Champion Kevintor Neverloss's Arc

Chapter 3 of 42

Kevintor held his lantern up to the iron door. Up close it was uglier than it had looked across the chamber. Two slabs of pitted metal hung in a stone frame, rust bleeding from every rivet. A chain as thick as his wrist crossed the seam, and a brass lock the size of a fist held the chain shut. The breathing on the other side had stopped. He set his hand on the lock. It was hot. He stepped back and looked at the floor for the first time. A low stone marker sat against the side wall, plain except for a worn carving along its top edge. Names had been cut into the face. He counted twelve before the lantern shook and he made himself stop. Someone kept this stone. Someone had room left to add more. A tin plate hung from a nail beside the door at eye height. A skull was painted on it in yellow and black, the paint chipped where fingers had touched it for luck. Below the skull, scratched into the metal with a knife point, were three words. No second tries. Kevintor read them twice. Behind him, in the passage, Lina's lantern made no sound and threw no shadow he could see. She was holding very still. He took the lock in both hands and tested it. The shackle did not move. He drew his knife and worked the tip into the keyhole, the way a boxer he once knew had shown him in a back room in another city. The wards inside were old and stiff. He felt one give. He felt the second catch. Sweat ran into his eye. He blinked it out and kept his hands steady. The third ward turned. The lock dropped open in his palm. The chain fell. The sound of it hitting the dirt was louder than he expected. He waited for the breathing to start again on the other side. It did not. He pulled the left slab toward him a hand's width and looked through the gap. He saw a room lit from somewhere he could not place. He saw the floor, and on the floor a wide brown stain that ran to a drain in the center. He saw no body. Whatever had killed the others had been cleaned up after, and recently. He closed the door back to the gap he had made and turned to the passage. "Lina." His voice did not carry the way he meant it to. She stepped into the lantern light, both hands loose at her sides. "It's open," he said. "Something lives in there. It eats what comes through." She looked at the chain on the ground, then at him. "Then go in," she said. He turned back to the door and pushed it the rest of the way.