COMPASS OF TRUE LOVE - CHAPTER 20

Chapter 20: Up the road - Into the tunnel

-Marion-

Once Kamir had picked up the pace, it was surprising just how fast he was moving, even with three people, a giant bunny and all our packs on his back. It’s no wonder it took me so long to catch up to them, even with almost entirely draining my magical power.

Now that the sun was up again and staring down the mountain pass, I could actually get a good look at Ghis Castle. The Arangian fortress was halfway set into the rocky slopes that hugged the road. A small offshoot of the castle leaned down further and extended into a walled trading post on the road.

The Arangians always made sure to collect their tax when it came to foreign traders. On one hand, we weren’t traders, so we should get free passage. On the other hand, we also had the princess and heir of Argonne with us and by now word should have gotten out that she had been kidnapped.

Lorelei obviously didn’t want to risk running into trouble with the local guards, seeing as we’d be spending the next few days travelling through Arang. Doing so with the entire kingdom on our tail would not end well, I reconned.

We stopped half a kilometre away from the gates and slunk behind some trees. A couple simple spells from my spellbook later and an old workhorse reemerged from the small thicket. On it sat a blonde peasant girl in rags, cradling a kitten in her arms, and two black haired peasant women who were hardly dressed any better.

We slowly approached the gate and held our breath as we met the four guards stationed outside. Illusion magic was not one of my strong suits, but surprisingly Lorelei was almost entirely untrained in the lore of Illusion and, naturally, Liana was still too traumatized to cast any active magic herself, so everyone relied on little ol’ me.

With the sun blazing down on us full frontal, our shadows were barely concealed and anyone who paid enough attention would notice that they didn’t quite match. Especially the horse looked decidedly un-horsey.

Lorelei gave the guards a stiff wave when we passed them and they just waved us through with a disinterested “go along then.”

We all let out a small sigh of relief when we rid into the trading post proper. We weren’t out of the thick of it just yet, but it’s unlikely we’d be checked when exiting.

Inside, a straight road went all the way through to the other side of the trading post. Around the middle of it, another street cut off to the right towards the mountainside and up to the castle proper. The place is packed with people, shopping, drinking, trading exchanging news. There are small market stalls, taverns, inns and other kinds of shops hugging both roads and there doesn’t seem to be a single residential building in here.

It does make sense, of course. This place doesn’t produce anything other than protection and trade taxes, so naturally trade and hospitality are the only businesses that can thrive here. The smells coming from some of the food stalls are absolutely divine and a part of me wishes we’d spend a bit more time here. But Lorelei was adamant that we pass through as quickly as possible, so our disguises don’t slip and I have to admit that it is the sensible thing to do.

It does smell really fucking good though.

Kamir slowly trapses down the road towards the second gate, as a host of crows passes overhead, dozens of them flying down into Arang and the greater south.

“The lady of death is watching…” an elderly woman behind a pottery stall grumbles, looking into the sky judgingly. “Tis a bad omen, I tell ye!”

Lorelei glares at her for a moment before urging Kamir to move on. The horsified direwolf continued on towards the gate, when the sudden thrum of a horn roars down into the trading post. Some of the guards look up to the castle where the horn was sounded from with a frown, while other scramble towards the gates and shout orders at the others.

Something is wrong.

Just a couple metres away from the gate, it is pulled closed by two of the guards, while others form into organized patrols. One of them, presumably the captain rides past us and yells out. “ATTENTION!”

“We have just received word from Segronne! King Kevis Verois was murdered by his cursed princess! The girl is on the loose and dangerous! She is an unpredictable, unstable, witch! Everyone entering or leaving the checkpoint will be checked thoroughly for both mundane and magical disguises. Young Lord Kraygen has sent for a divination mage to aid in our search. Until their arrival the trading post will remain locked!”

Even with Lorelei between us, I can see Liana trembling. “Dad…” she whispers softly.

“It’s okay Liana. It wasn’t your fault. They made you lose control and that is on them and them alone!” I whisper back.

Lorelei glances between the two of us and the guards. “We need to get out of here. Fast. There is a tunnel underneath the castle we can use to escape, but it will be guarded. Less guarded that these gates, though.”

We slowly made our way up the winding road to the fortress above until we reached its massive stone gates. Ghis castle was known for one specific thing throughout the realms: It used to be a dwarven outpost. The main gate was obviously a remnant of that. The stonework was hewn and carved from the rock, rather than stacked up against it and moss-covered runes adorned the large pillars that framed the entrance.

Two bored looking guards leaned up against them and glanced up at us as we approached. “What’s your business at the castle?” one of them muttered with a mild annoyance.

“We’d like to speak to Lord Kraygen. Privately. It’s about the princess,” Lorelei answered curtly.

The guards exchanged a look that was hard to read and one of them slipped through the gate. “You wait right here for a moment,” the other one waved. “Jeremy’s just gonna check with the captain real quick.”

We waited a little more than just a moment, but after a good half hour the other guard came back out, leaving the gate open. “The Lord’s gonna see you soon. You can hitch your horse inside, then the captain’ll lead you to the foyer.” He waved a clumsy looking flourish towards the gate and we made our way inside.

The courtyard was a small gravelly L-shaped plaza with the stables on the left side of the main gate and the large entranceway to the rest of the castle on the other side. A lone, older woman in heavy armour with a massive glaive in one hand stood in front of the entranceway, a red cape flowing down behind her. The captain, I gathered.

One by one we climbed off Kamir and then Lorelei pretended to hitch him at the stables, simply wrapping the line around one of the beams once.

“Once we’re in the foyer, there will be a long staircase on the right that goes down into the dungeon. At the end of the main hallway is the tunnel entrance. We let the captain open the doors, put a sleep spell on her, call Kamir over and then run for our cursed lives. The tunnel should only be guarded by two goons. Piece of cake.”

No don’t jinx it, Lorelei! Argh! It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. Just put the captain to sleep and run. What can go wrong?

“You wanted to see the Lord?” the captain bellowed as we approached. “Follow me!” She knocked the butt of her glaive against the hardwood and shortly after it was pulled open.

“I hope you’ve got some good news, Lord’s a busy man, ‘specially with the baby. Girl was just born yesterday and already has the attention of half the staff.” The old captain kept rambling on about the newborn girl while leading us into the foyer and it was kind of cute, but she should have long been asleep by now.

I shot a glance back at Lorelei, who gave me a warned expression. I raised an eyebrow and nodded over to the rambling woman.

“It’s not working!” she whispered sharply, a slight panic settling in on her face.

“Okay, you can wait here for now,” the captain said, once we stood in front of the door leading into, presumably, the main hall.

I shot another glance to Lorelei and she grimaced slightly. Yeah, so this wasn’t working. How was this random old woman so resistant to magic, while seemingly oblivious to the fact someone is casting it on her?

Then, all of the sudden she fell over, into my arms. I gently placed her down onto the ground and turned to Lorelei.

“That wasn’t me,” she whispered.

We both turned to Liana and she cringed slightly.

“Was that not good?” she asked warily. Oh the poor soul.

I quickly wrapped her up in my arms. “No you did amazing! That was perfect!” I assured her, petting her head a little before unwrapping myself from her.

Lorelei had already called Kamir over and we hastily climbed down the stairs into the dungeon. The air around us grew colder and colder as we climbed and I was reminded of my very chaotic adventure below the magic academy. Let’s hope this time we don’t run into an ancient all-powerful being… Shit I just jinxed it didn’t I?

Just as Lorelei foretold, once we were down, there was a long hallway leading through the dungeon and at the end two droopy looking figures sat in rickety chairs in front of a rune-covered stone door.

The elven princess vanished in a cloud of shadow and reappeared right in between the two guards. She bashed one in the face with her fist and kicked the other aside. Then she began choking the one she just hit while encasing the other one in shadowy vines. By the time the rest of our party arrived both guards were knocked out cold.

“So how do we open this?” I asked, staring at the massive piece of rock that had the audacity to call itself a door.

“We say the password,” Lorelei answered sagely. She turned towards the door and spoke loudly: “DWALE!”

The stonework began to shake and rumble and soft puffs of dust began to fall off the ceiling. With a loud scraping sound, the rock slowly moved upwards, revealing the pitch-black tunnel behind it.

“How did you know the password?” Liana asked curiously. A good question, I was wondering the same, actually.

Lorelei stalked into the darkness. “I’ve been through here once or twice before, before the war.”

The war of course, being the Slaughter of Karzakil, or as the Arangians are taught: the Cleansing of Karzakil. Shortly before the second demon war, the newly crowned King Grimhare Redford sought to enter the history books as the one to bring the lowly highland Kingdom of Arang to glory. But for his plans, he needed money.

So he collected a host of unprecedented size and led it into the Karzakil mountains, the homeland of the ancient Greybeard Clan. He slaughtered the entire dwarven population within these mountains, emptied their grand vaults of treasure and razed their underground cities to rubble.

After the slaughter, or cleansing according to Arang, the dwarf clans on the entire continent sealed their holds and disappeared from the world. King Grimhare used their treasure to finance dozens of expeditions, founding the colonies on the Illyrian continent and in the far east. For two entire decades, Arang grew into one of the most powerful nations of the realms, until the western colonies claimed independence, becoming the nation of Freeport, while the eastern colonies were overrun with piracy, becoming the Sea Farer Coast.

“So what does it mean?” Liana’s question ripped me out of my thoughts.

“What does what mean?” Lorelei asked through the darkness.

“The password. It sounds dwarvish. What does it mean?”

“Oh,” Lorelei paused for a moment. “It means melon. The architect’s favourite fruit, I was told.”

Huh. Why do I have a feeling like Gertrude was laughing her ass off right now? I guess melon is a very silly password.

With that silly thought in my head, we continued on through the seemingly infinite darkness. At least Lorelei knows the way. I assume.