King's Exile: Book 1Teaser Preview

Chap. 1, Part 7: Exile

7

Dax swallowed the lump in his throat, and he turned resignedly away.  Around the corner, out of sight, he ducked back into the castle’s secret ways, and this time he headed for the lower regions. His father had shown him the basics of the castle’s hidden byways, and there were secrets within secrets. In addition to the hidden passages, the castle had many small corridors that were not truly secret but were back hallways used by servants where the lords and ladies never ventured. In the lowest levels of the castle there were store rooms where people seldom went. Some contained food and household goods, but many held a bewildering array of little used articles. Dax had heard that East Landly’s castle had dark dudgeons for prisoners on its lower levels. At Stone Harbor Castle, the adjoining guard complex had cells for that function.

The store rooms were not his destination, however, and he navigated around them using the hidden, secret ways as he descended. On the castle’s lowest level, the passages, secret or not, had large drains which helped channel drips of rain and other moisture from the castle out the rocky seaward side of Adok’s rocky bulk. Mariners coming into Stone Harbor said that sometimes the dark streaks on the rock made the castle appear to weep, but the drains held another secret.

One drain, at the far west end of the hidden network, was a little higher than the others and never wet. An oversight by the builders? No, under the grate that covered it, the bottom of the drain channel was a cover which slid aside revealing a still lower level of passages. The cover made a dry scrape when Dax pulled it aside, and the odor of cold stone rose up to meet him.

The secret ways in the upper levels of the castle were narrow, irregular passages between the walls, but the secret lower levels were a connected system of small caverns with tunnels between chambers. Dax’s father had had no idea how the tunnels had been built, but tradition held the Kotkel had built them. Kotkel were seldom seen these days, but traveler’s tales said they were small man-like beings who lived away from other people. Some said they purposefully hid themselves. Supposedly they had had an extraordinary nation with amazing structures which were nothing but ruins by the time men moved into the region. His father had told Dax he believed they might have built the tunnels since legend had it the Kotkel had built the heart of Stone Harbor Castle for themselves. 

The cave chambers resembled paintings Dax had seen of the grottos at Fingle’s Mount where rock had flowed like water and made long stone teeth that hung from the ceiling and grew from the floor. In the dim lantern light, he could see an occasional drip of water from the ceiling’s teeth like drips from a melting icicle. The tunnel sections between chambers were obviously different. Whomever built them had used tools unlike any Dax knew. The floors were a beaten track of tamped earth, but the walls rose overhead in a perfect curve. The tunnels could have been giant worm holes in the rock—if worms who ate rock made perfectly straight burrows. He shuddered. If there were worms who ate rock, he never wanted to meet one. The sides of the shafts had long scoring marks as if some giant beast had gnawed its way through.

Dax’s father had had to crouch as he had led Dax through the tunnels, and even Dax had to watch lest the uneven floor put him too close to the ceiling. Most of the rock tunnels ran horizontally, but the cave passages led down lower still. Where slopes got too steep, someone had built steps along the passage. The way out of the castle was in the lowest level of all, but Dax had another destination first—the royal treasure chamber.

An obscure passageway half hidden around a rocky corner in one cavern led upwards to the room. Inside a heavy door, the room had a dry and sandy floor. Wooden boxes and chests along the walls showed no signs of age, other than a little dust, even though Dax’s father said some must date back to the first of the Ambegriff kings. The Crown of West Landly with its large blue stone rested in a wooden box in a protected nook near the door. Dax remembered seeing his father wear it several times on important state occasions. The last time was Dax’s tenth-year celebration when he became official heir to the throne. His father always retrieved the crown himself for these occasions, and this time he let Dax accompany him to the treasure room.