by Mark Smylie
“Let’s move fast in the morning, yeah?” Stjepan had said.
Annwyn’s hand moved the flap of her tent open, giving her a view of the camp. Sir Colin Urwed stood only a pace of two away with his back to her, his hands resting on his bared greatsword. He didn’t seem to be aware that she had come to the tent flap behind him, intent instead on watching a group moving west up the hill toward the entrance to the barrow as the sun rose in the east behind them. She could see the young squire Wilhem Price and her handmaiden Malia were moving about the camp beyond Sir Colin, doing busy work around the now-doused campfires, cleaning up after the hasty morning meal.
She followed Sir Colin’s gaze, and could see Stjepan, Arduin, Sir Helgi, Gilgwyr, four of the ruffians they’d hired on at the Inn—Godewyn, Pallas Quinn, Too Tall, and Caider Ross, though she did not know their names—Erim, and Leigh; they were moving quietly but swiftly up the stone steps they had uncovered yesterday, carrying weapons, tools, and other gear either in leather and canvas bags or slung over their shoulders.
My champions, she thought idly. Then she closed the tent flap.
Pallas Quinn, Caider Ross, and Too Tall were busy preparing lanterns. Erim tested her still-bandaged left arm. Arduin and Sir Helgi stood to the side grimly, both of them in their full armor: a complete field harness for Arduin, and a three-quarter harness for Sir Helgi. Their sallet helmets hung from their sword belts. Gilgwyr wiped at his sweating brow, looking very out of his element.
Arduin stared at the entrance into the hillside before them, and shuddered a bit. “Burying your dead in the earth . . . a barbaric practice,” he muttered.
Stjepan glanced his way. He wasn’t sure if Arduin had intended anyone else to hear him, but he spoke to him anyway. “Each practice has its purpose, my Lord: burial, for those of the Old Religion, to return them to the Earth that gave us birth . . .” he said, motioning to the north and the Vale of Barrows. Then his hand swept up, indicating the sky. “. . . And the funeral pyre for those who wish their ashes to guide their spirits to the heavenly halls of our Divine King.”
“And should you die, Athairi, how should we treat your body?” asked Arduin.
“I shall be buried in the Earth when I die,” Stjepan said, staring at the entrance; it seemed to be calling to him. But that’s all right, it’s calling all of us, he thought.
Erim wanted to ask why witches were burned at the stake, but thought better of it.
“This wizard, then; he was one of your lot, a follower of the Great Goddess Yhera?” asked Sir Helgi with a frown. “I thought you’ve been telling us that we shouldn’t think the Old Religion and the Nameless Cults are the same, and yet here now you tell us that they treat the dead the same.”
“Not exactly the same,” said Stjepan, shaking his head. “The followers of the Nameless Cults used to secret their dead in the earth so they might later be animated by necromancers, to become guardians and corpse warriors. In ancient days they might also seek to revive them in foul and secret rituals. But by all report their cults lost the knowledge of how to bring one of their wizards back to life as a Worm King centuries ago. Githwaine was the last one. Strictly speaking, I suppose it wasn’t really burial for them, not in the way that the Old Religion thinks of burial; it was more like . . . storage.”
Leigh laughed. “A wonderful image, pupil of mine, the dead beneath the earth like apples and potatoes in the root cellar,” the enchanter chortled. “Delightful.”
They all looked at Leigh as though he was crazy; which he was.
Godewyn clapped Stjepan on the shoulder. “Well, then; lead on, smart boy,” Godewyn said.
Stjepan glanced at Arduin, who smiled weakly and inclined his head in invitation to Stjepan to proceed.
Stjepan turned and contemplated the entrance to the barrow again. With a grunt, he stepped forward, nodding to Caider Ross, who fell in behind him with a lantern lit and ready.
They moved into the barrow.
Sunlight streamed into the corridor from the entrance; with the sun rising to the east, its light filtered directly into the barrow. Silhouettes emerged one by one from the light, first Stjepan and then Caider Ross, followed by the rest, with Pallas Quinn last, bearing another lantern. The corridor was made of large flat upright stones arranged as the walls and etched with the bas-reliefs of horned demons with barbed tails, capped with other large stones laid over the top. The corridor slanted slightly downward. They walked over a floor of colorful stone mosaics covered by a thin layer of dust and dirt, seemingly undisturbed for hundreds of years, following the long passage until it ended in a small chamber of rough piled stone walls.
Stjepan paused before one of the bas-reliefs and Caider held the lamp closer so that Stjepan could inspect it.
“We’ve seen these before, some of the barrows down in the Vale have them,” said Caider. “Carving’s a lot better than the ones I’ve seen.”
Stjepan studied the bas-relief for a moment and nodded. “A depiction of one of the Baalhazor, guardian demons of the First Hell. Done in an early Iron Age style, so it’s of more recent make than you would expect over in the Vale of Barrows. Most of the barrows there were built in the Golden Age and the Age of Legends, up until the coming of Dauban Hess and the cult of the Divine King. Some were still being built during the Bronze Age, but use of the Vale pretty much stops after the Curse of Lost Uthedmael. Look, all of the faces are in profile, except the horns, which are depicted as though you’re looking at it head-on, that’s typical of the years after the Black Day Battle,” he said, pointing at the row of figures and then looking back toward Leigh. “Magister, what do you think?” he asked.
Leigh moved forward and studied them. “Aye,” said Leigh. “Definitely meant to be the Baalhazor. A reminder to thieves and grave robbers of which Hell awaits them, I would think. So in and of itself not an indication yet of whose tomb we are approaching. The old Daradj and Danian tradition sometimes included a depiction of the Baalhazor as a warning, as we use gargoyles today.”
Caider glanced around at the walls and floor. “The stone floor is a little odd, usually these places are just packed earth for floors,” he said.
“Aye,” said Godewyn. “The floor’s unusual, normally it ain’t like this that we’ve seen.”
Stjepan continued on and came to a stop in a small antechamber before a large, flat oval iron plate inlaid with leering faces in copper and bronze, which acted as a door and seal over the next passage. There were some small trinkets and urns placed around the walls of the antechamber and in front of the iron plate. A few of the others crowded in behind him, but the chamber was not large and most of them were still behind them in the entrance passage.
“This might explain why the floor is paved with stone,” said Stjepan. “It’s almost like a shrine here, with offerings and tribute left behind.”
“A place for a hero’s cult,” said Leigh quietly, and everyone glanced at each other with a bit of excitement.
Stjepan passed a hand a few inches over the iron plate’s surface, tracing an inlaid carving, as though feeling for something. Leigh stepped forward and similarly ran an amulet over the stone.
“Reveal that which is hidden!” Leigh whispered, and he paused for a long moment before stepping back. “Nothing. No wards, or curses upon this door, that I can see.”
Stjepan nodded in agreement. He and Godewyn, Caider Ross, and Too Tall took positions to one side of the iron plate with crowbars, arranging themselves haphazardly so as not to get in each other’s way.
“Step back, old man,” Godewyn said to Leigh. The enchanter looked askance at him but moved back out into the entrance passage. The four men remaining in the chamber grunted as they struggled to push the iron plate aside. Mortar crumbled from the edges. A slight puff of air exited the opening, and then as if in response suddenly a tremendous gust of air from the outside got sucked in as if in a long prolonged moan. The lanterns flickered; men coughed from the swirling dust.
And the iron plate fell hea
vily away, revealing a doorway.
As the dust settled, Stjepan took the lead and entered within. Erim, Caider Ross, and Too Tall, now bearing lanterns and shouldering shovels and picks and bags of gear, followed next. As Leigh, Gilgwyr, Sir Helgi, and Arduin moved inside, Godewyn turned to Pallas Quinn and held up a hand.
“You’re still fucking drunk, Handsome,” he said. “Stay here and keep an eye out. If the sun starts to go down and we ain’t back, start shouting.”
Pallas Quinn swayed and shrugged. “Aye . . . right, chief,” he said, and then he paused a beat. “You really think you’re going to be gone that long?”
Godewyn disappeared into the doorway, leaving Pallas Quinn standing there nervously, his eyes darting from the dark doorway into the inner barrow and back to the sun-lit exit. He set down his lantern and drew his broadsword and held it before his body.
No sunlight reached the next chamber from the outside. The oscillating lanterns of the party penetrated the dark as they entered, and revealed walls of large inlaid upright stones. Their lamplight fell on a large iron plate, inlaid once again with copper and bronze, straight ahead at the far end, and there were less imposing plain iron plates on their left and their right, all of them set into mortared stone arches like seals. Too Tall kicked over an urn, and licked his lips; there were grave goods—pots, urns, bronze implements—littered about, though nothing gleamed with gold or silver. Godewyn prepared a new lantern, and spiked it into a crack in the stone walls.
Stjepan moved down the chamber toward the big inlaid iron door at the end. There were letters on it, etched into the iron and then inlaid with copper.
He paused briefly, reading the letters, then turned back and walked over to the smaller door on their right.
“This one,” he said at the smaller door. “If I understand the map correctly, it’s this one we should go through, the first on the right.”
Godewyn walked over and stood in front of the big iron plate, looking at the bronze and copper inlays. He frowned. “That little one, and not this big iron door with all the markings that says: Attention, here lies the evil wizard?” Godewyn asked.
“Actually, that says: Enter here at your peril,” Stjepan said.
Godewyn stepped back, staring at the door a moment before shrugging. “Same thing,” he said.
Arduin walked over to stand by Godewyn. He studied the large iron door for a moment, then turned to the rest of the group. “The map has led us right this far; let it lead us a little further,” he said.
Everyone else either shrugged or nodded, and so Stjepan and Caider Ross took up their crowbars and moved aside the stone, revealing another doorway. They moved through it, into another chamber passage.
There was nothing but darkness until a doorway cracked open sharply. The light in the passageway outside spilled into the darkness, revealing a larger chamber. Stjepan entered and panned a lantern across the interior, illuminating four large, carved stone pillars that held up a vaulted roof. Three large doors, this time of carved stone, were mortared into corbelled archways on the west, north, and east walls of the chamber. The pillars and walls were carved with images of bird-headed demons framed in borders of intricate intertwining foliage and strange symbols. Grave goods, including vulture-headed masks, urns, chests, and piles of animal skulls, were scattered amongst the pillars.
Erim prepared another lantern, and spiked it by one of the stone doors, revealing the beautiful but barbaric patterns carved upon it. The others crowded in, setting down their bundles of gear.
Stjepan held a lantern up by the bas-relief of a bird-headed demon carved into one of the pillars. “A Golodriel, a servant of Geteema Hamat as Queen of the Second Hell,” he said quietly. “Definitely not what you’d expect to find in a barrow made by followers of Yhera and her Court.”
Godewyn walked around and looked at the three doors set in the walls. “This ain’t usual, either,” he said. “I’ve robbed plenty of barrows in my time, and no doubt have an appointment with Amaymon after I die because of it. But most old passage graves have maybe a small side chamber on each side, and that’s about it. Pillars, and doors, and more chambers beyond them? This is quite a lot of digging, somebody did, just to put a man under the earth.” He spat to the side. “So which door?”
“This one,” said Stjepan, and he and Leigh approached the western door. As before, Stjepan passed a hand a few inches over the carved surface of the stone, while Leigh ran an amulet over the stone.
“Reveal that which is hidden!” said Leigh.
Stjepan and Leigh stepped back as magical glyphs and patterns emerged in the carvings on the surface of the stone; the glyphs reached out to intertwine with the stones of the archway, as though anchoring the stone plate into the frame of the arch.
“The chamber beyond is warded against our entry,” Leigh said in a hushed voice.
“Or exit, by man or spirit,” said Stjepan, slightly puzzled.
The others exchanged excited glances behind them and crowded forward a bit.
“Well, this’s gotta be it then, yeah?” asked Erim with a mix of excitement and trepidation. “Can . . . can you get rid of the ward?” She looked troubled, as though she wasn’t sure what she wanted the answer to her question to be.
“The wards here are very strong, but I know an incantation that might work,” said Stjepan a bit dubiously. “It would require the use of a potent of the wormwood plant, however, and probably a considerable amount of it . . .”
“Folk magic,” Leigh said dismissively. “I am the expert here, Stjepan. Let me check my books of lore.” He began ruffling his hands through the folds of his robes as though searching for something. A satchel of black velvet appeared from within the folds, and he reached inside it and pulled out an old grimoire from the bag and leafed through it.
“The Lexica Pentaculum . . . Stjepan, dear boy, have you ever read it?” Leigh asked as he flipped through the old parchment pages.
“That book is forbidden, Magister,” said Stjepan.
“Of course, yes, of course it is,” mused Leigh absentmindedly as he busied himself with the book. “Bronze Age text in Old Éduinan, almost certainly written sometime in the Winter Century, as it mentions Hathhalla the Sun Lion drawing Her Veil over the sun, and covering the world in shadow. It’s mostly, as the title would suggest, about summoning and commanding spirits and elementals through the use of a magic circle. The incantations and rituals within it are mostly drawn from the Golan tradition of hermetic magic, rooted in the Sefer Hermetica Daedacti. Which shouldn’t make it forbidden, really. Except that the anonymous author mixed in material from the Palatian hermetic tradition as well, specifically from the Pagina Magica de Necris, a book on summonings and black magic. Have you ever read that one, Stjepan?”
“No, Magister,” Stjepan said. “Forbidden. Again.”
“Of course,” said Leigh. “Despite being somewhat off-topic, the Lexica Pentaculum has within it, however . . . assuming I can ever find it . . . an excellent incantation to rid a passage of protective wards . . .”
He drifted off into silence as he flipped through the pages.
Several minutes passed.
Godewyn picked at his ear. Too Tall and Caider Ross exchanged looks.
“Ah! No, that’s not quite it,” mumbled Leigh. “Mmmmm . . . Oh, here we are . . . I need blood. I need some blood.” He looked up and around at the others, who all took a concerned step back, before his eyes came to rest on Godewyn. “You. Cut my hand.”
Godewyn looked around at the rest of the group. Leigh held out his hand, palm up. “Go on! Cut my hand!” Leigh said, as though he were talking to a child.
Godewyn shrugged. He drew a sharp foot-long dagger and quickly cut Leigh across his open palm. Leigh grimaced, and then began spreading blood over the surface of the upright stone door, as if washing it. In the other hand he held the grimoire open, and he read a spell from the book.
“Cellis darris, te mere osveret tapesh! Earten darris, hellis hagrass!
Purify this door, lift the wards upon it!” he said, at first in a whisper, then slowly louder with growing boldness. The glyphs began to glow as Leigh washed the door’s surface with his blood. “Cellis darris, te mere osveret tapesh! Earten darris, hellis hagrass! Free it from binding chains, that others may pass through safely!”
Stjepan, Erim, Caider Ross and Too Tall were the first to tense as a low-pitched hum resonated throughout the chamber. Then soon they all were wincing and turning slightly away, as they could feel the pressure building in their ears.
“Cellis darris, te mere osveret tapesh! Earten darris, hellis hagrass! Purify this door, lift the wards upon it!” Leigh repeated these words in a ringing, commanding voice, as he continued to wash the stone surface with his own blood. The hum grew louder, until it seemed to the onlookers that the door and walls began to subtly shake and vibrate. Dust began falling from the ceiling. It seemed as though they were watching an invisible contest of wills, between Leigh and the magics that were bound into the glyphs and the stone of the door, a contest that grew darker and more intense . . . until suddenly the glyphs deteriorated and fragmented, and the pressure in their ears disappeared with a pop.
“Well done, Magister,” said Stjepan quietly.
Godewyn smiled and waved his men to the stone as they congratulated Leigh, slapping him on the back.
“Thank you,” said Leigh, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Thank you very much. And has anyone seen my impression of a duck?”
Stjepan, Godewyn, Caider Ross, and Too Tall took position by the stone door and began to pry at it with their crowbars. Arduin began to pace impatiently as they struggled at the travail, but the stone was much heavier than the iron plates that they had moved earlier in their explorations.
They struggled, and struggled, and then gave one last collective grunt. With a sharp crack, the doorway was unsealed, and a blast of fetid air rushed past, sounding like a moan followed by whispers, obscuring the pillared chamber with a cloud of foul dust. Every lantern in the room flared and threw sparks into the air.