It was impossible to know what had happened to Alain. Without Alain’s sight, he, too, was blind and lost in Alain’s dreams. Yet it was still better than the lack he had suffered when Alain had vanished from Earth.
He got to his knees and slid the ax back through its loop before testing the rungs. One bent beneath his weight, but they held as he climbed. It was an unexpectedly long way up, with dirt pressing around him on all sides; the metal links of his long waist girdle scraped earth with a sound rather like a bird scratching for bugs. When he reached the topmost rung, he felt above him and after a bit found a metal latch. He fiddled with it until he identified the clasp that released it. Then he paused and listened.
He heard nothing at all.
After a while he braced his knees against the rungs, wiggled his ax up into his fighting hand, and released the clasp. He cracked it open to admit light and sound, but only darkness greeted him. Distantly he heard the muffled sounds of the camp.
It took a bit of doing to crawl out because the trap could not open fully; the ceiling above was too low and was in truth not a ceiling but a floor. The space had once been filled with dirt and debris—its film coated his hair and irritated his eyes—but one of Elafi’s forebears, perhaps that same uncle, had dug a passage through it. He felt along it, pushing his ax before him, and touched not just dirt but potsherds, scraps of -wood, two nails, and once a bit of wool cloth, all smashed down into the earth. A footfall sounded directly above him, muted by floorboards and yet another layer—rushes or yet more earth; he could not tell. He squeezed along until the slope of the ground dropped suddenly out from below his hands. Groping forward, he found himself with room to crouch and an unexpected view past warped planks to the stone crown. Torches burned, startlingly bright, but the circular ground that lay between the partially restored stones was empty.
Yet he heard voices.
“It gripes me that we are beholden to these heathens. I don’t trust them. They’re coarse and low. They’re rude and arrogant.”
“Patience, Father Reginar.” The second man spoke Wendish with rigidly correct grammar but a marked accent and frequent pauses to negotiate unfamiliar words. “As long as they control this crown by force of arms, we must ally with them.”
“You just arrived here, Brother Severus. You don’t know what they are. They are in bed with the Enemy! Such things they do—! Did you see that the queen has more than one husband? Four, at least, old and young, fawning on her. She takes a different one to bed every night, and there are even two youths to warm the bed of the ancient one. It’s sickening. I don’t think God would wish us to—” He had the petulant voice of a man accustomed to his every whim brought to fruition, but Severus’ sharp reply cut him off.
“We have no other choice. Where are their sorcerers?”