The temple of fate, p.17
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The Temple of Fate, page 17

 part  #5 of  Bander Series

 

The Temple of Fate
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  Bander wedged a torch into his pack so the magically illuminated end protruded from the top and then he grabbed the rope and climbed down into the pit.

  Chapter Thirty

  The first thing that Bander noticed was the smell. Dank and wet. Like a flooded root cellar. Which is what the passage looked like as well.

  He landed in two inches of wet, slimy silt and his torch reflected off of pools of fetid water all around him. Bander held the torch high and inspected his surroundings.

  It was either a very long chamber, or a wide hallway—maybe twenty feet from north to south. And the room stretched off to the east for more than fifty feet. It was too dark to see much beyond that. To the west the way was blocked by a floor-to-ceiling mound of dirt and rock. That would be the way that led back to the temple.

  Could this be the Nave of Time?

  Bander turned his torch to illuminate the walls. No murals. Just the same big blocks of lumbia stone that the temple above was built with.

  “You didn’t die on us already, did you?” Valthar called down.

  “No.”

  “Well?”

  “Fetch me Nyanel’s spear,” Bander called. “And scour the area for branches we could use as poles.”

  “Did you say poles?”

  “Yes. I don’t like the looks of this floor.”

  Valthar handed down the spear and Bander used it to begin probing the mud-covered floor of the hallway. He was looking for the rails. If this was the Nave, it would have rails—and it would be very bad if someone stepped within them or even near them.

  “I’m coming down,” Valthar said.

  “Me too!” Eton Sward called after him.

  This wasn’t good, but Bander knew that there would be no stopping the rest of the party.

  Valthar climbed down first, a little wobbly, but he made it without any issues.

  “Give me a two hundred slow count before the next person comes down,” Bander called.

  “It smells down here,” Valthar said.

  “You noticed, eh? Hold the torch while I probe. We need to make sure there’s a safe place to stand for all of us.”

  Bander concentrated on checking the fifteen foot by fifteen foot square beneath the opening they had climbed through. He systematically poked and prodded the floor and felt for both the rails and any traps that might be hidden by the mud. But all he found were a few fist-sized rocks underneath the muck. He cleared some of the mud away by hand and saw that the floor was made of what appeared to be solid stone.

  “Can I move yet?” Valthar asked.

  Bander handed him the spear. “Keep checking the floor, while I help Sward down.”

  During his descent, which was punctuated by non-stop cursing, the mage almost fell off the rope several times.

  “I should have just levitated down for Dynark’s sake!” he huffed.

  ‘Don’t move from this area,” Bander told him. “We don’t know what’s under this mud.”

  “Likely nothing,” Eton Sward said. “This appears to be a ceremonial entrance hall.”

  “You recognize it?”

  “Not really. But the Temple of the Ages has something similar. More of an alcove, to be honest. Still, we think it served as a symbolic transition zone between the mundane world above and the special world of the Nave.”

  “Was this alcove at the other temple trapped?” Bander asked.

  “I don’t believe so, but who knows for sure? It was so long ago.”

  Talessa Kreed and Fenrue didn’t wait a full two hundred count, and soon all five of them were crowded in the corner of the hallway that Bander had checked. Between them they had four magical torches, the spear, and two other long branches that could be used to check the mud floor.

  “Doesn’t look like much to me,” Fenrue said. “A flooded storage room.”

  “This hall was looted—a long time ago,” Eton Sward said.

  “How can you tell?” Talessa Kreed asked.

  “There would have been tapestries on the wall,” Eton Sward said. “You can see the hooks still. And that block there would have been a base for statues.”

  Ten feet away, up against the south wall, was a stone block carved with various ridges and shelves. It was five feet all around and Bander could see how one might place statues on its steps.

  “There’s likely more of them,” Eton Sward continued.

  Talessa Kreed took a step forward towards the block.

  “No!” Bander shouted.

  She froze.

  “Stay in the safe area.”

  “Sorry.”

  She gingerly took a few steps back.

  “I am not telling tales when I say that this undertemple is extremely hazardous.”

  “Possibly,” Eton Sward said.

  “Almost certainly,” Bander replied.

  He turned back to the rope that hung from the shaft. “Your knife, madam.”

  “What?”

  “May I borrow it?”

  As Talessa Kreed handed her dagger over, Valthar asked, “What are you doing? You’re wasting time, rumpkin!”

  “We need the rope,” Bander said simply.

  “So you’re going—?”

  “I’m going to cut off the part that lies on the ground, so that we may take it with us.”

  “I forgot how punctilious you are,” Valthar said.

  Bander ignored the barb.

  Just then there was a loud clanging sound and a cry sounded from behind them. Bander whipped around to see Fenrue disappear beneath the mud, arms flailing.

  Everyone raced over to where the guard had fallen.

  “Stop!” Bander yelled. “It’s a pit.”

  Valthar said, “The damn fool must have wandered off and triggered a trap.”

  “Fenrue?” Talessa Kreed called.

  Bander moved closer, spear out. “Keep behind me”

  There, a dozen feet from the edge of the area he had checked, was the open maw of a pit. The opening was roughly square, ten feet on a side. Mud and water streamed down into it.

  “Fenrue!” Bander called.

  No answer.

  Bander moved closer until he could peer into the pit.

  Below was a grisly sight.

  Ten feet down, Fenrue’s lifeless body lay, impaled by a grid of iron spikes as tall as corn stalks. On the sides of the pit, opposite each other, hung two doors, fastened to the edge of the pit by long hinges and swaying slowly.

  Bander closed his eyes. Unfortunately he was all too familiar with this type of trap.

  “What happened?” Talessa Kreed was at his side. She looked down and saw Fenrue—then stumbled back, gasping in horror.

  “By the gods!” Eton Sward said. “The poor bastard. I mentioned the wards. Didn’t I mention the wards?”

  “That wasn’t a ward,” Valthar said. “It was a mechanical trap. I’m just surprised that it worked after all these years.”

  “I’m not,” Bander said. He took a deep breath. “What do we want to do now?”

  “Press on, of course,” Valthar said.

  “Agreed,” Talessa Kreed said quietly. “Fenrue knew the risks.”

  “Did he, now?” Eton Sward said.

  Talessa Kreed didn’t answer.

  “We should retrieve his body,” Bander said.

  Eton Sward nodded. “I can levitate it up.”

  He did so, and Talessa Kreed grimly stripped Fenrue’s body of anything useful. She handed his curved blade to Bander.

  “Congratulations. You’ve been promoted to my bodyguard.”

  It took them over an hour to check the entirety of the mud-covered floor for more traps. They found—and triggered—two more pit traps. One of the traps had an ancient-looking skeleton at the bottom.

  The hallway itself ran a hundred feet from east to west and ended in a pair of tall double doors made of solid iron—which were either locked or rusted shut. Cast into each of the doors was a stylized design of a tree.

  The walls had bare alcoves, and several statue bases, torch holders, and tapestry hooks, but no murals. There was also no sign of any rails in the floor—at least in the areas Bander dug into.

  “This isn’t the Nave of Time,” Valthar muttered.

  “I wonder if we are in the wrong place completely,” Bander said.

  “Why do you say that?” Talessa Kreed asked.

  “In the other temple, the Nave of Time was fairly close to the ambulatory. We’re a good hundred feet away.”

  Eton Sward shook his head. “All the temples are different in that regard. In the Temple of Curses we had to transverse a maze of tunnels before we reached the Nave. In Ages, it was a bit closer, but still a good fifty feet or so. And, as you say, the Nave in Dreams was quite close to the east end of the structure. In fact, the farther south a temple is situated, the farther the Nave is from the main part of the structure.”

  Valthar looked surprised. “I hadn’t known that, Sward. What else are you keeping from us?”

  “If you bothered to study with a bit more rigor—”

  Bander cut him off. “So you believe it is worthwhile to continue?”

  “I do,” both Eton Sward and Valthar said in unison.

  “Very well.”

  “The Nave of Time is here,” Valthar said. “I feel it.”

  “And what is this Nave of Time that we’re looking for?” Talessa Kreed asked.

  “His idea of the Nave may very well be a myth,” Eton Sward said.

  “It’s not,” Valthar said, matter-of-factly. “It is most certainly not a myth. As my father said, ‘if you are not ready to find the exceptional, you’ll never discover it.’ Mark those words.”

  Talessa Kreed moved closer to him. “Then tell me, sir. What is exceptional about this Nave?”

  Valthar sighed and said, “It is a way to move through time.”

  Talessa Kreed considered for several moments and then asked, “By magic?”

  “Of course by magic, giglet!” Valthar huffed. “Would there be any other way?”

  Valthar went on to tell her what he knew about the temples and the aonae, but didn’t mention that he himself was from another time. Bander wasn’t sure that it was wise to confide in Talessa Kreed, but he guessed that Valthar didn’t care. His friend believed he was close to leaving this world. Forever.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Bander stood in front of the pair of double doors at the far end of the hallway. After testing them for lightning traps, he grabbed one of the door handles, braced himself, and pulled with all his might. Bander didn’t quite generate the force of a team of horses, but his strength was considerable.

  But the door didn’t budge.

  Not an inch.

  “Locked,” he announced.

  “Or magically held perhaps,” Talessa Kreed offered.

  “No,” Eton Sward said. “I don’t detect anything. This must be mechanical.”

  “If it’s mechanical, we have a chance of getting it open,” Bander said.

  He squatted down in the mud and used Fenrue’s sword to probe underneath the doors. The blade didn’t get very far. There was a hard surface right on the other side of the door. Bander dragged the blade to one side. It was as if the sword was scraping against a large brick. He repeated the test all along the twenty foot length of the door with the same result.

  “Something is blocking the door.”

  “You are indeed a genius, my friend,” Valthar scoffed. “A genius of the obvious!”

  “Another cave-in?” Eton Sward asked.

  “I don’t think so. Feels like stone. Very even.”

  “That makes no sense,” Valthar said.

  “It does if the doors are false.”

  “Wonderful,” Eton Sward said. “Just wonderful.”

  “That simply means that there is a hidden door,” Valthar said. “Somewhere.”

  They spent the next hour searching, prodding along every wall, every alcove. They tugged at torch holders and any protruding bit of masonry. They even banged along the stone ceiling using their spear and poles. By this time they were all exhausted. They had been in this chamber for over three hours.

  “I propose we return up top,” Eton Sward said. “Warm up around a fire. Rest the old bones.”

  Valthar said, “We’re not giving up, you corpulent old coot! Not even for five minutes.” He stormed away to check another part of the wall.

  “Well, my light spell isn’t going to last forever,” Eton Sward muttered.

  Something caught Bander’s eye. It was a dark section of the wall, towards the bottom. As he moved closer, he saw that it was a water stain. Probably from when the passage last flooded. All the mud and silt. But the thing that really caught his attention was the fact that the water line wasn’t level. It tilted slightly to one side.

  “I’m going to stoneflow the opening again,” Eton Sward said. “We need all the fresh air we can get.”

  “Good idea,” Valthar said.

  Bander brought the torch closer to the wall and examined the water line, following the anomaly along the wall. It ran for twenty feet or so, from the edge of one of the statue bases to the doors.

  Then he crossed the hall and checked the same section on the opposite wall. It was straight and level.

  Strange.

  He turned back to the wall with the uneven water stain and started digging in the mud. A few minutes later he was rewarded.

  “A gap,” he announced. “In the floor!”

  The rest of the group made their way over as Bander continued digging through the mud. The gap ran parallel to the wall, five feet away. It stretched from the corner of the statue base all the way to the door.

  “This section of floor moves,” Bander said. “We need to find the trigger. But don’t step on the floor section. The trigger will be somewhere else.”

  “How did you—?” Talessa Kreed asked.

  Bander pointed to the water stain. “Slightly tilted. Just in this section.”

  Valthar’s eyes lit up. “I see it now. This whole floor section tilts.”

  Bander nodded. That what he had been thinking.

  They redoubled their efforts to find a switch and after several minutes, Bander located something at the bottom of the statue base. It was a loose section of stone that he was able to pry out using Talessa Kreed’s dagger. There in a depression was a metal handle. Bander tapped it with the dagger and held the torch close. It didn’t appear to be trapped.

  “Stand back everyone!”

  He pulled the handle—which moved surprisingly easily. A great grinding sound echoed throughout the hall and the floor rumbled. Then the section of floor against the wall pivoted forward, splashing mud and water. The far end dipped down about five feet and the closer end raised up. Then there was a loud clank as the mechanism locked.

  “Remarkable!” Eton Sward exclaimed.

  Valthar shrugged. “Typical pivot passage. I’m surprised it took you this long to find it, Bander.”

  “I don’t have the skills of a thief.”

  “Bah, stop making excuses. You’re just getting old.”

  Talessa Kreed climbed to the top of the statue base and peered down at the muddy sloped walkway which led beneath the door. “That looks rather steep. Especially with all that mud.”

  “Indeed,” Bander said. “It very well may be another trap. That’s why I’m going down this way.” He motioned to the opening closest to the door. It was a simple matter to sit down on the ledge and prod below with the spear. Once he was satisfied, Bander slid down into the tunnel.

  “Hand me a torch. Or better yet, cast light on the end of this.”

  He poked the spear up so that Eton Sward could cast the spell on its tip. Then, with the spear magically illuminated, Bander inspected the passage.

  It was a small five foot square tunnel that ran east directly under the double doors for a dozen feet. At the far end of the tunnel a narrow staircase led up.

  “This is the way!” Bander called.

  After he checked the passage for traps, he signaled for the rest of the group to climb down and they all made their way through the tunnel and up the stairs.

  They emerged into a cavernous room filled with large trees.

  “Dynark’s Blood!” Eton Sward exclaimed.

  Bander took a few steps closer. The trees weren’t real trees. They were statues, carved out of stone, and incredibly lifelike. And there was an entire forest of them, tightly packed together, extending as far as their torches could illuminate. Greyish moss grew on the branches and hung down like spider webs.

  “I know these!” Eton Sward exclaimed. He held a torch close to the trunk of one of the trees. “See this?”

  “A bug?” Talessa Kreed asked.

  It did look like a bug—etched into the bark of the tree.

  “A butterfly!” Eton Sward said. “This is from The Wood of Enlightenment.”

  “What?” Valthar asked.

  “It’s an old illuminated manuscript from the fourth century. Tells of an underground forest. The scholars always placed it somewhere in the north, but…” He trailed off. “Did you see that?”

  They all turned to where Eton Sward was looking.

  “Cover the torches,” he said.

  Bander tucked the illuminated spear tip under his cape and withdrew his sword.

  “I don’t see a blessed thing,” Talessa Kreed said.

  “A light,” Eton Sward said. “Faint.”

  “I see it,” Valthar said.

  Bander now saw it too. Somewhere deep within the stone forest, something glowed.

  The mage stepped forward, muttering something to himself.

  “Sward!” Bander called. He didn’t like the idea of the man wandering off.

  “It’s fine, I’ll be caref—”

  Without warning, the trees came alive.

  Stoney branches shot out and encircled Bander. He fought against the constriction, but to no avail. Within moments he was being dragged into the heart of the underground forest. And not him alone. The trees had caught Talessa Kreed as well—her screams sounding in his ear. No doubt Valthar and Eton Sward were meeting the same fate.

  And then he was falling into the darkness, tumbling over and over. His body struck something hard and then something else hard, but he continued to fall. Then nothingness.

 
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