“Alright Kevik,” Bart’s voice came from the darkness, “bring it back.” A second later, the light flared back anew.
Riyan glanced to Chyfe and shrugged. “It was a good idea anyway,” he said.
Chyfe nodded and turned his gaze back to Bart and the mural.
For ten minutes or more, Bart combed the surface of the mural for any sign of a hidden catch or release. When he finally came to the conclusion there weren’t any, he rejoined the others at the door.
“Doesn’t look like this is the way,” he told them.
“No,” agreed Riyan then he gestured to the mural with a nod of his head. “But with that here, I’m more optimistic about finding the key segment.”
“So am I,” Bart replied. “Perhaps we’ll have more luck deeper in.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” asked Chad.
Bart grinned at his friend’s exuberance then moved to take the lead as they once again continued to follow the well trodden path of those who were stripping this place of any and all valuables. Judging by the looks of the items contained in the crates near the camp, they were taking everything but the dead whether it held value or not.
Once past the mural room, more doorways opened off of the passage. There were a couple side passages that joined with theirs, but the majority of doorways revealed rooms with corpses lying on the ground, their sarcophagi either destroyed or opened. Before the passage turned to the right, they came across a room free of corpses. There were markings on the floor indicating that some sizeable items had been removed. Based on the markings left behind by one item, its base had to have been close to six feet by four.
As they paused in the room to have a look around, Chad went over to where the large item once sat. “Wonder how they carried it up the cliff?” he asked.
Bart snickered. “Good question,” he replied. “I’d hate to have been one of the ones taking it up.”
Leaving the room, they moved on and came to where the passage turned to the right. Before they reached the corner, voices could be heard coming from further ahead. Bart immediately brought them to a stop. Turning to the others, he put a finger on his lips and indicated the area around the corner. Once he was sure the others were aware of what was ahead, he turned back to the corner. Stepping silently and cautiously, he crept forward.
The voices remained indistinct as he reached the corner. Ever so slowly, he peered around to the other side. Three men were standing near one of the burning torches which lit the passages. Each had a crate resting on the floor beside them. From the looks of it, they were taking a break from bringing the crates to the surface. When it didn’t look like they were going to resume making for the surface any time soon, Bart rejoined the others.
“Three of the porters,” he explained quietly. “They’re about fifty feet down.”
“Any way of taking them unawares?” asked Kevik. Bart shook his head.
“We could wait for them to come to us,” suggested Chyfe. “Better chance to surprise them.”
“No,” countered Bart. “We can’t afford to wait that long. There’s no telling how long Seth and Soth will have at the camp before someone comes down who will know they don’t belong there.”
Chyfe nodded. Taking hold of his sword, he said rather enthusiastically, “Let’s take them then.”
Bart grinned at Chyfe’s enthusiasm. Then pointing to Chyfe, he said, “You, me, and Riyan. Once we round the corner, we walk normally. May give us a chance to close the distance before they realize what’s going on.”
“Okay then,” Chyfe said with a grin. With a glance to Riyan, he said, “Let’s go.” Falling in behind Bart, Riyan and Chyfe followed him around the corner.
Standing as they were near the burning torch, the three men didn’t immediately realize others were approaching. Coming from out of the darkness, they weren’t noticed until they had crossed half the distance.
“I swear,” one of the men was saying. “These get heavier with every load.”
“It could be worse,” another man replied. “We could be the ones hauling them up the cliff.”
The third man chuckled and nodded. “Sheen took a swing at Pruss and now he has…” He came to a stop when he saw Bart, Chyfe, and Riyan appear out of the darkness. Turning his head toward them, he said, “About time we got a little help down here. You three take these to the surface. We’ll go back for more.”
Then the eyes of the second man widened when he realized the men coming toward them had pale skin. “Wait a second,” he stated. “Who are…?”
“Now!” hollered Bart as he drew his dagger and rushed forward. Behind him, the sound of two swords leaving their scabbards accompanied a war cry from Chyfe. At the sight of three armed men racing forward, the porters turned and fled.
Already moving fast, the three companions quickly closed the rest of the distance. Bart dove forward and hit the rear man square in the back. As the two of them tumbled to the ground, they knocked a second one off balance, causing him to stumble to the floor. Chyfe leaped over Bart and the two porters on his way to the third.
“Stop!” ordered Chyfe. When the man failed to heed the order, Chyfe threw his sword which hit the back of the man’s legs broadside. Stumbling from the blow, the man lost momentum and was quickly overtaken by Chyfe.
Reaching out, Chyfe grabbed the man’s tunic and threw him to the floor. Drawing his knife, Chyfe was on him in a flash with his knee in the man’s back. “Now, when I tell you to stop, you had better stop!” he yelled.
The man beneath him struggled to get away. Chyfe placed the edge of his knife against the man’s neck and said, “Give me trouble and I’ll slit your throat like a pig.” A second later, all fight left the man.
“Come on,” Chyfe said as he got off the man’s back. Taking hold of the back of his tunic, Chyfe brought him to his feet. Back down the passage, he saw that Bart and Riyan had taken the two men back to where the torch burned and had them sitting against the wall. Riyan stood before them with his sword out menacingly. Coming from the darkness beyond, Kevik and Chad appeared on their way to join them.
Chyfe brought his man forward and put him beside the others. “So,” he said, “what should we do with them?”
Bart looked down at the three men. “I suppose we could just kill them and be done with it,” he said. Fear of imminent death leaped into the men’s eyes.
“Don’t kill us!” one man wailed.
“Maybe we’ll let you live,” Riyan said. “If you’ll tell us what we want to know.”
“Yes,” the second man replied, hope dawning anew. “Just don’t hurt us.”
“Anything you wish,” the third added.
Riyan glanced to Bart who nodded. “Very well,” he said.
“How many more of you are down here?” Bart asked.
“Ten,” the first man replied.
“Where are they?” asked Chyfe.
The first man indicated the passage from which he and his two fellows had come. “Not too far is a stairway leading down to the lower level,” he explained. “They’re down there collecting the valuables and packing them into crates.”
“You make me sick,” exclaimed Riyan. “The dead deserve better than the way you’re treating them.”
The first man looked up at him. “They’re just corpses,” he argued. “Who cares about them?”
“Nothing good ever comes from treating the dead so,” admonished Kevik.
“Irregardless,” Bart said, forestalling the argument he felt was imminent, “we would like to know if there were any rooms down here bearing a certain symbol.” He then described the coat of arms, the one with the single diagonal stripe.
The three men glanced to one another for a moment while the companions waited. Then the first man turned his face toward Bart. “There are many,” he replied.
“Are there any that might stand out more than the others?” Riyan asked.
“No,” the first man replied. “Why?”
Riyan ig
nored the man’s question.
“There was that one area,” the second man said after a moment’s silence. When the first and third man turned toward him he continued. “Remember about a month ago? It was up here on this level.”
“Oh, right,” the first man nodded. Turning to Bart, he said, “Pruss told us to stay away. He didn’t say why.”
“I heard they had a crew up there with sledges and picks,” the third man stated.
“Pruss?” asked Chyfe.
The first man turned to him and explained, “He’s the one in charge down here.”
“Is he down with the others?” asked Riyan.
Shaking his head, the first man replied, “No. I think he’s out at the camp.”
Bart glanced to Riyan and could see that he was thinking the same thing. This could be where they needed to go. Turning back to their captives, he asked, “Can you take us to it?”
“We’ve never been there,” the first one stated.
“But I’m sure you have a pretty good idea where it lies,” Bart said.
The first man nodded. “A fair notion,” he said.
“Alright then, on your feet” Bart said as he indicated for the men to stand. Once they were on their feet, he said, “After you.”
The first man licked his lips and then turned to head down the passage from which Bart and the others had come. Around the corner he led them with Bart and Kevik following closely. The other two porters were behind them with Riyan, Chad, and Chyfe bringing up the rear.
They continued to follow the passage until they were within twenty feet of the room containing the mural. The first man stopped at one of the branching passages and turned to Bart. “It’s this way,” he said, indicating the new passage.
Bart nodded. “Alright, lead on,” he said.
“I…I’ve never been down there,” he said.
The second man piped up and added, “Pruss told us that any man found down here would be killed without question.”
“Well, we’ll make sure no one kills you,” Bart assured him. “Now,” he said and motioned for the man to precede him, “lead the way.”
He didn’t look very enthused about entering, but what choice had he? Moving forward, their captive entered the passage. Bart followed right behind with Kevik and his staff to provide light close to hand.
“I don’t know what you fellows hope to find down here,” the man leading them said. “They took everything.”
“That’s right,” agreed one of the two in the rear.
“Perhaps,” replied Bart.
The passage showed signs of people having passed this way at some point in the recent past. Dust along the floor was disturbed, as well as spider webs hanging in disarray.
Several side passages and rooms abutted the one they were traveling along. Some showed further evidence of grave robbing with corpses again lying in undignified heaps. Chests had been smashed open and a few held shelves now barren, whatever had been kept upon them gone.
“Are you sure you’re going the right way?” Bart asked the man leading them.
“Not entirely, no,” he replied. “Like I said, I’ve never been down here. I did however hear one of the sledgers they brought down here comment that he and the others had worked for a day to get by an extremely sturdy iron gate. He claimed that the blows from their sledgehammers barely dented the metal.”
Bart glanced to Kevik who explained, “The metal could have been magically enhanced to withstand blows.”
The man in the lead glanced back to Kevik and said, “That’s what he thought too.”
“Interesting,” was the only response Bart gave. In his mind however, wheels were turning. A magically enforced gate? That could only mean one thing. The final segment of the key had to lie somewhere on the other side! He glanced back to Riyan and could see by the crooked smile and the glint in his eye that he was thinking along those same lines.
No torches lit the way down this passage. Without Kevik’s light, they would be in complete darkness. Fortunately, the glow from the tip of his staff provided ample illumination.
Continuing to follow the passage, they soon came to where the doors and branching passageways ended, and still the passageway continued on. Not far after the last doorway, they came to where a massive gate had once barred the way.
“I can see why this would have taken some time to get past,” Bart observed when the light from Kevik’s staff revealed it.
It actually wasn’t so much a gate as a series of eight evenly spaced, six inch thick bars that ran from the ceiling to the floor. A hole large enough to allow a man to pass had been battered into the obstruction on the left side. Only the two bars on the far right showed no sign of damage, the others were bent all out of alignment.
“They must have worked at this for a long time,” observed Chyfe.
As Riyan was nodding agreement, Kevik uttered magical words. A second later, all eight of the bars glowed blue.
“As we thought,” Kevik said to the others. “Magic.”
“Right,” said Bart. Turning to their captives, he asked, “What else did you hear about this area?”
“Nothing,” the man leading them replied.
“We swear,” another asserted. “We’ve told you all we know.”
Bart gauged the truthfulness of what they were saying. Finally deciding they would have no reason to lie, he said to Chyfe and Chad, “Tie them up.”
“But,” the man who led them here began to wail, “you can’t leave us here!”
“Don’t worry,” Bart assured him and the other two. “We’ll pick you up on our way back and make sure we leave you where others are sure to find you.”
Chad and Chyfe tore lengths of cloth from the clothes of their captives and proceeded to secure their arms and legs.
“What if you don’t return?” another of the men asked, barely containing the fear of being left to die.
Bart turned to the man and said, “You better hope we do.” Then to Chad and Chyfe he added, “Gag them too. Can’t have them calling for help while we’re gone.”
“But…” one of the captives began to say before a wad of cloth was stuffed into his mouth and tied off with another strip of cloth.
Once the three men were secured and not likely to get free, Bart said, “Alright, let’s see what lies beyond here.” Ignoring the muffled cries of the men begging them not to be left behind, he went to the bars and slipped through to the other side. With the others right behind, he began moving further down the passage. The cries of the bound men gradually diminished behind them.
The passage continued as it had before the bars, with no doorways or branching passages. For a hundred feet they walked in silence before arriving at a set of steps leading down. Bart paused prior to stepping upon the first step and turned back to the others. “From the looks of it, there hasn’t been as much traffic through here as in the other passage we were in earlier,” he stated.
“Do you think there might be traps?” asked Riyan.
Bart nodded. “Possible, though unlikely. Step where I step and keep at least a step between you, just in case.” With that, he turned back and began making his way slowly down the steps.
Seventeen steps descended into darkness before ending at the beginning of another passage. This one was narrower by half than the one at the top of the steps. It was barely wide enough for two men to walk side by side. Plain though the walls were, they seemed to be constructed of a darker material than those on the level above.
Coming to stand upon the last step, Bart hesitated a moment before continuing on. Running his hand over the darker material, he noticed that it felt smoother than it should.
“This place has a feel to it,” Kevik said from over his shoulder.
Removing his hand from the wall, Bart glanced back over his shoulder to the magic user. “What kind?” he asked.
Kevik shook his head. “Not sure,” he replied. “It doesn’t feel bad though.” He stepped on the bottom step next to Bart
then spoke a series of magical words as he cast a spell. When nothing happened, he cast another which failed to produce any effect.
Glancing to Bart he said, “There’s no magic here.”
“That’s good to hear,” he replied.
The floor of the passage moving away from the steps showed signs of others passing this way. Despite that evidence, Bart took it slow and easy as he left the bottom step. Moving along, he kept his senses alert for any shift in the floor or anything else that might foreshadow danger. Behind him, the others moved along in silence. It was almost as if none dared to disturb the darkness.
Not far from the steps, they came to an obstruction in the passage. Two thick timbers stood on end and were wedged in between the floor and ceiling.
“What do we have here?” Bart mumbled to himself. Turning to the others, he said, “Stay back a moment.” Then returning his gaze to the timbers, he moved closer.
The ends of the timbers showed evidence of having been wedged into place by the use of hammers. Bart touched one of the timbers gingerly, then applied more pressure to see if it would move. It was wedged tightly in place. He then knelt down and examined the floor more closely. There was a faint red hue to the surface of the floor around the base of the timbers, kind of the color of dried blood.
Using his fingers, he examined the floor more closely. When he discovered an area two foot by one that was slightly lower than the rest of the floor, he nodded to himself. “It was a trap,” he said as he came to his feet. Glancing back to the others, he pointed to the reddish area at the base of the timbers, “I’m not completely sure, but I think that when someone steps here, the ceiling smashes down onto them.”
“Brutal,” Chyfe observed.
Bart nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Should be safe now that they have it braced. But just to be on the safe side, try not to step in the reddish area.” Turning back to the timbers bracing the ceiling, he made his way carefully between them.
One by one the others followed without mishap. As they began moving away, Chad commented to Riyan, “How do you suppose they put it back in the ceiling?”
Shrugging, Riyan replied, “I don’t know. Maybe it resets by itself.”
Quest's End: The Broken Key #3 Page 33