~Chapter 19- The Secret~

Deporah and Norton anxiously waited near the secret pathway in the basement. They had lost track of time when a mechanical whirring stirred from the dead-end wall, and it began to rotate. The two made themselves scarce, and King Whedon stepped out.

He gave a brief look around before making his way back the way he came, completely oblivious to Deporah's presence as he passed them by.

Once his footsteps faded, they turned down the dead-end corridor, and Deporah unlocked the passageway. She and the Prince stood close as she spun the wall until they were on the opposite side.

She released the wall, and it locked into place. They found themselves in a pitch-black descending staircase. Deporah grazed her hands along the wall as they went down uneven steps.

"Careful," Norton whispered.

They descended until they saw lighting further down the staircase. But there was something else emanating from below. An awful stench that stirred terrible memories for Deporah.

Deporah unsheathed the rapier at her hip and drew it out in front of her.

"What do you have that out for?" Norton asked.

"We have no idea what's waiting for us. I want to be ready."

They continued further down until the staircase was properly lit. Granules of red sand dotted the ground beneath them. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, the floor was lined entirely with red sand. Torches lined the walls of a corridor leading to a large, open room.

The smell only became more horrid, but they pressed on. At least, until they heard the pained wailings of a man coming from down the way. It was accompanied by the slow breathing of at least one other.

Deporah gripped her sword well and inched forward into the large. open room. It appeared to be some sort of dungeon. On one wall was a table with implements scattered across it. Knives, daggers, scalpels, funnels, ropes, and straps. There were several barrels along the wall; one was open, revealing a sloshy liquid. A smoldering furnace was against another wall with a stone slab just outside of it.

When Deporah looked across the room, she nearly screamed out loud before stopping herself.

There were three individuals strapped to vertical harnesses - arms, legs, and heads bound tightly - stripped down to essentially nothing. Each of them had dozens of cuts to their flesh. They were thin and starved.

One man's body hung limp against the harness, his body weight being held up by the binds around his ankles, wrists, and torso. His body was the most severely cut. He didn't appear to be breathing.

There was a woman with a funnel forced into her mouth and affixed there as she frantically looked around to see who was there.

There was another man who was breathing unevenly, with many fresh cuts along his chest. He looked up at Deporah and Norton. He looked like he wanted to cry, but simply couldn't.

"Help us..." He uttered, "Please..."

Norton trembled, "Who did this to you?"

Anger filled the man's eyes, "King Whedon."

Deporah and Norton hurried to the man and tried to undo his binds. But they were locked by key.

"Don't worry, we'll get you out!" Norton spoke through a cracked voice. He began searching the room for a key.

Before Deporah began searching the room with him, she eyed the cuts strewn across all their bodies. They weren't random. The symbol of a diamond with two half circles at the ends and a line drawn through was repeated on their flesh.

It was the same mark that Deporah's mother cut into her father. The same one was etched on Lumb when he was captured as well. It was identical.

"Deporah..." Norton timidly called out for her.

She looked and saw a man standing at the opening of the pathway across them with his hands in his robes. The top of his head was bald, while scraggly grey hair hung around it. A monk from the Hall of the Dead. He appeared just as shocked to see her, as she was to see him.

Deporah lifted her sword and pointed it at the man, "What is this!?"

She charged at him, and the monk clambered to the corner of the room, knocking over one of the barrels as he did. The sloshy liquid inside poured out and soaked into the red sand.

He backed up against a wall with his hands in the air and his eyes closed. She drew her rapier back to prepare for a thrust and placed a hand on him. The old monk winced as she touched him.

Deporah had never harmed a person before, nor ever intended to. But the monk didn't know that.

Norton stood behind her and shouted, "What is this place?"

"I-I-I don't know...." The monk stammered, his lips quivering.

"Don't lie! Those people said my father did this! Why?"

The monk closed his eyes as if preparing for the end.

Deporah calmly asked, "Where are the keys to release those people?"

The man opened one eye and pointed his finger, his hand still up against the wall. "There's a desk back there with the keys."

They looked and saw a passage that went behind the harnesses the victims were strapped to.

Norton said, "I'll grab it. You keep him here."

Deporah nodded, fixing her attention firmly on the old monk. The slosh he had spilled started to travel closer to them through the sand.

"You... You're Urba Dolor's daughter, aren't you?" The monk said, his body still firmly pressed up against the wall."

"What if I am?"

The monk nodded, "You look just like her, the day she was at the noose."

Deporah gripped her blade more firmly, "Quiet!"

"Were you there when your mother died?"

"I said quiet!" Deporah said, inching the tip of her sword into his chest, almost pressing into him. It was tempting.

The old monk's fearful demeanor vanished, and he began to lower his hands, "Didn't you ever wonder why she killed your father?"

Deporah's grip loosened. How could the man know that? At the end of the case, it was determined that Horace was the murderer. The only ones who should've known otherwise were Lumb and herself.

"What're you talking about?" Deporah asked.

The monk calmly raised his chin and said, "We have company."

Deporah kept her sword on the old man while turning behind her.

There she saw Prince Norton with a knife held against his throat, and another monk gripping him from behind, one with long hair and a youthful face.

"Drop the rapier!" The youthful monk demanded.

Deporah pressed the blade ever so slightly into the old monk, who winced as it nearly pierced him. "Let the Prince go, or I'll kill the old man!"

Deporah and the youthful monk stared at one another, neither giving up their captives. But a shuffling came from down the hall where the old man came from.

Two more monks entered the room in a hurry, quickly surveying the situation.

"Wh-What happened?" The entering monks asked.

"Intruders. Block the way they came!" The youthful monk demanded, maintaining a stern grip on the prince.

The other monks crossed the room, paying no mind to the suffering captives they passed. They swiped knives off the table and stopped in front of the path Norton and Deporah had come through.

Deporah knew she'd have trouble getting past them. But the path the monks came from was unguarded. She and Norton could escape through that. She just had to figure out how to get him out safely.

Norton spoke with as commanding a voice as he could muster from the youthful monk's grip, "As Prince, I command you to release me! Now! Or I'll make you regret being born!"

"Kill the prince," the old man said simply. Norton started to struggle to escape, but the youthful monk firmly kept him.

Deporah turned to him, pressing her rapier into his chest, digging into him a little, "Shut up!"

The old monk gave a raspy gasp but continued, "Don't barter with her! Just kill Norton."

The youthful monk gave a worried expression, "But... Denile wouldn't be happy about that."

Denile?

"We can't leave it up to him. The Prince has seen too much, and you know Denile won't let us take care of him if we don't do it now."

"But-"

"Do it!" The old monk commanded.

Deporah could see the youthful monk tighten the grip on the dagger at Norton's throat. The Prince felt it as well and tried to wrest himself away from his grip.

"Don't!" Deporah shouted.

With one vicious swipe, the monk plunged his dagger into Norton's neck, slicing it cleanly before tossing him aside, his blood spilling onto the red sand.

In that moment, Deporah saw red. Without a second thought, she plunged her rapier into the old man's chest. He slumped down along the wall in a heap.

She bounded towards the youthful monk with her rapier drawn. By the time he had a chance to react, she had already jammed her blade into his gut. She drew her blade out of him and kicked him back, allowing him to bleed out on the sand.

"Norton..." Deporah stooped down to the Prince and placed her hand on him.

But the Prince was already gone. She turned over his limp body and looked into lifeless eyes. His blood spilled onto her hands.

"Should we try to capture her?" The other monks whispered from across the room.

"No... she's too dangerous. We'll take her together."

The two monks shuffled forward with their knives ready. Deporah looked around the room as they approached. At the captives they'd been keeping there. The two men she had just killed. And finally, Norton. She took one more look at the Prince before rising to her feet and sprinting down the path behind her. The two monks gave chase.

She rounded a corner, seeing a dead-end before her. But she knew it wasn't a true dead end; probably another secret passage like the one they entered here through. Once she reached the wall, she threw her hands on it and felt for the same springy bricks that unlocked the other passage. She felt one brick press in but could hear the monks coming in close.

She swiped her sword behind her at the same moment that one of the monks came in with a knife. She sliced him across the stomach, but he managed to cut her across her arm. The monk fell to the ground in agony, but she could see the other one coming.

Deporah frantically placed both hands on the wall and found the second springy brick. She pressed both in at once, unlocking the revolving wall. She turned it as quickly as she could, barely avoiding the monk behind her.

She found herself in a dimly lit area with the same red sand on the ground. There were compartments within the stone walls... tombs. She was inside the Hall of the Dead. But she had no idea where she was within it.

She ran wildly, looking for some sort of exit, praying that the monks wouldn't track her down. She turned a corner and saw a monk in the distance. He looked shocked, but not hostile. In fact, he looked scared by her appearance – a fierce woman covered in blood wielding a weapon. Deporah didn't dare test her luck and continued down a path away from him.

She ran through a familiar intersection of the corridors and realized where she was. He gripped her sword more tightly and sprinted through the corridors towards the entrance. She reached the opening and saw a single bald monk who was gripping his arm and leaning against a wall. He barely looked up as she ran past him out of the Hall of the Dead.

She came out into the city and saw stars in the sky overhead. But she didn't dare relax yet. Deporah ran into the darkness of the night before vanishing from sight.