Chapter Seventeen
The Silver Door
They fought a running battle for the next half hour, inching closer and closer to the spire that Anneli said marked the entrance to Lanioc’s crypt. Countless Dourosh were slaughtered, but it came at a price; by the time they reached the crypt, only ten of the queen’s guards remained. They had sacrificed themselves keeping Anneli and her companions safe and so far had been successful. Sir Stephen had taken a helmet-denting blow to the head, and William bore a slash across his forearm, but they were otherwise uninjured.
Penny’s own helmet had been lost somewhere along the way. Her breastplate had saved her from a handful of blows, but it was beginning to feel heavy beneath her black traveling cloak. Her body was dripping with sweat, and she wanted nothing more than to rip off the armor and throw it to the ground.
She looked up at the entrance to the Lion’s Crypt, a tall silver door inscribed with symbols and letters. She picked out a word here or there, but there was no time to study the full text. She didn’t need to, though. Anneli had told her what it said. She turned back and scanned the line of guards standing in front of them. For the moment, the Dourosh had backed away.
“They still fear Lanioc’s power, even in death,” Anneli whispered. “I was hoping this would be the case. We might have some respite while you go into the crypt.”
The queen stepped over to Sir Stephen, removed his helmet and cast her hand over the bruise on his head. Penny put her hand on William’s arm, above the cut, and likewise healed his wound using one of the spells she had learned.
“Are you sure you can’t come with me?” Penny asked as Anneli made her way to the guards to see to their injuries.
“Now that I am here and can feel its energy, I do not believe I can pass beyond that ward. The elders of Lanioc’s time spent a great deal of power constructing it. But even if I thought I could, I would not go with you. If the Dourosh regroup, I will be needed here.”
William examined his healed injury then smiled at Penny. He pulled her into a hug. “Go, my love. We will be all right.”
He let her go, and Owen was waiting to also embrace his sister. She wiped away a tear as he released her. Sir Stephen winked at her, and she turned back to the door, trying to settle her nerves.
“The door is warded,” Anneli said from behind her, “but I believe you will be able to open it simply by pushing the handle.”
Penny put her fingers on the door. It was not rusted and decaying like everything else in the city. Up close, she saw why it shined so magnificently. Every symbol was edged with an inlay of gold, barely wider than the breadth of a hair. She marveled at the skill required to so perfectly outline each shape with the delicate strands of precious metal and felt certain some magic had been involved in this door’s construction. She forced herself to pull her eyes away from the inscriptions, slid her fingers toward the handle, grasped it and pushed down.
She didn’t know what she’d expected, but she was disappointed by the small click that answered her movement. She pushed on the door. There was no screaming from the hinges, no cloud of dust or fetid air. It was as though she had opened any door in any building back in Lanion.
She peered into the darkness before her then turned her head and looked at her friends once more. She could see Dourosh lurking in some buildings farther down the street, watching her. She took a breath. Maybe seeing her go in would keep them from attacking. Maybe they’d be too scared to continue the assault against someone who had the ability to enter the Lion’s Crypt.
“Close the door behind you,” Anneli said as Penny stepped past the threshold.
Penny nodded and then, as she turned fully around, took in William’s face as he silently urged her onward. She closed the heavy metal door and was cast into darkness.
The separation from the outside world was absolute. There was no sliver of light shining beneath the door, and not a single sound could be heard from without. She put her ear against the door, trying to hear even the slightest murmur of voices, but there was nothing. She pushed down an urge to reopen the door and instead ran her hands across the metal. There were more carvings inside. Anneli hadn’t told her about these. She probably didn’t know about them. Penny spent a moment wondering whether or not she should read them; they might contain information she would need to continue deeper into the crypt. She decided that she could come back if she had to. Right now, time was not on her side. The Dourosh might still press the attack, and she couldn’t let her companions die while she wasted precious minutes.
She held up her hand, whispered a few words and smiled as an orb of yellow light appeared in her palm. It was a simple spell but one of her favorites. Light orbs could be maintained with a minimal amount of magical energy, and once cast they were solid and could be set down wherever one needed them. She looked around her. The entrance was nothing more than a stone corridor. Ten feet in front of her was another door, this one wooden but also unaffected by the two millennia that had passed since its construction.
The air was warm and dry, and the weight and heat of her breastplate began to bother her more than it had outside. She set the light orb down, took off her cloak and unstrapped the armor. Trying not to make too much noise, she rested it against the stone wall then put her cloak back on and retrieved the light orb.
She walked up to the wooden door and tried the handle. It turned freely. She pushed it open and looked down a stone staircase. The inky blackness extended beyond the range of her little light, but she was reluctant to brighten it. She’d already expended much energy during their fight toward the tomb, and if the ancient stories were true, there would be ordeals ahead, tests to prevent all but the worthy from reaching Lanioc’s sarcophagus.
She took to the steps, keeping her free hand on the wall for stability. When she reached the bottom, she found herself in a narrow rectangular chamber, and extending perpendicularly from it were three even narrower tunnels. They all seemed to continue straight ahead, but there were no signs or markings distinguishing one from any other.
She looked at the tunnel directly in front of her, the one in the center. It was either the path that led to Lanioc’s sarcophagus or else it was a misdirection to trick those who weren’t wily enough to see through something so obvious. She supposed she could travel down one tunnel and then the next, but if magic was involved, there was no telling what would happen or where she would end up if she chose the wrong one. Once she’d begun, she might not even be able to turn back at all.
Penny sat on the bottom step and took several breaths. She was facing the first ordeal. She couldn’t waste time, but she couldn’t rush either. Any slight mistake or oversight could mean failure… or worse.
Chapter Eighteen
The Lion’s Crypt
She spent only a few minutes sitting on the step, but to Penny, they felt eternal. She searched her mind for any mention of three paths. The elders of Lanioc’s time had placed these ordeals here, and they wouldn’t have made them impossible; someone, after all, had to have been expected to recover the sword at some point in the future. Perhaps there was a story from the legends of the Lanosh. She came up empty. Satisfied that there was nothing buried in her memory, nothing she’d read in passing during her study, she stood up again and walked slowly around the narrow chamber, scrutinizing each stone. These ordeals were meant to keep out those who were unworthy. And who was unworthy? Those who didn’t have a remarkably strong magical affinity. As she returned to stand in front of the central corridor, she nodded. If these were magical ordeals, then she would need to draw on the different magical energies to overcome them. And this particular puzzle gave every indication that it involved the magic of understanding.
She felt comforted by this. It was the magic she felt the most familiar with. She closed her eyes and focused her mind on the Vortex of Understanding beneath the city of Lanion. Despite the distance between her and it, she immediately felt it reach out to her and send a rush of power into her body.
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She reopened her eyes. Three corridors. Left, center and right. Like her own, the Lanoshi language was read from left to right. They would naturally number the left corridor as one, the central as two and the right as three. She didn’t know why her mind told her to number them, but she went with the notion. She couldn’t always tell when the magic was guiding her.
There were significant numbers in the lore of the Lanosh, but one, two and three weren’t among them. If she hadn’t had the knowledge to choose the correct corridor before coming in, it meant that the answer was hidden somewhere in the chamber.
Perhaps if she counted the number of stones in the walls… no, that would take her forever. And such a large number would tell her little. If it was divisible by three, it was also divisible by one. And if it was divisible by two, it would still mean nothing. If the answer was around her, it would be simpler, she felt certain of that.
She cast a handful of spells designed to reveal that which had been magically hidden. The chamber remained unchanged. Next, she gently tried to push or pry on some of the stones to see if any of them were loose, but none of them budged; each remained as smooth and as flush as the next.
As she circled the chamber once more, she looked up the stairs she’d descended. Perhaps she needed to go read the inscriptions on the inside of the silver door after all. Or perhaps….
She began walking back up, counting the steps. When she reached the top, she grinned. Thirty-three. She counted them again on her way back down to verify and came up with the same number. She stepped over to the corridor on the right and looked down it. She’d labeled this corridor number three in her mind, though. There was nothing to indicate that had been correct. Still, the idea had come from somewhere, and she trusted the magic of understanding. Holding her light orb out in front of her, she stepped into the corridor.
It was shorter than she’d expected, and not ten steps into it, she saw a door, just at the edge of her light. She briefly wondered if the other two corridors also had doors at their ends, but satisfying that curiosity would be neither smart nor safe. She had to continue on the path she’d chosen.
She opened the door and found herself in another chamber. Thankfully, there was only one way to continue. Another door stood in front of her. She tried the handle, but it did not move.
She stepped back and looked around. Like the last, this chamber was empty. She was about to walk around it when a scream to her right sent her back against the wall and her free hand to the hilt of her sword. She turned toward the noise and saw a Lanosh man at the far end, writhing in pain.
Her pulse quickened. He had not been there a moment ago, she was certain of it. She fought through her fear and tried to analyze the situation rationally. If the ordeals were tied to the four different kinds of magic and she had already faced the ordeal of understanding, then this one dealt with either healing, protection or destruction. Here was a man in pain, so healing was the obvious answer. However….
She took a moment to cast the most powerful personal protection spell she knew, surrounding herself with a shield of magical energy. The drain was almost painful, but she could not take the chance that this was a ruse. As she approached the man, she saw that he had been disemboweled. She fought back a wave of nausea. The healing spells she had learned could deal with minor and moderate injuries, but a severe injury like this was beyond her abilities. She didn’t even know if Anneli would be able to save this man. Thankfully, the screaming had stopped; the man had fallen into unconsciousness.
A wave of emotion swept over her. She had to help him. This might be one of the ordeals and merely an illusion, but he seemed real enough. If nothing else, she could try to ease his suffering.
Penny knelt down and studied the wound. She set her magical light orb beside her and cast a sleep spell on the man to keep him from waking up. Her healing abilities were limited, but she had to try something.
She began by scooping away the blood that had pooled in the wound. She could see his intestine; it had been cleanly sliced in half. She took a deep breath as she tried to steady herself again. Basic anatomy had been part of her education at the palace—one had to know what one was trying to heal, after all. If nothing else, the intestine had to be rejoined. She reached in and grabbed the two ends. One slipped out of her grasp, but she grabbed it again and held on more tightly.
She could bind up a wound—she had done it to William’s arm just outside—so why couldn’t she rejoin these two halves? It wasn’t a severed limb; she didn’t have to deal with bones and arteries. As she began to speak the words of the spell, her hands closed into fists, now empty. She looked down. The man was gone; the blood was gone; there was no sign he had ever been there.
Was that it? Had she merely needed to try? She picked up her light orb, stood and walked to the locked door. When she tried the handle this time, it moved.
Still suspicious, she stepped through the doorway and into another corridor. Perhaps it had not been a test of healing at all. She remembered something Anneli had said, that true power and leadership came from compassion. Had what she’d felt as she tried to save that man’s life been what mattered? Even though she had suspected he was not real, his suffering had affected her.
She wouldn’t know until all the ordeals were over, if even then. She reached another door, grabbed the handle, and opened it. She was immediately glad her personal shield was still up. A jet of fire came through the open doorway, surrounding her. She screamed and half turned to run, but a surge of magic from the Vortex of Understanding stopped her. Running would mean failure. She had to face whatever this was.
The jet of flame dissipated, and she looked through the doorway. She caught a glimpse of a coiled green body, scales shining in the dim glow of her orb. So the ordeals of protection and destruction were to come at the same time. She drew her sword and stepped forward.
The dragon looked more like a serpent than the legged, winged dragons she knew of from the legends of Emberlyn. Its snake-like body twisted back upon itself, nearly filling the stone chamber. Twelve-inch fangs protruded from its upper jaw, and its ruby-colored eyes flashed as it sent another wave of fire at her.
She ducked her head and half-closed her eyes as it impacted her shield. She muttered a few words to strengthen the shield, but it was rapidly waning. She sprinted to the right, away from the dragon’s head, and rushed toward one of its coils. The fire followed her but stopped as she reached the thing’s body. She got in one good slash, which bounced off the scales, before she was forced to turn and contend with a snap from the dragon’s maw. Her shield held just long enough to deflect the first bite, but she felt it fall away as the dragon snapped at her again. She brought her sword up to defend herself, and the blade made contact with a tooth and bit into the enamel. The dragon reared back, nearly taking her sword with it, but she managed to hold on.
With her shield down, another jet of fire would finish her. She kept the dragon’s body close on one side, hoping it wouldn’t breathe fire at itself, but she was not prepared for the whipping tail from behind.
It knocked her forward, onto her face, and her light orb rolled away from her and underneath one of the dragon’s coils. The chamber was plunged into darkness save for the red light shining from the creature’s eyes.
She heard the tail smack against the stone floor to her left. So the dragon couldn’t see her either. She rolled away from the creature and clambered back to her feet. She sensed the enormous body of the monster in front of her, but the eyes had disappeared. Had it closed them? Was it listening, trying to pinpoint her position?
She cast a simple illusion spell, and the sound of footsteps echoed from the side of the room farthest from her. The chamber was immediately illuminated by fire, and for a brief second she saw that the dragon’s head was hovering close to the ground, its eyes still closed. She dashed forward, her sword held out like a spear, and hoped her aim was true. She released the hilt of the sword and propelled the weapon with magic.
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nbsp; She heard a roar and saw one red eye as it snaked up toward the top of the chamber. A second later, it was gone, and the yellow light of her orb once again reached her. She spun completely around, but the chamber was now empty. She saw her sword on the ground and went to pick it up. She then retrieved her orb and stood panting near the next door, reluctant to open it until she had recovered her breath.
Panic seized her heart. If this was a test of her command of the magics of protection and destruction, she had failed. She had not used any of her offensive spells against the dragon. Everything had happened too quickly, and in the few seconds she’d had to think, her sword had seemed like the right choice.
She sat on the cold stone floor and slumped her shoulders. A dragon! Of course she hadn’t been able to think clearly when confronted by something like that. In all her reading, she’d learned that they had been legendary even in Lanioc’s time, two thousand years ago. If they still existed, no one alive could tell you where to find one. Magical creatures like that….
She raised her head and looked at the door in front of her. Of course! Dragons were magical creatures. The legends she had read said that of all creatures, they alone could control the magical energies and even cast spells, just like people. Even the Ember Lion did not cast spells, not in the same way.
The most destructive spell she knew, one that took nearly a minute to cast, might have been useless against such a creature. She stood. The previous ordeal had not really been about healing. And the first ordeal, with the tunnels, had not required her to cast any spells either.
She laughed out loud. These weren’t tests of one’s magic; they were tests of wits and character. Maybe the only true magical ordeal was the one she hadn’t even had to work at: entering through the silver door, past the ward protecting the crypt. The ward had immediately known that she had the magical spark within her and was entering without malicious intent and free of Dourok’s corruption.
The Lion's Crypt (The Emberlyn Chronicles Book 2) Page 10