“Damn,” I said, looking back at Relic. “I wish I’d known this guy back when I was looting these ruins. I mean, exploring. Exploring these ruins.”
You could be exploring the ruins now,
thought Relic.
You could confirm that this does, in fact, lead to an open passage.
I slapped myself on my intangible forehead. What was I waiting for? I dove into the solid ground like it was a swimming pool. Instantly, I regretted it. It was one of the few moments since I’d died that I truly felt dead, cut off from light and air, surrounded by lifeless earth. It took all my willpower to continue sinking into the suffocating darkness. I couldn’t help but think about my body, enshrouded by silent blackness, six feet of sandy soil forever pressing down. I hadn’t thought much about my old shell, but burial now struck me as a cruel thing to do to a body. Still, what was the alternative? Reeker hadn’t made cremation look attractive. If I’d had a say in deciding my final resting place, I’d have asked that my corpse be placed inside a giant glass jar full of pure grain alcohol. Set me in the corner of the
Black Swan
and let life go on around me. Of course, if everyone did this, bars would be pretty overcrowded with pickled mummies. Worse, it’d waste an awful lot of booze.
I have no way of judging how far I sank before my head emerged into the hallway. It glowed with the same pale spirit light I’d found in the pygmy tunnels. Tile murals decorated both walls. Beneath thick layers of grime, once vivid colors depicted a procession of what I assumed to be royalty. The people portrayed were tall and slender, with bone-white skin, the color of pygmy flesh without dye. Both women and men were bare-breasted; both sexes wore bright green skirts rather than pants. The men’s legs showed from the mid-thigh down, while the women were covered all the way to the ankle. Everyone portrayed wore copious amounts of jewelry; I peered closer, trying to figure out if the yellow gleam beneath the dust was actual gold, or merely paint. I instinctively scraped at the grime, but, of course, my nails passed right through.
The men were depicted with large jade rings in their noses and ears; the women had no piercings, but their hair was piled high on their heads and bound up in coils of gold. In the background of the mural were a dozen buildings ablaze with color; bright red and yellow flags decorated bamboo mansions, long since rotted away. Beyond the cityscape, the jungle looked much the same, the towering trees flecked with red. Blood-tangle vine must have been a nuisance even then.
The procession was accompanied by animals on leashes — tall dogs with wasp-thin waists, yellow and black tigers, and some big-ass praying mantises. I’d seen plenty of giant bugs in the jungle, but you could have put a saddle on these things.
I leaned closer, studying the legs of the insects. The joints were ringed with small dots, like rivets. They looked familiar. Then it hit me — the bugs were machines, like the mechanical tiger that had given Infidel a hard time. I examined a tiger in the mural: it, too, was plainly mechanical beneath its yellow and black paint. Could Infidel have fought this very same cat?
Before I could explore further, dust began to rain down from the walls as the surrounding earth groaned. Up ahead, shafts of light began to jab into the darkness as the fallen rubble was jerked skyward by the Deceiver’s telekinesis. I squinted as I made my way through the dust toward the ever-brightening light. The last of the rocks lifted, revealing a ragged hole in the roof. I peeked to see how high it was, but jumped back as a boa constrictor slithered through the hole, scanning the hallway with copper-colored eyes. Its tongue flicked in and out, tasting the air as its seemingly endless body flowed into the hall.
The serpent erupted into a sudden fit of coughing. After catching its breath, it twisted its head back up into the hole and shouted, “It’sss dusssty, but looksss sssafe!”
The shaft of sunlight suddenly grew a dozen times brighter. I retreated back, shielding my eyes, as Lord Tower landed with a clatter in the center of the hall, the Gloryhammer casting shadows out behind him. He raised the hammer over his head as he turned in a slow circle to study his surroundings. The gold glittering in the mosaic caught his eye, and he wiped away the dust with gauntleted fingers. My hate for him deepened exponentially. It wasn’t enough that got to kiss Infidel? He got to explore ruins more effectively as well?
“Paint?” asked the boa.
Tower flicked his right hand, and the gauntlet of the faith armor sprouted razorblade fingernails. He delicately grabbed a single golden tile the size of an olive pit and twisted, popping it free. He rolled it in his palm, letting it catch the light.
“Sssolid gold,” said the boa, its tongue flickering near the metal. He looked up and down the hall. “If the gemssstonesss are alssso real, this hall alone is pricelesss. Once we melt down the metalsss and—”
“You’d do that?” Tower asked. As he spoke, ropes were dropping into the hole from above.
“Do what?” asked the boa. “Melt down the metalsss?”
“As much as I hate to side with Zetetic, it seems wasteful to destroy such a work of art,” said Tower.
The boa’s nostrils twitched. “I don’t sssee how we’ll ssspend the money otherwissse. It would be difficult to carry an entire hallway back to Commonground.”
Tower placed the gold tile back in place, carefully balancing it so that it wouldn’t fall. He didn’t say anything; perhaps he was shocked by Menagerie’s attitude. I really couldn’t claim any moral high ground. If I’d found this wall a year ago, I’d have chipped out the more valuable bits myself.
No-Face and the Deceiver were the next ones down. The Deceiver whistled as he looked at the murals.
No-Face chuckled, then said, “Wuh ruh!”
“Yeah,” said the boa, “we’re rich.”
Zetetic moved toward the dusty wall. “I can clear this dust so we can get a better look.” He sucked in a lungful of air, then exhaled, his breath swiftly turning into a gale force wind that blew the dirt from a ten-foot section of the mural, sending everyone else into a sneezing fit. The Deceiver’s eyes lit up like a child being offered candy. He leapt to the exposed artwork, tracing his fingers along a yellow circle near the top of the mosaic, a single piece of glazed ceramic nearly a yard across.
“A sun disk!” he said, excited. “It’s rare to find these intact,,. Judicious Merchant said that he found so many shattered, he was certain that they’d been destroyed deliberately. He speculated that a new god arose in opposition to the sun god these disks represent.”
“All it representsss to me isss money,” said the boa. “Large artifacts bring good prices.”
“How can you be so crass?” asked Zetetic. He looked at Tower. “This is precisely why we need to protect these treasures.”
“Protect them for what?” asked the snake. “The world hasss carried on without them for thousssandsss of yearsss. Who is harmed if thessse thingsss are sold to the highessst bidder?”
“Tower, if the king wants to civilize this island, think of how much easier it will be to draw settlers if there are artistic wonders in place to delight them,” said Zetetic.
“You’ll draw more people once word ssspreadsss of lossst gold to be found,” said the boa.
Aurora and Father Ver were down now; Infidel followed a second later, with Relic clinging to her back.
Father Ver looked at the sun disk. He looked toward Tower, his eyes fixed on the Gloryhammer as he said, “May I?”
Tower handed over the magic weapon as casually as if the priest had asked him to pass him the salt at dinner.
With a grunt, the Truthspeaker swung the hammer, smashing it into the center of the ancient artifact. The disk rained to the floor in a hundred shards.
Father Ver tossed the hammer back to Tower. “The false idols of doomed men aren’t treasure; they’re physical blasphemy, fit only for destruction.”
Zetetic stared at the shattered disk, slack-jawed. His face hardened as he turned his eyes toward the Truthspeaker. He lunged, hands reaching for the holy man’s throat as he shouted, “You son of a—”
No-Face caught the Deceiver by the neck and threw him to the ground. He dropped his iron ball, letting the chain catch half an inch from Zetetic’s face. The Deceiver flinched.
“I’ll behave now,” he said.
“Maybe he will,” said Menagerie, his snake-eyes gleaming. “But I mussst protessst. That disssk was more valuable intact than broken. We’re due a percentage of the treasssure. I mussst insissst that we do not decreassse the value of the artifactsss we find.”
“You’re the one wanting to melt down the gold,” said Tower, sounding exasperated.
“Whuh buh hukha?” asked No-Face.
“He’ssss right,” said Menagerie. “We mussst alssso refill the hole ssso that Hookhand cannot loot thisss hall while we explore further.”
Tower raised his hand and said, “This debate is over.” He glared at Father Ver. “Leave the idols and artwork we pass unmolested.” He turned to Menagerie. “You aren’t owed a single coin until Greatshadow’s dead. Once we’ve accomplished that mission, we’ll secure the area. Until then, ignore any treasure we happen upon.”
The boa turned his pointy face away and grumbled, “You’re the bossss.”
“Gruh,” said No-Face, with a shrug. He looked down, then offered Zetetic an outstretched hand to help him back to his feet.
“Lord Tower, if I may offer guidance, this way leads to the King’s Court.” Relic pointed westward with his spindly arm. I noticed that his cloak was stirring in a slight breeze. Air was flowing around him, the dust in the sunlit circle rising up in a swirl.
Aurora held her hand toward the breeze. “It’s hot as a furnace,” she said.
“It will only get hotter as we descend,” said Relic.
The air cooled as Aurora whispered a prayer. “No sense in being uncomfortable.”
“Menagerie, you take point,” said Tower. “Heat shouldn’t bother you as a snake. Aurora, you’re next. Keep cooling the air as it passes you. Deceiver, you and No-Face stay close behind her. Father Ver and myself will follow.” He looked to Relic. “You and the War Doll will watch our backs.” He glanced down the corridor, holding his hammer high, his eyes searching the shadows. “Everyone stay alert. We have no idea what we might face down here.”
“There’s a damn dragon, for one thing,” muttered Zetetic.
Tower nodded to Menagerie, still in his boa constrictor form. “Move out.”
The giant serpent slithered off down the hall much faster than anything without legs should move. Aurora trotted after him, and everyone fell into place behind her. I floated next to Relic and said, “So, have you really been here before?”
Does it matter?
thought Relic.
“You said you hate Greatshadow. I thought if you really did come from the Vanished Kingdom, and Greatshadow destroyed civilization back then, it might explain your grudge.”
A reasonable theory.
“But is it right?”
Relic shook his head.
Without the primal dragons, there would never have been a Vanished Kingdom. Humans lived as little more than animals before three thousand years ago. But, as the primal dragons merged with their various elemental forces, previously untameable aspects of nature suddenly possessed intelligence. Men had always prayed to gods; they adapted to pray and make offerings to dragons. Luckily for man, dragons respond well to flattery.
“Then what did destroy this place?”
Men themselves. You saw Father Ver destroy the sun-disk. His is not the first religion ever to loathe other religions. In the final days of the Vanished Kingdom, a god called Nowowon rose in power. He was a god of destruction. You find his image throughout the kingdom carved in obsidian.
“I’ve found a lot of obsidian statues, but they’re always of different creatures.”
Nowowon had no fixed form. He took the shape of each follower’s greatest fear. His followers hoped to avoid their own destruction by destroying the worshippers of other gods to appease him. In the end they wound up destroying themselves as the entire civilization collapsed; self-destruction gave Nowowon his greatest pleasure.
“And Greatshadow just moved into the ruins?”
Greatshadow was always present. No civilization can exist without the use of fire. In his earliest days as a primal dragon, Greatshadow enjoyed the respect given to him by humanity. But as the Vanished Kingdom aged and grew corrupt, Greatshadow grew increasingly disgusted with mankind. Once the Vanished Kingdom fell, Greatshadow decided he preferred the wilderness that surrounded him to the company of men. He’s stopped every attempt to restore advanced civilizations on this island. The pygmies escape his notice by living in harmony with their surroundings.
I was intrigued by this news, and had a dozen questions, but before I could ask them the passage we traveled opened into a huge, circular chamber a hundred yards across, ringed with columns. We all craned our necks as we entered, looking up at the high cone-shaped roof. A checkerboard pattern spiraled up the steep walls, producing a feeling of vertigo.
In the center of the chamber was a raised platform. Upon this sat a mirrored glass pyramid roughly ten feet along the base. Sitting upon this, perfectly balanced, was a cube of what looked to be black, seamless iron the same height. Perched atop this was an equally large sphere of polished jade, seemingly carved from a single block of stone. My ghost heart skipped a beat as I looked at it. I couldn’t even begin to guess its value.