The earth awaited the body of wizard-king thus and so, the inscription usually read.
"The tomb proper will be deeper in," Egil said.
"If it's here," one of the guards said.
"It's here," Egil and Nix said in unison.
"How do you know?" the guard asked.
Nix pointed with the tip of his falchion at a faint discoloration on the ceiling. "That's a soot stain. Very old."
"And note the stalactites and stalagmites," Egil said. "See how they're thinner and shorter in the center of the cave?"
"So?" the guard said.
"So," the priest explained. "The ones in the center are not as old as those on the sides. That's because the original ones in the center of the cave were cleared to allow passage of workers and materiel. Probably that statue in the water was cracked or broken in transit and discarded by lazy workmen. Proved good luck for us."
While the guards digested that, Nix used a matchstick from his bag to fire a torch.
"I lead," he said. "Then Egil, then the rest of you. Don't touch anything."
Nix led them through the thicket of stone, and followed the slope of the cave downward into darkness. The tunnel narrowed to a neck at twenty paces and they advanced in single file. The guards' rapid breathing betrayed their nervousness.
The narrow passageway opened abruptly into a large vaulted chamber of worked stone. The flickering light of Nix's torch illuminated plastered walls and a ceiling covered in pictoglyphs and Afirion script, a riot of colors and imagery. A large metal door stood on the opposite side of the chamber. Nix saw nothing to indicate the name or station of the person buried in the tomb, but that was not unusual. The receiving room was used to prepare the body for eternity. Afterward, the room was typically covered in curses and trapped. It was probably a good thing he couldn't read much Afirion script.
The guards filed in behind Egil, clustering around Nix.
"Gods," one of them said in a hushed tone, eyeing the ancient artwork.
"What does it say?" another asked.
"I can't read much of it," Nix said, "but it's warnings against defiling the tomb, a promise of curses on tomb robbers."
"What kind of curses?" said the youngest of the guards, his voice betraying a slight quaver.
"The kind that makes your balls fall off," Nix said absently, studying floor and ceiling in the light of his torch.
"Or that makes you shite yourself to death," Egil added.
"Gods," said the guard.
"Shite," said another.
"Exactly," Egil said solemnly.
"I need more light," Nix said. He handed Egil his torch and took his magic crystal eye from his satchel. He tapped it with a finger and spoke a word in the Mages' Tongue.
"Wake up," he said, and the eye opened, blinked a few times, and emitted a beam of light. Nix used it to pore over the walls, ceiling, and floor, keeping his feet planted.
"There," he said, indicating the floor before the door.
"I see it," Egil said.
"And there," Nix said, indicating a spot on the ceiling near the wall.
"What? What?" asked a guard.
"Traps," Egil said. "There are always traps."
Derg cleared his throat. "I don't… feel like we need to enter the tomb any farther. Probably just be in the way of these two. You, mates?"
Murmured agreement.
Nix smiled. "Wise," he said.
"Maybe that could stay between us, though?" Derg said.
"Of course," Nix said.
"Ought to spring the traps, then," Egil offered. "Else they'll set them off."
"Right," Nix said.
Nix ventured into the chamber and walked near the metal door opposite them.
"This looks like a door," he said and stepped before it. When he felt the floor give slightly, triggering the counterpoise, he bounded aside. The metal slab fell forward and crashed onto the floor with a ferocious crash.
"But it's a deadfall."
"Shite!"
"Gods!"
"Pits, man!"
On the otherwise blank wall revealed by the door's fall was scrawled a death curse. Nix pointed at it.
"And there's Egil's 'shite yourself to death' curse. Nicely anticipated, priest."
Egil half-bowed.
Nix walked toward the tomb's actual door, its location hidden by the plaster coating the walls.
"The actual door is here."
"Where?" asked Derg.
"Careful," Egil said.
"Aye," Nix said.
"I don't see it," said another guard.
Nix took a chisel from his satchel and chipped away the plaster until it revealed another metal door, flush with the wall and with no handle, the hinges sunk into the stone of the cavern by screws. He examined the screws. Time had rusted them.
"Hinges are soon to give," he said.
A dusting of rust coated the door. Nix rubbed it off as best he could and read the characters engraved on the door.
"Abn Thuset of Afirion, beloved of the people and the gods."
"It's the right tomb, then," Derg said.
Nix took his crowbar from his satchel, got it in the seam between the wall and the unhinged side of the door.
"Mind," Egil cautioned.
Nix nodded, pried at the door, once, twice, a third time before it finally gave. The moment it started to open, he heard the expected sound of falling counterweights. He leaped backward as the hidden pegs holding the block of ceiling stone above the door slid back and let the block fall. The huge block of stone hit the floor with a dull, ponderous thud, and would have crushed anyone standing under it.
"The Afirions liked crushing tomb robbers," Nix said.
The guards looked wide-eyed at the stone, at the now-gaping opening in the ceiling.
"Help me slide it aside," Nix said.
With help from Egil and the guards, he moved the stone aside and opened the door to the tomb. He held the crystal eye high.
A series of carved steps led down into a large oval chamber. Smooth columns of limestone ran floor to ceiling. More artwork adorned the walls. Nix put away his magical eye and struck another torch to match Egil's.
"Stay here and don't move until we come back," Nix said to the guards.
"Aye," said the guards. Nix saw their nervousness. They eyed the ceiling, floor, and walls as if they might fall in on them at any moment.
"If it'll make you feel better, close the door after we're through."
He'd been jesting about the door, but the moment he and Egil stepped down the stairs and into the columned chamber beyond, the door squeaked closed behind them. They, like Abn Thuset, were entombed in stone.
"Timid slubbers," Nix said.
"Look at this," Egil said, holding his torch high and indicating the walls.
Mindful of his steps, Nix moved closer to the walls and held up his torch to view the wall murals.
Placatory to the gods, tomb murals always showed the truth of a wizard-king's life. A false mural risked divine wrath and condemnation to the Nether Void.
The murals began on one end of the chamber and stretched along the wall. They began as they all did, with the birth of the wizard-king and a detailed rendering of the sky on the day of birth. Subsequent murals showed the wizard-king's childhood, education, tutors, parents, siblings, their entire life told in pictoglyphs painted on limestone. The workmanship was excruciatingly detailed and often done in symbolic fashion. Nix had seen enough of them to deduce meanings. He followed them along the wall but stopped, frowning, when he reached the images showing Abn Thuset in adolescence. The images of tutors and other servants looked typical but the clothing…
"He wears a girl's clothing," Nix said. "Look. That's not a wrap. It's a dress."
Egil grunted, his interest in Abn Thuset's life already slaked.
Nix followed the murals along the wall, a spectator to the truth of Abn Thuset's life. Scenes showed the battles fought in the rebellion that put Abn Thuset's father on the Serpentine Throne of Afirion. Nix could hardly believe what he was seeing. He narrated for Egil.