Shepherd's Quest: The Broken Key #1

by Brian S. Pratt

  Upon their return back into what they’ve begun to call The Crypt, they once again deposited all of their equipment, except their packs and treasure, on the floor of the passage beneath the entrance. Riyan came up with the bright idea of depositing all the copper coins, save a couple for each, within one of the chests that they had searched earlier here on the top level. His pack had grown quite heavy with the weight of the coins and he didn’t really feel like lugging it around. The silver coins, gems and the single gold necklace they distributed evenly among their packs.

  Once the copper had been dropped off, they moved to the steps leading down to the second level. Then from the bottom of the steps they turned left and walked over to where the next set of steps descended further down.

  Riyan took the lead as he stepped into the opening of the stairs. Just like the previous stair, this one held twenty steps leading from this level down to the next. He quickly descended the twenty steps and at the bottom came out into another passage running left and right. The lantern’s light revealed the passage extending into darkness to the left, but to the right it continued a short ways before abruptly turning to the left. “Might be square just like the one above,” he commented.

  Turning to the right, he led the others as he headed for the corner and followed it around to the left. Not too much further from the turn they came across another entryway to a two-bier room. It was practically identical to the one above only this time, the two chests were sitting on the biers themselves at the foot of the deceased.

  Riyan and Chad stayed out in the passage while Bart took the lantern inside and began to examine the chests. The first one had a mark by the keyhole indicating the possibility of a trap.

  Over lunch they had been discussing traps and the way chest makers would put a mark to indicate the presence of one. Riyan had thought it rather dumb, seeing as how it only seemed to work to the thief’s best interest. But Chad had come up with another probable reason.

  “Maybe it could be put there to discourage thieves?” he had guessed. “I mean, if a thief knew it was trapped, wouldn’t he be more likely to move on to a less life threatening target?”

  “Perhaps,” Riyan had said. “But I still think it’s a pretty stupid idea.” He had looked to Bart and added, “It hasn’t dissuaded us in any way.”

  “You got a point there,” replied Bart.

  But now they stood there and watched as Bart worked on the chests. He managed to get them open in short order and within each they found a total of twelve silver coins. For the first time, the copper coins were not present.

  Riyan nodded as they divvied up the coins. “That’s more like it,” he stated. Since twenty copper coins were the equivalent of a silver, having only silver kept the weight down.

  They left the room and Riyan again took the lead as they continued down the passage. The light from the lantern soon revealed two openings coming up ahead. One on the right that was similar in width to the one they just left, and a much wider one to the left. As they drew closer, the lantern’s light revealed the opening to the left to be almost three times as wide as any they’ve come across thus far.

  Riyan slowed his steps as he came nearer the two openings. A quick look through the one on the right showed that it was another of the two-bier rooms with chests resting atop the biers. Leaving the two-bier room alone for the time being, he turned his attention to the larger opening on the left.

  This room was almost three times as large as the three columned room with six biers they had found above. It was shaped as a diamond, with the entryway where they were standing being one of the diamond’s points. As it turned out, there were entryways at each of the four points of the diamond.

  A single bier rested against the wall of each of the four sides of the diamond. Just beyond the head and foot of each of the biers, tall columns stretched upward from the floor all the way to the ceiling.

  As Riyan entered the room with the others right behind, the light from the lantern revealed a sword and shield hanging on the wall above each of the biers. Also, in the center of the floor between the four biers, was an opening with stairs leading down.

  They gave the stairs a quick look and when nothing other than darkness could be seen, turned their attention to the swords and shields upon the walls. Closer examination revealed that they had survived the passage of time well. Not a speck of rust marred their surfaces and each looked as if there was strength remaining in them.

  Each of the shields bore a different coat of arms that was an exact match to the coat of arms depicted on the armor of the deceased soldier lying beneath. One was of a sword pointed downward with a dragon grasping the hilt as its body twined around the blade. The next was a simple red background with but a stripe of green running from the upper left corner to the bottom right. The third coat of arms was that of a two headed grey falcon, one head looking to the right and the other to the left. In the falcon’s left claw was grasped a stick with but a single leaf upon the upper end, and in the other claw was a dagger with the blade pointing down.

  The fourth coat of arms drew the attention of them all. It was a black field upon which lay a five pointed golden crown surrounded in a nimbus of light. And beneath the crown was the symbol that has been depicted on all the coins.

  They took a closer look at the body laid out upon the bier beneath the shield bearing the crown. They saw the helm that the skeletal remains was wearing had a crown of sorts worked into the design. The five points of the crown depicted on the shield were matched by five protruding points spaced evenly around the helm. Gems sparkled as they reflected the lantern’s light from where they were embedded in the tips of the spikes.

  “He must have been a king,” breathed Chad.

  “I would have to agree,” said Bart.

  Riyan nodded too. “But I’ve never seen his coat of arms anywhere before, nor any of the others.”

  “Neither have I,” Bart admitted. Then he moved closer to the bier until he was almost touching it so he could examine the sword and shield on the wall better. “I don’t see how they managed to survive so well all this time.”

  “Unless they’re magical,” suggested Riyan.

  Bart turned to him and nodded. “That would explain it.”

  “Uh,” began Chad, “I think it might be wise to leave this room alone. It’s bad enough we’re grave robbers, but to take anything from this room just seems wrong.”

  “I get that feeling too,” agreed Riyan. Riyan gazed at the shield bearing the crown and the sword beside it. How he longed for such things, magical weapons and armor just like in the sagas. For the sword and shield had to be magical to have survived so well for so long. Sighing, he said, “Come on, we still have more of this level to check before we head down the stairs to the next.”

  The others agreed with him and they returned back to the passage from whence they entered the diamond shaped chamber. Once there, they crossed the passage and entered the two-bier room and began the looting of the rest of this level.

  Just as Riyan had predicted, the passage did form a square as it moved around the diamond shaped room. As they went along, they came across seven more of the two-bier rooms and collected another seventy two silver pieces and six small gems. Again, there were no coppers.

  As they rounded the final corner of the square, they came across an entryway into a large room with fourteen biers. The dead lying upon them were different than the ones they had come across thus far. Instead of being arrayed in armor with a sword lying upon their chest, these were archers. Each held a quiver of arrows rather than a sword upon their chest. The arrows themselves didn’t look all that great, most of them were seriously warped. At the foot of each bier sat a chest.

  While Bart worked to get the chests open, Chad commented to Riyan, “You know, this whole place may be some king’s final resting place. I heard that in some places, when a king dies he’s buried with soldiers, so that in the afterlife he’ll be protected.”

  Riyan nodded agre
ement. “I’ve heard that too.”

  “Got it!” hollered Bart as he moved on to the second chest.

  Chad glanced to Riyan and shrugged. Then they walked over to the chest Bart had just disarmed and resumed the looting process. Once all the chests were disarmed and searched, they garnered another twenty silver coins and three gems.

  “Today’s been rather successful so far,” Riyan announced as they were leaving the room.

  “Including what we left up on the top level, I’d say we’re pushing close to the equivalent of twenty six golds,” Bart told them. “And that’s not counting what the gems may bring.”

  As they made their way down the passage to the diamond room and the stairs leading down, Riyan asked his friend Chad, “Do you think this will be enough to help your father?”

  “I can’t take all of this for myself,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” replied Bart. “You need it more than us right now. Use what you have to and get the grinding wheels fixed, then we’ll split the rest.”

  “I appreciate this,” Chad told them. “I really do.”

  “Hey,” said Riyan as he placed a hand on his shoulder, “what are friends for?”

  Then they turned into the diamond room and made their way over to the head of the stairs. Riyan didn’t even hesitate as he stepped upon the top step and began his descent to the next level.

  Unlike the two previous flights of steps they took as they descended from one level to the next, this one had forty steps before reaching the bottom. Where the steps ended a passage extended forward for twenty feet before reaching an entryway into another room. For the first time since they’ve been down here, they came across a door.

  The door sat opened and was swung within the hallway towards them. It was a rather sturdy wooden door with reinforced iron bindings. If the door had been shut, it would have taken quite a bit of force to get it open.

  “Odd to find a door here,” Chad stated.

  “Isn’t it though?” asked Bart.

  Then they passed by the open door and into the room on the other side. Here they were taken aback as they entered a massive room. Thirty biers were spaced in six rows of five with three rows of three columns each dividing the room equally into thirds. One row of five biers, then a row of columns. Two rows of five biers, then another row of columns. Then two more rows of biers, a row of columns, and then one last row of five biers. Upon each of the biers were more of the armored individuals laid out just as all the others they came across had been since they entered The Crypt.

  “This could take some time,” Bart said as he gauged the length of time it’s going to take him to search each of the thirty biers and disarm whatever traps they may have.

  “We got time,” Chad replied. “It’s not like we have anywhere to go.”

  “Yeah, but you guys aren’t the ones having to do all the work,” he admonished.

  “We’ll lug the treasure for you if that will make you feel better,” offered Riyan.

  Bart nodded and grinned. “It would, now that you mentioned it.” He then set his pack down and began removing the coins he’s been carrying. Once he transferred them to Riyan and Chad, he stood back up. “Better.”

  “I bet,” said Riyan as he hefted his now much heavier pack.

  Bart moved to the first bier and began to inspect it. Chad lit the wick of the second lantern they carried and said to Riyan, “Why don’t we explore a little while we’re waiting?”

  “Sure,” agreed Riyan.

  On the far side of the room across from the end of the center set of columns, was a pair of double doors. Both stood wide open into the room. When they reached them they found another passage moved directly away from the doors then turned to the right.

  “You two be careful,” Bart hollered in warning.

  “We promise not to touch anything,” Chad hollered back. Then he and Riyan passed through the doors and into the passage. They walked down to where it turned to the right and followed it around the corner. Stretching before them was a long passage, longer than what the lantern’s light could reveal.

  As they began walking down it, Chad said to Riyan, “Just like one of those stories we would tell each other.”

  Riyan grinned. “Better.” Then he held up his arm that was bandaged due to his impatience in opening the drawer. “Even this doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm for what we’re doing.”

  Chad glanced at the bandage and asked, “Is it bothering you at all?”

  Shaking his head, Riyan replied, “Only a twinge now and then when I flex my arm.”

  “I was worried about it,” he said.

  “So was I at first,” admitted Riyan. “But since nothing has developed, I don’t give it much thought.”

  Up ahead, they see another door standing open at the end of the hallway. Moving forward, they pass through the entryway and enter another room just like the one they had left Bart in. Thirty biers separated in six rows of five, which in turn are divided by three rows of three columns.

  “Bart’s going to be busy,” grinned Chad.

  “Maybe we should give him a larger share of the treasure,” suggested Riyan. “After all, he’s taking the most risk in disarming the traps.”

  “That would be alright with me,” replied Chad. “So long as I am still able to give my father ample gold to cover the cost of the two new grinding stones.”

  “Of course,” Riyan agreed.

  Far to their right, another set of double doors stood open. After a brief inspection of the room, they made their way towards the double doors. Again on the other side of the doors was a passage moving directly away from them before turning sharply to the left.

  They passed through the double doors and followed the passage until it turned left. After that they continued to follow it quite a ways to where another door stood open at the end. On the other side was yet another bier filled room.

  This room turned out to be larger by far than the two other previous rooms they had discovered on this level. A quick count revealed sixty biers with armored dead lying in neat rows from one wall to the other with only a two foot gap between them. Six massive columns stood in two rows of three down the center of the room.

  “Man,” breathed Riyan. “I guess this king really felt the need for protection in the afterlife.”

  “It looks like it,” Chad agreed. “It’s going to take Bart days to work his way through all these.”

  “I know,” said Riyan. “Feel sorry for him. He’ll definitely deserve the dragon’s share after this.”

  They walked between the biers and briefly gave the dead lying upon them a once over. The walls of this room bore the scenes of fighting as they had discovered in that one room up above. Soldiers fighting the bestial, demonic looking creatures. A shiver runs through Riyan as he paused to look at one particular nasty scene where it looked as if a group of creatures were eating the flesh from a fallen soldier.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Chad said as he indicated another set of double doors at the far end of the room. “This place kind of gives me the creeps.”

  “You know it,” agreed Riyan.

  Moving out, they made their way through the biers until they reached the double doors. There they discovered a passage moving directly away before turning left.

  “How many more of these are there?” Chad asked as they passed into the passage.

  “I hope not too many more for Bart’s sake,” replied Riyan. “They seem to be getting bigger as we go along.” Chad chuckled at that.

  After turning left, the passage continued to run twice as far as the others on this level before opening up onto a room.

  When the light from the lantern hit the room, they could tell that here at last they had found something different. There were no biers within this room. What they saw caused them to come to an abrupt halt.

  From the end of the passage, the walls of the room angled outward forty five degrees until ending at the far wall of the room. Just within the r
oom, on either side of the entryway, were large, empty urns. From the soot coating the upper rim of each, Riyan deduced that they must have at one time been filled with oil and had burned.

  But this was not what had made them stop, rather the wall across the room from them. It was covered in sigils and writing unfamiliar to them. Two steps led up to a dais that stood beneath the sigils and writing. Lying on the steps was a skeleton dressed in ragged clothes. His upper body was upon the dais with one of his arms outstretched towards the pattern of sigils on the wall.

  Riyan moved to approach the figure on the steps but Chad placed a restraining hand before him. “I think we should get Bart in here before we do anything,” he advised.

  All set to argue, Riyan saw the look in his friend’s eye and gave in. “Very well,” he said. He glanced once more back to the skeletal figure and just as he turned back to return down the passage, a glint of something caught his eye. Turning back, he looked more closely and saw something golden in the figure’s hand.

  “Look!” he said as he pointed to it. Again he tried to move forward, and again Chad stopped him.

  “Let’s go get Bart first,” he insisted.

  Sighing, Riyan nodded. Hurrying back down the passage, they returned to the room where Bart was working on the biers.

  By this time Bart was feeling quite frustrated. He was in the middle of inspecting his fourth bier and so far hadn’t found any catches or releases to open secret drawers in any of them. He was beginning to wonder if these even had any.

  He meticulously worked over this fourth bier with a growing feeling of annoyance. Finally, he gave up and set the lantern on top of the bier by the deceased warrior’s feet. With hands on his hips, he surveyed the twenty six other biers still within the room and shook his head. ”I’m not going to waste my time on any more of these,” he told himself. Just as he grabbed the lantern and was about to leave the room through the doors Riyan and Chad had, they burst into the room at a run.

  “We found something!”

  “You’ve got to come and see!” Chad and Riyan blurted out simultaneously.

  Bart could see something had them all excited. Holding up his hand, he said, “Calm down.” They came to a stop before him. When they looked like they were both about to speak again, he cut them off by holding his hand up. Then he turned to Riyan. “Riyan, what is it?”

  “We found a room unlike any other down here,” he replied.

  “What do you mean?” Bart asked.

  “Come on,” urged Chad. “We’ve got to show you.”

  Bart nodded. “Okay. I don’t think these biers in here are going to yield anything anyway.” He followed them out of the room and down the passage. When he got to the next room with thirty biers, he was stunned by so many.

  “That’s nothing,” Chad said. “Wait until you see the big one.”

  “Big one?” he asked.

  Riyan grinned. “Yeah, big one.”

  Chad and Riyan led him between the biers and left the room through the far door. Chad and Riyan were hurrying Bart along down the passage to the larger room with sixty biers. They wanted to reach the final room at the end and see what Bart had to say about it.

  When he followed the other two into the massive room containing rows and rows of biers, with an armored figure laid out upon each, he stopped in awe. He had never seen such a thing. “This is incredible,” he said.

  “Pretty impressive isn’t it?” asked Chad.

  All he could do was nod in reply.’

  Riyan took the lead and moved between the biers to the door at the other side. Once there, he paused a moment then turned to Bart. “The next room is the one we were talking about,” he explained. “I think you should lead from here.”

  Bart nodded and passed Riyan as he moved into the passage. He turned the corner to the left and followed it down until the end of the passage began to open up onto the room with the sigils and writing.

  When he reached where the walls began to widen to form the sides of the room, he stopped. The light from the two lanterns illuminated the entire room well enough for him to make out the room’s features. He saw the long dead figure lying on the steps leading up to the dais, then his eyes moved to the sigils and writing upon the wall across from him.

  Chad pointed to the figure on the steps and said, “There’s something in his hand.”

  Bart turned his attention to the figure’s outstretched hand and saw the glint of something golden. “Stay here,” he told the other two as he worked his way towards the steps. This room gave off a feeling of unease that made him be extra careful. There was something about the figure sprawled on the steps that screamed for him to proceed with caution.

  He figured what was lying before him had been a man at one time, though it’s hard to tell as all that’s left were bones and the remnants of his clothes he was wearing when he died. On the steps next to the man sat a pack that was all but worn away by time. As he came to a stop by the man’s feet, a foot from the edge of the first step, he looked closely at what was glittering in the man’s hand.

  It looked like a piece of what had once been a circular torc of some kind. The bones of the man’s hand shielded most of it from view, but he figured the width of the piece had to be at least three to four inches.

  Why was the man in the position that he was? That was the question that has been nagging at him ever since he saw him. The man had to have arrived here after the place was constructed, otherwise the builders would have removed his body. In Bart’s mind that made the figure before him a thief, or some sort of robber.

  He also had to have worked alone, for if he had partners, Bart doubted that they would have left the golden item in his hand when they left. So the question remained, what was he doing here?

  Then Bart turned his attention to the wall above the dais and the sigils inscribed upon it. The way the man’s hand was outstretched led him to believe the wall was in some way the man’s destination. Also, the fact that steps led up to it had to mean something as well.

  “What do you think?” asked Riyan.

  Bart turned back to them and said, “I think he was a thief here to loot the place.”

  “But if he was,” supposed Chad, “why weren’t the biers in the above levels touched.”

  “Good question,” Bart replied. Then more to himself than to the others he said quietly, “Yes, why wouldn’t he have searched the biers as we did?” He must have been after something, something specific and didn’t want to be bothered with what little the biers would have given him.

  “Could that wall there hold some sort of secret door,” suggested Riyan. “Maybe on the other side is the king’s treasure room.”

  “Possibly,” agreed Bart. That would make sense. He turned his gaze back to the wall and examined the sigils and writing. One pattern seemed to stand out more than the others. At the pattern’s center was a circle, one of many such designs inscribed in the stone. But something about this one caught his eye.

  It was sunken into the wall more than the others!

  He looked to the golden item in the man’s hand and then back to the circle. Yes! It would fit perfectly within the circular depression of that sigil. Turning his head towards where the other two stood at the entrance, he said, “I believe you’re right.”

  Pointing to the golden item in the man’s hand, he said, “I think that fits nicely within that sigil there.” He then moved his hand and pointed toward the sigil whose circle was indented.

  “Do you think it would open up if we placed it in there?” asked Riyan. The tone of his voice held excitement that he almost was unable to restrain.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But it looks like it’s only about a quarter of the circle that would fit in there.”

  “Check his pack,” suggested Chad. “The other pieces could be in there.”

  Bart nodded and then turned back to the steps. The pack in question was resting on the second step. Bart could reach it if he stood close to the bottom step and str
etched his arm forward. He came forward until the toe of his foot was less than an inch from the bottom step and then reached for the pack. He took hold of the pack by one of the straps and very carefully picked it up. He halfway expected something to happen, and when it didn’t he was most relieved.

  Turning around, he brought the pack over to the others. He then set it on the ground and very carefully started to open it. The cloth of the pack disintegrated under his fingers and revealed what once had been papers within. But time had destroyed the papers beyond all recognition, the barest touch causing them to crumble into dust.

  “There aren’t any other pieces of the circle here,” he said after a moment’s search.

  “But there has to be!” exclaimed Riyan. “Why would he be here if he didn’t have the entire key to the secret door?”

  “Could be he didn’t know that he only had a part of it,” suggested Bart. “Greed can blind you that way. Or he could have thought that just a single piece would have opened it.”

  “Do you think it could?” Chad asked. “I mean, if he thought this would have opened it, he may have known more about it than we do.”

  “Worth a shot.” Taking the staff that he’s been using to trigger traps with, he returned to the steps and stopped several feet away. He placed the end of the staff on the first step and pressed down on it. When nothing happened, he moved the end of the staff to the second step and repeated the process. Again, nothing happened. Then he did it to the dais with the same results.

  Turning around, he handed the staff back to Riyan and then began moving to the steps. Taking them one at a time carefully, he climbed to the dais and removed the golden piece of the circle from the dead man’s hand.

  It was heavy. He paused a moment as he closely inspected the item. On one side were sigils similar in nature to those on the wall. And on the other was what looked for all the world as part of a map. There were mountains and what looked like two lakes. A river flowed from one lake to the other, and a set of miniscule notations were inscribed at a point alongside the smaller lake further from the mountains. Once he was done examining it, he stepped towards the wall.

  He brought the piece of the circle near the sigil and quickly realized that the markings on the one side matched perfectly with those surrounding the circular indentation in the wall. He maneuvered the piece of the sigil so that the markings on it lined up perfectly with those on the wall, then set it into the depression. He held his breath, not sure exactly what to expect. But nothing happened.

  For a full minute he held it there and nothing changed. The wall remained the same. He had halfway expected the sigils to flare to life and was somewhat relieved when they failed to. Finally, he pulled the quarter circle away from the wall and turned towards the others. “I don’t think it’s going to work,” he said.

  “Then what are we to do?” asked Chad.

  Beginning to leave the dais, he moved to the steps and replied, “I don’t know.” He no sooner stepped onto the top step than was struck in the back by something. He cried out from the unexpected attack and the other two rushed forward as he stumbled down the steps.

  “My back!” he cried out as the others reached him.

  Riyan looked at his back and saw that a two inch dart had pierced his skin several inches to the right of his spine. He grabbed it and pulled it out which elicited another cry from Bart. Then he and Chad helped him to the floor.

  When he showed Bart the dart, he said, “Check my back. See if there are any red lines radiating from the wound, or if there is any swelling.”

  Chad helped Riyan to pull up his tunic to bare his back. When they had it bared, they saw the wound, then glanced at each other worriedly.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  They saw the hole where the dart had punctured Bart’s skin. It was still welling drops of blood but that wasn’t the cause of their concern. What was, were the dark red, spidery tendrils that were beginning to spread outward from the wound.

  Chapter Ten

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