"Someone must have broken in before we did," suggested Vadania mildly.
"Nay," said Tordek, "but we are meant to think so." He considered the possibility that plunderers penetrated the vaults previously, despite the absence of any signs of their entrance. The dwarves used many strategies to thwart thieves, and not all of them involved traps and locks.
He paced the dimensions of the vault and made the mental calculations comparing its size and shape to that of the exterior of the building. He rapped on the shelves, crept along the floor, and listened to the walls.
The others followed his example. Devis and Vadania peered into the high corners for any sign of concealed passages while Lidda climbed the shelves to run her fingers along the ceiling as far as she could reach.
"Here," said Tordek at last. The others joined him where he stood at the innermost wall. He tapped its granite surface with the butt of his axe. To his ears, there was no mistaking the sound of an empty space beyond. When he saw that his non-dwarven companions did not hear the same clue, he explained, "This is a barrier, not a support. Something lies beyond."
"There's no way we can break through that much stone," said Lidda.
"Maybe if we constructed a ram from the fallen timbers?" suggested Devis.
"No," said Vadania. "I have not yet meditated for my spells today, and it is nearly dawn, by my reckoning. If the rest of you would fetch me some of that clay from outside, I have something that might serve."
She asked Tordek to confirm which way was east, then she sat facing the rising sun. No matter that she could not see it, Tordek knew, it was the gesture that aided her communion with the world. He had seen her perform this ritual dozens of times before.
Tordek and Lidda went to the clay stream and scooped up handfuls of the thick stuff onto a wooden door, which they then pulled back to the treasury like a sledge. Devis awaited them at the entrance, where he and Gulo kept watch over the meditating druid and the approach to the building at once. They would not be caught unawares again after the lesson that Yupa taught them.
Vadania concluded her meditation by rising silently to her feet in a way that seemed to defy gravity. Tordek knew elves could perish and druids molder unto dust, but something about the fey folk-especially one so closely bound to the earth and wood-left him feeling by comparison vulnerable, fragile, and altogether mortal.
When Vadania saw the makeshift sledge, she nodded approvingly. "That should be plenty. Bring it over to the wall."
She rolled the soft clay into long ropes and pressed them against the wall until they stuck. One by one, she added more ropes to form a rectangular frame upon the wall, pausing only to ask Tordek how thick he estimated the wall must be. When she finished, she had created a border slightly more than two feet high and wide, complete with a handle protruding from one side.
She placed both hands within the frame of clay, a sprig of mistletoe in the crook of her middle fingers, and she began humming. The sound was high and sweet at first, much like her voice.
Soon the stone began resonating, answering the druid's call with its own deep, eternal voice.
Tordek nodded as the clay outline glowed orange and flowed into the wall, leading the stone in its own transmutation. The fragile clay handle drew out the hard matter of the wall to form a sturdy grip. An instant later, the wall became a simple door.
Vadania stepped back and spoke to Gulo. "Wait here, old friend," she said. "We'll be back soon."
Tordek pulled the door open with a dull scraping sound.
They plunged their lights into the gloom beyond and saw a low passageway, the work of dwarven chisels rather than the slow tearing of the mountain. Tordek squeezed through the small door and led the way. The walls were cool and faintly damp, but flickering light spilled around a corner ten feet ahead. After turning once, the hidden passage became a railed spar jutting into the center of a cavern so vast that the lights revealed only the wall behind them as it soared upward into darkness. The bridge into empty space ended in a circular platform ringed by a crenellated wall upon which blazed perpetual flames in six braziers.
On sturdy stone tables, heaps of octagonal coins filled bronze bowls ringed with images of dwarves in the mines, at the forge, and beside the anvil. Chalices and cups overflowed with rubies and topazes and gems of all the colors of fire. Plates forged with the faces of bears and badgers, ale horns capped with silver, armors and helms and shields and weapons shaped by a master's craft hung from every wall.
Upon the floor lay open chests, some overflowing with coins and ingots, others with ivory scrolls and tomes bound in lizard hide and gold. Several of these works had been left open, their pages torn out and scattered upon the floor in curling leaves, the detritus of history and lives chronicled then buried. All these works surrounded a pair of stone biers bearing a pair of sarcophagi. The lid of each was carved with surpassing skill and obvious veneration, their features painted so artfully that the figures might have seemed alive before the cloak of dust dimmed their hues and the oozing walls streaked their features with a calculus of tears.
To the right lay the sculpture of a dwarven matron of ageless beauty. Her refined cheekbones and the faint lines etched around her closed eyes informed Tordek that she had lived well over three hundred years before her death. Her dark, braided hair was entwined with silver threads. Upon her cheeks were painted black tears, the mark of a loyal wife who went to her grave mourning a disgraced husband.
Her spouse's sarcophagus was on the left. The figure on the coffin's lid wore black chain armor with a shattered breastplate, the mark of a dwarf slain in combat by his own people. His scarred and craggy face was shaven, his eyes open, his naked hands empty: three signs of an accursed interment.
"It's him," said Devis, approaching the husband's coffin with an uncharacteristic reverence. His eyes glowed with awe as he gently laid a hand on the dwarf's stony boot. "Andaron the Black."
The heavy lid jumped, and in the instant of its leap, a deep, sepulchral gasp escaped the coffin, stirring the ruined pages on the floor like autumn leaves in a dry wind.
Tordek already had his axe at the ready. "Don't touch anything," he said. He heard the sound of little hands scooping coins and gems and added without looking, "That goes double for you, Lidda!"
Vadania remained warily back from the treasure and the coffins while the others looked over the treasure, resisting the temptation to scoop it into their sacks all at once. Devis whistled a cantrip that made his eyes flash with green light. Gazing around the room, he grinned broadly.
"That," he said, "and that…" He pointed to a large wooden shield with a bronze lion's face for its boss, a suit of beautifully tooled leather armor, and a pair of steel gauntlets. "Oh, and I want that crossbow."
Vadania chanted her own orison of detecting magic and scanned the room as Devis had. Seeing what she was doing, the bard jutted his jaw in blatant indignation and gave up his survey of the treasure in a huff. He turned his intention instead to the parchment pages littering the floor. Snatching one up, he perused it briefly before handing it to Tordek.
"Dwarvish," he said. "Naturally."
Tordek scanned the parchment as Devis collected others, searching for a title page and passing the most promising candidates to the dwarf. Some of the pages were rendered illegible by water damage, but others appeared almost pristine after Tordek blew the dust from their faces.
'"The Thane of Harrowstone Implores Andaron to Truce,'" read Tordek from a chapter heading.
Again, the cover of the smith's coffin jumped, and a moaning wind blew forth and stormed through the tomb. The swirling parchment leaves rose from the floor in a cyclone that formed around Andaron's coffin, swelling and shrinking in the rhythm of a frantic heartbeat as the wail grew so loud it shook the foundation of the tomb. Each time the parchment tornado contracted, its cylindrical form became increasingly like the image of Andaron lying on his bier. As its mouth gaped wider, its moaning cry rose ever louder. Tattered pages swept across the parchment-ghost's chaps to form a windblown beard, and a dark red ribbon writhed within its jaws to serve as a tongue.