Monster flicked his plumy tail.
Felix put his ear to the door that led from the servants’ wing into the main hall of the palace. He could hear the tramp of feet coming and going, the voices of officers growling orders and soldiers responding.
“The duke has ordered it all cleared out by nightfall. Look lively. Watch where you’re stepping – do you want to break that? It’s worth five times your life, man!” This from a voice more distant, yet bellowing enough to carry down the hall through the door to Felix’s ears. Two more voices followed, muttering but near enough to be heard.
“Why do we need to empty the storehouse?” the first one said. “He’s taken the palace, hasn’t he? Practically taken the country. Why does he need to loot a treasure store that is already his?”
“Erh,” his companion snorted. “S’ain’t the duke’s orders we’re following. I’d stake my life it’s that . . . that other one’s doing. We’re looting for him, and he’ll take it all, and how will we or anyone stop him, I’d like to know? He’ll leave the duke a crown here all right, but a penniless crown in a penniless kingdom. And d’you think the folks of Parumvir will stand for our duke one moment more once himself has flown back to wherever he belongs?”
Their voices faded. Felix cursed and flexed his fingers over the hilt of his sword. Looting his father’s treasure store! He wanted to burst out upon them, sword flashing, knock them flat, strike them . . . But what good would that do?
He needed to find his father. That’s all that mattered now. They would worry about treasure later, but for now he must find a way to the king. But how could he slip down to the dungeons when the only stairway leading that way was currently trafficked by those Shippening thieves?
And with the palace halls crawling with his enemies, Felix dared not so much as open the door to the passage in which he hid.
He knelt down, and Monster jumped onto his knee. “What am I going to do, beast?” the boy whispered.
At that moment a new voice boomed through the hall. “Drop what you’re doing and go! Out to the courtyard at once, you dogs!”
Monster jumped from Felix’s knee, growling as the clatter of many priceless items dropping to the hard floor and the metallic whisk of many weapons being drawn echoed in the hall. Footsteps pounded and disappeared as the great front door boomed shut.
Cautiously, Felix cracked open the door and peered out from the servants’ passage. The hall was empty. Monster slipped between his feet and trotted forward, but stumbled across the treasures that he could not see littering the floor. He stopped and lowered his nose to sniff at a jewel box lying open at his feet. Felix stared up and down the hall. He had not even known that his father owned all these beautiful things. He looked toward the door, shut and silent. Faint noises sounded from the yard beyond, but he hardly cared for those.
When he looked back up the hall, it was empty too, as was the narrow staircase leading down to the treasure store and to Oriana’s old dungeons.
Clutching the hilt of his sword and taking courage in its familiar heft, Felix slipped from hiding and raced to the dark staircase.
The stairway was utterly black, save for the light of a few lanterns hung on the walls by Shippening soldiers. Felix swallowed hard, wishing his heart would settle back in his chest where it was supposed to be, and started his descent. Once, long ago, he had been taken to view the ancient dungeons. Memories of the heavy iron chains and the cave-like rooms still crept into his nightmares now and then. He hated the thought of his father in such a place but did not doubt that the duke would keep him there.
He reached the door leading to the dungeons and found it unlocked. He stepped first into the guardroom. Much to Felix’s relief, a lantern hung from the ceiling. He climbed onto a stool in order to take the lantern from its hook, then approached the tunnel that led deep into the rock of Goldstone Hill to the dungeon cells. His courage faltered as he gazed into the blackness.
“Father?”
Darkness swallowed his voice.
“Preeeow.” Monster rubbed against his calf. He reached down to stroke the cat’s back, but Monster slipped from beneath his hand and trotted into the tunnel.
Gulping, Felix followed the cat, calling every few steps, “Father?”
The third time he called, he heard a moan from a cell on his left. He held his lantern up to a tiny wooden door with bars near the floor, through which food could be passed. Monster crouched at the bars, his tail twitching. “Father, is that you?” Felix said.
“Felix?”
The voice was faint but unmistakable.
“Father!” Felix crouched down and looked through the bars, but the light from his lantern showed him nothing. “Father, it’s me. I’m here to rescue you.”