General Ethan Moore had always considered his son’s literary excursions a waste of time, of course. He had nothing against knowledge, precisely, but he believed the subtleties of pure academic pursuits were too distant from real-world concerns and politics. Or so he had always said. Later on, Jason realized his father’s actual problem with history and philosophy was that they often muddied the day’s simple black-and-white issues into much more nuanced shades of gray. And his father had never much cared for gray, at least not where the interests of Galvia were concerned.
Thankfully, Jason eventually grew out of the need to seek his father’s approval. It had taken him most of a decade, but he had finally found his true passion…and better yet, he had even managed to find a way to profit from it. Relic-hunting had always been a popular pastime for adventurous types throughout Torsia, especially in places like Galvia that had once been home to a massive pre-Godswar civilization. Most hunters lacked the in-depth historical knowledge to find and appreciate the best dig-sites, however, and others simply weren’t able to assemble a proper team capable of navigating dangerous ruins. Jason, fortunately, had both. His hope going into this latest excavation was that it would be bountiful enough to allow him to live comfortably the rest of his life while chasing down the most interesting finds rather than the most valuable.
Now, staring into this ancient tomb, he realized it might very well be both. After pushing aside his embarrassment over his earlier door foible, he had managed to get them inside the tomb and past a few other minor traps in less than ten minutes. It took him only a few seconds within the central chamber to realize that this was indeed the Big One.
“That,” Tam whistled, “is a lot of gems.”
“And statues,” Gor added breathlessly.
Jason smiled. “Far more than that.”
The circular burial chamber was about forty feet in diameter, with the walls covered in elaborate tapestries, carvings, and other works of art that highlighted the major events in this particular dynasty. Armor stands, weapon racks, and sealed chests littered the rest of the room, but at the center was the grand prize—a large sarcophagus flanked on either side by three human-size statues of sword-wielding warriors. Their jewelry alone was probably worth enough to buy themselves a village or two.
“This is virtually identical to that drawing,” Selvhara commented. “Even the statues—women on the left, men on the right.”
“One of the more interesting aspects of her rule,” Jason commented, jumping up onto the central platform to get a better look. It took every ounce of willpower he could muster not to skip and squeal around the chamber like a delirious child. “Everything in Hassian society was equal and divided. And these guardians didn’t get a bad deal either, being immortalized in stone like this.”
“I think this one could take out Gor,” Tam commented, gesturing at one of the female-shaped statues. Her arms were wider than his head. “Also, damn that is a lot of rings.”
“Get the carts, bags, and everything else,” Jason ordered. “This is going to take awhile. We might as well start organizing.”
“Yes…” Gor rasped as he leaned over a pile of glittering gemstones. His feline eyes were fully dilated, and his tail was twitching back and forth in excitement. “If this tomb is laid out exactly as you predicted, then I assume your initial appraisal of its worth was also accurate?”
Jason shrugged as coyly as he could manage. “I probably guessed low, if anything.”
Gor didn’t smile often. He was completely impervious to humor and alcohol, as far as anyone could tell, and even the best bards in Galvia couldn’t crack the chagari’s chronically sour demeanor. But the moment Gor snatched up a pile of the gemstones, his mouth curled into a fang-heavy grin, and he snarled with joy as he half-ran, half-skipped back to their horses. Tam followed, whooping and hollering the entire way.
Selvhara hadn’t moved.
Jason closed his eyes and let out a frustrated sigh. “Look, I know you aren’t really into this whole grave-robbing thing, but you’re going to be rich in a few days. I mean, did you see Gor? Anything that gets him excited is worth celebrating.”
She turned and flashed him one of her many guilt-inducing, motherly looks. “You know I don’t do this for the money.”
“You say that now, but just wait until we get back to the city. I’ll buy you a new…uh…?” he stammered. “There has to be something you want. A new robe? New boots? Even druids need—”
“There’s something wrong.”
Jason repressed another sigh. This discussion came up every few weeks. Tam had dubbed it “Sel’s ethics of grave-robbing” speech, and they were all sick of hearing it. Jason understood where she was coming from, of course, and he even sympathized to an extent. But it was still frustrating how often she seemed willing to ignore the basic realities of living and working with humans. Elysian society ignored wealth as a matter of principle; they saw the other races’ obsession with material gain as self-serving at best and widely immiserating at worst. Jason often wondered how she had managed to survive in human lands so long.
But here and now, sitting on the biggest hoard of gold and glory any of them were likely to see in a lifetime, he really wasn’t in the mood for cultural criticism.
“Look,” he said with strained patience, “now really isn’t the time for—”
“No,” Selvhara interrupted, her eyes fixed on the tomb. “Something is wrong.”
Jason paused and followed her gaze. Nothing seemed out of place, but she could perceive plenty of things he could not. “What is it?”
She slid closer to the sarcophagus. “Aether,” she murmured. “It is concentrated very strongly—I can sense it even behind the stone here.”
He frowned. “Are you sure? These people couldn’t channel at all, Sel. Unless someone else has been in here after it was sealed…and given that the traps out front were still active, I find that hard to believe.”
“I am not mistaken,” she said, placing a hand on the stone. “There is something inside this tomb.”
Jason cocked an eyebrow. “Alive?”
“Aether is not alive,” she corrected as if it were obvious, “and aside from the carrion there is no life in this tomb.”
“Mm,” he murmured as he leaned in closer and studied the stone. To him it looked, smelled, and felt like a thousand-year old slab of rock, but of course that didn’t mean anything. She was the channeler here, and he trusted her abilities. But it still didn’t make any sense.
Aether hadn’t existed in the world before the Godswar—that was where it had come from in the first place. The gods had died, and their invisible blood had seeped throughout the world, giving mortals a hidden font of power to draw upon.
That was the legend, anyway. But as a historian, he had long since grown accustomed to challenging the claims of conventional wisdom.
“Any ideas?” he asked.
Selvhara slowly shook her head. “None.”
Jason sighed. “Well, let’s get the others and see if Tam has any insights.”
By the time he made it back outside, Tam and Gor had managed to get their pulley system unpacked and near the setup point. Jason called them back down, and Tam took a few moments to study the sarcophagus.
“Yeah…yeah, I see it,” he confirmed. “She must have been buried with a heap of enchanted goodies.”
“But that’s impossible,” Jason told him. “Queen Malacross died centuries before the rise of the first Ascendants. There was no magic in her time.”
“Erm,” Tam muttered. “Well, I don’t know what else to tell you. There’s a huge concentration of Aether in there. It’s easily the strongest aura I’ve ever seen.”
Jason nodded gravely. “There’s only one way we’re going to figure it out. Help me open it.”
The sarcophagus wasn’t locked or trapped, but it was damn heavy. Jason and Tam couldn’t even budge the lid, but that was one of many reasons they brought a chagari along. With a feral groan of exer
tion, Gor hefted the lid aside, and once the dust cleared Jason found himself staring at the last thing in the world he had expected.
Nothing. Or rather, almost nothing.
There was no glowing ring, no enchanted sword, and no angry corpse lurking inside the tomb. All that remained were the tattered remnants of cloth lining the edge of the coffin and a metallic black cube about six inches wide sitting in the exact center. Each of its sides had an inscription on it, but Jason didn’t recognize the language.
“That’s definitely what the aura is coming from,” Tam said. Behind him, Selvhara nodded in silent agreement.
Jason licked at his suddenly dry lips. “Any reason I should be terrified to touch it?”
“Probably a dozen or so,” Tam muttered. “But that doesn’t usually stop you.”
Before anyone could protest, Jason reached in and picked up the cube. When it didn’t immediately explode in his face, he twirled it around in his fingers and inspected the markings.
“There’s a lot of writing here,” he said quietly. “But I don’t recognize the language.”
“Isn’t that strange?” Selvhara asked. “I thought you knew all the languages of this era.”
“Not all of them, but I should at least recognize the basic ideograms. Hassian was the precursor to modern Galvian and Crell and almost every other Torsian language.” Jason pursed his lips in thought. “If I had to guess, I think it’s written in Nephilese. There are only a few people in the whole world capable of translating it.”
“How wonderful,” Gor grumbled. “But in case you’ve forgotten, we have an entire tomb filled with treasure here, and it isn’t going to move itself. I’m sure you can hawk that thing to some idiot collector.”
“This isn’t going with the rest,” Jason said. “I have to study it first.”
For a moment, the chagari looked like he might protest, but he probably assumed a stupid box had no value compared to the other relics they found. And he might have even been right—most collectors would only pay premium for authentic Hassian heirlooms. If Jason was right about the origin of the markings, then this cube belonged to a different age entirely. The problem was that he still didn’t understand why it was radiating Aetheric energy.
“Someone had to place this here,” he whispered. “There’s no other explanation.”
“You said yourself there were no signs of prior entry,” Selvhara pointed out. “I certainly don’t see any. Everything here is in pristine condition, and you would think other tomb robbers would have at least taken the gemstones.”
“I think there might have been an insult in there somewhere,” Tam replied with a grunt. “But Sel’s right—we had to move several tons of dirt and rock just to get in here. Do you really think someone else moved all that and then just reburied this place?”
“I didn’t say someone was here recently,” Jason corrected. “This tomb is ancient—someone could have easily placed this here a few centuries ago and reburied it. Maybe they even replaced the traps.”
“You know how crazy that sounds, right?”
Jason cringed. He did, of course, but this whole thing was crazy as far as he was concerned. “This place wasn’t untouched: there’s no body.”
Selvhara glanced back into the sarcophagus. “Queen Malacross died thousands of years ago. Her body would have crumbled to dust long ago.”
“Hassians mummified their rulers,” Jason told them. “There would still be remains.”
Tam grunted. “Maybe they just forgot this time.”
“There are other possible explanations,” Selvhara said. “I believe you called her ‘Queen Malacross the Dreamwalker.’ That seems to suggest some type of clairsentient ability.”
Jason waved a hand dismissively. “Plenty of ancient cultures named their rulers that way. The people liked to think of them as divine beings. It was a lot easier to accept orders from a god than some normal sap who happened to be born into wealth.”
“Or perhaps she was an Immortal.”
“You know that’s impossible.”
“Not all cultures share the same beliefs about their history, Jason,” Selvhara reminded him. “You of all people should know that. Many people believe the Immortals walked the land long before the Godswar.”
“I’m aware of the myths,” he assured her. “But there’s no evidence to corroborate them. Most cultures who believe in that type of thing use it as some type of nationalist mantra to justify the birthright of their ruling elite.”
“Certain events are difficult to explain without their presence.”
“Just because an explanation hasn’t been found doesn’t mean ‘the gods did it,’” Jason insisted. “You’re smart enough to know that.”
“It is not a matter of intelligence. Everyone accepts certain things on faith.”
Jason sighed and rubbed a finger against his temple. This was yet another argument they broached all too often, and it was probably even more frustrating than her sermons on the ethics of grave-robbing. While the majority of Bound channelers in Torsia served an Ascendant king or queen directly, Selvhara and her druid kin did not. They worshipped Anvira, one of the Old Gods—more often called the Immortals—who had ostensibly survived the Godswar. According to legend, she had merged her spirit with the world itself, and even thousands of years later she was capable of empowering a small number of Bound servants to enact her bidding.
Jason had never completely accepted that mythos, but Selvhara obviously drew her power from somewhere. He sometimes suspected that the elysian queen—an Ascendant in her own right—was the one who actually granted the druids their power, but of course he couldn’t prove it. And ultimately, he conceded, it didn’t really matter. They could speculate about the nature of the gods and the Ascendants all day and it still wouldn’t help them learn anything useful about this cube.
“So, not to break up a fascinating discussion or anything,” Tam said, “but in case you’ve both forgotten, we have a fortune to extract here. If you make Gor wait any longer he might just beat us to death and take everything himself.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” the chagari said as he idly stroked a vase that was probably worth more gold than he was.
“It doesn’t matter what the hell that cube-thing is or if this Queen Malacross was really a four hundred pound man who was cremated and stuffed in a jar,” Tam continued. “We’re rich! Ridiculously, fabulously, outrageously rich! I can finally live out my dream of owning every brothel in Lyebel. So let’s get this shit packed up already!”
Jason smiled despite himself. “All right, get the pulley assembled. I’ll start cataloguing. But this cube doesn’t go anywhere until I know what it is.”
“That’s fine, we’ll take it out of your share,” Gor said. “Now let’s go.”
Selvhara squeezed his arm and offered him a tired smile. “Just keep your mind open. There has to be a reason this was here.”
“Yeah,” Jason agreed, twirling the cube idly in his hand. “I’m sure there is.”
Chapter Two
“A man who finds wealth before conscience has no fortune at all.”
—Solipean Proverb
Jason poked at the fire for the hundredth time in the past ten minutes, his eyes lost in the throbbing coals. He should have been asleep given how hard they would be pushing to reach Selig by tomorrow night; failing that, he should have been lying there thinking about the piles of gold awaiting them in Lyebel when they finally unloaded their enormous stash. Instead he was mulling over the small cube nestled in his lap and wondering how the hell it had found its way into that tomb.
“Are you trying to cook something on the end of that stick?” Gor grumbled under his breath. He was leaning against a nearby rock, his eyes closed but his bow and axe within arm’s reach if he needed them. At a glance, the chagari could have easily been asleep, but Jason knew better. Gor rarely allowed himself to nod off until everyone else had already done so—except Selvhara, naturally, who barely slept at a
ll.
“Sorry,” Jason muttered, tossing his stick into the flames. He sighed and glanced back at his sleeping roll and gear, inwardly scolding himself for not just lying down and passing out. He started to sprawl out but stopped when his nose wrinkled at the scent of fresh incense from behind him. “What’s the occasion?”
Selvhara sat cross-legged on the ground with several small candles and an offering dish before her. Faint green smoke wafted from the bowl as she added various herbs to the mixture.
“I don’t need an occasion to meditate,” she said.
“You’re supposed to be keeping watch,” Gor pointed out. “Burning flowers with your eyes closed doesn’t count.”
“The camp is well protected,” she replied matter-of-factly. “But if you don’t trust my wards, you are welcome to set some traps of your own.”
The chagari grunted and shuffled in place. “That smell is terrible. And it will alert every creature within a mile to our presence.”
“You haven’t bathed in a week. Perhaps you should—”
“Would both of you just shut up already?” Tam muttered, his voice muffled by his pillow. He was planted face-first on his bedroll, looking for all the world like he had just been shot in the back. The empty ale flagon next to him seemed the likeliest culprit.
Shaking his head, Jason slid the mystery cube back into its protective pouch and then tried his best to force his mind to settle. Once, years ago, he had asked Sel to teach him some of her meditation techniques, but sadly the entire process was so bogged down in cryptic and often downright nonsensical rituals that Jason had never found it particularly soothing. If Anvira just instructed her druids to inhale the hallucinogenic herbs and skip the prayers altogether, she probably would have been a lot more popular.
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