“You didn’t know Ludvik personally?” I asked.
“No, he was before my time, but I remember Mryddin mentioning him a few times.” She waved a hand toward the door. “Perhaps this is why.”
“You know, the current situation would have been a whole lot easier if Mryddin had just passed on shit like this,” I grumbled.
“His tendency for secrecy is extremely annoying,” she agreed. “But perhaps the very reason this place still exists is because he didn’t pass the knowledge on.”
I grunted and carefully approached the door. The spells protecting it became agitated as we drew closer, but nothing struck out at us. The door itself had no handle, but then, neither had the upper stairwell door. Unlike that one though, this door was highly carved and featured multiple images of battle. There were depictions of a king astride a horse, his sword raised as he plowed through demon hordes, multiple villages being overrun, and what looked to be Darkside gateways out of which all manner of evil poured. Ludvik’s crest was set in the middle of the door, a crowned and rampant lion with a double-forked tail.
“I’ve not seen that crest in any of the heraldic references,” Luc said.
He stood close enough that his breath caressed the back of my neck and an odd sense of security washed through me even as I crossed mental fingers that he would always have my back.
“It’s possible Ludvik’s line died out long before Aldred came on the scene,” Mo said. “It’s also possible that Ludvik is in fact Aldred’s ancestor.”
“Surely something like that would have shown up in the genealogy records,” Luc said.
“They might not go back that far. Gwen, press your hand against the crest—that’s where the bulk of the spells lie.”
I did so. Once again magic swarmed around my fingers, its touch warm and without threat. After a few seconds, it faded away and the door quietly unlocked. I hesitantly pushed it all the way open and swept the flashlight’s bright beam around. The room was square in shape and the walls were covered with brightly colored images. A round oak table, on which sat a number of rolled-up scrolls, dominated the center of the room; evenly spaced around it were twelve chairs.
I glanced around at Luc. “Obviously the Blackbirds were not the first to use a round table.”
“No.” He walked across, placed the shield on the table, and then carefully picked up the top scroll. “These hides are in mint condition.”
“The whole place is.” Mo moved across to the nearest wall. “Look at these images—they’re so damn vibrant they could have been done yesterday.”
I stopped beside her and slowly swept the light left to right, revealing a crudely drawn map filled with locations and names I didn’t recognize. There were creatures on it too—demons mainly, but also figures I presumed were dark elves, given the elongated point to their ears. In a couple of places, the images glowed faintly.
“Have you ever seen something like this before?” I asked.
“No.” Mo’s expression was thoughtful as she moved further down. “There’s magic woven into the mural though.”
My gaze shot to her. “Where?”
She waved a hand to encompass the room. “It’s embedded into the whole thing. It’s not any sort of spell I’ve encountered before.”
“It’s not Mryddin’s work then?”
“No, but he obviously knew about this place.”
“You really need to have a stern word with that man if he ever bothers to make an appearance.”
She nodded, though it was a somewhat absent gesture; her attention was mostly on the mural.
I glanced across to Luc. “Anything in those scrolls?”
“A whole lot of old script I can’t read.” He glanced at me. “Demon script.”
“All of them?”
“The five I’ve checked so far, yes.”
“Why on earth would a human king have demon scrolls stored here?”
“Perhaps they are the reason these maps exist,” Mo said. “After all, the ancients appeared able to translate demon script, a skill we’ve long lost.”
“There’s far too many things that have been lost to the mists of time,” I grumbled, “and we seem to be paying the price for it now.”
“That is the way of the world, I’m afraid, and something you’ll learn to accept over time.” She moved on to the wall. “I do believe the mural on each wall depicts a different portion of the UK.”
“What?” I returned my gaze to the images and studied them for several seconds. “None of those place names exist today.”
She lightly touched the map. “Aquae Sulis is now known as Bath.”
I frowned and stepped closer. “What are the two symbols underneath it?”
“They’re rune symbols—if I remember right, a triangle half-mast on a stick means gateway.”
My stomach did a weird sort of twist even as excitement stirred. “Are there two gateways in Bath?”
“There used to be. One fractured a hundred or so years ago, and that might just explain why the runes are pointed in different directions.”
Meaning this thing could well be a map of the position and current state of all known demon gates at the time this was developed—something we didn’t currently have, despite the fact we knew the locations of most of them.
“If that gate only closed a hundred years ago, then the magic in this thing has to be still active, despite appearing otherwise.”
She nodded and moved farther along the wall, scanning each of the old place names, her expression intent. Once we’d done a circuit around the room, she grabbed my phone and brought the light closer to the nearest rune. “It’s faint, but there’s very definitely another name written under the current one. That would suggest this map has been updated at least once—perhaps even in Aldred’s time.”
“So why would something as useful as this have been forgotten by the other witch kings?”
“That I can’t say. But Mryddin’s magical fingerprints are all over the external layers of this place, so there’s obviously some reason it was locked up and abandoned.”
“I can’t say why it was abandoned,” Luc said, “but I think I found the reason why it ended up deep underground.”
We swung round. He’d placed Hecate along one edge of a scroll and the shield on the other and was studying it intently. “This is written in Old English, which I’m somewhat rusty on, but it seems to be an account of an attack on this structure and what was done to preserve it for future generations.”
Mo moved around the table to stand beside him. For several minutes, neither of them said anything, their attention wholly on the text.
I shifted from one foot to the other and tried not to be impatient. I failed. “Care to share before I die of curiosity?”
“This map room,” Mo said, without looking up, “was part of a much earlier fort constructed on the site and was designed to not only indicate the viability of a gate but also whether demons were active near it.”
My gaze shot to the faintly glowing figures. Some were brighter than others, which might be an indication of how many demons exited—the greater the number, the brighter the glow.