Aldric Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

Aldric kept his palm on the steel. The knock came again, but slower now. One tap. A pause. Two taps. Another pause. Not a greeting. A pattern. He held his breath and counted. Whoever stood on the other side was spelling something out — and the first letter was not H. It was A. The taps kept coming, steady as a hammer on a bell frame, rope-pulled and patient. A. L. D. R. I. C. His own name, rung out in slow strikes against the steel. Then a pause, and four more taps. T. R. A. P. Aldric pulled his hand back like the door had burned him. Above, boots crossed the stones. The watch was settling in. He could not go back through the upper door, and he could not stay. He pressed his forehead to the cold metal and forced himself to think. Whoever waited inside knew him by name. And they had used their last message not to call him closer, but to warn him away. A last set of taps came, softer. He almost missed them. A faded number. A date. The winter table, six months back — the same night his grey jacket had gone missing. Whoever sat behind the steel had been counting his days from far off, page by page, like a worn album kept under a bed. Aldric stepped back from the door. He climbed three stairs, then stopped. The upper door would not open. The lower door would not open. He was sealed between them, with a name in his head, a warning in his chest, and the sure knowledge that someone had been watching him long before tonight. His glove brushed something at his collar. A cord he had not tied. A small weight under his coat. He drew it out and saw bone, carved with a frost-rune, the leather still damp with melt. Someone had slipped it on him in the stairwell, or before, and he had not felt the hand. The taps behind the door started once more, faster now — three short strikes against the steel, matching the three points of the rune in his palm. Not a welcome. A signal to whoever else was listening. Aldric closed his fist around the pendant and started back up the stairs. The trap was already shut. He only had to find which side of it he was on.