Maryld was giving him a funny look. “How do you feel?”
“How should I feel? Like I have a heavy cap on my head.”
“That’s all?” She sounded disappointed. “Nothing else? Nothing out of the ordinary?”
“Nope.” He adjusted the cap slightly. “I think I’m going to wear it from now on. It’s cool and the silver offers some protection against a blow to the head, though steel would be better.” He glanced over at Hargrod. “What do you think, Zhist’a? Will this turn a sword?” He bent slightly to give the reptilian warrior a better look.
“That dependss, naturally, on the ssize of the ssword, but I should think it would certainly ssend an edge ssliding, if not a two-handed cleave. It iss a great deal better than nothing.”
“I’ll just have to watch who I fight, then.” He looked past the Zhis’ta and his expression changed. “Guess what I see, Sranul?”
“I’d prefer not to.” The roo was still miffed at the uselessness of the silver cap.
“Then I’ll show you. Come on, everyone.”
They followed him down the hall. Where it widened out, someone had turned the multicolored marble stones into a chessboard. The only pieces visible were a white pawn and rook and a black king.
“This is what you saw?” Sranul examined the rook curiously. “What are these statues?”
“Part of a game, though these are larger than normal pieces. A very complicated game.”
The roo snorted, moved away from the oversized castle. “I’m not very interested in games.”
“I didn’t think that you were, but that’s not what I brought you here to see. Look over there.” He nodded toward a far wall. “Behind the mirror.”
Sranul hopped over to the indicated wall. An ornate oval mirror sat there, mounted on wooden wheels. “This is what you saw?”
“No, behind it. Behind the mirror. There’s something else.” There’d better be, he added silently, or Sranul’s going to think me a hairless fool.
He was worrying needlessly. The door he thought he’d glimpsed was there, all right. From a distance it looked just like another section of wall, but Praetor had made too many iron hinges in his life not to recognize one of the size that just showed above the upper rim of the mirror. To anyone not well versed in the arts of metallurgy the hinge would have resembled nothing more than another decoration.
Sranul shoved the mirror aside and gaped at the enormous iron door. It was high and wide enough to admit the biggest troll—or even a demon king in battle garb. Bands of iron crisscrossed the door itself, strengthening it further.
“A vault,” Sranul whispered. “Dal’brad’s treasure must be inside—all the wealth he’s gathered from the nether regions to finance his campaign against the outside world, all the booty pillaged by his demonic legions, here for the taking.” He took a step toward the vault, stopped, and looked sheepishly back at Praetor. “But how do we get inside?”
“My friend, I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“You found it from across the hall when no one else noticed it. You must have some idea how to open it?”
“I recognized a hinge and thought it must attach to some half-concealed door. My knowledge ends there.” He studied the imposing metal barrier. “A small fire-breathing dragon might melt a way through.” /
“Funny, very funny,” the roo griped. “I just happen to have one here in my pouch.”
“What do you think, Maryld? Maryld?” Praetor turned.
Instead of studying the vault, the thaladar was engrossed in a silent examination of the giant chess pieces.
“It makes no sense,” she murmured. “Why only three pieces? Why have only three out on the floor? They’re only wood, and not valuable in and of themselves.”
“You think they may have something to do with opening the vault?”
“They must have something to do with something besides a game. You can’t play chess with three pieces.”
Sranul hopped over to join them. “Maybe if they’re moved about.” Reaching out, he tried to push the black king forward.
His hand went right through it.
He yanked it clear, eyes wide. Praetor had a moment of fear, but the roo hastened to reassure him. “I’m okay, friend Praetor. I am not hurt. Only surprised.”
Maryld was nodding to herself. “I’m sure of it now. Moving these pieces in the proper manner somehow keys the vault door.”
“Wonderful,” mumbled Sranul. “All we have to do to open the vault is move these statues. The trouble is, they’re not there. They just look like they’re there. Who says demons don’t have a sense of humor?”
“They’re there,” Praetor insisted. “We just don’t know how to make use of them. I suspect Dal’brad himself knows the secret of manipulating them, or perhaps Gorwyther, too. Trolls like treasure as much as any of us, and their loyalty can waver when gold is involved.” He indicated the chess pieces standing insubstantially before them. “I suspect this has been designed to keep the treasure out of the hands of Dal’brad’s own minions as much as safe from intruders such as us.”
Sranul bounded back to stand next to the door, inspected it minutely. There wasn’t a handle or knob to be seen. He tapped the iron. It was too thick to ring.
When his companions resumed their march down the long hall, he lingered behind. “Hey, where are you going? We have to try this door, somehow. We have to!”
Praetor looked back over his shoulder. “My heart is with you, friend Sranul, but my mind says we should be on our way. We don’t want to stay too long in any one place. If that vault does hold the demon king’s treasure, it’s one of the first places he’ll check as soon as he’s notified of our intrusion. We don’t want to be here when he arrives, do we?”
“But the treasure!” the roo pleaded. “Hargrod, what about you, my scaly friend? The Zhis’ta are a practical people.”
“Later perhapss, if we are granted the time,” Hargrod replied. “We’ve more important thingss to do jusst now.”
“More important than the treasure?” Sranul stood before the vault, wringing his hands helplessly, more frustrated than he’d ever been in his life. The riches of the ages were within his grasp, and his friends refused to try and obtain it. His eyes shifted from retreating companions to door and back again.
Maryld called back to him as they turned the far corner. “Maybe there is no treasure in there, roo. Maybe that door is designed to keep something in instead of out. Maybe Dal’brad put it there to tempt intruders, concealing it with purposeful subtlety so that treasure-seekers would waste their time breaking in, only to find something dark and dangerous inside. Think on that.”
Sranul frowned at this, a thought he hadn’t considered. He turned to stare at the silent, massive door. It looked like a vault door, it even felt like a vault door. But what if the thaladar was right? What if it was nothing more than an exceedingly clever trap? What if behind it waited, not unimaginable wealth, but inconceivable horror? Something so monstrous and powerful and deadly it required a door of such dimensions to imprison it—until the curious and greedy came along and persisted in forcing an entrance?
He found himself backing slowly away from the door, walking carefully so as not to disturb—what? He turned and bounded down the hallway.
“Hey, wait for me! You’re right—we’ve more important business to attend to.”
“Right,” said Praetor, “and maybe we can return to try the door again another time.”
“Sure.” The roo swung in line alongside Maryld and lowered his voice. “You’re just trying to frighten me, aren’t you? The vault really holds the treasure, doesn’t it?”
She smiled enigmatically over at him. “What do you think, roo?”
“Damn you, thaladar! I can deal with swords and even with magic, but fighting with words isn’t fair!”
“What happened to your words of a moment ago? ‘We’ve more important business to attend to’?”
He turned away from her. “Thalada
r,” he grumbled. “Try deliberately to confuse you. Never mean what they say.”
“Ah, but we always say what we mean,” she told him gently. Sad to say, that did not make the disappointed roo rest any easier in mind.
“Cheer up,” Praetor urged him. He gestured at the walls of the new corridor they were walking through. “Enjoy the beauty around you.”
In truth, this corridor was the loveliest section of Shadowkeep they’d yet encountered. Not overpoweringly spacious, like the hall of the mage king, it was lined with sculptures of flowers and trees, all done in silver by some unknown, sure-fingered artisans.
“Here’s your treasure,” Praetor told him. “All you have to do is find a way to get Shadowkeep into your pouch.”
“Bah. What’s a little silver compared to what we may have left behind us?”
“Ah, but what of the guards that lie within?” Maryld teased him.
“May lie within,” he countered. “If we don’t try for the treasure, we’ll never acquire any. No, don’t tell me again the real reason why we’re here. I remember, and I agree with it, or I wouldn’t be here. But altruism doesn’t fill one’s purse. I would like to leave this place with more than moral satisfaction in my pockets.”
Of course, there were the three goldens he’d found in the trash heap. Hardly an amount worth risking one’s life for. What was he doing here, anyway, so far from friends and family and clan? He’d already missed at least one seasonal carnival celebration. The roos were nomads, but that didn’t keep him from feeling homesick.
Home: good conversation, food and drink aplenty, laughter and fine times. Better there than here in this dank dungheap of stone full of mysteries and dangers. Shadowkeep stank of evil. Sure, it would be nice to save the world, but what was wrong with wanting to take back a little treasure to remember it by? He found himself staring at the human who’d somehow convinced him to come along on this crazy adventure.
What drove Praetor Fime? In his own way the man was more of a puzzle than either Zhis’ta or thaladar. Now, take Hargrod: there was nothing in the least mysterious about him. His soul, his attitudes, his reasoning was laid out undisguised for anyone to see. As for the thaladar woman, it was clear she relished the opportunity to pit her own skills against those of the demon king, and Praetor had mentioned something about her family having personal reasons for wanting her here.
But the man—his motives remained indecipherable. The roo shook his head and marched on.
If poor Sranul had been apprised of one simple fact, all would have become clear to him. He didn’t know that Praetor Fime was deeply in love. That drives men to do the most insane things, things they would never consider doing for money or glory. But Sranul didn’t know, and so he didn’t understand even as he poked into the occasional corner or peeped behind a piece of furniture in search of discarded gold.
The silver decorations were quite beautiful. Among the flowers and trees there now appeared the figures of young women, also worked in silver. The poses and clothing were different but the face was the same on each figure.
Praetor remarked on the similarity to Maryld. “Who is she?”
“I believe they are images of Sildra, a patroness of a society known as the Brothers of Aid. I cannot imagine Dal’brad putting them here, so they must have been installed on Gorwyther’s command.”
“There must be a reason for so many of them,” Praetor murmured. “So much metalwork implies a purpose beyond mere decoration.”
As sometimes happened, Maryld didn’t offer a reply, and Praetor didn’t press her for one. He’d learned to leave her alone when she was thinking.
A muttered curse came from Sranul. The roo bent to pick up a small piece of wood. “Tripped,” he explained tersely, preparing to throw the bit of garbage over his shoulder.
“No, give it here.” Maryld held out a hand. Puzzled, the roo handed the stick to her, watched while she turned it over and over in her hands, examining it carefully. Praetor joined her.
“Doesn’t look like much,” he finally commented.
“It probably isn’t, but still—see here?” He had to look close to see the tiny markings on the wood.
“Decorations, or the name of the owner of whatever it once was.”
“Decorations, perhaps. An inscription, perhaps. What puzzles me is that I don’t recognize the writing.”
“Doesn’t sound very useful, then.”
She explained patiently. “Just because you don’t recognize something doesn’t mean that it’s useless, my good Praetor.”
He refused to back down. “It’s just an old stick.”
“Old, yes. Just a stick, I’m not so sure.”
“It wouldn’t even make a good arrow shaft.”
“There is plenty of arrow material lying about. This I intend to keep.” She looked back down the hallway. “Trolls can be very persistent. The spell I placed on the wall we came through will not last forever.”
Sranul jerked around. “I’d forgotten all about our lovely friends.” He turned to face her, sniffed. “Maybe I do think too much about treasure, but at least I don’t go around collecting garbage.” With that he bounded off ahead of them.
She glanced sideways at Praetor. “What do you think of that?”
He hesitated, framing his reply carefully. “I think it is just an old stick, but I also think that the only way we’re going to get out of here alive is by relying on each other’s expertise and advice. So—if you say that a piece of wood is worth saving, I guess that we’d best hang on to it.”
She smiled. “You and Sranul may be right. This may be nothing more than an old stick, not even suitable for an arrow.”
He shrugged. “There’s some usefulness in everything. Perhaps one day it will serve to start a fire.”
They continued down the winding corridor until a sudden turn caused them to halt abruptly. They had come to another dead end, only this time there was no wall of shifting colors to greet them.
Ahead, the stone vanished. The hallway ended in a wall of night. Onyx black, motionless, it offered a far less inviting egress than had the flowing wall of colors. There were no switches or levers, no stairs, no side passageways. Only the solid, impenetrable blackness.
“We can’t go back,” Hargrod told them. “I have heard ssoundss for ssome time now but forbore from mentioning it lesst I upsset you needlessly.”
Praetor strained but could hear nothing. But Sranul could, and nodded confirmation of the Zhis’ta’s warning. “They’re back there. Far behind us, but coming closer.”
“It is as I feared,” said Maryld worriedly. “The spell has faded and the trolls have come through after us. We may have little to worry about. Much of what tempted us should pique their primitive curiosity and slow their pursuit. But they will not forget us forever. We must move on.”
“On to where?” Praetor studied the darkness before them. “Through there?”
“Why not?” §he asked. “It’s only another doorway, like the wall of colors.”
“It doesn’t look very inviting.”
“I agree, but it’s better than waiting here for the trolls to find us.”
“How can you be sure it’s another doorway?”
“I can’t. One cannot be certain of anything in Shadowkeep, as I have said before, but since we arrived through the wall of colors we have encountered nothing resembling a normal doorway, not even stairs. If the only way in was through the wall of light, it seems highly possible that the only way out is through this wall of blackness. Not even the demon king would leave himself only a single escape route from a part of his domain.
“As Hargrod so succinctly says, we cannot go back. Therefore we must go on.”
“Fine,” said Praetor. Taking her hand and forcing himself to move without thinking of possible consequences, he stepped into the darkness.
The subsequent disorientation came as a relief, since it reminded him of the brief passage through the wall of colors. What was not expected was the
abrupt drop in temperature and the absence of light. He began to shiver. Was this what the transfer promised: an endless sightless march toward death by freezing?
The ground beneath him remained solid, and the pressure of Maryld’s hand in his was reassuring. Presumably Sranul and Hargrod were somewhere close behind.
And eventually the darkness began to dissipate. His eyes adapted to the intensifying but still dim light. They were in some kind of circular chamber that smelled of decaying vegetation. Below the alcove in which they found themselves was a round pool filled to an unknown depth with scummy water. Mats of brown algae drifted lazily on the surface. Slime and moss clung to the walls.
“I don’t much like this,” Sranul muttered. “I never was much for swimming. Maybe we’d better go back.”
“Go back to what?” Maryld whispered. “Back to a dead-end hall to wait for the trolls?”
Praetor had been studying the chamber. Now he pointed toward a dark, round opening set high up in the wall on the far side. “I don’t see any doors, but that might be a way out.”
“It’s not very big.” Sranul sounded dubious. “And it’s out of reach.”
“We can get up to it somehow,” Praetor told him, “and I don’t mind crawling.”
“You can stand on my shoulders,” Hargrod told the roo. “When each of you hass reached the tunnel, or whatever it turnss out to be, one of you can reach back down to give me a hand up.”
Sranul was still reluctant. “Well, if it’s the only way out…”
“Do you see another?” Praetor asked him.
“Nooo.” He leaned forward. “Say, what’s that funny pole in the middle of the pool?”
Praetor saw the stick, shrugged. “Debris. Got wedged in the mud there somehow. Wouldn’t make much of a bonfire.”
“I think not.” Both of them turned to Maryld. “That is no mere piece of wood.”
“Not again,” Sranul said sarcastically.
“You are not looking closely enough,” she admonished him. “Don’t you see the engravings and inscriptions chiseled on its sides? It’s a staff.”
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