But I knew it was all a lie. There was no way I was hitting the gym. The lies we tell ourselves to make it through the day, am I right?
Once I was through the doorway, I strained my eyes to make out my new surroundings. They were pretty dark, obviously. It was a burial mound, not a museum.
So I rummaged around in my pockets for that torchlight charm I’d bought at the flea market on the way out here. That had cost me a good ten euros.
I know what you’re thinking. Why not just use a flashlight? Well kiddies, I thought of that, too. But I’d forgotten mine at home, and what with the exchange rates, I couldn’t find one for under fifteen. So, magic lighting charm it was.
I pulled it out and gave it a good, swift smack on the side. The charm burst to life, flooding the surrounding area in its bright, white light.
All around me, I could see tiny mounds of earth where the dead had been buried. This tomb supposedly belonged to Queen Boudicca and her family. Well, this one and another one, but the other one had been raided a few times, and this one was cursed, so hopefully that meant it had been left alone.
Boudicca was the queen that had defied the Roman conquest of Britain.
I could respect a girl like that. Wouldn’t have dated her, though. Tried that once. Dated a Chinese princess from one of those royal offshoot families in the late 1780s. She’d seemed nice enough at the time, but all she ever talked about was starting a family to “keep the family line going.”
I shuddered a bit at the memory. She’d been so disappointed when she’d found out I didn’t want kids that she’d almost killed herself.
Now that would have been tragic.
Tiny specks and hints of gold peeked out at me from within the rotting remains, but I paid them no heed. Those weren’t my goal. My goal would be much further in.
Besides, disturbing the dead wasn’t really my jam. Even in death, some people had freaky levels of power.
I walked forward, ignoring the graves, as the ground tilted sharply downward, then slowly evened out. I sauntered through a long, wide corridor, crossing massive chasms, hacking apart fearsome skeleton warriors, and fending off evil spirits all the while.
Not really, but it sounded cool in my head.
Nah, in reality I walked forward for about three hundred meters in complete silence. There had been a slight gap in the ground near the entrance, but it had only been about seven feet across, and about two feet deep. Nothing to write home about.
Finally, the area around me started to broaden, and I could see a mossy wall far in the distance that spelled the cavern’s end.
The ceiling vaulted upward about ten feet in the air, making me wonder just how far underground I really was. And how patient all those diggers must have been. I mean really, digging out this massive cavern with their tools? Crazy.
All along the walls of the main room, I could make out sculpted faces of Queen Boudicca and her extended family carved into the cavern walls. Some of the faces were starting to crumble, but I could still make out distinctive features.
At least, I assumed it was them. Who else would it be all the way down here?
I spotted a nearby recess in the wall next to me where again, I could see bits of gold sparkle sticking out from various objects that lie partially hidden there. I could make out a golden torc amongst the trappings, which I swiped and put into my back pocket.
Hey, don’t judge. Torcs weren’t overly precious to people. They were used to hold cloaks in place, not signify royalty.
Plus, that little trinket would net me a nice spot of cash, and seeing as I was pretty sure I was about fifty bucks short of a plane ticket home to Washington, my current place of residence, I could use an influx of funds.
The rest of the little hoard of trinkets and gems I left untouched. I’d never been much for abject thievery. At least, not without a purpose.
Which brought us to the main focus of the room I was currently standing in - the giant altar jutting out of the dirt in the middle.
Unlike the rest of the room, the dais was made of some kind of marble with a wide, smooth surface on the top of it. A few stained scraps of cloth were all that remained of a large pillow that had once rested there, cradling the object that laid on top of it in a rather unassuming fashion.
My lips cracked into another smile as I took in the sight. There it was, in all its glory; a glittering, gleaming longsword, seemingly untouched by the ravages of time.
The hilt was a hand and a half of polished brass, with fine Celtic runes carved into it and a decently-sized ruby set into the diamond-shaped pommel. The cross guard was vaguely U-shaped. The metal of the blade was of the finest craftsmanship, with a slight wave pattern to it that carried all the way up and down the double-sided edge, and a few runes were engraved into the middle of the blade.
I let out a whoop of excitement and pulled out my tiny Celtic rune deciphering guide from the pack at my hip, flipping through the pages so I could line up the runes on the hilt with the pictures in the book.
“Grax. . . Thor. . . Hope. . . Render,” I read aloud as I slowly matched them up. “Yes, finally! This is it! This is the object I’ve spent the last ten years searching for!”
Well, in my free time, at least. Which, I had to admit, I had a lot
