Asher Converse's Arc

Chapter 11 of 30

The trapdoor stared up at them from the warehouse floor. Asher had bought this space to grow his tavern, not to guard a locked hole under it. But he would not sleep over a door he couldn't open. He fetched an iron pry bar and set to work while Tucker held a lantern close. Tucker leaned against a post, thumb hooked in his belt. He ran a leather bar in this place for his share of the drink money, and he liked his problems above the floor. "You know the wizard would tell us to leave that shut," he said. "Buried things stay buried for a reason." "The wizard isn't here." Asher wedged the bar under the ring and threw his weight on it. The old lock groaned. "And I own the floor over it." The lock snapped. The trapdoor swung up on rusted hinges. Cold air rose from the dark, and with it a smell of wet stone and dust. Asher took the lantern from Tucker and climbed down a short ladder. His boots hit a stone floor. The lantern threw light across a wide cellar, bigger than the room above. Stacked casks lined one wall, sealed and full. Old crates sat beside them. Against the far wall stood a rack of tools and a coil of good rope. Dust lay thick on everything, but the stone stayed dry. Tucker came down the ladder and whistled low. He rapped a knuckle on the nearest cask. It rang full. "Somebody left a fortune down here and forgot it." Asher walked the length of the cellar. A cool store. A dry place to hold drink and hide fighters. This was the room he'd wanted, and it had been under his feet the whole time.