Jenna Helland - The Fanged Crown

“Can either of you cast something and drain the water?” Harp asked Liel and Verran, who shook their heads.

“I’ve tried it,” Liel told him. “Nothing happens. It feels so dead and cold.”

“Majida said the Torque was below the entrance hall,” Harp said. “Can we just swim down?”

“I don’t think we can hold our breath that long,” Verran said.

“Have you searched for a lever or a switch that might empty the water out of the hall?” Boult asked Liel.

Liel shrugged. “Thoroughly, but that doesn’t mean much in this place. There’s nothing obvious, but the sarrukh were clever architects. It could take a lifetime to find.”

“It’s all we can do. Let’s spread out,” Harp said. “Kitto and Verran, check along the railing. Boult and Liel, check the walls. I’ll go over the floor. Go carefully. Anything that looks strange, call it out.”

Mosaics adorned the wall of the whispering gallery, and the intricate tile patterns were unblemished despite the years since their creation. In a display of skillful artisanship, the rich array of colors illustrated the history of the sarrukh. They didn’t seem to tell a sequential history, though. Harp passed one panel that depicted an army of serpentfolk sweeping across a grassy meadow like a plague of locusts. The next panel showed basking serpentfolk surrounded by piles of gold in a verdant jungle.

As Harp progressed down the gallery, the mosaics became more grisly, as the sarrukh chronicled their fondness for mass slaughter and mayhem—chained humans being decapitated, chained humans clearing rocks from a pit, and chained humans hauling massive stones up a mountain under a swirling gray sky while the overseers whipped them. Harp stopped paying attention to the walls and focused on searching the floor. But Boult couldn’t take his eyes off the macabre scenes plastered on the wall.

“Those are pleasant,” Boult said sarcastically.

Boult continued down the curve of the wall until he came to a panel that showed dwarves in bondage being led out of a cave by serpentfolk. A line of dwarf heads were mounted on pikes along a rocky ridge. Dwarf men were laid out on the ground in a line as yuan-ti prepared to roll a massive stone over them and crush them to death.

“Boult!” Harp called. He could see a thin, silver cord nestled in between two rows of tile and obscured by grit and dust. “I think I’ve found something.”

Walking back to Harp, Boult leaned down and picked up a hunk of rock from the floor.

“What are you doing?” Harp asked. Boult tossed it up in the air and caught it as if to size up the weight of the stone.

“Expressing my disgust,” Boult said vehemently, hurling the rock at the mosaic of the subjugated dwarfs.

There was a loud pop as the rock smashed into the mosaic. But instead of a crashing noise, they heard a short rush of air, like a sharp intake of breath. Then the mosaic rippled the way water does when a pebble is dropped into it. Harp only had time to register the strange undulation of the stones before the colorful tiles exploded off the wall in a spray of ceramic slivers and thick white dust. Like a wall of knives, the shards blasted into the air as Boult scrambled backward away from the projectiles. With no target to hit, the shards splashed harmlessly in the water.

“Everyone all right?” Harp asked after a moment of shock. Boult had been the closest to the explosion, but he had backed far enough out of range to avoid getting sliced. Liel, Verran, and Kitto had been on the other side of the gallery and safely out of range.

“I think I found a trap,” Boult said dryly.

“Good thing you didn’t hit it with a hammer,” Kitto called across the water.

Harp walked cautiously up to the wall. The red stones of the outer wall were still intact, and there was no sign of the plaster that secured the tiles to the wall. It was as if the mosaic had never been there at all.

“Why would they trap the wall?” Boult asked.

“To keep anyone from breaking through it from the outside?” Verran suggested, walking up behind them.

“To keep anyone from throwing rocks at their precious artwork?” Liel said.

“It doesn’t matter why, just don’t touch any more walls,” Harp said. “Or anything else.”

“What were you trying to show me, Harp?” Boult asked. “Before I distracted you with my exploding wall trick?”

Harp pointed at the line that ran between the tiles. “I wondered if that was a trap. Having seen that, I’m going to say yes.”

They continued the search of the gallery, but there were no levers to be found. When the group reassembled, they were dusty and disgusted by the atrocities immortalized on the brightly colored walls. But the hall below them was still filled with water.

“Any other ideas?” Harp said. “Did Cardew ever mention the water in the palace?”

“No, but I heard him tell Tresco that they couldn’t get to the Torque,” Liel said. “And with the Torque disrupting spells in here, I imagine that even Tresco would have had difficulty in getting rid of the water.”

“Harp,” Kitto called from the other side of the gallery. “Look at that one.”

Kitto stood in front of a mosaic showing a serpent with the head of a bird and ram’s horns. It clutched a black key in its hooked beak. Surrounded by blue water, the creature was swimming down through a shaft of sunlight to a familiar-looking arched doorway and the silver lock in the center.

“That’s the door to the palace,” Kitto said, pointing to the image of the doorway. “And that’s the creature that’s carved on the panels outside.”

“Maybe you can open the door from the inside, if you have that key,” Liel said.

“But we don’t have the key,” Verran pointed out. “And we know it’s not hidden on the gallery, because we just searched. And the door is still underwater. Maybe we should leave and look for a way to the surface.”

“Without the Torque?” Liel asked.

“Unless you have the key, and you’re not telling us,” Verran snapped.

“Are you feeling all right?” Harp asked Verran.

“We’re not getting anywhere,” Verran said, a whine creeping into his voice. “I want to go back to the boat.”

“It isn’t over yet,” Harp said patiently. “We have to try and see it through.”

Verran stalked away, and Liel raised her eyebrows.

“He’s exhibiting some powerful magic,” Harp told Liel quietly. “I don’t think he knows how to control it. I’m concerned about him.”

“He’s not going to be able to do magic inside the palace. I couldn’t make a stone glow, not against the force of the Torque.”

“I can do it,” Kitto said.

“Do what?” Harp asked. “Make a stone glow?”

“Pick the lock and open the door. You know I can.”

“Yes, you’re amazing,” Harp agreed. “On the safety of land! By the time you swim down to the door, you’ll barely have enough air to get back up.”

“I can do it, Harp,” Kitto insisted. “You know I’m a good swimmer.”

“Why don’t we try to open it from the outside?” Harp asked.

“The niferns aren’t just going to sit and watch me,” Kitto pointed out. “Listen. They’re going crazy out there.”

The scaly dogs were making more noise than they had been, and it sounded like a large pack had amassed below the balcony. They were making scratchy, yelping sounds, and getting louder with every passing moment.

“I’ll go see what they’re doing,” Verran said, and he walked outside onto the balcony.

“Besides, we checked the door from the outside,” Kitto reminded Harp. “There was no lock remember?”

“He’s right,” Boult said.

“Then let me swim down and try,” Harp said.