Darkness of Magic (Soul of Magic Book 2)

THIRTEEN

Lorraine was no stranger to siege tunnels. In fact, they were one of the things she liked to read about since she was able to.

The siege tunnels were the greatest achievement to have ever come into being under the reign of Abden, Cyrian's third king and Winchmore’s own first grandson. During Abden’s reign, the great kingdom was starting to show the potential of how strong and formidable in the future; and the other kingdoms of the realm both frightened and jealous of it, they constantly pitched attacks against it.

The royal court became worried that Cyrian might not survive the endless onslaught and eventually fall to one of the attacks. And so, they begged Abden to find a way in which the Cyrianes would be safely evacuated in case of a defeat. It was in response to that plea that the king ordered the construction of several escape routes underneath the great kingdom to run throughout it and to different refuges which were also built at the same time; siege tunnels, they were called according to the purpose which had necessitated their existence.

However, Cyrian never fell and the siege tunnels remained unused; abandoned as time went by and the great kingdom could stand on its own. At least until that moment, Lorraine realised.

It was very clear to the princess that the particular siege tunnel in which she stood was built for a very different purpose from which the royal court had proposed all those years ago. For one, there was no mention of it in any of the history books she'd read, which in itself was downright suspicious as all the siege tunnels built were ordered written into record by Abden himself and sent to Lawcroft, the capital of the province governed by the great house of Balzar and where the royal record keepers resided, for storage.

Secondly, the tunnel was of also of a much larger size than the ones on record. It was as if it had been built to accommodate not just humans but also bigger machineries; that definitely warranted suspicion. During Abden’s time, Cyrian had no big machineries. They wouldn’t have had to build a space for it much less an underground and secret one.

And lastly and most suspicious of all, the tunnel's walls were very clean. In fact, there was nothing ancient-looking about it. Now, that could only mean that either it was recently built or had been in constant use over the years; Lorraine suspected the latter.

However, what the princess couldn’t still determine was the siege tunnel’s exact use. While the clues were quite obvious that the tunnel was of a suspicious existence, they didn’t exactly point to its usage. And even more puzzling, she wondered how a servant had come to know about it.

Just as Lorraine was still deep in thought, the servant she had been following came walking back from a deeper part of the tunnel; and from what she could hear, he wasn't alone.

Quickly, she dashed up the stairs, making sure not to stop until she was at a height where she wouldn't be spotted. Unfortunately, that also meant she couldn't see them either. But anyway, she was safe and that was mattered more in the moment.

"Are you sure you weren't followed?" she heard the other man ask the servant.

"I'm sure," he replied.

"So, what news do you have of the prey?" the man asked again.

"The prey grazes as usual, sire. It’s unaware of the lurking predator," he replied again.

"Good," the man returned, accompanying it with sounded like a pat on the back, "Now, we have reached that part of the plan where Helione's triskelion must come into the light."

Lorraine was very confused by what they were saying. It seemed that they seem were talking about wildlife. But none of them showed any real knowledge or interest in the subject and that led her to suspect that they were only using it to overlay another subject, and one they were obviously very cautious about too. Unfortunately, she had no skill whatsoever in decoding secret messages which frustrated her and caused her greater confusion as she forced herself to try to understand.

All of a sudden, the tunnel dropped to a silence and the princess realised that the conversation must have ended. Her heart picked up pace when she heard the servant's footsteps; he was ascending the stairs. And she had no idea she was even still alive when the pounding in her chest turned greatly furious as she looked around and saw that there was no place to hide. She was in the direct path of a mysterious servant with an even more mysterious secret and she had no place to hide.

An idea suddenly wedged its way into Lorraine’s head just as the servant stepped directly below her and she gathered her cloak in her hand, faced the direction out of the tunnel and ran like her life depended on it. Unfortunately, the servant must have heard her footsteps because he picked up his pace too; but many years of racing a very fast Richard gifted her with reasonable speed and she easily outran him.

But it also turned out that had been a very long time since she’d actually raced anyone and she was soon out of breath and her energy wane after a short while, giving her pursuer the opportunity to catch up.

However, luck appeared not to have forsaken the princess as she saw the royal garden ahead. Quickly as she could, she ran into it and jumped cloak and all into one of the fountains there. She held her breath as she let herself be dragged under, the night hiding her figure underneath the water. A few seconds later, the servant arrived, checking all around but not finding her. It took a very long while but he finally gave up and went away, after which Lorraine was able to come out of the fountain.

The princess was really drenched and her energy greatly depleted from running like a wild horse and then forcing herself to stay under water for longer than normal. But she was thankful for her life, only the Creator knew what the servant would do to her had he found out that his secret conversation wasn’t really a secret anymore.

"It could have been worse, Lorraine," she told herself as she made her way back to her room, which included another round of cleverly evading the guards and other persons who might be out watching.

As she settled in her bed for the night, her mind recalled all that she had just witnessed. Of course, she still couldn't make any sense of the words any more than she could before. But she was becoming surer that it was involved something of great importance or they wouldn't have gone to such great lengths to conceal it.

With more than just satisfying her curiosity now on her mind, Lorraine vowed to get to the bottom of the secret of the maze’s siege tunnel, no matter what might be waiting for her there.