The Delving

by Aaron Bunce

  Chapter Three

  An Unexpected Proposal

  Thorben limped along, his sense of pride propping up his aching body. It would be a moon or longer before his pain was gone, but he didn’t need everyone in the boroughs to know that, too.

  “I believe you should sit for a while,” the man said, quietly keeping pace. Thorben ignored him, maintaining as much focus as he could muster on walking in a straight line.

  “At least slow your pace, Owl. You appear ready to keel over at any moment.”

  Thorben skidded to a stop and spun, a sudden stab of anger rising up inside. “Don’t call me that, Iona, you bastard!” he fumed, quickly scanning around them. There wasn’t anyone close by, however. Just him and the man he’d hoped to never see again.

  Iona took a half step back, lifting his hands up in surrender. The man looked exactly as he remembered him, save for a slight peppering of white hair in his dark beard. His hair was neatly trimmed and combed to the side, while his usual brown, cotton shirt and leather vest appeared clean and well maintained. The fact that the past ten seasons seemingly hadn’t aged or changed Iona much angered him even more.

  “Apologies,” Iona bowed, and when he straightened back up, wore his usual, jovial smile. The man’s large, brown eyes drooped, until they were barely open. It was a casual and irritatingly disarming expression, used to great effect on men and women alike. Thorben could see through it, however, unlike all those thaws ago.

  “When I set out to locate you, Thorben, I never thought I would find you lying in the dirt, being kicked like a dog. For a man of your abilities, I anticipated a large home, wealth, women – all the imaginable comforts,” Iona said, his smile disappearing. His accent was fainter than Thorben remembered it, but still there – a poetic quality of south islanders, emphasized by a subtle lilt favoring the end of each word.

  “Why are you here, Iona?”

  “There is the Owl I know…as blunt as a club and straight to business,” Iona said, walking forward and flicking something off his shirt.

  “I said, don’t call me–”

  “Oh, yes, I heard you. But a name like that, a reputation like yours, should never be forgotten or ignored. It is always there, whether you want it or not, like a second skin. Wear it with pride.”

  “Owl, fox, and mule? You and I remember those days very differently, Iona. You took impressionable young men and convinced them…me, to steal – to break into honest folks’ homes and take their livelihood, to violate the edicts of kings and councils, raid tombs and defile the sacred. I wasn’t Owl before I met you. I was Thorben, son of Paul, as honest a man as any.”

  “Honest, but poor. I lifted you up and showed you the way to support your family. I showed you how to balance the scales, when less deserving men stood above you and deemed to call themselves your betters,” Iona said, calmly, “and why…because of the contents of their coin purses and not their character?”

  Thorben sputtered, his anger faltering for a moment. It was the same argument, the same recruitment line Iona had used on him, and so many other young men, for a long time.

  “And in all that time, you never harmed a single person. We never poached from the poor or needy. Your marks were well-to-do merchants and nobility, resting easily on the fat of lesser people’s labors. We turned around and sold their treasures to others just like them. Did your father ever question you about where your coin was coming from? The coin that helped build the roof that he, and now you, call home?” Iona continued, moving closer, his hands weaving wide, almost gentle circles in the air.

  Thorben felt a flush of guilt as those memories came washing back – of the lies he fed to his father all those thaws, and how he justified it all.

  “You made me into a thief, Iona – a deceitful and dishonest louse preying on the living and the dead. I took what wasn’t mine, from folk who worked and earned honestly. Owl died thaws ago. I buried him in the dark, stinking depths of the Council’s prison mine. You closed the shackles around my wrists as surely as those guards when you brought me into that life. Had I never met you, I never would have spent those thaws breaking my back swinging a pickaxe. I have a family to consider. Now, goodbye,” Thorben said, and abruptly turned and walked away.

  “I am truly sorry that you feel that way, but it was a stroke of ill luck, Thorben. You picked up your family from the slums, provided them with food, clothing, firewood in the winter, and coin for healers when your father was infirm and unable to work, and your mother with child. That sounds honest to me, no, it sounds heroic. Were your intentions not honest and good?” Iona said, catching up and falling into step, but remained a respectful distance away on the other side of the road.

  Thorben clenched his fists, before wrapping his arms around his body, the chilly wind suddenly a bit more harsh. His anger, like his warmth, was bleeding away, and he knew it. He wanted to scream at Iona, unloading every moment of resentment and frustration from the past thaws – the hardship in the prison mine, the struggle of starting over and raising a family, but mostly, hiding the ugly truth of his past from his own children.

  “I lined your pockets with gold and silver. Don’t make yourself out to be some sort of saint,” he said, finally, his voice lacking its previous conviction.

  “Yes you did,” Iona agreed, but continued on in silence.

  Thorben continued to walk, until the sprawling maple trees to his left opened up, revealing a clearing and a sweeping hill. A mill sat midway up the incline, its fabric-covered sail rotating slowly in the breeze. He’d walked right past the turn to his house and not known it. Thorben limped to a stop in the middle of the road, his side on fire and his chest aching.

  He looked up the heavily shadowed road, and back in the other direction. How could he go home now, with nothing to show for his efforts, save the cuts and bruises of a beating? They just added to the shame and defeat, and there was no way he would be able to hide them from Dennica and the kids. He’d left the house with no coin and an empty cellar, and would return with the same.

  I am a failure, he thought, and glanced back up the road. Klydesborough laid a few days walk ahead. He’d find passage on a riverboat there, either downstream to the lakes, or upstream to Pinehall. Maybe Dennica and the kids would be better off without him.

  “I know what you are thinking,” Iona said, softly, from the other side of the road.

  “You know? You know…how could you possibly know what I am thinking?” Thorben spun on the spot, now more hurt than angry.

  “You are hurting, old friend. I can see the pain written plainly on your face.”

  Thorben frowned. “I’ll heal,” he snapped, and started back towards home. He just needed to lie down and rest, and then he would be able to decide what he would do next.

  “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it, Thorben. I followed the tax caravan down from Klydesborough…watched it settle in. I watched one wagon rumble down this very road…just back there,” Iona said, pointing down the road towards his home. “I watched them burden their wagon with your food. I admire your strength. The rage must have filled you, watching them strip away everything you have worked so hard to acquire. I know it angered me, and it was neither my home nor my food.”

  “Enough!” Thorben yelled, and panicked. He tried to run away from Iona, from the humiliation and powerlessness of it all, but only made it a few steps before his side cramped up and he fell to his knees.

  “Please, don’t hurt yourself trying to run away from me. I did not come here to pour salt into your wounds,” Iona said, hovering above him.

  “You may not wish it…but that is how it feels. Even now, the weight of your shadow feels like a mountain of stone pressing down upon me. Cannot you simply leave me be? I have nothing. I am bloodied, beaten, and broken. I am nothing.”

  “You of all people should know that a man is never truly broken, nor is he ever nothing. Not when he has love and kin looking up to him. Do you remember what I told you all those thaws ago?”r />
  Thorben knew. How could he forget? And despite his resentment towards Iona, he remembered how hearing it lifted his spirit and gave him hope. A small, strangled portion of him yearned to hear it again, although he couldn’t stand the thought of admitting it out loud.

  “Dusk loses its battle to the night, and at its blackest, only the stars exist as distant reminders of brighter times. It is when we believe that night cannot get darker that the dawn is born, breaking through as a whole new day – new possibilities.”

  Thorben was trapped in the darkness, with only the memories of good times to remind him that they existed at all. They would come again; he just had to believe they would, and keep from giving in.

  Iona grabbed him under the arms, and with surprisingly little resistance, pulled him to his feet.

  “I am sorry that you suffered, Thorben. I truly am. I have wanted to check in on you for many thaws, to make sure that you have been okay, but things have been…complicated. But now that I am here–” Iona said, brushing his hands together, as if brushing away the excuses that kept them apart for all that time.

  “Please…I can’t,” Thorben breathed, interrupting him before he could get going. He didn’t want to deal with the temptation…the struggle he knew would undoubtedly come with Iona’s next words.

  “You are an honest man, with a wife, and family, Thorben. You have built an honest life for yourself. But the odds are stacked against you. The brand you hide under your sleeve gives the Council’s tax collectors the power to take more from you than any other person. Allow me to do what I can to make you whole, to repay some of the debt…no, the sacrifice you endured for us. I ask only that you hear me out and take time to consider my offer, as a courtesy to an old fool.”

  Thorben tried desperately to hold onto his anger, to let his resentment and bile rise up so that he might rebuke Iona once and for all. His left hand slipped to his right forearm, his fingers easily finding the raised flesh of that terrible scar. He remembered the bite of chains, the jailer’s horrible stench, but most keenly, the smell as the red-hot brand bit into his flesh, marking him forever. It all flooded back to him, the painful memories making him feel older than he should.

  He grudgingly looked into Iona’s warm, dark eyes. Dennica looked at him the same way –unquestionable compassion and empathy. He felt the last of his anger slip away, like a leaden blanket sliding off his shoulders.

  “I am going home, to be with my family,” he said, and started walking.

  Iona fell into step quietly beside him. It was as much what he didn’t say, than what he did. He’d give the man some time to speak his piece, at least until he got to his lane. After a short time, Iona took a deep breath, as if collecting and putting his thoughts in order. Thorben didn’t stop him.

  “Do you remember the kongelig blöd mounds?”

  Thorben nodded. Of course, he did. They were some of the first dalan burial crypts discovered in Denoril. To his knowledge, no one had ever managed to find a way in.

  “What if I was to tell you that I have learned of an entrance to the crypts – one that no one else knows about? And more, I hold a map detailing its location.”

  Thorben chuckled, but it was without mirth, and when Iona didn’t join in, he coughed. “I have seen the mounds. The crypts are on the cliffs, the south side of the hill. The stone covering the entrance is enormous. No man, or army of men for that matter, would be able to roll it aside to get in,” Thorben said, after a moment of silence.

  “For several thaws, a group of Denil monks studied the mounds, picking over every stone, blade of grass, and finger breadth of rock. One monk, addled by wine, stumbled off the road and became lost in the hills. He wandered for a time, before discovering a narrow river. Thinking that the waterway would at the very least lead him to help, the monk followed it. He stumbled upon a cave set just off the river. That cave led him to a tunnel, and then to–”

  “This monk sounds like a very fortunate individual. He could just as easily ended up in some beast’s belly. But how did you learn of this?” Thorben interrupted, not looking up. He didn’t want to appear interested, but struggled to deny his curiosity.

  “I have my ways. Needless to say, a fair amount of coin passed between hands,” Iona admitted.

  “Surely if you know of this tunnel, then a host of others do as well. The seal of that crypt is as good as broken and its contents looted by now.”

  “Oh, I assure you, it is still quite secret. The monk detailed an intricate shape carved into a pedestal just inside the tunnel’s entrance.” Iona gave him a sidelong glance, and although Thorben didn’t take the bait, he swore the man wore the subtlest hint of a smile.

  “But how can…?” Thorben started to ask after a moment, but paused. What shape did the monk find? Did he confirm that the tunnel led to the crypts? Was it sealed when he found it?

  Iona stopped walking and slipped a hand into his vest, before removing a folded piece of parchment. The lane to his house stood just two dozen paces ahead and up on the next hill. But despite himself, Thorben stopped walking, his attention pulled to Iona’s hand.

  “I have several buyers that will pay a king’s ransom for the most exotic artifacts recovered from that tomb. They pay in gold and gems,” Iona said.

  “There are no guarantees, as you know. Death and dust might be all you find in that tomb. The dalan were smart. They built hundreds of burial mounds all over this land, the vast majority empty…like that site we found in the woods north of Ogre Springs, or the one near the Red Fish.”

  “I don’t think so, Thorben. This is the largest, most securely sealed crypt south of the Bear Claw. Compared to the others, this site is practically royal. This is the treasure that will not just change our immediate futures, but our long-term fortunes for good!”

  “You’re touched!” Thorben laughed, and resumed his walk home. He felt the fool for even hearing him out.

  Iona appeared next to him suddenly, and slapped a palm against his chest. Thorben stopped and swatted the hand, only to have his finger close around a crinkly sheet of yellowed parchment.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  Iona stepped away, his hands clasped lightly together. “Just look,” he said, “you’ll know.”

  Thorben held the parchment out, turning it over to inspect it. The corners were bent and soiled, numerous stains and wrinkles marring the once pristine sheaf.

  “Go on, it won’t bite you,” Iona urged, when he didn’t immediately unfold it. Thorben watched the older man, the excitement practically radiating off of him – just like his kids sitting before unwrapped winter festival gifts.

  Thorben glanced back down the road. He could see the path to his house now, the large quaking aspen trees marking the spot, their leaves shimmering and shifting in the breeze. He could just drop the parchment and walk home, hug Dennica, and forget anything happened – the woolery, Iona. All of it.

  His fingers moved before he could consciously decide, pulling the corners apart and unfolding the sheaf lengthwise. He unfolded it again and was rewarded with…nothing. Thorben hastily turned it over, only to find a mass of dark scribblings.

  “It’s just a bunch of…” he started to argue, but then saw it. They weren’t just scribblings. It was a rubbing. A relief image appeared in the middle of the sheet, the charcoal filling out its outline perfectly. It was a round eye, its pupil the shape of a star, carvings of what looked like lightning extending where eyelashes should be. He had seen the eye before, many thaws ago.

  Impossible, he thought, his heart starting to race. Thorben fought to keep his face expressionless, but failed, and could tell that Iona saw it, too.

  “Do you see it now? Tell me that you see it!” he prodded, gesturing towards the parchment in Thorben’s hand.

  He nodded, letting go of the parchment. The sheaf floated lazily to the ground, drifting towards Iona, only to curl back towards him before settling in the grass.

  “The dalan eye marks this crypt. The sam
e one that marked the tomb outside Lake Madus, where you found the Mask of the Ancients,” Iona said, his smile now fully formed.

  “I’ve never called it that,” Thorben said, but didn’t need the reminder, he’d dreamt about that day off and on ever since. That small tomb, simple and relatively unadorned, had been tucked away, forgotten by the world. It wasn’t laden with gold coins and gems, just a single sarcophagus, and resting on the stone lid, a weathered, metal mask.

  “You know how society, noblemen, and merchants are. They will pay twice the sum when an artifact has a name. Hells, they are seeking out dalan artifacts more than ever, willing to drop considerable wealth to acquire the most rare and exotic relics to add to their collections. Rumors abide of a number of magical swords crafted by the dwarves and enchanted by the dalan that may still lay in one of those undisturbed crypts. If we could procure one of those–” Iona said, excitedly, his voice rising in volume and pitch.

  “Death and dust,” Thorben repeated, cutting in.

  “We find a relic of that quality, and you move your family out of this quaint hole in the woods and into a castle, Thorben. Your children and wife will never see another lean winter, half-empty plate, or have to fear the tax collector’s visit again!”

  Thorben chuckled, watching him and struggling to hide his excitement at the prospect. “That would be nice,” he replied, sheepishly, although he knew it was just as likely he’d end up in chains.

  Iona moved a little closer, his voice low and fast. “A few days walk, a day of exploration, and a world of possibility, Thorben. I’ve already hired a group of mules…strongbacks, but I need an owl – someone wise to lead them, that’s breathed old tunnel air, and knows the difference between broken pottery and a priceless relic…something we can give a name. I need you, Thorben. Out of all my delvers, you were my most trusted owl. And now, with this,” he said, scooping the parchment off the ground and pointing to the ghostly outline of the eye, “you know what likely waits within that crypt; have the experience, the hands and eyes, and the savvy I need on this delving. You and you alone.”