He pulled the magic dagger out of the hole and sheathed it, then backed down the passage a bit. He darted forward and leapt at the wall, using it as a springboard and launching himself up into the hole in the ceiling. His fingers grabbed just the edge of the opening, and he pulled himself up with minimal scrambling. He was pleased to discover the torch was still burning, and it revealed a small room with a hallway leading away from it. He lowered the trapdoor silently, took the torch, and set off to find his friends.
CHAPTER 18
The tunnel had a low ceiling, reinforcing Chuck’s original belief that dwarves had built the complex. He idly wondered what happened to the original owners and if they had left any of their treasures hidden away in other secret chambers—he made a mental note to keep his eyes peeled. He was going to have to search pretty hard to find his friends anyway, so there wouldn’t be any harm in exploring completely, would there?
It looked as if the tunnel hadn’t been used in a very long time. Chuck’s boots left footprints in the thick dust that had settled over the years. He found it interesting that the quality of the stonework in this emergency tunnel was every bit as polished as in the main entrance passageway below. It made him remember how his real-life dad complained about not being able to find good workers nowadays. Here were people who took pride in their work. The thought of his dad made him stumble. They weren’t exactly close, but the idea of never seeing him again gave him pause. “One more reason to rescue the crew and get us out of here, I guess,” he muttered.
He continued on his path for twenty minutes without seeing any signs of an exit. He hadn’t really expected there to be more than one; this sort of thing was typically reserved for a royal family to escape while their loyal subjects fought to the death. He smiled, realizing just how cynical he had become. Those years living on the street in Westmarch must have done it to him. Was that before or after his father complained about good workers? He shook his head and continued on.
He finally came to a dead end. The back of the wall was rough stone, which momentarily made him fear that the tunnel had been left unfinished and no second door was ever put in. After a few moments of heavy breathing, he reconsidered. If this really was the escape shaft for someone important, they wouldn’t want the door into their chambers to be obvious, just in case someone else was as clever as Chuck and found the trapdoor in the ceiling. It occurred to him that if he were designing it, the tunnel would purposely overshoot the escape hatch, and the unfinished dead end would add to the illusion that there was, in fact, no portal.
He shuffled back down the tunnel, dragging his boots to try to reveal any seams in the rock hidden by the layers of dust. His fingertips traced along the wall to feel any inconsistency in the stonework. He cursed when he found the start to his own footprint trail in the dust, then turned back to retrace his steps, this time with his hand touching the opposite side. Once again he made it the entire distance without finding anything that would suggest a hidden door.
Tears of frustration stung his eyes. He had spent an hour already trying to find the exit with no success while his friends were trapped somewhere below, having who knows what done to them. He had been so sure of himself, so cocky when he found the escape hatch. How could he be stymied now? Was it possible that they never actually had finished the tunnel? That there was no door for him to find? He took a deep breath and smelled something new: burning wood.
Puzzled, he examined his torch, but the wooden handle had been wrapped in oil-soaked rags. The rags were burning, not the wood itself. Looking around for the source of the smell, he noticed that the portion of the ceiling directly above where he had stopped had begun to smolder. As a test, he took several steps back down the passageway and held his torch to the ceiling there as well. While the stone blackened, it didn’t burn in the same manner. Chuck brought the magic dagger back out and started chipping away at the area where the ceiling had begun to char. It wasn’t long before he had the outline of yet another trapdoor exposed, and after a little more scraping, the entire door was visible. He saw no lock to pick; the trapdoor must open from within. Having no other option, he brought the torch back up, and as the wood charred he dug at it with the dagger. Soon he had a hole big enough for his arm to reach through to unbolt the door.
Up through the trapdoor he went, finding himself in a small room with a single door leading from it. On each of the walls hung clothes from rods and hooks, and along the floor were court shoes in dozens of shapes, though both the clothes and shoes had long gone out of style. The room had a musty smell to it, suggesting that it had been a long time indeed since anyone had put it to use besides long-term storage. A casual inspection of the clothing revealed that it was made of the finest materials—silks and furs. Chuck rifled through several before he stopped, his eyes lighting up. He pulled out a brocaded tunic of rich reds and purples that screamed wealth. More important than the colors, the buttons down the front glinted in the torchlight. He put one between his teeth and bit down slightly, then grinned. “Yeah. Gotta search everywhere, don’t I?” He cleared a space on the floor and gently laid down the torch, then deftly cut all the gold buttons off the garment and tucked them away in a pouch.
Despite the fact that the closet had clearly long since been abandoned, he was careful as he cracked open the door. As expected, the room was vacant and there was a layer of dust on the floor. Also as expected, the room’s opulence was such that it could only have been the living chamber of royalty. Gold was everywhere, and the wood carvings were exquisite. His eyes widened. He suddenly felt very foolish for taking the time to swipe the buttons. He opened the first drawer he found and discovered a small felt bag within. Inside the bag was a king’s ransom in cut gemstones. “Niiiice,” he said, tucking it away as well.
“OK,” he mumbled, “so now that I’ve enriched myself through public service, let’s see if I can’t find some friends to rescue.” He opened the only other door in the room and peeked out, finding yet another hallway. This one went in both directions, and after a quick “Eeny meeny . . . ,” he headed left. In his experience, these sorts of compounds tended to be designed in one of two ways. In some, the royal suite was situated smack-dab in the middle, with everything else radiating out from it. In others, it was in the very top or very bottom, as far as possible from the entrance to make protecting the royals easier in case of attack. Chuck guessed that this one followed the latter pattern, since after entering the cavern he had twice climbed up to get to where he was, and the entrance he had used was relatively high on the hill face. All he had to do was find some stairs heading down, and whether left or right, he would come across them sooner or later.
So if he assumed that he was on the upper levels, it made things easy—the only stairs he would find would take him in the direction in which his friends were being held. The trick would be figuring out just how far down they’d be locked up, but that was a bridge he’d have to cross when he came to it. The creatures obviously weren’t using all the available space—these rooms proved that to be true—so he hoped it wouldn’t take him long to find the rest of the group. It was surprising that no one had looted the royal chambers. Chuck patted the gems tucked away and mentally added, Before now.
With years of experience exploring underground tunnels such as these, Chuck was able to determine the hall had a slight downward slant. Doors sprouted off to the sides, but after exploring four or five of them, he stopped bothering to check. They all seemed to be either storerooms with commodities long since spoiled, or the modest living chambers of those who were there to serve the royal family. He came to a set of stairs leading down, which he took, and discovered another hallway with rooms much like the ones upstairs. There was also a kitchen and what looked to be a small barracks. This last room he took the time to search for anything that could help him free his friends, but the soldiers stationed there had long since taken all of their gear with them.