Swordmage

by Richard Baker

  “Well, that would stand to reason. If the Lathanderians buried something here to keep it away from Aesperus, they would have used magic to deflect his efforts to scry its location.” The halfling blew a little more of his silver powder over the door, and again it sparkled as it drifted down to the flagstones. “No symbols or runes here, either, but it’s locked. Do we open it?”

  “Yes. If we can find this place, so can Veruna’s soldiers.”

  “All right, then.” Hamil worked for a moment on the lock and pushed the door open. Cold, dry air sighed out of the room beyond—a large, low-ceilinged hall, its roof supported by dozens of pillars. A great bronze statue of a leonine creature dominated the center of the chamber, lying with its paws outstretched on the floor and its head held high. Its face was human in shape, surrounded by a great mane. Behind the statue stood a stone chest, covered in fine carvings. Ancient sconces holding slender golden staves lined the chamber walls; as Geran and Hamil moved into the room, flickering flames guttered into life around the golden staves, giving the room a rich yellow glow.

  “Well, the servants of Lathander hid a crypt below a crypt,” the halfling observed. “I admit, I didn’t expect work of such skill here.”

  “The chest,” Geran said. He looked carefully at the room and did not see anything to alarm him, so he started to circle around the statue to the left.

  He was only five paces from the door when the lion opened its eyes and looked at him.

  The statue shuddered once, and old metal squealed against old metal as it slowly began to clamber to its feet. Geran stepped quickly back, moving away from the thing, but a bright golden fire sprang up in its eyes, and it opened its mouth to speak. In a voice that sounded like the clashing of cymbals, it roared in Old Tesharan, “Speak now the Three Secret Names and state thy purpose here, or I must destroy thee!”

  A guardian construct! Hamil said in alarm. He retreated too, backing away in a different direction. Geran, what in the Nine Hells did it say?

  Geran felt a pillar at his back and stopped retreating. The bronze lion was not alive, of course—it was an enchanted statue, long ago imbued with the power to animate and attack any strangers who made it into the vault chamber. It might lack the speed and ferocity of a real sphinx or lammasu or whatever it was supposed to be, but it would be a formidable war machine nonetheless, tireless and implacable. We’re supposed to know a password! he replied to Hamil.

  “Answer now, interloper, or thy doom is assured!” the statue roared again.

  The bronze monster was easily the size of a large horse, its clawed feet the size of dinner plates. We need time to think, Geran decided. We might be able to puzzle out the password, but not quickly. “Back out!” he said.

  He turned to race for the doorway, only to spy something above the door’s lintel—a baleful golden rune inscribed on a heavy keystone, facing in toward the lion. They’d walked right under it when they entered the chamber, which was likely what had triggered the magic to animate the statue and give it a voice. But two other runic marks were cut into the stone on each side of the glowing golden one, and when Geran’s eye fell on them they kindled to life as lines of sullen crimson fire. “Wait, no!” he shouted. “Stay away from the door. There are symbols over it!”

  Hamil was closer to the door than he was; when the symbols awoke, he gave a strangled cry and fell to one knee, already within the influence of the magical trap. Somehow he managed two staggering steps away from the door, but now the statue turned with a scraping of bronze and fixed its burning golden eyes on him.

  “Defiler! Infidel!” the statue’s voice proclaimed. It advanced on Hamil, who still reeled from his brush with the Lathanderian runes.

  “Damn!” Geran swore. They had a fight here, whether they wanted it or not. He quickly cast his dragon-scale spell, even though he was not sure how much it would help against a foe of such strength. “Theillalagh na drendir!” he whispered, and around him the cascading scales of glowing violet light shimmered into existence.

  The swordmage darted forward to distract the thing from Hamil and lunged out with his blade at the statue’s eye. Elven steel clanged shrilly against ancient bronze; the impact jarred his hand, and Geran almost dropped his sword. The thing was hot, radiating heat-shimmers. The leonine monster turned on him with startling quickness for something so big and inflexible, and raked at him with its huge paw. Geran leaped back out of the way, and the statue followed, bulling its way straight at him. He saw that his thrust had dug a deep gouge just under the blank molten eye, creasing the bronze without penetrating it. He ducked behind one of the pillars in the chamber, trying to keep it between the statue and himself.

  How do you destroy something made of metal? he thought furiously. He’d encountered animated statues and magical constructs before in his years with the Dragon Shields, and he well remembered that they were difficult to defeat. Some had vital mechanisms that could be ruined by a very well-aimed sword blow, but this one had been brought to life by powerful magic; as far as he could tell, it was a cast statue of bronze, hollow inside, with no vital mechanisms to destroy. The bronze itself was not even articulated; the magic of the ancient ritual that animated the thing gave the cast metal the suppleness and flexibility of living flesh.

  While he tried to figure out how to deal with the thing, the statue moved around the pillar to get at him, and Geran circled away from it. It reversed its course and tried the other direction, and once again Geran moved with it. Then the bronze sphinx simply hurled itself straight at him, shouldering its way past the pillar. Stone cracked and splintered under its weight; dust sifted down from the ceiling. Geran grunted in surprise and danced back before taking his sword in a two-handed grip. He threw all his strength into a mighty cut across the statue’s face, and this time the elven steel actually parted the bronze in a shallow cut; molten red-gold fire seeped from the wound. A drop splattered the top of his boot and set the leather to smoking. Then the statue caught him with one mighty paw. Geran’s dragon-scale spell held, mostly—the deadly claws did not tear through his flesh, only scoring him lightly. But the spell did not guard against the crushing impact of the blow. He was batted away like a mouse flipped head-over-paws by a cat, and he skidded to the ground a dozen feet away.

  The bronze sphinx bounded after him, but just as it raised its paw to crush his skull, a pair of arrows thudded into its golden flank. “Come on, you lump of lead!” Hamil shouted. “Chase after me for a bit!”

  The halfling had rallied from his brush with the symbol spell and crouched behind a pillar on the far side of the room, firing arrows as fast as he could draw his bow. They did not penetrate far into the bronze hide, but the range was short enough for the halfling to drive the steel points half an inch into the old bronze. More molten metal began to leak from the pinprick wounds, and the statue whirled away from Geran to pursue the halfling.

  Geran groaned and rolled over to all fours, slowly pushing himself to his feet. His whole left side ached from where the sphinx’s bronze paw had caught him. He found his sword lying nearby and stood again. On the other side of the chamber, the statue snapped and clawed at Hamil, who dodged from pillar to pillar, just trying to stay out of its way.

  “We need a better plan, Geran!” Hamil shouted to him.

  The swordmage glanced left, right, and all around as he cast about for some position or advantage over the powerful bronze sphinx. Then his eye fell on the first pillar he’d used for cover against the construct. Its head was visibly out of vertical, and deep cracks spiderwebbed its surface. A desperate idea sprang into his mind, and he quickly measured the vaulting of the ceiling with his eye.

  “Stay near the wall!” he called to Hamil. “I’ll get its attention again!”

  “You’re welcome to it,” Hamil answered.

  Geran ignored him and charged the statue’s hindquarters, taking a strong cut at its hamstring—or at least where its hamstring would be, if it were a living creature. He creased the bronze enough to
spill a little more of its molten metal and drew back quickly, even as the monster whirled to face him again.

  “Come on!” he shouted. “After me!”

  The construct hurtled after him, and Geran darted back several steps. At the last moment he ducked behind the damaged pillar … and the statue lunged after him in response, striking the column almost dead-on. The pillar toppled with an awful roar of shattering stone, and the ceiling over it sagged and collapsed.

  “Seiroch!” Geran shouted—a spell of transposition, magic that simply teleported him from one place to another close by in the space of an instant. He flickered out from under the collapse, reappearing on the other side of the room beneath the vaulting by the wall—the strongest part of the ceiling, or so he hoped. The warm yellow light filling the chamber dimmed and failed as billowing clouds of dust and debris choked the chamber. More of the ceiling gave way, and a cascade of rock and earth poured down into the middle of the room … but finally the collapse slowed, and an eerie silence settled over the room.

  Hamil coughed once on the dust and looked up at Geran. “What would you have done if the whole ceiling had come down?” he demanded.

  “I was hoping that it wouldn’t.” Geran eyed the heap of debris filling the center of the chamber. He could see one great bronze paw amid the wreckage, but it was hollow, empty; there was no molten fire within. Wearily he sheathed his sword—the magical steel was unmarked from its encounter with the old bronze—and picked his way over to the stone chest against the far wall. It was carved with images of angels armed for war, carrying swords and shields. Another trap would seem redundant, but he could not be certain. “Hamil?”

  The halfling joined him by the chest and quickly examined it with his silver powder and a careful visual inspection. “I think it’s safe to open.”

  Geran nodded and lifted the lid, which was cleverly counterweighted so that it operated easily despite its weight. Inside, wrapped in cloth that had long since disintegrated to dusty scraps, lay a large tome bound in black leather. He reached in and lifted out the book, brushing the remnants of the wrapping away. Lettering embossed on the cover in the old Dethek runes read: The Infiernadex, being a Compilation of Spells & Arcane Lore set down by the Hand of Aesperus, King of Thentur. He was sorely tempted to flip it open to a random page, simply to see what sort of things Aesperus might have deemed worthy of compiling, but that was not a good idea. Reading from magical books could be quite dangerous or cause unintended consequences of all sorts. For the moment, it would be enough to secure the thing and spirit it away to some place where the sellswords in Veruna’s service couldn’t find it. Instead, he wrapped the book in a spare cloak and slipped it into his pack. “Now, we’ll have to find a new hiding place House Veruna’s men won’t suspect,” he said.

  “First, we’ll have to find a way out of this chamber. I’m not eager to venture too close to those symbols again,” said Hamil. The halfling gestured at the doorway, where the symbols burned dully. The large one in the center was dark—its magic had likely ended when the animated statue was destroyed. But the other two remained active. “I suppose we could try to dig our way out. If my sense of direction is right, we’re under the memorial chamber.”

  Geran looked up at the gaping hole in the ceiling and turned to the symbols gleaming over the door. “I’m afraid it would be too easy to bring the chamber above us down around our ears if we picked the wrong place to dig, but I know a spell or two that might get us past the symbols. It might take a little while, but it will be a lot easier than digging.”

  “Done,” Hamil said. He sat down on the dais by the stone chest and waved toward the opposite door. “Have at it. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “There isn’t.” Geran studied the markings over the door for a long moment, then sat down gingerly to examine his own spellbook, looking for something that might work. The ceiling overhead creaked ominously, and more dust drifted down. No, tunneling out was not an option. He meant to walk out of the room by the door through which he had entered … or did he? He looked up at the doorway, measuring the distance with his eye. “Yes, that would work,” he muttered. “But I’ll have to study new spells first. Hamil, make yourself comfortable. I have to rest a while before I can get us out of here.”

  FOURTEEN

  25 Ches, the Year of the Ageless One

  After Geran and Hamil ate a cold lunch from the rations they had on hand, Geran laid out his bedroll and stretched out on the cold stone floor. He was not especially sleepy, but if he could lie quietly and let his mind rest for a time, he would be able to ready himself for studying his spells. He knew from experience that he couldn’t fix a spell in his mind when he was tired or distracted. The long ride over the moors, the excavation of the stairwell, the exploration of the vaults, and finally the battle against the sphinx-statue had worn him too much to try his spellbooks with any hope of success. The words were simple to commit to memory, of course, but each spell also required a carefully built structure of symbology, philosophy, even a certain attitude or particular mode of thinking that would imbue the words he spoke with real and significant power. He needed only a few minutes’ meditation to restore the expended power to many of his minor spells, but his longer incantations were far more strenuous and took much longer to replenish.

  Geran dozed for a long time, then rose, ate and drank a little more, and began to study his books. He didn’t use some of these spells very often, so he studied them carefully to make certain that he would be able to speak them correctly. Six hours after he’d entered the vault of the Infiernadex, he was ready to make his exit. He replaced his spellbook in his pack and stood, wincing when his bruised ribs protested. “All right, Hamil. Ready to leave?”

  The halfling jumped to his feet. “I’ve been ready for hours. Can you erase the symbols?”

  “No, we’re going to go around them. I don’t have quite the right spell to do it directly, but I can manage it with three. But I’ll need a little light, first.” Geran dug a copper coin out of his pocket, whispered a light spell, and tossed it through the doorway to the darkened antechamber outside. With relief he noted that the floor remained depressed to the level of the buried vault. If the floor had raised itself back to the original level, his task would have been much harder. Geran moved closer to the doorway, remaining a short distance outside the influence of the symbols. He concentrated, focused his will, and said, “Seiroch!”

  An instant of darkness, and then he was standing on the floor of the antechamber, looking back through the doorway at Hamil. He waited a moment to see if any new traps had been activated, but nothing happened.

  “Well, it appears that you’ve seen to your own escape,” Hamil remarked. “Shall I just wait here, then?”

  “I’m not finished,” Geran said. He took a deep breath, stilled his mind, and unlocked the unfamiliar structures of a spell he rarely used. “Sierollanie dir mellar!”

  A faint violet light sprang up around Hamil, who looked startled, and a similar one appeared around the swordmage. Then once again he felt the brief instant of lightless cold, and he was standing back in the chamber of the Infiernadex, while Hamil was outside in the antechamber.

  The halfling looked around, and laughed. “My circumstances have improved, but you are right back where you started, Geran! Is this one of those fox-goose-and-grain problems? If you’re stumped, I may be able to help, you know.”

  “I’m still not finished. Give me a few moments.” Geran sat down to compose himself and rest, closing his eyes and using the elven methods that Daried had taught him in Myth Drannor. A few minutes later, he was ready. He stood up, checked his location, and repeated his spell of transport: “Seiroch!”

  One more instant of dizzying darkness, and he stood beside Hamil in the antechamber. “I don’t know any spells that would let both of us teleport together,” he explained. “So I had to settle for the spell that would switch our places. The minor teleport only takes me a few minutes t
o ready.”

  Hamil gave him a small bow. “You are a more accomplished wizard than I remembered, Geran. Did you learn that in Myth Drannor?”

  “If I were a true wizard I could’ve simply conjured us both out of the vault and saved us the ride back to Hulburg for that matter. But yes, that’s a spell I learned in Myth Drannor, along with a few others.” Geran made a stirrup of his hands to help Hamil back up to the passageway above. Then he leaped up, caught the edge, and scrambled up with a hand from the halfling. He looked back down at the door to the secret vault. “We should put the floor back. The Verunas might miss the vault, and they won’t realize that we’ve been here already.”

  “Done,” said Hamil. He leaped corner-to-corner over the pit and worked his way around to the statue with its niche. In a moment he rotated it back into place. The antechamber floor rose back into place with a heavy scraping of stone on stone and the clanking of hidden chains. “I hope our mounts haven’t run off or been eaten by something. I don’t care for a long walk back to the abbey.”

  “Nor do I.” Geran led the way back to the wall they’d opened at the foot of the stairwell and ducked through it again. It was dark outside, but he’d expected that. They’d opened the mound in the early afternoon, and they’d been inside for many hours. He climbed back up into the night—cold, damp, windy, and mist-blown, as so many nights on the Highfells were. He looked around to see whether their horses were still present. The animals stamped and neighed nervously where they’d been picketed, the saddles and tack piled up where they’d left it. Geran slipped down the side of the mound and headed toward the animals, wondering if perhaps they’d caught more of the strange shadow’s scent.

  Hamil followed after him. “Do we try to make it back to the abbey tonight?”