Zahna strode over to the dangerous spot and drew a chalk line around it. “Keep to the left.”
“Pit trap,” said Ingar, his voice echoing.
“Show off!” said Miss Millicent. “Does it really matter what it is?”
“It does,” said Ingar. “There’s probably one or two of you down there.”
“Ugh,” said Miss Millicent.
An odd sort of courtship, thought Zahna as she advanced deeper into the tunnel. But thinking about that brought up the subject of what to do with Torstag. She shook her head.
As if prompted by her thoughts, Torstag said, “Just one.”
“How do you know?” asked Miss Millicent.
“I can see the threads connecting the dead with the living.”
“Double ugh,” said Miss Millicent. “Brrr, even.”
“Hang on…there’s a pit,” said Zahna. A few paces ahead was what looked like an unfenced well. She approached the edge and, stooping, held her everlight over the drop. After about three feet, the hole seemed to open out into what had to be a room. About fifteen feet below lay a wide stone floor, scattered with human bones. “Not a pit, a shaft leading down to the next level.”
“The tunnel seems to end,” said Ingar. “Is that a door?”
Zahna straightened.
Ingar had adjusted his everlight to shine down the length of what remained of the passage. It went on a good twenty feet further, then ended in a bronze door, green with age. This time there was a sense of spraying blood.
“A mysterious green door,” said Millicent. “I wonder what’s behind it?”
“It’s trapped,” said Zahna.
“No shit,” said Ingar. “Let’s try the hole.”
“But which one?” said Miss Millicent.
Ingar laughed.
Torstag said, “All Miss Millicent’s links lead back to the traps, except for one strong link, which leads down. This has to be where we’ll find the Ice Queen.”
He moved to stand beside Zahna. He looked every bit the seasoned warrior in the helmet and lamellar coat. However, he had his visor up and his eyes were big and wide like when they’d…like…except right now she detected horror. “What can you see?” she asked.
“Dead people,” he said.
Miss Millicent snorted. “I’m not sure I can take this Spiritualist malarkey seriously.”
“It’s okay,” said Ingar, “Torstag will be the only one to see them anyway.”
“Thanks a lot,” said Torstag.
“So,” said Miss Millicent, “it’s through the Green Door of Death or down the Shaft into the Chamber of Bones.”
Ingar hunkered down near the edge and held out his everlight. “I’m getting possible trap. Look at that slot.”
Zahna glanced down. No memories. “The hole seems safe.”
Everybody peered at the sides of the hole. Sure enough, there was a finger-width slot about half way down the narrow section.
“Could be ornamental,” said Miss Millicent.
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” said Ingar. “Right. Hang on a moment.”
At length, Miss Millicent leaned over the shaft to peer at the bones. “Those are all me, aren’t they?”
Torstag shook his head. “Like I said, just one link.”
“Oh,” said Miss Millicent.
Zahna took a better look.
The older bones—green tinged by algae—seemed scattered randomly. However, the shaft framed two almost complete skeletons, each with scraps of clothing and black strands of skin and sinew. On was missing a head and arm. The the other had its ribcage shattered.
“What would do that?” said Torstag.
“Perhaps they were killed before being dropped down,” said Zahna. She glanced around. “I don’t see an altar.”
“Perhaps,” said Miss Millicent, “this is an osuary for fallen warriors.”
“No,” said Torstag. “Those aren’t warriors.”
“How ever can you know that?” asked Miss Millicent.
Performing Scout at level 6. Possible aftermath of Bear Attack.
Zahna laughed. Hah, no!
“I hardly think this is a laughing matter,” said Miss Millicent.
“Something my…” began Zahna. But she was not going to explain herself to this woman. “Torstag can see dead people.”
“I keep forgetting,” said Miss Millicent, her voice amplified by the stone walls of the passage. “Well, doubtless some kind of scavenger got into the tomb the last time it was opened.”
“It’s possible,” said Torstag.
“Sacrifices,” said Zahna. “They must help prevent the attraction from fading.”
“I am beginning to really dislike myself,” said Miss Millicent.
It’s always about you, thought Zahna. There was something about the way the librarian filled the confined space with her personality that made Zahna want to throw her down the hole.
“Brrr,” continued Miss Millicent. “How very beastly!”
“Cultists generally are,” said Zahna. She played her light over the floor on the other side of the hole. There were old muddy footprints leading too and fro from the green door.
Torstag shifted, his hand went to his sword.
“What?” asked Ingar. He was tying the rope to one end of his ten-foot pole.
“Footprints,” said Torstag. He gestured down the tunnel toward the mysterious entrance. “Somebody uses the green door.”
“Cultists!” exclaimed Millicent. “How exciting!”
“Fuck,” said Ingar. “They won’t be pleased if they catch us.”
“Well you should have bloody checked for that,” said Torstag. “You’re our burglar.”
“Keep your voices down!” said Zahna. “There might be a portal behind the door leading to a temple with people in it.”
“Right, yes,” said Ingar. He’d tied the rope to his 10-foot pole. “Out of the way.” He tossed it harpoon-like down to the hole. It thumped the stone floor beneath, crunching some old bones.
“Nothing,” he said. He yanked it up, dropped it, making it dance around the floor below. “Still nothing.”
Something hissed across the hole. The rope went slack.
“Fuck! And fuck again,” said Ingar, holding up the severed end of the rope. “I was right!”
“Language!” exclaimed Millicent in a stage whisper.
“Aspiration,” shot back Ingar.
Torstag sighed, then turned to Zahna. “I thought you said the path was safe?”
Zahna felt herself blush. “There was no immediate threat.”
“Yes,” said Torstag, “but if we’d roped down there, we’d have been stuck.”
“Hence at least some of the the bones,” said Millicent. “I contrived to starve tomb robbers to death multiple times. I don’t think I can have been very nice.” There was a false brightness to her tone.
“Not you,” said Ingar. “The Ice Queen. Past lives don’t count.”
Zahna squared her shoulders, tried to look in charge. “Whoever designed this tomb knew about Remembering Backwards.”
“So we try the green door instead,” said Torstag. “Perhaps it leads to the lower level.”
“Or angry cultists,” said Zahna.
“Torstag can hit them with his sword,” said Ingar.
“Wait a moment,” hissed Millicent. “If they are cultists, then they worship the Ice Queen, which means me. I’m their Goddess! Perhaps I should simply present myself to them?”
“That makes a certain amount of crazy sense,” said Ingar.
Zahna shook her head. “Why have the tomb in this Realm, then? I don’t think you’re supposed to meet the cultists. Perhaps the traps are actually to stop the cultists from exploring the tomb.”
“Why wouldn’t I want myself to meet my own worshippers?” asked Millicent.
“You don’t know how they worship,” said Zahna. “Perhaps they keep goddesses in cages?”
“Oh,” said Millicent.
/> “Let’s try down,” said Ingar. “We’ll drag in another log and jam the blade.”
“It would have to be a long log,” said Torstag.
“No, I mean braced across the hole,” said Ingar.
“Pardon me,” whispered Millicent, “but wouldn’t that make a lot of noise?”
“It would take too long, anyway,” said Zahna. “For all we know we’ve already set off an alarm.”
“What about the spell you were going to try on the entrance?” asked Torstag.
Suddenly everybody was looking at her.
Zahna shook her head. “Flip would take all day. I don’t think we have that much time.”
They fell into silence, staring into the hole as if it were a camp fire.
“Oh,” said Millicent. “Oh. Hang on a moment.” Her eyes went unfocussed; the sign of somebody communing with their Demon. She thrust her open hand toward the hole and intoned some resonant gibberish followed by the word, “SALAMANDER!”
A flaming lizard formed in her hand. With a hiss, it dove into the hole, veered into the slot, then shot back out to land on the floor beneath, setting some old bones smouldering.
“Oh my goodness,” said Miss Millicent, fanning herself with her hand.
“Do you believe in magic now?” asked Ingar.
Miss Millicent grinned. “Did you see that? It appears I am a…” She cocked her head. “Goeticist.”
Zahna glanced at Torstag. “Of course you are.”
And Zahna would never be a powerful Goeticist. One moment of abandon and an entire school of magic was closed to her until she’d spent years levelling up.
The librarian raised her hand for another spell.
Ingar caught her wrist. “You’ll burn through your Potestas is what you’ll do.”
“Oh,” said Miss Millicent, she lowered her arm, ‘just happening’ to brush Ingar’s fingers she did.
The boy’s green eyes went as wide as slingstones.
Zahna sighed. “Did you see how the salamander rebounded? The blade has magical protection. Miss Millicent, you are simply not powerful enough to overcome that.”
“Yet,” said the older women. She contemplated her hand. “Not powerful enough yet.”
“We’re missing something,” said Ingar. “None of this makes sense.”
“This is shambollic,” said Torstag.
“Logic,” said Miss Millicent, firmly. The librarian took off her glasses and blinked in the gloom. “How am I supposed to leave? I mean…” She started polishing the lenses. “Imagine I remember all the traps and magic words, and I get down there and find the treasure. If the rope is cut, how do I leave?”
“Maybe,” said Ingar, “there’s a password for the trap.”
Miss Millicent shook her head. “My Voice would have told me.”
“Perhaps there’s a lever down there that switches it off?” said Ingar.
Millicent harrumphed. “I really can’t see myself setting myself up to heft treasure up and down a rope and I imagine the Ice Queen would be even more averse to setting her future self up for manual labour…”
“Given the Queen part of that name,” said Ingar.
“My point is,” said Millicent raising her voice a little. This somehow grabbed the entire attention of both men. “There must be another exit. Which means there’s another way in.”
“There’s only one door in the hill,” said Zahna, keen to shut down this nonsense. “Perhaps the other way in and out leads to whatever is beyond the green door.”
“Didn’t you say that I probably didn’t want to meet my worshippers?”
Zahna chewed her lip.
“So logically, the exit has to be somewhere in this tunnel,” continued Millicent.
“A secret door leading to stairs,” said Ingar. He started working his way back up the tunnel, tapping on the wall with his axe-butt.
“I…” began Zahna.
“Shush,” said Ingar.
Ingar’s axe thudded on the stonework, again and again as he worked his way up one wall of the tunnel, the back down the other.
“Nothing,” said Zahna.
“What about that pit trap?” said Miss Millicent.
“I am an idiot,” said Ingar.
“Yes,” said Miss Millicent, “It’s a good thing I’m here to organise you young people.”
“We don’t need organising,” said Zahna.
“Yes you do,” said Millicent. “Besides, this is my tomb. You are technically my guests.”
“If it gets things over with,” said Torstag. “Why not?”
Zahna sighed.
Chapter 40: The Realm of the Ice Queen
Gronchard woke to screaming. Agony clawed his spine.
Something warm squirted in his face.
He opened his eyes, saw red, tasted blood.
Somebody cried, “He wakes!” and hundreds of voices echoed the words; “He wakes! He wakes!”
More screaming.
A damp cloth wiped away the blood. Gronchard’s Temple came into focus.
Gronchard blinked and located the source of the screaming: a sacrifice writhing on the altar at the foot of his dais.
His back spasmed.
The marble Throne of Praise had revived him, but it was built for a taller avatar. It had left his back in excruciating discomfort and his neck stiff.
The sacrifice went mercifully silent.
That was one thing at least. He could do without a headache on top of the other pain.
Gronchard started to rise and hands helped him to his feet. The choir began to sing, and hymns echoed from the high vault.
6 of 6 Potestas.
3 of 4 Vitality remaining. You have Hindrance "Sore back”
2 of 3 Will remaining.
From long habit, he looked to his right, seeking Angelica.
And there she was, rendered in marble, exquisitely painted. The flicker from the braziers lent her life so every curve invited touch. She was indeed the perfect reference for the imperfect efforts of the surgeons. Hopefully the present Saint Sanguineous had held back some suitable candidates for the Immaculate Hall of the Holy Concubines. Sometimes the loneliness was unbearable.
“I hurt,” said Gronchard. “Everything hurts.”
The chorus drowned out his voice and the statue was implacable. Even so, it was easy to imagine Angelica crooning soothing words, taking his head on her ample lap, stroking his hair.
But now the singing really was making his head hurt.
He composed himself.
Form 3.
Performing Theurge at level 7.
Using Feed on Adulation, cost 1 Potestas. 5 of 6 remaining.
Result = 5 (Performance) +1 (Luck) -5 (Challenge) = 1.
Effect = 6 (Result) +5 (Hundreds) = 6.
Potestas now 9 of 6.
“Better!” He held up his hands to signal silence, and contemplated his Temple.
Servitors had already dragged away the latest sacrifice and were mopping down the altar. The Saints and Seraphim filled the apse. All was as it should be.
Gronchard reached out to his surroundings.
Translocation complete. 2 of 4 translocations available. 500 Sacrifices required.
“Are we there yet?”
Saint Incarnation prostrated himself so quickly that his angel toppled and had to scramble and flutter back onto his shoulder.
“Well?” prompted Gronchard, indicating that he could rise. “Are we there yet?”
Saint Incarnation merely raised his forehead from the damp mosaic floor. “Divinity, we have indeed arrived at the Tomb of the Ice Queen in the midst of the Winter Lands.”
But Gronchard was already striding down the aisle, his worshippers prostrating as they passed.
Cherubim flung open the great doors and he stepped out into a light snowfall. Cold air prickled his skin.
Attendants caught up and draped him in a fur cloak.
Gronchard slowed to let them fasten it, then turned onto the bridge and pick
ed up speed, not caring when he skidded on icy patches. He was running by the time he burst into the sanctuary of the Temple of Incarnation.
The seraphim within prostrated themselves, except for the one scattering grains over the sandbox.
Gronchard peered at the living diorama.
The suspended sand showed the Flying Tooth Garden poised over a mountain valley. There were no settlements. However, two columns of standing stones processed to where a big latticework figure dominated the valley. At this point, the west facing valley wall was a shear cliff…shear except for a craggy promontory with a cave entrance behind.
He had found the tomb! But where was Angelica?
Gronchard marched out onto the viewing platform overlooking the Great Well.
Far bellow, the land was snowbound, except around the latticework figure—a giant wicker man—where the feet of workers had evidently trodden through to the heather beneath.
It was late afternoon, and the sun cast barred shadows from the carved balustrade that marked the edge of the craggy promontory. The cave mouth was not visible from this angle, but the snow-covered top of the promontory was clearly flat. All was as described in the ancient travelogue that Saint Remembrance had unearthed from his archives.
“The Tomb of the Ice Queen!” declared Gronchard. “But where is my Sacred Angelica?”
Somebody coughed next to him; Saint Prescience. “Divinity,” said the portly saint, “this is indeed the Tomb of the Ice Queen. However, there is no trace of the Sacred Angelica.”
“What? No!” blurted Gronchard. “I am never wrong.”
“But Divinity…” began Saint Prescience.
Gronchard seized him by the collar.
Form 3.
Performing Warrior at Level 5.
Result = 5 (Performance) +1 (Luck) +2 (Advantage of “Surprise”) -3 (Challenge) = 5
Effect = Throw (4).
The old man screamed as he toppled over the barrier into the Great Well. Increasing distance muted the sound as he spun toward the snow beneath.
The Jungle Tomb of the Ice Queen (The Flying Tooth Garden Book 1) Page 25
