The Sleeping King (74 page)

Will slowly worked his way across the chamber to the sound of Cicero's voice. The corpses in this section of the tomb were all no more than skeletons barely recognizable within tangles of heavy roots. Definitely old.

He was last to join the others, who stood before a large corpse. The rotting remains of a tooled leather breastplate were covered in row after row of ancient blazons. One of them, in the center of the corpse's chest, was made of crystal that sparkled and winked as if lit from within.

“That's a paxan blazon,” Cicero murmured, pointing at the brightly shining crystal. “Where would some orc come into possession of that and furthermore wear it with pride?”

Cicero was right. This was no common Boki warrior.

Upon the skeletal brow of this orc was a circlet bearing a large, cabochon gem with an eight-pointed star around it. No other orc body in this place wore anything of the like.

Will reached out gingerly to touch the gem and the disk on his chest burned fiercely in response. He staggered back from the circlet, gasping in agony.

“Do you ail?” Rosana asked in quick concern.

“You mean more than the usual dying bit?” he responded dryly. “I think Bloodroot recognizes this corpse.”

Eben said, “Does that mean we've found Gir'Ok?”

Cicero asked reflectively, “What is his message for us about the Sleeping King, then?”

The group circled slowly around the ancient orc's resting place. The roots were especially thick around this skeleton, growing toward it as if feeding hungrily upon its essence. In addition to the circlet on his brow, a pile of tribute at his feet included plates, goblets, jewelry, and rotted chests full of ancient coins.

Raina murmured, “Amazing that none of this treasure has been touched over the centuries.”

“Kill anyone who touched it those cursed roots would,” Sha'Li grumbled, sounding thoroughly disgruntled.

Will grinned at her chagrin.

Raina murmured, thinking aloud, “A clue to the Sleeping King would not be obvious. It would be hidden. Obscured in some way.” She stepped right up next to Gir'Ok's remains to study them closely.

Frankly, Will found the way the tree roots grew through the body's skull and chest cavity ghoulish.

“His hand!” Raina exclaimed suddenly.

Will jumped at her outburst. “What about it?” he asked. What little was visible of the bones was bleached white and fragile looking.

“Every other orc's hands in here are pointed down. Gir'Ok's right hand is pointing up.”

Rosana shrugged. “He was probably the first orc interred down here. Maybe it was a sign of honor to him that he's the only one pointing up toward his tree.”

“Yes, but look at his fingers,” Raina argued.

Will examined the bones wrapped around the hilt of what looked like a ceremonial dagger. “What of his fingers?”

“The other orcs' bones grip their swords loosely. That's because there was once flesh on their hands. As the flesh decayed away, the bones became loose around the handles. But Gir'Ok's hand bones grip his staff tightly. These bones were placed around that weapon well after the flesh was gone from his hands.”

Sha'Li made a sound of distaste, and Will echoed the sentiment. But he took a closer look at the small, crumbling bones wrapped around the staff and had to reluctantly allow that Raina was correct.

Eben stared upward into the tangle of roots overhead, and Will followed suit. He saw nothing but darkness and dirt and more tree roots than he could count. The jann murmured, “Whatever is up there has no doubt been obscured over time by the growth of more roots.”

Will replied, “Then how are we to know what is up there, if anything?”

All of them stared up into the morass fruitlessly until Sha'Li declared, “Only one way to know.” And without further ado she grabbed on to a wrist-thick root and shimmied up it.

“Beware the thorns!” Rosana cried.

“Think thee so?” Sha'Li replied sarcastically. “Thick skin, I have.”

In moments the black lizardman girl had blended into the shadows above and disappeared. Her muffled voice drifted down eventually, “High ceiling.”

“Do you see anything?” Raina called up.

“Dirt. And more cursed roots.”

Will grinned. But then a moment later Sha'Li's voice drifted down to them, and her words erased his smile. “A strange cluster of roots I see. Curled in upon themselves like a mother's arms, as if something valuable they cradle.” And then, “Higher I must climb to reach it.” The strain of physical effort was audible in Sha'Li's voice.

All of a sudden a flurry of air puffs exploded overhead.

A spate of hissed syllables followed, and it did not sound as if Sha'Li were singing the praises of the Bloodthorn roots. Chips of wood began to rain down, and the roots around them swung around in obvious agitation. Will jumped back with the others out of range of the thrashing roots.

Eben cursed as a root grabbed his leg, and the jann hacked at it with his sword. About the time he freed himself, Sha'Li jumped down from above, landing in a crouch right next to Will. He jumped about a foot straight up in the air on a cry of surprise.

She grinned at him, her teeth gleaming white in her black face. “A surprise I have.”

She held out her hand and in it lay a wreath of green leaves slightly wider than Will's hand. The leaves were pristine, fresh and bright green, even in the scant light of the mushrooms. He looked closer and realized a thin line of gold edged each leaf perfectly. Thin, flattened wires of gold twined in and among the leaves in a delicate, intricate pattern.

“What is it?” he asked, blankly.

“His crown,” Raina breathed. “The crown of a king devoted to the land.”

Now that she mentioned it, the circlet of twined leaves did look somewhat like a headpiece. “Is it magic?” he asked disbelievingly. If this crown was real, did it mean a king who'd owned it truly did exist as well?

All this time, all this suffering, all his doubts … had the quest been real all along? Did the Sleeping King really wait for them to wake him? Was there hope for a different, better future? The idea unfurled within him like a banner, waving strong and brave in a freshening breeze. New strength coursed through him as he stared down at every perfect leaf of the Sleeping King's crown.

Rosana reached out to touch the crown reverently. “It must be magic. How else would living leaves survive down here in this darkness?”

Eben added, “Not to mention, each leaf is unharmed and tipped in gold. No normal leaf would survive being painted in molten metal. Those should have shriveled and died from the heat. That must be worth a fortune.”

“Sell it we do not, merchant!” Sha'Li snapped.

Funny that she, of all of them, would be first to dismiss the option of profiting from this extraordinary find.

Will did a double take as he noticed something odd in the dim shroom light. A gray outline was visible upon the lizardman girl's right cheek. It looked like a crescent moon crisscrossed by an eight-pointed star symbol. Where had that come from? In another time and place he might have stopped to ask. But as it was, he merely murmured, “Now what?”

They all looked at one another blankly. After a moment Raina began walking around Gir'Ok's corpse once more. “It has to be here,” she muttered. “Another clue.”

Stubborn girl.
Wasn't the Sleeping King's crown enough?

Cicero observed, “We could wander around this place for weeks and never find everything it conceals. We are missing something.”

Raina picked up the hem of her white skirt and reached out to rub Gir'Ok's armor. Sha'Li leaped forward quick as a cat between Raina and the nearest hanging roots and cursed as a half-dozen thorns shot her in the back.

“Oh! Sorry,” Raina murmured. “Good stars above, Sha'Li! What happened to you?”

Will looked over sharply at the lizardman girl and belatedly noticed that she looked like his mother's pincushion. Dozens of finger-length thorns stuck out of her hide.

Raina reached forward to pull one out, but Cicero grabbed her wrist quickly. “The thorns are poisoned. I am wearing gloves. Let me get them.” Raina yanked her hand back, and Cicero commenced carefully pulling the thorns out of Sha'Li and laying them aside.

When the task was done and Sha'Li's colorful cursing had subsided, Raina said, “Can we cut away the roots from Gir'Ok's chest? I think I see something interesting.”

Eben did the honors while Cicero with his sword and Sha'Li with her claws beat off the roots that would have attacked the jann. In a few minutes Gir'Ok's chest cavity came into sight. Or, rather, a leather breastplate, inlaid with another round gem to match the one in Gir'Ok's circlet, covered the crumbling ribs of the remains. A raised series of ridges embossed into the leather formed the shape of a stylized eye with the gem at its center. It stared back at the party balefully.

“Creepy how it watches you,” Rosana muttered.

“Maybe it's not watching us,” Raina murmured. “Maybe it's looking at something. After all, his hand was pointing up at the crown.”

As one, the group turned to follow the unseeing gaze of that giant eye across the chamber.

Rosana whispered, “I think I see something moving over there—something big.”

 

CHAPTER

29

Will replied in a hush, “I saw it, too.”

Sha'Li's claws extended with a faint slithering sound, and Will, Cicero, and Eben followed suit, brandishing their swords. They crept forward in a tight cluster toward that hint of movement. A bulky shadow moved across the faint glow of the mushrooms and they all froze.

Sha'Li hand signaled for the rest of them to hold still while she investigated. Cicero signaled something back to her and the lizardman girl nodded. She peeled off to the right while Cicero slipped off to the left.

Rosana eased up next to Will's side, and he felt her trembling against him. A desire to put his arm around her, to draw her close for comfort, struck him. But until they knew what that … thing … was he needed to keep his hands free to fight. He glanced down at her reassuringly and noted that Rosana's hands were glowing in the folds of her skirt.

Cicero and Sha'Li returned far too quickly for Will's peace of mind. Cicero reported, “There's a magic circle of some kind. Inside it is a gigantic mottled gray wolf with two heads.”

“A two-headed wolf?” Will echoed skeptically. Such things did not exist! They were the stuff of hearth tales designed to scare children into staying inside at night.

Sha'Li nodded. “Dangerous, it looks. But unable to leave the circle, I think.”

Raina whispered, “Can we go around it?”

Will stared at her. “Why would we want to do that? Better to avoid two-headed wolves, completely, I'm thinking.”

“Gir'Ok's eye looks in that direction. Whatever we seek must lie beyond the circle and the wolf … wolves … wolf.”

Stars, he hated it when Raina was logical like that.

Cicero whispered, “The circle does not go all the way to the wall on the left. I think there is a narrow path around it. We would have to hack through some roots. Beyond the circle there is a dark patch in the cave wall where no mushrooms grow. It is perfectly circular in shape.”

“A door, mayhap?” Eben asked.

“Maybe.” Cicero shrugged. “It is worth investigating.”

Rosana whispered, “And you're sure this wolf-creature cannot leave the circle?”

Sha'Li answered, “A path is worn in the floor around the perimeter of the circle as if the beast prowls it.”

They eased forward and to the left with Cicero in the lead. Having to move so slowly through the jungle of roots was maddening to Will until he heard the deep, rasping breath of something
huge
in front of them. Abruptly his feet wanted to drag even more slowly than before.

“There,” Cicero breathed.

Will looked where the elf pointed and his mouth fell open. It was indeed a two-headed wolf. It stood half-again as high as a man and easily twice as long as one. Its coat was shaggy and gray in the dim light, its paws the size of Will's head. And its fangs … both mouthfuls of them … were nearly the length of his sword and gleamed dangerously. Only a shockingly thin band of light in the dirt of the chamber's floor separated them from the monstrous creature.

Worse, the beast was awake. Its yellow eyes glowed in the darkness and its heads swung side to side, independent of each other. Both noses took long, loud sniffs. Abruptly the beast growled, the vicious rumble striking terror into Will's heart.

Snarling, the beast rushed the side of the circle nearest them. Surely a mere line in the dirt could not contain such a monster! Will braced to die as the beast slammed into an invisible barrier, snapping and snarling in impotent fury. Spittle frothed at its mouths as the wolf lunged again, clawing at the air before it in rage.

Will eyed the narrow strip of dirt bounded on one side by the magical circle in the dirt and a wall of mushrooms on the other.
Great. Don't cross the circle or else be torn to shreds. Don't touch the mushrooms or be rendered mentally incompetent and likely to wander into the aforementioned circle. Don't overly disturb any roots or else be squeezed to death … or, if really unlucky, shot with poison thorns.
“This is going to be fun,” he breathed.

“Hey. You've got a staff!” Raina retorted. “I glow in the dark in this white tabard and have no magic.”

She is out of magic?
Dismay coursed through him as Cicero picked his way precariously through the narrow alley of safety. If the agile elf barely made it through there how were the rest of them supposed to make it? Will had been counting on Raina's nigh unto endless reserves of healing magic to fix whatever injuries they incurred in this hall of horrors.