by Ember Lane
Crags wagged his little finger at the warrior. “And that there, I might point out, is another threat, and to a fellow guild member too. Shame on you.” He drained his wine, hiccupped, and said, “Shall we, then?”
Yet again, one by one they drained their wines, doused their pipes, and pushed themselves up. Aezal drew his sword and polished the blade to a shine. Both Grimble and Ozmic fished in their respective sacks and started to don steel armor. Crags took his arrows out and laid them on the floor. He began muttering over them, picking up each in turn and saying the same words over and over.
Lincoln wished he had something to polish or sharpen, but compared to these seasoned walkers of this land, his beginner’s ax and copper daggers just didn’t seem to cut it. So he just waited patiently until they were all finished.
“Think you should take your pick rather than the ax,” Aezal advised. “It’s kinda linked to this tomb.”
“And stay behind us,” said Grimble. “Me and Ozmic have plenty more health than you.”
“I could do some healing,” said Crags. “If yer want me to, but it’d be chaos magic healing, so it might have side effects.”
“Only if we’re nearly dead,” Aezal replied, and both Ozmic and Grimble agreed.
Lincoln collected his pick from the side of the dungeon and peered under the altar. At first, he couldn’t see anything through the gloom, but then Crags squeezed past him and ventured a few feet into the chamber beyond the altar, his little torch held out in front. The hole in the end wall was the length and height of the altar. Lincoln followed Crags through.
The chamber was arched like the tunnel leading to it, but here the floor was tiled with smooth stone flags. It stretched back into the hill another thirty feet, and like Lincoln had seen, a rectangular breech in its floor revealed some downward steps. Four torches hung on the walls, and Aezal lit them one by one.
They all gathered around the step’s head. “Whaddya think?” Crags whispered.
“Crypt?” Lincoln muttered.
“Hic,” Crags replied, swaying on his feet. “Shouldn’t one of us stay and guard the cart? I’m just thinking, you know, in case of thieves and the like.”
Ozmic looked down at the little gnome, then across at Grimble. His scowls scowled as he looked back through the altar and then back at his companion. “I hate to say it, but the gnome’s gotta point.”
Grimble nodded. “Who though? Lincoln? He’s got the least health.”
“But he’s the talisman,” Aezal pointed out. “Got to be the gnome.”
“I’ve got a name,” said Crags.
“It’ll have to be him,” Ozmic muttered, reluctantly.
“Agreed, but if he messes it up…” Grimble said, ominously.
“We cleave his head,” Ozmic growled.
“Well, yer can think want yer think, but I’ll tell yer all. The cart’s in good hands, so it is, it is. My arrows are imbued an’ ready, and I’ve a dead eye, I don’t mind tellin’ yer.” Crags straightened his green tunic, lifted his chin in the air and began to march out of the tomb. He weaved a meandering path, clearly heady from the wine and ale, and began to hum a jaunty tune as he staggered around the hole they’d dug.
“He’s just going to get drunk,” Grimble lamented.
“Indeed,” Ozmic muttered.
“I fear he will be drunker than a ceratog at full moon,” Aezal declared.
Lincoln scratched his head. “A ceratog at… Do I want to know?”
“Nope.” Aezal peered down the steps. “Shall we?”
Aezal led the way, Grimble following closely behind. Ozmic brought up the rear with Lincoln sandwiched between him and Grimble. Lincoln took a breath. Apart from the sound of their boots on the stone steps, Lincoln could hear a soft wash, like a distant wave breaking over and over. He wiped his brow, suddenly hot, and gasped in the stairwell’s dank air. It plunged down without seeming to end.
It was cramped, only two feet wide. The walls either side became hewn rock rather than stone blocks. The place was completely dead. No webs, no draping vines, cloth, nothing that normally dressed these places and lent them the aurora of the living dead, that trailed in the intruder’s eyes, that clawed at their throats. It was dead, completely dead, and if anything had ever been trapped here, it had already turned to dust. They had gone down twenty, maybe thirty steps before Aezal signaled a halt.
“A turn,” he hissed, “another ten steps.” He tiptoed on. He soon hesitated again, then drew his sword. Its thring echoed around. Vanishing around the turn, Lincoln strained his neck to see, but Grimble was in the way. The dwarf was next in line to turn. He raised his ax and stepped around. Lincoln looked at his pick; it just didn’t seem to cut the mustard. He made a mental note to get a sword or something. The quiet, soft wash that he’d heard earlier was now more like a murmur of anticipation. Its ill-concealed eagerness drew him on.
Peering over the dwarf and with Aezal to one side, he looked out from the steps. The chamber beyond was not what he expected to see. It’s ceiling was lofted above the step’s head by maybe three or four feet. Another half-dozen steps led down to a glass-like floor the exact same color of the altar’s top. Aezal was walking around the room, lighting readily primed torches that lined the walls. As the flames grabbed hold of the aged tallow, so the strange chamber gave up its secrets.
It was around fifty feet long, and wide too, maybe half as much. In evenly spaced alcoves, fierce warrior-like statues looked out, chain mail draping over their stone heads, shoulders, and torsos. Swords planted between their feet, and gauntlet-clad hands rested on pommels. Lincoln counted seven in all, three down each side, and one looking directly at him from the end wall. And then Lincoln’s eyes settled on what they were guarding.
A carved stone coffin sat on a raised dais in the middle of the room. It was light gray, almost white, and the pedestal was plain, simple, like the sides of the coffin. The lid was a different matter. A dragon sat perched on the stone lid, it’s wings part flared, its front claw raised and ready to pounce. On its back, paws in the air, a wolf had been carved, fighting for its life. Mesmerized, Lincoln crept toward the carving. Side on, it was even more beautiful. He reached out to touch it, to trail his fingers along it.
He wanted to understand what he was seeing. The dragon and a wolf, the former clearly vanquishing the latter, and yet it somehow lacked the spark of the victor. Somehow the dragon didn’t look like a conqueror. It was trying to tell him something, but what, he couldn’t tell.
“What is it?” Aezal asked him.
“An empty tomb, that’s what it is,” grumbled Grimble. “Unless there’s something hidden in the casket, we’ve just wasted our time.” He fumbled in his bag and took out his pick. Raising it, he took aim.
“No!” Lincoln barked. “No, leave it.” Lincoln walked slowly around the coffin. “Something tells me that this is important—not a random thing we’ve happened to come across.”
“Seven,” Ozmic’s hushed voice filtered into the room. “There were seven warriors of Estorelll, and if I’m not mistaken…”
“You can’t be sure…” Grimble let drift.
“Seven knights of old guarding a coffin with a wolf on top. I’m sure,” Ozmic confirmed.
Lincoln watched as Aezal fell to his knees, bowing his head and resting it against the coffin. Grimble let out a long sigh. “Well, I’ll be…” he muttered, and knelt. “Never, in all my years did I think this was here.”
“It’s close to Brokenford,” Grimble pointed out.
“But he was vanquished in Starellion,” Ozmic said.
“Who?” Lincoln asked.
“Darwainic,” Aezal muttered. “This must be Darwainic’s tomb, and if I’m not mistaken, the seven knights of Estorelll surround us. But surely, surely this tomb was too easy to find. Surely such a prize wouldn’t lay hidden for all these years without so much as a bane to protect it.”
“It wanted to be found.” Grimble pointed at Lincoln. “Everything, the chaos gno
mes, the troll, the fortunate respawn—need I go on?” His eyes bored into Lincoln. “Who are you?”
Lincoln had the vague recollection that Allaise had mentioned Darwainic. Hadn’t he been the king of Irydia? But this reverence that his three companions were showing told him there was more to the man’s heritage than that. He felt it though, not just because of the knights looking out, and not because of the ornate carving on top of the man’s coffin. It was a feeling that he had deep down, right inside his gut. That feeling told him that this man’s legacy was one worth following, and that this was the path Joan would have followed.
“It was here to find, we just have to work out why.” Lincoln stood and walked around the dais. “It is a test,” he said. “A test to see if we are worthy.”
“Of what?” Aezal asked.
“Now that,” said Lincoln. “I’m afraid I haven’t got a clue.” He trailed his finger along the coffin’s edge.
“Then I suggest we have a think over a wine, and maybe it’s time to cook up some broth,” Ozmic suggested.
“Good…” Lincoln said, absently. “Good idea. You go on up. I’ll just have a look around.”
Grimble and Ozmic trudged up the steps first. Their heavy stomps ringing out. Aezal walked around the crypt another time, clearly looking for hidden dangers, but finding no obvious signs. He eventually relented, patted Lincoln on the shoulder, and wandered up the steps himself. Lincoln sat on the bottom one, his elbows on his knees and his chin cupped in his palms.
“Those who can open the way may feast on one treasure and one alone. Two, and you will get none. What appears none, may get you two,” he muttered to himself, to the seven knights, and to the old king of this land. He tapped his finger on his nose.
“Those who can open the way may feast on one treasure and one alone. Two, and you will get none. What appears none, may get you two,” he repeated again, the corners of his eyes creased in thought. “Open what way? Or have we opened the way by merely finding this crypt?”
He stood and looked at the wolf. Strangely, its eyes were alive as though it was the winner in this duel it was having with the dragon. Was the dragon the representation of evil, and the wolf the depiction of good being vanquished, only to actually win? Was this what Darwainic was telling him? That Irydia would rise again through his death. Was Darwainic the wolf?
Inspecting every inch of the statue, he could find no fault, no hidden chamber, and no lever—in fact, no clue of any sort. He inspected each of the knights in turn but they were all near identical. Finally, he sat back on the step, reached into his sack, brought out his borrowed pipe and his tinderbox and mulled it over with a welcome smoke.
“But I’ve already got two,” he finally said to himself. “The pick and the key.” He grinned. Neither, he thought, looked like treasure, and suddenly it dawned on him what he had to do. Approaching the coffin, Lincoln knelt beside it, bowed his head and muttered some words to a man he’d never met, a man he’d never heard of until a day or so ago, and as he put his palm on the coffin, so the constant murmur of anticipation ceased. Lincoln felt something click in his mind, as is some long, forgotten piece of an age-old mystery had just slotted into place.
He stood and stared at the carving and then around the room at each of the guardians in turn, nodding in silent respect, and then he turned, picked up his pick and left the crypt. As soon as he rounded the corner, the dry groan of stone on stone growled out behind him, and he didn’t need to glance back to know that the chamber was now sealed.
He took each of the steps up with a heavy heart, somehow sad that he’d never set eyes on that majestic sculpture again. As soon as he was back in the chamber behind the altar, he heard another dry groan. This time he did turn and saw a stone slide over the step well.
Crouching down, he crawled under the altar, and then sprang up, dusted himself off and smiled. Just knowing that the man’s grave would remain hidden was enough, for now. He vowed to find out more about the old king of Irydia and to find some way to honor his memory. Back out of the tomb he saw that Grimble, Ozmic and Crags were asleep, passed out by the fire, spilled mugs nearby. He caught Aezal’s eye, and the big man rose. Lincoln turned and walked back into the tomb. He rested his pick against the wall and crouched under the altar, its key in hand.
“Kick it shut,” he told Aezal.
Aezal held his stare, but then nodded slightly. “You sure?”
“Sure,” Lincoln answered.
Crouching under the altar, Lincoln took a lantern from Aezal and then waited while Aezal kicked the stone slab back into place. In the dim light of the now enclosed space, Lincoln saw the two keyholes. He fit the strange key into the top one and turned it. He heard a thud as an unseen bolt hit home. After doing the same to the lower one, Lincoln looked at the little hole that Crags had squeezed through to open the altar in the first place. Putting his faith in his belief, Lincoln squeezed into it.
At the last minute, he pulled his shoulders out and placed the key and lantern in the corner of the altar, and then plunged back in. A strange sensation took over his body, like it was lengthening and then contracting, lengthening and then contracting. He slid down the tunnel until he came to its bottom. He felt his body bend around a tight corner and then straighten, and spill into a horizontal tunnel. Lengthen and then contract. Lengthen and then contract. He turned again and looked up to see Aezal looking down. Aezal screamed and stumbled backward. Lincoln’s body lengthened and popped out of the hole, suddenly expanding as his shoulders regained their form and his arms popped out from the side of his body.
Aezal screamed again.
“What the…” he eventually said when he’d settled back down. “How in Lamerrel’s name did you do that? A skill?”
“Skill? What do you mean?”
“Like, did you open up the skill Worming, or something?”
Lincoln grinned. “Worming? Is that a skill?”
Aezal looked on in horror. “You just… you just slithered up like a worm; it was unnatural. How did you do it?”
Thinking about it, Lincoln turned and looked at the hole. He remembered…slithering along it. There was no doubt about it; it was weird. “Not a clue,” he admitted. Checking his stats and skills, he couldn’t see anything obvious that had changed. “Unless I’m missing something.”
Congratulations! You have joined a guild. The land has chosen you to head the ancient guild of Mandrake. You are awarded five thousand gold. You cannot access the gold at this moment. Build a strong guild. Take lands, build powerful cities. All hail Mandrake! The gods favor you!
“Eh?” said Lincoln to himself.
Aezal started to grin. “When did you alter your alignment?”
“My?” Lincoln started to say, but scanned his stats and saw that it had changed from none to Mandrake. “What does that mean?” he asked.
“Mandrake is the name for all the lands combined—Irydia, Atremeny, Kobane, The Lowlands, Petreyer, Shyantium, and Beggle. It is the name before all dissolved into chaos.”
“Is that good then?” Lincoln asked.
“Mandrake is a dream, a poisoned chalice that has never been in recent times, and probably never will be again. It is Lamerell.”
9
The Key To It All
Lincoln gulped, confused about the name of his new guild.
“But the way you all cry his name, I thought Lamerell was one of the good guys.”
Aezal shook his head, a rueful grin spreading on his face. “One day I’ll remember you have no knowledge of this land. Lamerell is 'one of the good guys,' as you say. She is Barakdor.”
“But she…” Lincoln was all manner of confused.
“I tell you what,” Aezal said, backing away. “I’ll tell you all about the ins and outs of this place as soon as we get a peaceful minute. The way I see it, that little stunt you just pulled was a gift for your alignment. You were one with the land itself. They have chosen you, and so have we. We have a name for our guild, but it is a name you
must conceal. That is the first thing we must work on.”
“Conceal?”
Aezal threw Lincoln one of the dwarf’s shovels. “First things first, let’s cover up the hole. I’ll shovel it all back in from outside, you fill it in.”
Lincoln turned back to the hole and popped the lid back on its shaft. Aezal started shoveling the dirt back into the tomb, and Lincoln gradually filled the hole. Patting it down with the shovel and smoothing it over, he nodded to himself and grunted. “All back,” he said, and walked out. Aezal’s silhouette appeared in the entrance.
“What the…” he muttered, pointing directly at Lincoln.
Lincoln didn’t have to turn to know something had altered. His back had suddenly warmed up as if a great fire had been lit behind him. Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw a bright orange glow now adorning the tomb’s arched walls. He stopped dead still. The question, What now? briefly crossed his mind, as he slowly turned.
The altar was a bed of orange and yellow flame, flickering, licking, lapping up to caress a spinning, twelve-inch-high, golden key. As it turned, brilliant amber light sprayed around the tomb. Lincoln swore the earlier murmur he’d heard had returned once more, its eagerness again urging him forward.
“What the…” he muttered, as Aezal drew abreast of him.
“That would be the second thing,” Aezal muttered, and they both approached the altar.
Lincoln reached out, understanding that the flames wouldn’t burn him. He plucked the key from the altar’s top. It felt cool to the touch and pulsed with pent-up power. Lincoln felt it, like it was trying to tell him something, like it was trying to get back home. He felt Aezal’s arm on his shoulder once more, and they both stepped back.
“Any idea?” Lincoln asked, not expecting an answer.
“I would say put it straight in your sack and forget about it until you happen to find one big-assed door to open.”
Lincoln pursed his lips, nodding faintly. He gazed down at it. Now away from the flame the key had dulled from its golden hue, now just a simple iron color. Its bow was shaped like a dragon’s head, identical to the one on Darwainic’s coffin. The key’s shoulder looked wreath-like, with leaves etched around it. From there, a cylindrical barrel stretched to a collar, throating and pin. Upon its bit, Lincoln counted seven wards etched, and he knew each represented one of the knights in Darwainic’s chamber.
