Kjell's Arc

Chapter 19 of 27

The blue light spat them out and died. Kjell hit stone and rolled. His men landed near him, cursing in the dark. He pushed to his knees and reached for the axe at his side. Cold air moved past his face. No torch. No fire. No blue gate behind them. The way back was gone, and the way forward was black in every direction. "Gunnar," Kjell said. "Light." Gunnar struck flint. Sparks jumped. He fed them a strip of dry bark from his belt and blew. A small flame caught. It showed a floor of worn stone and four walls that fell back into shadow. Three tunnels opened around them, each one black. "Which way?" Thorin asked. His iron beard-rings caught the firelight. He held his father's axe across his knees. Merlyn knelt and pressed his branded hand to the floor. The runes on his arm gave no glow. "The stone is quiet here," he said. "No mark. No road I know. We came in blind." He turned his blindfolded face toward Kjell. "The deeper power hides its ground. I cannot read what is not cut." Thorgar walked to the nearest tunnel and listened. "Air moves," he said. "All three breathe. No way to tell which leads down." Kjell felt the drop in his gut. They had spent every coin and bone to get here. Now they stood at three dark mouths with nothing to point the way. Guess wrong and they would wander until the fire died and the dark took them. Then Kjell saw it. On the far wall, above the middle tunnel, the firelight caught lines cut in old wood. He crossed to it. A slab of dark timber hung there, wider than a shield. Its face showed rings, like the inside of a felled tree. Rivers ran through the rings in green stone. Names were burned along the edges in a tongue he half knew. "Merlyn," he called. "A map. In wood." Merlyn came and laid both hands on the carved rings. His fingers moved slow along the flowing lines. "The rings are roads," he said. "The center is the deepest. Everything bends toward it." His hand stopped at the middle tunnel's mark. "This one. It runs down and in. The other two circle out and never reach the core." "You're sure," Kjell said. "The grain does not lie," Merlyn said. "Wood remembers the shape of the mountain." Kjell lifted the small flame from Gunnar's hand and held it to the middle mouth. The air pulled the fire inward, toward the deep. He drew his axe. "Then we go down," he said. He stepped into the middle tunnel. His men followed, boots loud on the sloping stone. Behind them the map hung dark and silent. Ahead the floor tilted down, and the cold grew colder with every step. Somewhere below, the thing the master had served was waiting, and now Kjell knew the road to its door.