Shepherd's Quest: The Broken Key #1 (37 page)

“Thank goodness,” he said. He held up the book that was in the chest.

Kevik came closer and took the book. “It doesn’t look magical,” he stated. He looked it over, gave the front and back careful consideration, but didn’t open it.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Bart asked.

“Not yet,” he replied. Then suddenly the book began to glow blue, telling the others that he was casting his identification spell. The others waited until the glow faded then looked to him expectantly.

A grin came over him as he stared at the book.

“What?” asked Riyan.

He glanced up at them and said, “There are two spells within this book. Both are new to me.”

“Can you use them?” Chad asked.

“Perhaps,” he said. “I will need to study them for some time, but first I’m going to copy them into my spell book.”

“Not right this second though,” Riyan said.

He shook his head. “No. I’ll do it when I am not otherwise occupied.” Opening his pack, he placed the book inside with the two spell books already there.

“Still one more chest,” Bart said as Riyan gave him a hand up.As he turned and began using his pack tied to the rope to test for pits, he overheard Chad asking Riyan, “Why would they put such a thing here?” He meant the little book.

“To encourage thieves to keep pressing their luck,” Bart replied for Riyan. He tossed the pack and pulled it back only to toss it yet again. “If you had something of extreme value, say the key we’re looking for, you would want to kill off any thief that found their way in here before he got to it. Right?”

“Absolutely,” replied Kevik. “Better to lose less valuable items.”

“Correct,” Bart said as he threw the pack again. “Now, the best thing that could happen is for the thief to die before he even gets to the treasure you’re trying to keep hidden. That’s what this place is designed for. A thief would hardly continue to trip the various traps you have spent such time in constructing if every time he opened a chest, there was nothing in it. You have to put the carrot before the mule if you want the mule to walk into quicksand.” He grinned. “That’s a saying my father used to use.” Finished with testing the area with the rope and pack, he tossed it over to the others and began slowly working his way towards the other chest. “That’s why it’s worthwhile to open each chest we come to.”

“But at the same time you risk serious injury and death,” argued Riyan.

Bart paused and glanced back to him. He shrugged then said, “Such is the life of a thief.” Turning back to the chest he resumed his slow, methodical progress. “Think on this too. If the thief was to find enough of the smaller treasure, he might feel the risk no longer was worth it and leave. After all…” he paused a moment as he concentrated on the floor before him. Not finding anything, he took another step. “…if someone has the wherewithal to build a complex like this, he surely can afford to lose a few trinkets here and there.”

“I think I get what you’re trying to say,” Riyan said.

“Good,” Bart replied. He finally arrived at the side of the chest. “Could you move the lantern closer for me,” he said to Chad.

“Sure,” Chad said. He then went and picked up the lantern and set it down where Bart indicated. After it was on the floor he returned to where the others were watching.

He knelt down before the chest and was running his fingers lightly along the front. “I don’t think so,” they heard him mumble to himself. He took out two picks again. Only this time he didn’t remove the two he usually did. These were slightly longer with long flat heads.

He placed the head of one into the seam on the right side of the chest between the front and the edge binding, then did the same with the other on the left side of the front.

Slowly, he began working the two tools into the seams. When the two heads were completely inserted within the seams, he began prying the front cover. After only a moment of effort, the front side of the chest popped open to reveal a handful of gems glittering inside.

Bart glanced back to the others and grinned. “The top is a fake,” he explained. “No matter how much you work at it, there’s no way to open it. In fact,” he paused while he pointed to the keyhole, “if you were to try to pick the lock, that would trigger the trap.” Reaching in, he removed the gems and handed them to Riyan who put them in his pack. He replaced his tools back with his other picks and slid the rolled leather inside his shirt. Standing up, he indicated the passage leading from the room and said, “Shall we?” Bart led the way out and they resumed their exploration. After a search down a dead end loop, they turned back and began following another of the main passages, one they hadn’t been down before. Not too long after they entered the passage, another smaller one branched off to their right. Thus far, the smaller ones seemed to have yielded treasure of one kind or another.

Turning into it, they followed it down until it turned to the left. There it came to an end ten feet past the turn. The light from the lantern glittered off of a pile of coins and jewels sitting in the middle of the floor at the end of the passage.

“If that isn’t a blatant declaration of a trap being present, I don’t know what is,” Bart said as he glanced at the others.

“Are you going to try and get it?” Riyan asked.

Bart turned back to him and nodded. “We could use the money. Stay here.” Turning back to face the treasure, he began using his pack-on-the-rope to test for pitfalls. When none were detected, he set the pack down and slowly moved forward. Everything his father ever said to him screamed that this was trapped. No one ever left treasure lying out in the open like this unless it was being used as a lure.

Whoever built this place has so far used vastly different, ingenious traps for every circumstance. He still couldn’t believe that water one. Whoever had devised it certainly deserved a bonus.

He stopped when he was three feet from the pile. Holding up the lantern, he scanned the walls but didn’t find anything unusual. The area of the floor around the treasure appeared as it should, which only made him all the more nervous. Something here has to trigger something. It has to!

Crouching down, he ran his hand over the surface of the floor between himself and the treasure. After a minute of careful examination, he found nothing out of the ordinary.

He crept forward a little further, close enough for him to actually be able to touch the treasure.

He removed his belt knife, not the new one but the older knife he’s had for years and moved its tip towards the edge of the pile.

“Find anything?” Chad suddenly hollered to him.

Chad’s question startled him and the knife point accidentally dislodged three of the coins from the pile. He froze as he expected something nasty to develop, but nothing did.

Turning back to Chad with an angry expression he said, “Keep quiet!” With a guilty look upon his face, Chad replied quietly, “Sorry.” Bart took a deep, calming breath then returned his attention back to the pile. The three coins that had fallen lay next to the pile and he picked them up. They were regular gold coins similar to those they had found earlier. He placed them in his belt pouch before moving his knife back towards the pile. It’s possible one of the coins or gems could in some way be the trigger. It took a rather special type of triggering mechanism to use an item so small, but he’s heard tales of it being done.

He slid the point of the knife carefully beneath a coin. When enough of the blade was beneath it, he lifted the coin very slowly from the pile. Once it was free and nothing happened, he put the coin into his pouch. Then one by one, he repeated the process and put the liberated coins and gems into his belt pouch.

After ten minutes of this, the others realized he was going to take awhile and made themselves comfortable against the wall of the passage where it made the turn.

Bart’s back was beginning to ache by the time there were only seven coins and three gems left in the pile. He was amazed he made it this far without anything happening. It was possible though, that whatever trap was here could have become deactivated over time, that does happen.

Moving his knife forward once more he went for the largest of the three remaining gems and slid the knife’s point beneath it. Before the tip had even reached halfway beneath the gem, it met resistance. Bart couldn’t help himself but grin. There was a trap and it would be triggered by the removal of this gem. Unfortunately the gem happened to be the largest one of the pile and therefore worth a lot of coins.

Two of the remaining coins were positioned beneath the gem, the rest were not. He quickly picked up all the remaining coins and gems but the two that were under the trapped gem. Glancing back at the others he said, “I found the trap.”

“Can you disarm it?” asked Riyan.

“I’m not sure,” he replied. Then he showed them the sizable gem still there on the floor. “It’s attached to that one,” he said. “If you were to take the gem up off the floor, it would pull the cord it’s attached to and that would set off the trap.”

“Can you cut it?” asked Kevik.

“Often traps such as these will go off if it’s cut,” he explained. “It might be a good idea if you three were to go back and wait out in the main passage until I’m done.”

“Just leave it if you think it’s too risky,” Riyan told him. “It’s not worth your life.” He had already thought about that. Unfortunately there’s this little matter of a death mark hanging over him and he’ll need all the coins he can to get it removed. He seriously needed that gem. Plus he hated to walk away from a challenge.

“I’ll be okay,” he said. “You just wait out there for me.”

“Alright,” Riyan said. “If you’re sure?” When he received Bart’s nod, he and the others left the smaller passage and returned to the main one. Kevik’s bobbing sphere appeared to give them light while Bart retained the lantern.

Once they were gone, Bart unrolled the leather pack containing his lockpicks. For this he would need a more specialized tool than the ones he’s been using. Another invention of his father’s, he removed a three inch tool. In the middle of the tool was what his father called a vise grip. It was designed for situations such as this. You placed the cord or whatever the triggering mechanism was, provided it was thin and narrow like a string, within the vise grip. Then you tightened the grip until the trigger was held tightly. After that you would be able to cut what you were after from the trigger safely.

The first thing he did was to very carefully move the two coins beneath the gem ever so slightly away from each other. He needed a gap between them wide enough through which to slip the tool. Once he had the space, he got down on his belly and very gently maneuvered the tool beneath the gem between the two coins.

When he felt it was in the correct position, he gradually worked the tool sideways until he felt the triggering cord slip into the vise. Then ever so carefully, he turned the screw at the end of the pick and closed the vise on the cord. He had to be careful for the cord was incredibly old and was likely to break under the slightest pressure.

As soon as the screw was turned as far as it could go, he took out another of the tools.

This one was a five inch narrow rod with a blade shielded by a small piece of hardened leather on the end. This was actually the first time he ever had occasion to use this particular instrument. His father had said that when he came up with this one, he ruined many a pick case before he learned to put a cover over the blade.

After removing its cover, he slid the rod under the gem next to the pick holding the cord. Then he began cutting the cord above the pick holding it. Very slowly, one strand of the cord at a time, he sawed through it. When he felt the tool cut the last strand, he braced himself but nothing happened.

He lifted the gem and saw his pick still there holding the cord between its vises.

Flipping the gem over, he discovered the cord had been attached to the bottom of the gem by a small metal staple. The holes that the ends of the staple made in the gem would lower its overall value. However, a creative jeweler could set it in a necklace or other ornamental item where the back would be covered by something else. After that, only an expert jeweler would be able to tell.

Quite happy with himself, he pocketed the other two coins that the gem had been resting upon. His knife-pick he replaced back in with the others. That only left the vise-pick. He did not want to leave without it. With the way things were, he may never see another one again. But if he removed it from the cord, it would trigger the trap.

“You okay in there?” Riyan’s voice came to him from the passage.

“Yeah,” he hollered back. “Be just a minute.”

“Alright,” came the reply. “Hurry up, Kevik’s bobbing light is beginning to drive me crazy.”

Bart grinned for he found the constantly bobbing light annoying too. Why anyone would create a spell like that was beyond him. Then he returned to the problem at hand.

The vise-pick.

Coming up with an idea, he pulled out the long string he had in the bottom of his pack. Then he secured one end of the string around the screw at the end of the vise pick.

After that, he picked up his pack-on-a-rope and the lantern then began walking backwards to the other passage. As he went he played out the string until finally arriving in the main passage with the others.

“What’s that for?” Chad asked when he saw the string.

“I’m recovering a tool,” he explained. “But it’s going to trigger the trap when I do.”

“So you got the gem?” Riyan asked.

Bart patted his belt pouch and nodded. “Now all I need to do is get my tool back.” He took the end of the string in hand and then began gently pulling on it. The last thing he wanted was for the string attached to the screw to come off or break.

Then suddenly, the strain that had been building on the sting was gone. He could hear the metallic clinking of the tool as it bounced along the floor of the passage.

“Bart!” hollered Riyan. “The ceiling’s coming down!” He looked above him and saw where a stone block, the width of the smaller passage opening, was falling at him. Jumping back out of the way, he quickly pulled the string.