The Barrow

by Mark Smylie

  The stone fell heavily to the ground with a great, crashing thud as the men closest to it leapt back, and something like a shadow seemed to pass through the room.

  Pallas Quinn felt a shudder run through the earth and stone around him, and heard something rattling in the passageway leading into the inner barrow. He held up his broadsword point-first in front of him and looked into the darkness beyond the doorway, tilting his head to one side as if to listen, and instantly got hit by a blast of air. The moans and the whispers passed by and enveloped him. His choking figure was swallowed up by fetid dust.

  Wilhem Price and Sir Colin Urwed were walking around the Ladies’ Tent, marking a sentry circle, scanning the fields and hills around them, when they heard something like a whisper come from up the hill. They turned and looked up the hill just in time to see a plume of dust jet out from the entrance to the barrow some six hundred paces away up the stone steps. The two of them took a few steps toward the hill and stopped, then looked at each other.

  Annwyn was sitting before her mirror, singing quietly to herself, when a sudden wind blew through her tent, bringing whispers with it. She stopped singing and turned, looking over her shoulder at the source of the sound.

  “My Lady?” asked Malia, standing and frowning. “What was that?”

  After a moment, Annwyn turned back and resumed her singing, looking at her reflection with a slight smile.

  “What in the Six Hells was that?” asked Wilhem.

  “Nothing good,” said Sir Colin. He unshouldered his greatsword and hefted it, about to start heading up the steps to the entrance, when a figure stumbled out of the stone-framed doorway in the hillside, coughing and sweeping dust from his clothes. The figure coughed some more and doubled over, retching a bit before straightening up and putting his hands on his hips and shouting something that sounded like a curse.

  “Is that . . . that’s one of the Danians we hired on at the Inn, yeah?” asked Sir Colin, squinting up the hill.

  “Looks like it,” said Wilhem with a shrug.

  The distant figure saw them looking, waved, and turned around and went back into the earth of the hillside.

  Malia poked her head out of the tent. “What was that?” she asked.

  Sir Colin looked back at her over his shoulder. “No idea,” he said with a shrug.

  Muffled coughing and hacking echoed through the chamber as the dust began to clear. Everyone was staring at the unsealed doorway, either waving their hands at the air to clear the dust, covering their mouths and noses with whatever they could, or pointing weapons nervously at the yawning black arch. The lanterns flared and guttered and dimmed, leaving the chamber in partial darkness.

  “Was that supposed to happen?” Erim finally whispered, crouched behind a pillar with one hand over her face.

  “How am I supposed to know?” Stjepan whispered back, and shrugged. “Could’ve been a pocket of damp: trapped, fouled air . . . miners have different names for it, depending on what the air does: firedamp, blackdamp, helldamp.”

  “I done some mining, Black-Heart, down in the Pavas Mole,” said Too Tall in a low muffled voice. “And that didn’t sound or act like no damp I ever seen.”

  “Fucking fantastic. On your guard, everyone!” snarled Godewyn.

  As the air began to clear they removed whatever was covering their faces and braved a few breaths of air, weapons ready and pointing. The open door stood before them. The dust cloud settled.

  Erim gave Stjepan an unsure look as he prepared a new lantern. As soon as it was lit, he lifted it in his left hand and hefted his falchion in his right, and slipped forward at a crouch to one side of the archway. He peered inside, lifting the lantern high, trying to see into the chamber beyond.

  “What do you see?” hissed Gilgwyr.

  Stjepan didn’t respond, but instead he rose up out of his crouch a bit and stepped through the archway into the dark beyond.

  He found himself standing in the entrance of a large, circular room with a domed ceiling, holding his lantern high. From its light he could see that at their base the walls looked like they had been carved out of rough stone, as though the chamber had been hewn out of the very rock of the hill itself. The walls were covered with carved runes and warding symbols, and the stone arched up into a more finely detailed coffered stone ceiling. Each step-sided coffer in the ceiling bore a small bejeweled brass amulet set into its center panel. The floor was of hard packed earth.

  And the room was completely empty.

  The others began to file into the domed chamber after him, spreading out and setting lanterns about to better light the space.

  “I don’t understand . . .” said Arduin, looking around with his hands on his armored hips. “There’s no exit from this chamber. Is this our destination?”

  “What in the Six Hells is going on? This room’s fucking empty!” said Godewyn. “Shouldn’t there be a stone bier with a body on it, or a stone casket? This ain’t my first tomb robbing and that’s how it’s usually done, yeah?”

  “This can’t be right,” said Stjepan mostly to himself. He set his lantern down and reached into his satchel for his notebook.

  “Of course it’s not right! Do you see a dead wizard? Do you see a sword for the taking? This is where that fucking map of yours leads?” spat Godewyn harshly.

  As the others milled about in various states of anger and confusion, Stjepan, Leigh, and Erim stood in the center of the room, pouring over the notebook in Stjepan’s hands. Gilgwyr stumbled off to the side, his head in his hands, and squatted with his back against the stone wall.

  “. . . this word, arath, should mean north, and dain would be west in any of the old languages of this region,” Stjepan said, explaining his logic. “So it says: take the first door to the north, and then the west door in the chamber of four pillars. Look, there’s even an image that seemed to point to the end goal being a circular chamber, just like this one.”

  “Well,” said Leigh finally. “I don’t know this alphabet, old Maerberos was always a bit of a mystery to me; you were always so good with languages and ciphers, far better than I ever was! It’s your gift. But I cannot deny the logic of your thinking, at least not at first glance . . .”

  “Great,” laughed Godewyn. “So the magician-scholars are agreed: the treasure map leads across the Bale Mole to an empty room!”

  Leigh shrugged. “Unless perhaps the order of the doors was reversed? And we should have gone west first?”

  “The west door first?” asked Godewyn. He frowned, trying to figure out which door that would have been until it flashed in his mind. He turned to Caider and Too Tall. “Right! Back to the door we ‘open at our peril!’”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Stjepan said, looking around the chamber with a frown.

  But Godewyn stormed out of the room, cursing loudly, followed by Caider Ross and Too Tall. Arduin paused for a moment, gave a doubtful look to Stjepan, and then left with Sir Helgi right behind him. Erim shrugged and left next. Stjepan and Leigh eyed the room but then reluctantly turned and followed.

  Gilgwyr was left alone with a single flickering lantern as their shouts faded into the distance. He stood up and walked to the center of the room, stretched out his arms, and made a slow turn.

  By the time Stjepan and Leigh arrived back at the first major chamber of the inner barrow, Godewyn, Caider Ross, Too Tall, and Sir Helgi were already at the massive inlaid iron plate, and were pushing and prying at it eagerly with crowbars. Their bags of equipment and tools were haphazardly dropped behind them. Arduin stood nearby, hands on armored hips, as though he was supervising, and Erim stood behind him, watching the proceedings with her head cocked in curiosity.

  “Wait! It may be warded!” shouted Leigh, his eyes going wide when he saw what they were doing.

  But with a sudden crack, the iron plate came free of its mortar and rolled out of the way and there was another shock of air as the doorway was unsealed. Everyone froze. Godewyn’s face was still b
ut his eyes darted about the chamber as the dust passed by, but without any seeming effect.

  “Fates and Fortune, hear my prayers! Right, follow me!” he said with a laugh. He took a lantern and moved confidently through the revealed archway into the passageway beyond. Caider and Too Tall seemed buoyed, and grabbed up their tools and lanterns and equipment bags and followed him through, with Sir Helgi and Arduin and Leigh close behind.

  Erim took a step forward and hesitated, looking over her shoulder for a cue from Stjepan. He sighed and shrugged, nodding that she should follow.

  Godewyn, Caider Ross, and Too Tall stood in an archway and held up their lanterns, illuminating a large, long chamber, flanked by a series of alcoves along each stone wall. Four great pillars held up a high, vaulted ceiling. Grave goods lay about at the foot of the walls, including many archaic implements of war: iron spears, and axes, and swords, and painted shields, their leather and wood and iron seemingly well preserved in the dry air of the sealed chamber. In the center of the room was a large bronze statue of ornate detail and great craftsmanship, depicting a demonic-looking four-armed winged creature, armored and armed with four curved swords and with the head and gaping beaked maw of a screaming eagle. In front of the statue on the earthen floor was set a large basin, specked with dark dried liquid and small bones. Human skulls of various sizes were piled around the basin; some were small enough to clearly be the skulls of children.

  Godewyn stepped experimentally into the room, and started to thread his way through the urns and weapons. He came to a halt in front of one of the alcoves.

  “Hello, beautiful,” he said. His lantern revealed the contents of the alcove: the dried, desiccated remains of a man, presumably a warrior, propped upright in his archaic armor, his gauntleted hands folded over his chest. Caider Ross and Too Tall had not moved from the arched entryway, hesitant to follow Godewyn out of the passage and further into the chamber. As Godewyn walked by the alcoves he could see that each contained the standing corpse of a dead warrior, all armored and posed alike.

  “Get moving, let us past . . .” Arduin said as he and Sir Helgi arrived and pushed past Caider Ross and Too Tall into the chamber, but his voice left him and he trailed off into silence as he saw what was in it.

  Godewyn soon reached the far end of the chamber and came to stand in front of a large bronze oval plate, almost eight feet high and mortared into a stone archway, engraved with barbaric symbols and swirling, intertwined circular patterns. He scraped at the circular motifs inlaid with gold and smiled. “Hello, beautiful!” he said, a quiet smile on his face.

  The rest of the group began to slowly and silently enter the room. Every free hand held a bared weapon now. Leigh came to stand in front of the statue and inspected it.

  “A shrine to Ishraha, the Rebel Angel,” he said quietly, as almost everyone else in the chamber made a sign to ward off Evil. “The great Rahabi general who first dethroned Islik from the Sun Throne of the isle of Illia, and sent Him into exile to wander the world, where He would prove Himself fit to be the Divine King of both Heaven and of Earth with His Ten Great Victories. So I suppose, in a way, that all true Kingsmen actually owe Ishraha a debt of sorts, for if Ishraha had not cast him into exile, Islik would never have risen to become the great God that He is now.”

  “Careful, old man,” said Arduin. “That sounds suspiciously like heresy. Ishraha is one of the Forbidden Gods and condemned to rule in Hell, guilty of the great crimes of treason and usurpation against his rightful lord, the Divine King. Always has been and always will be.”

  Leigh ignored the Aurian knight. “According to De Malifir Magicia, in the lore of the Nameless Cults, Ishraha is amongst other things charged with watching over their dead and being their patron in the Underworld. Stjepan, have you read it?”

  “Forgive me, Magister, but . . .” Stjepan started, but Leigh waved his hand.

  “Yes, yes. I know, I know,” said Leigh with a sigh. “But the point is clear. Ishraha ruled as the King of Illia for a brief time during the War in Heaven, and so I suppose a shrine to him could have been built then for a seemingly legitimate purpose. But the armor here is not from the Age of Legends, is it?”

  “No,” said Stjepan, glancing at the remains of the warriors. “Late transitional armor. Iron cuirasses, mail hauberks, bits and pieces of plate here and there fixed to mail backing, bascinets with mail aventails . . . it’s all from the start of our current Age of Iron and Fire, before the adoption of full plate.” He looked back up at the statue of Ishraha. “I think it’s settled, then; this barrow was definitely built by the Nameless, sometime in the years after the Black Day Battle, but before the 13th century. And that fits the timeframe of Azharad’s death in 1127.”

  “Islik’s balls, I don’t like this . . . why would the map lead us to that other room, rather than here?” asked Erim.

  “’Cause your boy got the map wrong,” Godewyn said drily. He turned to his crew. “C’mon, time to bust this open.”

  “Gentlemen, some patience,” said Stjepan, but Godewyn, Caider Ross, and Too Tall eagerly took up their crowbars and started working on the mortar that held the bronze plate in place. They managed to crack some small gaps and unhinge it a bit from the archway. They were struggling with the task, however, and Sir Helgi joined them, and the four men strained to move the weight of the great bronze plate. Erim set her lantern down and grabbed up a crowbar from a bag and moved forward to help, but Stjepan grabbed her good arm and shook his head. He indicated with his chin, drawing her attention to the fact that Leigh was finally moving forward and waving his arms, having stopped his inspection of the cult statue to Ishraha.

  “Show us. Show us the World. Open our eyes, show us what is hidden,” Leigh intoned.

  The surface of the bronze plate suddenly swirled with dark designs, foul symbols and barbaric patterns in motion. Stjepan snarled as Leigh leapt back. “Beware! It’s cursed!” yelled out Stjepan.

  The four men working at the door started to leap back just as they succeeded in moving the huge bronze plate. It slipped out of the archway and fell to one side, revealing the entrance and unleashing a gust of stale, dusty air, and in the dust the symbols and patterns of the curse could be seen weaving around the four men like a swarm of butterflies.

  Leigh waved his hands frantically in warding signs. The foul enchantment weaved, probed, shimmered . . . and then settled on Sir Helgi, Caider Ross, and Too Tall. In an instant their skin seemed to be blackening and peeling as though they were on fire, and the three men were screaming at the top of their lungs as they flailed about. Godewyn had fallen to the ground, somehow out of the curse’s grasp, and was crawling and rolling to get away from the dust and the screaming men, and Erim blanched and leapt back, stricken, unsure what to do.

  Leigh stepped forward and began shouting in old Éduinan. “Mennas darris, los elissa! Giss more, cell darris, menn darris!” he cried, and he flung a spray of white powder into the air over the three struggling men. Everywhere the white powder came into contact with the symbols and patterns of the enchantment there seemed to be a spark and fizzle as if a lit match were being submerged into water, and the air grew heavy with the wispy tendrils of white smoke.

  Caider and Too Tall regained their footing and leapt back from the archway, gasping and breathing heavily. Their skin looked burned in some spots, while in other places the burns were slowly fading back to normal.

  But Sir Helgi wasn’t moving. He looked cooked in his armor.

  Erim turned away from the grisly sight while Stjepan held a hand over his mouth. Arduin, his face ashen, stumbled to his knees next to Sir Helgi’s body as Leigh came over to see if there was anything he could do; but there wasn’t.

  Leigh put his hand on the pauldron of Arduin’s armor. “Sorry about your lad,” he said in a grandfatherly tone.

  Arduin stood and turned. The look on his face was enough to make Leigh remove his hand. He stepped forward, towering over the enchanter, and Leigh backed up several feet. It a
ppeared to be all that Arduin could do not to just catch Leigh by the throat, lift the enchanter up off the ground and drive him bodily back against the wall.

  “He was a knight of my household, had fought beside me and saved my life in battle, and had served my family well since the day he was old enough to swear the oath. He was a man of honor, something that you and the rest of this lot obviously know nothing about, and you would do well to never speak of him again in my presence,” Arduin said through gritted teeth, his eyes ablaze with rage and fury.

  And then a cold blankness fell over Arduin’s features as he turned back to look down on the smoldering body of his knight, as though he was willing the anger and heat to leave him. “But he knew the risks. We all do,” Arduin said quietly, his jaw set and his nostrils flaring.

  Leigh gave a half-bow behind Arduin’s back, but he sneered at the Aurian lord through narrowed eyes. He looked like he was about to laugh, but luckily Arduin did not see his expression. Stjepan frowned at him.

  “Aye,” said Godewyn. “Well said, your Lordship. Right! Follow me, then!” Godewyn started into the dark hole revealed by the bronze plate door, followed a bit more slowly by Caider Ross and Too Tall, each bearing lanterns, and then slowly the others afterwards.

  Stjepan was the last of them in the chamber and he rummaged through one of the equipment bags that had been set down and removed a woven blanket. He knelt by the body of Sir Helgi and reached in to close the man’s open, lifeless eyes, one of which looked like it had been boiled into white puss, and Stjepan winced as he slid its lid shut. He placed the blanket over the body of Sir Helgi and stepped back.

  Stjepan turned and looked back the way they came.

  He frowned. “Gilgwyr?” he called out.

  Gilgwyr was still standing in the middle of the empty, round, high-domed chamber, his arms still extended out to opposite walls, mumbling to himself. I do not understand, o gods, I do not understand at all. My dreams have been so beautiful, and we have followed the signs you have laid before us, and we are here, and yet somehow nothing is right. It isn’t beautiful, it isn’t the way you have been showing me, it’s all wrong. I have done something to offend you. I have failed you in some way. Please let me atone for my wrongs. Please let me right the insult that I have done you, so that everything may be as you have shown me in my beautiful dreams. Tell me what I should do. Tell me what offering I can make.