Three stones bore charcoal lines, markers placed by Seward to indicate which stones to press. Each looked identical to the next. Jaikus had hoped that perhaps there would be some tell-tale marking or deformation which might offer a clue, but was sadly disappointed. Picking one at random, he placed his foot upon it, and braced himself for the unexpected. Then he slowly transferred his weight to the stone and felt it shift under him.
With a quick, downward thrust, he stomped on the stone and stepped back quickly. When he looked, the stone was now recessed half an inch into the floor.
“Good work,” praised Charka. “Now, pick the next one.”
“Be careful,” he heard Reneeke holler from where his friend waited with the others. He cast a glance back over his shoulder and saw Reneeke’s encouraging expression. Jaikus nodded, then returned his attention to the task at hand.
One more to go. Either it will be the right one, and all will be fine. Or it won’t, and he may not live much longer. Moving to in front of the charcoal-striped stone nearest the end of the passage, he gently placed his foot upon it. Then just as before, he stomped on it hard while a fraction of a second later, jumped back.
Again, he completed the maneuver without eliciting a response. The second stone was now recessed into the floor half an inch same as the first.
“I think you got it,” said Charka. “Now do the third.”
As he moved into position, he heard Seward say, “I hope this works.”
Having successfully depressed the first two stones, he had some confidence in his chances of surviving the third. Setting his foot atop the stone, he put his full weight upon it, this time without the leap backward. Beneath his foot, he felt a click and a rumbling sound came from before him.
The wall was opening up.
Chapter Nine
“Lucky guess.”
Seward’s voice could not negate the feelings of relief and satisfaction Jaikus felt at seeing the wall slide aside.
“Way to go, Jaik!” Reneeke’s shout of congratulations, on the other hand, did much to bolster those feelings.
“Yes. Well done indeed.” Charka came up from behind and slapped him on the back. Gazing into the opening, he asked, “Now, what do we have here?”
The sliding of the door revealed a passage equally as large and well formed as the one in which they now stood. A pair of torch sconces sat as sentinels several feet from the opening, one to either side. Both were empty.
“Looks like a passageway,” replied Jaikus.
Charka nodded. “Let’s see where it goes.” He then gave Jaikus a slight nudge to get him moving.
Relief and satisfaction quickly gave way to nervousness and fear as he once again proceeded into the unknown. Shining the light before him, he moved to, and then through, the newly formed opening.
After his last experience, he gave the floor a much greater scrutiny. Though how to tell if there were more loose pressure plates similar to those encountered before was something about which he hadn't the faintest clue.
Upon reaching the pair of sconces, the light from the lantern revealed another pair farther down. He was beginning to wonder if similar pairs would be encountered at regular intervals when the floor dropped out from beneath him.
A cry of fear escaped him as he started to plummet. Arms and legs flailing to find any means by which to halt his fall, he felt the rope tied about his middle snap taut. The abrupt halt caused him to slam into the side of the shaft. Then he heard from above. “Look out, Jaik!”
Horror filled him as he glanced up toward the call. Small sections of the walls to which the torch sconces were attached, were rotating outward and down. He had but a moment to ponder this new development before, from out of one sconce, a liquid gushed forth.
Twisting and pushing himself along the side of the shaft, Jaikus fought to avoid coming into contact with the liquid. Was it acid? Poison? An image flashed into his mind of the equipment in Keeler’s back room, the ones the smith had claimed an acid trap had destroyed.
Despite his best efforts, some of the liquid hit him as it passed. An involuntary cry and much contorted thrashing later, he realized it was not acid at all, but oil. Possibly lamp oil.
“Catch it!” he heard Charka yell.
Something else fell from above. Its basic shape was spherical, but misshapen. He tried to do as instructed and catch it, but the object slipped through his grip and vanished into the darkness below. Two seconds later, he heard the object strike the bottom. There was a flash, then fire sprang to life forty feet below. As the smoke began to rise, he felt a tug on the rope. The others were drawing him from the shaft like a bucket from a well. When he reached the top, Reneeke was there to grab him by the hand and pull him the rest of the way out.
“Are you okay?” his friend asked, concern evident in his voice.
Smoke issuing from out of the shaft caused him to cough, but he nodded. “Yeah, Rene. I’m fine. Now I understand the need for the rope.”
Reneeke grinned. If Jaikus was able to quip a response like that, he would be fine.
Jaikus glanced back to where a good section of the passageway had fallen away. “Another trap?”
“Looks that way,” affirmed Charka. “You must have tripped it when you passed through.”
Reneeke shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t?” asked Charka.
“No, sir.” Gesturing back to the hole bellowing smoke, he said, “It doesn’t feel right. I think that Jaikus tripped the trap when he pressed the stones to access this secret area. They opened the way, true, but they also triggered this trap to catch the intruder after he passed through. By lulling us into believing any wards had been circumvented, we stumbled into the trap quite readily. Without the rope, Jaikus would assuredly be dead.”
“True enough,” agreed Jaikus.
“I don’t know about that,” argued Charka, then shrugged. “Anything’s possible.”
“It was a nasty one, too,” added Seward, appreciatively. “Not only was it designed to drop the intruder down a pit, but it poured oil and dropped a Pyra stone to finish the job.”
“Is that what that was?” questioned Jaikus. “A Pyra stone?” He recalled someone shouting for him to catch the falling object, which he had failed to do.
Charka nodded. “That it was. Strike a Pyra stone hard enough, and it will ignite.”
“So that was how the oil caught fire?”
“Exactly. When the Pyra stone hit the bottom, it did so with enough force to cause it to ignite and the oil went up in flames.”
Jaikus swallowed hard. “If it hadn’t been for the rope…”
“You would have been roasted alive. Provided of course that the fall didn’t kill you first.”
“Wicked,” exclaimed Reneeke. “Oh, that reminds me, Bella said he would take any Pyra stones you found. Claimed to have a buyer wanting some.”
Charka grinned. “I’m sure he would. They are in high demand by the magic users. Am I not right, Kate?”
“You are, and the Tower always pays well for such.”
“Maybe there are more where that one came from?” suggested Reneeke. Glancing toward where the section of the walls had settled before dropping their lethal cargo, he couldn’t see any means to access the inner workings of the trap.
Seward shook his head. “You would have to find the trap’s back side. The stones are worth some gold to be sure, but not enough to warrant us wasting our time trying to get to them.”
“Indeed,” agreed Charka. Coming to Jaikus, the Troupe leader asked, “Are you able to continue?”
Jaikus nodded. “I think so. Just a little shaky.”
“I’ll continue as Springer for the next bit,” offered Reneeke.
“Very well. That may be for the best.”
“Thanks,” Jaikus said as he untied the rope from around his middle and handed it to his friend.
“No problem.”
Once the rope was securely in place, Reneeke moved
to the edge of the shaft. He could readily leap the four foot gap to the other side. But before he did, he couldn’t help but look down at what was left of the fire burning far below. Gauging the distance to the bottom at around sixty feet, he was glad that Charka had insisted they use the rope. Without it, Jaikus wouldn’t have fared nearly so well.
About to leap across, he paused when a thought occurred to him. Glancing over his shoulder toward Charka, he said, “I wonder if there is anything at the bottom of this pit.”
Seward laughed. “They wouldn’t stash their treasure in such a place.”
“That’s not what I was thinking,” he explained. “Perhaps Jaikus wasn’t the first to run afoul of this trap. Could it be possible that someone else happened this way in the past? What’s left of them could be lying down below.”
“They’d be nothing but dust by now,” replied Charka. “It would have to be centuries since the last person wandered these passages.”
“I wasn’t thinking about their body, but what they may have had on them; treasure, and what-not.”
A calculating look appeared in Charka’s eyes. “Can you see anything down there?”
Reneeke glanced back down the shaft. “I can see shadows in the firelight, but nothing definite.” Grabbing hold of the rope already tied to him, he shook it then asked, “Want me to take a look?”
Charka nodded. “Might be worth the time. Go ahead.”
Seward joined him on holding the rope as Reneeke moved into position. With one hand holding the rope, and the other gripping the lantern, Reneeke scooted over the edge. As his weight came full upon the rope, he glanced to the two holding him secure and nodded.
Down into the shaft he went. Charka and Seward let out the rope slowly, keeping his descent steady and manageable. Jaikus stood at the lip with Lady Kate to observe his progress.
Smoke continued rising from the shaft, though it was beginning to taper off now that most of the oil had been burned away. In the light of the dying fires, Jaikus and Lady Kate could see that the bottom of the shaft was littered with debris.
“Your friend has a good head for this business.”
Jaikus nodded. “Reneeke has always been smart. Or perhaps creative would be a better way to describe him. You can always count on him to approach a problem in a way unexpected. Often, advantageously.”
Below, Reneeke had reached the halfway point. “He’s halfway there,” she told the two playing out the rope. “How is the rope holding out?”
“I think we may have enough,” Charka replied. Panning out more, he and Seward kept lowering the young Springer closer to the bottom.
In the shaft, Reneeke was close enough now to direct the lantern’s light downward to reveal what treasures might await at the shaft’s bottom. The smoke had continued dissipating until now, it was barely a hindrance.
Three sets of bones lay in various states of repose across the bottom. Two were human, one was not. Of the humans, one had a cracked skull while the other looked to have broken his leg upon impact. He wasn’t sure what the non human one may have been, but there was a sword lying across its midsection indicating the creature had been sentient. Reneeke was fairly certain the sword did not belong to the two human skeletons as they each had swords of their own.
His feet alighted upon the stone bottom and the rope grew slack. “I’m here!” he hollered.
“Anything?” came Charka’s question.
“Yes! Give me a moment and I’ll give you a full inventory.” He looked at the glitter of coins and jewels that lay scattered about, as well as several other items that he wasn’t sure what they were. “Toss down my pack!” A moment later, he saw the brown leather pack freefalling toward him. Once he had it, he began scooping up valuables.
The human skeleton’s swords were in bad repair. As pitted and rusted as they were, Reneeke thought that even Keeler would refuse them. He stepped on the blade of one and felt it crumble beneath his foot. How long would it take for a blade to be reduced to such a state? Centuries? Longer? He may never know.
On the other hand, the blade of the non-human was still in good shape. It looked rather plain with a simple, unadorned crossguard. There was no filigree or anything else that might indicate it to be more than a simple blade. Taking the sword, he noticed that it felt lighter and better balanced than the one he carried. Running his finger down the business end he discovered that it still held an edge. Reneeke removed his blade from its scabbard and slid the new one in. The fit was a bit loose as this new blade was slightly narrower, but it would work. Since his old sword wasn’t worth much, he left it lying on the floor of the shaft. He felt certain Charka would not begrudge him this new blade.
The glitter of gold drew his attention to the skeletal hand of one of the humans. Two rings rested upon the bony appendages. One was a plain, golden band, and the other was silver bearing a ruby set in white gold. He knew Charka would like the second one.
Once he had gleaned everything of value from among the misfortunate trio that had long ago succumbed to the trap far above, he hollered that he was ready to be pulled up.
“Excellent job,” praised Charka when Reneeke emptied the contents of the pack onto the passageway floor. And as he had thought, Charka zeroed in on the ring with the ruby. “Yes. Excellent indeed.”
Lady Kate on the other hand was more interested in the objects gathered along with the coins and jewels. There were four: a six inch stick that looked like it had been taken from a willow tree; a crystal orb whose center was the color of aquamarine; and a pair of black, onyx-like spheres that had irises etched into their surfaces. What her supposition may have been as to the properties, or lack thereof, of the items was forestalled by Charka’s announcement that it was time they continued on.
“We can give this all a more thorough examination upon our return to camp.”
Nodding, Lady Kate put her items into her pack while Charka and Seward divvied the rest between theirs.
“Doesn’t Reneeke get something?” queried Jaikus. He knew better than to ask about himself.
“Your shares will be given upon our return to Reakla.”
Jaikus was less than thrilled, but Reneeke took it in stride.
Pulling his new-found sword from the scabbard, he said, “I also found this.” Reneeke held it out for Charka’s inspection. “It was better than my previous one, so I took it.”
Charka nodded to Lady Kate who took possession of the sword. After the metal glowed blue for a brief time, she said, “There is a definite aura to it.”
“Magical?” asked Jaikus.
“To some degree, yes.” She handed it back to Reneeke. “I detect nothing malignant about its prowess.”
Reneeke glanced to Charka before taking the sword back.
“Keep it,” the Troupe leader said. “For without your insightful proposal of investigating the shaft, it would have remained there along with these other treasures. Consider it a bonus. It will not be accounted against your share of the profits.”
“Thank you.” Taking back the sword, he flashed Jaikus a grin before resheathing it. His friend was green with envy.
Charka shrugged.
“Can you tell what the, uh, aura does?” Jaikus asked Lady Kate.
“Not without expending much more time and effort. If he wishes to know more, he will have to do that on his own. Olaf’s would have scrolls to do the trick, though they are a bit pricey. It might be wiser to invest your take from this venture in armor and other items. Or maybe even training at the Guild should you become a member.”
“Other items? You mean like healing scrolls?”
She nodded. “Exactly. Olaf has something he calls the Basic Pack. It’s a dozen scrolls for less than it would cost to buy singly.”
“Thanks. We’ll keep that in mind.”
Over by the shaft, Reneeke leapt across the opening to land safely on the far side. Moving down only a short distance, he waited for the others to cross before continuing further. Once Charka and Seward
made the crossing, he directed the lantern’s light to shine down the passageway, then proceeded into the unknown.
The passageway continued straight for fifty feet before it was clear they were approaching another room. Slowing his pace, Reneeke scanned the floor ahead for any irregularities as he went. He reached the room without incident.
“Got a room up here,” he hollered over his shoulder.
“Anything in it?” Hurrying forward, Charka came to stand behind his Springer.
Starting on the right, Reneeke panned the light slowly across the room. Midway through, he paused when a square, iron bound wooden box entered the field of light. Its sides were composed of wood, though the wood was in an advanced state of decay. The box’s left side sagged noticeably.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”
“A chest, maybe?” queried Reneeke.
“Definitely.” He then had Reneeke finish panning the light through the rest of the room, whose effort revealed another doorway in the wall to their left. The sagging, iron bound box was the sole occupant of the room.
Bringing the light back to settle upon the chest, Reneeke asked, “Want me to check it out?”
“If you wouldn’t mind?”
Reneeke directed the light toward the floor before him, gave it a once over, then carefully began making his way across to the chest.
“It will be your turn when we continue on,” Charka told his other Springer.
Jaikus merely nodded as he watched his friend’s progress.
It’s a trap!
That thought was very much on Reneeke’s mind. He may not have been a thief, but something like this chest, left all by itself out in the open, said something was not quite right. Logically, he couldn’t fathom why it would be left in such an exposed way, except perhaps, to tempt the unwary into doing something fatal. Like what he was doing right now.
As his proximity to the chest narrowed, so too did his pace slow. He rotated the iris of the bulls-eye lantern in order to focus a more direct beam of light upon the chest. There were definite cracks in the wood, some large enough to expose that which was contained within. The lantern’s light was being reflected off of something metallic and bright from the inside.
Jaikus and Reneeke Join the Guild Page 12
