Page 115 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
Mr. Knightley found another lamp on a shelf. He lit it and left it on the cooking table. The shackles cast long, wavering shadows. “Where are the crawlers?”
I had expected to follow the illusory tendrils, like greasy, living rope, but there was no sign of them. I turned slowly. “I am not sure,” I admitted. Tucked under my petticoat, the amulet pulsed, a second heart. Had it frightened them away?
Augusta pointed to the trapdoor, flush with the floor and across from the cooking table.
“Tell me that is not a cellar,” Mr. Knightley said.
“That is the cellar,” I said.
He undid the latch, then rubbed his fingers and sniffed them. “Pitch.” He pulled the trapdoor up and over, laid it flat, then held the lamp through, revealing steep, descending steps.
Augusta whimpered and edged away. “I cannot go down there.”
“You do not need to,” I reassured her. “I feel them now.” Light or sound had woken them. More than one black binding flicked past my eyes, and beyond that, I sensed… suffering. Pain. There was an answering surge of warmth on my breast, but it did not fill me with some grand sense of power. Instead, I felt pity.
“I hear… something,” Mr. Knightley said. “Emma, I am no longer sure we should attempt this.”
“When Mr. Elton brought that crawler, it would not approach me. They fear a great wyfe. Let me go first. I will only look. And, I havethis.”
I drew the amulet from behind my clothes and rested it openly on my chest. It felt dense and vital, part of my being, not a passive decoration. Yuánchi’s scale shone now, visibly rippling with carmine and gold waves of strange fire.
I took the lamp from Mr. Knightley and descended the steps into the cellar.
It was not a deep cellar, dug down only five feet. The ceiling was the kitchen floor, built a little above ground. Together that gave enough space that one could stand upright, only ducking for the beams.
I stood that way, astonished, until Mr. Knightley arrived beside me.
Hartfield’s cellar had been a snug fit in the past, full of sacks of turnips and potatoes and grain, a few racks for wines, and wheels of cheese.
Now, it was a vast cave. The floor by my feet still had its fitted brick tiles, but a few steps farther, that fractured into churned earth. Ragged pits sank even deeper. The raw soil sucked up the lamplight, turning every shadow inky black.
The usual foodstuffs were gone. Instead, there were oak casks like those used for Madeiras and brandies, dozens of them, the wooden exteriors streaked with glistening crystals as if they had leaked and dried. The smaller ones, those a strong man might lift alone, were stacked in upright pairs. Others were large, as tall as my waist. Those lay on their sides, some resting on curved wooden braces so they would not roll, others half buried. The large ones had oval wooden lids on the top side, curved to fit the barrel. Two of the half-buried barrels were massive, longer than baths, almost boat hulls. The lids on those would admit a cow.
Pungent, sweet-sick odors of rot hung in the air, stinging my eyes. The flame of the lamp sparked and fluttered, casting fleeting halos of green and blue.
“What is in the air?” I asked. The bitter odor persisted, but something new hung, a choking blanket so thick I fancied it blurred my sight.
“Alcohol,” Mr. Knightley muttered, “and some noxious ether. Also, fumes from the pitch.” He pointed to the lid on a nearby barrel. It was sealed with sloppy smears of an oily, black substance. “One does not use pitch on barrels of brandy. It would make the spirits inedible.”
“I do not think these contain spirits,” I said softly.
“Nor do I.” He shifted his grip on the ax and used the head to sift through a pile of wood from a smashed barrel. He hooked something and lifted a carapace from a large crawler. It was empty, like a discarded shell, and as long as my arm.
“Now what?” he asked.
The beating heat at my breast quickened. The fiery gleams on Yuánchi’s scale were brighter. They rippled faster.
“Do you see these lights?” I asked, touching the setting.
Mr. Knightley, after a moment, said doubtfully, “I see the amulet.”
So it was illusion, or rather my other sense, the one that saw bindings. But bindings were real. This was, too.
Most of the rotted, black bindings had retreated when I entered the cellar, but a thick one flickered reluctantly in and out of view. It came from one of the boat-sized barrels.
Carefully, I approached it, holding the lamp high, Mr. Knightley at my side with the ax. As we drew near, there was a dull slosh. The wooden frame shifted.
“If this is one of those monsters the slavers use in battle, we should not open it,” Mr. Knightley whispered. “They have only been killed by trapping them and having troops of men shoot. Or cannons.”
