“We planned poorly,” he said.
“I had no idea that the warp would be dismantled,” Wigg replied. “The ceiling of this tunnel is lined with radiance stones, which were to have been our means of illumination. But now, with this failing torch, we have only two alternatives.”
“To either go back the way we came and leave the Caves, or throw caution to the wind and permit you to use the craft,” Tristan said glumly.
“Precisely. The radiance stones that light the tunnels in and out of the Redoubt have been enchanted so that even the unendowed can activate them with a touch. But these stones have not. Only one of endowed blood may employ them, and to do so I must first stop cloaking our blood.”
“I understand,” Tristan said. “But you must activate the stones.” He stood up, testing his legs. “We have come this far, and we must have the Tome. You said so yourself. If there are problems ahead, we shall simply have to deal with them.”
“Very well,” the wizard said reluctantly.
Tristan watched the old one’s face relax, indicating that he had stopped cloaking the quality of their blood. Wigg held the torch high, examining the ceiling of the tunnel, where the dormant radiance stones lay. Closing his eyes, Wigg activated the stones. The familiar pale green glow appeared, brightly illuminating the tunnel for as far as the prince could see. Almost immediately the slightly pinched, strained look returned to the wizard’s face, telling the prince that their blood was again being cloaked.
The wizard sighed. “There. At least we now have light.” He extinguished the torch and dropped it on the tunnel floor. “It think it best that we make our way to—”
He never finished his sentence, for that was when the sound started.
It was a strange, grating sound in the hollowness of the tunnel. Almost immediately Tristan recognized it for what it was—stone against stone. He watched in horror as black marble walls shot down from the ceiling to the floor on either side of them. They descended with great thuds, creating a stone cubicle of no more than two meters in any direction, trapping the wizard and the prince inside.
Tristan glanced at Wigg, hoping against hope that this had for some reason been an action of the wizard’s. But the expression on Wigg’s face told him that was not the case. They looked around desperately.
“What happened?” Tristan exclaimed. “Is this another safeguard? Some type of device to trap intruders?”
“It is definitely the use of the craft, but I had no hand in it,” Wigg answered. “Someone or something obviously does not want us to move from this spot.”
Tristan was finding it difficult to breathe. “Do the radiance stones have any bearing?”
“Very possible,” Wigg said. “Illuminating the stones may have been the trigger that brought down these walls. But there is yet another problem.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “We shall run out of breathable air in short order. Device of entrapment, indeed . . .”
“Can you destroy the wall, or raise it back up with the craft?” Tristan asked hopefully.
Wigg raised his arms, sending a bolt against the farthest of the walls. The glow of the craft slowly snaked over the entire surface of the slick marble wall, remaining there. Wigg then lifted his arms in an attempt to raise the wall. Nothing happened. He sent another bolt at the wall, much faster this time, the magic crashing against it with great intensity. Noise and smoke followed, the calamitous sound and acrid smell made even worse by the small confines of the chamber. But when the harsh, bitter smoke partially cleared, the deadly wall was still intact.
“Whoever is responsible for this is of great power,” Wigg said sadly. “I fear that there is little I can do.”
The smoke in the room had dissipated slightly, but it was making the air more difficult to breathe. They both began to cough.
We are going to die in here, Tristan thought. And no one will ever find us. Then he noticed the glow.
The familiar radiance of the craft in the shape of a circle had begun to appear on one of the walls. As it grew in size and intensity, its illumination flooded the chamber with an azure light that combined with the sage glow from the stones in the ceiling. Then the circle began to change shape, parts of it fading away to reveal an emerging pattern. Tristan’s jaw dropped. The pattern that the glow had taken on was the lion and the broadsword, the heraldry of the House of Galland.
Tristan stood there weakly, his breath coming with increasing difficulty. The glowing pattern was beautiful. He looked down at his gold medallion and took it into his hands. Then he looked back up again. The pattern in the stone wall was an exact duplicate of the jewelry he held. The brilliant, azure veins that made up the image of his heraldry pulsated and undulated as if they were trying to free themselves from the rock wall.
Before Wigg could protest Tristan extended his hand, touching the glowing heraldry. Immediately the glow intensified, becoming almost blinding. Wigg moved to take the prince’s hand away from the wall, but he was too late. At that moment, another sound came to their ears: a hauntingly beautiful voice.
“Tristan,” the voice said softly from both nowhere and everywhere. “If you wish to live, you must do as I tell you.”
Tristan staggered backward, almost falling to his knees in shock.
The voice that had just spoken to them belonged to his deceased mother: Morganna, the last queen of Eutracia.
Speechless, Tristan turned to Wigg to see shock on the wizard’s face, as well. Nonplussed but also knowing they were quickly running out of air, the wizard nodded, indicating to the prince that he should answer.
It took Tristan several long moments to gather himself, finally finding the breath with which to whisper an answer. The pain in his chest was unbearable; it was becoming more difficult to breathe by the moment.
“Mother,” he whispered tentatively. “Is that you?”
“Yes, my son,” came the lovely, familiar voice again, filling their stone prison. Its timbre was both caring and reassuring, just as he had always remembered it to be. It was in stark contrast to his own weak, rasping whispers. “You must do as I now tell you, or you and the wizard will perish here. There is little time left.”
Gasping, Tristan asked, “What must we do, Mother?”
“When the wall rises, you must go quickly through the exit it creates. Always take the path that is marked by the lion and the broadsword. To do other will only lead you on an endless quest, going nowhere, resulting in your death.” Morganna’s voice paused for a moment as if it were finally retreating with the vanishing, breathable air. But then it came again.
“Much has changed here since Wigg last trod these paths,” she continued softly. “There will be many obstacles in your way, some of them deadly. But you must persevere. The object you seek, the treatise of the craft, shall be elusive. But follow your heritage, my son, and you will reach your prize.”
Tristan finally went down on one knee, his breath rattling a final, deadly song in his starving lungs. Wigg, too, was losing the fight.
“Follow the entrance,” Morganna said. “Go forth and live.”
“But how is it that you can speak to me?” the prince gasped from the floor. He still saw nothing but the four dark walls of the suffocating prison and the glowing heraldry of the House of Galland. “Do you live?” he whispered. He would have died to know how it was that he could hear the voice of his mother—the beautiful, compassionate woman who had been so horribly raped and murdered at the hands of the Minions.
“There is no time, my son,” Morganna said, her voice fading away.
Teetering on the cusp of unconsciousness, Tristan was unable to form his next words. His eyes closing in defeat, his head finally sank to surrender upon the almost welcoming coolness of the stone floor.