Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 615 of 619

Chalam set his staff against the stone gate and read. Ajax stood close, blade in hand, blood ready. The others waited on the ledge. Rowan kept his bow strung, eyes on the path below. Kael and Torren held the cliff cuts, torches unlit. Elara stood at Ajax's shoulder, her band bright and full from the night's moon. The wizard worked in silence a long while. His hand moved over the old cuts, tracing marks he did not know. Then he stopped. He drew back his hand and looked at Ajax. "This seal was cut before your father's line began," he said. "The mark is not his and not the maker's we have chased. It is older than both. I can read the shape, but not the whole of it." "Can you open it?" Ajax asked. "Yes," Chalam said. "But not the way we planned. Your blood breaks your father's seals. This one drinks blood and does not open. It needs blood and light together." He looked at Elara. "You hold light on the seam while I read the closing. Ajax cuts. If the light fails before I finish, the stone comes down on us." Elara turned up her band. "I held it all night for this," she said. "I won't fail on the door." Ajax gave the order. "Kael, Torren, watch the path. Rowan, cover the ledge. Elara, light when Chalam says. I open on his word." Chalam knelt and spread lodestone dust along the base of the gate. He opened the first vial, then the second, pouring each in a thin line. "Now," he said. Elara raised her hand. White light poured from the band and struck the seam. The old marks caught it and glowed. Chalam began to read, low and steady, his staff pressed to the stone. Ajax cut his palm and laid it flat against the gate. His blood ran into the glowing seam and hissed. The stone shook. A crack ran up the center of the gate. Dust fell from the top of the ledge. Elara's arm trembled, but the light held. "Keep it," Chalam said, not looking up. "Almost." He spoke the last words and struck the base with his staff. The gate split. Both halves ground apart and stopped. Behind them lay a dark passage cut straight into the rock. No creature came. No sound rose. The seam went cold under Ajax's hand. Elara dropped her arm and breathed hard. The band still held some light. "It's open," she said. "And it didn't take everything. I still have my other band full." Chalam stood. He looked into the black passage, then at Ajax. "The door is broken," he said. "Whatever your father's people feared enough to seal before their line began, it waits down there. And now nothing holds it back but us." Ajax wiped his palm and looked into the dark. The door his father never touched stood open. He turned to his crew. "We rest. Torches at dusk. Then we go down."