by V C Sanford
Nikiva moved around the room, her excitement growing, as she thumbed through one or two that caught her attention, many of them were works of magic! If the grimoire lying open on the desk was similar in age to the others, the tomes were ancient, most dated hundreds of years before she was born.
Her curiosity aroused, Rhianwen eagerly joined in the search, looking for anything relating to medicine or healing that might be available among the stacks.
The men had no interest in the books. Enraptured by one intensely fascinating find after another, they were moving about the crowded room examining random items that caught their attention.
Alex was drawn to the left. The entire back wall was cluttered with examples of every type of weapon he has ever seen and quite a few he hadn’t. Someone had spent a lot of time putting this collection together, the selection ranging from fanciful daggers with elaborately decorated pommels, to heavy swords for stabbing or slashing and thin, easily bendable epees designed for fencing. Larger weapons, such as halberds and spears were mounted on clever displays along another wall. He found himself admiring one gold embossed spear topped by a razor-sharp metal tip, but his attention quickly turned to a display of swords mounted just beyond. He couldn’t take his eyes off one, a hand and a half sword with a curling dragon pommel. He swung it a few times, appreciating the balance and weight of the beautifully crafted weapon. The sword was exceptionally well balanced and weighed almost nothing in his hand. He ran his finger down each side of the blade, admiring the keen edge and even temper. The weapon was an exquisite example of what a sword could be if crafted with skill and finesse. Forged from Zarrni steel, it had been folded and refolded until the slender double-edged blade reached the maximum degree of hardness possible. Yet it was perfectly straight and honed razor sharp. The sword's grip was simple, a slender braided chain of tiny mithral links wrapped around and around from end to end. It was designed for fighting, with a slender curve of metal to protect the wielder’s hand, and a slight tracery of runes decorating the blade. Alex was smitten, he’ never imagined owning anything of this quality. Even Maxx, who preferred an axe, was envious of his best friends find.
“If no one else claims this, I’d like to keep it for my own use. It’s pretty big, maybe too big for anyone else to use comfortably.”
“Big sword, little brain, sounds about right,” Maxx jibed. “Maybe a good sword will help you hit your target.” He dodged backward a few steps, managing to stay just out of his much larger friends reach as he swung the flat of his new sword his way. Then he moved off to explore more of the assorted stacks and piles scattered around the large room.
“If you claim that, then I claim these,” he declared, holding up a matched set of throwing knives that he found wrapped in a moldy piece of cloth. He brushed the dust off, then held one up to the light, enjoying the way two tiny rubies sparkled as the lantern's beam brushed against them. The rubies seemed alive in the flickering light. That’s weird, he mused quietly to himself. He decided to move closer to the lantern but instead of being easier to see, the jewels seemed to be getting darker. His interest kindled, he changed directions, moving back toward the area Alex was searching, the glow intensifying with each step until it was almost unbearable.
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Tweet was bored. The kitten had been sitting quietly on the desk corner, aggravated and pouting after missing the excitement. There… a faint noise. His ears perked forward listening for any further sounds. A few seconds later he flew off into the dark.
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Alex’s search had produced little of value besides the weapons along the walls. All he hadn't checked was a pile of trash in the corner, dry and crumbling from the passage of time.
He idly stirred the pile with his foot, startled, he almost fell as a human skull rolled out of the pile directly into his foot.
“I think I may have found what’s left of our host,” he called out to the others. “Hey, are you even listening, ...to, …me?” The hairs on his arm and head were on end. Step by step he edged backward until the rear of his boot bumped into an overflowing crate of books sitting in the middle of the small room.
The sound of the books crashing to the floor finally caught Maxx’s attention. Alex looked sick, almost ghostly pale. He kept a watchful eye on him as he regained his balance.
Alex kept his eyes on the corner, motioning for Maxx to join him as he backed slowly away. Every nerve in his body was alert and screaming. He couldn’t shake the sudden feeling of imminent danger.
“You okay,” Maxx asked, taking a firm hold on his axe with his other hand.
“Much better than my new friend here,” Alex responded. They continued to back slowly away from the corner and had almost reached the area where their friends were searching when Rhianwen noticed the strange way in which they were behaving.
“Maxx, is everything all right? You look like you just saw a ghost or something.”
“Well, you got the ‘or something part’ right anyway. It’s a Gorrdul!” The light from the glowing gems in his new knife’s hilt illuminated the dim outline of a man sitting with his back against the wall, the scattered bones of the skeleton of a well sized man with the remnants of his clothing still clearly visible, though in shreds from the time that had gone by since he passed away. Slowly the figure began to take shape, gradually becoming more and more solid with each passing moment. The eyes glowed red in the darkness, a strange radiance that increased in illumination as time passed.
“What’s a Gorrdul?” Rhianwen asked. She moved closer to Maxx and looked in the direction he was pointing. At first, she could not make out anything in the dim light, then the newly animated figure began shuffling in the direction of the two boys.
Maxx brandished his axe in the direction of the rapidly solidifying lich, hoping to provide his friends an opportunity to get away through the opening in the bricks. “A walking bag o’ bones! Call it a lich if you want to. Hells girl, you can call it anything you want. But unless one of you can turn it, you girls need to run…now! Start edging your way toward the hole while I distract it.” He swung his axe at the emaciated arm extended his way. “It seems to like me.”
Nikiva couldn’t take her eyes off the brightly glowing eye sockets, a malevolent radiance burning within that awoke shivers within her. She froze as it moved nearer and nearer.
Alex swung his blade at the Gorrdul’s outstretched arm, removing a few fingers but not stopping its advance. The reanimated skeleton moved erratically, the bones brittle with age and loose in the sockets. His jaw bone was moving, a dry inarticulate murmur that was too faint for words to be discerned. His hands began to glow an unusual shade of green, and strange mists began to form around the bones.
“Move! Drasst it Nikiva, run!” Ligazra drag me to the nine hells! Nikiva’s going to make me pay for that. Any other time I’d be flattered she’d obeyed without an argument. Now I’d just like to stay alive. He shoved Nikiva out of the way of the strange green mist that was slowly drifting closer. Once she was safely out of harm’s way, he directed his attention back to the eerie apparition shambling slowly in his direction. Moving warily, while keeping his body facing toward the strange skeleton like creature, he waved his new sword before him to ward off the ungainly monster. As he swung, streaming bands of white light followed the path of the blade. Startled by the impromptu light show, he missed the lich completely, the strength of his overextended blow throwing him into a spin. He gathered himself and tried again, noticing that whenever the sword came within a few feet of the lich, it began to glow with a warm white light that flared brightly each time it struck the lich, it would flinch, but the light wasn’t enough to turn it away.
Nikiva had no idea how to help. Necromancy and spells against the risen dead were not covered until her senior year studies. Her one defensive weapon was a barrage of light missiles that passed harmlessly through the bones of the skeleton without doing damage.
Maxx attempted to remove the skeletons legs. His axe str
uck the bones but somehow the sharp blade did little damage. The Gorrdul continued its walk across the room, directly toward the area of the room in which the girls were hiding.
Rhianwen had petitioned for a spell to turn evil without results. Ligazra and Yaaga ruled the nine hells, neither felt any obligation to help one of their sisters’ neophytes. Rheaaz had been more than generous about healing their injuries, best not to push her luck. That’s it! Maybe I can help after all. She quickly rattled off a short prayer and then tapped Maxx lightly on his back. As soon as she touched the Duaar, a warm glow spread over his body and he seemed to stand a little straighter and his grip on the heavy axe became even more solid.
“Thanks. I don’t know what you did but I feel great like I just had a week to sleep, eat and relax.” Reinvigorated, he moved forcefully toward the undead creature and swung his axe, the blade biting deep, causing a sizable chunk of the rib case to separate from its torso.
Amazingly, the lich didn’t seem to notice the damage. It continued to walk forward until it stood next to the old desk and then it extended its bony arms outward, the green mist growing thicker, spreading out and flowing up along the wall behind it. As the mist struck the wall, portions of the surface began to glow green. Three times more it waved its bony arm, duplicating the gesture’s pattern each time. With each pass, the glow deepened. Then, as if satisfying a compulsion, the Gorrdul knelt and bowed its head before crumbling back into individual bones and dust.
Strange glowing glyphs remained as the mist dissipated, a clear pale greenish-white against the dark granite of the walls, scribed in a language that was unfamiliar to anyone in the small group. The closer Alex came to the runes, the brighter the silvery white glow of his sword grew.
“Can any of you read this? Alex asked, puzzled by the Gorrdul’s’ unusual behavior.
“Read it? I’m more concerned with why the Gorrdul acted that way,” Maxx replied. He kept one eye on the remains while he studied the runes. “I think I recognize the one that means open. It’s a very common glyph. I don’t know any of the others.”
“It looks like gibberish to me,” Rhianwen apologized. Some type of archaic Shii runes perhaps? The symbols are similar, but not quite the same as I was taught. “It does remind me of archaic Shii-Lakka hieroglyphics in a way. But why would there be Shii writing on a wall so far away from an enclave?”
“Maybe we all see different things, Maxx added. I was thinking they were an old form of the Duaarien language, but that’s not right either. For all we know, it could be Tabruk or Zarrni, both races are nomadic, but it’s possible they had a similar written language in the past.”
Nikiva agreed. She felt like she should recognize one or two of them at least. Rune lore wasn’t her favorite class. She probably should have paid more attention to Mistress Aberdeen but her droning voice usually sent her to sleep---, and then to the headmasters’ office. “Why would the lich want us to see the hidden runes? “What did they mean? Was this related to the medallion and the map, or just another strange find?” Then the most important question of all came into her mind and she spoke the words loudly for all to hear. “How long would they continue to glow?”
“Probably not long enough,” Rhianwen responded softly as she continued to stare at the light, “I’ll copy them now before they fade away. It may prove worth our time to try to figure out the meaning if we can. She walked over to the desk in search of something to write upon. “We can work on deciphering the meaning as we travel. It will give us something to do on the road back to Cabrell.” There were a few old leather scrolls in a crumbling wood box. The writing was faded but the skin had held up remarkably well. She hastily mixed burnt wood charcoal and lamp oil to create a type of ink, then turned one of the old scrolls over and traced the runes upon its bare back side. Amazingly the combination of oil and light brought the discolored words on the front to the surface, the faded letters now readily seen by anyone with the skill to read what was written. There were quite a few words still too faded from the passing of time, but the gist was easy to deduce from the context inscribed on the tattered parchment.
She passed it to Nikiva to read. The writing told of the original owner of the keep, an elderly mage who had refused to divulge the location of a valuable artifact. In retaliation, he’d been sealed inside the room to die. He’d used the last of his waning strength to scratch out his story in his own blood on the now faded scroll. Then, on his deathbed, he’d cast one final spell, thus, enabling his essence to survive as a lich, albeit a weak one, until the right person…a person of honor, came along to avenge his death.
“The poor old geezer, I doubt that his death was a quick or easy one,” Maxx mused aloud. “Can you imagine? Walled up in here… slowly starving or dying of thirst… unable to escape? I’d be willing to bet they smashed his fingers to prevent him from casting any spells. It explains why they fell out so easily.”
Nikiva was quick to offer her opinion too. “Take a look at his skull, his jaw was damaged, maybe broken. That would make it almost impossible to correctly pronounce the words to any complex spell, like pass-wall or teleport. I barely manage the correct pronunciation of the first level incantations without an injury.”
“It had to be a nightmare. With damaged hands, he’d be unable to hold a knife, much less use it to scratch the mortar from the bricks. No sound except his own voice. It would have driven him crazy long before his food ran out or he died from dehydration.” Rhianwen shivered, “it would explain the piles of books around the room, too. He probably broke sections of the bookcase, and then used the wood for heat. I don’t see any coal.”
“Perhaps that is what drove him to become a lich, a slow building hatred for the ones that enclosed him in the room and left him to die.”
“It’s something we’ll never know for sure. The Gorrdul didn’t speak to us. Not that we gave it much of a chance,” Alex added.
They all looked at each other, overwhelmed by emotions that left them at a loss for words.
“Oh great,” Maxx moaned. He pushed at the dusty bones with a chunk of the wood from the shattered bookcase. “Now you’re going to start feeling sorry for the creature. It tried to kill us, remember?”
“I don’t think he was trying to hurt us at all, Alex said. We were between him and the desk area. The girls happened to be standing in his path. If he was being compelled, nothing else mattered.”
No one answered. The guilty silence remained until Nikiva worked up her nerve, then skirted carefully around the now inanimate pile of bones lying before the old desk, eager to get back to sorting through the mage’s spell books. Earlier she’d discovered one of the old scrolls held an assortment of spells, inscribed by the mage to enable him to carry extra protection when needed. She hoped that the spell books would be of similar value. One spell, in particular, had caught her eye. She’d never attempted it before, but it was within the range of her powers. She decided it was worth at least a try. After finding a comfortable position on the floor, she focused her mind, staring at the runes inscribed on the scroll. The words seemed to dance before her eyes, shrinking and growing in size, as she struggled to commit them to memory. Whoever crafted this spell intended it to be used by someone advanced in their studies. A shadow fell across the page, startling her into looking away from the scroll and into the face of the man standing over her.
“What’s so interesting?” Alex asked, moving to sit down beside her on the ground.
“This spell I’m trying to memorize. If I can commit it to memory, I should be able to cast it here inside this room. It will allow me to detect magic on material objects. I feel like I’m almost there, but it still evades me.”
“Perhaps you just need a break? Rhianwen used the lamp to make tea and we have some roast quail left from breakfast. After you rest you can try again.”
Alex’s concern left Nikiva uneasy. Fresh off a ship, like most sailors, his language was often colorful. This uncharacteristic behavior was a complete surprise. It a
lso confused her. Could the sword be controlling him? Maybe she should ask Rhianwen. Or Maxx? They’d know what to do. The expression on Maxx’s face was troubling. He looked apprehensive, as surprised as Nikiva by the tenderness in Alex’s voice.
Maxx noticed Nikiva’s curiosity and quickly looked away, his face almost as red as his hair. His body shook with unreleased laughter. Yes, Alex had changed in some manner. When Nikiva looked him in the eyes he looked back, a tender smile on his face. His friend was in love again. Drasst!
“I think,” Nikiva declared, “that I’m ready to cast the spell, or at least I think I’m ready.” She grinned optimistically at Alex, who helped her up from the ground, then motioned for the others to back away from her as the young mage cleared her mind and mentally prepared for the attempt.
Nikiva stood quietly in the center of the room and took a couple of deep breaths. The others had moved back against the wall near the glowing runes. Nikiva concentrated on casting. After making a few gestures with her hands, she began chanting the complex sounding words aloud, careful to pronounce each one exactly as it had been written. At first, there was no reaction, but then all at once, everything changed.
The sword Alex held came alive. First silver, then purple, then green colors flashed, the brilliant array shifting as they raced from hilt to tip and back again. Alex had felt there was more to the sword than just steel after the way the lich had reacted to it, but now it was obvious to anyone watching that the sword held magic--- strong magic!
Less obvious was the various glows that radiated from several objects scattered around the room.
“Quick! We need to find them before the spell wears off.” Besides the two small spell books Nikiva had already put aside to take with her, another scroll was found buried among the books stacked nearby. One of the drawers of the desk was also glowing lightly, but when Rhianwen opened it there was nothing inside.
“Let me look, Maxx suggested. There’s got to be a hidden compartment.” Visions of treasure flashed through his mind as he moved his nimble fingers along both sides of the wooden drawer, feeling for any slight irregularity. A quick twist, followed by a click, opened the false bottom of the drawer. Inside it lay two small objects, both giving off a slight glow in the dim light.