Chapter 11 – The Other Mages

No doors or passageways broke their long, twisting descent. Garlt estimated they were almost seventy vertical feet below the room from where they had started, when the staircase ended, opening up onto a wide hallway. Damp and cold, it extended to their left beyond the limits of their darkvision. To their right, the hall ran forty feet, ending at a wooden door.

"This is amazing!" Stefane whispered for the sixth time. "Everything is in shades of grey. You both look almost white. The walls are a very dark grey. I never knew there were so many subtle shadings of grey. I can make out the difference between cloth, wood and stone… Amazing!"

"Yes, yes lad. Amazin'. Now, shut up", murmured Garlt. "All worked stone. Human construction. Very old. Hmm. If we go to the left, we goes deeper into the spire. To the right, well, behind that door is where ye'd end up if you'd tripped them traps we saw outside."

"Are you certain", asked Stefane? "That twisting staircase took us down many dozens of yards. How can you know which direction is where?"

"I've said it before, dwarves have skills".

"Let us check out where the trap would have led us", advised Daelynn. "It may also be another way out of here."

"Ye're a cautious one, elf."

"Aye", replied Daelynn. "'Know how to get out before you go in'. A lesson I learned more than a century ago. Never hurts to have more than one exit."

"There is a small grill in the door, near the top", noted Stefane as the trio approached the metal-banded wooden door.

Peeking through the grill, Stefane described what he saw. "I cannot make out much. Um, a table, mounds of something on the floor. Darkvision is so new to me. I'm really not sure what I'm seeing."

Stefane stepped back and motioned his two companions to take a look.

Daelynn moved forward and peered through the grill.

"Those mounds on the floor? The few nearest the door are probably bodies. I would guess the mounds are more bodies. There is a panel in the ceiling - possibly the trap door. Some type of gears, too. Take a look Master Gemfinder."

Garlt exhaled nosily. "Well, I would, lass. 'Cept the grill is a little ways out o' my reach!"

"Here", said Stefane.

Before the dwarf could raise any objection Stefane grabbed Garlt under his arms and hoisted him up against the door. The dwarf's nose stuck through the grillwork.

"Put me down! Now!"

"Quick", grunted Stefane. "You are far too heavy to hold up much longer! What do you see?"

"I said put me down!"

"Gurgh... Hurry up. You're slipping!"

"Bah! Down. Now!"

"Oh, by the Dark Maiden's Hair!" Daelynn stamped a foot. "Stop being so... so... dwarvish, and take a look!"

"Fine!" Answered Garlt, testily. "Okay. I looked. Now. Put me down!"

Straightening his armour and belt, Garlt's one eye glared at the human, but he addressed the elf. "Yer right elf. Bodies. There's a gear an' chain assembly that runs the trap door."

Daelynn tried pulling the door but it would not budge. Stefane also tried to open it but also had no success.

"Locked", stated the young man.

"Look closer, lad. Darkvision is new to ye but see here? There is no locking mechanism. Maybe barred from the other side?"

"We will see", responded the elf.

Daelynn ran her hands over the door's rough surface. Concentrating, she spoke a single word, then knocked softly on the door, rapping out a specific pattern.

Tap-tappity-tap-tap.

The door shuddered.

Daelynn now easily pulled the door open.

"Knock spell", she informed the bemused dwarf, holding the door for him to enter.

"Ye know more magic than our mage", grumbled the dwarf, edging forward, shield and axe at the ready.

Daelynn pulled out a small, barbed metal wedge and stuck it above the upper door hinge, between the door and the side jamb, effectively preventing the door from closing. She followed the dwarf and Stefane into the room.

"Herald's have knowledge of many spells", replied Daelynn. "I can cast only a handful each day. I do prefer to use other skills over magic. A reliance on magic dulls other abilities. No offense, Stefane."

"Even with darkvision, I cannot make much out", complained Stefane.

"Agreed", said the elf, pulling something from her belt.

"Let there be light".

The coin laying in Daelynn's hand emitted a soft glow that spread out around them, illuminating about half the room in which they stood. She placed the light coin on the table.

Garlt spoke a word and the head of the axe he held in his right hand flared brightly. The light grew stronger over the space of a few breaths. Holding the axe above his head, the dwarf examined the gears and chains that connected to the ceiling panel.

"Ingenious. Once tripped, the panel opens an' dumps the idiot who tripped it into this room", observed Garlt. "The ceilin's a good ten feet high. Hard to jump back up. Not that ye could do much. See those levers? The trap resets and locks. Unless ye have some mechanical knowledge, once ye're in here, thet door is the only way out."

Lifting the dusty blankets that lay on the floor before them, Daelynn knelt and examined two bodies. Nodding her head at what she saw, she gently replaced the covers.

"These two have been here a long, long time. The one is near a century old. The corpse is quite desiccated. The other is even older. Mostly just decayed bones."

"The other piles?" Stefane pointed to the several small mounds of debris that lay beyond the remains of the second body.

"More bodies, be my guess. Or were", said Garlt. "Nothin' much left now. Guess that over the years the poor bastards fell in, maybe broke a bone or two in the fall, and died here?"

Daelynn stood, glancing around the room.

"No", she answered. "The bodies, or what were bodies, are all spaced equally apart. The last two bodies have their arms crossed over their chests, heads pillowed on some gear, and are covered. These bodies were laid to rest, right here."

"Are we in a tomb", breathed Stefane, fearfully?

"Could be, lad. But what about the missing body?"

Human and elf turned to the dwarf.

"The next spot is empty but has a small sack near where a head would go and a folded cloth where the feet should be. But no body. Hate to think it's wanderin' around down here somewheres", chuckled the dwarf.

Daelynn moved to the modest sized leather bag that Garlt had pointed out. From inside the bag, she pulled out a wood and leather-bound book, and handful of indistinguishable bits of fabric and leather, and rusted metal.

"This looks familiar." She passed the book to Stefane.

The young man examined the book's binding and covers. Opening it, he leafed through the pages of the slim volume, not noticing when a loose, folded page slipped onto the floor.

"This looks like a student's spell book", Stefane stated. "It is in fair shape. Low level spells and cantrips. Similar to mine. There are also some notes. It's also a journal. The last entry's dated sixty-seven years ago!"

Daelynn bent down and retrieved the fallen piece of vellum. What she saw when she unfolded it caused her brow to furrow.

Stefane read aloud from the old spell book. "'I, Adymst Harker, student of magic have… failed. My quest to recover the 'Tome of Mysteries' ends here in this… pit. My magics are… insufficient… to save me. Never again will I see my fair Cora!'"

"The 'Tome of Mysteries'! We are close then", exclaimed Stefane.

The dwarf, who had been rummaging through the bodily remains and piles of debris waddled over to the elf and human.

"Good on us lad! We may find yer treasure, yet", said Garlt. "Here's a start. It's steel, not silver."

The dwarf passed a small metal ring over to the young mage.

"Found it back there." Garlt pointed behind him. "If I'm right, and me name is 'Gemfinder', the two small red stones on it are carnelian. The black one in the middle is an onyx. Thing's worth 'bout ten gold piece."

"Thank you, Master Dwarf." Stefane absently placed the ring in a pouch on his belt, his attention still focussed on Mage Harker's last journal entry.

"There is a last scribbled entry in a margin. He must have been in a rush when he wrote it. 'I see a light down the hallway. I'm saved!'"

"Hmm. That explains why there's no body here, just his stuff. He may have got out an' claimed the Tome after all."

"Very odd for a mage to leave his or her spell book behind", stated Daelynn.

Stefane nodded his agreement.

"Well, there's jest this pile of cloth, shroud, or whatever, left to check out, then we can start up the hallway", said Garlt, pointing to the folded cloth that lay on the floor between them.

Stefane nudged the small pile with a toe. Something caught the light shed by the dwarf's axe.

Kneeling down, Stefane brushed a layer of fine dust off the folded material. Gasping, he grabbed the cloth. Straightening up with his arms spread wide, he held the mildewed, dusty remnant of a robe. A robe identical to the one he wore.

Garlt's eye widened. "Would seem, lad, that Master Harker was a student at that Brilliane Academy of yers, in Capitol, same as ye."

"What? But how?" Asked a confused Stefane.

The young mage-wanna-be dropped the robe and grabbed the light coin from the table. Stepping over to the first body examined by the elf, he brushed the dust and dirt from the covering. He recognized the faint markings on the dark cloth. Moons, stars, runes.

The robe of another Brilliane mage.

"How can this be?" Stefane, baffled, looked from the dwarf to the elf, hoping for an answer.

"Here", said Daelynn, offering the vellum sheet to the two men to view. "It fell from the spell book. It will add to your confusion."

Stefane stared slack-jawed at what he saw.

Garlt swore. "Thet diary were written, what ye'd say? Sixty-seven years ago? But I'd bet a few gold pieces, lad, that this is a drawing of -"

"Corinna", breathed Stefane.

A/N - These characters are taking the story to where I know not. I am just going to let them (Garlt especially) do what they want.