Gralen held the lantern out and led them down the stone stairway. They removed the bar from the doors and tried to push the doors open.
“Something’s still blocking it from the other side,” said Sam.
She pulled a metal file from her pack and squeezed it between the door and the wall.
“I’m trying to lift the bar,” she said, “but I can’t catch anything.”*
Will tapped hard on the door. He stepped back, then slammed into it, bursting it open.† He almost tripped over debris on the other side, and then discovered what the debris was. Gralen’s lantern illuminated three corpses, their skin stretched dry and papery where it showed through their brown robes. A musty odor permeated the cooler air. Freshly-broken spears were scattered on the floor.
A long hallway ran crossways to the door, circling away from them to the left and right. The walls and floors were set with boulders of granite and dark marble, inlaid with a greenish metal around the rock. The hallway was only five feet wide, but tall, leaving a foot of space above even Gralen’s head. They could see a door to their left and to their right on the inner wall of the arched corridor. There were drawings on the walls, of mountains silhouetted against a night sky.
The door to their left was marked with a carving of the constellation Virgo, lacquered in bright blue, and the walls leading to it were painted with rural fields and then libraries. On their right the door was carved with the scales of Justice.*
“Right or left?”
“Let’s go counterclockwise,” said Charlotte.
The wall paintings changed from mountains to jousts as they walked, then to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the scales of hell. Golden stars on the door marked the outline of blue scales. The doors of Justice opened easily and silently. Stone stairs led down past the oaken seats of a small auditorium, to a head table flanked by dark marble statues, a woman holding scales on the left and a great crab on the right. The statues were veined with streaks of white and blood-red. Seven high-backed oaken seats, ornamented with stars, were behind the table. There were torch sconces on the walls, each with an unlit torch.
“Is there anything of value here?” asked Will.
“Not unless we can haul away these statues,” said Sam. “Gralen, you got any statue-hauling spells?”
As they continued down the corridor, the wall paintings changed from hell to the rebirth of cities, man and beast toiling to move stone blocks and raise great monuments to God. A door on the outer wall bore a lacquered carving outlining a rampaging bull, glossy black against the rich brown door. It opened as easily as Justice did, to a room with a huge opaque glass table held by an obsidian bull. The table was covered in maps. Sam found two brilliant red rubies on the floor beneath the bull’s vacant stare.
Will looked at the maps on the table. Their corners cracked at his touch.
“Highland, Biblyon, and Illustrious Castle. It looks like they were planning an attack on the Order of Illustration.”
“There’s no treasure here, and the paper’s brittle,” said Sam.
“It’s getting late,” Will replied. “We need to sleep so we aren’t caught napping tomorrow if we meet more spiders—or something worse.”
“Let’s take a quick survey of the area,” said Charlotte. “The corridor curves. I’ll bet it circles back.”
The cities on the walls gave way to deserts; whirlwinds stirred up dust, and the devil tempted Jesus with illusory kingdoms from a rock overlooking the desert’s desolation. On the inner wall of the circle, a white scorpion raised its tail menacingly against them on the door. Through bars in a window on the door, they could see whips, and a hollow man-shape filled with spikes.
Charlotte marked the constellations on her map as they continued. The desert on the walls turned to battles. War machines carried destruction to castles. Arrows rained on helpless armies. A translucent amber archer on an outer door pointed three arrows to the stars. The door was slightly open, revealing an hour-glass-shaped room with benches, and bows and arrows in various states of repair.
The fighting on the walls gave way to scholars studying, to a monastery at the edge of a serene lake, and then to rocky badlands and sharp mountains. A pink ram bounded from peak to peak on a wide open door on the outer wall. Gralen shone the lantern inside. They saw depths of tattered spider webs. The walls of the thin room or corridor were lined with shelves. There were skulls and skeletal hands barely visible above the webbing on the shelves. An ornate arch, and another just at the edge of the lantern’s light, were inscribed with goats and snakes.
“A crypt,” said Gralen. “And probably more giant spiders. Close the door.”
“We’re definitely circling back,” said Will.
Badlands turned to streams, and streams to rivers and swamps. Crabs abounded in the water; tiny gnome-like creatures feasted on boiled crab. A lustrous white crab, claws open, marked the oak door on the inner wall. Sam tapped it with her pole; it sounded thick and heavy.
Peasants painted on the wall carried water from rivers to hovels Aqueducts delivered water to cities. A doorless portal on the outer wall led into dirt and darkness. From the recesses of its twisting hallway they heard bubbling and faint scufflings echoing out on an earthy odor. They moved quickly past. The cities on the walls grew to kingdoms, kingdoms to castles, and castles to thrones where wise rulers dispensed justice. Leo, the stars of its constellation connected in a ferocious lion, guarded the next door on the inside wall. He was inlaid with gold, his eyes rubies, and on his tail gems of purple, red, and blue.
Charlotte marked it on her map and they moved on, from throne to forest, forest to river, river to sea, and sea to storm, with great monsters in the storms feeding on whale and ship. The storm abated as the painting turned to bays, and waves lapped lightly on shores untouched by war. At the next door, on the inside wall, delicately painted nobility, men and women, pursued their studies in library and field.
From there the painted ocean changed to field, field to mountain, mountain peaks silhouetting stars and moon. An outer door was smashed open; broken spears lay strewn about. It was lacquered with a scratched and chipped ram’s horn beneath a crescent moon.
“Back to Aries,” said Gralen. Then, “I don’t remember Gemini.”
“Nor Pisces,” said Charlotte. “And that’s not all that’s wrong. Look at the map.”
She drew lines on her map between each of the doors along the inner wall and then did the same to the doors along the outer wall.
“They each form six-pointed stars,” she said, “or they would, if there were another door here—” and she finished the star for the inner circle, “and here—” and she finished the star for the outer circle.
“Secret doors in a dungeon,”*Sam replied. “Now we’re talking.”
They followed Charlotte’s map back around, counting off the zodiac.
“Aries on the right.”
“Libra to our left.”
“Taurus to the right.”
“Scorpio on the left… ”
“Sagittarius, right… ”
Charlotte motioned them to stop.
“Gemini should be on our left.”
“Lots of twin imagery,” said Gralen.
Behind looming mountains, a twin-faced god stared down from the stars, and a two-headed giant lifted its head, empty eyes staring with pinprick irises.
“There’s nothing here,” said Charlotte. “Sam, do you see anything?”
Sam traced the outlines of the twins and of Janus, and the two-headed giant. She frowned at a symmetric, mirror-image forest in the lake, and then retraced around the giant.
“Here,” she said. “This is the border of the door and the wall.”*
“So how do we get in?” asked Gralen.
“Watch this.”
Sam put her pack onto the floor and dug into it for a long roll of leather. She unrolled it next to her pack revealing several small metal and wooden tools. She chose two fine metal wires and poked them into the giant’s eyes.
They watched Sam work at the wall for a minute, two minutes…
“How long will this take?” asked Charlotte.†
“Patience,” she said. “They really didn’t want us in here. This is like your clock upstairs. It’s the best lock I’ve ever seen.”
“How many locks have you tried to break into?” asked Will.
“Your mama.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
After ten minutes, with Gralen and Will leaning against the wall discussing the merits of various bars in Hightown, and Charlotte poring over her map, they heard a soft click. Sam stepped back.*
“Damn. I’m good.”
She took up her pole and pushed the door, then tapped the pole on the floor inside the doorway.
“Careful. Anyone who can make a lock like that can also make dangerous traps.”
Gralen pointed the lantern into the short entrance, five feet long, and the diamond-shaped room beyond. There were two bronze bells, one on the floor either side of the passage, just past the entrance.
“Maybe it’s a temple?”
Sam tapped the bell on the right with her pole. It rang softly. When she tapped the other, it rang as sweetly in a lower tone.
“That’s beautiful,” said Gralen. “But it doesn’t appear to do anything.”
He stepped, slowly, through the short entrance, passed between the bells, and walked into the center of the room.† The walls on the far half of the diamond were lined with counters, benches in front of them. There were quills and inkwells on the counters, and an abacus on each side. A large tapestry hung from ceiling to floor at the far point of the diamond.
“It’s not a temple,” said Charlotte. “It’s a workroom.”
“Maybe they worshipped work,” said Sam, as she walked over to the tapestry. “Or maybe they worshipped this wall hanging.”
The cloth of the tapestry was silky. An image of the castle was woven into it. The moon greeted the sun in its night sky, stars between them in silver. “PRAELUXI ASTRALIS ERUDITIO” was written across the bottom.
“Gralen?”
“Knowledge shines forth from the stars.”
“This tapestry, I’ll bet, would go for a lot of money. It’s too heavy to carry, though.”
“If we keep quiet about this place, we can return with more pack animals.”
“Hey!” cried Sam. “There’s a door behind this! It looks like a safe.”*
At the same time Charlotte spun around to look back at the entrance.†
“Something’s coming.”‡
A dark low shape ambled through the entranceway.
“Holy Christ,” said Sam, “it’s the mother of all spiders.”
Will loaded a bolt into his crossbow and aimed it at the creature.
“That thing is impossible.”
It had a huge, purplish, bloated body two and a half feet thick. Spindly, hairy black legs snapped against rock as it climbed the wall.*
Sam readied her own crossbow.
“How much bigger do they get?” asked Charlotte.
They all backed up against the tapestry. The creature scuttled up the wall and into the room. Gralen fumbled in his pouch for his tiny arrows.
The creature looked straight at them. Will and Sam both fired their crossbows. The bolts grazed it; it dropped to the floor but kept scuttling relentlessly toward them.†
Will and Sam put their crossbows down and drew their swords. A vile liquid dripped from the creature’s teeth as it snapped at Will’s leg. Will slammed down hard with his sword.‡ The spider hissed, then lunged again. Sam and Will used their swords as much to keep it back as attack it.§
The slavering thing tried again to gnaw Will’s leg. Will sliced through it, severing it at the eyes. It fell to the floor quivering. Its bloated body blurbled and twitched.** Will and Sam both hacked at it until it stopped twitching.*†
“What is this place?” asked Sam. “What else is down here?”
Will shook his head, wiped the goo off his boots and legs, and then off his sword.
“We could’ve used some of those magic bolts, Gralen.”
“We might need them later,” Gralen said. “Sam’s right, we have no idea what else is down here.”*
“This safe is locked,” said Sam. “Let’s see what’s behind it.”
Will held the tapestry clear for her to work. She examined the lock, selected one tool and then another, carefully twisted and turned a thin blade and wire in the keyhole. She pulled a third tool, inserted it, and with one deft flick of her wrist—
—they all heard a click inside the wall beyond the safe.
“There’s no guarantee I’ve done it right. Everyone stand back, just in case.”†
“Seriously?” said Gralen.
“I need someone to rescue my barely living body when the green poison gas comes out.”
“I don’t like it, but she’s right,” said Will.
They all but Sam stepped back to the bells. Gralen still clutched his tiny arrows, and Will lifted Sam’s crossbow from the floor. He loaded it, and his own.
She pried the safe open, slowly.
“Papers, books, and scrolls. What crappy treasure.”
Sam heard them exhale from across the room. As they walked back to the safe she reached inside and pulled out a scroll.
Thwip.
An arrow flew out and lodged in her leather jacket.
“Shit.”
“Are you okay?”
“It… I feel fine. No pain. That’s not good, is it?”
“It hasn’t gone through your leather,” said Will.‡
“Maybe the mechanism is old?” said Charlotte.
Another arrow bounced against the far wall. They all dived to the side. When no more arrows came out, Sam took her pole and poked around in the safe, careful to stay out of the way of the opening.
Nothing continued to happen.
Charlotte and Gralen began pulling out the papers and reading them, continuing to stand off to the side.
“Most of these are contracts and treaties,” said Gralen. “In Ancient.”
“This one’s Anglish,” said Charlotte. “It’s a contract with Dwarves. For building this dungeon.”
“I broke through a Dwarf lock?” said Sam. “I really am good.”
“I’ll bet Dwarves built the clock, too,” said Charlotte.
“Listen to this!” said Gralen. “In their ridiculously long preamble they forgive the Dwarves for working with their rivals, the Illustrators.”
“What would the Dwarves have built for the Order of Illustration?”
“I don’t know. There’s no dungeon like this in Illustrious Castle.”
“That anyone knows about.”
“Before we decide where we’re going next, we should finish where we are right now.”
“Hah,” said Gralen. “A peace treaty with the Illustrators.”
“That worked well,” said Will. “Any peace treaties with the goblins?”
“Holy crap.”
“Seriously? They had a peace treaty with the goblins?”
“No. These are spells. Weird spells. They’re based on the sorceror Isaiah’s research*, but they go beyond anything he ever taught. One claims to control dreams.”
“Oh, sure, that’s useful. Is there one that can kill spiders?”
Sam, Will, and Charlotte laughed, but Gralen shook his head.
“This is completely new. It’s like finding a new animal or… or medicine.”*
“I would rather not find a completely new animal either,” said Will, with a glance toward the bloated spider’s corpse.
“What about this?”
Sam handed a short scroll to Charlotte. She and Gralen looked at it. Charlotte frowned. Gralen scratched his head; they both sat down at the workbench.
Sam looked over at Will, raised one eyebrow.
“I don’t know,” he whispered back. “He never acts confused. Even when he is.”
“Her either.”
“It looks like it’s in Anglish,” said Charlotte.
“But,” added Gralen, “it’s complete nonsense.”
“This might mean something,” Charlotte replied, then quoted, “So the four maps to Charon were cured here of war.”
“Yes, but listen to this. ‘He who draws to worlds will knit one toy net. Hinges vow to better hinge, and bar shale. Harm all strange metal, and adhere to the thin hate of the freer sin there.’ What the hell is this?”†
“Let’s take it,” said Charlotte, “and anything else that looks important. Lock the rest back up.”
“Let’s find the secret Pisces room,” said Sam. “You can keep your dream spells. I dream of gold.”
“I’m sure I saw fish on the outer wall,” said Charlotte. “Near the lion.”
Around the circle, they returned past the sea, to the storms and the kraken.
“Here,” said Charlotte. “The eyes of these monsters are the stars of Pisces.”
Sam examined one of them, pressed it in, and then the one next to it.
“They’re buttons,” she said. “Maybe we need to press them all. But I can’t reach them all at the same time.”*
Will pressed in on six of the eyes on the other end of the constellation. Sam pressed the eyes on her end.
A loud click echoed down the hallway. One of the waves rolled over, revealing a keyhole.
Sam unrolled her locksmithing tools again. She worked at it for a minute, and then opened the door.
“Another Dwarf lock down.”
A scouring sandstorm assaulted them as a great wind blew out from the darkness beyond the doorway. Gralen and Charlotte stumbled about clutching at their eyes.† Charlotte’s map fluttered violently down the hallway. Sam leapt to rescue the lantern as it rolled about the floor spilling light.
“My god,” said Will. “It’s full of gold!”
The cold dry wind died down and the dust settled. Gralen and Charlotte washed their eyes with their drinking water. The room was filled with sacks overflowing with gems, gold and silver coins, necklaces and bracelets covered in bright metal and shimmering opalescent stones, goblets of gold embedded with rubies and emeralds.
“This is impossible,” said Sam. “Let’s get it and get out of here.”
“Wait,” said Gralen. “Where did that wind come from? What is in this room that could cause a sandstorm?”
“We can’t back out now,” said Will. “This is what we came for, isn’t it?”
“I came for lost knowledge.”
“Well, I came for gold,” said Sam. “But you might be right.”
She touched the gold with her ten-foot pole. It was sucked out of her hands into the room—but never appeared there.
“It just—disappeared.”
“That’s what I came for,” said Gralen. “The knowledge of how to do things like that.”
“What is it?”
“Most likely a spell of destruction or a transport spell. Anything going through that doorway is either destroyed, or sent somewhere else.”
“Where’s my pole?”
“Somewhere else in the castle, maybe,” said Gralen.
“If I were them,” said Will, “I’d send anyone walking through this entrance straight to those dungeon cells we saw.”
“So how do we get the treasure?” asked Sam. “Look at all that stuff!”
She tried to shine the lantern’s light further into the room.
“Huh,” she said. “That’s not right.”
“What?”
“There are no shadows.”*
“It’s an illusion!” Gralen cried.†
“The treasure’s not real?”
“This seems like a lot of work to protect something that isn’t there.”
Will cut a couple of yards off their rope, and tossed one end toward the treasure. They heard the rope flop on the ground inside the entry, but did not see it. Will easily pulled it back out; there was no force on it, nothing sucking it away from him.
“What does that mean?”
“Maybe it only likes eating wood?”
“I’m not touching that line with a, um, never mind,” said Sam.
She tossed a dagger inside; it disappeared when it passed the illusion. They heard it clatter on stone on the other side.
“Maybe the trap only worked once?”
“Were they only expecting one burglar?”
“Or we don’t really understand what’s happening,” said Charlotte.
“Whatever,” said Sam. “I’m going for the gold.”
She took a deep breath… and walked through.
“Can you hear me? I can still see the gold, but now it’s in your direction.”
The rest of them walked through the shimmering flat treasure. Three halls extended from the space behind the illusion, lined respectively with swords, spears, or maces. The walls were large stones set in a pebbled mortar. Will examined one of the spears.
“They’re in decent enough shape for their age,” he said. “But the wood’s too old and brittle for combat.”
“I preferred the illusion,” said Sam.
“That seemed like a lot of trouble to protect perfectly normal weapons,” said Gralen.
“It does,” said Will, “seem like overkill.”
“There must be another secret door,” said Sam.
“Where?”
“One of these hooks the weapons are hanging from?”
They tried pulling, twisting, and pushing the various hooks. No secret doors slid open to reveal great treasure, nor even piddling small treasure.
“Do we give up?”
“No,” said Sam and Will, nearly in unison.
“I thought you wanted to go back upstairs?”
“I want to go home alive, sure. But also rich.”
“Light some of these torches,” she said. “Let’s search the end of each of these hallways. Charlotte, you take the left, I’ll take the middle. Will and Gralen, you take the right.”
After a few minutes, Sam cried out, “I found something!” Then they heard a faint “crap” and saw her crumple to the ground. Her locksmithing tools scattered on the floor. A small bag fell away from her hands and jangled as it hit the stones.
A hole had opened in the wall.
Will ran over to her.
“Careful!” cried Gralen. “It might be gas!”
Will lifted her and carried her back to Charlotte and Gralen near the golden illusion.*
“I feel tired,” he said.
“You just breathed the gas that must’ve knocked her out. Or—”
“She’s still breathing,” said Charlotte.
“We’ve been trailed by orcs, attacked by spiders, shot at by people who’ve been dead for a hundred years, gassed by them too, and almost transported to God knows where. What’s next?”
“Next will be when the dragons burst out of the earth looking for mead,” said Charlotte.
“Ha. Ha.”
Will took the cork from his waterskin and poured water on Sam’s face.
“Giving her a bath?”
“Trying to wake her up.”
“Ah.”
“We’ve got to do something.”
He walked down the hall of swords, pulled down several of the weapons, hefted them, swung them experimentally.
Gralen studied the notebooks they’d taken from the safe.
Charlotte drew this room into her map, and annotated the map with what they’d seen so far. After every line she felt Sam’s wrist and then her forehead.
Finally, Sam lifted her head.
“What… are you all waiting for?”
“Dragons and mead,” said Will.
“Huh?”
“How are you feeling, Sam?”
“Fine. Why is my face wet?”
Will handed her a longsword.
“This sword could use some maintenance, but it’s a decent weapon.”
“I found silver coins. Behind a secret door.”
“Which was trapped,” said Charlotte. “You ought to’ve let us know.”
“Whatever. There’s more treasure in the vault.”
The bag she’d dropped held a hundred silver coins. A second bag held gold coins, and a third more silver.*
“What is this money?” asked Will.
Charlotte sorted through them and laid twelve out.
“They’re all astrological. The Astronomers must have had their own mint, or hired someone to mint these.”
Other bags contained powders, and dried plants. There were jars of feathers, horns, teeth and bones, insects and insect parts. One bag contained a single rock, heavy and blackened.
“These are magical ingredients,” said Gralen. “Take the powders first, and then anything else you can, we should be able to sell most of it if I can’t use it.”
They carried their bags of gold and dust and rock back through the illusory treasure, and returned up the stairs to the grand entrance.
