Deep-Spire

  ***

  When Belythna awoke, she found herself face-down on cold, hard stone.

  The smell of damp filled her nostrils.

  Belythna’s body ached, her head throbbed and her mouth tasted foul. For a moment she was completely disoriented. Then it all came rushing back, and with it an agonising sense of loss.

  Stifling a groan, Belythna pulled herself up onto all fours and raised her head to look around. She sat on a circular, stone platform with rope and wooden bridges leading off it on all sides. Nearby, Riadamor sprawled, unconscious, on the rock.

  They sat on the portal: the gateway between two worlds.

  The portal formed the heart of a vast chasm. The sound of dripping water echoed in the emptiness, and only darkness stretched above and below. Pitted stone walls surrounded them, shining wetly in the light from torches chained to the rock. The flames guttered as a cool breeze whispered up from the depths and cast long shadows over the walls.

  Belythna sat back and cast her gaze over the tangle of catwalks that spanned the abyss and circled the walls.

  Despair threatened to overwhelm her, but she forced it back. She could not think about her boys, or Hath, now. There would be an eternity for her to wallow in desolation.

  She glanced over at where Riadamor was stirring.

  The Queen of the Esquill sat up. Riadamor looked about, her face stony.

  Eventually, the two women locked gazes.

  “What have you done?” Riadamor hissed. The torchlight gave her skin a corpse-like appearance and her grey eyes had deepened to black.

  “Brought you to the one place where you can do no harm,” Belythna replied.

  Riadamor’s face twisted.

  “Don’t be so sure of that. Moden has not stripped me of my powers. You have brought me to a dark place – and I have a skill for making dark things do my bidding.”

  Riadamor’s words chilled Belythna and she felt a knot of fear tighten in her belly. She was about to reply, when noises roused them.

  The creak of ropes.

  The slap of bare feet on wood.

  Voices whispering in the darkness.

  The women craned their necks towards the sound, watching as elongated shadows appeared at the far end of one wall – parodies of men, long-limbed and bent.

  Dread curled up within Belythna.

  “Our jailers are coming.”

  The two witches got to their feet. Belythna’s gaze flicked to Riadamor and, for the first time since their arrival, she saw a glimmer of fear on her adversary’s face.

  There was no way out of here – for Moden was an ageless, timeless prison made by long-dead warlocks. Once you stepped through the portal, there was no way back. The ancients had created the perfect dungeon; one where their enemies would simply rot forever.

  Chapter One

  A Word of Warning

  Over thirty years later…

  Osforth Tower

  Weatherbay, Omagen