The Hall of Eternity

  . . . As for my discovery, it was a few months back. It’s still a working idea, nothing concrete. I was working with Thames and Jinna in the experiment room under the North Tower, and we discovered that the unstable state that a Reality mage can inflict upon an object can actually be supercharged using electricity. The result is . . . well, it just kind of explodes into a mess. But I think if we get it right . . . it could theoretically vaporize the entire (small) object without a trace. I know, I know, we’ll be careful.

  — Your friend, Eivael Kalceron

  (Norvaen 14, 997—Waning Day)

  “Wait! Lady Rhidea!” Kaen shouted.

  “Shhh!” I put a hand over Kaen’s mouth, pulling him back from the edge as I did so. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s Rhidea.”

  The mage dove head-first through the air, crimson skirts and flaming hair rippling behind her. Then, as we watched, she spread her arms and slowed her descent greatly. Using some kind of magic—probably Wind Authority, with which I was not familiar—she glided in a circular pattern, slowly dropping out of our sight until her blurry form vanished in the darkness. No sound or visual signal came from below, until . . .

  A light. A white flame. It illuminated the mage, who stood a dizzying distance below in the blackness, looking up at us. She waved a bug-sized hand, motioning us downward.

  Kaen and I looked at each other with fear. Taking a big gulp, I gathered my resolve and jumped. I felt my stomach turn somersaults and my heart flutter, while my hair whipped upwards past me in the rush of air. My skirts billowed upwards, because I jumped feet first (I wasn’t as crazy as my teacher). Looking down, I saw Rhidea and her flame rushing up to meet me, until suddenly my fall was abbreviated as gravity . . . reversed to stop me, finally allowing my feet to gently land on the ground.

  Rhidea lowered a hand and my weight returned. “Well done, my pupil,” she smirked. “You just did a very daring thing indeed. You’re almost as crazy as I.”

  “Almost,” I muttered. “What kind of Authority is that, anyway?”

  “Earth. My strong suit.”

  I nodded, gazing around at the floor of the huge cistern. Black stones, shiny and moist, formed an interlocking pattern in the ground. Looking back up, I waved at Kaen and watched as he, too, leapt from the great height into the darkness. After a few moments, Rhidea reached up her hand and guided his fall as well, reversing the gravity around him and setting him gently on the ground.

  He caught his balance as she dropped the field, and then shuddered. “Please don’t make me do that ever again,” he pleaded.

  Rhidea smiled, and then tousled his hair. “No promises, boy.”

  Then we set off into the darkness. Rhidea’s pale flame guided us, dancing in her hand and piercing the thick, wet darkness ahead. The air was cool and misty. Rhidea led us to the center, where we approached the great stack that contained the rushing water of the Sky Funnel. Placing a hand against it revealed the cold dampness and faint rumbling coming from within the black stones. The pipe was perhaps ten paces across, and I would have wagered the stones were thick, and of course magically reinforced.

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  There were no openings anywhere on it. We searched for doors, but it was entirely sealed shut.

  Next, we searched around the outer perimeter of the pit. It turned out that there were large tunnels carved in the sides at intervals, some leading downward while others ended abruptly. “Ancient Ortheian design,” Rhidea muttered upon seeing them. “We’re below the palace here, so all of this was built far before the so-called Hall of Eternity.”

  “How did they even build it?” Kaen asked. “Any of this? Magic?”

  Rhidea nodded. “Magic and hard labor. As for these tunnels . . . I cannot say.”

  “Please tell me we’re not going to explore each and every one of those now,” I protested.

  Rhidea gave me a glance, face half lit by her artificial white light. “There appear to be six open tunnels leading down into the Palace’s underbelly. We can at least look inside one or two and get an idea of what the inside is like. Back at the inn, we can formulate a plan based on what we find.”

  Kaen groaned. “All right, but we’re sticking together.”

  We picked a random tunnel and started with it. Rhidea knelt at the tunnel’s mouth and drew a few lines into the stone floor just outside the door using a finger. She stood back up, leaving a five-pointed star burnt into the stone.

  “Is that some kind of . . .” Kaen began.

  Rhidea gave him a flat look. “It’s a mark. Nothing special, no spell. Just to mark which one we’ve been in, because they all look identical. Now this—” she pulled the end of a silver string from her dress “—is something a bit more magical.”

  “Wait . . . Rhidea, you have more magical artifacts you haven’t told me about?” I asked, almost hurt.

  The mage snorted. “You thought I’d divulge all my secrets? It’s actually a pretty simple design.” She dropped the end of the string onto the ground by the star, and it stayed as though held by an anchor. “You’ll see. Now, let’s go.”

  We turned and entered the yawning door. I summoned a hand flame to add to Rhidea’s own white light. As we walked, the passageway began to slope downward into the ground. The illuminated stone walls and floors were carved from the same black stone, a type I didn’t recognize. Every so often, however, we would see a vein of pure silver arching over the tunnel, like the roots of a giant tree, forming around the tunnel. Roots . . . I had read about how the bones of Mani were said to be made entirely of silver at a certain level. We must be deep underground right now.

  I shivered, glancing down at the thin silver string that Rhidea was leaving behind us. As it dropped to the ground, it stayed put, always having just enough slack, just enough weight, so as to not pull from its line on the ground. The tunnel split two ways, and Rhidea led us to the left after a brief hesitation. The string did not pull with us or cinch against the corner, but stayed limply where the trail lay.

  When we reached a dead end, Rhidea drew a mark on one wall and began to wind the string, careful to keep it away from our feet, and it retracted smoothly and then trailed behind us just as smoothly as we took the other path that had led to the right. As she had said, the silver string was a simple tool, and yet a wondrous piece of magical artisanship.

  We wandered through an increasingly complex labyrinth of tunnels, picking our way carefully through each option and marking where we had been.

  “So, how did you know it’d be a maze in here?” I asked at one point.

  Rhidea grunted quietly. “Just a feeling. After all, there were multiple tunnels to start from, so I figured it would be a headache finding the Well in here. Who knows if they all lead to the Well or not? We may wander through this whole cavern and not find it.”

  Finally, Rhidea stopped. “We should head back for now. I will speak with Kath and Mydia about finding our way through these tunnels, and perhaps . . .” She trailed off and shook her head. “Well, we shall see.” She cut the string and laid it down on the ground. “There. We can always get right back here.”

  We simply retraced our steps back out of the tunnels, following the glint of the silver string, until we reached the mouth of the tunnel.

  “Now, what about that string?” Kaen asked. “Wouldn’t somebody see it if they happened upon that tunnel while we’re gone?”

  “What string?” Rhidea said, waving a hand over the silver line; it vanished before our eyes. “It will reappear when we come back.”

  I nodded, impressed. The Wandering Mage always had another trick, didn’t she?