Page 37 of Omen of ice
“Asshole,” I mumble as several of the kitchen staff whisper from the other end of the room. I salute them and leave, heading for the lower levels of the building.
The tunnels below the estate used to terrify me. They’re endless and confusing and extend far past the main house and its exterior buildings. But beneath the main layer is a hidden, deeper layer. Tunnels within tunnels. Rumor is that Servis had the deepest level dug and bespelled during the war as an emergency escape for the royal family if the need arose. The walls and rooms change, along with the pathways, never in the same place twice.
Since the days of the war, the tunnels and their various rooms and nooks have been ignored. No one alive now knows the origin of the spell used to enchant the tunnels, and no one understands how it works. In my lifetime, at least nine staff members had come down here and were never seen again.
In recent years, I started coming down and exploring. Part of me secretly hoped the tunnels would swallow me whole. If the hallways changed, if I couldn’t find my way back, then my disappearance couldn’t be blamed on me. It never happened, though. It’s almost like the walls have come to know me, allowing me to pass through unhindered, as if in apology for the terror Orbik heaped on me as a child.
I take one of the torches that burn on either side of the landing and start down the hall. It seems narrower than the last time I was here, but I don’t give it much thought. There’s always something new to see.
One of the last times I ventured down here, several months before Tania showed up, I stumbled upon a room I’d first thought to be a torture chamber. Restraints and cruel-looking instruments lined a small, padded room. After a bit more inspection, I remembered the rumors that my grandfather, Lord Envrill, had engaged in various forms of bondage for fun.
Dragging my hand along the wall as I go, I breathe in deep. An odd smell wafts through my nose. “Something down here stinks, old friend.”
A breeze rushes through the hallway, like someone, somewhere, opened a window or a door.
I laugh. “Thanks.”
Something creaks, like the sound of a door cracking open, and the walls begin to shift again. The hall in front of me constricts and changes, forming a sharp right corner.
“Huh. I take it you’d like me to go this way, eh?” I shrug. “Sure. Why not.”
I make the right and stride to the end of the hall, then set the torch in a holder beside an oversize metal door. That’s when I feel it.
Power.
The air is thick with it, almost cloying. It’s wrong in a way I can’t explain. I feel it in every limb and with each breath I take. Resting my hand against the door, I do my best not to vomit. In all the times I’ve been down here, I’ve never felt anything like it. “Why are you showing me this now?”
As if in answer, the walls shake, small bits of debris coming loose from the stone.
Acid bubbles in my gut, my gorge rising. I swallow it back and try the handle. It doesn’t turn. “Well, that’s no fun. Why show me the door if you won’t let me inside the room?”
Again, the walls shake, this time a bit more violently.
“Sure wish you could, you know, actually talk.” I bend down to inspect the door. The lock is ancient and more than likely easily broken, but when I try to freeze it, nothing happens. “Performance issues. That’s a first.”
Picking it is impossible. I haven’t brought anything with me to try. But maybe I canunlockit.
I press my palm against the lock and close my eyes. Letting the cold settle over me, I push out as lightly as I can. Ice forms around my cuticles, frost creeping across the back of my hand. When I move slowly away from the lock, a thin rod of ice follows. If I’ve done it correctly, the ice will have seeped into the crevasse of the lock, forming a makeshift key.
I twist the ice. It snaps instantly.
“Damnit.” I glance up at the ceiling and frown. “A little help?”
I cover the lock and try again. This time, I make the key too thick. The ice fills the entire lock and then some, making it impossible to turn at all.
Thirty-seven attempts later, still no luck. “Okay. Now it’s just pissing me off. The harder you try to keep someone out of a room, the more they’re going to want in. Could you please just open the damned door?”
There’s a loud metalclank, and the handle of the door twitches—then turns.
“Are you kidding me?”
With one last glance behind me, I retrieve the torch and push inside.
I was born with magic. I’ve seen a number of amazing, virtually unexplainable things happen because of it. However, nothing in my life has prepared me for what I see now.
The space is empty save for a single slab of black granite in the center. There are two small items on the slab, but I can’t bring myself to move closer for inspection. No, my feet remain rooted, my attention captured by the room itself.
Four walls, all covered in jagged peaks of ice. In some places, the outcroppings reach several feet; one in particular juts almost to the center of the room. The ceiling is the same. The sight is strange and wondrous and hardly the oddest thing I’ve seen. But what makes the room a sight to behold, the thing that causes my heart to slam unevenly against my ribs, is the thick, thorny foliage that appears to be growing from random patches on the ice. Much larger versions of the strange vines that sometimes grow from ice on my own walls.
