Following the brilliant magical lights of Zandria's company, Jack and his companions carefully tailed the band to the broad chamber at the end of the passageway. They carried no lights of their own; Tharzon's dwarven eyes were more than capable of piercing the darkness, and Jack worked a spell he knew that sharpened his own sight. Anders they led carefully along until they were close enough to see by the distant light of Zandria's expedition. The three rogues found a spot to wait about a hundred feet down the hall and settled in to watch.
"What do we do next?" whispered Tharzon.
Jack replied, "Let's see if Sarbreen's legendary perils do that work for us. Zandria is not a mage to be trifled with. She has at least two capable swordsmen with her-I met them when I visited their stronghold in the city. See, there they are." In the yellow light flooding the end of the hall, Zandria's companions spread out to search the chamber, while the Red Wizard consulted papers and notes before a gleaming slab of stone in the center of the far wall.
"Those other two in armor are probably priests," Tharzon added. He pointed to a short, stocky man and a young, athletic woman with a shaved head. "See the emblems of Tyr, there, and Tempus? Best to figure that they are both trained warriors, too, as well as potential spellcasters." The dwarf shifted slightly to change his view. "There's another fellow in dark clothes, probably a lockpick or burglar."
"That makes six to our three," Anders observed. "We should have brought a couple more stout lads to even the odds. Jankizen from Shadystreets would be useful."
"Jankizen can't add two and two twice and come up with the same result," Jack snorted. "Besides, more help means more shares." He peered down the hallway at the small pool of light.
Zandria and her allies were busy readying for a fight, checking weapons and arranging potions and scrolls so that they could be easily found in a hurry.
"They're getting ready to open the tomb. Wait here, lads. I'll creep a little closer to see what unfolds.''
"Don't get caught," Tharzon muttered.
Jack winked at the dwarf and wove his spell of invisibility, vanishing from sight. He stepped out from behind the broken columns they'd chosen for cover and advanced toward Zandria's company, picking his steps carefully. Invisibility did not make him inaudible as well, and the crunch of a thoughtless footstep on rubble or a carelessly kicked stone would alert Zandria. Mages had spells to reveal things invisible, and Jack had no wish to put the Company of the Red Falcon on its guard.
At the moment, the adventurers stood in a loose half circle surrounding Zandria as she faced the wall opposite the entrance-except for the swordsman Brunn and the Tyrian priest, who deliberately watched the hallway outside for the approach of any enemy from that quarter. Jack nodded in appreciation; these were professionals, as he'd suspected. He stopped about ten feet short of the two sentries and studied the scene.
Now choked in rubble and ruin, the chamber had once been grand indeed. Two twenty-foot pillars had been carved into the likeness of grim dwarven sentries, guarding the entrance to the room. The chamber itself was a high rotunda, its walls lined with tall columns. A great carving in relief circled the entire chamber, a pastoral scene of grain fields and vineyards. In the center, directly opposite the entrance, stood a smooth glossy stone with a smaller, more intricate carving.
"Zandria's inscription," Jack whispered to himself. "Excellent!"
The red-haired mage stood with her back to him, facing the wall. She carried a long staff of dark, rune-engraved wood and wore a short sword of strange black metal at her side. Holding the staff in the crook of her elbow, she studied a parchment scroll.
"Now, ten paces south from here," she said. "South is toward the entrance, correct?"
"Aye," said the priest of Tyr, speaking over his shoulder. "The hall outside runs straight north and south."
Zandria turned and began pacing straight toward Jack, her expression fixed in concentration. She counted ten paces and then halted, very near the entrance to the chamber. She referred to her notes again.
"Now, I speak the words kharaz-urzu."
As soon as the dwarven words left her lips, a bright silver light softly grew in the chamber. High above, shining orbs hidden among stone carved to resemble the boughs of trees began to glow magically, overpowering the adventurers' own spells of light. The swordsmen shifted nervously, vigilant for any sign of impending attack, but instead of heralding the arrival of some ancient guardian, the light simply cast a glimmering field of slanting silver beams throughout the room as each ray bounced and rebounded from hidden, polished surfaces.
"What's happening?" called out the priestess of Tempus. She whirled from side to side, her battle-axe poised to strike. "Zandria?"
"Hold a moment. Nothing threatens us," the wizardess replied.
She turned slowly, studying the patterns formed by the argent beams. Six rays gleamed in the chamber from six silver apples hidden in the stony leaves at the apex of the room; each reflected four times from smooth, glossy spaces cunningly hidden in the carving that surrounded the room, creating a cage of light that spiraled down to meet at one common point in the center of the chamber-a large seven-sided stone that stood perhaps an inch higher than the rest of the floor.
"The seven stone," Zandria breathed. "Brunn! Kale! Crowbars, quickly! Raise the stone in the center!"
The swordsman, Brunn, abandoned his post at the entrance to the rotunda and shrugged off his pack. The slender half-elf in gray joined him. Both men rummaged through their backpacks and came up with short iron crowbars. Then, silhouetted by the silver light, they worked the tools under one edge of the stone and slowly levered it up. The stone was about six or seven inches thick, and almost four feet in diameter.
"There's a staircase hidden under here!" called the half-elf.
"The Guilder's Tomb," Zandria whispered. She glanced around. "Thieron and Durevin, stay up here and guard our exit. Kale, you take the lead. Be wary of traps; Sarbreen's full of them. Brunn, you follow Kale, and I will follow you. Maressa, you bring up the rear. Any questions?"
"It's dangerous to split up," said the priest of Tyr. "What if you have need of Durevin and me when you get to the other end of the passageway below?"
"We'll call for you to join us if it looks like we might lose contact, Thieron," Zandria said. "All right, then, let's get to it."
The scout-Kale-nodded once and dropped quickly into the stairwell, alert and cautious. Brunn, the big swordsman, came after the thief, jingling in a mail shirt that hung to his knees. Zandria followed and then the priestess of Tempus. Jack debated returning to where his friends hid and then decided that the opportunity was simply too good. He glided forward between the Tyr priest and the other swordsman, who stood watching warily in all directions, and followed Maressa down into the staircase.
The stairwell opened out into a long, low hall, leading into darkness. They advanced a long way, passing entirely beneath the rotunda by Jack's reckoning, and then began to climb back up another flight of stairs.