Shepherd's Quest: The Broken Key #1 (42 page)

“One more time,” Bart said as he looked to the next pair of stones.

“There’s not enough room there for all three of us at the same time,” Riyan said. In fact, the stone barely had enough room for two of them to stand on it at the same time.

Bart nodded. “Riyan, you come and help me then.”

Riyan untied the rope from around his middle and gave it to Chad. “Hold onto this,” he said.

“Be careful,” Chad said as he took the rope.

Bart then gave him a hand as he passed from the mouth of the passage to the stone.

Once there, he took Bart’s arm and provided the counter weight while he leaned out to check the stones. Again, it was the left hand stone that sank into the acid.

“The rest of the stones should be alright,” Bart said. “Just take your time and don’t fall in.” Then he had Chad hand Riyan the lantern who in turn passed it to him. With the lantern now in hand, Bart began moving from one stone to the next until he crossed the room and reached the passage leading away on the other side.

Once there, he noticed a lever mounted in the wall several feet within the passage. He figured it would reset the stones to beneath the surface of the acid pool. Once Riyan and Chad joined him, he showed them the lever and told them what he thought it would do.

“Are you going to pull it?” Riyan asked.

Shaking his head, Bart said, “No. We may need to return this way for some unforeseen reason. I think it would be best to leave the stepping stones where they are.”

“Very well,” agreed Riyan.

Before setting off down the passage, they tied themselves in tandem once again just in case of another pitfall trap. Bart took the lead with the lantern in hand.

The passage soon turned to the right. From there it continued straight ahead for fifty feet or so before turning to the left. Bart took it slow and careful as he studied the floor of the passage as they went. After the last turn to the left, the passage continued for some time before coming to an end.

At the end of the passage was a single large door, much larger than any they had thus far encountered. Emblazoned upon the door was the coat of arms that has been so prevalent in the Ruins of Algoth. A sword pointing downward with a dragon grasping the hilt in one claw while it’s body twined around the blade.

“This has to be it,” said Riyan when the light illuminated the coat of arms.

“Most likely,” agreed Bart. He moved forward to the door and after a quick check for traps, tried to open it. To his amazement, it actually swung upon. He had expected it to be locked. This was far too easy. When the door swung open enough for the lantern’s light to shine within the room on the other side, they gasped by what they saw.

“The lord’s treasure room!” Riyan practically shouted. For when the door opened, the light revealed that the room contained six chests. Two sat against the wall across from them and two each against the walls to their right and left.

Upon a stand in the middle of the floor sat an ornamental wooden boat that looked to have survived the passage of time well. The coat of arms that had been on the door was engraved into the side of the boat and the prow boasted a carving of a dragon’s head. The boat was large enough to sit eight men comfortably and looked to be made most sturdily.

Bart had to physically stop Riyan from running into the room in his excitement.

“Wait a minute!” he shouted as he grabbed him by the arm. Yanking him out of the room and back into the passage, he said, “You better calm down right now!” Riyan glared at him for the way he had been treated.

“If you go running around in there,” Bart began to explain to him, “you may wind up getting yourself killed.” He gazed into Riyan’s eyes. “Let me search it first.” Riyan gave him a kind of embarrassed smile. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Forgot myself there for a moment.”

“You two stay here,” he told them. Then he turned back to the doorway and entered the room.

First thing he did was to make a quick circuit around the room to get a good feel for the layout. He also discovered that further down the wall from where the door stood, was a very large depiction of the coat of arms engraved into the wall itself. It went from floor to ceiling and was encrusted with many gems. The lantern’s light was refracted in a myriad of color.

Once he made a complete circuit of the room, he returned to Chad and Riyan. “I think it’s okay if you come in,” he told them. “Just don’t touch anything.” As they entered the room, he went to the first chest and began inspecting it for traps.

“This is amazing,” observed Riyan. Upon entering the room, his eyes naturally went to the gem encrusted coat of arms on the wall. He and Chad stood in front of it and marveled at the gems. They had to be worth a fortune.

“I couldn’t take any of those,” Chad said indicating the gems. “It wouldn’t seem right.”

Riyan glanced at his friend and nodded. “I get that feeling too.” After a few more moments admiring the coat of arms, they went over to the boat.

What once must have been some of the finest cloth ever made draped the seats inside.

There was also a small chest sitting on the forward seat directly behind the dragon’s head.

“Bart,” Riyan hollered over to him. “There’s a small chest in here too.”

“Alright, I’ll get to it in a minute,” came the reply. “This one’s open, you two can go through it now.” He glanced over to where they were standing by the boat as he held the lid of the chest open. “I think you’re going to like this.”

“Really?” asked Chad excitedly. He and Riyan crossed the room quickly to the open chest. It was filled with dozens of gems of varying sizes. The majority were small ones, but at least five were pretty big. As they began removing the gems and putting them in their packs, Bart moved on to the next chest.

It took Bart the better part of an hour to disarm and open all six chests. Only one of the traps went off while he was working on it. Fortunately, it was a variation of the Prick of Poison and when it went off, his fingers were nowhere near the lock.

The second chest held coins, hundreds of coins. More than half of them were gold, the rest being silver.

The third chest held jewelry. Fourteen rings, seven necklaces and a smattering of other smaller paraphernalia like broaches and such. Each was worked in precious metal, some even held gems of varying sizes.

The fourth chest held a well crafted longsword that had resisted the ravages of time.

The scabbard was plain and nondescript, as was the hilt. Engraved in the nexus of the crossguard was the dragon-sword coat of arms. Attached to the belt along with the longsword’s scabbard was another scabbard holding a knife. When Riyan pulled it forth, he could see the dragon-sword coat of arms was engraved in the knife’s crossguard as well.

Riyan glanced to Chad questioningly. “Do you mind?” he asked. Chad looked longingly at the sword and knife but nodded for Riyan to have it. “Thank you,” he said as he began unbelting the scabbard he was currently wearing and quickly belted the new one with the knife on around his waist.

“Next sword we find I get,” Chad stated.

“You got it,” agreed Riyan. “And if we don’t come across another one, you get to have first pick of something else.”

The fifth chest held a piece of cloth. It was a foot and a half long with runes inscribed along its length. From the uniform bulge running from one end to the other, it was easy to see that it held something. Chad reached in and picked it up. The cloth was actually a long, thin, carrying pouch. Inside was something long and firm.

One end of the cloth pouch opened up and he pulled forth a long stick. It looked rather plain with no markings or inscriptions on it. He held it up to Riyan and asked,

“Could it be a wand?”

“Perhaps,” replied Riyan. “Better leave it alone for now.” Chad nodded and slipped the wand back in its cloth pouch before placing it in his pack.

The sight of the wand made him think of Kevik and what may have happened to him.

He hoped he was okay and that they could get to him soon.

Unable to do anything about it now, he returned to the matter at hand. Leaving behind the fifth chest, he and Chad moved to the sixth where Bart was just finishing with picking the lock.

“Done?” asked Riyan as he and Chad came to a stop several feet away.

“Just about,” replied Bart. “Give me another minute, this one’s kind of tricky.” They waited patiently while he worked and then he announced that he had it. They hurried over just as he was pulling up the lid and all three looked in to see what the final chest held. Riyan was half hoping the rest of the key to the King’s Horde would be inside, but he was disappointed.

Inside the chest were two items. One was an intricately carved small box. The other was a folded cloak. Riyan picked up the box and opened it. Resting within on a soft cushion, were two rings. Unadorned and plain, they didn’t seem all that important.

Riyan showed them to Chad. “Could be magic you think?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” nodded Chad. “Better keep them in the box until we know more about them.”

Riyan agreed with him. He remembered the tale that a bard had told one night he had stayed at the Sterling Sheep. It was about a group of adventurers that had uncovered some lost temple or other. During their exploration, they had come across a ring. Thinking it magical and valuable, one of their members had put it on. Turned out to be cursed, a trap laid by the former occupants of the temple against thieves. The man had died a few days later. Closing the box, Riyan put it in his pack. Then he glanced over to Bart who held the cloak.

“This is fine material,” Bart said. “I think I’ll keep it if you two don’t mind?” They both shook their heads. If anyone deserved to have what they wanted, it was Bart. After all, he was the one putting his life on the line with every chest and trap.

Bart grinned and said, “Thanks.” He folded it into a smaller square then placed it within his pack. After that he went over to the boat and soon had the small box Riyan had found open. Within was a grey powder. He quickly shut the box again and locked it. He didn’t want something like what happened to Chad happening to him. After putting the box with the powder in his pack, he began looking around.

“What?” asked Riyan.

“If this was the place where the lord ran when his forces were overrun,” he began to explain, “then it would stand to reason that there has to be a way to continue from here.”

“You think so?” asked Chad.

Bart turned to him and nodded. “Most definitely.” He indicated the open chests around them. “I hardly think this is the lords true treasure room. I would imagine it’s here to satisfy thieves who made it this far so they wouldn’t continue to search.”

“I don’t know,” argued Riyan. “This all seems rather valuable.” Bart thought about that for a moment then shook his head. “No. Maybe if I wasn’t aware the lord had come this way as an escape route I would feel different.”

“So what do we do now?” asked Chad.

He glanced around the room with a sigh before replying. “We painstakingly search this room until we find the way the lord went.”

Dark. Pain filled darkness greeted him as he regained consciousness. He tried to move and alleviate the pain but it only increased his agony tenfold when he attempted to move his left leg. It must be broken, he thought to himself.

Light suddenly filled the bottom of the shaft as his bobbing sphere blossomed to life.

He looked in shock at his left leg. It wasn’t the fact that it was broken that was causing him such pain. Rather it was due to the fact that one of the many foot long spikes that were set into the floor had impaled its way through it from one side to the other. When he fell and hit the bottom, his leg must have struck it. The tip of the spike protruded two inches out of his skin.

Kevik did a quick check of the rest of him, and other than a few places that will likely form bruises, he was alright. Except for his leg.

“Riyan! Bart!” he called up to the top of the shaft. When no answer came, he cancelled his bobbing sphere of light to see if the light from their lantern could be seen at the top of the shaft. He grew despondent when all he could see was darkness. Realizing they were no longer there, he recast his bobbing sphere spell and light once more filled the bottom of the shaft.

First order of business was his leg. He didn’t think the bone was damaged, it felt like the spike had gone through the muscle. Before he attempted to remove his leg from the spike he looked around the bottom of the shaft to find his pack. There was still one healing potion left that his master had brought with them when they set out from Gilbeth, the town where his master had lived.

His eyes widened when he saw the skeleton lying in the midst of the spikes.

Obviously here was another soul who had fallen to the traps of this place. There was not a speck of flesh left upon his bones and what clothes the person had been wearing are all but gone. After his cursory inspection of the skeleton, he returned to the more immediate matter of finding his pack and the healing potion.

He panicked at first when he couldn’t see it. Then he realized he was still wearing his pack and that it was underneath him. Shifting around as best he could without causing his leg any more pain than absolutely necessary, he worked the pack out from under him.

When he had it sitting next to him and opened, he was quite relieved to find the vial containing the healing potion to still be intact. He had feared that it might have suffered damage during the fall. Removing it, he placed it on the ground next to him then turned his attention back to his leg.

A pool of blood had collected at the base of the spike. Fortunately, the spike itself was ‘plugging the hole’ so to speak and kept his blood from flowing more freely. But once he pulled his leg off the spike, he wouldn’t have much time before blood loss was going to render him unconscious. He unstoppered the vial and then grabbed his leg.

The anticipation of the pain this was going to bring him almost made him vomit, but he steeled himself. After taking two deep breaths to calm his shaking nerves, he gripped his leg. Then in one fluid motion, he pulled it off the spike.