The Barrow (73 page)

“You're still fucking drunk, Handsome,” he said. “Stay here and keep an eye out. If the sun starts to go down and we ain't back, start shouting.”

Pallas Quinn swayed and shrugged. “Aye . . . right, chief,” he said, and then he paused a beat. “You really think you're going to be gone that long?”

Godewyn disappeared into the doorway, leaving Pallas Quinn standing there nervously, his eyes darting from the dark doorway into the inner barrow and back to the sun-lit exit. He set down his lantern and drew his broadsword and held it before his body.

No sunlight reached the next chamber from the outside. The oscillating lanterns of the party penetrated the dark as they entered, and revealed walls of large inlaid upright stones. Their lamplight fell on a large iron plate, inlaid once again with copper and bronze, straight ahead at the far end, and there were less imposing plain iron plates on their left and their right, all of them set into mortared stone arches like seals. Too Tall kicked over an urn, and licked his lips; there were grave goods—pots, urns, bronze implements—littered about, though nothing gleamed with gold or silver. Godewyn prepared a new lantern, and spiked it into a crack in the stone walls.

Stjepan moved down the chamber toward the big inlaid iron door at the end. There were letters on it, etched into the iron and then inlaid with copper.

He paused briefly, reading the letters, then turned back and walked over to the smaller door on their right.

“This one,” he said at the smaller door. “If I understand the map correctly, it's this one we should go through, the first on the right.”

Godewyn walked over and stood in front of the big iron plate, looking at the bronze and copper inlays. He frowned. “That little one, and not this big iron door with all the markings that says:
Attention, here lies the evil wizard
?” Godewyn asked.

“Actually, that says:
Enter here at your peril
,” Stjepan said.

Godewyn stepped back, staring at the door a moment before shrugging. “Same thing,” he said.

Arduin walked over to stand by Godewyn. He studied the large iron door for a moment, then turned to the rest of the group. “The map has led us right this far; let it lead us a little further,” he said.

Everyone else either shrugged or nodded, and so Stjepan and Caider Ross took up their crowbars and moved aside the stone, revealing another doorway. They moved through it, into another chamber passage.

There was nothing but darkness until a doorway cracked open sharply. The light in the passageway outside spilled into the darkness, revealing a larger chamber. Stjepan entered and panned a lantern across the interior, illuminating four large, carved stone pillars that held up a vaulted roof. Three large doors, this time of carved stone, were mortared into corbelled archways on the west, north, and east walls of the chamber. The pillars and walls were carved with images of bird-headed demons framed in borders of intricate intertwining foliage and strange symbols. Grave goods, including vulture-headed masks, urns, chests, and piles of animal skulls, were scattered amongst the pillars.

Erim prepared another lantern, and spiked it by one of the stone doors, revealing the beautiful but barbaric patterns carved upon it. The others crowded in, setting down their bundles of gear.

Stjepan held a lantern up by the bas-relief of a bird-headed demon carved into one of the pillars. “A
Golodriel
, a servant of Geteema Hamat as Queen of the Second Hell,” he said quietly. “Definitely
not
what you'd expect to find in a barrow made by followers of Yhera and her Court.”

Godewyn walked around and looked at the three doors set in the walls. “This ain't usual, either,” he said. “I've robbed plenty of barrows in my time, and no doubt have an appointment with Amaymon after I die because of it. But most old passage graves have maybe a small side chamber on each side, and that's about it. Pillars, and doors, and more chambers beyond them? This is quite a lot of digging, somebody did, just to put a man under the earth.” He spat to the side. “So which door?”

“This one,” said Stjepan, and he and Leigh approached the western door. As before, Stjepan passed a hand a few inches over the carved surface of the stone, while Leigh ran an amulet over the stone.

“
Reveal that which is hidden!
” said Leigh.

Stjepan and Leigh stepped back as magical glyphs and patterns emerged in the carvings on the surface of the stone; the glyphs reached out to intertwine with the stones of the archway, as though anchoring the stone plate into the frame of the arch.

“The chamber beyond is warded against our entry,” Leigh said in a hushed voice.

“Or exit, by man or spirit,” said Stjepan, slightly puzzled.

The others exchanged excited glances behind them and crowded forward a bit.

“Well, this's gotta be it then, yeah?” asked Erim with a mix of excitement and trepidation. “Can . . . can you get rid of the ward?” She looked troubled, as though she wasn't sure what she wanted the answer to her question to be.

“The wards here are very strong, but I know an incantation that might work,” said Stjepan a bit dubiously. “It would require the use of a potent of the
wormwood
plant, however, and probably a considerable amount of it . . .”

“Folk magic,” Leigh said dismissively. “I am the expert here, Stjepan. Let me check my books of lore.” He began ruffling his hands through the folds of his robes as though searching for something. A satchel of black velvet appeared from within the folds, and he reached inside it and pulled out an old grimoire from the bag and leafed through it.

“The
Lexica Pentaculum
. . . Stjepan, dear boy, have you ever read it?” Leigh asked as he flipped through the old parchment pages.

“That book is forbidden, Magister,” said Stjepan.

“Of course, yes, of course it is,” mused Leigh absentmindedly as he busied himself with the book. “Bronze Age text in Old Éduinan, almost certainly written sometime in the Winter Century, as it mentions Hathhalla the Sun Lion drawing Her Veil over the sun, and covering the world in shadow. It's mostly, as the title would suggest, about summoning and commanding spirits and elementals through the use of a magic circle. The incantations and rituals within it are mostly drawn from the Golan tradition of hermetic magic, rooted in the
Sefer Hermetica Daedacti
. Which shouldn't make it forbidden, really. Except that the anonymous author mixed in material from the Palatian hermetic tradition as well, specifically from the
Pagina Magica de Necris
, a book on summonings and black magic. Have you ever read that one, Stjepan?”

“No, Magister,” Stjepan said. “Forbidden. Again.”

“Of course,” said Leigh. “Despite being somewhat off-topic, the
Lexica Pentaculum
has within it, however . . . assuming I can ever find it . . . an excellent incantation to rid a passage of protective wards . . .”

He drifted off into silence as he flipped through the pages.

Several minutes passed.

Godewyn picked at his ear. Too Tall and Caider Ross exchanged looks.

“Ah! No, that's not quite it,” mumbled Leigh. “Mmmmm . . . Oh, here we are . . . I need blood. I need some blood.” He looked up and around at the others, who all took a concerned step back, before his eyes came to rest on Godewyn. “You. Cut my hand.”

Godewyn looked around at the rest of the group. Leigh held out his hand, palm up. “Go on! Cut my hand!” Leigh said, as though he were talking to a child.

Godewyn shrugged. He drew a sharp foot-long dagger and quickly cut Leigh across his open palm. Leigh grimaced, and then began spreading blood over the surface of the upright stone door, as if washing it. In the other hand he held the grimoire open, and he read a spell from the book.

“Cellis darris, te mere osveret tapesh! Earten darris, hellis hagrass! Purify this door, lift the wards upon it!”
he said, at first in a whisper, then slowly louder with growing boldness. The glyphs began to glow as Leigh washed the door's surface with his blood. “
Cellis darris, te mere osveret tapesh! Earten darris, hellis hagrass! Free it from binding chains, that others may pass through safely!”

Stjepan, Erim, Caider Ross and Too Tall were the first to tense as a low-pitched
hum
resonated throughout the chamber. Then soon they all were wincing and turning slightly away, as they could feel the pressure building in their ears.

“Cellis darris, te mere osveret tapesh! Earten darris, hellis hagrass! Purify this door, lift the wards upon it!”
Leigh repeated these words in a ringing, commanding voice, as he continued to wash the stone surface with his own blood. The
hum
grew louder, until it seemed to the onlookers that the door and walls began to subtly shake and vibrate. Dust began falling from the ceiling. It seemed as though they were watching an invisible contest of wills, between Leigh and the magics that were bound into the glyphs and the stone of the door, a contest that grew darker and more intense . . . until suddenly the glyphs deteriorated and fragmented, and the pressure in their ears disappeared with a
pop
.

“Well done, Magister,” said Stjepan quietly.

Godewyn smiled and waved his men to the stone as they congratulated Leigh, slapping him on the back.

“Thank you,” said Leigh, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Thank you very much. And has anyone seen my impression of a duck?”

Stjepan, Godewyn, Caider Ross, and Too Tall took position by the stone door and began to pry at it with their crowbars. Arduin began to pace impatiently as they struggled at the travail, but the stone was much heavier than the iron plates that they had moved earlier in their explorations.

They struggled, and struggled, and then gave one last collective grunt. With a sharp
crack
, the doorway was unsealed, and a blast of fetid air rushed past, sounding like a
moan
followed by whispers, obscuring the pillared chamber with a cloud of foul dust. Every lantern in the room flared and threw sparks into the air.

The stone fell heavily to the ground with a great, crashing thud as the men closest to it leapt back, and something like a shadow seemed to pass through the room.

Pallas Quinn felt a shudder run through the earth and stone around him, and heard something rattling in the passageway leading into the inner barrow. He held up his broadsword point-first in front of him and looked into the darkness beyond the doorway, tilting his head to one side as if to listen, and instantly got hit by a blast of air. The moans and the whispers passed by and enveloped him. His choking figure was swallowed up by fetid dust.