*
They spent nearly a day searching the ruins of the abbey before they found it. Each moment they wasted in the search had lessened the chance that the Blessing would wait for them across the Spike. Finally Maia approached a heavy slab on two thick pillars leading into a stone opening. A thin well of stairs descended into total blackness.
“Are you sure this is the place?” the kishion asked. He swung his pack around and pulled out a bundle of torches.
“I will not need those.” The air rising from the darkness smelled dusty. A feeling of blackness emanated from it along with the same whispers that had led her here. It was the entrance to a series of underground chambers. Every Dochte Mandar who mastered a kystrel and came to this spot to prove himself a master of the Medium had failed. Their tomes said that only a woman could survive to claim the knowledge hidden here.
“Wait for me.”
The kishion grabbed her arm and stopped her. “I am going with you.”
Maia shook her head. “You cannot.”
“I do as I please. I am your protector, if—”
“You cannot protect me from what is down there.”
“And just what is down there, Lady Maia?” he asked angrily.
“I came to speak to ghosts, kishion. Before my father drove the Dochte Mandar from his kingdom, he took the tomes holding the secrets of the order. The secrets of the kystrels. The use of the magic and its consequences. I have read and memorized many of the pages. I know what to expect and how to survive. But the magic will kill you if you follow me. This is a dead place, kishion. This is the land where death was born.”
He looked at her face, saying nothing, and turned his back to her as she descended the steps. She looked back once, watching as he started to pace, the muscles of his neck taut with tension. Then she turned to once more face the darkness below and finished the steps into it. The kystrel began to burn against her skin. Darkness faded as a mossy-green light lit the grooves carved into the walls of stone. Spiderweb patterns of intertwining sigils lit the way before her, revealing a dusty floor with footprints going in and out. She walked confidently, listening to the whispers of the place offer direction. A side tunnel beckoned her with sweet and tantalizing smells, but the whispers warned her against following them. Deeper into the maze she walked, hearing only the scuffing sound of her boots and each spent breath. It grew colder and colder.
At one junction she stopped, seeing a radiant blue light shining from a tall archway. It appeared to rise up sharply, perhaps leading back to the surface. A breeze hit her face and she smelled flowering alyssum and the calming scent of pine. The whispers stopped her as she took her first step toward the archway. The magic of that place was strong—too strong. The Dochte Mandar who had fallen for its lure had never come back. She hesitated, drawn to the mysterious path, but the whispers showed her the true path lay ahead. Maia bit her lip, tempted. What was the source of the blue light? What Leering guarded it?
The kystrel flared white-hot, burning her, and she gasped with pain. It brought her back to her senses. Hurriedly, she chose the path to the right, and left the archway behind. The kystrel cooled immediately. Another set of steps had been carved from the rock, leading deeper into the mountainside. The magic traced the patterns on the rocks continually, revealing just enough of the path ahead that she did not fear stumbling, and swallowing the path behind her in darkness so that she could not see the way back.
The path ended.
Maia felt a prickling of gooseflesh shoot up her arms as she stepped into a box-shaped room. The designs on the walls vanished, leaving them smooth and unmarked. Before her stood a set of double doors made of stone—each marked with an engraving of the kystrel. The symbols were as large as platters, a whorl of leaves and vines and seaweed. Magic thrummed in her ears. She approached the doors slowly, knowing the words that would open them. It was the dirge of the Dochte Mandar.
“Och monde elles brir,” she said in an ancient tongue.
Before she could utter the next line of the dirge, the doors opened with a rush of falling water and mist. Maia shielded her face. The room beyond was a huge underground cave. At least three underground rivers converged here and dumped down as waterfalls in various positions, causing the spume and the dampness. Glowing lichen offered just enough weak light to see.
As she entered the room, the stone doors behind swung shut with a resounding thud.
Spinning around, she saw a corpse on the floor wearing black robes marked with the sigils of the Dochte Mandar. Two more were sprawled on the other side. Horror caught in her throat, and she went back to the doors.
“Och monde elles brir!”
Nothing happened.