Part II
The hole in the tree stump was very dark. She climbed down. And climbed down some more. When would the hole ever end? Briefly, she looked up and couldn't even see the light from above. Good thing through her previous training, she wasn't claustrophobic or afraid of the dark. During the war, she had been forced to climb down much nastier holes. Finally, from what seemed like an eternity, the bottom of the hole became brighter. Frowning at this strange event, she forced herself to put one hand over the other and a minute later, her feet hit the bottom.
Vel found herself at the end of a small hallway lit by flickering torches secured to the stone walls. Was this magic? But the flames didn't answer her mental question. The torches looked quite normal. Cautiously, she walked down the hallway and entered a circular chamber which also appeared to be hewn out of stone. The floor was etched with a pentagram—four of the points led to thick wooden doors decorated with iron handles. The fifth point directed back to the hallway.
She stood at the center of the chamber, thinking. She had not noticed any sign of a tinderbox at the bottom of the hole or in the hallway. Which could only mean one thing—the stout man hadn't lost anything at all. He was trying to get into this underground chamber to get something—something that probably looked like a tinderbox. She tapped a finger to her lips. Did the man think her a complete idiot?
After making a decision, she approached one of the doors closest to the hallway and tugged on the iron handle. It swung open with ease as if someone had regularly visited the chamber to oil the hinges. The interior was the size of a small closet and to her astonishment, there was a small dog with green eyes the size of teacup saucers staring at her. The dog was quite wrinkly and unattractive—there was definitely some boxer blood in the mutt—but there was a searching intensity to its gaze that disturbed her. The dog was sitting on top of a battered looking chest that looked like it had been literally dropped into the hole. Recalling the stout man's advice for ignoring dog-spirits, she wondered how to move the dog.
She cleared her throat. There was no avoiding it. "Uh, excuse me, dog-spirit, but I need to get into that chest."
"My name is Meeny," said the dog-spirit. He cocked his head and leaped to the ground, his saucer eyes still trained on her. "It's been a while that I've seen a human. And the last one wasn't as polite either."
Vel blinked and then shook her head. "Of course. Magic dogs can talk," she muttered under her breath.
Meeny the dog-spirit watched her as she lifted the lid of the chest and gasped when she glanced inside. It was filled with shiny copper coins. She took a handful and immediately stuffed it in one of her pockets. What would the other doors hold? She suddenly wondered. Forgetting about the copper coins and the dog-spirit, she retreated back into the main part of the chamber and surveyed the rest of the doors. Meeny gave a yawn and settled himself next to the chest filled with copper coins and promptly fell asleep.
She pulled open the next door. The dog-spirit inside was also sitting on a chest, but both were proportionally bigger. This dog-spirit was the size of a large wolf and his green eyes were as large as dinner plates. Vel inquired if the dog-spirit could get off the chest so she could open it. "And is your name also Meeny?" she asked.
The second dog-spirit lumbered off the chest and raised a hind paw to scratch his ears. "No. My name is Miney. And I can tell you right now, there's silver in there."
"Silver?" She hurried over to the chest and flung the lid open. Sure enough, silver coins glimmered from the interior. She grabbed a handful of those coins and filled her other pocket. Her heart pounded as she surveyed the remaining doors. The stout man had said that there were gold coins. From what she had seen so far, one of the other doors would most likely have some. She raced towards the third door and pulled it open, but her grin turned into a muffled shriek.
There was a dog-spirit in this small anteroom too, but this one was probably as large as a horse and his green eyes were as big as the platters used to serve meals at banquets. A large trunk was located squarely between the creature's forepaws.
"G-Good day, dog-spirit," she stuttered.
"Good day, human," he replied. "And I bet you want the gold coins."
She didn't deny it. "But how am I going to carry all of it? My pockets are already full."
"There are some sacks in the corner for just the occasion."
"Thank you, er…"
"Moe."
"Thank you, Moe." A thought struck her as she took one of the sacks and opened the trunk filled with golden coins. "You're not much of a guard dog, are you?"
Moe yawned, showing his dagger-sized teeth. "What do you mean?"
"You and the other dog-spirits aren't doing anything to prevent me from taking your treasure. Why, you're even helping me cart some of this stuff away. There isn't any catch, is there?"
The dog-spirit blinked. "Catch? Oh no, there's no catch. It's just the way things are. You might want to be careful about that wizard up there, though."
"Wizard?" she said startled. "How do you know?"
But Moe only replied with another uninterested yawn.
Vel filled the sack with gold coins and proceeded to the fourth door. Bracing herself to find yet another dog-spirit, even larger than the last, she was utterly surprised when she found the place bare except for a dull metal object on the floor.
She picked it up and turned it about, examining it. It was a tinderbox made of pewter, plain and unadorned except for some scratches along its side. The lid hinged open. The tinderbox was empty except for a chip of sharp obsidian. She closed it and dumped it inside the sack with the gold coins. "Strange," she thought to herself, and quickly walked back the way she came.
By the time Vel climbed back out of the hole, she was breathing hard. Those coins were heavier than they first appeared. She dumped the sack of gold coins on the ground and panted.
"Well, boy," said the stout man, or if the dog-spirit Moe was correct—a wizard, "Do you have my tinderbox?"
Her mind raced as she finally caught her breath. "Tinderbox?" she feigned. "Oh dear, I've clean forgotten about that when I saw all the money. I'll go back down there and get it right away." She made as if to take hold of the rope again as the wizard rubbed his hands in glee. "By the way, what's so important about a tinderbox besides being an heirloom? Surely, you wouldn't want some of the treasure down there yourself? You could buy tinderboxes several times over with all that wealth."
"I just need the tinderbox," said the wizard, but he was frowning at her now.
"It wouldn't be a magic tinderbox, would it?"
"Why are you asking so many questions all of a sudden," the wizard demanded. "You have the tinderbox already, don't you? Give it to me!"
"But I just want to know what exactly you're looking for. I'm entitled to know if I'm doing all the work, climbing down that hole…"
The wizard shrieked and raised his arms, fingers pointing towards her head. Out of habit and reflex, she whipped up the small blade she kept strapped to her side and raised it to the level of her eyes. Light erupted from the wizard's fingers and struck her blade with a force that made her stumble back a few steps. The light bounced from the dagger's reflective surface and headed straight towards the wizard.
Vel slowly lowered her arm and stared at the wizard's body. His head had been blasted away leaving a smoking neck. The body toppled over into a dark, inert lump.
She had been lucky. Very lucky. She knew nothing about magic until this day and somehow she had killed a wizard. Her hands shook as she strapped her blade back to her side and began the distasteful task of dragging the body by its feet to be hidden in the bushes. Hopefully, the body wouldn't be discovered so soon that it could be traced back to her. When that task was done, she took up her belongings and the sack of coins with the tinderbox and headed back down the road.