The Broken Key (02) - Hunter of the Horde

by Brian S. Pratt

  Bart was there waiting for him and helped him the last couple of feet until he stood in the room next to him. He hollered for Riyan to toss his staff. When it came plummeting out of the shaft opening, Bart caught it for him. “Thanks,” he said as he claimed his staff.

  Bart just shrugged.

  First Chad, then Riyan came through the opening. By the time Riyan was through and standing with the others, Seth had managed to batter away a large enough section of the door for them to pass through.

  “Okay Chyfe,” Riyan hollered. “Your turn.”

  A second later the rope started falling through the opening then they heard Chyfe yell,

  “Here I come!”

  “Should we catch him?” asked Kevik.

  Bart shook his head. “The force of him hitting your arms would likely break them,” he explained.

  So backing up several feet, they waited. First they heard him coming, then they saw him sail through the opening. He hit the ground with an ‘Oomph’ and rolled. Bart came to his side and lent him a hand up.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Think I bruised my hip,” Chyfe admitted. Once on his feet, he took a few tentative steps then nodded. “Nothing major.”

  “Good,” Bart said.

  Chad had untied and recoiled the ropes by the time Chyfe was off the floor. He put one in his pack and handed the other to Chyfe.

  Over by the door, Riyan had Seth’s torch in hand and was peering through the opening the mace had made. “There is another passage out there,” he said. Glancing back, he made sure the others were ready then stepped through to the other side.

  Chapter Thirty

  _______________________

  Riyan stepped through and found himself in another small passage leading away from the door. The torch’s light reached far enough to show where the small passage ended at an intersection. He stood just outside the door and waited until Bart came through. Then they went on to the intersection while the others continued to emerge from the room.

  “You know, Kevik’s spell isn’t going to hold very much longer,” stated Riyan.

  “When it ends, the trap will reset.”

  Bart held the torch aloft as he entered the junction of passageways. “True,” he replied. “But I’m sure there’s another way out.” Indicating the passages leading to their right and left he added, “One of these will take us back to the surface.” Looking down the passage extending to their left, they saw where it came to a corner and disappeared to the right. The passage to their right continued straight until passing out of the torch’s light.

  “Which way?” Bart asked.

  “One’s as good as another,” replied Riyan. Glancing back to where the others were emerging from the cell, he saw the last of them making their way through the door.

  Bart gathered everyone together at the junction. “From here on, we’ll need to proceed with caution,” he explained. Looking to Seth and Soth he added, “No more going off on your own. We stay together, understand?”

  The twins nodded simultaneously.

  He took Chad’s rope and secured it around his waist. Handing the rest of it back to him, he said, “Keep a firm grip on it, just in case.”

  “You can count on me,” Chad replied.

  To the faces watching him he added, “Walk where I walk and don’t touch anything.” Then turning, he began moving down the passage to the right. He didn’t get far before the rope grew taut. “Give me several feet of slack,” he said to Chad over his shoulder. Chad played out more of the rope until Bart was satisfied. With a nod, he continued on.

  The passage continued to be unadorned except for the occasional torch sconce just as the ones above had been. Barely wide enough for two men to stand shoulder to shoulder, they followed Bart single file.

  Bart held their only lit torch as he moved through the narrow passage. Behind him came the others basked in the glow from the light of Kevik’s staff.

  After several minutes of making his way carefully through the passage, Bart saw another passage branching off to their right. It turned out to be a short passage that ended in a door remarkably similar to the one they had recently broken through. Bart had the others wait at the intersection while he went forward to investigate. Chad played out more of the rope as Bart moved away from them.

  Just as in the previous door, this one too had a small, barred window at eye level.

  Holding his torch behind his head, he tried to peer through to the other side. It was another of the cells.

  Turning around, he rejoined the others. “Another cell like what Seth and Soth found,” he explained.

  “They must have the passages above riddled with those slanting floor traps,” Chyfe said.

  “Possibly,” Bart said. “They could also have been used to hold prisoners of one kind or another.” Moving out once again, he left the branching passageway behind and continued on.

  They came across three more of the cells and had followed the passage around a sharp turn to the left before they saw something lying on the floor ahead. As Bart drew near, he saw that it was the remains of a door. A few feet further down on the left was the doorway it had barred.

  “Did the attackers make it this far?” asked Seth.

  Bart was joined by Chyfe and together they looked the area over. “Hard to tell,” replied Bart. “The door was knocked off its hinges though.” Chyfe nodded. “Would have expected more debris like what we saw earlier if they had fought here.”

  On the other side of the opening where the door had at one time stood were stone steps leading down. Much cruder than the construction thus far encountered, these steps and the walls on either side didn’t have the ‘finished’ look of the previous passageways.

  Bart again took the lead as he descended the steps.

  “How far down does this go?” mused Soth.

  “As far as it does and no further,” replied Seth jokingly. His brother gave him an annoyed look.

  “Are we even sure this is the way to go?” Kevik asked.

  “No,” replied Bart without slowing his pace. He kept his eyes on the steps before him as he went, giving each a quick scrutiny before placing his foot upon it. There were twenty three steps in all before ending at a room. The room wasn’t very large, barely thirty feet by fifteen. Just like the steps coming down, this room was crudely fashioned except for the wall to their right. It almost looked as if work on the room had been halted once that wall had been finished.

  The entire wall was a beautiful mosaic fashioned of small pieces of colored marble.

  Bart was awed by the skill that must have gone into it, and he wasn’t the only one as others gave awed exclamations when they saw it.

  The scene was set on the banks of a lake, the lake being in the background. On the right side of the mosaic, rising from the shore of the lake was a gnarled old tree, atop which perched a two headed falcon. It was the spitting image of the one from the coat of arms. The left side of the mosaic showed a castle set atop a mountain with a dragon curled around the tallest spire. In the background beyond the castle crested mountain, was a smaller range of foothills. A river meandered its way through them until finally flowing into the lake. One head of the falcon was looking at the dragon atop the castle while the other was directing its gaze toward the river winding through the hills.

  “Impressive,” commented Riyan. He had never seen anything like it. The detail was incredible, each piece had been masterfully crafted to seamlessly set against its neighbors. The overall affect was breathtaking.

  “Riyan,” said Chad. When Riyan turned to glance at his friend, Chad said, “Isn’t that dragon the same as the one on your sword?”

  Bart turned at that and nodded. “I was thinking the same thing,” he said.

  With everyone watching, Riyan pulled his sword from its scabbard and looked at the coat of arms on the crosspiece. He stared at it a moment then compared it to the one in the mosaic. “I think it is,” he said.

  “Intere
sting,” stated Bart. Turning back to the mosaic, he pointed to the double headed falcon. “Here we have the falcon from the one coat of arms…” then he moved his hand to point to the dragon. “And here is the dragon from the other.”

  “Perhaps they were allied in some way,” suggested Chyfe.

  “I think all four of them were in alliance together,” stated Bart. “Though the other three may have been subordinate to the King.”

  “Wouldn’t you think that something like this would have been built out in that large hall we passed through earlier?” questioned Seth. “I would think something of this beauty and obvious importance would have been placed somewhere else rather than…here.” Bart nodded and turned his attention back to the mosaic. “It is odd for it to have been placed here.”

  “Could be that they didn’t have time to finish this room before the attack came,” offered Soth.

  “Perhaps,” replied Bart, though the tone of his voice said he didn’t really believe that.

  Running his hand across the marble of the mosaic, he said, “Kevik, bring your staff closer.” As Kevik came to stand next to him, Bart knelt down and extinguished the torch he had been carrying against the stone floor.

  “Why did you do that?” asked Chyfe.

  “Kevik’s light is better suited for what I’m about to do,” he replied.

  “And that is?” Chyfe asked.

  “Look for a secret passage,” Riyan told him.

  Bart glanced back at him and said, “Two sources of light give off separate shadows.

  Also, the torch’s flame flickers which hinders the search.” Turning back to the wall, he heard Chyfe say, “Oh.”

  “Keep it just behind my shoulder,” he told Kevik. With Kevik’s staff now the only source of light, Bart began investigating the mosaic. He agreed with Seth in that such a work of art shouldn’t be in such an out of the way place, unless it was here for a specific purpose. He was convinced that purpose was to conceal the way to the segment. The dragon and double headed falcon which were on the mosaic led him to that conclusion more than anything else.

  Everyone remained quiet while Bart began his investigation of the mosaic. His fingers would press and attempt to shift the various pieces comprising the mosaic in the hope of finding a loose one. He was certain that either pressing one, or several, would trigger the secret door’s opening.

  After he had been at it for ten minutes and hadn’t found anything, the others sat down against the far wall. Breaking out some rations, they ate while watching Bart move from section to section. He had started with the two headed falcon, then had moved to the dragon. Once those had been fully inspected, he began in the center of the mosaic and began working his way outward in a spiraling pattern.

  “You might be right,” Seth said to his brother when twenty minutes of searching failed to reveal anything. “Maybe they hadn’t had time to finish this room before the attack came.”

  Bart stopped what he was doing and stretched. Turning away from the mosaic he crossed the room and joined the others. “I need a break,” he said.

  “Here,” Riyan said as he offered him a strip of dried beef.

  “Thanks,” he replied. Taking the meat, he ripped off a strip with his teeth.

  Chyfe had been staring at the mosaic for several minutes when he asked, “What’s the other head looking at?”

  “What?” asked Chad.

  “The two headed falcon,” he clarified. Getting to his feet he crossed over to the mosaic and pointed to the head that was staring at the dragon. “This head is staring at the dragon. What’s the other one looking at?”

  “The hills as near as I could tell,” Seth said. “I wondered about that too but there isn’t anything there.”

  “Hmm,” murmured Chyfe. He gave the hilly area through which the river ran a closer look. After a minute or two of searching, he had to agree with Seth that there wasn’t anything there.

  Then all of a sudden, Kevik’s light went out. “Don’t panic,” he said. “The spell simply ran its course.” A second later, the light flared back to life. “Sorry about that,” he said, “no spell lasts forever.”

  Riyan was staring at the mosaic with a peculiar look on his face. “Kevik, cancel your light.”

  Turning to Riyan he asked, “Why?”

  “I think I saw something when the light was out,” he explained. Then with a more commanding voice he said, “Just do it.”

  “As you wish,” replied Kevik and they were again plunged into pitch blackness.

  “There!” Riyan exclaimed.

  “I’ll be damned,” stated Bart. For there on the wall in the center of the mosaic, between the double headed falcon and the dragon, glowed the symbol of the king. “His symbol was here all along.”

  But the symbol was not all that glowed. Beneath it was an arc of a circle that was a match for a key segment. Bart immediately recognized it. “Riyan,” he said. “Give me one of the keys.”

  “Which one?” he asked.

  “I don’t think it matters,” he replied. “Maybe the one we found in Algoth.”

  “Alright,” Riyan said. In a second the sound of his pack being placed on the floor was shortly followed by the rustle of him digging through it. “Got ‘em,” he said. Coming to his feet, he brought them to Bart and handed him one. “Not sure if this one is from Algoth,” he explained. In the faint glow of the King’s symbol, it was hard to tell.

  Bart took the offered segment and said, “We’ll find out in a second.” Then very carefully he aligned the segment to perfectly match the glowing area on the mosaic. The glow gave off sufficient light for everyone to see the segment as it was brought toward the wall.

  “It’s exactly the same size,” observed Seth, voice full of wonder.

  Ever so slowly, Bart moved the segment closer until it came into contact with the glowing area on the wall. As soon as contact was made, the King’s symbol pulsed almost imperceptibly for a split second. Then, a rumbling sound could be heard.

  “Kevik,” Bart said, all the while keeping the segment in contact with the mosaic,

  “your light.”

  Suddenly, light filled the room and on the side of the room opposite the steps, they saw a section of the floor begin to fall away. As it fell, sections halted to form steps leading down. When it stopped, Kevik and the others moved to the top and looked down.

  “The steps go about ten feet,” Riyan said to Bart. Then he turned to look at his friend still pressing the segment to the wall. “Go ahead and let go,” he told him.

  Bart nodded and took the segment away. To his relief the floor did not rise back to its previous position. He moved to join the others and handed the segment back to Riyan.

  “We’re close,” he said.

  Riyan put the segments back into his pack. When he slung the pack over his shoulder, he had a grin on his face. “Man you know it!” he replied with enthusiasm.

  The others had equally excited looks. “What do you suppose is down there?” asked Chyfe. “Treasure?”

  “Only one way to find out,” Riyan said. Then to Bart he added, “After you?” Bart gave him a nod and grinned. “Let’s go.” With that he moved to the steps and began descending to the passage below. At the end of the stairs, the passage proceeded fifteen feet before opening up onto a circular room.

  The room was fifty feet from one side to the other with a domed ceiling above. When Kevik entered the room, the light from his staff revealed a ten foot wide circular area in the middle of the floor. Constructed of black marble, the circular area was a stark contrast for what was inlaid in silver upon it. The King’s symbol.

  The circular wall of the room was composed of black marble as well. Set within the wall across the room where they stood was the dragon-sword coat of arms. Upon the wall to their left was the two headed falcon coat of arms, and the plain coat of arms with the stripe was to their right. The ceiling above sparkled like a million stars, the light from Kevik’s staff was being reflected back by a mul
titude of crystals.

  “Wow,” breathed Riyan. He made to move further into the room but was stopped by Bart.

  “I would advise caution here,” Bart said.

  “I agree,” said Kevik. When the others glanced to him he added, “This room resonates with magic.”

  “Evil?” asked Chyfe.

  Kevik shook his head. “I don’t sense that,” he replied. “But it’s strong.” After another pause he said, “Back at the Tower of the Magi, one could always feel the magic of the place. But what I feel here makes the Tower seem impotent in comparison.”

  “What should we do then?” asked Seth.

  Bart didn’t answer. Instead he scanned the room from where he stood for another of the segments. But other than the King’s symbol on the floor, and the three coats of arms on the walls, the room was empty.

  “I wouldn’t think this place would be set up to kill intruders,” Riyan said. “After all, whoever built it had made it so this room would only be accessible by someone bearing one of the key segments.”

  “Or the magic Kevik feels could be the final, deadly trap for a thief who had already stolen another of the segments,” suggested Soth. “Such as us.” Bart turned to Kevik. “What do you propose?” he asked.

  “Hey, I’m just an Apprentice,” objected Kevik.

  “Practitioner,” corrected Chad.

  “Right, Practitioner,” replied Kevik, a little embarrassed at his mistake.

  “You’re still the most experienced one here when it comes to things magical,” argued Bart. “Now, how do you think we should proceed?”

  Kevik felt panic rising at the thought that his inexperience was being relied upon to lead the way. Who do they think I am? I’m just a Practitioner, and a new one at that! He gazed into the expectant eyes of his comrades and took a settling breath.

  “Magic only operates when certain sets of circumstances occur,” he began and then licked his lips as they had suddenly grown dry. “The magic could be here to protect the room, or to aid in the acquisition of the segment.” He inwardly relaxed when he saw Riyan nod his head.