Quest's End: The Broken Key #3 (40 page)

Up ahead, Riyan had already reached the tents and was met by the twins. Bart could see Seth had something in his hand and seemed pretty excited. He was showing it to Riyan.

“…tell you this has to be the place!” asserted Seth. Then he looked up as Chyfe and Bart joined them. In his hand he held the scabbard of a longsword. Holding it out to the new arrivals, he said, “Found this in one of the crates.”

Bart took the scabbard and his eyes widened. For emblazoned near the opening where the sword would enter, was the coat of arms for which they had been searching. He immediately understood the significance of what they had found.

Beside him, Chyfe gasped as he too came to recognize the coat of arms. “We’re too late!” he exclaimed. “They’ve taken the segment.”

“Not necessarily,” Riyan said. Patting his pack wherein the other three segments lay he added, “So far, we’ve needed one of these to gain access to where another was hidden.” He turned his gaze to Bart. “They may not have recognized the door leading to it as such.”

Bart nodded. “You may be right,” he agreed. Then he glanced upward to the men descending the steps. “Either way, we need to deal with this current situation.” Moving toward the nearest unconscious man, he said, “Get these men out of sight before they get any closer.”

“But what about the segment?” asked Riyan, as he moved and took another of the men by the arm.

“One thing at a time,” Bart said.

Moving quickly, they dragged the men into the tents. All the while, they continued to cast glances to the five drawing ever closer to the camp. Thus far, it didn’t look as if they had noticed anything out of the ordinary.

As Riyan helped Bart drag one of the last remaining men into a tent, he said, “They may just be coming down to bring the crates to the top.”

“What’s your point?” Bart asked. At the tent flap, they dragged the man inside and laid him upon another that had already been deposited within.

“Just that, maybe Seth and Soth could make like they are in charge down here, load them up, and send them on their way,” he suggested.

“Don’t you think they’d be suspicious when they found only two others down here?” Bart asked.

Moving back outside, they saw the twins coming toward them. Off to their right, the legs of an unconscious man disappeared through a tent flap as Chyfe dragged the last of them inside.

“Suspicious of what?” asked Seth.

“They could tell them that everyone else was inside the mine bringing out more crates,” Riyan said to Bart.

“Who could tell who what?” Seth asked.

Bart thought for a moment as Riyan filled the twins in on their plan. “It might work,” he said.

“If it didn’t, Seth and I would be faced with a problematic situation,” Soth stated.

“First of all, they wouldn’t be expecting any trouble,” Riyan said. Turning to the twins, he indicated a stack of boxes at the foot of the steps. “Load them up as soon as they reach the bottom, and send them back to the top.”

Seth grinned at the plan and nodded. “Are they armed?” he asked Bart.

“Not that we could tell,” he said. “Kevik’s up at the entrance keeping an eye on them. If something began to develop, Chad would come and tell us.”

By this time, the five men had descended a quarter of the distance.

“Think you two can pull it off?” asked Bart.

Seth nodded again. “Sure,” he replied.

“Alright then,” Bart said. “While you two keep an eye on things here, the rest of us will hunt for the last segment.”

“Still no guarantee that it will be in there,” warned Soth.

“True,” replied Riyan. “But we have to check it out.”

“We’ll wait until you have the men on their way back to the top before beginning our search,” Riyan said. Then he turned to Bart. “It might be a good idea to give Soth the ring you use to communicate with Kevik.”

“Right,” he agreed. Removing it from his hand, he handed it over to Soth. “Just think of Kevik and speak what you want to say in your mind.”

Taking the ring, Soth slipped it onto a finger of his left hand. “Alright,” he said. Gazing at it, he looked almost as if he had expected the ring to do something and was disappointed.

“We better get out of here,” advised Chyfe. Glancing to the men on the steps, he added, “They’re getting close.”

“Okay, let’s go,” said Bart. With a last glance to Seth he said, “Be careful.”

“Of course,” replied Seth. “You too.”

Moving out, Riyan, Chyfe, and Bart hurried through the camp toward the mine.

As they neared the entrance, they could see Kevik still looking at the image in the bowl. Chad stood a few feet away and watched as they approached.

“What’s going on?” he asked as they came close. Riyan quickly filled him in.

All but Kevik stood just within the shadows of the entrance as they watched the men descending the steps. Kevik continued to keep an eye on the happenings at the top. It took the men another ten minutes to traverse the remainder of the steps and reach the bottom.

There, Seth came forward and began speaking with the men. Everyone held their breath as he spoke. At first it didn’t seem as if it was going to work. Then, the men went to the stack of crates at the foot of the steps. Each took one of the crates and positioned it upon their back, then began the arduous climb to the top. Once the last man had his crate in place and was climbing the steps, Kevik gasped.

Turning to the magic user, they could see the far away look on his face he always gets when conversing through the rings.

A moment later, Kevik’s eyes refocused. He held his hand to his forehead and groaned. “Everything went alright with the porters,” he told them. Then when he noticed their concerned looks, he added, “When Seth spoke through the ring, he broke my concentration with the far seeing spell which resulted in a magical backlash.”

“Are you okay?” Riyan asked, concerned.

Kevik nodded. “It’s beginning to fade,” he assured them. Gesturing to the mixture filled bowl, he asked, “Should I dump it out and take the bowl with us, or leave it?”

“I would think leave it,” replied Bart. “We won’t need it in there and I’d hate to waste it. Might need it when we return.”

“Very well,” stated Kevik. Taking hold of his staff from where it was leaning against the side of the entrance, he created his light spell.

“Let’s go,” Bart said. And with Kevik right behind him, he led them into the mine.

The mine looked recently excavated, maybe no more than a year earlier. New timber supporting beams indicated that more than anything else. A well worn path ran through the middle of the passage, testament to the number of trips men had taken in and out of there.

For a hundred feet, the passage continued before Kevik’s light revealed where it ended. As Kevik’s light better illuminated the far end, they could see that the wall was no longer that of excavated earth. Instead, it was much more uniform and flat. In fact, it looked to be a wall constructed of stone bricks set one upon another.

A hole, large enough for two men to walk through side by side, gaped in the center. The light from Kevik’s staff passing through the hole revealed an empty space. As they moved closer, the light reached through to another wall running parallel to the first.

Bart was the first to the opening and stepped through. He glanced down to the right and left but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. “Kevik,” he said as he turned back to the magic user. “Need your light.”

Kevik came to the opening and moved the glowing tip of his staff through to the other side.

The light revealed a manmade passageway extending into darkness to their left and right. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all worked in stone. Bart motioned for the others to come through and join him. Across from the opening was a spent torch resting in a wall sconce. Bart inspected it and found it to still be warm.

“Which way?” Chad asked.

With Kevik’s light, they could tell that the passage extending to the right showed a much greater degree of disturbance than did the one to the left. Bart pointed toward the right. “This way,” he said as he began following the passage.

Naught but the sound of their feet moving along the ground disturbed the silence of the underground passage. Not far from where they had entered this passage, it turned at a forty five degree angle to the left. No sooner had Bart turned the corner than a most unpleasant odor of rot and decay hit him. Ahead, a light glowed in the distance.

“Oh man!” he said as he brought his sleeve up to his nose in an attempt to filter out the odor.

Behind him, Riyan asked in a voice muffled by cloth, “What is that?”

“I would guess a corpse,” replied Chyfe.

Walking beside him, Chad nodded in agreement. “So would I.”

Keeping their noses and mouths securely covered by one form of cloth or another, they continued on. It wasn’t long before they came to the source of the light, a torch set in a wall sconce two feet from where a pit loomed in the floor before them. Four wide planks extended over the pit to allow safe passage across. It was from the pit that the smell was originating.

“A trap do you think?” asked Riyan.

Bart glanced back at him and nodded. “Probably,” he replied. Turning back, he moved to the edge of the pit and looked down. Kevik came to stand beside him to provide light with which to see the bottom.

The pit was easily twenty feet deep, and from the shadows below, it looked as if the floor was covered in foot long wicked looking spikes. A dark form lay impaled on three of them.

“Why would they leave the body down there?” asked Kevik incredulously.

Bart shrugged. “Maybe as a lesson to the others to be more careful,” he guessed. Stepping onto the boards spanning the pit, he began making his way across. Behind him, the others followed, each in turn taking in the grisly sight at the bottom. Though they couldn’t make out any distinct details, they had no doubts as to what time must have done to it.

Once past the pit, they followed the passage until light again became noticeable before them. Yet another burning torch was set in a wall sconce at an intersection where a passage crossed theirs moving from the left to the right. Bart was quick to determine that the new passage to their left showed the most signs of traffic. Turning to the left, he entered the new passage. Wherever those who had been stripping this place of valuables had taken their loot from, it was probably near the hiding place of the last key segment. At least, that was Bart’s hope.

The new passage continued on for a short spell before opening up on a room that held four biers. Another torch burned in a sconce to light the way. Whatever grace and dignity the dead that had been interred here had known was gone. Stripped of their armor and other valuables, their bones had been haphazardly tossed to the floor. As they had found back in The Crypt near Quillim, there were chests sitting at the base of each bier. Those had been smashed open and their contents taken.

“This isn’t right,” Riyan said as they passed through the room. “The dead deserve more respect than this.” The others nodded silent agreement. Each was disturbed by the way the dead had been treated.

In the left wall near the far side of the room, was the mouth of another passage. Moving quickly, they left the scene of desecration behind them and entered it. There, they were again aghast as they saw sarcophagi that had once reverently lined the passage in wall biers, now sitting askew. Some were even upended along the sides of the passage. Corpses, treated with the same manner of disregard as those in the previous room, were lying stripped of all accouterments and dignity in and around the sarcophagi.

Riyan paused by one of the corpses that was lying half in and half out of a sarcophagi. He looked closer at it and figured it to be a man. Could he have been a great warrior in life? A wise man? Now nothing was left of his pride and glory. Testament to the disregard held by those who had stripped this place of all things sanctified.

They passed over a score of opened and broken sarcophagi before the passage ended at the shattered remains of a door. Naught was left but a broken remnant, still held to the wall by the top hinge. Where the rest of it had gone was anyone’s guess.

Beyond the door was another burning torch that revealed yet another room of desecrated dead. Once lying upon rows of biers, the naked dead now lay in disheveled piles upon the floor mixed in with the shattered remains of broken, empty chests.

A path had been cut through the corpses lying upon the floor. Following the path, they came to a series of downward leading steps situated in the middle of the room. As Kevik’s light illuminated the steps, they saw that the steps spiraled into the darkness below. Lying on the floor near the top step was another spent torch, still warm to the touch.

Bart stepped on the first step and then turned to the others. “Knowing they’ve been here first will make this a whole lot faster,” he commented.

Riyan nodded in agreement. “No fear of traps,” he said.

Turning his attention back to the steps, Bart resumed his descent of the steps. “That pit with the rotting corpse was one,” he continued. “I’m sure there will be more. As long as we stay on this well traveled path, we should have little to worry about.”

“Except running into others coming up from below,” stated Chyfe as he stepped on the top step and followed.

Continuing to follow the steps, Bart’s voice echoed back, “I wouldn’t worry too much about whoever we may run across down here. This isn’t where they would have guards. Rather out at the camp or on top of the hill.” Glancing back over his shoulder, he indicated for them to remain quiet so as not to alert anyone coming from below of their presence.

Following the steps down, they encountered another torch set in a wall sconce at every revolution. Kevik wondered if the light from his staff was really needed, but felt better having it aglow so kept it going.

The steps spiraled around for three revolutions before coming to an end at the beginning of another passage. When Bart saw the passage opening up, he came to a stop. “Wait here,” he told the others then moved forward to make sure it was clear.