Gorgoroth (Haladras #2)

TWENTY-EIGHT

"Please," said Skylar, looking at the frightened serving maid with beseeching eyes. "I must find her. I think Du Kava is somehow involved."

At the mention of Du Kava's name, the girl's already pale face turned ashen. Her body began to tremble.

"What is it?" Skylar encouraged. "It's alright, you can tell us. No one will know you said anything."

His voice was soothing when he spoke. He doubted if the girl ever received a kind word from anyone. Still, it didn't help free the girl's tongue.

She shook her head frantically.

Skylar drew a cautious step forward.

She shied away, as if feared being struck.

He held his hands up in defeat.

"It's alright, it's alright," he said sympathetically. "We don't want to bring trouble upon you. Can you, at least, tell us where to find Du Kava's quarters?"

The girl sniffed.

"Down stairs," she let out in a near whisper. "The portal nearest to the stairs."

"Thank you," replied Skylar. "You don't have to tell anyone you saw us."

Without another word, he and Endrick slipped out of the chamber and into the hallway.

"I thought you wanted to get away from here," said Endrick as they strode back toward the stairs.

"I do-desperately. But if I don't learn what happened to my sister now..."

"We might make it out alive?"

Skylar formed his hands into fists. They had to make it out alive.

With little difficulty, he and Endrick found a chamber which either belonged to a weapon's master or executioner. For an entire wall was covered with nothing but weapons. Weapons for which Skylar had no name. Bladed, clubbed, spiked, dripping with chains-as diverse as they were forbidding.

"Cheery décor," said Endrick, running a finger along a weapon with five blades splayed out from the end of a mace-like handle. "We should definitely stick around. If this fellow finds us snooping about his chamber, maybe he'll demonstrate how to use one of these...on us."

"Don't worry," replied Skylar. "They're all at the party. He won't return for hours."

This he said in hopes of convincing himself. But it did nothing to allay his own anxiety.

"If you help me, we'll be done sooner."

"If we leave off now, we'll be done much sooner," was Endrick's retort.

Despite Endrick's objections, they both went to work searching for some clue as to his sister's fate. After only a few minutes of riffling through drawers, Skylar wondered what he truly hoped to find. A scrap of parchment detailing the exact whereabouts of his sister? The idea seemed ludicrous when he thought about it that way. What other hope did he have, though? This man might keep a record of his doings, a journal. On Ahlderon, castle scribes chronicled all events pertaining to the Empire.

That was the answer! Why hadn't he thought of it sooner?

A record of the empress' deeds-her decrees, judgments, daily actions-must surely be kept. Without a record, a ruler has no history, no legacy. But it would not be here, in a bedchamber. Nor would they likely find it in the Empress' personal study. Such a mudane task would be delegated to an archivist or scribe. They needed to find the castle archives.

The servant girl. She must know where to find a scribe, or where the archives are kept. He only hoped, the girl hadn't run already away.

"This is futile," he said to Endrick. "Follow me, I know a better way." He strode toward the portal.