The Tomb of Horrors

by Keith Francis Strohm - (ebook by Flandrel; Undead)

  They were arguing now, heatedly trying to determine their next move. This time, Durgoth found himself fighting the urge to order an attack, but he needed them to bypass the tomb’s remaining traps and summon the presence of Acererak. Once that had been accomplished, he would kill each one of them with impunity.

  “Enough, all of you!” shouted the bard, and to Durgoth’s great surprise, they all listened. “I think I’ve found out how to bypass this door,” she said. “Acererak’s riddle speaks of the throne that’s key and keyed. Well, we know that the throne itself was keyed. Bredeth used the scepter to unlock the passage beneath it.” She cast a grateful glance at the young noble. “What if the scepter is also the key for this door?”

  “You speak wisdom,” the decrepit mage responded, turning to the rest of the group. Durgoth, still hiding in the shadows, shook his head. A part of him longed to snap the patronizing nobleman’s brittle neck. Only a few more minutes, he thought, and I can rid myself of all of them.

  “What side of the scepter did you use to unlock the throne?” the wizard asked.

  “The side with the silver knob,” the young man responded.

  The mage nodded and took the scepter from the bard. Durgoth watched as the old man placed the implement’s gold ball against a depression in the doors. There was a moment of complete silence. The stream of blood slowed to a trickle and finally stopped.

  Durgoth watched with barely contained excitement as the doors swung silently open. He crept to the back of the passage where the remainder of his followers waited expectantly. In a short while, his quest would be complete. Years of patient struggle and endless plotting would finally pay off.

  And the killing would begin.

  Kaerion entered the imposing chamber with his sword drawn, ready for an attack—and nearly dropped the weapon as a bright wave of illumination assaulted his eyes. Blinking hard to adjust his vision, he called out a warning to the rest of the party. They entered slowly, cautious of the dangers that might lay hidden in this room.

  Unlike the halls within the rest of the tomb, this square chamber contained elaborately crafted gold sconces spaced regularly along the walls. A bright yellow flame burned hotly within each of the gilded holders. Like the ceiling in the foyer from whence the party had come, polished silver covered the roof of this room, reflecting and magnifying the light from each sconce so intensely that it took Kaerion a few moments to realize that the flames burned with an unearthly power. They neither flickered nor reacted to the passage of the party in any way.

  A few more steps carried him into the center of the chamber. What he saw nearly took his breath away. Kaerion stood, not upon the familiar gray stone that had made up most of the tomb, but on top of a floor composed of a semi-precious material—agate from the look of it—crafted and polished to gleaming perfection. A granite sarcophagus rested on the floor against the far wall, and even from his position Kaerion could see the slant and whorl of ancient glyphs inscribed about its surface. In front of the burial mound stood an oversized bronze urn. The unmistakable flash of gold filigree caught his eye as the object’s decorative swirls reflected the light. Kaerion watched warily as a thin stream of bluish-gray smoke issued forth from a vent near the urn’s brass stopper.

  “Will you look at that,” a voice from behind him said. Kaerion looked at the speaker and was surprised to find himself regarding Landra. The guard captain had moved forward with the rest of the party and stopped in the chamber’s center. She gazed intently at the two massive iron chests that sat to either side of the sarcophagus.

  “This must be Acererak’s treasury,” Landra said in a hushed voice. If this were any other place at any other time, Kaerion might have smiled. This was the first time he had seen the veteran awed by anything.

  “Be careful about what you touch,” Phathas wheezed. “I don’t think we’ve reached the heart of this tomb yet.”

  Concerned but mindful of the mage’s pride, Kaerion watched as the old wizard walked unsteadily toward the sarcophagus and lifted his staff above its granite lid Phathas muttered a few words and then took a step back, a look of surprise stamped clearly upon his wizened face. “Nothing!” the mage exclaimed.

  “There are no spells on the sarcophagus?” Gerwyth asked as he walked gracefully up to the man.

  “No. I mean that I felt nothing,” the mage explained in a tone so exasperated that Kaerion winced in sympathy for his friend’s innocent question. “My spell didn’t work!” Phathas began to cast another spell. Again nothing happened. “It appears that something is interfering with my magic,” the old man said. “What about you Majandra?”

  It only took a few moments for the bard to determine that she too was affected by this strange occurrence. “Well,” she said in a tone so similar to Phathas’ earlier exclamation that Kaerion had to fight off the urge to smile, “whatever wards are blocking our magic don’t seem to be affecting the tomb itself.” The bard pointed to the wall sconces.

  “Shouldn’t we open the sarcophagus?” Bredeth asked. “It might be Acererak’s final resting place.”

  “No,” Kaerion found himself saying. “Acererak is close, but he isn’t here.”

  The others looked at him, but he merely shrugged. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. He could feel the evil wizard’s presence like a canker in his mind. He’d felt it before—briefly, when they had first entered the Vast Swamp. There, however, it had been merely a trickle of premonition. Here, close to the heart of Acererak’s damned crypt, the force of it nearly made him ill. He hadn’t felt such things since Dorakaa—and the implications of that were almost more terrifying than the palpable sense of Acererak’s presence.

  “Anyway,” Majandra said, interrupting his thoughts, “with the wards in this room counteracting our magic, it’s too dangerous to go fooling about with things. We might activate a trap we have no power to overcome.” Kaerion watched as the half-elf’s gaze raked the room. “Besides,” she continued, “there is still more to Acererak’s riddle, and I think that something is in this room. It’s—”

  “The statues,” Gerwyth finished, sounding very pleased with himself. Kaerion sighed as his friend pointed to the hulking iron statues that guarded each corner of the room. The metal figures stood over eight feet tall, and each wielded a vicious-looking black iron weapon. Turning to face Majandra, the ranger composed his features in a mock imitation of the half-elf. “‘The iron men of visage grim do more than meets the viewer’s eyes,’” he intoned ominously, and then stuck his tongue out at the bard. “And you thought no one ever listened to what you had to say.”

  Majandra offered the elf her most dazzling smile, and Kaerion found himself once more feeling uncomfortably jealous. Concentrate on the matter at hand, he chided himself. “Let’s spread out and search those statues,” he said to the rest of the group. “And be careful not to spring any traps!”

  It took a short while for the group to examine each of the statues. Only one, the image of a hulking fighter wielding a spike-studded mace, looked different enough to warrant further investigation. After carefully checking it for traps, Majandra signaled to Kaerion, Gerwyth, and Bredeth. The three of them each grabbed a portion of the statue and pushed. Within moments, they all heard a loud scraping sound as the mass of black iron moved slowly backward, revealing a chute that spiraled down into darkness.

  Kaerion clapped his two assistants on the shoulders heartily as they rested from their recent exertions. Though the elf offered him his usual smirk, Kaerion could see that something was troubling Bredeth. The young noble’s face was twisted into a grimace. “What bothers you, Bredeth?” he asked. For a moment, Kaerion didn’t think that the nobleman would answer, but eventually the man’s face composed itself.

  “N-nothing, Kaerion,” Bredeth said. “I… I think I might have twisted something in my back.”

  Kaerion nodded. He didn’t quite believe the young man, but he wasn’t willing to pry. Whatever troubled the nobleman, he’d share it when he was ready.
Kaerion’s experience had taught him that lesson.

  “Well, then,” Kaerion said, “I’ll go down first. When I signal that everything is safe, I want the rest of you to come down slowly. Is that clear?”

  There was no dissent as the fighter sheathed his sword and crawled feet first into the stone shaft. Before he slipped down into the darkness, he gave Majandra a crooked smile. The bard smiled in return and said nothing—but Kaerion heard everything he needed to hear in that silence.

  With a final wave of his hand, he slid down the chute.

  The stone door sank noiselessly into the floor, revealing a dust-filled room beyond.

  “Congratulate yourselves while you can,” Durgoth said, feeling a frisson of anticipation work its way up his spine as the Nyrondese slapped each other heartily on the back. After a few unsuccessful attempts at opening the door, Majandra had tried the first key—successfully. That woman was as intelligent as she was beautiful. Briefly, he remembered catching sight of her in Sydra’s scrying, and he also remembered what he had planned for her.

  Durgoth pushed his excitement away and concentrated on following the Nyrondese silently. At his command, the sorcereress had cloaked all of them with an invisibility spell. Though he couldn’t see them, he knew that his followers lurked somewhere behind him, ready to attack when the time was right.

  He entered the chamber protected by the sinking door just a few moments after his enemies. The nearness of Acererak’s spirit nearly crushed his mind. The protective wards he had woven like a castle wall around him were fraying and ready to split.

  Swirling dust caught his attention as the Nyrondese party fanned out to explore the room. Within moments the dust had formed into the semblance of a man and approached the tomb’s defilers. Looking at the creature through senses that were stretched to their breaking point beneath the dark wizard’s metaphysical assault, it was clear that the mystic construct offered no real danger. The true presence of Acererak lingered somewhere within this room, cleverly hidden.

  Phathas too must have realized this, for the mage commanded the rest of his party to ignore the insubstantial creature. Instead, he ordered the bard to place a cylindrical key within the indentation that marked the center of this high-peaked vault Durgoth watched as the fiery-haired half-elf carefully inserted the key and turned it three times. The floor trembled mightily.

  Durgoth watched in amazement as the south section of the room rose into the air, disgorging centuries of dust and powdered stone. He fell back quickly as his enemies each backed away from the moving floor. When the dust cleared, he could see a vault, composed entirely of silver, now filled the latter half of the room. Beyond that door he could sense Acererak’s spirit rising in power, eager to be set free upon the world once again.

  After a brief hesitation, the elf walked up to the door, grabbed the inset ring in the vault’s center, and pulled. The vault door swung open slowly, revealing a veritable king’s ransom in treasure. The glitter of gems, jewelry, and countless thousands of coins mesmerized the eye as light entered the vault’s interior for the first time in innumerable centuries. Durgoth nearly jumped as he heard a slow whistle of appreciation behind him. He cast an angry glance at his followers, knowing that they couldn’t see him, but wishing that he could kill them all now. Thankfully, the Nyrondese were engrossed in their own examination of Acererak’s burial vault and hadn’t detected them—yet.

  His anger dissipated as he watched Bredeth jerk violently forward, like a rag doll responding to the commands of a cruel owner. The prophecy had been explicit about the steps needed to summon Acererak and retrieve the key. Durgoth had made sure that Sydra knew what she needed to have Bredeth do once they had stumbled upon the wizard’s crypt.

  Durgoth smiled as the noble’s companions called out to him. Heedless of their cries, the young man reached out and touched the top of a small skull that lay in the back of the tomb. Durgoth fell to his knees as he felt Acererak’s spirit respond to the touch and phase into this plane of existence. Waves of dark energy filled the room, and the last of Durgoth’s spiritual defenses crumbled.

  “Now!” he shouted to his followers—and watched calmly as their shimmering forms winked into existence moments before they reached the confused knot of Nyrondese nobles.

  The battle had begun.

  * * *

  Kaerion spun at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, hastily raising his shield as shadowy figures appeared out of nowhere. Among them, he recognized the familiar shape of a red-cloaked man, moving with unearthly speed toward him. Anger warred with disbelief. Their attackers from Rel Mord had returned. But how?

  He didn’t have time to answer. The robed figure leapt the remaining few feet between them and aimed a vicious kick at Kaerion’s head. Kaerion brought up his shield, blocking the kick, but the force of the blow knocked his shield a few inches to the left, offering the monk’s follow-through punch no resistance. Kaerion rolled with the blow, letting some of its force dissipate as his momentum carried him toward the vault’s far wall.

  The monk continued forward, pressing the attack. Though Kaerion was armored and relatively unhurt, he still had difficulty parrying the flurry of kicks and strikes the pock-faced man was delivering. Desperately, he ducked beneath a roundhouse kick and sliced viciously with his sword. Obviously surprised by the maneuver, his opponent didn’t quite dance out of the way in time. Kaerion’s blade cut deeply into the man’s calf.

  Kaerion would have pressed his sudden advantage, but he stumbled as an explosive wave of frost-chilled air enveloped the room. At the same time, needles of hot fire stabbed into his brain. He tried to close himself off to the agony, to find a center of focus in the maelstrom of pain, but he was unsuccessful. The fetid presence of Acererak pressed in on him. He could feel the corruption that was the ancient wizard’s spirit surrounding him—a miasma of pollution and evil that sucked the air from his lungs. He knew that Bredeth’s hasty actions had somehow summoned the creature back from beyond the grave.

  Kaerion forced open eyes that he did not remember closing, trying to blink away the pain-wrought tears that threatened to blind him. He scanned the immediate area for his opponent, wondering why the monk hadn’t finished him off when he had the chance. He found the man standing completely still, gazing up above Kaerion’s right shoulder. Carefully, lest it prove some trick, Kaerion looked in the same direction.

  Bands of ice pressed round his heart at what he saw.

  Behind him, floating idly in the air, a bleached white skull, a terrifying intelligence alight in its ruby eyes, gazed upon the scene of battle. The skull’s eyes pulsed with an unearthly glow, and Kaerion saw the wicked delight shining in their depths. This perception was heightened by the row of diamonds inset into the creature’s jaw, forming an array of teeth that were exposed in such a way as to resemble a cruel smile.

  From the waves of pure evil that flowed from this thing, Kaerion knew that the skull must be the focal point for Acererak’s spirit It continued to survey the battle that still raged around it. As if searching for something, Kaerion thought, but what?

  Dimly, Kaerion saw Majandra, Gerwyth, and Landra battling a hulking figure that lashed out with large, misshapen fists. Kaerion cried out as he saw, in the light of the party’s torches, that they battled nothing less than a golem. Its disfigured mass made each of them look like a small child in comparison. Gerwyth ducked underneath a powerful swing and sliced the creature’s chest twice with his gleaming short swords, while the light of Majandra’s spells slammed into its puckered flesh. Landra aimed a devastating blow at the monster’s neck that might have had an effect if the golem hadn’t knocked the blade aside as if it were a gnat and launched the veteran against the wall.

  He had to do something, but trapped between the awful presence of the skull and the coiled power of the monk, Kaerion felt a moment of indecisiveness. If he attacked the skull, surely the monk would strike at his back. Yet, he couldn’t allow the demi-lich to perpetrate whatever foul plan it h
ad in mind. And where in the Nine Hells was Bredeth? Kaerion hadn’t seen the nobleman since he had ignored the party’s warnings and touched the skull. Wherever he was, Kaerion thought angrily, he’d better appear soon. His companions couldn’t stand against that golem too much longer without some aid.

  Just then, he felt a warning tingle flash down his back. Turning slightly, he saw that the skull had fixed its gaze upon Phathas, who was currently unleashing spell after spell, with surprising speed, at the blond-haired sorceress who had attacked them in Rel Mord.

  “Phathas, look out!” Kaerion shouted, and had to duck as the monk sprang back into action.

  Without turning his back upon his arcane adversary, Phathas looked in the fighter’s direction. The mage held one hand forward, summoning blue-tinged energy that streaked toward the sorceress, while he raised his staff in the air with his other hand and shouted a single word. A bubble of white force cocooned around the ancient mage. Kaerion winced as he saw a ray of pure darkness shoot out from the ruby eye of Acererak’s skull. The two opposing forces met with an explosion that rocked the room. Looking past his opponent, Kaerion watched in horror as the mage’s shield collapsed under the assault. To his relief, however, the mage emerged unscathed.

  “The skull, Kaerion!” Phathas shouted. “You must destroy the skull! It’s the key to Acererak’s power!”

  Kaerion nodded in understanding. He feinted high with his sword and then reversed the attack, stabbing at the monk’s thigh. Quicker than a tiger, the man jumped back, offering Kaerion an opening.

  Time slowed as the fighter placed both hands upon the hilt of his sword and, turning hard along his center, using the movement of his hips to add force to the blow, brought his blade down along the side of Acererak’s skull.

  The blade shattered, exploding into a host of small metal needles that shot across the room.