runic marks were cut into the stone on each side of the glowing golden one, and when Geran’s eye fell on them they kindled to life as lines of sullen crimson fire. “Wait, no!” he shouted. “Stay away from the door. There are symbols over it!”
Hamil was closer to the door than he was; when the symbols awoke, he gave a strangled cry and fell to one knee, already within the influence of the magical trap. Somehow he managed two staggering steps away from the door, but now the statue turned with a scraping of bronze and fixed its burning golden eyes on him.
“Defiler! Infidel!” the statue’s voice proclaimed. It advanced on Hamil, who still reeled from his brush with the Lathanderian runes.
“Damn!” Geran swore. They had a fight here, whether they wanted it or not. He quickly cast his dragon-scale spell, even though he was not sure how much it would help against a foe of such strength. “Theillalagh na drendir!” he whispered, and around him the cascading scales of glowing violet light shimmered into existence.
The swordmage darted forward to distract the thing from Hamil and lunged out with his blade at the statue’s eye. Elven steel clanged shrilly against ancient bronze; the impact jarred his hand, and Geran almost dropped his sword. The thing was hot, radiating heat-shimmers. The leonine monster turned on him with startling quickness for something so big and inflexible, and raked at him with its huge paw. Geran leaped back out of the way, and the statue followed, bulling its way straight at him. He saw that his thrust had dug a deep gouge just under the blank molten eye, creasing the bronze without penetrating it. He ducked behind one of the pillars in the chamber, trying to keep it between the statue and himself.
How do you destroy something made of metal? he thought furiously. He’d encountered animated statues and magical constructs before in his years with the Dragon Shields, and he well remembered that they were difficult to defeat. Some had vital mechanisms that could be ruined by a very well-aimed sword blow, but this one had been brought to life by powerful magic; as far as he could tell, it was a cast statue of bronze, hollow inside, with no vital mechanisms to destroy. The bronze itself was not even articulated; the magic of the ancient ritual that animated the thing gave the cast metal the suppleness and flexibility of living flesh.
While he tried to figure out how to deal with the thing, the statue moved around the pillar to get at him, and Geran circled away from it. It reversed its course and tried the other direction, and once again Geran moved with it. Then the bronze sphinx simply hurled itself straight at him, shouldering its way past the pillar. Stone cracked and splintered under its weight; dust sifted down from the ceiling. Geran grunted in surprise and danced back before taking his sword in a two-handed grip. He threw all his strength into a mighty cut across the statue’s face, and this time the elven steel actually parted the bronze in a shallow cut; molten red-gold fire seeped from the wound. A drop splattered the top of his boot and set the leather to smoking. Then the statue caught him with one mighty paw. Geran’s dragon-scale spell held, mostly-the deadly claws did not tear through his flesh, only scoring him lightly. But the spell did not guard against the crushing impact of the blow. He was batted away like a mouse flipped head-over-paws by a cat, and he skidded to the ground a dozen feet away.
The bronze sphinx bounded after him, but just as it raised its paw to crush his skull, a pair of arrows thudded into its golden flank. “Come on, you lump of lead!” Hamil shouted. “Chase after me for a bit!”
The halfling had rallied from his brush with the symbol spell and crouched behind a pillar on the far side of the room, firing arrows as fast as he could draw his bow. They did not penetrate far into the bronze hide, but the range was short enough for the halfling to drive the steel points half an inch into the old bronze. More molten metal began to leak from the pinprick wounds, and the statue whirled away from Geran to pursue the halfling.
Geran groaned and rolled over to all fours, slowly pushing himself to his feet. His whole left side ached from where the sphinx’s bronze paw had caught him. He found his sword lying nearby and stood again. On the other side of the chamber, the statue snapped and clawed at Hamil, who dodged from pillar to pillar, just trying to stay out of its way.
“We need a better plan, Geran!” Hamil shouted to him.
The swordmage glanced left, right, and all around as he cast about for some position or advantage over the powerful bronze sphinx. Then his eye fell on the first pillar he’d used for cover against the construct. Its head was visibly out of vertical, and deep cracks spiderwebbed its surface. A desperate idea sprang into his mind, and he quickly measured the vaulting of the ceiling with his eye.
“Stay near the wall!” he called to Hamil. “I’ll get its attention again!”
“You’re welcome to it,” Hamil answered.
Geran ignored him and charged the statue’s hindquarters, taking a strong cut at its hamstring-or at least where its hamstring would be, if it were a living creature. He creased the bronze enough to spill a little more of its molten metal and drew back quickly, even as the monster whirled to face him again.
“Come on!” he shouted. “After me!”
The construct hurtled after him, and Geran darted back several steps. At the last moment he ducked behind the damaged pillar… and the statue lunged after him in response, striking the column almost dead-on. The pillar toppled with an awful roar of shattering stone, and the ceiling over it sagged and collapsed.
“Seiroch!” Geran shouted-a spell of transposition, magic that simply teleported him from one place to another close by in the space of an instant. He flickered out from under the collapse, reappearing on the other side of the room beneath the vaulting by the wall-the strongest part of the ceiling, or so he hoped. The warm yellow light filling the chamber dimmed and failed as billowing clouds of dust and debris choked the chamber. More of the ceiling gave way, and a cascade of rock and earth poured down into the middle of the room… but finally the collapse slowed, and an eerie silence settled over the room.
Hamil coughed once on the dust and looked up at Geran. “What would you have done if the whole ceiling had come down?” he demanded.
“I was hoping that it wouldn’t.” Geran eyed the heap of debris filling the center of the chamber. He could see one great bronze paw amid the wreckage, but it was hollow, empty; there was no molten fire within. Wearily he sheathed his sword-the magical steel was unmarked from its encounter with the old bronze-and picked his way over to the stone chest against the far wall. It was carved with images of angels armed for war, carrying swords and shields. Another trap would seem redundant, but he could not be certain. “Hamil?”
The halfling joined him by the chest and quickly examined it with his silver powder and a careful visual inspection. “I think it’s safe to open.”
Geran nodded and lifted the lid, which was cleverly counterweighted so that it operated easily despite its weight. Inside, wrapped in cloth that had long since disintegrated to dusty scraps, lay a large tome bound in black leather. He reached in and lifted out the book, brushing the remnants of the wrapping away. Lettering embossed on the cover in the old Dethek runes read: The Infiernadex, being a Compilation of Spells amp; Arcane Lore set down by the Hand of Aesperus, King of Thentur. He was sorely tempted to flip it open to a random page, simply to see what sort of things Aesperus might have deemed worthy of compiling, but that was not a good idea. Reading from magical books could be quite dangerous or cause unintended consequences of all sorts. For the moment, it would be enough to secure the thing and spirit it away to some place where the sellswords in Veruna’s service couldn’t find it. Instead, he wrapped the book in a spare cloak and slipped it into his pack. “Now, we’ll have to find a new hiding place House Veruna’s men won’t suspect,” he said.
“First, we’ll have to find a way out of this chamber. I’m not eager to venture too close to those symbols again,” said Hamil. The halfling gestured at the doorway, where the symbols burned dully. The large one in the center was dark-its magic had likely ended when the animated statue was destroyed. But the other two remained active. “I suppose we could try to dig our way out. If my sense of direction is right, we’re under the memorial chamber.”
Geran looked up at the gaping hole in the ceiling and turned to the symbols gleaming over the door. “I’m afraid it would be too easy to bring the chamber above us down around our ears if we picked the wrong place to dig, but I know a spell or two that might get us past the symbols. It might take a little while, but it will be a lot easier than digging.”
“Done,” Hamil said. He sat down on the dais by the stone chest and waved toward the opposite door. “Have at it. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“There isn’t.” Geran studied the markings over the door for a long moment, then sat down gingerly to examine his own spellbook, looking for something that might work. The ceiling overhead creaked ominously, and more dust drifted down. No, tunneling out was not an option. He meant to walk out of the room by the door through which he had entered
… or did he? He looked up at the doorway, measuring the distance with his eye. “Yes, that would work,” he
