Ascension of Death

by Andy Peloquin

  The Kish’aa drove away her fear, but the presence of her friends filled her with courage.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she nodded to Kodyn. “Let’s do this.”

  All eyes turned to Briana.

  “Right.” Digging into the sack, she pulled out her father’s journal and flipped through the pages. "So, according to my father’s notes, there should be all sorts of runes here.” Her brow furrowed as she scanned the smooth sandstone walls.

  “There are.” Eyes alight with excitement, Kodyn reached into his pouch, drew out the green glowstone he’d taken from Desenne, and held it up to the wall.

  Runes flared to life all along the smooth surface, forming a circular pattern that radiated outward in an ornate mandala of brilliant emerald light. In the center of the door, a chunk of golden sandstone darkened to a black deeper than onyx, shining brighter than obsidian.

  “Whoa!” Evren and Hailen gasped in unison. Even Lady Callista and Pharus Amhoset Nephelcheres seemed stunned and delighted by the sudden change.

  “Can you read them?” Kodyn asked, his tone eager.

  “It’s the same sequence of runes, just repeated over and over.” Briana’s brow furrowed and her lips moved as she read the glowing symbols. “Hina-lo karkari na tothas, sou im'lle ghra-ceri kat!”

  The moment the words left her lips, something hummed deep within the wall, a low-pulsing energy Aisha could feel as well as hear. The power trembled through her bones, pierced her mind, tugged at the hairs on her arms. Aisha held her breath, excitement coursing through her, but as Briana’s voice fell silent, so too the energy seemed to diminish and fade into oblivion.

  “Whoa, sound!” Briana sucked in a breath. “My father was right. Serenii magic really is activated by sound!”

  “Here, let me try.” Hailen quickly slipped through the crowd to stand before the vault. “I think you’re mispronouncing that one, the one that looks like three intersecting rivers.”

  Drawing in a deep breath, he read. “Hina-lo karkari na tothas, so-yu im'lle ghra-ceri kat!”

  This time, the power set the ground shaking beneath Aisha’s feet, and she could feel it pressing against her mind, tugging at her limbs and thoughts, drawing her toward it. Yet when Hailen finished the words, once again the power dissipated and drained away.

  Aisha’s eyes narrowed. Why isn’t it working?

  Suddenly, she felt the tugging on her again. Of course! Aisha reached into her shirt and drew out the pendant. Blue-white lights danced through the black stone, the spirits a seething mass of power that she could feel through her fingers.

  Once more, the glowing runes pulled on the power, setting the pendant twitching in her hands. Her eyes were drawn not to the black stone in the center of the door, but to a small aperture off to the right. She didn’t need to step closer to know it would be a perfect fit.

  Slowly, she pulled the necklace over her head. She felt naked without it, and the world seemed to have gone mute. The hallway seemed eerily silent, the sounds of the spirits cut off. She’d only worn it for a few days, yet it had become an integral part of her.

  After only a moment’s hesitation, she placed the pendant into the slot. It slid into the opening smoothly and snapped into place with an audible click. Her gut clenched as the pendant was absorbed into the wall, the golden sandstone closing around it.

  A sudden surge of energy blossomed in the air around her. Brilliant sparks of blue-white threaded the stone, pulled through the golden wall in six parallel channels toward the black gemstone at the center of the door.

  Immediately, the stone lit up, filling with the light of the Kish’aa just as her pendant had. This time, there was no mistaking the burst of power that flooded the hallway. The humming within the vault door rose to a deafening crescendo. The hairs along Aisha’s arms stood on end, and she felt the power all the way to the tips of her toes.

  “Now!” she shouted over the rising thrum echoing from the stone door. “Read the words!”

  Hailen read the words again. “Hina-lo karkari na tothas, so-yu im'lle ghra-ceri kat!”

  Aisha felt more than heard the thunk from deep within the vault door. Stone rumbled against stone with the throaty roar of a giant awakening from slumber. Suddenly, an entire section of wall shifted, pulled back, and began slowly rolling to the side.

  Dusty air spilled through an ever-widening crack in the wall. Darkness lay behind the opening door, but brilliant white light suddenly burst to life within. Glowstones flooded the Vault of Ancients with a gentle luminescence that pushed back every shadow, brightened every corner.

  Aisha drew in a breath. The Vault of Ancients was open. The hunt for the secret of the Serenii has begun.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Whoa!” Kodyn breathed as he drank in the interior of the Vault of Ancients.

  Five paces long, wide, and tall, it was a perfect cube carved from the golden sandstone of Alshuruq with breathtaking precision. The walls, floor, and ceiling appeared perfectly straight, etched with ornate stylized whorls and details far too complex and elaborate for any stonemason he’d ever encountered. Every surface was covered with lines carved into the stone, a swirling, spinning pattern of a thousand mandalas of different sizes interwoven with each other. Artistic chaos blended together in the sort of harmony only achieved by the ancient Serenii.

  Hundreds of white glowstones were set into the walls, twinkling like the stars in the night sky. They filled the vault’s interior with a light at once gentle to Kodyn’s eyes and brilliant enough to push back all hint of shadow. Every inch of the vault was brightened, bathed in that soft white glimmer that felt soothing, energizing, and refreshing.

  “Look!” Hailen’s voice echoed with excitement.

  Kodyn followed the boy’s pointing finger toward the floor. Six threads of blue-white light snaked along the interwoven lines etched into the stone beneath his feet, slithering like radiant serpents toward the six stone pedestals placed in perfect array. One pedestal stood near each corner of the room, their flat stone surfaces covered with dust. Two more stood side by side, a hand’s breadth apart, in the center of chamber.

  And there, resting atop the smooth tops of the two parallel pedestals, sat the Crown of the Pharus, the Keeper’s Scepter, and the Blade of Hallar.

  Kodyn’s eyes immediately snapped to the Crown of the Pharus. Instead of an ornate headdress as he had expected, the crown was a simple circlet made of two interwoven silver and platinum bands. A warrior’s crown, said to belong to Hallar, the founder of Shalandra. Yet its simplicity seemed to enhance its regal design; in the white light, it seemed to glow with a monarchical brilliance that filled Kodyn with a sudden desire to bow the knee in reverence.

  The Keeper’s Scepter had more in common with a mace than the ornate, gold-and-jewel-encrusted staff of office wielded by King Ohilmos of Praamis. It appeared as long as Kodyn’s forearm, with a shaft as thick as two fingers, made of the same intertwined silver and white gold. The large tip of the scepter bore a gemstone as black as the Serenii artifacts in Briana’s satchel.

  Kodyn shot a glance at Evren, whose eyes were riveted on the Blade of Hallar. The sword had a hand-and-a-half hilt covered with pure white leather, and the entire haft was pure gold encrusted with gleaming crimson rubies, azure sapphires, and emeralds of the deepest green. Kodyn’s brow furrowed; the blade appeared oddly ornate compared to the circlet and scepter that rested beside it.

  “By the Face of Mercy!” Wonder sparkled in Pharus Amhoset Nephelcheres’ eyes. “I’ve always dreamed of accompanying the Arch-Guardian in here.” A smile twisted his lips. “It’s simpler than I imagined, yet somehow…even more beautiful for its simplicity.” He made to step in.

  “Wait!” Briana threw out a hand to stop him.

  The Pharus looked down at her, curiosity and concern mingling in his eyes.

  “My father spoke of traps,” Briana said. “Safeguards left in place to prevent the secrets stored here from falling into the wrong hands.”

/>   “It’s probably too much to hope that Tethum doesn’t know about those traps, right?” Kodyn shot his friends a wry grin. “It would be so much easier to let whatever Serenii traps that are in here take care of him for us.”

  “If he knows how to open the door to the vault, he has to know the vault’s secrets.” Briana replied.

  “So how do we enter safely?” the Pharus asked.

  Briana pointed to one of the threads of blue-white light snaking along the ground. “We follow the spirits.” She tapped a page in her father’s journal. “At least, that’s what I think.”

  “You referring to the bit where he says, ‘Let the strength of the fallen guide your steps’?” Hailen asked.

  Briana nodded. “That’s the only thing I can think of.”

  For long seconds, no one moved. The Pharus, Lady Callista, and Issa stared in reverent wonder at the glowing lights and ornate details of the vault—among the holiest places in their city. As for Evren, Hailen, Briana, and Aisha, they seemed to hesitate out of a more practical respect. Serenii traps had a tendency to be far deadlier than the sort of snares crafted by human hands.

  Finally, Kodyn stepped forward. “I’ll go first.”

  “Kodyn—” Aisha began.

  “Hey, I’m the one with the most experience at this sort of thing.” Kodyn shot her a grin. “If anyone can find and disarm a trap, it’s me.” They didn’t need to know how sophisticated and complex Serenii traps tended to be—his mother had told him of her breakout from the Black Spire, the countless times she’d come a heartbeat from painful death due.

  “Be careful,” Briana said. “Stick to the lights.”

  Kodyn stepped gingerly into the vault, taking care to place his foot precisely atop the glowing line on the floor. He held his breath and slowly took another step, this one onto his injured leg. He shifted his weight with caution, every muscle tense, every sense on full alert. At even the slightest sound or shift in the floor, he’d hurl himself backward and out the vault.

  Silence met his ears. The stone bore his weight. No hidden plates clicked, no sudden burst of fire or spray of acid darts.

  He exhaled quietly—better not to let the others see his unease—and continued forward. But when he placed his weight on his injured leg once more, his knee wobbled, the joint threatening to buckle. He found himself suddenly off-balance and tilting to his left.

  Gasps echoed behind him. Kodyn threw his arms wide and managed to steady himself a heartbeat before he fell. “I’m fine!” He turned and gave the Secret Keeper hand signal for “all’s well”.

  Aisha growled a Ghandian curse, one that made “clumsier than a newborn foal” seem a compliment by comparison.

  Kodyn’s grin widened. “I’ve got this.” The casual demeanor hid his true feelings. The anxiety in Aisha’s voice echoed with the same nervous tension that twisted his stomach in knots. He’d always felt uneasy when stealing into new places; that wary edge had heightened his focus and kept him alive this long.

  Deeper into the vault he went, step by cautious step, until he reached a spot where the six lines of light intersected before branching off toward the pedestals.

  “Hah!” He gave a little spin and flourish. “See, nothing to it!”

  Something shifted beneath his heel and a quiet click echoed behind him. A gust of air blew through the vault, carrying a noxious chemical smell. Kodyn didn’t need to know the source of the smell to understand its meaning. Instantly, he threw himself back the way he’d come, sprinting along the line of light as fast as his injured leg could carry him.

  He’d taken just two steps when a huge pillar of fire blossomed from the ceiling, just above where he’d been standing a heartbeat earlier. Blistering heat washed over Kodyn, scalding his face and singeing the skin of his upraised hands.

  The flames died two seconds later, but the brilliance left a red afterimage glowing in Kodyn’s eyes. If he hadn’t fled, he’d be nothing more than a charred pile of ash.

  He lay on the floor, gasping for breath, heart hammering. The smell of burnt hair and scorched clothing hung thick in the vault.

  Pushing himself up onto his elbows, he shot a rueful grin back at his companions. “Uh, yeah, so careful’s definitely the way to go.”

  Evren snorted. “Gee, if only we’d known that before we entered.”

  Aisha shot Kodyn a withering look. This time, her Ghandian curses didn’t stop at just the simple “dung for brains”. “Keep it simple,” she growled in her native language. “Showing off’s just going to get you killed.”

  Kodyn turned away to hide his embarrassed blush and climbed slowly to his feet. He’d banged his already-injured knee in his fall, and pain spiked through the bone and joint. Thankfully, aside from a nasty bruise, he’d escaped the lethal trap relatively unscathed.

  He continued on his cautious path, picking his way along the blue-white glowing line toward the two pedestals in the center of the chamber. Yet as he drew closer, a question nagged in the back of his mind. “There’s something I don’t get about this,” he said. “Vaults are crafted to be secure, but they’re also designed to be opened by their owners at will. So why craft one that only opens every three months, all on its own?”

  “Every three months?” Surprise echoed in the Pharus’ voice. When Kodyn glanced back, the Pharus’ eyes were wide, but Lady Callista’s had narrowed to dangerous slits.

  Kodyn grimaced. His curiosity about the vault’s unusual construction had led to a momentary lapse in memory. He’d forgotten that Suroth hadn’t revealed the true nature of the vault door to the Pharus or the Lady of Blades.

  Briana’s glare drove burning daggers into his gut. “Yes,” she said. “My father told us that the Serenii-designed mechanisms open the vault door automatically four times a year.”

  Irritation flashed across the Pharus’ strong face. “Failed to mention that, our dear Arch-Guardian did.”

  “Suroth was a man of many secrets,” Lady Callista said, her tone mollifying. “Doubtless he had a reason for concealing this one.”

  Kodyn’s mind worked at the problem, trying to unravel the riddle of the vault. A door that only opened every three months, built with a locking mechanism triggered by a lockstone, magic words, and Aisha’s spirit powers.

  “Oh!” He nearly kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner. “It’s a fail-safe mechanism.”

  “Fail-safe?” Briana’s brows furrowed.

  “Something locksmiths build into their designs,” Kodyn explained. “A trigger or feature that opens the lock in case one of the components fails. It’s done so people don’t end up with their valuables locked away forever just because a spring rusted or a cogwheel slipped out of place.”

  His training in House Hawk had involved a great deal of study into the constructions of locks of all types, as well as some of the newfangled clockwork mechanisms popular among the Praamian nobility.

  He gestured around him. “The Serenii built the lock to open with Aisha’s powers and the magic words, but they added the fail-safe to open the door in case humans didn’t have access to the power!”

  Briana’s face brightened. “Of course!” Excitement sparkled in her eyes. “It was designed to account for the fact that the people who lived here might not always have access to magic or an understanding of the Serenii language. The builders left that fail-safe so that no matter what happened, we could always access whatever was stored within.”

  The implications of that realization staggered Kodyn. The Serenii had fled Einan five thousand years earlier, yet somehow they’d had the foresight to prepare for an eventuality that would only come to pass after their demise. That sort of insight bordered on clairvoyance—would it be so hard to imagine that creatures capable of shaping the world might also have the ability to peer into the future?

  “The good news is that this means we were right to suspect that there’s something important here.” Hailen spoke up from door. He was the first to enter the vault, cautiously placing his feet ato
p the blue-white lines as he strode toward Kodyn. “They wanted us to get into the vault, even if we didn’t have the power.”

  “That’s great and all,” put in Evren. His eyes were fixed on Hailen, worry darkening his face. Clearly he took the threat of the Serenii traps far more seriously than the young boy. “But now that we’re in, what the hell are we supposed to do?”

  “Whatever it is, you need to do it faster!” Issa called from the doorway. “The Stumblers are getting in!”

  The sounds of battle drifted into the vault; shouts of alarm and the clash of steel had grown louder. The battle was drawing nearer.

  Kodyn’s mind raced. He turned to Briana. “So we suspected this place was the room of waiting, which should lead us into Hallar’s Tomb, right?”

  Briana nodded agreement, but never took her eyes off the journal as she flipped through the pages.

  “Then please tell me there’s something in there that tells us how to open the tomb!” Anxiety dug icy fingers into Kodyn’s mind. Bringing down the Keeper’s Crypts had bought them time, but the grains of sand in the hourglass were trickling away far too fast.

  “I’m looking.” Briana chewed on her lip, her brows furrowed in concentration.

  “Look!” Hailen’s voice echoed from behind Kodyn.

  Kodyn spun toward the boy, who stood beside the pedestals in the center of the room. His violet eyes were fixed upward.

  “Hallar’s Prophecy!” Hailen gasped.

  Kodyn lifted his gaze and his eyes flew wide at the sight of glowing runes etched into the ceiling. He couldn’t understand the glyphs, but Hailen’s voice rang out in the vault as he read aloud.

  “When sword and scepter align

  The blood of ancients revived

  Child of secrets, child of spirits, child of gold

  Half-master seeks the relic of old

  Then Hallar’s blood shall rise

  And sew the final destruction from midnight eyes.”

  “The sword and scepter!” Evren darted into the room, racing across the glowing line toward the pedestals in the center of the chamber. “The Blade of Hallar and the Keeper’s Scepter.”