Clandestine Circle

“You forget, Your Excellency, I used to do the grabbing in the dark before I mended my evil ways.”

His lips twitched at her saucy reply. “Come on. I don’t want to lose you in this place.” His fingers tugged her along what seemed to be a narrow tu

Her mind sensed the oppressive weight of thick layers of rock above her head and the closeness of the stone walls on either side. Fortunately they didn’t have to go far. Lord Bight rounded a corner, and Linsha saw his lamp burning low on top of the wooden box.

“The torches are here,” the governor told her. “I left the lamp here when I came to get you because it’s almost out.”

“You can see that well in the dark? I can hardly find my feet, let alone the floor.”

He shrugged, letting go of her hand. “I’ve been down here before.” He reached into a small alcove and pulled out a bundle of torches. “These won’t last that long, so we’d better take several. Do you mind carrying them?”

“Not if it means we have light,” she said with conviction. She pulled off her pack to add the bundle to her load while he lit two of the torches from the dying lamp. Light flared up around her, golden and welcome. She glanced around and, squinting in the sudden brightness, she saw Lord Bight stand upright, a torch in either hand. His muscular body was bathed in the firelight, and his eyes flickered bronze, then gold, from the torchlight reflected in their depths.

There was a powerful majesty about him that reminded her of her father, Palin Majere, when he stood on the pi

Lord Bight interrupted her musings. “You should put your tunic on. Your skin is chilled already, and we have long way to go.”

Linsha took his advice and pulled on her uniform tunic before she lifted the pack to her back. He handed her a torch. “Will you tell me now where we are going?” she asked, holding the torch up to see his face.

“As I said earlier, I am going talk to one of my sources.”

That didn’t exactly answer her question, so she tried another tack. “Why didn’t you bring your other guards?”

He eyed her knowingly. “I only need the guards in Sanction, where there are too many people to distract me. Down here I do not need them.”

“So why did you bring me?”

“You heard what I said to Commander Durne. I have something in mind for you, but I need to know you better before I put you to use.”

Linsha eyed him from beneath her arched brows for a long minute. While he seemed to be telling the truth, his answers had little substance. She crossed her arms. “I suppose you won’t tell me what you have pla

“Patience,” he said in a soft voice.

“Fine,” she replied disgustedly. “If you won’t tell me where we’re going, will you at least tell me where we are?”

“Beneath the temple,” he replied blandly.

She glared at him. “You know what I mean, Your Excellency.”

“Come. Let me show you. There is a whole layer of Sanction most people know nothing about.” He continued through the tu

Linsha realized immediately this tu

He watched her with a sidelong glance, a half smile hidden behind the neatly trimmed beard. Only loyal bodyguards or friends were allowed so close, but Lord Bight let her stay. The tu

Linsha wanted to ask, but didn’t. Apparently Lord Bight pla

Ahead, the torchlight gleamed on lighter rock at the edge of its luminosity. As they drew nearer, the light revealed a wall across their path. On the wall was a lintel carved from a pale stone into an arch of delicate grace and simple beauty, a lintel that framed a door of smooth stone. The door, if it was one, had no handle, no lock, and no sigh of any line, crack, or opening. It blocked the end of the tu

Unperturbed, Lord Bight handed his torch to Linsha and placed his right palm flat against the middle of the door. “There are magic wards inserted into the stone,” he explained to her. “They’re as old as the tu

“And, of course, you know the words,” she muttered.

He made three sounds, almost like animal grunts and whistles, and the door moved beneath his hand. “Of course,” he said, giving the door a light push.

Before she had time to comment, Lord Bight plucked his torch out of her hand and ushered her through the doorway. There he stopped on the threshold and held his torch high. Linsha lifted hers as well and gasped in surprise. They were in a chamber, high and broad and divided by a natural formation of stone pillars created when the Lords of Doom were young. The pillars stretched from ceiling to floor and had been polished by loving hands so their colors of white, gray, and black glowed like smoked glass in the light of the torches. Large chunks of granite had been carved into benches and scattered around the cavern. A thin stream of water flowed from somewhere above and fell in a long, silvery ribbon to a clear pool below.

“It’s beautiful,” Linsha breathed.

“This is a shadowhall,” he said quietly.

Of course.

Like a sluice gate opening in a canal, the word “shadowhall” triggered a flood of long-forgotten memories in Linsha’s mind, memories of an elf woman, Laurana, a friend of her grandparents, sitting by a fire and telling stories of her brother.

“Gilthanas.” The name broke from her lips so softly she didn’t realize she had said it aloud. Gilthanas and his love, Silvara. They had been here, in these tu

Lord Bight turned to her, his hand clenched around the torch, his face as hard as granite. “You know the story, then. You have heard of Takhisis’s foul experiments and the oath she broke to the Dragons of Good.”

Linsha’s words were steely. “I heard it. I also heard many shadowpeople were killed for helping the elves and the silver dragon.”

“They were,” he said, his voice grim and sad. “But not all. When I came down here for the first time to obliterate what was left of the Temple of Luerkhisis, I found a few survivors. We reached an agreement, they and I, and they stayed to rebuild their realm.”