Finder's Bane - Kate Novak [30]
Jedidiah had said something about it not being such a dead end.
Joel knelt in the straw and examined the wall where Jedidiah had created a window. The stone was oily and quite roughly hewn. A chunk broke off in his hand. Curious, Joel tossed the rock in the air. Although it came from the floating rock fortress, it did not float of its own accord. The cell was well lit by the same magical light that illuminated everything, but it was still hard to examine the blackness of the wall. The rough surface cast shadows over each crack and niche. Joel ran a piece of straw horizontally across the stone. It stuck in a shadowed crevice. Joel ran the straw up vertically. There was definitely a crack there. Just at the edge of his reach, the crack took a sharp ninety-degree turn.
Ultimately the crack formed a perfect rectangle exactly where the window had been in Joel's dream. Had the dream actually been a vision? the bard wondered.
Joel cast a glance back down the corridor, but it was empty. His jailers, trusting the strength of the cell, hadn't posted a guard.
Joel pushed gently along the seam, but the rock didn't move. The opening could be mortared shut, secured with some secret mechanism, or merely stiff from disuse.
The Rebel Bard placed his shoulder against the stone and pushed with all his weight. Something made a rusty, grinding noise, and the wall shifted, just a fraction. The seam was now a clear divot, an inch deep, with a similar-sized rise on the far edge of the doorway. The section of wall pivoted about a central post.
Joel pushed harder, and now the wall moved more easily. Black dust showered down from the top of the door, creating a dirty waterfall that billowed in clouds near the floor before settling. Joel brushed the black dust off his tunic before poking his head into the space he'd just discovered.
Behind the door, the air was fresh and cool, which could indicate there was another exit. It was dark, though, pitch-black, and full of cobwebs, which could mean no one else used the door or even knew about its existence. Wrapping his cloak around his hand and sweeping the air before him, Joel half stepped, half crawled into the passage beyond.
Something glittered on the floor just beyond the door. Joel bent over and picked it up. Black dust had drifted into the finely carved lines, delineating each tiny feather. It was a tiny set of golden wings, no bigger than his palm-the same talisman Jedidiah had held in Joel's vision!
Joel considered the source of the vision. Could it really have been Finder who sent him the dream of Jedidiah? With a sense of embarrassment, the bard recalled how he had questioned whether his god could get him out of this predicament. A sense of awe crept over him to think that the Nameless Bard might actually be paying attention to him, a priest who doubted his own calling and hadn't the sense to avoid being kidnapped by Xvimists.
"Thank you, Finder. Thank you very much," Joel whispered, hoping fervently that his god heard his gratitude as readily as he'd listened to his doubts.
The Rebel Bard blew the dust from the talisman and slipped it into an inner pocket of his tunic. Then he began to feel his way through the darkness behind his cell.
Beyond the secret door was a corridor going off in the same direction as the one that led to Joel's cell. The priestess, Walinda of Bane, had declared that the Temple in the Sky had once been a temple of Bane. Apparently when the floating rock had changed owners, many of the old passages had been closed off and forgotten.
The illumination from the cell extended only a few yards into the passageway. Beyond that, darkness reigned. Joel was forced to hug the wall, brushing away cobwebs, testing each footstep carefully before moving forward. He reached a corner in the corridor. It formed a T branching off to the right and left. Joel chose the direction in which the cultists had dragged Holly. Then the corridor turned again, and ebon blackness, like a velvet hood, fell over his eyes. His movement slowed. Then his foot sensed