by Mel Odom
"Who is Eldath?" one of the younger boys asked. His name was Aran, and he'd only arrived in Alagh?n a few months before, an immigrant from the Whamite Isles that had been nearly destroyed during the Serosian War. Legend had it that the Taker, Iakhovas, had caused the destruction of the Whamite Isles. Now, according to reports, only the undead remnants of the island populations lived there.
Steadily feeling the pull from inside the building, Cerril reached the top of the short flight of stairs and walked into the crypt. Shadows cloistered in all the corners and it was hard to keep from imagining them moving.
"Eldath is a goddess," Hekkel whispered as the group followed. "They call her the Quiet One. She's a healer, and she serves Silvanus and helps the druids of the Emerald Enclave."
One of the boys cursed and spat. "My brother works as a logger. He hates the damned druids because they keep interfering with his work and making things hard for everybody."
"So this house belongs to Eldath?" Aran asked.
"No," Cerril answered. "It belongs to the Temple of the Trembling Flower. They represent Eldath in Alagh?n."
"I've never heard of it."
"The temple is small," Two-Fingers answered, surprising Cerril by even knowing of it. "Not many people are interested in worshiping a goddess who preaches that peaceful intentions can overcome a sword blow."
"So why would a coin bearing Malar's symbol call us here?" Aran asked.
The question, Cerril knew, was a good one-one that Cerril had been entertaining since he'd recognized the structure for what it was.
"Malar directs his believers to destroy the followers of Eldath as a show of faith to him."
"Bet that would make Eldath's priests take up a mace or a cudgel," Aran said.
"No," Cerril replied as he brushed away the cobwebs that blocked the entrance to the building, "it only makes for fewer worshipers for Eldath."
He peered inside the structure and saw cheaply made caskets crumbling on iron-studded shelves. Several of the caskets had broken and moldered away, revealing bits of skeletons wearing scraps of clothing.
"Damn!" Hekkel swore. "Skeletons! Those Cyric-blasted things could be enchanted to come alive and attack anyone who enters this place."
Cerril turned when he heard the footsteps of the group halt behind him. The fever burned within him again, pulsing at his temples.
"Those skeletons aren't going to rise," he said.
"There's no reason for us to be here, Cerril. You can go the rest of the way yourself. Malar's geas was laid on you, not us."
"Then I'll go myself," Cerril said, and his words echoed throughout the building.
"You just want us along because you're scared," Hekkel said.
Cerril was scared, but he struggled not to show it and to keep his voice normal as he said, "Gold and gems divide much easier when there's only one person."
Hekkel took a step forward, baited as surely as one of the rats they caught for the blood games in some of the sailors' taverns.
"What gold and gems?"
Flipping Malar's coin again, Cerril deftly caught it from the air. The gold slapped against his palm.
"Malar called me here," said Cerril, "to this place of Eldath. I've already told you how the Stalker sets his believers onto those who worship the Quiet One." He paused, knowing he was about to tell his biggest lie ever. "Do you think that Malar would call me here, to this place claimed by Eldath, and not reward me?"
Hekkel's response died on his lips as the possibility locked into his brain.
"I'm sure," Cerril said, turning back to continue through the rooms of broken caskets and dismembered skeletons dressed in rags, "that there's enough here to take care of us all, at least for those among you brave enough to see this thing through."
"Cerril's right," Two-Fingers agreed in a stronger voice. "Whatever Malar's giving him for this service, he's being generous enough to share it with us."
"Cerril's not a generous person," Hekkel objected.
But no one was listening to what Hekkel had to say anymore, Cerril noticed. The lure of gold and treasure was too much for the other boys. Alagh?n was a city filled with small treasures that had been hidden away and found many years later, and it was filled with still more stories of those forgotten treasures left by wealthy merchants, pirates, thieves, and nobility that had visited the Jewel of Turmish. Inventing the possibility of another such treasure was no stretch at all.
"What was this place?" Two-Fingers asked, following Cerril through the doorway into another room.
Cerril followed the pounding in his chest, going straight back and avoiding the other rooms that lay off the first one. He brushed more cobwebs from another open doorway.
"This was a charity crypt," he said. "People who die without kith or kin to bury them, or those who wander into Alagh?n and get killed but go unclaimed, end up here."
"The priests say they care about these people?" Hekkel sounded doubtful.
"No," Cerril replied, stepping through another doorway and across a broken skeleton that was sprawled on the floor, "the Assembly of Stars pays the temples. Other rulers paid them in the past."
"Why?" Two-Fingers asked.
"Because," Aran put in, "corpses that don't have a proper burial sometimes rise and walk again. I heard stories about that."
"You should be real familiar with that," Hekkel said, "after what happened to the Whamite Isles. Heard there's a lot of dead up walking around over there."
"Take that back," Aran said angrily. "Take that back or you'll be sorry!"
"Oh yeah?" Hekkel said. "And why will I be sorry?"
"Because I'll catch you sleeping," Aran said. "I'll catch you sleeping and I'll cut off your ears. You'll never pass a mirror again without realizing how sorry you were for saying that."
"You little runt," Hekkel said.
Cerril considered turning around and slapping them both down-their strident voices whipped the pounding between his temples into a renewed frenzy-then the closed door at the back of the charity crypt caught his eye. He stared at the wooden marker embossed with the flowing river of Eldath on it. "Quiet," Two-Fingers ordered. "Cerril's found something." Instantly, all other noise inside the charity crypt stopped. Cerril could almost hear the group stop breathing behind him. He stepped forward and tried the door. The handle refused to turn, and the door wouldn't budge. Cerril stepped back and raised his voice. "Two-Fingers." "Yeah." "Open the door." Two-Fingers moved forward, almost big enough to fill the front of the door. "Do you want it all in one piece?" he asked. "I don't care." Bracing himself, Two-Fingers slammed a shoulder against the door. The old, rotted wood shattered. Instead of the door breaking open, though, a hole appeared and Two-Fingers accidentally staggered through. The bigger boy turned around, shocked by his own success, and said, "It's open." The door opened onto a small room that once must have housed a record keeper's office. A scribe's inkpot lay shattered on the stone floor, and moldering books lined shelves built into the walls. "Light a candle," Cerril said as he stared around the room. Someone took one of the candle stubs from a mounting on the wall and lit it. The wavering yellow flame filled the small room with light and hard-carved shadows that danced on the walls. "I don't see any treasure," Hekkel commented. Cerril went through the books, not knowing exactly what it was that he hoped to find. There was nothing in the book stacks, and equally nothing in the small desk against the wall. He knelt down, checking under the drawers because he'd learned that people often stuck secreted items there. None of the drawers had anything stuck under them. He noticed a shattered inkpot on the floor. The small, fragmented glass pieces reflected light from the candle. The ink had been spilled dozens of years before and had dried to a solid black spot. However, the pool of dried liquid inscribed two fairly straight lines that ran perpendicular to one another. Cerril knee-walked over to the lines. Seeing the way the ink seemed to have suddenly stopped in both places, he drew his dagger and traced the blade's sharp point along the edges. "Two-Fingers," he said, "there
's a hidden entrance here. Can you open it?" Two-Fingers removed two L-shaped shims from his clothing. Holding them tightly, he hooked the shims into the floor, getting in behind the concealed trapdoor. Growling with effort, he lifted a section of the floor away. Hekkel pushed forward the lighted candle he held. The flickering flame chewed down through the darkness that filled the opening. "It's a passageway," Two-Fingers said. "I know," Cerril said, then eased down into the opening, following the spiral staircase down into the bowels of the graveyard.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The wolf gazed down from a rocky promontory forty feet above Haarn. Druz Talimsir, unaware of the wolf's vigilance, threaded through the forest only a little ahead of the druid. She'd grown quiet in her anger and had become competitive. Two days had passed since the confrontation with the slavers. Drawing back into the shadows of a gnarled oak tree whose growth had split a boulder as tall as a man on the mountainside, Haarn studied the wolf. The animal was huge, standing half again as tall as the bitch wolf that stood at his right. A jagged streak of lightning cut through the night, spearing through several clouds. In the night's usual darkness the clouds hadn't been visible, but with the lightning passing through them, they had length and width and breadth that faded away between blinks. The superheated air prickled Haarn's nose. The druid knew rain was going to come at any moment. He could feel the air laden with moisture as it wrapped around his body. Haarn knew his and the woman's scents hadn't alerted the wolf because he'd been careful to keep them downwind of the pack. Broadfoot had roamed a lot while Haarn had kept his pace down to something Druz could handle, and the bear had never gotten upwind of the wolf pack that they followed. Something else had set the wolf onto them. A chill storm wind whipped the wolf's thick gray and black fur. A narrow thatch of fur stood up along the wolf's backbone, running from his hindquarters to the top of his skull. Jagged lightning scored the sky again, striking bright light with the sudden intensity of a blacksmith's hammer. Druz fought her way up the precarious incline Haarn's tracking skills had led them to. The spoor left by the wolves had been hidden and spread out. The delays had led Druz to accuse Haarn of delaying the confrontation with the wolf. Haarn had made no response to the accusation, and Druz had remained with him. Both of them knew she had no real choice. The mercenary's anger showed in every line of her body and in the forced movements during her struggle to gain ground up the hill. Her foot slipped on the muddy loam and Haarn knew it was from fatigue. The woman had pushed herself too hard and too far. The druid had done the best he could to pace her, but she wasn't one to hold back. It was an admirable quality, but one that was misplaced in their current venture. Guilt touched Haarn. Druz Talimsir was worn out and near exhaustion. The druid knew it was his fault; he'd gotten caught up in the hunt, torn between his own convictions as they'd neared their goal, and hadn't noticed her struggles. Rock and mud clods tumbled down the mountainside as Druz pushed up another half-dozen steps. She came to a stop along the ledge. Frustration showed in the hard lines of her back. The trail they followed was little more than a game run, too narrow and too ill defined for easy passage. Lightning seared the sky again, bleaching the charcoal gray rock into the color of white bone. The wolf's eyes blazed orange like chunks of coal as it peered down from the ledge. Silver saliva gleamed on the black muzzle. The wolf's nose wrinkled, then the lips pulled back and revealed sharp teeth. He's hunting, Haarn realized. Anxious. Ill ease shifted in the druid's stomach. Animals killed to eat. That was something he understood. That was natural, but an animal that killed for sport was sickening. That trait made them almost human. Broadfoot coughed, revealing his presence in the shadows a few yards away. The bear grew impatient, and Haarn sensed a little confusion as well. Broadfoot didn't maintain a large attention span, and bears never made a practice of hunting red meat, keeping their tastes limited to nuts, fruits, tubers, and honey. After the past two days, Broadfoot knew they were searching for the wolf, though he wasn't clear on why. Even after spending years with the bear, Haarn knew that each of them had concepts that the other couldn't understand. Broadfoot followed not out of duty or curiosity, but because Haarn led. The bond between them had lasted for years and ran bone deep. On the precipice above, the wolf's lean haunches trembled. Excitement thrilled through the creature's thick chest. He swayed, shifting his weight from paw to paw. The bitch at his side eased forward. She held her ears flattened and tight to her head, her tail tucked between her legs. He's taught them to hunt humans, Haarn realized. The sickness in his stomach soured. Bile bubbled and burned at the back of his throat. He scanned the promontory, looking for the other wolves in the pack. The bitch got too close to the edge for the lead wolf's liking. He snapped at her, white fangs flashing, grazing flesh beneath her pelt at her shoulder. Red blood flecked on the wolf's teeth. The bitch jerked back as if scalded. More blood matted her fur as the wound continued to dribble. As she turned, Haarn saw that the bitch was heavy with unborn pups. She looked scrawny, almost used up by the coming birth. Her eyes rolled white as she continued backing away, and her muzzle dipped low to the ground. Druz cursed, and her words seemed to crash through even the storm sounds echoing throughout the forest. The rolling thunder was a natural sound in the forest, but a human voice wasn't. Haarn glanced up at the wolf. Impatient, the wolf paced on silent pads along the promontory. "Are you coming?" Haarn glanced toward the mercenary and found her staring at him. Her accusation stood out from her body. Mud streaked her face and matted her hair. Her clothing was damp and hung heavy with sweat and soil. Above them, on the promontory, the wolf shifted. He stepped backward, all but disappearing in the brush that topped the ledge. Haarn didn't know if the wolf would run or try to stand his ground. It was evident that the wolf had understood that Druz wasn't alone. Remaining silent, Haarn stepped from concealment and crossed the ledge to join the mercenary. "I thought you'd given up," Druz said. "No," Haarn replied. He glanced up at the promontory, but the angle he was at denied him sight of the wolf. "What are you looking at?" Haarn shook his head. Though Druz seemed incapable of seeing most things that took place in the lands around her, she read people well. Perhaps she hadn't spotted the wolf above her, but she knew that his attitude about the night and the things in it had changed. "What?" Druz stepped in front of him, preventing him from attempting the climb she'd tried to make. "I'm going to climb up," Haarn said. Claws clicked against stone above, but the sound was too slight for Druz to notice. Druz's eyes held his. "Something's up there." Haarn held an answer back from her for only a heartbeat. "Yes." "The wolf?" "Yes." Druz's face tightened. "Why didn't you tell me?" "Because I wanted to watch the wolf as he watched you." The hard look on Druz's face softened. "The wolf is watching me?" "He was," Haarn said. The mercenary looked up. "And now?" "I don't know. We'll have to climb up and see." "What if he's gone?" Haarn surveyed the muddy mountainside, seeking small places, secure places, that his hands and feet could work with. Druz was good. If they could have waited till morning, when the light was better and she was more rested, she could have made the climb. "If he's gone, we track him some more," the druid replied. "One of the bitches is heavy with pups. That's why they've been traveling so slowly." "Slowly?" Druz shook her head. "The pack hasn't been traveling slowly. We've only now caught up with them." Haarn reached up and flattened himself against the mountainside. His fingers traced the hold he'd spotted-a small piece of jutting rock-and he tested it. When the rock held his weight, he pulled himself up. Mud slid along the front of his clothes. He knew the wolf could hear them coming. "I don't think he's planning to go any farther tonight," Haarn said. "He's stopping?" Haarn reached above and found another hold. Now that he had the rhythm, scaling the mountainside got easier. He eased himself up, fitting his fingers and moccasins into place. "Yes," he said. "Why?" "Because they haven't eaten in the last two days." "How do you know that?" "Because we've been trailing them," Haarn replied. The muscles in his arms, legs, and back warmed against the storm's chill. "If they'd eaten much, there would have been sign." "They're planning
to eat us?" "Yes," Haarn said. "If they weren't interested in that, they'd have been gone as soon as they'd seen you." "What are we going to do?" Druz asked. Haarn smiled and said, "Try to not get eaten." He kept climbing.
*****
Cerril followed the flickering glow of the candle he'd taken from Hekkel down into the bowels of the secret crypt beneath the burial house. The spiral staircase had either been crooked when it had been installed, or it had shifted during the decades or perhaps hundreds of years it had been there. Cerril had to lean away from the central pole at times and against it at others.
Still, the spiral staircase was a short trip to the rooms below.
Once he gained the ground, Cerril discovered that the floor there had been hewn from bedrock then covered over with stone. Dank, bare earth walls drank down the candle's glow. In a half-dozen places, though, small streams of water trickled along the walls and ran through cracks between the stone flooring. The thick, cloying smell of damp earth and rancid water tickled his nose as he stared around the chamber.
The other boys gathered around Cerril. They stayed behind him and well within the fragile safety of the candle.
"We shouldn't be here," one of the boys said. "This is a bad place. I can feel it."
"Damn," Two-Fingers said. "This is a cemetery. It's a bad place for anybody."
"Grave robbers steal from them that are fresh dead," Hekkel said. "Only reason they don't steal from them that are old-dead is because somebody done got to them."
Cerril raised the flickering candle and said, "Nobody's been here since this place was sealed."
"You don't know that," Hekkel said.
Feeling Malar's coin warm and heavy in his hand, Cerril said, "Yes, I do."
He moved forward, drawn by the coin's pull. The candlelight slid across the ceiling. For a moment he thought none of the others were going to follow him, then he heard the rustle of their clothing.
