A Gathering of Fools

by James Evans

  “Bit strange that the entrance to the treasure vaults is so far from the city, isn’t it?” said Thaurid dubiously but Ediaf shook his head.

  “I think this was an escape tunnel. There would obviously have been a direct entrance, possibly several, from inside the city, but this one would have been built in case of siege or disaster.”

  “Still strange to see it on the map, though. Why advertise something that should be secret?”

  “You worry too much,” said Gwilath, his eyes alight at the prospect of finding the long-lost city, “whoever drew the map obviously knew that he wasn’t going back any time soon and left instructions so that someone else could make the trip.”

  “Yeah, but why would you give someone the key to the city’s wealth? Makes no sense.”

  Gwilath gave an exasperated sigh and rolled the map.

  “It doesn’t matter. We leave the road here and hike across the hills to the tunnel entrance then we find the vault, retrieve the treasure and retrace our steps. Simple. We’ll be home in a couple of weeks and as rich as we’ve ever dreamed.”

  He tossed the map carrier back to Ediaf and finished stowing his gear while Stydd stamped out the remains of the fire and tidied the campsite. They were on their way only a little while later.

  “So where the fuck is the entrance?” yelled Gwilath at Ediaf, at them all, venting his frustration on the historian and the woodland, although neither was directly to blame for their failure so far to find the tunnel.

  Farwen placed her hand on his arm. They had been searching the hillside for two hours as the sun climbed past noon but it turned out that a secret entrance on a wooded hillside abandoned for decades and long overgrown was not easy to find. All of them had been searching, scouring the hillside for clues, looking for something that might be the stone portal on the map, beating bushes and turning over stones in the hope of finding the elusive tunnel.

  “I don’t know Gwilath,” said Ediaf, and Thaurid could tell by his tone that he was gearing up for a fight, “where did you last see it?” Ediaf stared up at Gwilath, face set and flushed from the effort of the search, and dared him to object further. Gwilath’s lip curled into a sneer and he raised his hand to make a point, preparing to bring down his forefinger like an executioner’s axe on Edie’s feeble argument, when there came the sound of splashing.

  “Here,” called Gendra, standing up to his knees in a small pond formed by a spring in a hollow. He had pulled the brush away from the hillside to expose a small opening, a cave.

  “Look,” he said as the others arrived to crowd the hillside above the opening, “this rock has a carving on it.”

  He had brushed dirt and moss from a large boulder that sat above the pond and alongside a small cave. There, faint against the grey stone, weathered over the years, disguised by shadow, was a shallow carving of something that might be a version of the portal from the map.

  “How the fuck did you spot that,” whispered Gwilath, dropping into the pond to stand beside Gendra and peer first at the markings on the boulder and then into the tunnel. Gendra shuffled, embarrassed, and pointed at the bank of the pond where a long heavy slide mark could be seen in the grass and muck.

  “Slipped.”

  Gwilath grinned at him then together they cleared the ivy and brambles from the portal, tearing aside the foliage until the tunnel mouth was clear. The rest of the crew crowded around the edge of the pond to get a better view of the opening.

  “It’s smaller than I’d imagined,” said Thaurid.

  “It’s his poor wife I feel sorry for,” said Ediaf, loosing the joke into the brightened atmosphere without really thinking. The opening was about four feet high and maybe two wide with a broad stone step along the lower edge to keep the pond from flooding the tunnel. Gwilath leant on the step and stuck his head into the tunnel, lighting his fire charm to cast a flickering light into the depths of the hill.

  “Looks like it slopes downward into the hill for at least thirty yards but it’s difficult to tell,” he said, straightening up and grinning wildly, “so now we get to explore.”

  He climbed out of the pond and stood on the bank, happy that they had finally had some good luck.

  “Gendra, you stay here with Stydd, get the horses sorted and see if you can snag something for us to eat. Theap, grab the lamps and sacks. Everyone else, dump your packs and anything you don’t need - we’ll set off in a few minutes.” Then he clapped his hands and everyone started moving, shedding kit and weapons and collecting tools and charms.

  Thaurid sought out Gwilath a few minutes later while he was rummaging through his pack for his tools. There was an awkward silence for a few seconds.

  “I’m sorry, Gwilath, you were right about the map, about making the trek north.” Gwilath stood up and held out his hand, then changed his mind and pulled his old friend into a hug.

  “We’ve made it,” he said as he released the surprised Thaurid, “this is the big one, we’re going to be rich and all we have to do now is reach out and take the prize before we head home to Vensille.”

  “Right,” said Thaurid, grinning, “so let’s get it done and get home. I could use a bath.”

  “Never a truer word, my friend, never a truer word.”

  Twenty minutes later everyone was ready. Gendra had disappeared into the woods in search of game and Stydd was gathering wood for a cooking fire. The horses were tethered and cared for, their tack stacked neatly on the ground nearby. Gwilath surveyed the camp and declared himself happy, then led the crew back up the valley to the pond and the tunnel mouth.

  “Pass me one of the lamps,” he said to Theap, holding out his hand. He dropped into the pond and climbed over the step of the portal, hauling himself into the tunnel through a gap that was only just large enough for a grown man to wriggle through. With the lamp glowing softly he stood up, head almost brushing the ceiling, and began to edge slowly along the tunnel. Behind him the others followed, clambering one at a time through the narrow gap.

  With all three lamps burning brightly the crew followed the tunnel as it sloped steadily downward. The floor was littered with twigs and windblown leaves and it looked like various animals had lived there over the years but as they got further from the entrance the amount of rubbish shrank until, forty yards in, the floor of the tunnel was almost clear.

  “Nobody’s been down here for years, decades maybe,” said Ediaf reverently, looking at the dust on the floor of the tunnel.

  After a hundred yards the tunnel levelled off but kept going straight, without offshoots or turns. Farwen ran her hands along the rock as they went, marvelling at the smooth stonework and the precision with which the tunnel had been cut.

  “Charmed tools,” she whispered, “must have taken ages to hack all this from the rock but they did a beautiful job.”

  “Hardly seems worth it for a tunnel,” observed Ediaf, “but I do like to see a piece of nicely worked stone.”

  “Keep your minds on the work,” said Gwilath from the front of the queue. From up ahead came the faint sound of running water and a few moments later the tunnel, wide enough only for one person to walk comfortably, ended in a portcullis. Gwilath stopped and ran his hand over the ironwork, inspecting it closely, then he put his shoulder against the bars and tried to lift it. The portcullis shifted, slightly, but didn’t rise. He passed the lamp to Farwen and looked for Thaurid.

  “Thaurid, give me a hand with this. I think we should be able to shift it.”

  Thaurid squeezed past Ediaf and Farwen until both he and Gwilath were standing side on to the portcullis, faces uncomfortably close.

  “If you grip it there, yeah, like that, and I grip it here,” said Gwilath, “then if we both heave at the same time…”

  They heaved and the portcullis shifted a little.

  “And again.”

  They heaved again and the portcullis climbed a few inches then, as they kept pulling, it moved another few inches, then a few more. Eventually, after much straining and effort,
the portcullis was almost four feet off the floor and Farwen was able to reach past the straining men and wedge the grooves with a branch retrieved from the top of the tunnel. Thaurid and Gwilath cautiously released their grips on the portcullis and let it sag a little as it bound on the wedge. They stared at it for a few seconds, then Gwilath ducked quickly underneath and into the next chamber.

  “Whoa,” he said, stopping abruptly, “does the map show a damn great chasm and a narrow stone bridge?”

  The others hurried under the portcullis and looked around the chamber. After the tight space and low ceiling of the tunnel this new room seemed almost cavernous. The ceiling had risen to around twenty-five feet and the room was at least fifteen feet wide and maybe 60 feet long but the defining characteristic, the one that had caught Gwilath’s attention as soon as he had stepped across the threshold, was a chasm at least five yards across that ran the width of the room and, from what they could see, continued for some distance in either direction. Spanning the gap was a narrow stone bridge, maybe a yard wide, leaping the chasm in a single elegant span without rail or rope or parapet. On the far side the way was narrowed by a crenelated wall that split the room in two and offered only a narrow passage through which travellers could enter.

  Theap cast a professional eye over the arrow slots, the bridge, the wall and the killing ground between it and the chasm. There were no murder holes in the ceiling but other than that the area was perfect for keeping people out.

  “I guess they didn’t want uninvited guests,” she said, gesturing at the wall, “that’s as nasty an entrance way as any I’ve seen above ground and I’d hate to have to attack it.”

  Thaurid sidled cautiously to the edge of the chasm and peered over before hurriedly stepping back.

  “That’s a very long drop into darkness,” he said, nervously. Gwilath sauntered to the edge of the bridge, showing a good deal more confidence than he felt, and prodded at the stonework with his foot before kneeling to examine it more closely.

  “Looks solid. It’s been hardened so it should be fine but maybe we ought to cross one at a time, just in case.”

  The others all looked at him; nobody moved.

  “You’re closest,” said Ediaf, “makes sense for you to go first.”

  Gwilath stood up and cleared his throat.

  “Right. Well, unless anyone else wants the honour…? No?”

  He placed his foot on the bridge, pausing to listen for signs that it might not hold, then gingerly took a second step. A short wait to see if it would drop him to a sudden death, then without looking down he took four more steps and jumped, relieved, to the floor on the far side of the chasm.

  “Easy,” he said, lying through his teeth, and faking a grin that fooled nobody, “come on, let’s keep moving.” Now that he was safely across he was impatient to continue and he turned away from the bridge after Farwen had crossed. Thaurid and Theap crossed the bridge quickly and took their lamps down to the far end of the room, examining the walls and floors as they went. There was a moment of reluctance from Ediaf but as the lamps receded into the distance he decided that he wasn’t ready to spend time alone on the dark. He shuffled cautiously over the bridge and fell with relief against the wall on the other side.

  The crew stopped to regroup in the middle of the chamber. There were four side tunnels but a quick inspection showed nothing but broken furniture and abandoned equipment, now rusted into uselessness. The map led them on to the end of the chamber and then into a great hall maybe twenty times the size of the previous room. Twin rows of columns reached to the ceiling and to the left and right were stacked great piles of rubbish.

  “It looks like this might have been some sort of store room,” said Ediaf, poking at the piles in the corner of the hall, “these are barrels, or were many years ago, but their contents have long gone, I’m afraid.”

  “These might have sacks of flour or wheat at one point,” said Thaurid from the other side of the room, “but I don’t think anything here is younger than we are.”

  They hurried through the hall checking each area as they went until they reached a large pair of double doors at the far end. Ediaf stood for a few seconds examining the map in the light of the lamp that Farwen held.

  “A little higher, please. Hmm, yes. Through these doors there should be a corridor. We turn left and look for stairs down to the next level,” he stopped and rolled the map up to put it away, “how much longer will the lamps last before they need to be charged?”

  Farwen shook her lamp, which had absolutely no effect on it.

  “Couple of hours, maybe? I wonder how the residents lit these chambers?”

  Gwilath made a show of searching the walls just inside the door.

  “If I recall, it was common to use powered lamps, like ours, but obviously those no longer work but there might…” he brushed cobwebs and dust from the wall then said, “yes, here, a power plate.” He placed his hand on the plate and focussed power into it. After a couple of seconds, dim lights appeared, suspended between the columns at the top of the hall. Gwilath concentrated and pushed as much power as he could into the plate until the lights grew brighter and the whole chamber was lit, albeit with the weak light of a full moon.

  “Wow,” said Theap, staring up at the vaulted ceiling and marvelling at the scale of the room, “that’s amazing.”

  The others murmured their agreement and Gwilath, face sweaty with effort and panting slightly, stopped and stood away from the wall. Almost immediately the lamps began to grow dim and after a few minutes they faded completely.

  “I think they must have had collectors and power stores,” said Gwilath, “but someone’s removed the heavy metals. This must have been a backup, something to use in case the collectors failed.”

  He turned to the doors, which, like everything else they’d found so far, were old and dusty. They were also slightly ajar and when he pulled one open, its hinges squeaked loudly in the otherwise quiet atmosphere.

  “Ouch, nasty noise,” said Farwen.

  “Anything that didn’t know we were here does now,” said Theap, loosening her sword.

  “Like what,” said Gwilath, “goblins?” he waved his hands in mock terror, “Or maybe little night sprites will come to carry us off to the deepest pits of Lankdon Gate.” He laughed and stepped through the doorway into the corridor beyond taking one of the lamps with him.

  “Something killed this city,” Theap said under her breath, “and it wasn’t fucking night sprites.” She rolled her shoulders and stepped quickly out of the room after the others.

  The new corridor was thirty feet wide and disappeared beyond the light of their lamps in both directions. Across from the double doors of the store room stood another, similar entrance with identical doors.

  “Left, then,” said Thaurid, taking a few steps along the corridor with the lamp held high. He stopped after a few seconds and half-turned back, frowning.

  “Did you hear that? Some sort of noise from down this way.”

  “You’re imagining things,” said Gwilath, joining him and waiting for the others to follow, “there’s nothing down here but us.”

  Thaurid wasn’t convinced and he muttered complaints under his breath but he followed Gwilath with the rest of the crew until they reached a set of stairs as broad as the corridor, heading downward in a left-hand spiral. Gwilath paused at the top of the stairs to consult the map with Ediaf then they all trooped down the long, shallow stairs. At the bottom the corridor opened quickly into another cavernous room, this one even larger than the one above, stretching further ahead and above and to the right than their lamps could light.

  “Anyone want to explore this one?” asked Gwilath as they stepped out onto the empty floor. More columns reached upward into the gloom and between them, now that they knew what to look for, were power lamps just waiting to be activated.

  “Don’t look at me,” said Gwilath, “it was all I could do to light the last set and these are even bigger. We’ll have t
o make do with our own lamps.”

  “We’re looking for another set of stairs,” said Ediaf, “which should be on the far side of this chamber. No need to do anything except walk straight across to the other side.”

  They found the second set of stairs exactly where the map showed them, another broad set of steps leading down in a spiral, this time to the right. At the bottom was another cavernous room, just like the one above, with a ceiling that disappeared beyond the lamplight and columns that marched into the distance. They gathered around Ediaf to look again at the map.

  “One more level, a third set of stairs, and then the vaults should be off the hallway beyond the first room we reach,” said Ediaf, excited now that they seemed to be nearing their destination, “and the stairs should be on the other side of this hall.”

  He led the way across the hall, holding the map in front of him but stopped suddenly about only a few yards.

  “I heard something,” said Ediaf, “from down that way.” He gestured toward the stairs that were now just about visible in the light of the charmed lamps. And there it was again, a tapping noise in the deep, a faint but continuous sound that echoed up the stairs from the level below.

  “Dripping water, maybe,” said Gwilath, but he didn’t believe it, “or some sort of burrowing animal.” He trailed off. Theap muttered something under her breath and loosened her sword.

  “Maybe we should go back,” said Thaurid, but Gwilath turned on him, angry now, almost snarling.

  “After coming all this way? No, we go on, we find the vault, then we go back,” he said, calming as he spoke, the anger fading as quickly as it had risen, “not before, right?”

  There was silence for a few seconds, broken only by the quiet tapping noises, then Gwilath turned back toward the steps and raised his lamp. They all stood there for a few seconds, listening to the tapping, then Gwilath strode forward and started down the steps and the others followed; nobody wanted to be left behind or to stray too far from the light thrown by the lamps.