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CHAPTER FIVE: ON THE TRAIL
Nigel brushed off his clothes as he got up off of the floor. That had been...unexpected. He peered up, eyeing the shadowy slide that had brought him from the library. It looked innocent enough now, but falling down it had almost scared a year's life out of him. The room he found himself in was dark and windowless. It was also empty, as most of the rooms in the castle were. There were four hallways branching from it, and to Nigel it seemed as if his body were the completion of an “x”. He regarded the tunnels for a moment, knowing that along at least three of them there were probably traps waiting to be sprung. In fact the room he stood in could also be trapped. This realization brought a frown to his face, and he slung his pack to the floor. It was time to consult Turnbull's notes once more. Thinking of Turnbull made Nigel wince. That was the first time, even with all of the adventures he'd been on with Sydney, he had ever seen so much blood. But it hadn't been the last. Nigel's wince turned into a shudder. He let himself remember how still the night had been as he and his guide, Pierre, approached the ruins of Pres Herbeux. Pierre had warned that sometimes dangerous animals prowled the ruins after dark. In the end, it wasn't an animal they found. “Sydney. You've got to find Sydney,” Nigel mumbled, trying to push the memory away. It was tenacious, however, and the scene forced itself into Nigel's mind. Pierre's cry when they found his brother, cut open and mutilated. The horror and Nigel's sudden understanding of what Carmen Facey's death must have looked like. The blood and the almost overwhelming urge to retch. The fear as Nigel abruptly realized that whoever killed Carmen and Turnbull was not in front of Sydney but behind her. Stalking. And the only one who could save her was Nigel himself. Nigel had spent the time since then praying that he was not too late. His worry grew step by step. He cursed his slowness and the fact that he hadn't woken when she left that morning. If she died, it was as good as his fault. The thought made his hand shake, and it was harder to read Turnbull's notes. He squinted at the handwriting, trying to figure out the right direction. After a few minutes, he decided that he needed to take the passage to his right. Having made the decision, he rolled up the papers and shoved them back into his pack. Despite the fact that he was about ninety per cent sure of his decision, Nigel was still hesitant as he approached the tunnel. The castle around him was eerie—the whole atmosphere reminded him of a horror movie. For one, it just felt wrong. It was as if a blanket of dread surrounded the place, and it seemed to intensify the further he went. And there was the smell. To him, it smelled like corruption. There was no other way he could describe it. It made the bile rise in his throat and the back of his nose tingle. As he started down the corridor, it seemed to whisper to him with a subtle voice, almost like a snake's scales against stone. Nigel shivered and clutched his bag tighter but still resolutely moved on. He was used to fear. Fear was an old, comfortable friend he'd become well acquainted with on his adventures with Sydney. It had no power over him, especially here, with his best friend's life at stake. He hadn't traveled very far when broken cobwebs and a clear footprint made by Sydney's own boot showed him he had chosen the right tunnel. He let a sigh escape, and his grip on his pack loosened slightly. To make the footprint, Sydney had to still be alive. The knowledge made him hurry once more. His torch bobbed, creating strange shadows along the gray walls. There were three more branchings. Each time, Nigel took the left fork. As he took the last one, he stopped and stared. The whole hallway, along both sides, was lined with alcoves. Each alcove contained a skeleton. Some of them had shattered with time, but some were remarkably intact. Widely grinning skulls leered at him from these. Nigel had never liked skeletons, though they didn't bother him as much as they once did. Even so, eyeless sockets seemed to watch him as he boldly stepped among the aged bones. His footfalls echoed loudly with each step, and the whispers were louder. Now they hovered just outside of hearing, as if the long dead souls of those trapped here were talking to one another. It made Nigel's skin crawl. Frowning, he pushed away the unpleasant images the hallway conjured in his imagination. He forced himself to point his torch straight ahead and refused to look to either side. The whispers he thought he heard were probably rats or old stones settling. In his mind, he saw Sydney walking down this same corridor, her back straight, and no hint of fear on her features. She would have been striding confidently, a fierce excitement in her dark eyes. The thought turned his frown to a smile. He couldn't believe it had been two years since he had seen her that way. The image was as sharp and clear as if he had gone on her last hunt. With the smile, the corridor seemed less oppressive, and it was easier for him to ignore the skeletons. The hallway ended abruptly, as Nigel knew it was supposed to. The dead end was made of the same blocks as the rest of the corridor. It even had its own skeletons. They stood facing Nigel. Unlike the others, they had nasty weapons whose curved blades looked new. Nigel studied the skeletons and their blades for a moment. He wondered at their purpose. Were they there to guard against people who came to liberate La Mort Rapide? Or were they there for something more sinister and supernatural? After all, they were the only skeletons bearing weapons. Was their job to prevent the others from escaping? Nigel shook his head at these useless speculations and looked for the trigger he knew to be on the wall. Seeing nothing, he put his fingers to it, gently running them along the cracks and seems. There was an almost imperceptible click, and Nigel felt all the color drain from his face as he quickly jumped back. He moved just in time as both skeletons turned and their blades sliced through where he had been standing. Metal clanged as the curved weapons hit the wall. Chips of stone flew at Nigel, and he threw up his left arm to protect his face and eyes. He didn't see them, but he could hear a rusty creaking as the skeletons righted themselves and assumed their former pose. Nigel swallowed hard and peeked over the top of his arm. All was as it had been except for the chunks that had been broken from the wall by the force of the assault. More careful this time, Nigel explored the wall with his eyes instead of his hands. Every few seconds, he stopped to glance at one or the other of the skeletons, not sure what would set them off. He found what he was looking for on the side of a block near the floor. Almost timidly, he reached out and pushed the tiny trigger. There was a groan and once more Nigel had to move quickly. The whole section of wall began to swing outward. It opened wide enough for two people to slip through side by side and stopped. He continued to eye the skeletons warily as he slipped through the crack. Nigel was puzzled to find himself in what appeared to be an empty closet. He shone his torch around it, trying to discover what came next. The wall closed behind him, and Nigel had a moment of claustrophobic panic before he realized that he was gently rising. Whether through magic or through weights, Le Sorcier had managed to invent a primitive elevator. With a sigh of relief, Nigel relaxed and prepared to meet the castle's next challenge.
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