The Barrow (5 page)

She could hear them now, in the great temple, defiling it. Rage built inside her, displacing the fear, the hopelessness, and she whispered fiercely, summoning Him up from the dark depths of Hell. Something was coming, she could feel it now, but would it be too late? Did He come himself, or send a blessed servant?

Stjepan handed the second gemstone to Harvald, who tossed it down to Guilford. Stjepan didn't mind giving up the crystals as part of the pay for Guilford and his crew, who were worth every penny amongst the dangers of the Manon Mole, but he still felt a pang of regret as the gem sailed through the air, and he silently wished that Harvald were not so cavalier about it. “Here, a matched set,” Harvald called down as Guilford caught it. Harvald, coming from the landed Orwain family, holding the Barony of Araswell, could shrug off a thousand shillings or two with nonchalant ease, but that was several years' wages for Stjepan and most of the men.

“You two are fucking crazy,” Guilford said, shaking his head as he wrapped the second gem in cloth and slid it into his satchel. He hefted the satchel over his shoulder, tying a spare strap across his chest to secure it. It was very heavy now, and he gave himself a small shake to try and settle all the weight he was carrying properly.

Harvald grinned down at them. “Maybe, but you're right here under the ground with us, yeah?”

“Too true, too true,” Guilford laughed. “
A baseborn fool am I, am I
, sings the bard.”

Stjepan tried to ignore them as he fished around in the second eye socket, biting his lower lip. This hollow was a little deeper than the first, and his fingertips brushed against something hidden far back within it. “Definitely something . . . ah, got it!” he said, and he slowly pulled out a long slender copper tube faintly inscribed in runes. Holding it carefully, he inspected it with narrow eyes.

He could see three different runes etched repeatedly in the copper surface, all from the
Labira Grammata
, sometimes called the Witch Runes of ancient Ürüne Düré, sometimes the Riven Runes. One was a
ward
rune useful against magic and divination; the second was a rune of
structure
, to give strength to the scroll tube; and the third a
hex
rune. The second and third runes were inscribed in touching pairs, so that in some way their magic was combined. The
hex
rune gave him pause; often they triggered at the mere sight of them. But he was protected by his own charms and amulets, and had not felt or heard any of the usual signs that his own wards had been challenged by an active and dangerous spell. So something else, then, tied to the structure of the tube.

“Runes of warding against detection,” he said quietly to Harvald. “And against it being opened, I think. A hex of some kind on whoever does the deed.”

Stjepan moved back from the edge of the idol's head so that Harvald could clamber up and look. The top of the idol's head wasn't perfectly flat, instead being slightly curved, but there was plenty of room for the two of them to settle in and spread out a bit. Harvald slipped a carefully wrapped torch from one of his satchels along with a small packet of powdered and enchanted
ajuga
flowers. He crushed the packet open in his palm and blew the contents onto the torch, and suddenly it bloomed with a heatless blue flame, lighting the top of the idol's head so they could see what they were doing. Stjepan pulled a soft cloth from one of his satchels and set the scroll tube on it so it wouldn't roll. The two of them looked at each other as they knelt and crouched over the scroll tube, Harvald with an irrepressible grin, Stjepan with a small smile finally tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Harvald reached into one of his satchels with his free hand and pulled out a small vial of clear elixir. Stjepan knew it would be a potent of the
wormwood
plant, prepared as a bane against enchantments. They started whispering the words of the cleansing rite together over the scroll tube, as Harvald poured a bit of the liquid in the vial onto it. “
Demes matta, illume matta, porte a matta. Grammata illuso resistrata libri. Grammata libri. Porti ouset matta. Grammata illuso resistrata libri. Grammata libri!
”

Stjepan could feel a bit of pressure building up behind his ears, as though he had climbed to a great height, and they both started repeating the words of the spell faster and faster as the pressure built. Stjepan started to feel dizzy, and fear gripped him that whoever had made the inscriptions had done so too well. But then the runes on the tube began to glow, faintly at first, then more strongly as though they were etched in liquid fire. The runes grew very bright, and for a moment Stjepan thought his head might burst, and then all of a sudden the runes fizzled and
popped
with smoke. They both froze in mid-syllable for a moment, and then relaxed as the runes dimmed.

Stjepan waved away the smoke as Harvald grinned and laughed.

“What's in the tube, then?” called up Erim.

“If we're lucky, a map,” Stjepan said with a slight cough.

Erim peered up at them. “What? A map? A map is worth more than these gems?” she asked. Guilford chuckled.

“Well, that depends on what the map is to,” Stjepan said. “How'd we get here, to this treasure, young Erim?”

Erim paused, thinking for a moment. “Well . . . a map, yeah?” she finally called up to him.

“Yes, copied from the cartographer's archives at the High King's Court,” Stjepan said as he inspected the ends of the tube until he found the seam of the cap on one end. “And how do we get to the
next
treasure?” Stjepan slowly uncapped the tube, and paused, holding his breath. When nothing happened, he relaxed and let out a long sigh. He tilted the tube and carefully slid out a rolled piece of parchment.

Slowly, slowly, her Nameless slid forward, filtering through the outer chambers, bristling with death and vengeance. Firelight flickered ahead from the great temple, and glistened off barbed points and horns and chains. Her fevered whispering dropped low. If only the roll of bones had not been so bad, she would have been filled with joyful gladness at the slaughter that was about to commence.

Erim smiled brightly. “Another map,” she said. “That map.”

Stjepan unfurled the parchment paper on top of the bronze idol's head as gingerly as he could. He had spent a long time handling maps and papers that were centuries old and practically disintegrated in his hands, and he had no desire for their prize to be snatched away from them now that they were so close. But he was happily surprised that the parchment appeared to be soft and supple. As it opened, his tone became almost reverent. “For the likes of us, the map is always the thing,” he said quietly. “It leads us to the next prize, the next journey, full of possibilities and promise.” Stjepan spread the parchment out, slowly revealing a set of symbols, drawings, letters, and diagrams.

What a thing of beauty
, he thought. His face relaxed into a smile for the first time in days, and he lost his train of thought staring at the map.

“Every map is a chance to remake ourselves and our fortunes, find a way out of the lives that imprison us,” Harvald said, picking up where Stjepan had left off, his tone almost as reverent. Almost. “And this map . . . if it's what we think it is . . . this one could be a map to end all maps.”

“They're fucking dreamers, kid, always looking for the treasure that will let them write their names in the history books,” said Guilford. He clapped a hand onto Erim's shoulder. “Trust me, keep your eyes on the prize in your hands, the one you can actually touch, not the one in your mind's eye that you can only get in your dreams.” She swallowed hard, looking up at his handsome face, feeling the warmth of his hand on her shoulder. Part of her wanted to melt inside. He didn't seem to notice, and he turned and looked up the idol. “What's this map supposed to be to, then, Black-Heart?”

“The Barrow of Azharad,” said Stjepan in a whisper, staring at the map. Harvald opened his mouth as if to stop him, and then just winced when he realized it was too late, and hoped that no one had heard what Stjepan had said.

But if a pin had dropped in that chamber then, it would have been as loud as a clarion bell.

She froze, hearing the words spoken in the great temple, and her Nameless froze with her. She had heard the words in the tongue of the lowlanders, the Middle Tongue: the Barrow of Azharad, one of them had said. She'd heard him as clear as day. And she was filled with rage and wonder and disbelief. Could it be true? Could such a Secret have been hidden inside her own temple all this time? She suddenly understood why the Servant of the Bright King was there. But in an instant she also knew she would have no part of the great endeavor, and she felt a hollow pit opening inside her, the rage and wonder turning to despair and giddy hope; she stifled a sob, and cursed the uncaring bones.

“What'd he fucking say?” hissed the Stick, standing tall and straight and with a frown on his face. They were all standing and looking up at the top of the idol now, the urns and offering pots forgotten.