The night watch guard's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The guard stood with the small sword at her belt and the ring of dark keys cold against her palm. She had pulled them from a hook deep in the tunnel and carried them down without knowing if any would fit. The kittens still circled the dark pillar in a tight, frozen ring, eyes fixed on the keystone. The blue harp song poured down from the hollow above and would not stop. She pressed her hands to her ears and forced herself to look at the cavern instead of the cats. She saw it then. Tall cracked crystals lined the walls, pulsing in time with the song. They were catching the harp's music from above and throwing it inward. At the top of the pillar, a single dark crystal hung in the air without a chain. The wall crystals fed it. The floating one trembled and held the kittens still. That was the lock on them, not the pillar itself. A shadow dropped through the hollow. Whisper Thornpaw landed light on the stones, hood thrown back, tambourine in one paw. The jeweled rim caught the cavern light and rang once as she found her footing. The note slipped into the resonance. The wall crystals flared. The floating crystal pulsed harder, and the kittens broke their circle. They hissed. Their small backs arched. One swiped at the guard's boot. "Put it down," the guard said. "You are making it worse." Whisper lowered the tambourine and crossed to the pillar. She studied the keyhole in the crown. "I have keys like that," she said. She pulled a ring from her satchel. Three keys, plain iron, nothing like the eerie set on the guard's belt. She picked one and slid it into the keyhole. It turned with a soft click. The floating crystal above the pillar cracked straight down its center. The humming cut off. The wall crystals dimmed to a low, ordinary glow. The kittens dropped flat to the stone, shook themselves, and looked up. Six small faces found the guard at once. She knelt. The smallest kitten walked to her boot and pressed its head against her shin. The others came after. She gathered them in against her coat and felt their weight settle. They were still kittens, still small, but they knew her again. She let out a breath she had been holding since the first bell. Whisper stood at the pillar, turning the broken half of the floating crystal in her paw. Behind the keyhole, a narrow seam had opened in the stone. A thin shelf slid out on its own. On the shelf sat a folded sheet of paper, edged in the same blue light the harp had used, and a second keyhole carved deeper in, waiting. The guard looked at the kittens in her arms, then at the new lock. The song was done. The work was not.