Brian Pratt - Trail of the Gods

“What?” asks Illan as he comes up to him.

“I may have gotten turned around,” he admits.

“Why do you say that?” he asks.

Gesturing to the area of the sewer they’re in, he replies, “There should be a body here blocking the flow, but there isn’t.”

“Maybe it was pushed further along during a storm, or was removed,” he offers.

“Maybe,” says Miko. “If you’re right, then it isn’t far.” He continues on and sure enough, they come across a decomposing body lying up against the side of the tunnel. He glances at Illan and says, “I guess you were right.”

A little further down, they arrive at a small passage leading off to the right and he continues past. Several feet beyond that they hear him sigh with relief when a crack in the wall appears in the light ahead, the one leading to the hidden rooms under Lord Colerain’s estate. Stopping in front of the opening, Miko whispers, “This is it.”

“You sure?” asks Fifer.

“Completely,” replies Miko. “Though I remember it as being bigger.”

“You’ve grown some since then,” states Scar.

Getting a grim expression on his face, he says, “Yeah, I guess I have.”

Illan comes forward and shines the lantern’s light into the crack, “How far back does it go?”

“About four or five feet then it opens up onto a small storage room,” he tells him. “At least that’s what James thought it was. It hadn’t been used in a very long time.”

“Alright,” he announces. “Shorty, you go in first and take a look around.”

“Right,” he says as he moves to the crack in the wall. Squeezing through, he finds he has plenty of room. From the sewer he can hear Scar comment with a laugh, “No way Potbelly could’ve fit through there!” The picture of Potbelly trying to squeeze through brings a grin to his face.

Sidestepping, he slowly reaches the other side and comes out of the other end. “I’m through!” he hollers back.

Illan hands Miko the lantern and says, “You next.”

“But what about you?” he asks. “Won’t you need it?”

“You’ll need it more,” he tells him. “Besides, I may be able to make it through.”

Miko looks at him doubtfully before stepping into the crack. He’s able to make it on through with little problems despite his increased size. Next goes Fifer then Scar who has the hardest time making it through. Both have to remove the upper half of their armor in order to make it.

When they’re all through to the other room but Illan, he says, “Alright, I’m coming through.” Removing his breastplate, he tries to squeeze into the crack and quickly discovers there’s no way he’ll be able to make it, even without his armor. “You guys will have to go ahead without me,” he says when he once again stands in the sewer tunnel. “I’ll meet you back at the inn where we left the horses.”

“What should we do if we don’t find you there?” Scar asks.

“If I’m not there when you get there, assume I’m not going to,” he says. “If worse comes to worse, just get James and head back to The Ranch. If you don’t show at the inn, I’ll make my way back home on my own.”

“Alright,” replies Scar.

“Good luck,” they hear his voice coming from the other side of the crack.

“You too,” Fifer says, hating to leave him there alone. Turning to Miko, he says, “Lead on.”

Exiting the room, they follow the corridor as it moves away from the doorway. “At the end are stairs going up,” he tells them. “At the top will be a trapdoor with a barrel attached to the other side. James said it was there to better hide the entrance leading to this area.”

“Makes sense,” says Fifer as he follows behind Miko.

At the stairs, Scar and Fifer go up first and together are able to lift the trapdoor with ease. Everyone scrambles on through and they set the trapdoor back down.

“Doesn’t look as if anyone’s been here since you guys were,” Shorty states as he indicates only two sets of footprints leading away from the hidden trapdoor.

“Good,” Fifer says. “Maybe this way still remains secret.”

“That makes this a whole lot easier,” Scar adds.

Miko walks over to the door in the wooden wall and says quietly, “On the other side of this door is a hidden passage that runs within the walls of the estate. Once we’re in it, we should be able to move about the estate and find where they’ve taken James.”

“If he’s even here,” Fifer adds. “We’re not entirely sure this is where he’s being taken.”

“True, but we’ve got to start somewhere,” says Scar.

Miko closes the shutter on the lantern, plunging them into darkness and then opens the door. The hallway on the other side is completely dark, he sticks his head out and peers down both directions. Nothing but darkness.

“Come on,” he says as he opens the shutter a tiny fraction to let out a small amount of light. Stepping out into the hallway, he says, “Not sure which way to go. Last time we went to the right, but I have no idea which way to go now.”

“At least you got us in here,” Scar says approvingly. To Fifer and Shorty, he says, “I’ll take Miko here and go to the left. You guys go to the right and we’ll meet back here in ten minutes.

“Alright,” Fifer says as he and Shorty begin moving down to the right.

Scar takes the lantern and says, “Let me go first.”

“Okay,” replies Miko as he relinquishes the lantern. Behind them, he can hear Fifer mutter, “Wish we had the lantern.”

Going down to the left, he follows behind Scar as he makes his way further into the house. “We need to find a crack of light that may indicate where another secret door lies,” he tells him.

“But it’s night,” counters Scar.

“A light will indicate a room where someone is,” he explains. “That’s also likely to be where James is being held.”

“Good thought,” he says. As they move along, he periodically closes the shutter so they can better tell where light may be coming in from. When the ten minutes is about up, they spot a sliver of light coming from a crack in the wall. Excited, they move closer to it and discover a small sliding panel set into the wall.

Ever so slowly, Scar slides it open and they look through the opening into what appears to be a bedroom, an open doorway leads from the bedroom out into another room. A lit candle sits on a small table next to a bed. Scar sees night clothes for a lady laid out upon the bed. Suddenly from the outer room, a woman walks into the bedroom, naked as the day she was born. She comes to the bed and begins putting on the nightclothes.

Scar watches for a moment before sliding the panel closed. Whispering very quietly, he says, “Let’s go back to the others.” When he gets a nod from Miko, he leads them back.

“What did you see?” asks Miko when they’ve moved further away from the spy panel.

“It was a bedroom,” he replies with a grin. “Nothing of interest.”

“Oh.”

They’re the first ones back at the meeting spot and wait several anxious minutes before Fifer and Shorty return. “Anything?” asks Scar.

In the dim light of the lantern, they see Fifer shake his head, “No. We found one room with a candle burning, but no one was around.”

“Us too,” he says.

“Now what?” asks Shorty. “We’re running out of time.”

Just then, they hear footsteps approaching from the direction Shorty and Fifer had just investigated. Closing the shutter quickly, they stand there in silence as the footsteps approach. Whoever it is, they’re walking in darkness so must know this way well.

Fifer is standing closest to the approaching footsteps, and when they’re almost upon him he strikes out with his fist, trying to connect with the person’s chin. Instead, he catches the person a glancing blow to the side of the head, causing the man to cry out in shock.