The Gate of Eight Worlds

Chapter 5: The Water_Gate

The entrance to the old miner’s shaft lay hidden behind a curtain of freezing, roar-filled water where a mountain torrent cascaded over a ledge of dark granite.

Caleb unhooked the unlit iron lantern from his bronze chain, struck a heavy sulfur match against his boot heel, and touched the flame to the wick. A warm, amber light flooded the slick rock passage, revealing steep stone steps carved directly into the heart of the mountain. The air was heavy with the smell of wet slate, ancient iron ore, and stagnant mountain water.

"Mind the third step on every turn," Caleb warned, his heavy boots squelching in the shallow stream running down the center of the stairs. "The miners laid these stones three hundred years ago. Half of them are loose, and it’s a hundred-foot drop if you slip into the drainage wells."

Barnaby let out a low, uneasy chirp at the mouth of the shaft. His massive winged frame was far too large to squeeze into the narrow stone tunnel.

"Stay high, Barnaby," Queen Natasha said, pressing her palm against the griffin's feathered shoulder. "Circle the crags above the Altar of Glass. Watch for Vane’s aerial scouts, and do not come down until you hear my whistle."

The crest-griffin pressed his brass-colored beak against her palm once before spreading his broad thirty-foot wings and launching back into the grey fog above the valley.

Dwaho took a deep breath and stepped into the dark shaft behind Caleb, with Alex and Princess Rose following close behind, while Queen Natasha secured the rear with her drawn silver blade. The water running over Dwaho's boots was bone-chillingly cold, soaking through his leather laces within minutes.

"How far down does this shaft go?" Alex asked, his voice echoing off the narrow, damp walls.

"Three miles into the belly of the valley," Caleb replied, holding the lantern high to illuminate a rotting wooden timber bracing the low ceiling. "It cuts right under General Vane’s lines. While his iron-borers are hammering away at the front gates of the Sunken Vault, we'll come out right behind the Altar of Glass."

"Assuming the lower level isn't completely submerged," Rose noted, her grey eyes scanning the shadowy alcoves where rusty iron pickaxes and abandoned ore carts lay half-buried in mud. "My father's sea-charts marked this sector as flooded when the Second Gate locked."

"It is flooded," Caleb said, stopping at the edge of a wide, circular chamber where the stairs vanished beneath a pool of dark, still water. "Up to your waists in some stretches, higher in others. But it’s the only way through."

Dwaho peered into the dark pool. The amber light of Caleb’s lantern reflected off the water's surface, showing a long, flooded tunnel stretching into the pitch-black distance. Submerged iron rails glittered beneath the surface like the ribs of an ancient sea serpent.

"There's something down here," Dwaho whispered, his hand going instinctively to his leather sling. His eyes—gifted with the faint, blue-tinted Vision of the Sight—picked up a strange, rhythmic pulsing beneath the water's surface.

"That's just the tide from the Drowned Citadel," Rose said, stepping to the edge of the pool.

"No," Dwaho said firmly, pointing toward the far end of the submerged tunnel where the water was beginning to swirl into gentle, widening ripples. "The water isn't rising from a tide. Something is swimming toward us."

Alex stepped in front of Dwaho, drawing his blade. The pale crest on his right palm flared to life once more, casting a sharp golden radiance that cut through the murky depths, illuminating a tangled mass of pale, thorned vines writhing beneath the flooded tracks toward the submerged steps.

"Iron-root," Caleb growled, unbuckling a heavy hunting hatchet from his leather belt. "Vane’s engineers must have poisoned the mountain streams to trap the lower passages!"