Chapter 679 — Amber

Hearing Pi Yun's words, Amber instinctively glanced at Gao Cen, and the latter spoke up of his own accord: "I can step out, if you'd rather no one else heard."

"No, I don't mind," Amber shook her head. "You've got a good head on you, and you always see things other people miss. I want you here for this—and this notebook... you can read it too."

Gao Yang gave Amber a quiet look, did not protest, and only nodded slightly.

The fountain's edge was no place to dig up such buried memories. The three of them left the overly bustling courtyard, and in a drawing room on the ground floor of Silverhold, Amber solemnly laid the notebook on the table and, in front of Gao Yang and Pi Yun, carefully opened its worn, fragile cover.

The inner pages bore no patterns or crests, none of the ornaments commonly found in the handwritten books of most nobles of this age. On that yellowed paper was written only one simple sentence:

"To my daughter Hope—by the time you see this, you have already grown up happy and safe."

"Still so long-winded..." Amber pressed her lips together, yet her hands moved even more carefully than before as she slowly turned to the first page.

It was a diary, one written under very particular circumstances:

"...Third day inside the Shadow Fortress.

"As a royal shadow guard, I should not leave behind any written material in the course of a classified mission. That is a violation of the secrecy rules. But the situation before me is exceptional—I may not get out of here alive—and so, to leave warning and experience for those who come after, I have decided to record a portion of this journey.

"My name is Sari Randolph, a royal shadow guard. I was ordered to the Dark Mountains of the Southern Marches, to search for the relics of antiquity in this land forsaken by both gods and men.

"I have had the misfortune to be trapped in this place called the 'Shadow Fortress.' I believe this is where the ancient relics are buried...

"...According to the intelligence gathered beforehand, the Shadow Fortress does not lie in the real world we know. It is a domain carved out of the Shadow Realm by the ancient Gondor Empire through a lost and sublime technology. It floats outside the material world, yet it has formed no stable connection with the Shadow Realm either. It is a detached space, one that can be entered only through a specific gate and ritual...

"Part of my intelligence was correct. There does exist a spatial node in the Dark Mountains that leads to the Shadow Fortress. I performed the ritual at that node and successfully entered this place. But the intelligence erred on one point: the 'Shadow Signet Ring' used to open the gate is single-use—or rather, I can find no way to recharge it.

"His Majesty the King gave me one of the two rings in his possession. Clearly, he never imagined the ring could be used only once in opening the Shadow Fortress."

After only these few passages, Amber could not help lifting her head, and found Gao Yang doing the same, and the two stared at each other.

"The Shadow Signet Ring..." Amber's hand unconsciously went to a slender chain hanging at her neck. Two rings of antique design hung from it, one still shining with magical light, the other dull and dark.

The ring that still held magical light had been obtained from the hands of Francis II; the dull one Amber had carried since childhood. Now, at last, both rings had their origins explained.

She lowered her head and read on:

"...Though I am trapped here, I cannot help but marvel at the sublime craft of the ancient Gondor Empire. The Shadow Fortress is a place beyond imagining—even the process of entering it is incredible. I stood at the correct convergence of magical currents in the Dark Mountains; I needed only to channel magic into the ring, and a gate to the Shadow Realm opened in ordinary space and time. I suspect the ring merely sent out a signal in this process, and that the true opening of the gate was performed by some installation within the Shadow Fortress—but I have found no trace of it yet...

"...The monumental structure is forged from some artificial material, harder than rock. It floats in a void, with no land connected to it on any side. There is no luminous body of any kind in the sky here, which accords with the scenes described in the treatises on the Shadow Realm...

"My present position should be the forecourt of this ancient installation. I can see a great gate, and beyond the gate is pure, void darkness, which makes one wonder what purpose the gate could possibly serve. But on the limited platform before the gate I have found some curious pillars; I suspect they serve to anchor some kind of vehicle, or some kind of mount capable of traversing the Shadow Realm. The ancient Gondorians may well have had the means to venture deep into that void darkness—they were, after all, the Gondorians, who could do anything...

"At the other end of the courtyard lies the main body of the structure, a vast palace or fortress. I have explored only a small part of its entrance, and its scale astonishes me. Within are countless corridors and chambers, empty halls and storehouses... I cannot imagine how many people once worked and lived in this installation outside of reality... Its scale is so vast that I suspect many could have lived out their whole lives here. If a child were born inside, and no one imparted the proper knowledge to it, it might not even know the outside world existed...

"Ah, my abundant imagination can only serve to pass the time. It cannot get me out of this damned place."

Amber turned the pages, and for a time the quiet drawing room held nothing but the rustle of paper and the soft, even breathing of three people.

"...Fourth day of being trapped.

"For the past three days I have been deliberating whether I should press deeper into the fortress. It may mean added risk: the defense mechanisms within the ancient installation may still be active, and there may be sleeping ruin guardians that I could wake.

"They say the puppet guards of the Violet Kingdom can keep running for six hundred years after their master's death. Those legendary Gondorian iron soldiers could surely run far longer...

"But perhaps I should take the risk. I have searched the courtyard and the outer corridors for three days, and there is no device here capable of opening a spatial gate. My food and water have reached a very dangerous state. Between dying of thirst or hunger and having my head cut off by an ancient guardian, the latter may be the more merciful end.

"I am going into the inner corridors.

"...Sixth day. Still trapped.

"This damned fortress—why must it be so vast!! How many corridors does it have, how many rooms, how many halls! Did the Gondorians throw an entire city's population into the Shadow Realm?

"How sublime was the technology of the Gondor Empire! They could build such a fortress in the Shadow Realm; they could let tens of thousands live long-term in this alien space—and I, a royal shadow guard from a thousand years hence, can do nothing in this ancient installation but crawl about in every direction without finding a single clue. It is truly ironic.

"By the way, my water is gone, and my food is exhausted as well.

"Seventh day. I found an empty room. It may once have been some kind of research installation; I saw platforms bearing runes, and pipes and vessels whose purpose I could not discern. Regrettably, there was no water in any of the pipes or vessels.

"I must begin to consider what comes after.

"Eighth day. Today's keyword is moss.

"Yes, moss! In this fortress cut off from the world for a thousand years, there is actually moss! In a place like the Shadow Realm, there is actually moss!