Cavern of the Witch

At last, he saw. It had no key of iron or brass; the key was a spell. Aranthir withdrew from his mind and opened his eyes. Infusing himself with a pinch of spice from his pouch, he again called upon his sorcerous talents. Wielding magicks taught to him long ago, he touched the center of the lock, and four bolts sprang open. There was a groaning of long neglected gears and the brass knob turned halfway around. Aranthir seized ahold of it and turned it further. The door began to creep open with a terrible grinding of stone against stone. A crack between the door and the wall opened and air that had been stagnant for countless centuries rushed past his face. The air was cold and damp, laden with strange smells. Aranthir felt his head spin.

With considerable effort, Aranthir opened the door wide enough that he could squeeze inside. Looking around, he found himself in another chamber of cobblestone floor and masonry walls. Once again, the ceiling was raw stone untouched by mortal hands. On the far side of the chamber, three doors led further into the earth.

Aranthir paused a moment to consider his course. The doors gave no sign of what lay behind them, and none were locked. He shrugged and pushed open the middle door. Again, the stone ground against the earth and ancient hinges screeched under the effort. Pistol and sword at the ready, Aranthir made his way into the hallway beyond.

The stone-clad hall ran for ten paces until it reached a masonry walkway that stretched around the rim of a small pool of dark water. From the rocky ceiling above, a narrow beam of sunlight pierced the dark gloom, lancing its way into the murky depths of the pool. Aranthir peered closed, activating his mind's eye again.

The pool was empty but for a few water-loving weeds that reached out to the ray of light. Aranthir breathed a sigh of relief, for dark things often dwelt in dark deep pools. Dismissing his mind's eye, he continued along the edge of the pool to the chamber's far side.

Opposite the door he had entered was an identical door, though this one stood ajar. Judging by the accumulation of dust beneath it, the door had sat this way for a long time. Aranthir slipped between the door and the wall without disturbing anything and looked around the room.

The room was unlit, and only his seeing spell and elven eyes allowed him to make out anything. He found himself in a sort of chapel, with a large altar of black stone opposite the door, flanked by two large statues of wolfhounds, and an old brass chandelier on the floor in the middle of the room. Above it dangled the ruins of its chain. The roof here was carved, and though age had damaged the decorations, Aranthir could clearly make out a scene of ritual celebration. Pillars along the edge of the nave were carved with strange writing and scenes of hooded acolytes praying to a dark figure. Aranthir felt the hair on his neck rise. The sides of the room were lined with shelved alcoves, but there were no books or scrolls to be seen.

Lowering his sword, Aranthir paused in thought. Robbing the houses of the gods was perilous work, but this was unlike the house of any god he knew. Perhaps the lord of the temple was dead? Did this temple perhaps date to The World That Once Was?

Again he called upon his mind's eye. He staggered for a moment as the rush of years came over him. Like a bird plummeting from the sky, his mind hurtled backwards in time. How long he did not know, but when the years finally ceased rushing by, he found himself in the same chapel, only grander. The roof was painted in bright pigments and the pillar carvings were gilded. Upon the altar stood silver candelabra and the whole room was lit by candles in beautiful sconces.

Surrounding him were hooded figures in dark blue robes. Behind the altar was another man who wore a robe of the darkest black Aranthir had ever seen. It at once seemed to shimmer in the light of candles, but it also drank the light around him so that he seemed to be wreathed in shadow.

He called out in an ancient tongue and one of his acolytes stepped forward. With a whispered reply, the acolyte shed his robe to stand naked. He was young and hale, a fair-skinned man of no more than twenty with steel blue eyes and dark hair. At the indication of the black-robed man, he lay himself on the altar and closed his eyes.

There was a shout outside, and the hooded figures turned. The door shook under a heavy blow and the assembled figures hissed in anger. It shook again and burst open, admitting a torrent of soldiers in gleaming armor and blades that glowed red with sorcerous fury. The man behind the altar shouted in anger, but beneath the emotion Aranthir recognized the spell. The room shook, and the soldiers paused. The ritual's leader spoke again and though Aranthir did not understand the language he recognized the contempt in the man's voice. The soldiers quavered.

But then another figure entered the room, and the soldiers found their resolve. This was a man in sky-blue robes trimmed with white that dragged along the floor but somehow remained free of dust and dirt. He wore a tall, peaked cap of black velvet with a feather plume and raised a gilded baton. He spoke a word of command and it was the ritualists' turn to take a step back in fear. The ritual leader snarled again and hurled a spell of death at his opponent. The blue robed man undid the spell as easily as a sailor undoes a knot and hurled one of his own. The soldiers surged forward as the hooded men drew knives from their cloaks and the whole room spiraled into madness. Aranthir's mind's eye recoiled at the assault of sorcery and he was wrenched through time again until he found himself on all fours, heaving against the floor.

Slowly, his panting stopped and the throbbing pain in his head subsided. Aranthir looked around. In the aftermath of that ancient battle, the room had been stripped. None of the treasure remained for him. Aranthir sighed. Perhaps the other wings would yield better results. He stood up and spied a door at the back, behind the altar. Retrieving his sword from where it had fallen, he made his way toward it.

As he neared the altar, he felt a sudden, intense sense of danger. He stopped and raised his weapons. Nothing moved. He glanced up at the ceiling, but still could not detect the threat. His seeing spell still cried out to him, but he crept closer. Then the statues to either side of the altar moved.

Though they looked to be made of stone, they rose from their seated position like living beasts. Turning their heads toward Aranthir, the hounds' eyes lit up with an infernal light. As one, they took a step toward Aranthir and the half-elf stepped back carefully. The hounds' maws open, revealing a row of sharp fangs. With an unearthly snarl, they charged.

Aranthir fired his pistol, only for the shot to strike one of the fell hounds in the eye and ricochet away without effect. Startled, he dove out of the way of their snapping jaws and slid through the dusty floor of the ancient chapel.

Coming to his feet, he shoved the spent pistol into his belt holster and gripped his sword with both hands. The hounds wheeled to face him and snarled again, their fell sight allowing them to find him in the pitch blackness. They split up, circling to either side of him like wolves on a hunt. Aranthir darted out of their pincer, only to find them quickly setting up another. They lunged at him, and he darted between them and struck an ineffective blow against the exposed flank of the hound he had shot. His sword rang out, steel on stone, but the hound wheeled to face him again unfazed.

Aranthir found himself pressed hard as the beasts struck again and again. He darted between pillars and over the altar to avoid their attacks, only to be quickly pressed into a corner. All the while, he struggled to summon what power of the spice remained to him after casting the seeing spell. Cornered, he faced the hounds' attack with only a mundane sword of tempered steel.

They knew they had their prey cornered. They pressed in slowly, careful not to obstruct the other's attack. Aranthir spotted his opportunity. He spoke the words of conjuring and his blade fared to life with a sickly green fire. The hounds paused in their approach, heads cocked to the side curiously. Aranthir struck.

He lunged forward, both hands on the blade, and struck a heavy downward blow at the lead hound. The beast broke apart. Chunks of stone flew aside, smoldering with green fire, and the rest crumbled like a sand sculpture. The other hound yelped in fear and leapt aside. It rounded on Aranthir and looked to what was left of its companion, nothing but blacked ash. Snarling its terrible snarl once again, the creature jumped at Aranthir.

The agile half-elf darted aside and struck off the fell hound's head. The beast burst apart like broken pottery and fell to the floor in chunks which soon dissolved into ash and scattered across the room. Lowering his blade, Aranthir breathed a sigh of relief.

He dismissed the fire and sheathed his sword. Once a look around had convinced him that there wore no more sorcerous guardians, he stepped into the back room.

The room was a small chamber that looked to have once served as a priest's quarters. A small pottery wash basin sat in one corner and a rusted iron bedframe lay in another. Along the wall were old stone shelves lined with decaying books and scrolls. Aranthir picked one up to examine it, but the material came apart in his hands. It was no use; they were all too worn and faded to read anyway.

As he turned to leave, his foot slipped. The stone underneath it had been cracked, and his toe slid into a crevice. Aranthir kicked aside the broken stone, but something beneath it caught his eye. He bent down and found a bronze tablet, inscribed with runes in the same script he had seen on the chapel pillars. Gingerly, he removed the tablet from its hiding place and examined it. While the script was unknown to him, he felt something familiar about the writing. Again, he resorted to the mind's eye.

Beneath his sorcerous eye, the script swam and rearranged itself several times. Each time, Aranthir felt another flash of recognition. Some of the runes briefly appeared as characters he knew from his time at the Sorcerers' College in Ildranon. The pattern of the writing was familiar as well. It was the same notation used by sorcerers when inscribing a spell.

He had just discovered a bit of lost magic. Aranthir smiled. There was something to show for this after all. He dug at the other stones in the room, then the walls, then the ceiling, but found nothing else. Disappointed, he returned to the entry chamber and considered the other two doors. They still looked identical and, fearing to use his mind's eye a fourth time, he chose one at a whim and went through.

At the entrance to the cave, the visling Khurra peered inside. Behind her, her two bodyguards Rakath and Vushan flanked the captive shepherdess who had guided them there. The fourth member of their group, Pira the demonbinder, watched from ten paces away as she tended to their horses.

"What are you looking for?" Rakath demanded. The tattooed man used their native tongue, something which clearly set the shepherdess ill at ease. Khurra stepped inside the cave mouth and her eyes, narrow and slitted like a cat, darted about.

"An ambush," the visling said at last.

"Then you should have sent us in first," Vushan growled. "I've not had a fight since we left the ship."

"Worried about going soft?" Pira said as she joined them. The demonbinder's hood was swept back to bare her head, bald but for a long braid growing from the back. The tattoos on her face danced as she gave Vushan a mocking smile. "Fight your brother if you want to stay sharp."

Khurra turned back to the others. "In we go," she pronounced.

"What about the girl?" Vushan asked.

"Send her away, she's done as we asked," Khurra replied. "We have no further need of her."             

"What if we need blood?" Rakath asked. "She is young and vigorous. She would make a worthy sacrifice."

"There is nothing left her to sacrifice her to. This place has been abandoned for ten thousand years. Whatever god ruled this place is long dead."

Vushan undid the girl's bindings reluctantly.

"You are free to go," Khurra said in the local tongue. The shepherdess nodded and hurried away, muttering to herself.

"Damned sorcerers are always trouble," was all that Khurra caught before the women disappeared along the gorge.

"We should have kept her anyway," Vushan muttered.

"Sate your bloodlust with a worthy foe instead of some peasant girl," Khurra said offhandedly and then stepped into the cave. The entrance was unpromising, but the door across the way stood ajar. She examined the opened lock and breathed in surprise. The door would have been a formidable obstacle to them, but someone had already done the hard part for them. The question was who in this mudhole had the knowledge to open the door?

"We must be cautious," she said, "Someone is inside, and they must know sorcery."

"We should have asked the shepherd girl about who else has been here," Rakath muttered.

"Do you two ever stop whining?" Pira hissed. "Draw your weapons and keep an eye open. Here." She handed them each a torch and lit them with a spray of sparks from her hand. "Eyes open, mouths closed. Now move along."

The four of them took the righthand door, which opened into a narrow hallway. The first door on their right stood open, but five paces beyond the door, the tunnel was blocked. A mound of dirt and broken masonry had collapsed into the tunnel from above and there was no passing by it. Khurra frowned and led on.

The next room was a richer find. The door opened into a library chamber two stories tall. Rotting oak shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, piled high with ancient scrolls and leatherbound tomes. the vaulted ceiling was supported by two worn stone pillars topped with stone gargoyles, leering imps with bat wings, long claws, and wide, fanged maws.

"Search these shelves," Khurra commanded, "perhaps we can learn a trick or two from the ancients."

As her minions obeyed, Khurra joined the search herself. The scrolls were old and faded, most disintegrating in her hand as soon as she picked them up. Carefully, she tried to spread them out and read them, but the ink was blurred past the point of illegibility and the parchment still tore apart anyway. With a sigh of frustration, she gingerly picked up a heavy, brass-fronted book.

Undoing the tarnished clasp, she opened the cover. The front page was faded like the others, but the once brilliantly illustrated page was almost legible. Straining her eyes in the dim light, Khurra tried to make out something - anything - in the mess of ink.

It was no use. The illustration was tantalizingly close to making sense, but in the end, she could learn nothing from it. Discouraged, she threw the book back onto the shelf.

"This is a waste of time," Pira growled. "These scrolls are falling apart. Damnation, there must be something of value in here!"

Khurra pulled another book off the shelf. This one was bound in thick black leather and trimmed with iron. The book's cover folded over itself to make it watertight. She hoped that it protected the contents against the ages better than the others had. The clasp was locked and as Khurra tried to open it, she noticed the sigil on the cover. She stopped before the warding spell blasted her to pieces.

"Pira, come here," she said. The other woman stopped her fruitless searching and complied. "Look at this sigil. Can you dispel it?"

Pira frowned. "Not here," she said. "If we take it back to my library, I could find the right counterspell."

"Very well," Khurra sighed. "At least it's promising."

Pira looked around. "Which is more than I can say for the rest of this mess."

"Mistress, look at this," one of the twins called from the back of the library. Together the two women followed the voice to its source. The twins stood in front of a metal safe set into the outer wall of the room. The door to the safe was a plate of burnished bronze, inscribed with all manner of runes and sigils.

"There must be something worthwhile in here," Vushan said. Khurra and Pira moved past them to study the carvings.

"These runes are ancient," Pira said, "but I think I recognize them."

"You think?" Rakath asked. "Do you merely think you can disarm it without turning us all into mice?"

"I know them," Khurra said. "I know the spell. Stand back."

The others retreated to what they presumed was a safe distance. Infusing herself with a pinch of spice, Khurra called upon her sorcerous heritage and spoke the words of undoing.

"It's done," she pronounced.

"Wonderful," said Vushan. "You open it."

Turning a withering look on her companions, Khurra pried open the door. Inside were five neat stacks of golden coins, along with a crystal wand.

Khurra licked her lips with a forked tongue.

"Now that is a treasure," Pira breathed.

Khurra reached into the safe and picked up the wand. It was the length of her forearm, made of translucent crystal wrapped in blue leather to provide a grip, and carved at the tip in the shape of a crow's head.

"What does it do?" Pira asked. "I see no runes explaining its purpose."

"I do not know," Khurra replied quietly, examining her prize with great interest while the twins greedily claimed the gold coins. "We will find out when we get back to your library."

Pira opened her mouth to speak, but the movement of something above them made a sound. Turning, all four of them looked up and spotted the two gargoyles atop the pillars as they unfurled their wings and looked down at the intruders. Their eyes burned with malice as they slowly stirred to life.

"Eldrin's Breath!" Pira cursed, drawing a cold iron dagger from her belt, "the ruin's guardians still live!"

"Prepare yourselves!" the twins cried in unison as they each drew a pair of axes. Khurra thrust the crystal wand into her belt and drew a silver-edged dagger. Rising to a crouch, the gargoyles hopped to the top of a shelf below, turning their heads quizzically at her.

They were larger than they had looked at the top of the pillar. They were each man-sized, with widespread wings like those of a bat, porcine faces, and sharp fingered claws. Aside from loincloths that somehow resisted the centuries' wear, they wore only bracers and collars of aged bronze.

Khurra drew her companions into a tight knot in front of her.

"Do we fight or go for the door?" Vushan asked.

"If we can get to the hall, they won't be able to fly," Rakath added.

"What magic will undo these creatures?" Khurra asked.

"I could try to bind them," Pira offered, "but not all spells of binding will bind a golem."

"Try one of the ones that will," Khurra ordered. As she spoke, the gargoyles dove as one. Swooping down from the shelves, they pulled up just in front of the twins, avoiding their axe blows and unleashing their clawed feet. Vushan received a gash across the shoulder, while Rakath parried the strike with his steel axe. Their attack completed, the gargoyles flapped their wings and shot upwards until they alit on top of the shelves again, ready for a new attack.             

Vushan clutched at his wound, dropping his axe to the floor. Rakath checked his brother's shoulder, but kept an eye on their foes above.

"Pira, tend to his wound," Khurra ordered. She looked up and the words of a spell formed on her lips. She felt the sorcerous power grow within her and thrust her hand forth. From it burst a bolt of white lightning that struck one of the gargoyles and glanced off, leaving a smoking, charred spot that troubled the creature little. It looked down as her and screeched a terrible cry. Khurra winced and covered her ears.