by Deck Davis
“Fine,” he said. And then he thought of something. It was stupid, but it just might work. “What’s your name again?”
“Errelile the Ancient.”
Nathan cleared his throat. Then, and in his best impression of a drill-sergeant, he filled the room with his own voice.
“Errelile the Ancient, let there be light!”
“Congratulations. You have learned my Ancient name.”
The statue’s eyes glowed red. The light began to spread over the statue’s face, its body and then to its feet, before drifting out into the rest of the room. It spread through the old place, going further and further until it hit the walls. Before long, the room was lit by a pale red light. It was like he was looking through a filter of blood. But hey, light was light. It reminded him of the dark room of a photography lab.
He turned to look at Errelile the Ancient. He realized that although he was a statue, he could move. Even lit up, the statue was no less strange. Errelile had the body of a lion, though he was thin and malnourished. His neck stretched out a foot longer than it should, and on the end of the neck was a man’s head. Only, his lips were so big that they spread fully across his face from earlobe to earlobe. When he opened them, Nathan saw four rows of teeth. Errelile’s neck was so thin that it looked like it shouldn’t have been able to support his human head.
Errelile arched his back and stretched out. Nathan wondered how long the lion…man…thing… had been here. Judging by how stale the air was, it had been decades. After finishing his stretch, Errelile looked at Nathan. His burning red eyes should have made him fearsome, but there was something too comical about his human head bobbing up and down on a thin lion neck. It was like a balloon on the end of a piece of string.
Errelile leant his head in. He spoke to Nathan, but this time he was quieter.
“Tell me, mortal,” he said, his gruff voice tickling Nathan’s ear. “Did thou knowst my name before entering my chamber?”
Nathan shook his head. “If I had to guess, I would have had you down as a Peter.”
“Peter? Who is Peter?”
“Never mind,” said Nathan. “Can you explain what’s going on here?”
Errelile straightened up. He put his front paws solidly in front of him and arched his shoulders. He was trying to look intimidating, Nathan guessed. Well, in the Marines he had taken up boxing for a while. He’d once gotten into the ring with a guy covered in tattoos who had a good 35 lbs. on Nathan. This weird lion-man didn’t have a patch on Mad Frank.
“Before I explain, thou must make a vow,” demanded Errelile.
The Ancient sounded serious. Nathan nodded his head.
“Tell me the vow, Errelile. And then I will decide.”
“Promise me.”
“I can’t promise to keep a vow I haven’t heard,” answered Nathan.
“Very well. I will tell you the vow, and then thou must decideth.”
“Decideth?” Nathan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you just adding ‘eth’ to the ends of words because you think it sounds more mysterious?”
Errelile lifted his left front paw and scratched his chin. “Enough, mortal. This is the vow.”
He leant in toward Nathan, blasting his face with hot beast breath.
“Go on, what’s the vow?” said Nathan.
Errelile leant even closer. Their faces were almost touching now. Whatever this vow was, it was a great secret. The proximity was starting to feel awkward.
“You must promise…” said Errelile.
“Yeah?”
“That you won’t tell the other 2 Ancients that you didn’t knoweth my name before entering my chamber.”
Nathan almost laughed, but there was such a serious look on Errelile’s face that he decided not to upset him. Besides, his energy had dropped to 24 now, so he needed to get things moving. Getting into Ancient #1 was progress, but he still didn’t understand what was going on.
“So, you want me to pretend I had to figure out your name?”
Errelile bowed his head low. “You tricked me. If the other Ancients find out, they will make mirth at me,” he said.
“Sure. It’ll be our secret. Can you tell me what’s going on? Why I’m here?”
Errelile settled onto his back haunches. He opened his mouth, and the pale red light of the room flashed on his four rows of teeth. The way the beast’s smile spread unnaturally across his face sent a shiver through Nathan for a second. Errelile seemed comical, but there was something unnerving about his teeth.
“There are 3 Ancients in the mountain,” said Errelile.
His words were deep, clear, steady. It was as though he’d rehearsed this speech.
“Each more dreadful than the next. You must visit them, spawned one. You must complete their tests. Your reward will be a dark power bestowed from each Ancient.”
“What kind of tests?” asked Nathan.
Errelile stared at Nathan for a few seconds, as if he were making a judgement on his character. Then, instead of answering him, he looked up and shouted, “Let the test begineth.”
“I told you, just adding ‘eth’ to everything doesn’t-”
A sound stopped Nathan mid-sentence. Across the room, the opening that led out into the passageway was closing. He heard the noise of stone rumbling shut as if a boulder was rolling into place. Within a few seconds, the archway was blocked, and Nathan was trapped in the room.
Sherlock made a hissing sound. He held his dagger tight and eyed Errelile with hate. Nathan wondered whether his friend was going to attack. When the goblin put his mind to it, he looked dangerous.
Without knowing what Errelile was capable of, he wasn’t going to start a fight. Especially not when he couldn’t attack yet. Sometimes, the safest thing to do was keep a clear head.
“What’s going on?” he asked Errelile.
“This is your first test,” boomed the lion man, his head bobbing hypnotically on the end of his neck.
Nathan looked around. He’d been so interested in Errelile that he hadn’t studied the rest of the room yet. Now that it was lit by a mist of red light, he could see its edges. It was a square-shaped room. The floor was made of stone, and something was painted on it, though Nathan suspected he’d need a bird’s eye view to see what it depicted.
By the west wall, there was another statue. Unlike Errelile, this one didn’t seem to be alive. It was the statue of a man, under 6-feet tall, wearing a robe that completely covered him.
Opposite it, next to the east wall, was a giant weighing scale. On either end were metal basins to put things in, and in the centre was a metal block that held the scales in place. One scale was higher than the other. There was something written on the block, but he couldn’t read it from there.
Feeling Errelile’s gaze on the back of his neck, Nathan crossed the room until he was near the giant scales. On the metal block, written in black text, were words.
Here you come,
To seek what’s mine,
A weight of bones,
Will lighteth my shrine.
Poetry had never been his strong point. In fact, he’d always had to work harder than other people at anything academic if he didn’t want to fall behind. Reading the cryptic rhymes, he remembered being in English class back in school. Hours spent trying to interpret line after line of poetry. It had never meant much to him. Some people saw beauty in it, he knew, but it didn’t do anything for him.
At least this poem was straight forward. ‘A weight of bones, will light my shrine.’ Well, he was stood in front of a weighing scale, so the obvious answer was that he needed bones to put on it. Where would he get those from?
He looked around. There was the statue of the hooded man, but he doubted that stone counted as bones. Then there was Errelile, who again wouldn’t count as part of a skeleton. Sherlock stood by the southern wall of the room. He pressed against the wall, as though he needed the reassurance of something solid behind him. The poor goblin didn’t like it in here.
Sherlock rummaged in his bag and then brought out a single dead rat. Added to the one in Nathan’s inventory, that made two. It was hardly a weight of bones.
Think, he told himself.
He looked across the room, but he couldn’t see anything else of note. Certainly no bones or anything like that. But there had to be something.
He brought up his map to see if there was anything else. Then he saw it.
“Now we’re talking.”
On the map, where the northern wall of the room was, a small section of it was colored lighter than the rest.
Nathan walked across the room until he stood in front of it.
“Sherlock,” he said. “Can you attack this part of the wall?”
The goblin looked at Nathan as if he’d lost his mind.
Nathan grinned. “Just trust me.”
Grunting, Sherlock started hitting the wall with his dagger. At first, it looked like the weapon wasn’t enough to damage it. Then, Nathan noticed numbers flashing above the wall. Every time Sherlock struck the stone, numbers appeared in the air for an instant.
28/50
26/50
24/50
The numbers must have been the durability of the wall. Sherlock’s dagger didn’t have much attack power, but it was working.
“Keep going,” Nathan told him.
When the wall durability reached zero, the stone crumbled to the ground. A film of dust kicked up into the air, and Nathan took a badly-timed intake of breath. The dust clogged his throat and got in his eyes. He rubbed them and cleared his vision.
The new hole in the wall led into another room. Nathan walked through the doorway and stood in it. This room wasn’t much bigger than a shed. The walls were made of cold, grey stone. In the centre of the room, a dozen rats were on the floor.
He moved back out of instinct. He watched them and realized that the rats weren’t dead. Instead, it seemed that they were sleeping. He counted and realized that there wasn’t a dozen, but more like thirty rats of different sizes. Two adults slept in the centre. They were surrounded by other smaller rats that must have been their children. This was a rat family.
Wedged above them, suspended from the roof and nestled between both sides of the room, was a giant rock. It seemed to be balanced between the two walls as though it had been put there on purpose. The rats snoozed underneath, blissfully unaware of the two tons of stone looming above them.
He realized that on one edge of the rock, where the boulder met the wall, there was a small piece of stone. It was just a chip, but it was so tightly fitted that it seemed to be holding the whole thing in place.
Nathan stared at the scene for a second, and then it dawned on him.
A weight of bones,
Will lighteth my shrine.
It was obvious now. There were enough rats here to make up the weight of bones, and apparently, Nathan was supposed to kill them. He wouldn’t even need to attack them, either. All he’d have to do would be to remove the chip of rock holding the boulder in place, and let it crush the rats.
“Oh man,” he said.
He knew he couldn’t do it. He badly wanted to know what would happen if he solved the Errelile’s riddle. Despite that, he knew he couldn’t murder the rat family. They were innocent. They weren’t being hostile or threatening. Instead, they were all just sleeping together. Curled up against one another.
Through his military training, he knew that there were times when you had to kill. But that wasn’t all. His army experience had also taught him that there was a value to every life. Not just a human’s, but of everything. Killing was a necessity sometimes, but peace was as well.
He turned and left the room and walked back into the main one. There had to be another way. He knew he was being sentimental, but he just couldn’t bring himself to kill the rats. Maybe if they’d attacked him it would be different, but he didn’t get the feeling that they had hostile intentions.
He looked around the room for something else. Sherlock was stood against the wall. The weighing scales were across from him. Errelile watched Nathan, his red eyes glowing. The Ancient offered no words of encouragement. Nathan guessed there was no point asking.
Then he had an idea. Next to the newly-created opening was the rubble from the part of the wall Sherlock had smashed. There were plenty of stones there. More than enough to put on the weighing scales. It was worth a try.
“Give me a hand,” he told Sherlock.
Together they picked up the stones and carried them over to the weighing scales. One scale was raised up further than the other, so this must have been the side that he was supposed to balance.
Grunting, he lifted some stones and placed them on the scales. They made a clanging sound as they hit the metal. Gradually, the scales started to level out until soon, they were perfectly even.
He heard something click. And then a faint rumbling sound. Across the room, Errelile spoke. This time his voice was almost taunting.
“You must learn,
That when I’m deceived,
I’ll take my vengeance,
My dark reprieve.”
And with that, the rumbling sound grew louder and louder. Nathan couldn’t place where it came from. That was when he realized it wasn’t coming from a single point in the room, but all around him. He looked at the walls, and a feeling of dread crept across his chest.
The walls were closing in! The room was going to crush him.
He ran over to the exit and found that it was still blocked. Inch by inch, the stone walls of the room began to close in. Soon, they’d crush him to a pulp.
There had to be something he could do.
“Errelile,” he said. “Stop the walls. Just give me a second to think.”
The Ancient said nothing, though Nathan knew his glowing red eyes were focused on him.
He looked around. He still had time to go and crush the rats, but something told him he shouldn’t. It was a feeling inside him, something urging him to find another way. He couldn’t explain it, but he just knew that something bad would happen if he murdered the rat family.
Sherlock looked worried. He turned to face a wall, put his hands on it and started to push, grunting with effort. It was no use.
“We need another way,” said Nathan.
Come on. Think.
The walls got closer. The air became heavy. Clogged with dust. The rumbling sound was almost deafening.
He went over to the scales and frantically started to remove the stones. As he did, the scales lifted until soon they were unbalanced again, as they had been before. Despite correcting his mistake, Nathan looked on in dismay as the walls kept closing in. The room size had already reduced by half. Not long know until he was squeezed into a puddle of Tuphos juice.
“It’ll kill you too,” he said to Errelile. “Don’t you see that? It’ll crush you as well as me.”
The Ancient ignored him.
Then he saw it. To his left, pushed up against the wall. The statue of a man, covered by a long black robe. Before, he’d dismissed it thinking it was just part of the whole “creepy crypt” type feel of Ancient room #1. That wouldn’t make sense though. Everything in this room was here for a reason.
He grabbed the lapel of the statue’s robe and yanked it away.
This was it.
He saw that this wasn’t a statue. Instead, it was a full human skeleton, fixed to a stone base to give it the appearance of a statue. The robe had completed the illusion.
“Okay Sherlock,” he said. “You know what to do.”
Together, they began to tear bones from the skeleton and place them on the metal scale. The walls closed in on them. The room was just a quarter of its size now, and the east wall was getting close to Errelile. If it bothered him, the Ancient didn’t show it.
As the bones clanged down on the metal, the scale began to balance. Adrenaline shot through Nathan, and he worked faste
r. Clang, clang, clang. The work made him sweat, and he felt his energy bar dwindle.
He set the last bone on the scale and watched as they balanced again. He leant against the scale, exhausted.
The rumbling stopped. The walls became still. Nathan’s eyes stung from the dust, so he rubbed them. For a second he waited and caught his breath.
“Come,” said Errelile.
The Ancient had been silent for so long that his voice surprised Nathan. He walked over to the lion man and stood in front of him.