The key vibrated, lightly at first, then more strongly, emitting a prolonged chime that would have done credit to the Great Clock of Ool, the sound reverberating through the large underground chamber, the echo replaying itself again and again. Loose sand misted down from the ceiling blocks.
The metal warmed between his fingers, and, as the sound faded away, grew hotter. Nix held on as long as he could then dropped it with a curse. It hit the floor, flared white, and melted into slag.
A wet slithering and high-pitched shriek spiked his adrenaline and jerked his head up. He caught a flash of one of the stone lampreys carved in the door jamb, now made flesh and as thick around as his forearm, lunging at him out of the stone, the black hole of its mouth ringed by a vicious sphincter of fangs.
He stumbled back, trying to brandish the punch dagger he still held, but he was too slow, and Egil snatched the creature out of the air in mid-lunge and slammed it to the ground. It writhed frenetically in his grasp, hissing, attempting to twist enough of its body free to latch its teeth onto his flesh. The priest pinned it with his boot.
"Your blade, Nix!"
Nix recovered himself, jerked his falchion free of its scabbard, and cleaved the lamprey in half. Its pieces squirmed for a moment, spurting stinking black ichor, before going still and reverting back into two chunks of stone.
"Fak," Nix cursed, his heart still racing. He sheathed the punch dagger.
Egil removed his boot from the creature's body and eyed Nix.
"You see?" the priest said, kicking one of the pieces of the creature across the sand-dusted floor. "Moments, Nix. Life and death are experienced in the moments. We just had one."
Nix thumped Egil on his huge shoulder. "Point taken. Thanks."
He took a moment to let his heart still, then held his palms before the door once again. He waited, but no longer felt the tingle of an active ward.
"The key dispelled the ward," he said.
"Bah!" Egil answered. "The key activated the ward. We could've done that ourselves."
"I blame your prayers."
"And I blame your 'magical' key. Perhaps a chat with Kerfallen's agent is in order when next we see him?"
"Agreed." Nix rubbed his nose thoughtfully. "Though, in fairness, it wasn't a very expensive key."
Egil chuckled, started rattling the dice in his hand once more.
Nix kneeled before the door. "Shine the lantern's light in the keyhole for me."
Egil pocketed his dice, held both of his hammers in one hand, and with the other angled their lantern so that its light reached into the key slot.
As Nix removed his precision tools from his satchel, he realized of a sudden that he didn't particularly care if they found the serpent idol within the sanctum. He and Egil had set off from Dur Follin after a three-day drink, in the midst of which they'd bought a "treasure" map from Crustus the blind cartographer. Crustus, in turn, had received the ancient yellowed vellum from a teamster who'd taken it as payment for passage from an Afirion nobleman fleeing dervish assassins. He and Egil had followed it on a drunken whim.
He held his pick poised before the slot. The moment felt portentous. He stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Remind me again what we're doing here, Egil."
Egil's bushy eyebrows rose to a precipitous height. "I'm standing here on a wounded leg. You're picking a lock. We're both overdue for beer."
"Don't be a bunghole. I mean, what are we doing? Here. Now."
"Here? Now? Are you daft? We're retrieving a serpent idol from the tomb of the wizard-king Abn Thahl."
Nix leaned back on his haunches, tapped his lockpick on his cheek. "Right, right, but why? I remember wenches and boasts and… not much else."
The observation seemed to flummox Egil. His brow furrowed, his cheeks darkened. He shifted on his booted feet. The light from the lantern cast crazy shadows on the stone wall. He ran a hand over his tufted scalp.
"I don't recall. I think… we were quite drunk and… I remember being in the Slick Tunnel but… I guess coin?" He looked up as if he'd had an epiphany. "The idol must be valuable, eh?"
"We've got enough coin stashed around Dur Follin to keep us in wine and whores until we're too old to appreciate the pleasure of either. Not to mention the markers we hold."
Egil tilted his head to accede the point. "True. So?"
"So, indeed, is the question." Nix studied his wire pick, thoughtful. He did not remember what they'd been thinking exactly. They'd dodged the Demon Wastes and taken ship across many leagues of the Gogon Ocean to reach Afirion, braved the desert, thirst, the traps, and undead guardians in the tomb for… what? Coin they didn't need?
Perhaps they'd done it so often in the past that they did it now with no forethought, no real purpose, automatons who went through the motions of their lives because they didn't know what else to do or why else to do it.
"We could go back," Nix said, looking up at the towering priest. "Right now."
Egil's expression twisted uncertainly behind the nest of his beard. He chewed the hairs of his mustache. "Why would we do that?"
"Why not? If life's made of moments, here's another one. Feels important. We could use it to leave."
Egil's dice came back out of his pocket, rattled in his palm, his habit when thinking or nervous.
"We could." The priest ran a hand over his bald head, poking Ebenor in the eye, his other habit when nervous or thinking. "But… we're already here. Be a waste to just… leave, wouldn't it?"
Nix supposed that made as much sense as anything. He nodded. "I suppose. We're here. Why leave a deed half-done?" He turned back to the door. "Hold the light steady."
Peering inside the keyhole, Nix found the lock less complicated than he expected. The ancient Afirions had been expert stonemasons but inexpert locksmiths. His wire pick, sawblade, and tumbler pry would have it open in a moment. He set to work and quickly had the lock primed.
"Ready yourself," he said to Egil. The dice disappeared and Egil hung the lantern from a protuberance in the mural-splashed wall. The big priest filled each of his fists with the haft of a hammer.
Nix released the final tumbler and heard the satisfying click of an opening lock, a sound that always felt to him like… opportunity. Nothing pleased him more save the opening of a fetching girl's thighs.
He bounded back to stand beside Egil, holding his falchion and hand axe.
Somewhere within the walls, pulleys squealed, the sound like a scream. Counterweights descended and the door started to lift, metal shrieking against stone. Immediately liquid poured out from the widening crack and an acrid, eye-watering stink filled the air. All in a rush Nix knew he'd missed it.
Everything came together for him but too late — the holes in the wall where something had been poured behind the door, the unusual metal of the door itself, the tarred seal.
"Off the floor, Egil! Off!"
Nix jumped up, his boots already warming from the touch of the liquid, and grabbed hold of one of the lampreys carved into the lintel. He braced his feet on a sand serpent carved into the left post, praying to Aster that they did not animate.
Egil must have heard the alarm in Nix's tone for he responded quickly. Too big to perch on the door jamb, he put both hammers head down on the ground and, holding the hafts, went feet over head in a handstand, and just in time.
The initial slow rush of black liquid from under the door gave way to a gush of fluid as the door opened wider. The fluid bubbled as it dissolved stone, filling the air with black, stinging smoke. Nix put his face in his sleeve to shield his nose and mouth against the stench. Egil, unable to do anything but hold himself upright, had to endure it.