The Golden Key (Book 3) (18 page)

12

The stair had nine steps, each one rising about a foot
before leveling off and fading back a yard to the base of the next step. By the
time Giorge was on the fourth stair, he knew what they had found: The Viper’s
Eyes were staring down at him. He paused and, without turning, asked his mother,
“Do you recognize those?”

“Yes,” she replied jumping up to the next step and pausing.
“They’re star sapphires. Huge ones. They’re worth a fortune.”

Giorge shook his head. “No,” he said. “They’re the Viper’s
Eyes.”

“The Viper’s—” she began, turning toward him.

Giorge nodded. “Yes,” he said. “When we found them, they
grafted themselves to me.” His hand went involuntarily to his eyes as he once
more wondered how they had been returned to him.

“We?” she asked. “You mentioned someone named Angus before, didn’t
you? He helped you find them?”

Giorge nodded as he carefully lifted his foot to the next
step. It was the fourth from the top, and it had become drenched with water in
the time that they had taken to get that far. He could see above the top step
now, and what he saw troubled him. There was a copper-plated sarcophagus, and
etched into its face was the image of a three-headed snake poised to strike.
The head at the top was much larger than the other two, and the Viper’s Eyes,
Fangs, and Breath were embedded in it. Beneath it, a flowing script stretched
out like the scaly belly of a snake. The lettering was half-concealed in shadow
and too small to read from where he was, but he was sure it would be another
cryptic poem. “My banner was with me,” he told his mother. “Well, it’s Hobart’s
banner, really; I’m just one of its members. Angus and Ortis are the others.”

“A banner?” his mother asked. “Aren’t those in Tyr?”

Giorge nodded. “I’ll tell you why I had to leave the Western
Kingdoms sometime. Joining a banner seemed like a good way to avoid the kind of
trouble I was seeking to avoid.”

“You reunited the Eyes with the Viper’s Skull?” his mother
asked. “I didn’t even make it past the Viper’s Breath.” She looked at him
wonderingly and softly added, “I waited too long before I left. I had to make
sure you were safe first.” She smiled, and her voice was tender, proud, as she
added, “I’m glad I did.”

Giorge moved cautiously to the top of the stair. Had he
really reunited them? He had found all of the gems, but he had died before
finding the skull. Unless it was his own skull? Had the fangs grafted to him,
too? The water was flowing rapidly out of the seam of the sarcophagus’s lid. He
stepped forward and held the torch close to the poetic script and muttered the
poem under his breath:

Welcome to my humble tomb

encased in bitterness and stone

beneath the sea, beneath the waves—

a fitting place for both our graves!

The curse is lifted; the curse is gone;

Your life is yours to live again;

But here forever you shall be,

until in death, you join me.

Take the stones—they’re all that’s left—

my legacy, my parting gift,

the remnants of a life undone

enjoy them well inside our tomb!

Symptata the Beggarman

His mother chuckled and shook her head. “At least this verse
isn’t too bad,” she said. “Some of his poetry is downright atrocious.”

Giorge looked at her and said, “I don’t think I would go
that far. The poems I’ve read have at least been informative. I just didn’t
realize what some of them meant until now.”

“Oh,” his mother said, “I wasn’t talking about the poems
about the curse. Some of his other ones are horrid. He lost his wits near the
end, and it shows in them.”

“He wrote other poems?”

His mother nodded. “A lot of them. When I found out about
the curse, I did what I could to learn more about Symptata. There wasn’t much.
Didn’t Auntie Fie tell you about them?”

Giorge shook his head. “We should talk about this later,” he
said.
If we live long enough.
“Let’s see if we can find out what’s
behind this thing. There might be a panel we can open, a tunnel—anything that
we can use to get out of this place.”

After a close inspection of the alcove and stairwell, they
came back to the front of the sarcophagus. Giorge reread the poem and frowned.
Can
it be this easy?
he wondered, lifting his eyes to meet the Viper’s gaze.
When
they were grafted to me
….

Giorge stepped forward. The eyes were level with his own,
and he leaned forward—

His mother pulled him back and glared at him. “You fool,”
she said. “The curse—”

“—is over,” Giorge mused. “I don’t intend to touch them; I
just want to look through them.”

The frown creasing her brow was matched by her lips, as she
demanded, “Why?”

Giorge smiled and shook his head. “You didn’t find them,” he
said. “I did.” He blinked and pointed to his eyes. “They did what the Breath
did, but here.”

His mother’s fingertips went to her chest and toyed with
something that wasn’t there. She gulped and said nothing.

“While they were in there,” he said, remembering the chaotic
patterns of light that had surrounded him, “I could see magic.” He waited, and
when she dropped her arm to her side again, he turned back to the viper and
took a deep breath. He leaned forward and
almost
pressed his eyes
against the stars embedded in the sapphires. A moment later, a whirling of
energy sprang to life just beyond the gems, something that looked very much
like eyes of fire staring back at him. He jerked back and blinked until the
afterimage was gone, and then squinted and leaned forward again. There was
something else, something behind the eyes, and it looked like—

“A tunnel,” he said, grinning. “It’s magical. Maybe it’s
another portal?”

His mother pushed him gently to the side, stood on her
tiptoes, and looked into the gems. “I don’t see anything,” she said. “It’s all
dark.”

Giorge frowned, leaned forward, and looked again. Fiery eyes
stared back at him, as if they had gotten closer, bigger. He leaned back again
and frowned. Was he imagining things? Or had they really moved? He stepped back
and turned to his mother. “It may be a way out.”

His mother looked at the sarcophagus and said, “That?”

Giorge nodded. “I think so,” he said. “But it’s the only
thing holding back the water.”
And there may be something waiting for us
inside of it,
he added to himself. “If we open it, this place will flood,
and we’ll be washed down the stair.”
And the thing inside will kill us.

His mother shrugged. “Do we have a choice?” she asked. She
lifted her poniard and wiggled it around for a moment. Then she lifted the tip
up to the edge of the Viper’s Breath and pried at it.

Giorge put his hand on hers and gently pulled it back. “No,”
he said. “That’s what started this curse.”

She looked at him, frowned, and lowered her hand. “You’re
right,” she said. “But the curse is over. They’re yours.”

“Exactly,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “I don’t
want it to start up again. If we take the stones,” he shrugged. “It would be
something Symptata would do, wouldn’t it?”

His mother thought for a few seconds before she shook her
head. “No,” she said. “The curse is dead. You are Symptata’s rightful heir, and
that poem is his bequest. The gems are yours now; you won the right to them
when you broke the curse.”

Giorge frowned. Was she right? Were they his inheritance?
Was the curse really over? Or could it begin anew if he stole from Symptata the
way his forebear had done? If the curse was rekindled, how many generations
would be plagued by the woe Symptata promised? He leaned forward and looked
through the Viper’s Eyes again. The fire had congealed into small beads of
piercing flame, and beyond them was definitely a magical tunnel.

He leaned back and asked, “What did you see when you looked
through them?”

“Nothing,” she said. “They were dark.”

“No fire?” he pressed. “No magic?”

She shrugged, “Does magic look like shadow on a dark,
moonless night?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “It’s like shimmering streams
of overlapping rainbows. It’s all around us, but Angus says most people can’t
see them unless they have some elf blood in their veins.” Then he sobered and
glanced back at the sarcophagus. “I see a pair of flaming eyes staring back at
me, and beyond that is a tunnel ringed with magic—all kinds of magic, as near
as I can tell. I think it’s another portal, like the ones Angus told me about.”

His mother frowned. “A portal?” she asked. “Like a doorway?”

Is that what it is?
Giorge wondered. “Something like
that,” he said. “Angus didn’t make much sense.” He frowned. “The Fangs were in
an abandoned mine. There was a room there, but it wasn’t part of the mine.
Angus said the trapdoor we went through was a kind of portal to someplace else,
and that was where the room was. I didn’t really pay much attention to him
after that.” He shrugged and turned back to the sarcophagus. “I think this tomb
may be in the same place as that room,” as he said it, he knew it wasn’t quite
right and shook his head. “No, not in the same place, but someplace else, like
that room was someplace else. The way out of here is through that tunnel.”

His mother looked at the sarcophagus for a long time, and
then stood on tiptoes to look through the Eyes again. When she leaned back, she
shook her head and said, “I still don’t see anything.”

Giorge frowned. Why couldn’t she see the magic? Was it
because the Eyes hadn’t grafted to her? Were they
his
Eyes now? If so,
was she right? Could he take them without giving the curse new life?

“Why do you think the curse won’t start up again if I take
them?” he asked, his voice soft.

She looked at him and frowned. “It started with him,” she
said. “Didn’t Auntie Fie tell you that?”

Giorge scowled at her and said, “I think you better tell me,”
he said. “Auntie Fie seems to have left out a few things—or I’ve forgotten
them. It’s been a long time since she told me about the curse.”

“Did she tell you why it started?”

Giorge nodded. “One of our ancestors left with his child and
his treasure.”

His mother nodded. “Yes,” she agreed. “He was trying to save
them from his curse.”

Giorge frowned. “I thought he bought the curse and inflicted
it upon them.”

His mother shrugged. “The witch who cast it charged a high
price,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “He would want the curse to
end,” she said. “He was hurt and angry and vindictive, and the witch twisted that
anger into something vile. When he learned of what she’d done, he tried to stop
it. He sought out the witch, but she refused to undo the magic. She said she
couldn’t
undo it, but he could. None of us have ever found out how he could have done
it, but we know he went insane trying.”

Giorge digested this information and shook his head. “The
witch—”

“She disappeared not long after that,” his mother said. “There
were rumors of other curses, but nothing substantial.”

“Would she do it?” he asked. “Would that witch make the
curse resilient?”

She frowned. “Maybe,” she hedged, “but I don’t think so.”

Giorge stared at the gems in the Viper’s Skull and wondered
if he should take them. The Eyes were still working, and it would be useful to
see the magic. Was it worth risking it? He couldn’t do anything with the magic
if he saw it, but what if there were magical traps? And the Viper’s Breath?
Would he be able to use it to summon animals to defend himself? Or would they
attack him if he tried? Could he use it to
control
animals?
That
would come in handy, wouldn’t it? Bring the animals in so he could kill them
and eat them. He was almost hungry enough to do that right now. A plump rat or
two? Not a very tasty meal, but…. What would the fangs do? He hadn’t really had
them long enough to find out. Maybe they didn’t do anything? Even if that were
true, they were still valuable gems.

Giorge shook his head. “No,” he said with a sense of
certainty that surprised him. “If the stones are mine, then I choose to leave
them here. Besides,” he smiled at her, “you always told me not to take more
than needed. Of course,” he grinned, “I’ve ignored your advice more often than
I should have, and I already have plenty of treasure.”

She looked at the gems and shook her head. “Giorge,” she
said, “I think you have to take them.”

“Why?” Giorge asked.

His mother sighed. “Symptata wanted you—
you
—to have
them,” she said, looking back at the remarkably quiet room. “If you don’t take
them, one of the others will.
That
will almost certainly reactivate the
curse.”

“But my children—” Giorge began.

“You have children?” his mother asked as her head snapped
around and her eyebrows disappeared under her curvy black bangs.

Giorge shrugged. “Probably,” he said. “I’ve never stayed
anywhere long enough to find out.” He turned his gaze back to the main tomb and
saw that his ancestors were nearly to the corner where the fungal growth was
heaviest. The fungus was taking its toll on them: a few had fallen and there
was no telling how many others were infected by its spores. “We should warn
them,” he said. “They will need time to cross the chamber.”

His mother shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. “If there’s
no tunnel behind the sarcophagus, there’s no point in telling them about it.
We’ll all drown or suffocate before we find another way out.”

“Just like Symptata’s prophesy says we will,” Giorge added

His mother nodded. “How do we open this thing?” she asked,
scanning the seam and probing it with her poniard.

Giorge turned to the other side, but before he could do more
than draw his short sword, he stopped. There was already water coming through
the seam, and it seemed to be seeping through it everywhere. There wasn’t any latch,
lock, bolt—
nothing
was holding it back. He tried to wedge his short
sword’s edge into the opening, but no matter how hard he pressed, it didn’t
give. He stepped back and frowned; there wasn’t even a mark on the copper, and
there should have been. Copper was softer than iron.