by Lisa Shearin
The city of Nidaar was supposed to lie beneath the mountain that was still to the west of us, meaning that these doors probably marked the outermost reaches of the city. To use two slabs of the stone as decoration on doors far from the central city meant that it wasn’t nearly as rare as I’d believed.
Was Agata’s skill up to the challenge of locating the Heart itself amongst who knew how many large specimens? Or could we possibly end up on a wild goose chase inside of a mountain?
Talon had finished cleaning a large section of the door, exposing obsidian so finely polished that it was essentially a black mirror. He was running his hands over the door, just above the surface, his concentration intense and complete.
My son showing that kind of interest in a mirror of any kind made me uneasy in ways I never thought possible.
“This could be a functioning mirror, if there was another to link it to,” Talon said. “Have you ever heard of the Cha’Nidaar having mirror mages?”
“I don’t know,” I replied quickly. “They would have had what the goblins of that age did.”
“There were no mirror mages among the goblins of that period,” Agata called down to us. “That magic was limited to the elves.”
I definitely wanted to change the subject away from mirrors.
“What have you found?” I asked her.
She had finished clearing the disks of dust. Now she came down from her draconic stepladder and stepped up to the doors, hands extended palms out. “No magical locks, no wards, nothing primed to throw me across the room.” She glanced at me. “Permission to push?”
I’d already checked it and likewise had detected nothing. There was no sign of any kind of lock.
“Be my guest,” I told her.
She pushed.
The door didn’t budge.
It also didn’t strike back, so it was kind of a win.
Agata pushed again, leaning into it with all her weight, which, to be honest, wasn’t really all that much.
Nothing.
Dasant stepped past her. “Let me try.”
Agata smirked. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
Dasant was big for a goblin. When the doors didn’t so much as creak, he redoubled his efforts and added a grunt.
“And yet the doors remain unimpressed,” Malik commented dryly. “How dare they?”
I detected a flicker from where the two doors met. “Stop,” I said.
Dasant stepped back. “What’s wrong?”
“I saw it, too,” Agata said. She glanced at me. “Do you think?”
I again passed her my ring. “Only one way to find out.”
Agata quickly wrapped the pendant’s chain around her fingers, hanging the pendant so it rested in her palm. She put my ring on a finger of her other hand. She paused for a few moments, pushing her will into the stones.
And pushed against the door.
Nothing.
That was concerning.
“Maybe if you don’t push,” I suggested. “Just touch the stones to the doors. Let them do the work.”
She did.
And the door didn’t.
Agata handed my ring back to me with an exasperated sigh. “I’m all out of ideas. I think some food and a little sleep will do me some good.”
I slid it back on my finger. “I think we all need—”
Agata stumbled over a rock, and I caught her with one arm, catching myself with the other hand against the door as more rocks shifted under my own feet.
The stone in my ring blazed to life when my hand touched the door.
Agata got her balance and stepped away from me, breaking contact.
Only my hand, with its glowing ring, remained on the door.
“You’re doing that,” Agata said with something akin to awe. “Are you sure you don’t have any gem magic?”
“I’m sure.”
“Push the door open,” she said.
I did.
Easily.
And found myself the focus of my team’s attention.
I grabbed the door and stopped it from opening further. We had no idea what was on the other side. Until we did, it was enemy territory.
“I have no clue how I did that,” I told them.
Dasant clapped me on the shoulder. “We know.”
I motioned for Talon, Phaelan, and even Agata to get to the far sides of the doors. Agata and Talon shielded Phaelan.
My team got our defensive magic ready to let fly. Dasant moved to the opposite door.
I nodded, and we pushed in unison, the doors opening easily and in complete silence, as if they had been used only yesterday.
And my mere touch had unlocked them.
We didn’t need light to sense the sheer size of the chamber beyond.
“Any unfriendlies?” I asked Jash.
“Not a one.”
“Calik, would you have Sapphira do the honors and put a little light on the subject?”
“She’d love to, sir.”
“Just enough to get a look,” I cautioned. “We wouldn’t want to torch anything important.”
Sapphira breathed an almost dainty fireball.
The room was narrower than the chamber at our backs, more like a large corridor than a room. And unlike the temple’s soaring ceiling, this one barely extended beyond the height of the doors. At the other end waited an unassuming door. One door, not a double, and closed.
“Well, the dragons won’t be going any farther,” I noted.
“And they’re perfectly fine with that,” Calik said. “And so am I. The ladies and I will be nice and cozy right where we are.”
The floor was something else altogether.
Only a light coating of dust covered the tiles; some weren’t much bigger than my foot, others were the circumference of one of Sapphira’s claws or even larger. The tiles were both square and rectangle, and had no discernable pattern.
“There must be hundreds of them,” Agata murmured.
Careful not to cross the threshold, Phaelan knelt and blew the dust away from the tile at his feet, revealing an unfamiliar engraved symbol.
The elf sat back, surveying the vast expanse of tiles between us and the plain door at the far end. “Would Sapphira be willing to do a little light housekeeping?”
Within moments, with Calik’s guidance, Sapphira’s exhales had cleared every tile.
And every tile had a different symbol.
Malik cleared his throat. “Is anyone else grateful we opted for prudence?”
Each symbol was different, but one element was the same. In the center of the tiles that made up the room’s threshold was something we all recognized.
A skull.
“Now that’s what I call a welcome mat,” Elsu muttered.
“Could this be the entrance to a tomb, perhaps?” Malik wondered aloud. “It could explain the skulls.”
“Or it could be a warning,” I said.
“I believe that is a safe assumption,” Malik replied.
Phaelan glanced from the floor to the ceiling. “The ceiling tiles don’t have markings, but they match the floor tile sizes exactly. That’s never good.” Then he scanned the floor, his dark eyes darting back and forth.
I looked out over the expanse, trying to see what he was seeing. “What is it?”
“They’re different shapes—and colors. There’s a pattern; it just can’t be seen from floor level. I need a boost.”
“Saffie’s ready and able,” Calik told him with a smile.
“Yeah, I thought you’d say something like that.” The elf pirate blew out his breath. “Without risks, there are no rewards.”
With a gleam in her yellow eye, Sapphira lowered her head.
Phaelan hesitated. “She’s not going to—”
“Do anything unprofessional,” Calik finished for him.
Without another word, Phaelan climbed to a perch just behind the dragon’s head and gripped one of her horns for balance. To her credit, Sapphira was a perfect lady as she lifted
the elf to give him a better view of the floor.
Phaelan surveyed the tiles. “It’s a snake.” He paused. “Looks kind of familiar.”
Every goblin froze.
Dasant swore.
Malik nodded. “My sentiment exactly.”
I stepped over to Sapphira. “Calik, bring him down. We need confirmation.”
Calik had paled. It wasn’t only my team who suspected what we were looking at.
The pilot said a few words in Goblin, the dragon lowered her head, and Phaelan gratefully jumped down. I took his place. Sapphira smoothly raised her head, giving me a clear look at a symbol none of us wanted to find here.
I whispered a single word. It was one of the foulest words in our language, but it described perfectly what lay between us and the only way we had into Nidaar.
The serpent seal of the Brotherhood of the Khrynsani.
Chapter Ten
“Are you sure?” Phaelan asked when I’d told them. “Don’t a lot of evil secret societies use snakes as their club mascot?”
“Yes,” Malik said, “but not like this one. It’s definitely Khrynsani, albeit an older version.”
“How old?”
“The Khrynsani have been around for over two thousand years.”
“And the Cha’Nidaar, these gold goblins, when did they get here?”
“Estimates put it at between twelve to fifteen hundred years ago,” I replied. “The Cha’Nidaar had no love for the Khrynsani. Perhaps this could be a warning to any who got this far. Though tilework this intricate, and of the emblem of your archenemy… it’s unexpected. As unexpected as it would be if I put a Khrynsani seal on my front door. I simply wouldn’t do it.”
Or as unexpected as if I opened a magically locked door with a touch—and power I didn’t know I had.
“So, what does finding a Khrynsani serpent here mean?” Talon asked.
“Nothing good.”
“Meaning it would be ill-advised to casually stroll toward yonder door,” Malik said. “Considering the suspicious stains on a few of the tiles toward the center of the room, we will want to take our time.”
Elsu stood on tiptoe to get a better look. “Stains?”
“The bloody smears that are all that’s left of the last poor bastards who tried.”
“You sure it’s blood?” Elsu asked.
Dasant snorted.
“You’re right. Stupid question. Malik knows blood.”
“And those are marble tiles,” Malik added. “Unless they’re properly sealed and maintained, when blood sinks in, nothing—magic or mundane—will get it out.”
Phaelan grinned and clapped his hands once, rubbing them together in unabashed glee. “Booby traps! Now we’re having fun.”
Phaelan’s tomb-robbing experience was one of the reasons I wanted him with us, but the degree to which he was enjoying himself was more than mildly disturbing.
“An outer entrance to a city wouldn’t have the approach completely covered in booby-trapped tiles,” Malik said.
“It would if they didn’t want anyone getting in,” Phaelan countered.
My eyes roamed the floor, looking for any clue as to which tiles weren’t safe—aside from the blood-smeared ones, that is. “The queen told Kansbar that they would never be found again.”
“We found them,” Phaelan said.
“We found two rooms; we haven’t found them. And we’re not in the city.”
“It also doesn’t appear that anyone else has had any better luck,” Malik noted.
“Jash, are you sensing any signs of life?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Agata, anything from the Heart?”
She pointed across the booby-trapped room to the unassuming door. “That way.”
“The snake goes all the way from this door to that one,” Phaelan said. “I think we can safely eliminate taking that path.”
“Is there enough room in front of the door for all of us?” Elsu asked.
“The same amount that we’re standing on now,” I told her.
“Anyone wondering if we’re making much about nothing?” Talon asked. “The bloodstains are all on the white tiles. Just stay off—”
Malik pointed to a smeared gray tile. “Except that one.”
“Oh.”
“In my experience,” Phaelan said without taking his dark eyes off the tiles, “if a pattern as detailed and potentially important to a culture or cult as that snake extends from here to where we need to go in a winding path of sorts, the way to pass without getting squished lies in the history of the symbol and how these people perceived it, combined with—”
He stopped, sensing we were all staring at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” I told him. “Merely absorbing your knowledge.”
“Combined with what was physically possible for those who had to pass through on a regular basis,” the elf pirate continued. “Unless you wanted to lose your people, big jumps would be ill-advised.” He glanced around at my team. “So, who’s the ancient Khrynsani expert?”
Malik’s expression went from surprised amusement at Phaelan’s articulateness and perception to resignation. “That would be me.” He took a breath. “This particular symbol dates back to the Khrynsani’s founding, when they were more concerned with gaining knowledge than world domination.”
Talon’s brow went up. “You mean they weren’t always evil?”
“There were some evil individuals as members, but as an organization, the Khrynsani was academic rather than military.” He gave a humorless smile. “Remember that it’s not knowledge itself that is evil, but the uses to which it is put.”
“The Cha’Nidaar left Rheskilia, came here, and have been protecting the Heart of Nidaar ever since,” Agata said. “Could the reason they left be conflict with or persecution by the early Khrynsani when they changed their mission?”
Malik pondered. “The time the Cha’Nidaar were said to have arrived here roughly coincides with the ascension of Domin Sulat, who is recognized by modern Khrynsani as the first leader of the order as it stands today. So, that is entirely possible. And each segment of the Khrynsani serpent represents a tenet of Khrynsani belief.”
“Which ones would the Cha’Nidaar have agreed with?” Phaelan asked.
Malik’s eyes glittered with the challenge. “Or thumbed their noses at, if the architect of this deadly game had a dark sense of humor.”
“Unfortunately, none of the bloody tiles are part of the serpent,” Elsu said. “So, no help there.”
“There are twenty-one tenets,” Malik said. “I can see the first two. However, both can be interpreted as relatively benign, meaning we would need to choose which one the Cha’Nidaar would have agreed with—or disdained more.”
The tail of the Khrynsani serpent began one long stride across several white tiles from the doors’ threshold. None of those tiles were bloodied. The triangular tile representing the serpent’s tail had no symbol. The next two did—and they were side by side. Therein lay a potentially deadly choice.
“I can’t see a people who protect a source of power rather than exploit it treating Khrynsani tenets lightly,” I told him. “If they needed to cross this room on a regular basis, I would think they would have chosen symbols that reinforced their beliefs. They would want to avoid contact with the symbols which were counter to that.”
Malik nodded slowly. “That makes sense. However, it doesn’t answer my question.”
“And whoever’s blood that is out there, did it belong to mages or nulls?” Phaelan asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Malik said, securing his gear bag across his back. “I have to be the one to go. You don’t know the symbols and their meanings. They are complex, and a few look very similar but have opposing meanings. I can discern the difference; you could not. It is I who must take the risk.”
“Lightglobe or torch?” Dasant asked him.
“A torch might be the safer choice. The less magic used, the better. If it doesn
’t like mages, I’ll discover that soon enough.”
“Which one of the first two tiles will you take?” I asked him.
“I’ll start with the tail. It’s a comfortable stride. The next two would not be.” Malik grinned. “I can see the Cha’Nidaar wanting to step on the tail of the Khrynsani serpent. As to the next two tiles that are side by side, I’ll go with the right tile.”
“Why the right?”
“Because it was written by Greid Renu, who eventually became Domin Sulat’s second-in-command—and then strangled him.” Malik flashed a grin. “I’ve always admired his work ethic.”
I nodded, then smiled tightly. “Good luck, my friend.”
Malik nimbly stepped from the threshold to the serpent’s tail without incident.
He paused then, shining the small torch across the two tiles at his feet. I saw him take a deep breath before stepping forward with his right foot, and when nothing happened, following with his left.
Malik proceeded smoothly until he reached the middle of the room—the area where the bloody tiles were. Malik shone his torch on the next few tiles, then straightened.
“I have a bit of a dilemma,” he called back to us. “The next five tiles have no symbols. The sixth has one; however, there should be two tenets that come before it.”
“Have they been worn away by age?” I asked.
Malik turned to face us. “There are no symbols there to have been worn down. It appears those two tenets were never inscribed.”
Dasant muttered a curse.
“You said it,” Elsu agreed.
Phaelan stepped to the edge of the booby-trapped floor. “You’ve taken every third tile, right?”
“Correct,” Malik said.
“The sixth tile—the next one that has a symbol—is that a ‘good’ tenet?”
“Yes.”
“Are the two that were omitted also ‘good’?”
“One is more moral than the other, but neither could ever be called good.”
Now it was Phaelan’s turn to swear.
“I see no alternative than to jump to the sixth tile,” Malik said. “Though it appears that option was tried by one of the previous contestants, and from the red smear on the tile next to the one I would be targeting, he overshot his landing.”