The Temple of Yellow Skulls

by Don Bassingthwaite

  The cleric hesitated before entering. “You didn’t make much of an effort to clean up.”

  Albanon’s ears burned all the way to their pointed tips. Moorin’s blood still spattered the room, a sign of the savagery with which he’d been torn apart. “I didn’t know where to start,” he confessed. If the Fallcrest guards hadn’t removed the pieces of Moorin’s body, the dismembered wizard might still have been scattered across the floor.

  At least the chamber smelled fresh. The numerous windows that pierced the walls held no glass—magic kept vermin, birds, and inclement weather out. All the better, Moorin had said, to facilitate his studies of the night sky with the various spyglasses that stood on tripods by the windows and to air out the chamber when an alchemical experiment at one of the stone-topped tables in the center of the room went awry.

  Albanon had left everything more or less the way it had been on the night he’d found Moorin. Books and scrolls, arcane devices and the strange trophies of long years in the pursuit of knowledge waited on shelves along the walls as if the mighty wizard might still return. Albanon paced from shelf to shelf, trying to remember exactly where he’d seen the vial Kri had described. He remembered it well, because Moorin had once caught him carelessly reaching for it. A spell from his master had nearly thrown him across the room.

  “Don’t touch that,” he’d warned Albanon as the eladrin dragged himself up off the floor. “Not now, not ever.”

  “If it’s so dangerous, why leave it lying around?”

  “Because I like to keep an eye on it,” Moorin had said, then gestured around the chamber. “Besides, there’s no one here who would touch it—present company excepted. This is the safest room in the tower.”

  If Moorin had been a seer, maybe he would have foreseen how wrong those words were.

  Albanon stopped in front of a set of shelves bearing a collection of skulls—including that of a young black dragon Moorin claimed to have killed with nothing more than a wand and a rusty dagger—some rune-carved divination bones, a mummified kobold paw, and an eldritch compass Moorin had never taught him the use of. The vial had been on these shelves, he was certain of it. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the last time he’d noticed it. He’d been retrieving one of the skulls. One up high … He pushed himself up on his toes and opened his eyes.

  The shelf he looked upon was empty save for a large smudged clear space in the dust. “Swords of the feyknights!” he said under his breath.

  “Move.” Kri bumped him out of the way with a deftness and strength that belied his age. One hand gripped the holy symbol around his neck while the other hovered over the shelf, fingers spread wide. His face went hard. “It was here.”

  “How—”

  “I can feel the taint that it leaves behind.” He looked at Albanon. “Who could have taken it? Splendid mentioned your companions. She didn’t trust them, especially a halfling that was among them.”

  “Uldane?” Albanon scowled. “No, he wouldn’t have taken anything from in here, I’m sure of it. He respects the dead, if nothing else. None of the others would have taken anything, either.” He looked around the room. While it had still been wet and sticky, the blood had been disturbed by a multitude of boot prints. His. Roghar’s. Tempest’s. His eyes narrowed as he realized who else had been in the room.

  “The Fallcrest guards were here,” he said. “They collected Moorin’s body. But they would have been under supervision.”

  “Even watch commanders can have moments of weakness,” said Kri.

  “It was Sergeant Murgeddin. I know him. I trust him. He came and told me about Moorin’s burial while I was in the town’s dungeon—” He cursed again as an idea came to him. “Nimozaran!”

  “Who?”

  “Another wizard. Nimozaran the Green—the High Septarch of Fallcrest, he calls himself. He was always jealous of Moorin. He helped with the investigation.” Albanon screwed up his face in anger. “He was the one who told the Lord Warden that I’d killed Moorin. He wanted to keep me imprisoned. I’m sure if he’d had the chance he would have plundered the Glowing Tower like a tomb robber. He’s a cowardly excuse for a spellcaster.”

  As soon as he’d said it, though, he knew Nimozaran couldn’t have stolen the vial. The self-proclaimed High Septarch was too much of a coward. He’d gone out of his way to avoid Moorin when he was alive, and his best attempt at making a play for the Glowing Tower had been to have Albanon put in the town’s dungeon. He wouldn’t have had the nerve to actually steal from the tower, Albanon was sure of it.

  But someone else had been willing to steal from the tower. Albanon looked back at the shelf.

  The clear space in the dust wasn’t one large smudge but two smaller ones close together.

  “The dead glass talisman was right beside it on the shelf,” he said slowly.

  Kri uttered a profanity Albanon had never heard from a cleric before and turned on him. “What exactly happened here? You said the thief who stole the talisman wasn’t Moorin’s killer.”

  Albanon swallowed and nodded. “The thief was a death knight, one of the undead. As far as we were able to figure out, he stole the dead glass talisman so his master, a lich, could use it in a ritual. Moorin’s killer was something altogether different. He called himself Nu Alin—”

  “Nu Alin?” Kri looked as if Albanon had slapped him. “You’re certain that was the name?”

  “He possessed one of my friends.”

  “A shapeless thing, like quicksilver mixed with blood?”

  “Exactly. Like the liquid in the vial,” said Albanon. “Yes, that was Nu Alin.”

  Kri’s face tightened. “Albric the Accursed,” he said grimly, and Albanon had the sense that the cleric was talking more to himself than he was to him. “By the Book of Insight, the histories are right.”

  His age seemed to fall over him, and for a moment, he was just another elderly human, so frail and unsteady that Albanon reached out to offer him support. Kri slapped his hands away. “What became of Nu Alin?” he demanded.

  “How do you know about him?”

  “I’ve served the god of knowledge for a long time,” said Kri. “I know a great deal about many things. Answer my questions and you might learn, too. What became of Nu Alin?”

  Albanon blinked in surprise at the biting response. “We drove him out of my friend’s body, then forced him to flee.”

  “The holy light of the gods?” Kri asked. Albanon nodded. The cleric grunted with grudging approval. “Well done. But Nu Alin is an old creature and hard to kill—he won’t have fled far. And what was the connection between this death knight and Nu Alin?”

  “There wasn’t one that we were able to see. The death knight came to the tower first and took the dead glass, then Nu Alin came after, killed Moorin, and went in pursuit of the death knight.” Albanon had to force himself not to glance at the spot on the floor where the bloodstains were thickest. “We went after him—or at least after the body he was wearing at the time. When we finally encountered him, he kept talking about following the one who took … something from the tower.” He searched his memory for the word the creature had used. “It was a strange term, something I’d never heard before.”

  “The Voidharrow,” said Kri. His voice was flat and hard.

  Albanon raised his head. “That’s it!” The eladrin couldn’t help shivering when he recalled the way Nu Alin had talked about it. “He seemed obsessed with it.”

  Kri’s face darkened. “He would be. It’s the liquid sealed inside the vial.” He started pacing, walking from shelves to table and back again. “The Voidharrow … calls to the weak minded. If it was kept next to the pendant this death knight came to steal, yes, he could easily have been drawn into taking the vial as well. Damn Moorin for an arrogant idiot!”

  Albanon twitched and looked around for Splendid. As startling as it was for him to hear someone speak harshly of Moorin, the idea would have been blasphemy to the loyal pseudodragon. There was no sign of her, though.
She must have still been occupied with her honeybark. “Moorin believed that it was safe,” he said.

  “Well, obviously it wasn’t. I take it your battle with Nu Alin took place before he could find the death knight—where’s the undead now?”

  “Gone,” Albanon confessed. “Fled after his master was defeated.”

  “What?”

  Kri’s voice was like thunder in the room. If he’d looked frail a moment before, he didn’t now. He towered in his wrath, and Albanon was glad that he had left his morningstar down in the sitting room. Still, glints of radiant light flashed in the cleric’s eyes and seemed to shine through his wrinkled skin as he raged. “You let him get away?”

  “We didn’t know what the Voidharrow was or that the death knight even had the vial!” said Albanon. “Look, I didn’t even know that it had been stolen until just now.”

  “And Moorin should be hauled back from the Raven Queen’s realm and made to answer for not properly teaching you. Ah!” Kri beat his fists against the sides of his head and turned away.

  Albanon tried to remember the last time they’d seen the death knight. Falon and Darrum had seen him flee into the shadows after the defeat of his lich-master, but before that he had stood with Albanon and the others fighting Vestapalk, the dragon. Between them, he and Shara had dealt the blows that had sent Vestapalk plummeting to his doom. The death knight had even saved Shara from sharing the dragon’s fate.…

  Shara.

  “Shara might know more!” he said. Kri looked up and Albanon added, “One of my companions. I cast spells from a distance but she fought beside him when we battled a dragon.”

  “A dragon?” Kri gave him a look of near disbelief. “This just gets better and better. Where is this Shara now?”

  “I—” Albanon felt a flush of blood warm his face. “I don’t actually know. We had an argument tonight. I’m sure she’ll turn up in the morning, though.”

  Kri went very still and stared at him with cold eyes. “You should hope so,” he said grimly, “because more rides on recovering that vial than you can possibly imagine.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Lucky Gnome Taphouse stank of sweat, river water, urine, and sour ale. Raid wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that the first three were components of the fourth. He drank the ale anyway. He’d had worse.

  The Blue Moon where he’d tried to recruit Borojon’s daughter and her friends had been cleaner, quieter, less fragrant—all-around a more respectable establishment. Raid actually liked the Lucky Gnome better. Taverns that were too homey left him feeling uncomfortable. If there wasn’t vomit in the corners, if you weren’t in danger of taking a dagger in the kidney for breathing wrong, it wasn’t a proper tavern.

  The dwarves Raid had forced out of the narrow booth along the wall still hovered nearby, fingering knives as they drank. Raid made sure the axes on his belt and the scars of combat on his arms were visible. Either would be intimidating. Together they were more than enough to encourage the surly dwarves to keep their distance.

  Raid had a lingering hope that they’d try something anyway. The Lucky Gnome looked like it had seen more than a couple of good brawls in its day.

  Business before pleasure. Raid focused his attention back on the two men sitting across the booth from him. They murmured between themselves, voices low with long familiarity. Raid sipped his ale and gave them time to make their decision. He’d made his pitch. If they chose not to accept his offer, he’d find others. There were a few already lurking on the fringes of his attention. He’d spoken with the bartender when he entered. The man had pointed him to the pair that sat across the table from him, but word of what he wanted would have circulated. Intrepid souls, two or three, of varying skills and independent spirit. He hadn’t specified anything about upstanding character—for one because the Lucky Gnome just wasn’t the right place to look for it.

  For another because the character of his companions didn’t matter any more than the color of their hair.

  He lifted his ale to sip again just as the men looked up. “We’ll do it,” said the smaller of the two. Hollowed eyes in an unshaven face glittered in the dim light of the tavern. “Terms as discussed.”

  Raid raised the worn mug to them. “An equal share of treasure recovered, save for our goal, of which you’ll receive a half to divide between you. And five hundred gold or the equivalent paid to each of you on our return to Fallcrest whether we reach our goal or not. We leave tomorrow; you provide your own gear, supplies, and mounts.”

  “And your word that this mysterious destination of yours isn’t a death trap.”

  “My word,” said Raid. He held out his mug. “The word of Hakken Raid.”

  The hollow-eyed man rapped his mug against Raid’s. “Done says Tragent Kell.”

  “Done says Dohr Stormsknife.” A third mug knocked against the other two. The hand that gripped it was heavy and thick, attached to an arm and body to match. Tragent Kell was human but Dohr Stormsknife had orc blood in his veins. The big half-orc and the thin human were an unexpected pair—all the more so because Dohr was the spellcaster and Tragent the swordsman.

  But as long as steel was sharp and spells quick, it didn’t matter to Raid who wielded which. He tossed back his drink and slammed the empty mug down on the table. Tragent and Dohr’s mugs came down beside it, sealing the deal. Dohr’s mouth split in a smile above his tusks, and he waved for the serving wench.

  “Another round!” he shouted, then turned his smile on Raid. “We’re partners now,” he said. “Time to tell us where we’re going.”

  Raid smiled, too. “They say that long ago,” he said, dropping his voice to a murmur that forced Tragent and Dohr to hunch forward, “before the Nentir Vale bore that name, before Bael Turath and Arkhosia destroyed each other in war, a prince of the rakshasa built a shrine not far from where we now sit.” He looked at his new partners. “You know what rakshasas are?”

  “Evil spirits given flesh,” said Tragent. “Cruel monsters with the bodies of men and the heads of great cats. Deceivers and masters of illusion.”

  Raid nodded. “But illusion isn’t the only magic rakshasas have mastered. This prince studied the arts of summoning and binding. Through his rituals, he summoned angels and devils from the Astral Sea, elementals from the maelstrom of the Elemental Chaos, but most notably demons from the churning nightmare of the Abyss. He found in demons his greatest challenge and eventually turned his skills exclusively to mastering their power … and adding it to his own.” He paused, savoring the rapt attention in Dohr’s and Tragent’s faces. “Legend says that his greatest triumph was the defeat of twelve powerful demons—or thirteen or seventeen or twenty-one or twenty-three, the numbers vary. However many there were, the rakshasa prince stripped them of their vital essences, binding the mighty beings to an eternity of servitude imprisoned within skulls dipped in pure, soft gold—”

  “Oh,” said a bright voice at his elbow. “You’re talking about the treasure of the Temple of Yellow Skulls, right?”

  The three men reacted as one, heads jerking around, hands going to weapons. A wicked dagger flashed in Tragent’s fingers. Lightning snapped and cracked in Dohr’s palm. There was no room for Raid to draw an axe, but he kept a thin stiletto sheathed on his forearm for just such an occasion. The blade hissed like a serpent as Raid struck blind, guided only by reflex.

  The stiletto should have sliced the interloper’s throat. Instead it skimmed above the head of the halfling who had slipped into the seat beside Raid, prompting him to duck and yelp in dismay. “Watch it! You could hurt somebody doing that!”

  His voice was familiar. Raid blinked, fighting back the haze that came with rushing blood, and actually looked at the halfling. His eyes narrowed as Dohr growled, “This is a private conversation, friend.”

  “Oh, sorry.” The halfling turned to look at the tavern patrons who had paused to watch the spectacle. “Hey, mind your mugs, you goblin kissers! We’re trying to get a little privacy here
!”

  Dohr looked ready to roar. The lightning in his palm sent flickering tendrils up his arm, illuminating his snarling face. Raid held up a hand.

  “Easy,” he said. He put away his stiletto and studied the visitor to their table. “Uldane, isn’t it?”

  The halfling looked pleased at being remembered. “I was coming this way and thought I’d stop by to see if you found the help you were looking for.”

  Across the table, Tragent slowly lowered his dagger and nudged Dohr. The half-orc closed his fist, snuffing the lightning. Raid nodded approval, but kept his eyes on Uldane. “Where are your friends?” he asked.

  A flicker of discontent passed across Uldane’s face. “Around,” he said. “Gone their own ways.” His expression brightened. “But what about the Temple of Yellow Skulls? Is that what you needed help for? Are you really going to look for the treasure? They say a lot of people have tried but they haven’t found anything.”

  From the corner of his eye, Raid caught Dohr and Tragent exchanging a glance. He clenched his teeth. He’d have to crush their doubt before it grew. “A lot of people aren’t me,” he said boldly. “How do you know about the temple and the treasure?”

  Uldane shrugged. “I’ve been around. I’ve heard stories. They say the ruins lie to the west of Fallcrest—”

  Raid twitched a finger for silence as the serving wench came up to the table with three fresh mugs of ale. He watched her set down the mugs—she didn’t once glance at Uldane. As she straightened and turned away, he said. “There’s a fourth person at the table.”

  The wench looked down as if noticing the halfling for the first time. “You want another ale?”

  “No, he’ll have mine.” Raid slid his mug to the halfling, then jerked his head, ordering her away. The wench rolled her eyes and went. Slowly. Too slowly for a server in a busy taphouse. Just slowly enough for someone trying to listen in to what she had no business hearing.

  She would bear watching. Raid turned back to his companions to find Dohr glaring at Uldane as the halfling struggled with a mug nearly as big as his face. Tragent leaned across the table. “I’ve heard of this Uldane,” he growled quietly to Raid. “He’s supposed to be good. Very good.”