by Ed Greenwood
“No!” Femter gasped sarcastically. “Could it be?”
“Brother, it is,” Vaelam confirmed. He seemed genuinely oblivious to their derision.
“Show us,” Elryn ordered curtly, and raised his voice a trifle. “Brothers, move slowly, keep apart, and watch the trees around. I don’t want us crowded together when someone strikes from hiding. If we arrange things so that one fireball might take care of all of us, a hostile mage might not be able to resist his opportunity, hmm?”
“Aye,” Daluth murmured, at the same time as someone else—Elryn couldn’t tell who—muttered, “Thinks of everything, our Elryn.”
Dark thoughts or not, the “wizards” of Shar reached the stone slab Vaelam had found without incident. It lay between two mossy banks, almost entirely covered with years of rotting, fallen leaves, but the K could clearly be seen. The deep-graven letter sprawled across a little more ground than one of the ornate temple chairs would cover; the stone slab seemed both old and huge.
Elryn leaned forward, not bothering to hide his own swift-rising excitement. Magic. This had to have something to do with magic, strong magic … and magic was what they were here for.
“Uncover it all,” he ordered and stood back prudently to watch as this was done. The stone proved to be as long across, or longer, than a man laid out straight on his back, and twice that in the other direction, as well as being—at the one point where the ground dipped, along its edges—at least as thick as the length of a short sword.
When they were done uncovering it, the Sharrans stared at the massive slab … and it lay there patiently looking back at them.
It knew who would blink first.
After the silence grew uncomfortably long and the lesser priests started snatching sidelong glances at their leader, Elryn sighed and said, “Daluth, work the spell that wizards use to reveal magic. I can see no trigger to this—but there must be one.”
Daluth nodded and did so. Elryn was as shocked as everyone else when he raised his head slowly and said, “No magic at all. None upon yon slab or around it. Nothing but what few things we carry, within reach of my spell.”
“Impossible,” Elryn snapped.
Daluth nodded. “I agree … but my spell cannot lie to me, can it?”
As Elryn stood glaring at him, there was a common gasp of relief—of held breaths let out—from the other Sharrans, and they strode forward to stand on the slab as if it had been calling to them.
Elryn whirled, a shout of warning rising to his lips—a shout that died unuttered. The priests under his command strode across the slab, scraped their boot heels on it, stomped and strolled, staring about at the trees as if the slab was an enspelled lookout that gave them some sort of special sight. No bolts of lightning burst from the stone to slay them, and none of them shifted shape, screamed, or acquired unusual expressions on their faces.
Instead, one by one, they shrugged and fell silent, blinking at each other and back at Elryn, until Hrelgrath said what they were all thinking: “But there must be some magic here, some purpose for this—and it can’t be the lid of a tomb, or you’d need a dragon to lift it on and off.”
Daluth raised a brow. “And because we have no dealings with dragons, no one does? What if this is some sort of storage box built by a dragon, for its own use?”
“In the midst of a forest? Right out in the open and down low, not girt about with rock? Admitting my unfamiliarity with wyrms, that still feels wrong to me,” Femter replied. “No, this smacks of the work of men—or dwarves working for men, or mayhap even giants skilled at stonemasonry.”
“So what or who doth the ‘K’ refer to?” Vaelam burst out. “A king, or a realm?”
“Or a god?” Daluth echoed quietly, and something in his voice brought all eyes upon him.
“Kossuth? In a forest?” Hrelgrath said in puzzled tones.
“Nay, nay,” Vaelam said excitedly. “What was the name of that mage in the legend, who defied the gods to steal all magic and become himself lord over all magic? Klar … no, Karsus.”
And as that name left the young Sharran’s mouth, he vanished, gone in the instant ere he could draw breath. The slab where he had stood, so close between Femter and Hrelgrath that they could easily have jostled elbows with him, was empty.
Those two brave and steadfast priests sprang and sprinted away from the slab with almost comical haste, as Daluth nodded grimly, his eyes fixed on the spot where Vaelam had stood, and Elryn said slowly, “Well, well …”
The four remaining priests stared at the slab in silence for a few tense moments before the most exalted Dreadspell said almost gently, “Daluth, stand upon the letter and utter the name Vaelam did.”
Daluth cast a quick glance at Elryn, read in his face that this was a clear and firm order, and did as he was bid. Femter and Hrelgrath shifted uneasily as they watched their most capable comrade wink out of existence, and the appropriate one couldn’t suppress a low groan of fear when Elryn said, “Now do likewise, Hrelgrath.”
Hrelgrath was trembling so with fear that he could barely shape the name “Karsus,” but he vanished as swiftly and utterly as his predecessors. Femter shrugged and strode onto the slab without waiting for an order, looking back for Elryn’s nod of assent when he’d planted his boots squarely in the center of the giant letter. The nod was given, and another false wizard disappeared.
Now alone, Elryn looked around at the trees, saw nothing moving or watching, shrugged, and followed his fellow Sharrans onto the slab.
Even before their battle with the elf who’d slain Iyrindyl with such casual ease, he’d thought this entire scheme of holy Sharrans trying to be mages was wrong—dangerously wrong. Dreadspells, indeed. Still, if by some miracle what lay at the other end of this teleport was not one huge trap, it just might lead to enough magic to win them Darklady Avroana’s holy approval—and survival long enough to enjoy it. He smiled slowly at that thought, said, “Karsus,” with slow deliberation, and watched the world whirl away.
A red radiance lit up the darkness, gleaming back from a hundred curves of metal and countless gems. The light was coming from the floor—wherever they’d walked, the boot prints were a-glow.
It was too late to cry out a warning about awakening guardian spells or beings—Vaelam was already wading through knee-deep, shifting wonders to pluck at a gauntlet whose rows of sapphires were winking with their own internal light: the lambent glow of awakened magic, echoed in sinister chatoyance from a dozen places around the crypt. The low-ceilinged room was crammed with heaped treasures, most of them strange to the eye, and all of them, by the looks of it, harboring magic.
Elryn managed to keep from gasping aloud, but he was conscious of the quick glance Daluth threw him and knew his awe and wonder must be written plainly on his face.
The junior Dreadspells certainly hadn’t wasted any time. Hrelgrath seemed to be waltzing with an armored figure as he tried to wrest a gorget from it, and a row of sheathed wands slapped and dangled against Femter’s right thigh, depending from a gem-encrusted belt that enwrapped his waist as if it had been made for him. It had altered to fit him, of course. The eager-eyed priest was already reaching into another heap of armbands and anklets, seeking out something else that had caught his eye. Vaelam was drawing on the gauntlet, now, his eyes already on something else.
Only Daluth stood empty-handed, his hands raised to deliver a quenching spell should one of the reckless younger Dreadspells unleash something that could doom them all.
Elryn darted glances in all directions, saw nothing moving by itself and no doors or other ways out of the stone-walled room, and asked quietly, “Oh most diligent Dreadspells, has anyone spared a thought for how we’ll be able to leave this place?”
“Karsus,” Hrelgrath said clearly, the gorget clutched triumphantly in his hands.
Nothing happened, but Vaelam was already pointing into the farthest, dimmest corner of the chamber. “Another ‘K’ in a clear spot of floor yonder,” he reported. “That’l
l be it.”
“Aye, but to take us back out—or in deeper, to somewhere else unknown?” Daluth asked.
“Moreover, if I was intending to slay thieves who found their way hence uninvited, the way out is where I’d place guards of one sort or another,” Elryn added, then—having not moved a pace from where he’d appeared—said, “Karsus” carefully. No whirling before his eyes occurred again, but he was unsurprised.
Slithering metallic sounds heralded Vaelam’s continued digging—and as Elryn watched, he saw Femter slip something into his robes, his fingers working at a hitherto-hidden underarm pouch.
“Take nothing you cannot carry,” the senior Dreadspell warned, “and be fully prepared to surrender unto the Darklady every last item of magic we bear out of this place, no matter how trifling. We are not unobserved, now and always.”
Femter’s head snapped up, and he blushed as he found Elryn’s eyes upon him. He opened his mouth to say something, but Daluth forestalled him by asking the room at large, “Has anyone found something whose powers are obvious?”
He was answered by shaken heads and frowns.
Elryn used the toe of his boot to open a small black coffer, lifted his eyebrows to the ceiling when he saw the row of rings it contained, snapped it shut again, then blinked at what had lain next to it.
“Daluth,” he asked quietly, inclining his head toward the heap of gleaming mysteries by his boot, “that circlet—hasn’t that symbol been used to mean healing?”
Daluth pounced on the diadem. It was of plain but massy gold over some more durable metal, and it bore the device of a gleaming sun cupped in two stylized hands. “Yes,” he said excitedly. He held it up to show the others and snapped, “Find more of these. Leave off looking at other things for now.”
The lesser Dreadspells did as they were bid, digging and tossing aside treasures, and rising, from time to time, with cries of satisfaction. Daluth took the items they proffered—four circlets and a bracer—and Elryn snapped, “Enough. All of you, take only so much as what you can wear or carry, and leave swords and helms and suchlike behind. We dare not try to awaken anything here. Gird yourselves as if for battle; I don’t want to see anyone staggering under an armload of loose items.”
He reached down and plucked up a number of scepters from among a litter of metal-bound tomes, platters and smaller boxes. Then, as if in afterthought, he casually picked up the black coffer, its dozen rings riding safely hidden inside it.
A few moments of work with the long thongs that always rode in his belt pouch, and the scepters were riding ready at his hip, the coffer hidden down the front of his breeches. Elryn was ready. He said briskly, “Vaelam, the honor is yours, I believe. Take us from this place.”
The youngest Dreadspell looked at the clear space at the back of the crypt, waiting in silence for him, swallowed, and said, “You said there might be guards.…”
Elryn nodded. “I have every confidence that you’ll deal with them quite capably,” he said flatly, and waited.
Reluctantly the youngest priest-turned-wizard picked his way through the crowded room, slowing as he approached the letter on the floor. Four pairs of eyes watched him go, their owners crouching down behind heaps of unidentified magic. Vaelam sent them all a look of mingled anger and despair, drew himself erect, and snapped, “Karsus.”
As swiftly and as silently as he’d first left them, Vaelam disappeared.
As if that had been a signal, something moved in the heap nearest to Hrelgrath, rising amid a clatter of many small things sliding and tumbling as the Sharran stumbled back, moaning in wordless alarm.
“Do nothing,” Elryn snapped. In frozen silence the four men watched a glowing sword rise into view, its naked and glittering blade aimed somewhere between Daluth and Elryn. It seemed a good five or six feet long, its ornate hilt a-wink with many lustrous gems, an ever-changing array of runes and letters flickering momentarily up and down the blue flanks of its blade.
“Hrelgrath,” Elryn ordered, “follow Vaelam. Keep low, and do nothing in haste. Go now.”
When the second sweating Dreadspell winked elsewhere, the sword in the air seemed to shiver for a moment, but otherwise moved not. Elryn watched it for a while, then said slowly, “Femter, follow the others.”
Again the sword stayed where it was. When only Daluth and Elryn were left, the senior Dreadspell asked his most capable comrade, “In case some spell prevents us from ever returning here, is there anything in particular we should bear with us?”
Daluth shrugged. “It’d take years to examine all that’s here—and even then, we’d only know a few powers of each thing. This is utterly … fantastic. There’s more magic crowded in here around us than I think all who worship Holy Shar, in their thousands, can muster. If I have to take just one thing—let it be that stand of staves, yonder. Four staves, I think; almost one for each of us, and all of them sure to hold some sort of magic we can wield in a battle. If we can awaken them, we can at least play convincingly at being archmages … for a little time.”
“Let’s hope it’s long enough, a little time,” Elryn agreed, “when it comes. Two each?”
They gave the floating sword another long look, slipped carefully past it, and Daluth took the two staves under one arm and pulled out a wand he’d found earlier in the other. The healing circlets bulged in his scrip.
Elryn looked down at Daluth’s ready wand, smiled tightly, and quoted the saying, “We dare not trust anyone save Holy Shar herself.” As he spoke, he raised the wand already in his own hand into view so that Daluth could see it.
“I mean this for perils I may find beyond the teleport,” Daluth said carefully, “not for—closer dangers.” His voice changed, sharpening in alarm. “ ’Ware the sword!”
Elryn whirled around to find the sword hanging just as before. He was still turning as he heard Daluth add calmly, “Karsus.”
The senior Dreadspell sprang wildly sideways, just in case Daluth had found the urge to trigger his wand irresistible and sprawled on a heap of enspelled clothing. Glowing mesh flickered under him as he slithered painfully down it, traveling over an array of sharp points; hastily Elryn clawed his way upright, snatched another look at the sword, and found it still motionless.
He looked around the room, down at the red footprints already beginning to fade to the hue of old blood, around at the thankfully motionless heaps of treasure, and cast his gaze once more down at the clothes he’d fallen on. Surely that was a stomacher, such as haughty ladies wore … he caught up one garment then another, feeling the tingling of powerful magic surging through his fingertips. They were all gowns, with cutouts in the meshes beneath ornate bodices.
Elryn of Shar looked at the shoulders of one, frowning in consideration … then shrugged and began to strip off his own clothes. He’d best hurry, if he was to be swift enough to keep the others out of mischief—or, knowing this lot, just from wandering off without him. Struggling in the growing dimness while trying to keep his eye on the sword floating nearby, Elryn was briefly glad they’d found no mirror that he’d have to look at himself in. He could imagine Avroana’s mirth as she watched him battling the unfamiliar garment—and when at last he stood on the letter on the floor, and with one wary eye on that floating blade, uttered the name “Karsus,” it was just this snarled side of a heartfelt curse.
The smoking stump of what must have been an old and large duskwood gave mute testimony to the effectiveness of something one of the younger Dreadspells had awakened. Elryn stared at it with dark anger rising in him, but before he could say anything, Femter was thrusting a ring at him excitedly.
“Dark Brother, look! This ring—against the best seeking Brother Daluth can cast—completely cloaks the dweomers of all magic in contact with its wearer! One could go into the presence of a king armed for a beholder war and strike with impunity.”
“Such bold stratagems are usually more effective in ballads than in real life,” Elryn replied severely, “to say nothing of prudence.” He l
ooked for Daluth and found him carefully taking forth one circlet after another from his scrip.
“Ah,” the leader of the Dreadspells announced in satisfaction, “a wiser way to spend time. Let us all heal ourselves, then devote a short time to examining wands and staves before resuming our journey to the ruins.”
Several more trees suffered in the moments that followed. The healing items all proved to be of more effectiveness than a single use. Two of the staves proved to have no more battle- worthy spells than the ability to spit forth the streaking bolts men called “magic missiles,” but the others could unleash beams of ravening fire and explosive bursts of magic … and two of those seemed able to drain touched magic items and even the spells of their wielders upon command, to power their most destructive attacks.
“What shining luck!” Vaelam laughed, blasting a helpless shadowtop sapling to ashes.
“Luck? Holy Shar led us to this spot, Dark Brother,” Elryn said severely, playing to the priestesses watching from afar. “Shar guides us always … you will do well never to forget that.”
“Of course,” Vaelam said hastily, then laughed heartily as the staff in his hands snarled again—and another tree vanished in roiling flames that fell away into streamers of smoke diving down to the leaf mold all around.
“Vaelam of Shar,” Elryn said sharply, “stop that wasteful destruction at once. I’d rather not have this forest aflame around us or every druid and mage within a hundred miles appearing around us to give battle. Have you forgotten Iyrindyl’s fate already?”
Vaelam grimaced, but he couldn’t seem to stop fondling and hefting the staff, like a warrior who’s just been handed a superb blade.
“My apologies, Dark Brother,” he said, chastened, “II got caught up in its power.” He licked his lips, firmly grounded the staff, and asked, as if seeking approval, “Do you know how tempting it is just to blast down everything that irritates or stands against you?”
“Yes, Vaelam, as a matter of fact, I do,” Elryn replied, and wiggled the wand in his hand—the wand pointed at Vaelam’s face—ever so slightly to draw the younger man’s eyes. As Vaelam saw, and paled, the senior Dreadspell continued grimly, “It’s just one of many such temptations.”