It didn’t take long before we’d reached the end of the hallway, where the guard knocked on part of the wall, which moved aside like a door and not solid rock. “We’ve got Nate Garrett,” the guard said. “Harrison says he should be put with his friends. He’ll need to be interrogated sooner rather than later. He seems to have important news he has to get to the king.”
“Do I tell you how to do your job?” the thin, bald prison guard said. “No, no I don’t. I’ll decide when he gets interrogated, and Harrison has already asked that he be part of it.”
“Of course he fucking did,” I snapped.
The prison guard raised a small wooden club in my direction. “Did I ask you to speak?”
“You know that once Galahad knows I’m here, I’m going to get out,” I said.
He thought about it for a second, and I could almost see the calculations in his head as he tried to figure out just how much trouble he would be in once I got out.
“You really want to piss me off more than I already am?” I asked, pointing him in what was hopefully the right direction.
“You behave, we won’t have a problem,” the guard said, lowering his club and shrugging as if he was in no way doing that because of what I’d said.
I turned to the guard who had spoken to me on the way to the prison. “Thank you for not being an asshole.”
“I understand your anger at this situation, but we have to make sure you’re not here to undermine or hurt us. I’m sure it’ll be resolved soon.”
“Hopefully before Avalon turns up with an army,” I said, and walked through the hole in the wall, which closed behind me.
“You follow me,” the prison guard said. “You behave, we won’t have a problem.”
“You said that already. I’m not here to cause issues. I’m here to talk to your king. As I have said more times than I care to remember.”
The prison guard said nothing else as he and four others escorted me through the prison. Occasionally we’d come to a place in a wall where there was no way of going further, and one of the guards would use their alchemy to create a door for us. Eventually we reached what appeared to be a cellblock, where most of the cells appeared to be sealed with rock, with only a small, cat-flap-sized hole in each one. Each hole had several metal bars on it, making escape impossible for anyone over three inches wide.
After descending a set of stairs and moving through yet another wall, I found myself in a large room with four cells along the far wall. These cells had no rock covering the entrances and consisted of only the metal bars. The cells were large, easily the same size the lift had been, and most appeared to have a barred window.
Lucifer and Zamek were in one cell. Another held Sky and Selene. I was led toward the cell between them and told to go inside. One of the guards placed a hand on the bars, and they almost melted into the floor. I stepped inside, and the bars were quickly replaced.
“Behave,” the prison guard said.
I ignored him and looked around at my new room. There was a bunk bed against one wall, with two comfortable-looking mattresses. A small desk and chair sat against the opposite wall, with paper and several pens on it. I assumed they weren’t too worried about people using the pens to try and assault the guards. There was a toilet and sink next to the table. I walked over to the window and looked out over the city of Solomon far below.
“Nice view if nothing else,” Zamek said from the cell beside me.
“So, we can hear one another,” I said. “That’s useful.”
“Can’t use my alchemy, though,” Zamek said. “There are runes on the cell. I think they’re written into the very rock of the prison. It’s not an ideal venue for an impressive and bold breakout.”
“There’s nowhere to break out to,” Sky said. “We’re quite literally on top of a mountain. It’s freezing outside, but nice and warm in here even though there are open holes in the side of the cell. That’s some fairly serious rune work.”
“Thank you,” a voice said from the far end of the room outside the cells. “It took a lot of going back and forth to get it to work.”
“Leonardo,” I said as he walked into view. “It’s been a while.”
Leonardo had the appearance of a man who was in his mid-to late forties. He had a neatly trimmed white beard, which matched his hairstyle. “Nathaniel, it’s good to see you. Not so good to see you in jail. We’d best be doing something about that.”
“Yeah, how?” I asked.
“I’m just waiting for Antonio, and then we’ll arrange everything.”
“You’re going to break us out of jail?” Lucifer asked. “Won’t that make you an enemy of the state?”
“Probably, but there are more important things at play here.”
“Leonardo, we’re ready!” Antonio shouted as he entered the room through a newly formed hole in the wall.
“Hello, Antonio. What’s going on?” I asked.
Antonio was taller than me by several inches, and barrel chested. He was bald and usually wore a smile no matter how stressful the situation. He was the perfect antidote to Leonardo, who, for all of his intelligence, had a tendency to fixate on one thing at the expense of all others. “Nate. Essentially we know what’s happening, and you need to see something.”
“What?” I asked.
“A prison,” Leonardo said.
“We’re in prison,” Selene pointed out.
“An older prison,” Leonardo clarified. “Much older.”
“And what does that have to do with anything?” I asked. Sometimes getting answers from Leonardo was hard work. It was difficult being the smartest man everywhere he went, and he tended to think everyone had the same level of knowledge that he did, which often made for confusing conversations.
“Ah, I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Essentially Galahad wasn’t available, so when I heard that your friends had been captured, it was only a matter of time before I knew you’d be along. Then it was simply a matter of slowly using our alchemy to tunnel up and around the prison to get here, avoiding patrols and anything unpleasant. After all, I designed the place.”
“So, who arranged all of this?” I asked.
“Caitlin,” Antonio said. “Galahad’s daughter.”
“I know who she is,” I said. “I brought her here. I introduced her to Galahad. I still don’t understand why you’re breaking us out. Why hasn’t Caitlin gone to Galahad to get him to let us out?”
“No time. Galahad is off to the north, dealing with some unpleasantness.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll explain later. But right now we need to go.”
Leonardo and Antonio placed their hands on the floor in front of our cells, and the bars melted, freeing us. They walked over to the far side of the room and touched the wall, creating a door to step into where purple light glowed beyond.
“Originally, I was just going to get you out of the prison. We have a problem, which Caitlin and I think you can help with. But seeing as he’s with you, I think it would be best if you saw something.”
“By ‘he’ you mean me?” Lucifer asked.
Leonardo nodded. “There’s something inside the mountain I think you need to see.”
“Yes, a prison. You already said,” I told him.
Leonardo paused. “Yes, but it’s not just the prison. There’s something else.”
“What?” Sky asked.
“Runes,” Leonardo said. “Elven runes.”
Now that I hadn’t been expecting.
CHAPTER 20
Mordred