Castle (The Seventh Tower 2)

He thought he could see a ledge, and for a moment he was filled with hope. Then he realized it was only an illusion, caused by a band of darker stone.

There was no other way across. No other way if he wanted to get back to the Castle.

Milla threw the rope over again. Tal tied it around himself and then the free end to the specially made loop on his new, wider belt.

"If I don't make it…" he said, then faltered. Even if he asked her to, Milla would never be able to find his father, save his mother, or rescue Gref. And the Chosen did not have posthumous promotions. If he fell here, he would never fulfill his dreams of rising Violet. Brilliance Tal Graile-Rerem, Shadow-lord of the Violet Order, would never be…

"What?" shouted Milla.

Tal shook his head slowly, clearing his head of dreams.

This time, Milla looped the rope twice more around the pyramid and left only enough slack so that Tal could lay it out to one side of his run, where he wouldn't trip over it.

When everything was ready, Tal backed up into the darkness. He stood there for some time, trying to get his heart to slow down enough so that he could actually tell individual heartbeats apart.

His shadowguard stood next to him, barely visible against the dark stone. It was too weak to be of much use, with only the moth-lanterns for light. Even so, it leaned forward like a racer about to start and Tal knew it was trying to encourage him.

It had gotten much colder, but Tal wasn't sure how much of that was just from standing still and how much was from fear.

Milla seemed to be a long way away, at the end of a tunnel. A small figure, lit in green, with the pyramid's reflections sparkling around her.

"It's just like the Achievement of the Body," Tal whispered to himself. "Someone has put a Gasping Hole in my way. I win if I jump it. Violet Ray of Attainment. Jump. Win. Jump."

Taking a very deep breath, he started to run. The teeth on his boots shrieked on the stone of the road. Rope whisked up next to him as green light and the darkness of the gap rushed at him, faster and faster.

"Yaaaaaaaahhhhh!" screamed Tal, as he hurled himself forward… into thin air.

CHAPTER

SIX

The other side of the gap hurtled toward him. He stretched out his arms and pulled up his feet, willing himself farther and farther on. He knew he wasn't going to make it. In an instant, he would be falling, not jumping, the rope whistling away above his head, his shadowguard weakly scrabbling at handholds

He hit, fingers reaching for a hold, feet kicking to get the boot-teeth into a foothold. Then he realized he wasn't sliding down a vertical cliff. He was lying flat on the ground, desperately trying to prevent a fall that wasn't going to happen.

He'd made it - and he'd jumped farther than Milla!

He lay there, panting, while Milla undid the rope from his belt and the pyramid and coiled it up. She didn't say anything then, or as she stepped over him to bring in the other rope and the lantern.

Eventually Tal got up and picked up his pack. His shadowguard moved into its accustomed place at his feet. Maybe the Icecarls didn't congratulate one another on escaping death. They just got on with it.

Or perhaps not.

"Good jump," Milla said finally, as Tal shrugged his pack into a comfortable position.

"Thanks," Tal replied. But Milla had already pulled her face mask into place and turned away. Walking around the pyramid, she disappeared from sight.

"Look out for the tunnel entrance," Tal said as he hurriedly followed her. "It will be close."

The road continued past the pyramid, and was in better shape. Much more of the original metal remained, and the mountain had not collapsed onto it. Tal counted out a hundred stretches as he walked, holding his lantern high so he could see anything that might be a tunnel entrance.

But neither of them saw anything. After a hundred and twenty stretches, Milla stopped. She raised her mask and said, "Perhaps the entrance is on the other side."

"What?" asked Tal. He lifted his own mask and looked at Milla. "You mean the other side of the gap! It… it can't be! We would have seen it."

"We should have seen it." Milla nodded, her face expressionless. "We will have to jump back."

"No!" exclaimed Tal. "No. It has to be on this side."

Milla kept nodding. It took Tal a second to realize that she was trying not to laugh. Then she couldn't hold it in anymore and the laughter burst out. Tal couldn't remember even seeing her smile before.

"It is an Icecarl joke!" she spluttered, clapping her fists together. "We always joke about revisiting danger. Like Talgrim One-Arm, who thought he had to go back to kill the Blue Selski when Vilske had already finished it."

"I don't get it," said Tal, shaking his head. Milla laughed again, and pointed.

"Look, we're standing next to the entrance!"

She pointed up above her head. There were square-cut stones laid around a circular hole that led into the mountainside. A tunnel.

Tal stared up at the tunnel in disbelief and felt his crooked smile starting to curve up one side of his face. He could put up with any number of stupid

Icecarl jokes to see the way home. Soon, he would be back in the Castle. Deliberately, he tried not to think of the troubles that awaited him there.

For now, all they had to do was get in that tunnel and follow the map. How hard could that be?

CHAPTER

SEVEN

It was unbearably hot inside the tunnel. Even with a wet cloth over his mouth and nose, Tal could hardly breathe. He was able to take only shallow breaths, and the lack of air made him very weak.

Once again he set down his Icecarl moth-lantern to look at the small rectangle of bone he held in his left hand, holding a magnifying glass close to his eyes so he could make out the tiny drawings scratched into the surface.

They had turned left at the last intersection of the narrow, crawl-size tunnels, so at the next intersection they should turn right.

A cough behind him - and then a tap at his heels reminded him that Milla must find these overheated tunnels even more unbearable than he did. She was an Icecarl, born to travel the frozen wastelands. Tal had at least experienced real heat before, though this tunnel was even hotter than the Orchard Gardens or his sick mother's sunchamber.

He started crawling forward again. His shadowguard flowed ahead of him, avoiding Milla. It was stronger in the confined space of the tunnels, where the light reflected from the walls, and so more noticeable.

At the next intersection, Tal looked at the miniature map once more. According to the carving they should turn right. But the boy hesitated. The light from the moth-lantern was green, and illuminated only a small area. Up ahead, in the right-hand tunnel, there was a faint red glow.

Tal was afraid he knew what that meant. He and Milla were in a network of tunnels that had probably once been used by the builders of the Castle's heating system. Below them he hoped far below there were much larger tunnels that channeled lava from the depths of the mountain. These tunnels heated vast reservoirs of water, the steam from which was then piped up to heat the Castle's many levels and rooms.

The red glow ahead suggested that one of the lava tunnels had broken open, and its deadly contents had bubbled their way up. The bone map in

Tal's hand was very old, and any number of changes could have taken place since it was made.

To make matters worse, the map didn't show any other way of getting into the Castle. In fact, apart from showing the key intersections, it had no detail at all. So Tal couldn't work out another way to go.

He took another shallow breath and started forward again. He could hear Milla following him, shuffling along in a half crouch, half crawl. She was coughing a lot but hadn't said anything. She probably wouldn't, even if she was about to pass out. From what Tal had seen, a Shield Maiden would probably keep on crawling even if she had passed out…

The red light grew stronger, and became tinged with an even brighter yellow. It got hotter

, too, the stone of the tunnel almost too warm to touch with bare skin. For the first time, Tal regretted dumping their heavy outer coats back near the beginning of the tunnels, though Milla still wore her Selski-hide armor. She probably never took it off, Tal thought, like the Merwin-horn sword glowing at her side.

At the next intersection, Tal had to wipe the sweat off his forehead and out of his eyes before he could focus on the bone map. Another right turn, and this time the red light came from all directions. There had to be a lot of lava ahead.

The air smelled even worse than it had before. Tal lay on his side to re wet his breathing rag from the water bottle the Shield Maidens had given him, a hollowed-out Wreska bone with a hide stopper. Milla did the same, then put her bone mask back on over the top. Tal had long since removed his, but Milla treated the mask like armor, to be worn at all times. Tal caught a brief glimpse of her pale face, set in determination, before the mask and its amber lenses hid her expression.

"Not much farther," croaked Tal.

Milla shrugged and answered, "I know you can't help crawling slowly."