The ground beneath Jorasca’s feet shuddered. The edge of the molten river encroached on the shore as the river’s flow seemed to speed up suddenly and the whole cavern shook. Fragments of rock pattered down.
‘Bugger this,’ said Felhangar, looking down at the shore being rapidly eroded by the molten flow. He ran at the stairway and jumped, landing just behind the Heritor on the first section of stone steps.
A huge chunk of masonry fell from high above and thudded into the lava. The slow wave of its ripple approached the shore and Jorasca realised it would obliterate the thin spit of sand. She followed Felhangar and jumped, hitting the stairway. Her feet slipped from beneath her and she splayed out her arms and legs, clinging onto the narrow stone.
‘Dolth!’ she yelled.
Dolth hadn’t been fast enough. He never had been the lightest on his feet. Now the lava between him and the first steps on the staircase was too wide to jump.
He didn’t cry out or beg for help. That wouldn’t have helped anyone. He just looked up at Jorasca as the air between them shimmered and distorted with the heat. The way back was cut off, too, leaving Dolth standing on a shrinking island of black sand.
The hot air roared in her ears. She couldn’t tell if Dolth made any sound as the heat set light to him. His clothes burst into flame and he thrashed around, tumbling over and into the lava. In an instant he was gone, vanished beneath the surface. The last Jorasca saw of Dolth was his boots as the molten rock closed over them.
Akmon Thaal hadn’t even noticed Dolth dying. He carried on ahead without glancing back, picking his way up the swaying staircase towards the treasure chamber. Because that was what it had to be – the heart of the temple, the final stop on the journey laid out by the map. That stone chamber, perched high above the lava river, contained the treasure this temple had been built to keep hidden.
The chamber shuddered again. Fat bubbles of lava welled up and burst, spraying the staircase with embers. Jorasca felt their points of heat pricking at her skin as she clambered up behind Felhangar, who was making better progress than she was.
One of the chains holding up the stairway snapped. Jorasca saw the length of it plunging past her into the lava. Her length of stair suddenly swung to the side, and she clamped her arms and legs around it as it tipped sideways and threatened to pitch her into the river.
Felhangar cried out, a curse strangled in his throat.
Jorasca saw Felhangar tumbling past her, arms and legs flailing as if he had fallen into water and was kicking for the surface. His body was spun and buffeted by the rush of the hot air, and then he plunged into the molten rock and was gone.
Up ahead, the Heritor was struggling to hold on as well. He was almost at the doorway to the treasure chamber and was forcing his way towards the threshold step by step. Of all of them, of course the Heritor would make it. Not because he was stronger and faster, with the blood of his blessed ancestors running through him. It was simply because he was who he was. He was fated to get there. He was the Heritor Akmon Thaal. The rest of them were just there to die and illustrate Thaal’s strength. History would not remember their names. It would not remember they existed at all.
The section of stairway swung again, wildly. Jorasca felt her legs kicking over nothingness as her grip faltered. The section of stair slammed into one of the pillars holding up the treasure chamber and Jorasca’s hands were jolted free of the stone. She hit the pillar hard and threw her arms around it. Her fingers clamped onto the deep carvings and she halted her descent as the rest of the stairs plunged past her and vanished into the lava.
Her crossbow, dislodged by the impact, slipped off her back. She saw it spinning away below her, and then like everything else it was gone. A handful of bolts followed as they spilled out of her quiver.
Jorasca started to climb. The treasure chamber was the only solid ground left in the immense chamber. Hand over hand, feet slipping off the edges of the sculpted detail, she pushed herself towards the doorway of the chamber above her.
Akmon Thaal had one foot on the threshold. For the first time, Jorasca saw him smile.
A section of the ceiling as big as the Fathom’s Faith detached in a shower of rocky fragments. Thaal was revelling too much in his triumph to notice it as it plunged towards him. In a great fall of darkness, like a plummeting shard of night, the slab of rock sheared past Jorasca. It thudded into the lava with enough force to shudder the pillar she clung to. When she looked up again, Thaal and all that remained of the staircase were gone.
Jorasca kept climbing. There was nothing else to do. If she stayed there, her arms would weaken and she would fall. So she climbed for what seemed like an hour, and eventually her hand found the lower edge of the chamber’s doorframe.
Gasping and coughing, Jorasca pulled herself into the chamber and rolled onto her back. The skin of her face and hands, she now realised, were red and scorched from the superheated air. The chamber was strangely cool, as if insulated from the roiling heat beneath it. In the centre of the square, plain room was a stone casket the size of a coffin, covered in finely-rendered sculpted skulls.
There was no sign of Thaal. Somehow, even though Jorasca was certain he had not dived into the chamber at the last moment, it seemed impossible the Heritor could be dead. Confirmation of it seemed to stick in her mind, like a piece of proof against some deeply held faith.
Jorasca got to her feet and walked to the casket. She ran a hand over its lid, which was carved into a map of the island. The temple itself stood in the centre, its structure delving far below the earth. She pushed against the lid and felt it give. With what felt like the last of her strength she shoved against it, and it slid off and landed on the floor with a crack.
The casket was empty. Jorasca touched the floor of the empty cavity and felt nothing there but dust. No hidden compartment. No treasure of such astonishing value it would make her a queen of any land she sailed into. No secret at the end of Thaal’s quest. No map to the Crystal Pool.
Jorasca could not help the laugh that forced itself up out her lungs. It didn’t stop, even when the first of the venomous snakes squirmed out of the eyeholes of the skulls on the casket’s sides. Suddenly, it all made an appalling sort of sense.
Jorasca was still laughing when the snakes swarmed over her feet and legs, and the first of the fangs sunk into her flesh.
* * *
The first thing she saw when her eyes opened again was a man’s face. An unfamiliar man, and one who had seen better days. Pinched, malnourished, with a scraggly beard and hair. He had the look of a man who had spent years in a cell, familiar to her from her own brushes with the authorities.
‘You’re awake,’ he said. ‘Good, good. They didn’t kill you. They’re paralytic, these ones, you see. The snakes, I mean. Not lethal. But, well, sometimes if they’re too enthusiastic they can…’ He smiled weakly. ‘Sorry. I’m Devlin.’
Jorasca tried to reply and demand to know where she was, but her body wouldn’t obey her mind. She forced her eyes to focus on the looming shapes behind Devlin and they coalesced into a pair of horrific creatures, taller than a man, with humanoid bodies up to the neck. Their long, sinuous necks and heads were those of snakes, with cowls like cobras. Their bodies were covered in intricately patterned scales and they wore complex armour of lacquered and decorated plates held in place by leather harnesses. The narrow slits of their eyes were focused on Jorasca and their forked tongues flickered as if anticipating the feast she might provide.
‘What was it that brought your lot here?’ said Devlin. ‘Was it the Explorer’s Guild map? The Diary of Belisarian?’
Jorasca’s mind swam. What was this Devlin talking about? Then she realised. He was talking about Akmon Thaal’s map.
‘Noctis,’ she slurred through numb limps. ‘Something… Noctis.’
‘The Athenaeum Noctis!’ Devlin’s sunken eyes sparkled. ‘That was my finest work! Do you have any idea how difficult that seal is to forge?’ He paused, perhaps sensing co
nfusion in her face. ‘I was a forger,’ he said. ‘Before they… before they took me.’
He indicated the hideous snake men behind him. One of them hissed at him annoyedly, and brandished a curved bronze sword.
Jorasca turned her head a little. She was in the temple, but a part of it she did not recognise. Painted beasts and nightmares covered the walls.
‘Listen, we have a deal, me and them,’ continued Devlin hurriedly. ‘I forge maps for them that bring folks like your crew to this temple. And in return they… they don’t kill me. They’re not so bad, as long as you’re useful.’
‘Why?’ gasped Jorasca.
‘Sacrifices,’ replied Devlin. His face fell. ‘They want sacrifices.’
There had been no treasure, of course. The map, a cunning fake by this Devlin, had brought Akmon Thaal and his crew to a temple designed to kill them. The temple was as fake as the map – not an ancient place where primitive humans worshipped, but a machine for processing naïve treasure-hunters into sacrifices for the snake men’s gods.
It made such appalling, complete sense that Jorasca would have burst into laughter again, had she the strength.
‘What can you do?’ asked Devlin. ‘There must be something. What are you good at?’ There was an urgency and worry in his face, and Jorasca realised the snake men were ready to make her the final sacrifice if there was no reason to keep her alive.
They wouldn’t have much use for a competent crossbowman, she thought. There wasn’t much else she could do well.
‘I can… I can steal,’ she stammered.
Devlin smiled with relief. ‘That’s great! You can get my maps into places I can’t. And get some of those seals and signatures I need! Yes, that’s perfect. They’ll like that. Now listen, they’ll inject you with a venom, something to keep you loyal. They’ll give you the antidote if you keep them happy. Don’t try to escape, don’t refuse them anything, or they’ll…’
One of the snake men shoved Devlin aside and hauled Jorasca up off the floor, slinging her over its shoulder. It stank of unwashed animal and heady spices.
‘They won’t hurt you!’ Devlin was saying, though there was no certainty in his voice. ‘Do what they want! Bring more of you here! They’ll let you live!’
The snake men carried Jorasca through the rooms of the fake temple, past the deathtraps and secret passages that funnelled sacrifices towards their deaths. Jorasca knew that whether she helped these creatures or not, whether Devlin’s fakes continued to flow into the hands of the world’s Heritors, the snake men would have their sacrifices.
There had been many sacrifices before Akmon Thaal’s crew.
And there would be many more to come.
A NICE LITTLE NEST EGG
BY
JONATHAN GREEN
The prow of the Mermaid bumped against the surf-lapped beach, the seasoned larwood of the hull grinding against the wet sand. Lagan the shipmaster dropped the sail and brought the boat to rest, as Captain Sinzar leapt from the deck to the gunwale and onto the seashore, his boots sinking into the soft, silvery sand.
Standing tall, hands on hips, he surveyed the beach and the lush green growth of jungle beyond. Taking a deep breath, he savoured the briny scent of the surf, the hot silica smell of the beach itself, and the sharp-sweet loamy aroma of the fetid forest that covered much of the island.
Second to shore was Kaseem of the Earth – who was also now known to the crew as Kaseem the Seasick, or Kaseem the Weak-Stomached, since the rough crossing from the mainland. He landed with a splash amidst the foaming breakers and staggered up the beach, eager to be away from the water, until his unsteady legs gave way under him and he fell to his knees on the sun-warmed sand.
‘Thank the Earth Mother, dry land at last!’ he almost wailed, kissing the carved stone pendant hanging from a cord around his neck and then prostrating himself and kissing the beach too. ‘Thank the goddess a thousand times over!’
Behind him came Haroun, an unkind sneer doing nothing to improve the already unappealing set of his features, although the sword-cut scar bifurcating his ratty features meant that he could never be considered handsome anyway.
‘I’ll never understand why you ply the straits of the Archipelago,’ he laughed. ‘The Earth Mother clearly never meant you to leave the land.’
‘While it is true that I love the earth more than I love my own mother, goddess rest her soul,’ Kaseem replied, ‘I also have a duty to preserve the bounty that she offers from deep within her ample crust.’
‘And it is there that you and I share a common purpose,’ Haroun laughed. ‘Isn’t that right, my friend?’ he said, addressing the hulking, dark-skinned islander lumbering up the beach after him.
The one known to the rest of the crew as Taboo merely grunted.
Rumour had it that he was a native of the Archipelago but Taboo would never tell, not since he had clearly had his tongue cut out long ago and there was no indication that he could read or write either. The myriad tattoos that covered his near-naked body, and that made his already dark skin even darker, didn’t give away any clues either. He had joined the crew at the same time as Haroun, and it was the former street-rat who had told the others the big brute’s name was Taboo. Whether he had meant that the islander’s name was literally Taboo, or was something that should never be spoken aloud, none of them knew. What they did know was that what Taboo brought to the group – along with the tattoos, various bone piercings, and growled speech – was a fierce loyalty.
But despite the strange inked patterns, pierced flesh and animal grunts, Taboo was not the member of the party who left the rest with the greatest sense of unease. That dubious honour went to Manu, the one also known as ‘the Shark’, with his sharpened teeth and the gill-like cuts on his neck.
Manu had never revealed whether the scarification was self-induced or whether it had been forced upon him as part of some tribal initiation rite. And then there were the rumours of cannibalism, stories which Manu had neither contested nor confirmed.
What Sinzar did know was that he had seen Manu in battle and as well as having made effective use of both his boarding axe and a marlin spike, the pirate wasn’t averse to using his teeth either. Sinzar had seen opponents stumble away from him, screaming, clutching at their throats, blood pouring from between their fingers. And none of them had survived.
Three members of the crew were pulling the shallow-keeled boat up to the tideline of seaborne detritus that had collected halfway up the seashell-white sands.
‘Scrimshaw!’ Sinzar called, summoning a tall, wiry man, with skin the colour and texture of old leather and wild white hair, from where he was helping haul the boat ashore.
The near toothless Scrimshaw was clearly the oldest of them, but it was impossible to tell whether he was fifty-five or seventy-five. Despite the crow’s foot wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and straggly white beard, he was also lithe as a lemur and his wiry form belied a strength born of years at sea. In fact, Scrimshaw himself claimed to have been born at sea.
‘Yes, Captain!’ he said, almost saluting as he joined Sinzar.
‘Let’s see that map of yours again. Are we sure this is the place?’
The older man pulled the cracked and creased parchment from where it lay, tucked within his smock shirt, and unfolded it carefully.
Sinzar considered the brushstrokes that delineated peaks and trees and coastal coves – absent-mindedly stroking his close-cut beard as he did so – looking up at the highlands visible beyond the dense jungle now and again, in an attempt to compare the map to the landscape of the island.
‘You see that crag over there,’ Scrimshaw said, pointing north-west, ‘that looks like a bird’s beak?’ He pointed at a spot on the map. ‘That’s here, and we’re here.’ He indicated a crescent-shaped bay close to the bottom edge of the map.
‘Agreed,’ Sinzar said, ‘so this is the place.’
It had been no mean feat to find the actual isle they were looking for amidst the magica
lly-shifting island chain. And who knew how long it might remain within the Southern Ocean, before returning to wherever it vanished to for centuries at a time? But that was why it paid to have a Warden among your crew; they had proved themselves able to navigate the Isles time and time again, when even experienced seamen found it nigh on impossible.
‘And what does this say again?’ Sinzar traced a line of unintelligible, angular marks that looked to him more like marks made in clay with a chisel-tipped stick rather than something recognisable as script.
‘It’s Drichean,’ the old sailor said. ‘This mark here means “fortune”, and this one means “lies” or “buried”. And this series of symbols means “this place”. So, in other words, it reads “Treasure buried here.”’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Sinzar said. ‘Now we just need to work out precisely where “here” is.’
He looked back down the beach. ‘Vasquez!’ he called. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Yes, Captain Sinzar,’ the eager young sailor replied. Lagan the shipmaster’s niece, Denara Vasquez, was the youngest, most petite, and most attractive member of his crew, although she chose to dress like a bilge-rat, favouring a waistcoat and pantaloons over flowing skirts. In fact, Sinzar couldn’t recall having ever seen her wear a dress. She was also the most determined, keen to prove herself as capable as any of the others, and indeed was more capable than some of them, especially when it came to cooking.
Haroun had made lascivious advances towards her once, but she had soon taught him to mind his manners. He hadn’t been able to walk straight for a week!
Sinzar knew that, but Lagan didn’t, otherwise the shipmaster would have thrown Haroun overboard long ago. And although the Captain felt much greater fondness for Lagan and his niece, Haroun brought his own unique skills to the group – skills he had picked up growing up on the streets of Mandrabar. But more importantly he also brought Taboo, with his great strength and indefatigable stamina.
Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago: Tales of the Lost Isles Page 8
