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I slipped up to the dirt wall on the left and set my hand against the earth. For myself, I felt a strange pull from that direction. It was almost like I could hear a soft tune, and all my instincts told me to find out from where it was coming.
“Millie!” Ben shouted as he grabbed my arm and whipped me around to face him.
I blinked at him. “What? What’s wrong?”
Fox came up behind him with his bones rattling. “What’s wrong is that you started running down the tunnel without a word.”
I swept my eyes over the area and found that we were indeed standing in an unfamiliar tunnel. Grave niches were dug into the walls on either side of us, and grinning skulls seemed to be laughing at me.
“I. . .I did?” I looked past Fox and him, and beheld the intersection some fifty feet away. I’d covered the distance without even knowing it.
Ben studied my face a moment before he pursed his lips. “You don’t remember.” It wasn’t a question.
I turned my face toward the deeper darkness of the catacombs. “I. . .I just remember feeling something like a song.”
“You mean hearing,” Fox corrected me.
I shook my head. “No, Ifeltit, kind of like it was ringing all around me.”
Ben grasped my hand in his and nodded at the darkness. “Then we had better answer its call.”
“What a foolish thing to do. . .” Fox muttered, but he still followed behind us as we continued down the path.
The winding trail guided us through the forest of open graves to where the floor and walls changed. The dirt beneath our feet was replaced by smooth flagstones and the earthen walls were replaced by huge cut boulders stacked perfectly one on top of the other. The tunnel itself widened to some fifty feet and revealed a sort of parade path. Large torch holders hung from brick walls, though their occupants had long ago rotted to nothing, and the floor was hewn from smoothed marble. The walls curved upward into a gentle dome above our heads.
The niches were filled with a different sort of skeleton. Gone were the plain clothes and cloth shoes like the other corpses, and in their places were long flowing robes. Though time and rot had taken their toll, I could still see the gold inlaid hems and frilled cuffs. Beautiful jewelry adorned necklaces that hung over their cleave bones, and many sported rings attached to their fingers only through wire tied to their cuffs.
I didn’t dare raise my voice above a whisper. “Who are these things?”
Ben swept his eyes over the group as we passed through them. “If I had to guess, I would say they were the magistrates of the city. I’ve been in the presence of the emperor once before and saw his advisers wearing such finely-lined cloaks.
The real eye-catcher, however, stood at the end of the long corridor. A wide doorway led us into a large room, and on either side hung tapestries torn and faded by time, but still bearing the emblems of great eagles, bears, and even dragons.
A throne stood at the end of the room and a soft red glow came from the seat. A tall skeleton sat upon the throne, clothed in the tattered remains of purple garb with a simple cloak thrown over his shoulders. He held a scepter in one hand and there was a ring upon a finger on his left.
At our coming the skeleton stirred, and the rattling noise was almost deafening. My heart dropped into my stomach as the corpse lifted its head. The empty sockets filled with a bright red light, and those two glowing orbs fell on me.
The jaws moved, and somehow a deep, resonating voice floated out of the fleshless face. “So you have come.”
Ben took a step closer to the creature. “Who are you that calls us here?”
The skeleton lifted its bony ring finger and pointed it at me. “I only calledherhere, dragon, as she is the keeper of the light.”
I blinked at him. “The what?”
He raised one bony finger and pointed at the container that held the flute. “The light that guides those worthy of its power. She is who I summoned. However, I would have her guardian listen to what I have to say.”
“Dragon?” Fox wondered as he looked Ben up and down. “What’s this about a dragon?”
“Why did you call me here?” I spoke up, interrupting any chance for Ben to give that long-winded answer.
The skeleton stretched out his arm and swept it over the room. “I am the guardian of the crypts, and I have felt a disturbance among my sleeping subjects. They have awoken and crawled out of their beds to expose themselves to the glaring sun.”
I winced. “I think we’ve met a couple of them.”
Those bright red eyes fell on Ben. “Yes. I sensed they had been returned to their eternal rest by the silver blades of the dragon and the protectors, but the earth remains fouled by the fiend who disturbed their rest.”
“Can you sense who is doing this evil?” Ben asked him.
