Broken Crossroads (Knights of the Shadows Book 1) (9 page)

“There's a door here that hasn't been tampered with.”

“So Vaigh missed it?”

“Well, as it didn't have a sign reading
Loot within! Strike here with crowbar!
in letters of fire, he might have.”

She continued her minute survey of the wall. Conn tried briefly to see what she was looking at, but the whole thing looked the same to him. The wall was one large scene of gods or demons wreathed in flames. He saw no interruption which could define a door.

Trilisean stood back, smiled and nodded. Conn readied himself, wondering what she had planned. The thief pressed on one of several inlaid gems and a section of wall swung away. Conn realized why he had missed it.

The door was not square, but followed the contours of a figure, a goddess or creature, obviously female despite the extra pair of clawed hands and the reptilian head crowned in fire.

She paused a moment, then stepped through the goddess-door. Conn followed, ducking and twisting to avoid any contact with the wall, in case it was trapped in some way. They found themselves in a smaller room, less ornate but still filled with wealth, and less disturbed.

If the first chamber was the room of a powerful man, this was that of his mistress. A small bed stood in the center, draped in clothes of gold. A table stood to one side, a small but flawless mirror upon it, jeweled combs, jars of pigments and fragrances carefully arranged. There was a small wardrobe to one side and a long mirror beside it. The walls were decorated here as well, but with scenes of explicit and unlikely couplings between mortals and supernatural beings. At least supernatural in flexibility and certain endowments.

“Nuad's Arm,” breathed Conn.

Trilisean expertly scanned the room's contents, selecting a few items, choosing for worth, portability and ease of sale. She soon filled a small leather sack and made it disappear.

“So, do we have enough?” asked Conn.

“We have a lot,” she replied with a smile, “but what is this
enough
of which you speak? Seriously though, we're looking for a crystal sphere, about a hand-span in diameter. That's the prize, this is just…trimmings.”

“So no chance of running off and buying a castle with the trimmings?”

“Courage failing you, oh mighty warrior?”

“We've seen one corpse already, something scared old Vaigh off, and there are still those buggers in the forest who tried to kill us,” he replied. “I'm just putting forward the option of quitting while we're wealthy and breathing.” He shrugged. “But it's your call, lass.”

“Vaigh is an amateur, the corpse in the entryway missed an easy trap. He used a crowbar on the front door.”

“Is that as bad as passing the port to the right?”

“Worse than accidentally hitting the barmaid on your backswing during a high spirited tavern brawl,” Trilisean replied, holding up a jeweled comb for closer inspection before slipping it into her bag.

Conn blanched in horror at the thought. Do that and you probably wouldn't get served again.

She finished her sweep of the chamber and then returned to the passageway. The next few doors were plain, untrapped, and revealed only sparsely furnished cells.

“We need to find a way down,” she whispered, peering at the walls. “I could drop down on a rope, but I'd rather not risk that until I've…exhausted…all the other…options…Aha!” She indicated a span of wall with a grin and a flourish.

Conn dutifully followed her gesture, but try as he might, he could see no difference in the fantastically carved section indicated from the rest of the passageway. “Apart from a wall, what am I supposed to be seeing?” She wordlessly pressed on a carved figure, and the section of wall swung away to reveal a passageway. She made a quick search of the portal before stepping lightly through. Conn followed cautiously.

The walls of this passage were bare of adornment. Cold, dark lamps of copper set high in the walls were the only thing that broke the monotony. After a journey of fifty or so paces Trilisean stopped at a door at the end of the passage and worked her magic. Soon it slid to the side.

The thief crouched down to check the floor beyond the opening, the mercenary poised behind her, senses straining for any hint of danger.

Suddenly, the grate of stone and the dull thump of a closed door reverberated up the passage behind them.

“The door!” Trilisean burst out, spinning on her heels.

“Look out!” Conn shouted, shoving her forward through the entrance.

She rolled with the push, came up on her knees and looked back to see the near door sliding back, threatening to crush the warrior or trap him in the passageway. Conn braced his spear, jamming the ferrule in the corner of the doorway and wedging the head against the massive slab sliding toward him. The door stopped with a shudder, then the haft of the weapon began to flex. Conn sprang through the door to land heavily beside Trilisean just as the spear snapped in two.

He looked as the door ground its way closed with an all too final dull crump.

“Well,” he gasped. “That was a bit of excitement.”

“Thanks for noticing this one closing,” she said. “At least we're not trapped between the doors.”

“No, we're just trapped on this side of them.”

“Here we have room to maneuver. And the good stuff is probably on this side.”

“It better be,” he growled, “because that spear is going down as an expense for which I expect to be reimbursed.”

“You're learning,” she beamed. “I knew you had it in you.”

They looked about and found themselves on the level of the great hall, behind the altar. A high, arched door lead through to one side of the great idol. This was probably a passageway for the use of the priest, they reasoned. The corridor ran in both directions. To the left it opened into a spacious chamber, to the right it turned a corner.

They proceeded cautiously toward the archway to the left. It opened into a vast chamber, its size swallowing the light from Trilisean's lamp. They could see the dim outlines of broad columns rising toward the unseen ceiling, fantastic carvings breaking the symmetry of their surfaces. The floor was unadorned polished stone, smoothed in patterns by centuries of footsteps. They followed the faint depressions to a low shape, well into the room. Trilisean scanned ahead and low, Conn scanning to the sides and above for any sign of danger. The slamming of the doors didn't seem to have alerted anyone. Aside from the traps, they had encountered no threats so far. This only deepened their concern, as something had struck terror in the heart of the last burglar here. Soon the low shape began to resolve itself in the dim lamplight. It was a stone table just a bit longer than the height of a man, set beside a low ring of stones surrounding a pit in the floor.

As they moved closer, the details became more disturbing. Both the table and ring were carved with writhing serpentine shapes, the most dynamic and violent of all those they had seen so far. The table's top was fitted with rings of thick bronze at the corners, the frayed remains of long- rotted rope still twisted through them. A groove was cut around the edge of the surface, and led to a hollowed depression in the end near the pit. In some deep part of his heart Conn could see the victim strapped to the table and hear the screams echo in the vast chamber as bronze daggers rose and fell in time to the chanting of hooded figures. He shuddered and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

Trilisean looked down the central well, searched the rim for traps, then, with her lamp and a small mirror, looked within.

The area beneath was large. Not a shaft but a cavernous chamber, the floor on which they stood supported by more of the ubiquitous serpent-carved columns. Directly below the hole was a pedestal upon which a large crystal of deep amethyst rested in a stand of gold, its three arms forged in the shape of rearing serpents. The thin beam of reflected light struck the crystal and refracted, shedding a ghostly purple radiance on the area around the pedestal.

There, limned in violet, was a heap of broken bones, empty ribcages and hollow eyes covered with slowly writhing snakes. One serpent of particularly thick body coiled around the gem itself.

“Gonna be a bugger getting that out,” muttered Conn.

Trilisean did not reply. The warrior noted that her breathing grew more rapid, hissing through her teeth, which were bared in a wicked grin. Her dark eyes sparkled at the challenge.

The thief dropped her pack, pulling out her tool kit and unrolling it on the floor. She fought down her excitement, tried to calm the quickening of her pulse and concentrate on the task. This is what she was meant to do. No more two farthing pickpocketing. No more haggling with a fat fence over poorly made jewelry pilfered from the blind sheep that passed for gentry in Laimrig. This was a masterpiece. A crystal the size of her fist guarded by cunning traps and deadly poisonous serpents nesting on a heap of bones. She felt a delicious thrill shiver through her body.

Conn took a look at her and knew that she was going to go for the crystal, regardless of the king's ransom in treasure already in her pack. That fact was evident in every line of her body, in the way she carried herself and the new bounce in her movements as she assembled the tools she felt she needed. That and the look in her eye. He thought back, wondering when the last time was a woman had looked at him the same way this one looked at a pit full of bones and vipers.

“What's your plan?” he asked.

“I'm going to climb down on this rope, using the near column, and then check the gem for traps. It probably is rigged somehow, given all that the former occupants have done to guard it. I'll disable the trap, then climb back up.”

“Ah. Here I thought it was going to be difficult. What about the snakes?”

She grinned, held up a waxy sphere. “Always be prepared. This is a bit of sleeping powder from my apothecary friend, rolled in a ball and sealed in beeswax. On impact, it will burst and cover a small area. Anyone who breathes it should be knocked out.”

“And it works on snakes just as well as it does on men?”

“We'll know in a few minutes.”

She looked down the hole, measured out a length of thin silk rope in her hands. Then she tied it off to one of the bronze rings on the sacrificial table. Conn, with the inherent superstitions of an Aeransman, felt that there was something wrong about that, but saw nothing better to use as an anchor.

Trilisean slipped over the ring of stones, taking her weight on the rope and bracing her feet on the column, her soft soled boots finding purchase on the carved scaly coils that wound around it. Conn took the slack of the rope, winding it behind him and leaning back to take her weight, letting out slack as the thief descended.

Trilisean made her way down slowly, testing each foothold before trusting her weight to it. At about ten feet up from her goal, she took a sphere from her pouch, took a moment to aim then dropped it. The orb struck the edge of the pedestal and burst into a cloud of white. For a moment, the faint hissing below swelled in intensity, then faded as the powder settled. She paused and waited, watching as the writhing forms stilled.

Not knowing how long the drug would work on snakes, she rapidly scaled the rest of the way down, then hung for a moment, closely examining the jewel and its base. The orb was a flawless crystal of deep violet. The base was gold, formed in the shape of three serpents, their tails entwined, the gem resting between the three raised heads.

She reached toward the jewel, her breathing tight with anticipation, then paused. If it were so well guarded, wouldn't it be trapped?

She looked carefully at the spot where the golden snakes joined. Was it one piece, or could they be three, cunningly fitted? She smiled and dug in her pouch. She took a notched ring of steel and delicately slid it between the rearing necks of the jewel's base. She pressed it gently into place, letting the notches grip the soft gold.

Trilisean flexed her long fingers, mentally weighing the gem. As she considered it, the snake on the pedestal twitched, its coils loosening.

She cursed. The time for caution was past, now it was time to act. Hoping that she had taken precautions enough, she grasped the orb lightly but firmly and lifted.

As the jewel came free, she felt the golden snake heads start to snap closed, but the ring of steel caught them. She placed the gem in her pouch, noting the sharp points on the back of the snake heads.

She lightly scrambled up the column. As she climbed, she heard the hissing grow louder behind her. She pulled herself over the lip of stone and looked down to see shadowy forms slithering sluggishly over the pedestal.

“Well,” she said, “I guess now we know how long it works on snakes.”

“Did you get the jewel?”

She grinned broadly and reached into her pouch, producing the orb with a flourish.

“Right,” said Conn. “Now we'd best be making our way out of here.”

As he spoke, the cold copper lanterns on the walls began to gutter and flare into life, one by one.

“I agree,” said Trilisean. “Now does seem a good time for a departure.”

* * *

Deep in the bowels of the temple, a mind awoke from a long and restless slumber. Awareness slowly spread.