that the throne itself was keyed. Bredeth used the scepter to unlock the passage beneath it.” She cast a grateful glance at the young noble.“What if the scepter is also the key for this door?”
“You speak wisdom,” the decrepit mage responded, turning tothe rest of the group. Durgoth, still hiding in the shadows, shook his head. A part of him longed to snap the patronizing nobleman’s brittle neck. Only a fewmore minutes, he thought, and I can rid myself of all of them.
“What side of the scepter did you use to unlock the throne?”the wizard asked.
“The side with the silver knob,” the young man responded.
The mage nodded and took the scepter from the bard. Durgoth watched as the old man placed the implement’s gold ball against a depression inthe doors. There was a moment of complete silence. The stream of blood slowed to a trickle and finally stopped.
Durgoth watched with barely contained excitement as the doors swung silently open. He crept to the back of the passage where the remainder of his followers waited expectantly. In a short while, his quest would be complete. Years of patient struggle and endless plotting would finally pay off.
And the killing would begin.
24
Kaerion entered the imposing chamber with his sword drawn,ready for an attack-and nearly dropped the weapon as a bright wave ofillumination assaulted his eyes. Blinking hard to adjust his vision, he called out a warning to the rest of the party. They entered slowly, cautious of the dangers that might lay hidden in this room.
Unlike the halls within the rest of the tomb, this square chamber contained elaborately crafted gold sconces spaced regularly along the walls. A bright yellow flame burned hotly within each of the gilded holders. Like the ceiling in the foyer from whence the party had come, polished silver covered the roof of this room, reflecting and magnifying the light from each sconce so intensely that it took Kaerion a few moments to realize that the flames burned with an unearthly power. They neither flickered nor reacted to the passage of the party in any way.
A few more steps carried him into the center of the chamber. What he saw nearly took his breath away. Kaerion stood, not upon the familiar gray stone that had made up most of the tomb, but on top of a floor composed of a semi-precious material-agate from the look of it-crafted and polished togleaming perfection. A granite sarcophagus rested on the floor against the far wall, and even from his position Kaerion could see the slant and whorl of ancient glyphs inscribed about its surface. In front of the burial mound stood an oversized bronze urn. The unmistakable flash of gold filigree caught his eye as the object’s decorative swirls reflected the light. Kaerion watched warily asa thin stream of bluish-gray smoke issued forth from a vent near the urn’s brassstopper.
“Will you look at that,” a voice from behind him said.Kaerion looked at the speaker and was surprised to find himself regarding Landra. The guard captain had moved forward with the rest of the party and stopped in the chamber’s center. She gazed intently at the two massive ironchests that sat to either side of the sarcophagus.
“This must be Acererak’s treasury,” Landra said in a hushedvoice. If this were any other place at any other time, Kaerion might have smiled. This was the first time he had seen the veteran awed by anything.
“Be careful about what you touch,” Phathas wheezed. “I don’tthink we’ve reached the heart of this tomb yet.”
Concerned but mindful of the mage’s pride, Kaerion watched asthe old wizard walked unsteadily toward the sarcophagus and lifted his staff above its granite lid Phathas muttered a few words and then took a step back, a look of surprise stamped clearly upon his wizened face. “Nothing!” the mageexclaimed.
“There are no spells on the sarcophagus?” Gerwyth asked as hewalked gracefully up to the man.
“No. I mean that I felt nothing,” the mage explained in atone so exasperated that Kaerion winced in sympathy for his friend’s innocentquestion. “My spell didn’t work!” Phathas began to cast another spell. Againnothing happened. “It appears that something is interfering with my magic,” theold man said. “What about you Majandra?”
It only took a few moments for the bard to determine that she too was affected by this strange occurrence. “Well,” she said in a tone sosimilar to Phathas’ earlier exclamation that Kaerion had to fight off the urgeto smile, “whatever wards are blocking our magic don’t seem to be affecting thetomb itself.” The bard pointed to the wall sconces.
“Shouldn’t we open the sarcophagus?” Bredeth asked. “It mightbe Acererak’s final resting place.”
“No,” Kaerion found himself saying. “Acererak is close, buthe isn’t here.”
The others looked at him, but he merely shrugged. He didn’tknow how he knew, but he did. He could feel the evil wizard’s presence like acanker in his mind. He’d felt it before-briefly, when they had first entered theVast Swamp. There, however, it had been merely a trickle of premonition. Here, close to the heart of Acererak’s damned crypt, the force of it nearly made himill. He hadn’t felt such things since Dorakaa-and the implications of that werealmost more terrifying than the palpable sense of Acererak’s presence.
“Anyway,” Majandra said, interrupting his thoughts, “with thewards in this room counteracting our magic, it’s too dangerous to go foolingabout with things. We might activate a trap we have no power to overcome.”Kaerion watched as the half-elf’s gaze raked the room. “Besides,” she continued,“there is still more to Acererak’s riddle, and I think that something is in thisroom. It’s-”
“The statues,” Gerwyth finished, sounding very pleased withhimself. Kaerion sighed as his friend pointed to the hulking iron statues that guarded each corner of the room. The metal figures stood over eight feet tall, and each wielded a vicious-looking black iron weapon. Turning to face Majandra, the ranger composed his features in a mock imitation of the half-elf. “‘Theiron men of visage grim do more than meets the viewer’s eyes,’” he intonedominously, and then stuck his tongue out at the bard. “And you thought no oneever listened to what you had to say.”
Majandra offered the elf her most dazzling smile, and Kaerion found himself once more feeling uncomfortably jealous. Concentrate on the matter at hand, he chided himself. “Let’s spread out and search those statues,” he saidto the rest of the group. “And be careful not to spring any traps!”
It took a short while for the group to examine each of the statues. Only one, the image of a hulking fighter wielding a spike-studded mace, looked different enough to warrant further investigation. After carefully checking it for traps, Majandra signaled to Kaerion, Gerwyth, and Bredeth. The three of them each grabbed a portion of the statue and pushed. Within moments, they all heard a loud scraping sound as the mass of black iron moved slowly backward, revealing a chute that spiraled down into darkness.
Kaerion clapped his two assistants on the shoulders heartily as they rested from their recent exertions. Though the elf offered him his usual smirk, Kaerion could see that something was troubling Bredeth. The young noble’sface was twisted into a grimace. “What bothers you, Bredeth?” he asked. For amoment, Kaerion didn’t think that the nobleman would answer, but eventually theman’s face composed itself.
“N-nothing, Kaerion,” Bredeth said. “I… I think I mighthave twisted something in my back.”
Kaerion nodded. He didn’t quite believe the young man, but hewasn’t willing to pry. Whatever troubled the nobleman, he’d share it when he wasready. Kaerion’s experience had taught him that lesson.
“Well, then,” Kaerion said, “I’ll go down first. When Isignal that everything is safe, I want the rest of you to come down slowly. Is that clear?”
There was no dissent as the fighter sheathed his sword and crawled feet first into the stone shaft. Before he slipped down into the darkness, he gave Majandra a crooked smile. The bard smiled in return and said nothing-but Kaerion heard everything he needed to hear in that silence.
With a final wave of his hand, he slid down the chute.
The stone door sank noiselessly into the floor, revealing a dust-filled room beyond.
“Congratulate yourselves while you can,” Durgoth said,feeling a frisson of anticipation work its way up his spine as the Nyrondese slapped each other heartily on the back. After a few unsuccessful attempts at opening the door, Majandra had tried the first key-successfully. That woman wasas intelligent as she was beautiful. Briefly, he remembered catching sight of her in Sydra’s scrying, and he also remembered what he had planned for her.
Durgoth pushed his excitement away and concentrated on following the Nyrondese silently. At his command,
