak has slain an Earthmaster. And look! There also be the skull of a Waeran as well. Foul. Foul. . ”
Elyn’s eyes scanned the remaining skulls. “And these others?’
‘Ůkh, Khōl, Man, Ogru,” answered Thork, “these I recognize. And I deem these two to be Châk and Elf, but as to the remainder, I cannot say.”
Repelled, Thork turned away and began searching the drawers of a bureau, unable to bear the sight of what he perceived to be a foulness done to Utrun and Waeran; even the sight of the Châk cranium did not bring such loathing against Andrak as did the largest and the smallest of the twelve skulls. Yet Elyn lingered a moment, staring in revulsion at the horrid collection.