Harald
“There is nothing down here,” Winnifred complained once again. “We should go back.”
They had never been that far into the tunnels before. The smooth finished stone with reinforced steel and large corridors with smaller connecting corridors were long gone. Everything had turned to natural rock over an hour an hour ago. They could see the scorch marks from whatever tool had made them long ago.
It had been longer since they had crossed through the last sealed door and the lights had given way to faded emergency lights before all lights had disappeared and they were forced to use the light from their small datapads to see as they walked.
“Yeah,” Jae agreed as the five of them stopped. “I’ll bet your father is just expanding and reinforcing an existing cave system. We should have stayed and explored the old sections. There is nothing down here but darkness.”
Harald let out a small sigh. They were probably right. He had no idea how deep in the mountain they were, but they hadn’t seen anything other than darkness, rock, and small drips of water here and there from the walls or small cracks in the rocks. They had come across a few old wood crates that had long rotted, with nothing in them.
Harald doubted it was a natural cave system though. The marks on the walls did not seem natural to him. He couldn’t deny that there was likely nothing down there though. They had never been so far deep before, but they had also never found so little. Some of the old abandoned sections had items, and supplies that were hundreds of years old, maybe even thousands of years old when the Tutha controlled the world of Isca before the arrival of the Fabians, long before the Furse arrived in the Dragon’s Head Nebula.
“I don’t know, there has to be something,” Harald finally said but he knew his voice said otherwise. The thought of some unknown treasure hidden in the depths of the tunnels under Stonehill Hold filled his dreams, but even he doubted there was anything worth finding the further they went.
The light from Gwen’s datapad lit up her face and red hair as she turned it from the darkness ahead of them, and towards herself to look at the screen. “It’s 4 0’clock,” she said.
“What?” Harald asked quickly and turned his own datapad. “No!” he said sharply. “I am so dead,” he continued. His mother was going to kill him. There was no way they would get back in time for the seating of the evening meal.
Joslyn laughed out loud. “Oh you better hope that is all she does,” her father’s ward said with a grin that looked almost evil in the dim light from their datapads. “I mean she is going to kill us all, but at least she will kill you first.”
“Okay okay,” Harald said. “Let's go back to the surface. Maybe if we are lucky we can sneak into the hall before she or anyone else notices.”
Gwen laughed. “Because your mother or her shield maidens don’t know everything that goes on here.”
Harald let out a small snort. Gwen and Joslyn both enjoyed when he was in trouble a little too much for his taste. They were always by his side, along with Winnifred and Jae but it was always Harald that led them into that trouble, and often against their advice.
“Come on.” Harald said to his four friends, and father’s wards. “If we hurry maybe we can get to the great hall before the evening announcements are finished.”
The four of them nodded and agreed before they turned back the way they had come. Their datapads lit the way for them, and created small bright beams of light in the darkness. The light was almost bright enough that they could almost jog through the tunnels, and large enough they could each walk side by side.
They slowly climbed through the tunnels as they rose through the stone mountain. The slight grade of the tunnel floor brought them closer to the first of many sealed doors. There were no stairs until after they reached the first door. The slope of the ground rose and fell but was otherwise smooth but for the dust and small rock which had chipped and fallen from the roof and walls.
Harald placed his hand on the small palm reader next to the first door before he entered an access code to open the door and watched the metal door slide sideways into the walls to grant them access into the reinforced tunnels and storage rooms beneath Stonehill Hold.
Harald and his friends made good time in reaching the door that brought them into the estate. They passed through several more security doors, which Harald opened with his own security access code. As they moved through the tunnels, boxes and crates, and other storage items lined the edges of the tunnels filled with stockpiles of supplies, some of them older than Harald. They passed by door after door which led to smaller tunnels and rooms and yet to be explored areas by the gang.
The five of them were forced to climb stair after stair from one floor to another again and again until they finally reached the last floor of tunnels which lead to the last of the basement floors which the tunnels lay beneath. There were no lifts until they reached the last basement of Stonehill Hold, and there were more than fifty floors of tunnels, and another twenty floors of basements in the large estate that sat near the top of the large mountain, and old ruins of the Tutha city that surrounded it.
The return to Stonehill Hold was quicker than expected, but Harald was breathing heavily. The stairs which led to the last basement gave way from reinforced bare walls, and crates of supplies with dust on them to the well furnished room where the entrance to the tunnels.
Harald waited for everyone to climb up the last set of stairs into the basement before he hit the hidden button in the bust of his long dead ancestor Ulrik Frost that sat on one of the many bookshelves that lined the small entertainment room. The stairs began to shift as they closed to hide the entrance and Harald flipped the head of Ulrik back onto his shoulder.
They didn’t wait for the stairs to slide close and disappear behind one of the bookshelves. They had seen it many times, and they didn’t have time to waste.
Harald led the way as he tried to keep a quick pace. Gwen, and Joslyn easily kept up with him, but Jae was struggling and Winnifred was already falling behind, which forced him to slow their pace. He could hear the light encouragement from the others as they all continued with heavy breathing.
They reached the lift which would bring them to any of the floors of the big estate of Stonehill Hold, and climbed in. Harald waited for Winnifred to get in before he hit the panel to bring them to the main floor where the great hall was.
Harald pulled out his datapad and looked at it. It was ten after five. They had made better time than he expected, but it was still ten minutes after the start of evening meal. The evening announcements might still be going on, but it would be close. He hoped there was a lot of announcements.
“That has to be the best run of your life,” Harald said to Winnifred who was breathing harder than anyone.
“I wish I was in the lab,” she replied through small gasps of air.
“Ah come on, it’s good to get out of there and get some fresh air,” Joslyn said with a laugh.
“Next time let's get some fresh air instead of spending it down there,” Winnifred countered.
The doors of the lift slid open to the large hallway, and Harald and his friends walked out and moved quickly down the empty hall filled with large paintings, and small objects against the walls.
They reached one set of the side doors to the great hall. Harald pulled open the carved wooden door as silently as he could for his friends. He could hear a voice inside, and knew they had made it in time, and that the evening announcements were still on going.
Harald smiled and thanked the ancestors for his luck as he climbed inside the great hall. The door slammed shut behind him when he let go of the door. He closed his eyes for a moment, and prayed that no one heard it as the loud voice continued without stopping. He opened his eyes and saw the heads of at least a dozen people staring at him and his friends, and grimaced.
“Glad you could join us,” Harald heard the hard yet familiar and soft voice coming from one of the high tables cut through the sneers and giggles which had started from those near the side door they had used.
Harald stood up straight with his shoulders pushed back and looked at the high table before he lowered his head in defeat. He lifted his head again and looked at the high table and those who were staring at him and his friends. “I am sorry we are late father,” he said softly.
System-lord Frost looked at his son, and Harald gave a small nervous smile as his mother shook her head with disappointment from her seat at the high table next to her father.
“I’m sure Quincey will be thankful for you and your friends volunteering to help clean the kitchen after the evening meal,” his father the System-lord of Isca said with a small smile and wink that only he and his friends could see.
