The Keep (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #4)(65)

Alex followed Caius through the familiar hallways, surprised by the lack of noise and movement from within the cells they passed. Where usually Alex would have expected insults thrown his way and the slam of bodies pounding against the door in protest, everything was still. Gradually, the surrounding sights became less and less recognizable, the damp, dripping hallways growing narrower the farther they traveled into the keep. Torches still flickered, but the shadows were more oppressive in the belly of the prison. Caius plucked one of the torches from a bracket, the flame bobbing as the old man limped down the hallway.

Alex ducked as the ceiling dipped, stooping low, though the slick stone overhead still grazed his hair with decades of slime. The narrow halls and low roof didn’t seem to bother Caius, who just hurried on ahead, not slowing his pace for a moment. Even the bats Alex and the others had encountered in their previous explorations remained still and silent, dangling as harmlessly as seed pods as they passed through the subterranean level of empty cells, venturing farther into the keep than Alex and his friends had managed to reach.

The floor below was identical to the one filled with bats, the cells still vacant. Caius turned suddenly to enter one of the empty cells. When Alex didn’t immediately follow, Caius stuck his hand out the door and gestured for him to come forward. Alex entered the cell to find the usual amenities—a broken toilet, a sink, and a dusty cot draped in rotten bedsheets. It looked the part, but it was clear this cell wasn’t intended for an occupant. Caius moved the bed, revealing a staircase leading down into the floor beneath. The warden stood patiently to one side, as if waiting for Alex to descend first, and so Alex did.

It occurred to him, as he edged down the stairs, that even if he and his friends had continued mapping the keep, they never would have found this staircase.

Glancing back at the entrance above him, swallowed up by the darkness, Alex realized he may have just made a colossal error in following Caius and leaving Ellabell behind. If Caius wanted to keep him as a bargaining chip, this would be the perfect ruse, luring him down into the dark, oppressive heart of the keep, where no one could hear him shout for help.

If Alex thought the normal hallways were eerily quiet, it was nothing compared to the deathly silence that lingered down in the catacombs, interrupted only by the occasional click of Caius’s cane. The permeating stillness made Alex’s skin crawl. He began to feel sick as he descended farther and farther into the prison.

At long last, they arrived at the end of the staircase. Caius moved past Alex, lighting torches to illuminate the way head. As the glow crept forward, Alex saw that he stood at the head of a long, cave-like passageway hewn into the rock foundations of the keep, with an imposing wooden door at the end. Other, smaller doors veered off from the passageway, but it was the large, looming door that drew Alex’s attention. They walked toward it, the thud of Caius’s cane echoing loudly around them.

Caius opened it, the hinges straining, and led Alex into the unknown. Alex gasped, gazing around at the enormity of the vast, dimly lit room that met him. It only grew larger as Caius set his torch in a bracket, the light spreading out across the walls. The ceiling disappeared above him, too high to be seen by the naked eye. A great, gaping cavern covered the center of the enormous chamber, falling away into the earth, the pit seemingly bottomless. On a shelf of stone jutting above the abyss, a golden bird perched, beating gleaming metallic wings in a steady rhythm, its sharp beak poised toward the impossibly deep crater. The scent of fear and something distinctly sour stung Alex’s nostrils.

Getting as close to the edge as he dared, Alex peered down into the maddening darkness. There was nothing to stop him from falling in, no fence or wall, and he could feel the magnetic draw of whatever lay in wait at the pit’s center. Beneath his feet, the ground trembled.

“What is this place?” Alex asked, staring down into the shadows.

“This is how the Great Evil is sated,” Caius replied calmly.

Alex drew back from the edge. “What is it?”

“Do you recall hearing about a silver mist?”

Alex nodded. “The one that swallowed up the life magic of the mages, on that final day?” he replied, remembering the tale.

“Well, that is the Great Evil,” Caius said matter-of-factly.

Alex frowned. “A mist?” It didn’t seem all that frightening to him.

“Much more than a mist, Alex—it is a ravenous, deadly plague that needs to be fed in order to keep it below the earth, away from where it could do great harm,” Caius replied, a haunted expression in his golden eyes.

“I thought it would be a giant monster or something,” Alex said. “A mist” just didn’t have the same ring to it as “a giant monster.” He tried to picture a cloud with eyes and fangs coming toward him. No matter how he envisioned it, the image was a comical one.

“If it were a monster, it could be fought off,” Caius said. “How, pray tell, do you fight a miasma that can move freely, shifting and flowing, getting in the smallest of gaps, undeterred by weapons and combat?”

Understanding emerged in Alex’s mind. “I suppose you can’t.”

“Precisely.”

“So how do you keep it down there?” Alex asked, starting to feel uneasy at the thought of the hungry, deadly mist.

“We bring the essence of whomever we have taken it from, prisoner or student, to life. I trust you are familiar with the golden creatures that spring from life essence?” he remarked. Alex nodded sheepishly. “Well, we bring those creatures into being and we pour them into the pit, where they fight off the Great Evil, holding it back, keeping it at bay. It is done as often as necessary, sometimes requiring many bottles, sometimes just a few, depending on the state and strength of the miasma. The golden bird you see up there works as a beacon, telling the overseer of a haven—in this case, me—when the Great Evil requires ‘feeding.’” Caius sighed, glancing up at the golden bird, whose wings flapped slowly.