36. Raiders of the Lost KOZAH

Jade's thoughts drifted across twenty years, wrapping her like in warm blankets with her loyal twin brother and cheerful best friend. The field her feet traversed gave way to a jagged mess of exposed rocks; flat paths twisted up and down. Like a natural quarry, it recessed. The party made out a group of men in the bottom, toiling away with shovels and pickaxes.

"Put yer backs into those shovels, men!" shouted an older overseer. "If she's not out tonight we'll lose 'er to the bandit scum!"

Jade tilted her head forward, signaling for her party to advance. They made their way down among the rocks, and before long the silver-bearded overseer snapped up to look at them, his eyes sharp and twinkling.

"You there!" he called. "State your business, but don't move from where you stand! I don't want to have to sic the boys on you."

Jade sighed, looking over the frail half-dozen diggers, but kept any smart comment to herself. "Relax," she parlayed boredly, "We mean no harm. Had much trouble?"

The old man softened, and nodded. "Have we? Aye, and plenty of it. Nary an eve goes by without us losing another hand to the night. I swear, if we could just get a few moments of uninterrupted digging done..." he trailed off, and his eyes sparkled, "Say! You wouldn't be willing to do a little service for me, would you? You could do a lot worse than working for ol' Charleston Nib."

Jade twisted her lips. "We're not ones to dally, but...if the price was right..."

Charleston nodded. "We have little to offer, but would 50 gold suffice? It's all we can give, what with having to restock our camp thrice over. Damnable saboteurs! Your mere presence may be enough to discourage our mystery assailants. Are ye up for it? It would only be for a short while."

Kagain, Edwin, and Montaron all grumbled, and Branwen scoffed, wanting very much to continue their beeline for Beregost. Xan also seemed uneasy, but more at the falling night. Xzar, on the other hand, seemed fascinated. "Mystery assailants..." he whispered enthusiastically to Edwin, who by now had more or less learned to ignore the rambling necromancer, "To dig up the long-dead and be assaulted in the night is neither mystery nor mishap to Xzar! O o no no! We like the insomniac ghosts of sweet-treat nobility of the age of the chrysanthemums long past, o yes we do! We play checkers and backgammon into the wee hours...haunted is wanted, say we."

Jade did her bartering scoff, and sneered at the excavator. "Such paltry coin is not worth our time! Raise your offer or we're gone."

"But..." Charleston began, and then sighed. "...ah, as ye wish. Perhaps we can scrape together another 50, but we must be done tonight. 100 satisfactory?"

Kagain's grumble dropped. "Too dark fer ye humans to press on," he remarked to Jade, sensing they truly weren't going to squeeze more out of this outfit. "Might as well start restin' up and get paid fer it."

"An acceptable price for potentially doing nothing," Jade smiled at the man, "Continue your work, and we shall keep watch."

"Gracious we are!" Charleston spanked his trousers, and clapped his dusty hands. "Now we stand a chance of completing the most exciting day of our dig! We're going to try for an entire new room today, possibly the shaman or chieftain quarters! We could find any number of relics within. Make yourselves at ease, but be vigilant."

"It's what we do," Jade shrugged.

The party set up a sort of camp back from the dig site; but the wizards had hardly opened their spellbooks when a greasily grinning hooded fellow sauntered into their midst.

"What do you want?" Jade demanded.

The man's grin only widened. "Name's Gallor, and we never had this conversation. I'm the 'partner' of that old mister Charleston you met, except I'm none too thrilled about the non-profit aspects of the whole thing. The old man seems to think we should donate all our findings to some museum, whereas I am ever so much more practical. I should think certain people would pay dearly for the magical treasure we are about to unearth, and if they would be so eager, who are we to stand in their way? I would like you to steal the item and remove Mr. Nib from my little equation. You up to the task?"

Jade frowned. "Magical treasure? I was under the impression that no one knows what's to be found there? Why are you so sure?"

"Old mister Nib would never admit it, but that is mainly because he doesn't wish to jinx the dig. From what I could decipher in the ancient writings, the final room contains 'the plate that provides bounty, leading food unto god'. Doesn't take a genius to figure out what that means. Obviously the item under all that dirt and rubble is enchanted such that it 'provides bounty.' Whether it's through increased crops or good hunting I care not. Regardless, an object of that age and enchantment should command a hefty price and I intent to see that it does. You can be a part of it if you wish."

Branwen and Xan murmured with understated moral qualms, the others simply remained skeptical. Jade gazed critically at the man. "It is a very sketchy description that you offer."

Branwen added, "I should think that different deities would require different 'bounty' to be delivered. Are you so sure this ancient one preferred 'bounty' that we would find valuable? Or even, say, nonfatal?"

Gallor scoffed and shrugged, "I care not whether the primitives who lived here worshipped chickens and the plate produces fodder! It does not matter! What DOES matter is that we potentially have an item associated with a god long since lost to the mists of time. Its former enchantments may not even work, but it will still command an exorbitant price from a historian or collector. Do you wish a piece of the pie or don't ya?"

Xan squealed, until thumped by Montaron, who was already picturing the gold (and the relic too, after they pried it from this rube's dead fingers). Branwen spat with disgust, but Jade gave her friend a private, knowing look, and smiled at Gallor. "A bloody task. What would be my reward for such a risk?"

"Consider a payment of 900 gold," the traitorous excavator offered. "Would that be to your liking? Not a bad price for the heads of an old man and his dirty hired ditch-diggers. What say you?"

Jade smiled sweetly. "I need little excuse to partake in bloodshed. Consider them dead tonight."

"Excellent!" Gallor wrung his hands. "Best you hurry back now. They were just about to breach the inner sanctum, and it would be best to take care of them before a runner is dispatched with the news. I will meet you here after the deed to make our exchange. Remember to get everyone! I will be the sole survivor to tell the tale."

He nodded politely, his gaze resting a little too long on Jade, then turned and returned to the excavation.

"What did you intend?" Branwen asked Jade, her tone demanding.

The fightress grinned. "Simple. I won't touch the hapless old man in charge. We'll just slay that slime after our little job, and get his pay anyway. If the gold's a bluff, we're still doing the world a favor."

Branwen nodded grimly. "'Twoud be left a cleaner place."

"Why don't we just kill 'em both!" Montaron grinned. "Get an' sell any relics too."

"We must be wary of a curse, greedy murderer," Branwen admonished, "I strongly advise against thieving from mysterious, ancient Powers."

"Say, Monty..." Xzar touched his chin, "Remember when we saw the Dale Wind Troubadours in Baldur's Gate? The play where the Zhents try to open the seal on the Ten Tablets and they all burst into holy light while the hero and heroine shut their eyes?"

" Tomb Raiders of the Lost Ark ," Montaron answered. "The thespian establishment always be bashin' the Zhents. They be politically biased, I tells ye."

"Oh yes," Xzar nodded, "But that Eldoth Kron really does play a delightfully slimy Fzoul Chembryl. And the leading couple was nice too, with Miss Silke as Bara Chest and Sir Garrick as Neverwinter Jones. I got his autograph this morning, you know. And once back in town and I reanimate her, I'll have the matched pair!"

The party's heads snapped away at a commotion from the diggers. "Success!" Charleston Nib shouted into the night, and waved them over. "We are about to enter the last remaining room! It's sure to be the shaman's abode! Now we'll get some real information about what these people were truly like!"

Jade and Branwen exchanged wary glances, but stood from their circle, and led their party to the diggers, and then into the hole of a 'doorway' in the rock, into the belly of the rocky outcropping on the land.

Jade's breath became short as foul air assaulted her, but the sight was fairly impressive, illuminated by her own body heat. Idly clinking Nimbul's ring against her clutched sword handle, she looked around, taking in the archeological find. It was a primitive earthen dwelling, the chamber walls lined with cave paintings, primitive weapons and pottery scattered about. She followed Charleston and his miners, and her party followed her, through a smaller but similar second chamber; and then into the third, housing a crud stone sarcophagus but smaller still; the air growing staler and fouler.

One of the diggers horked and coughed at Charleston. "Hey bossman, I don't feel so good. How old is the air in this place?"

The old archaeologist brightened, with academic obliviousness to the man's true concern. "A good question young man. I would guess that we are the first people to walk this room in nearly 5,000 years. The very gods of Netheril would have been young at that time!"

Another digger started coughing, and hugged himself. "Is so…is so cold in here…I feel…strange…."

Another's eyes rolled back in his head, as he snorted phlegm. "I hear…I hear a voice…in my head…"

"O o…" Xzar bit his knuckles, but his eyes were lucid as they darted warily from miner to miner. "They are looooooosing it…." Not a one of his companions made the obvious charge of hypocrisy; they too could see their necromancer was all too astute in this.

A fourth miner nodded to the third, giggling madly. "I hear the voice, but it is but a mumble! Speak up! Speak up and guide mine hands! RAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!"

"You….." a fifth's eyes bulged and he stared at Edwin. "….I see what you are! There is power to be had from your death!"

The sixth white-knuckle gripped his shovel, and lifted it overhead to brain Jade. "Your blood will quiet the voice! BLOOD WILL QUIET!"

The six miners all groaned in immaculate unison, "BLOOD WILL QUIET!!!! KOZAH!!!"

Jade threw her left hand up, calling out her innate power. The shovel slammed silently against a shield of pure force, and Jade brought the golden hilt up over her bastard sword into the man's face, smashing his nose in a bloodspray. As he reeled back into the chamber wall, she took the sword in two hands, flipped it up and lunged in, plunging it down through the man's chest.

Around the chamber, her ready party dealt with the berserk commoners without breaking much of a sweat. Branwen knocked one to the floor with her shield, then summoned her spiritual hammer and crushed the prone man's skull. Kagain ripped open one's intestines with his axe while the shovel banged tinnily on his helm, and then drug him to the floor with the hook. Montaron amputated one's leg with his enchanted shortsword, and when the man fell he hacked open the throat with a wicked laugh. Xan, who had gone greenish in the face from the rancid air, out of mortal terror if nothing else made use of his magical moonblade, which sliced through the shovel like butter, and opened the miner from collar to crotch. Edwin broke one of his precious nails when the last miner banged his shovel against the quarterstaff where he held it, and swore in cracking Thayvian, but Xzar drove the Revenant's dagger right into the crazed fellow's temple, lobotomizing him with a twist of the wrist and a giggle of glee.

Charleston Nib stood, frozen in pale terror, and his breathing eased once his crazed workers were all downed.

"Looks like we earned out pay," Jade smirked grimly. Charleston, tongue-tied, nodded rapidly.

For a moment, Branwen expected the old man to have a heart attack, and called the proper healing knowledge to the forefront of her thoughts. Charleston calmed, though, and at last spoke. "I….I think I can explain the madness that overcame my men. They seemed to scream in some ancient tongue, but I recognize the word 'Kozah'. It's the name of an ancient power; the name of a god of pandemonium…"

Xzar tittered nervously. "Forebear of…..Cyyyyyyyyric….." he bit his knuckles, facial tattoos twisting like flapping bat-wings.

"…The tribe that lived here must have worshiped Kozah and the destruction he brought. The artifact that lies within this stone sarcophagus must be what has caused all of this bloodshed. Surely that artifact is cursed beyond belief! Please make sure it is within its proper place and we will seal the entrance. It's best that it never sees the light of day."

Jade and Branwen nodded, and despite grumblings from Kagain and Montaron, none moved to open the heady lid of the sarcophagus. "It's sad really…" Charleston drawled, his bright eyes growing moist; the eye bags reddened and more pronounced, "I had sought to bring a little life back to a long extinct people, and look what I wrought. Certainly some things are better off remaining dead." He reached to his belt, and handed Jade a pouch of the promised hundred gold. Jade, for her part, didn't even count it. "Here is your pay for your time, and…saving my life, it seems. Your services are no longer required. We are leaving this accursed place!"

Jade sighed, biting her lip. "For what it's worth…I'm sorry. I had the benefit of a good education…" her mind wandered, and for a moment, she even saw a touch of Gorion in the professorly old archaeologist, "…History, Netheril…I am an adventurer, and no scholar now, but…I understand your quest."

Charleston Nib smiled. "You're a good lady, Miss Jade. You don't have to be a scholar. It's a desire to know, and explore, that is the best of us."

"Thank you," Jade smiled, and nodded her party toward the chamber exit, "Because that is my quest too."

They tracked back through the secondary and primary chambers, and all breathed deeply once they could at last refill their lungs with fresh early-night air. They stretched happily. Gallor stood in the shadows nearby, but did little to hide his dismay at Nib's continued existence.

"You fool!" he hissed at Jade, once Nib wandered out of earshot to pack up as much as he could of the campsite with his miners dead. "Charleston too must be dead! How am I to blame the theft of the item on bandits if he is alive to say otherwise! Finish the task or you get nothing from me!"

Jade smirked. "Now now, ask nicely…"

Gallor blanched. "W-"

It was cut short by his feminine scream of pain as Montaron lacerated his calf from behind. He dropped to the stony ground, busting the back of his hooded head.

Charleston sprang up from his campsite far away, but couldn't make anything out in the new-fallen darkness. Soon, however, he saw what they all did. Xan nearly fainted, Montaron stopped short of hacking through Gallor's neck, and the others emitted gasps of disbelief. A ghostly figure appeared in the midst of the gravelly pit, seven feet tall; its figures were blurred but basically humanoid in shape, an armored humanoid at that like some spectral knight; most prominently of all it carried a flaming sword.

Jade hissed, "What in the 999 layers of the…."

The creature's bellow filled the night sky. "IthNal cOR dan KOZAH! Rrrackne dall'a osa KOZAH!"

The party fell into cohesive battle-formation; Jade held her bastard sword ready, flanked by Branwen and Kagain with hammer and axe; Montaron peeked out around the tall cleric with his crossbow, and the three mages formed a line behind the warriors, second-guessing the best spells for this strange creature. From his vantage, Charleston Nib turned and bolted with a cry of terror, leaving his belongings behind.

Jade cried, "Speak common, you abomination! I cannot fathom your words!"

The ghost-knight advanced and groaned, "Nott for theeee to underssstand…neeed only dieee while yooouuuu hold…idolll does soo comannnnnnd…..Eltor anSle osa KOZAH!"

The other six all turned to Montaron. "Idol?" the halfling blushed. "Oh… that 'idol'. I thought Nib said we shouldn't idle in the chamber, ye se, and…"

"Who let Montaron be the last in the room!?" Jade snarled, and the others screamed at the halfling to get rid of the idol while the specter advanced. "Eep!" Montaron squeaked, and reached into a pouch, produced the crude stone statuette he had filched, and tossed it onto the prone Gallor's chest, right into his limp grasp.

The party all retreated from Gallor, and the ghost-knight fell upon him. The thief screamed as the flaming sword came down, tossing the idol into the air at the party. He was snuffed out as the sword burnt his head to a cinderpile more than severed it. The stone artifact flew right for Xan. He instinctively caught it; the good elvish reflexes damned him.

"IthNal cOR dan osa KOZAH!" the ghost-knight's terrifying deep cry resounded, and Xan froze up in shock while his companions screamed at him to toss it, but none dared grab and hurl it away. The specter fell upon the elf, not attacking, but moving into him, and seemed to vanish.

All was quiet for a moment, everyone looking at Xan, who remained petrified "Ah…" Edwin smiled, "I suppose that takes care of that. Perhaps the forest-frolicker's innate pansy-magic or his unstylish robe's abjurations simply disp-"

Xan's eyes rolled back into his head until only the whites showed, and his mouth opened. "Rrrackne dall'a osa KOZAH!" His head turned, and turned, and turned, and kept turning, making an impossible complete rotation. "YOU ARE ALL DOOMED!" he bellowed, and force-vomited his morning gruel right into Edwin's face.

Kagain whimpered. Montaron howled. Xzar shrieked. Branwen swore. Jade gasped. Edwin retched. Then 'Xan' crouched like a lion and leapt over their heads, thrice his own height into the air and framed for a moment by the glimmering moon, landing fifty feet away across the campsite. "SWEET GODS!" the six companions all cried.

The possessed elf dashed into the darkness, chanting the unfathomable refrain with the punctuating "KOZAH…..". A minute later, several sounds echoed back. The energy hum of the moonblade whizzing through the air, and the hissing of magical burn as it sliced flesh open, followed by Charleston Nib's bloodcurdling scream, cut short with a bone-crack, and then a full minute of wet chewing.

"We never come back," Jade stated like the finality of a death-knell. Montaron broke from their shared, frozen shock, and looted Gallor with practiced efficiency, catching up in moments while the others bolted, winding their way out of the rocky ravine. They dashed northeast across wooded fields, overland to Beregost with dire fervor, and did not stop to camp that night until the moon was high.

The elven enchanter possessed by the forgotten god loped its way north at an animal speed. The large game it passed instinctively fled, but even the fleet deer the aberration hunted down, slaying and devouring them with monstrous speed and appetite. But it was drawn, either by the god's hunger for means of power or for some fusion with the Greycloak, to the scent of magic, and thus the strongest such source within many leagues. The High Hedge.