Quintessential Tales: A Magic of Solendrea Anthology (8 page)

Declan was still writing notes on the wall next to the door. He hadn’t spoken in hours
, and Serena doubted he would until he had figured out his mystery. He was like that. It was infuriating. Accepting her fate, she took a blanket from the bedroll tied below her pack and used the pack itself as a pillow. She nestled herself into the corner of the landing furthest from any of the breaks in the rail and fell into a fitful sleep.

“Sera. Sera, wake up!”

Serena didn’t want to wake up. She was having a nice dream where she had a big house in Overwatch’s Upper City. She had servants and more clothes than she’d ever dreamed of. Dresses in every jewel tone imaginable and then some. It was warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and her windows overlooked the great river that ran alongside the mercantile district.

“Leave me alone,” she mumbled.

“Sera, you need to wake up. I’ve discovered how to open the door.”

That got her attention. She opened one eye and peered at Declan, who was leaning over her, one hand on her shoulder.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” He settled back on his heels, hugging his knees to his chest. “But I don’t know if we should.”

Now
she was really awake.

“What do you mean you don’t know if we should? Of course we should. It’s the whole reason we came here. We’re not leaving empty handed.”

“Just come look, okay?”

Declan’s uncertainty made her stomach do a little flip. Her brother wasn’t cursed with an overabundance of morality. He’d been a willing enough accompl
ice in their scams and schemes. If he was worried about something here, there was probably a good reason. She kicked off the blanket and rolled to her feet in a single practiced motion.

They went to the door. Serena was surprised to see that the entire wall on either side of the door was marked in chalk. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, but it was apparent that Declan had been busy. The torch in the brazier had burned down nearly to embers. How long had he been working on this?

“Okay,” she said slowly. “What am I looking at?”

Declan scurried up to the door, tracing over a series of symbols near the floor with his finger. “I translated this bit first. The closest translation I can get in the common tongue is
, ‘To the land where all sleep but never wake, seek the eternal light.’ That’s easy. That’s how to open the door.”

He pointed to a series of symbols inscribed in the door. One of them Serena thought she recognized. It was the symbol of the Lyr, the Rune of Life. Serena reached toward it and Declan slapped her hand away.

“Hey!”

“Not yet,” he snapped, his tone grave. “It’s the rest of this inscription that you should hear before we open the door. The rest of it reads
, ‘An open portal the darkness makes, comes it who wakes but never sleeps.’”

“So it’s a riddle.”

“No, Sera, it isn’t.” Declan shook his head. “It’s a warning. This isn’t a temple. It’s a burial chamber and whoever built it ensured that the rest of those inside wouldn’t be disturbed by putting a guardian inside with them. If we open that door, there’s no telling what could be in there waiting for us.”

“It’s probably been a thousand years since anyone set foot in there, Declan. Whatever magic they used to protect it has to have worn off by now, right?”

Declan tugged at his lower lip. “I don’t know, Sera. I’m not a Quintessentialist. My only understanding of the Ethereal Realm comes from what I’ve read in books. There are some powerful artifacts that have retained their power since ancient times.”

“Both those are artifacts. They were maintained by someone, created by someone. This is just a glorified cemetery. Who would put that kind of protection on a tomb?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure we want to find out.”

Serena ground her teeth. They’d come so far to turn back now. If they went back to Overwatch, they’d be broke. Again. She wasn’t sure she could handle another round of conning travelers out of
their purses just so she could get a meal to eat or a room to stay in for a night. She wanted more. No, she
needed
more. No matter what, she couldn’t do it without Declan. Without his intelligence and wisdom, she was going to be at a serious disadvantage.

“Listen, I know you’re worried. We’re together though. Haven’t we always been able to face things together?”

“Yes, but—”

“But nothing, Declan. This is just a different type of puzzle
, and I know you can figure it out. If things get weird, we’ll leave. Let’s at least open the door and see what happens. We’re still safe out here, where we can get away, right?”

Declan didn’t look convinced. He rubbed his face with his hands, as if he was trying to rid himself of a particularly unpleasant thought.

“Okay, but if I say I want to leave, we leave, right? No arguments?”

“I promise.”

Declan said nothing, but his fingers sought out the symbol of the Lyr. He hovered over it for a moment and swallowed so loudly that Serena thought it would echo the length and breadth of the cavern. He pressed in and a square section of the door’s surface moved inward. There was a series of muted clicks and a rumble that shook that landing on which they stood. The door swung outward. A rush of musty air swept past them, making the hairs on the back of Serena’s neck stand on end. The torch sputtered and went out, plunging them into blackness.

“Serena!” The sharp edge of panic in Declan’s voice was unmistakable. If he broke and tried to run, he’d kill himself trying to get down the stairs and outside.

“I’m here. Relax, it was just wind. Hold on.”

By touch alone, she retraced her footsteps and found her rucksack near the edge of the landing. A moment later, she’d found a torch and her tinderbox. The torch caught and shone, it seemed, as bright as the sun. The dancing orange light played over Declan’s pale face. She clapped him on the shoulder.

“It’s okay, Declan. It was just a bit of bad air. Better out than in, right?”

“Right.”

Serena stepped past him into a corridor that had been sealed for who knew how long. A thick layer of dust covered the floor and kicked up in plumes and clouds as she walked. No one had been here before them. Whatever treasures had been laid to rest with these people were still there. They had to be. Her heart thundered against her ribs. She reached back and took Declan’s hand to pull him into the hallway. He stopped at the threshold, resisting her grip.

“Come on, Declan. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Then why am I practically dragging you inside?”

Declan tore his hand from her grasp and shuffled along behind her. Serena smiled. A little bit of sibling rivalry went a long way. They’d only gone two or three hundred feet when a loud thud echoed down the corridor. Declan turned and ran back the way they had come, regardless of the fact that Serena still held the torch. She pelted along after him, hoping she was wrong about what they’d find when they reached the door. She wasn’t. The door was sealed tight.

“No,” Declan moaned. “No. No. No, no, no.”

“Shhh. It’ll be all right. We’ll figure it out. There’s got to be more than one way out. Like you said before, we weren’t coming in the front door. So there’s probably a front door, right?”

“That was when I thought it was still a temple. We’re going to die down here. We’re going to be more bodies to join however many more there are waiting for us in there.”

“Way to think positive, Declan.”

Declan sighed, then took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right. Sorry. It’s just a door. We can figure this out.”

“See?” She clapped him on the shoulder. “There you go. It won’t be that bad. Let’s go exploring.”

“Okay.” Declan’s eyes lingered on the door longingly. “Yeah. Okay.”

When they went back down the hall, it seemed to take twice as long as it had the first time. Declan was jumpy and his anxiety was starting to rub off on Serena. She had a dull ache throbbing at her temples.

Serena was able to ignore the pain in her head when they arrived back in the junction of the corridors. She hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a shallow basin set in the wall and a fine silver chain dangling from a hole in the ceiling beside it. As Serena reached up to give it a tug, Declan’s shoulders jerked back.

“Hey! Wait—”

“Shhh. Listen.” Serena held a finger up and glanced toward the ceiling. There was a muted rumble from somewhere high above, then the sound of rushing water in the walls. A moment later, a pool of black liquid seeped up from the bottom of the basin. She dipped the tip of her finger in and jerked it back, just in case it was something corrosive. She needn’t have worried. The liquid didn’t burn to the touch. She raised her finger to her nose. It smelled acrid and sharp, almost enough to start her eyes to watering. She dried her finger on her breeches and took the torch from Declan.

“It’s blackwater,” she said, touching the torch to the basin. There was a whoosh as the fuel caught and the flame roared
down almost imperceptible tracks that ran along the ceiling of the corridor and extended out of sight. She shook the torch vigorously until it went out, then hung it from a loop on her pack.

“Isn’t that better?” she asked Declan, who hadn’t moved since she’d yanked on the chain. “At least it’s nice and bright now.”

“I guess. Let’s just find a way out of here. I don’t like this.”

“
All right,” she sighed. “Well, we’re not going to find a way out just standing here. Let’s go.”

Ever cautious of tricks and traps, Serena went first
, checking every corner and every depression in the walls. After the first two hundred feet or so, she became less worried about finding nasty surprises the ancients might have left behind. Apparently they hadn’t been too worried about who would be coming after them. Maybe there wasn’t anything here worth stealing after all. Or maybe they’d just never thought that their empire would fall, leaving the tomb to fade to an obscure memory.

“Wait a minute, Sera.” Declan had stopped and was peering at the wall, his eyes only inches from the surface.

“I thought you wanted to get out of here?”

“Shut up. This is important
, and I can’t translate it if you’re distracting me by running your mouth.”

Serena snapped her jaw shut. She balled her fists, expending a considerable effort of will to keep from throttling Declan where he stood. Slouching against the wall, she heaved a huge sigh, blowing her hair away from her forehead.

Declan had his chalk out again and was scrawling symbols on the wall beside a faded inscription. She could only hope that this didn’t take as long as the first time. It didn’t. Only a few moments later, Declan stood and brushed the chalk dust from his palms. There was a twist of a smile on his face. The first since the door had slammed shut behind them.

“Well?” she demanded
irritably. “Are you going to tell me or not?”

“It’s a map, of a sort. There’s another entrance four floors up.”

“How many floors are there?”

“Eight. We’re on the bottom floor. This floor and the two above it were for storage and tradecraft. The fourth up is in the main entrance hall. Once we get there, we should be able to get back out into the jungle, then home.”

“What’s above the entrance hall?”

“Does it matter? We found a way out. We should take it.”

“Yeah. To go home. You said. To a home we can’t afford. What do you think is going to happen to us if we go back to Overwatch empty-handed? Do you think we’re going to be able to stay in the hostel forever? What about your medicine? How are we going to pay for that?”

“I don’t know.” Declan scuffed his foot against the floor. That gesture, and his sullen tone of voice, made him seem like a kid again.

“Aren’t you the slightest bit curious? You said this place was a burial chamber. Why would they need storage? Or rooms for tradecrafting? Seems strange to me that they’d put all those facilities in an overblown graveyard.”

“I don’t know, Sera. Maybe it’s not a tomb. Maybe I got the translation wrong. The language is thousands of years old. Whoever built this place obviously had power and resources. I don’t want to meet the monster they left behind to protect all of it.”

Serena jumped on his words. “If you’re not sure you translated ‘tomb’ correctly, what makes you so sure there’s a monster here that they left to guard it all? Couldn’t that have meant something else too?”

Declan stared at her for a long moment. Finally, his shoulders sagged and he shook his head.

“I don’t know. Maybe. I guess.”

He looked so lost and afraid that Serena almost felt sorry for him. If it weren’t for the fact that they were completely broke, she might have been more sympathetic to his worries and fears. As it was, though, she just wanted to get into the upper levels of the tomb, or whatever it was, and see what they could find that would turn them a tidy profit.

“Listen, Declan, I know you’re having second thoughts and you don’t want to be here. I promise we won’t stay any longer than we have to.” She pointed to the inscription on the wall. “Does that tell you where any treasure or valuables might be?”