"Show us," Elryn ordered curtly, and raised his voice a trifle. "Brothers, move slowly, keep apart, and watch the trees around. I don't want us crowded together when someone strikes from hiding. If we arrange things so that one fireball might take care of all of us, a hostile mage might not be able to resist his opportunity, hmm?"
"Aye," Daluth murmured, at the same time as someone else…Elryn couldn't tell who…muttered, "Thinks of everything, our Elryn."
Dark thoughts or not, the "wizards" of Shar reached the stone slab Vaelam had found without incident. It lay between two mossy banks, almost entirely covered with years of rotting, fallen leaves, but the K could clearly be seen. The deep-graven letter sprawled across a little more ground than one of the ornate temple chairs would cover, the stone slab seemed both old and huge.
Elryn leaned forward, not bothering to hide his own swift-rising excitement. Magic. This had to have something to do with magic, strong magic … and magic was what they were here for.
"Uncover it all," he ordered and stood back prudently to watch as this was done. The stone proved to be as long across, or longer, than a man laid out straight on his back, and twice that in the other direction, as well as being…at the one point where the ground dipped, along its edges…at least as thick as the length of a short sword.
When they were done uncovering it, the Sharrans stared at the massive slab.. and it lay there patiently looking back at them.
It knew who would blink first.
After the silence grew uncomfortably long and the lesser priests started snatching sidelong glances at their leader, Elryn sighed and said, "Daluth, work the spell that wizards use to reveal magic. I can see no trigger to this…but there must be one."
Daluth nodded and did so. Elryn was as shocked as everyone else when he raised his head slowly and said, "No magic at all. None upon yon slab or around it. Nothing but what few things we carry, within reach of my spell."
"Impossible," Elryn snapped.
Daluth nodded. "I agree … but my spell cannot lie to me, can it?"
As Elryn stood glaring at him, there was a common gasp of relief…of held breaths let out…from the other Sharrans, and they strode forward to stand on the slab as if it had been calling to them.
Elryn whirled, a shout of warning rising to his lips… a shout that died unuttered. The priests under his command strode across the slab, scraped their boot heels on it, stomped and strolled, staring about at the trees as if the slab was an enspelled lookout that gave them some sort of special sight. No bolts of lightning burst from the stone to slay them, and none of them shifted shape, screamed, or acquired unusual expressions on their faces.
Instead, one by one, they shrugged and fell silent, blinking at each other and back at Elryn, until Hrelgrath said what they were all thinking: "But there must be some magic here, some purpose for this…and it can't be the lid of a tomb, or you'd need a dragon to lift it on and off."
Daluth raised a brow. "And because we have no dealings with dragons, no one does? What if this is some sort of storage box built by a dragon, for its own use?"
'In the midst of a forest? Right out in the open and down low, not girt about with rock? Admitting my unfamiliarity with wyrms, that still feels wrong to me," Femter replied. "No, this smacks of the work of men… or dwarves working for men, or mayhap even giants skilled at stonemasonry."
"So what or who doth the 'K' refer to?" Vaelam burst out. "A king, or a realm?"
"Or a god?" Daluth echoed quietly, and something in his voice brought all eyes upon him.
"Kossuth? In a forest?" Hrelgrath said in puzzled tones.
"Nay, nay," Vaelam said excitedly. "What was the name of that mage in the legend, who defied the gods to steal all magic and become himself lord over all magic? Klar … no, Karsus."
And as that name left the young Sharran's mouth, he vanished, gone in the instant ere he could draw breath. The slab where he had stood, so close between Femter and Hrelgrath that they could easily have jostled elbows with him, was empty.
Those two brave and steadfast priests sprang and sprinted away from the slab with almost comical haste, as Daluth nodded grimly, his eyes fixed on the spot where Vaelam had stood, and Elryn said slowly, "Well, well …"
The four remaining priests stared at the slab in silence for a few tense moments before the most exalted Dreadspell said almost gently, "Daluth, stand upon the letter and utter the name Vaelam did."
Daluth cast a quick glance at Elryn, read in his face that this was a clear and firm order, and did as he was bid. Femter and Hrelgrath shifted uneasily as they watched their most capable comrade wink out of existence, and the appropriate one couldn't suppress a low groan of fear when Elryn said, "Now do likewise, Hrelgrath."
Hrelgrath was trembling so with fear that he could barely shape the name "Karsus," but he vanished as swiftly and utterly as his predecessors. Femter shrugged and strode onto the slab without waiting for an order, looking back for Elryn's nod of assent when he'd planted his boots squarely in the center of the giant letter. The nod was given, and another false wizard disappeared.
Now alone, Elryn looked around at the trees, saw nothing moving or watching, shrugged, and followed his fellow Sharrans onto the slab.
Even before their battle with the elf who'd slain Iyrindyl with such casual ease, he'd thought this entire scheme of holy Sharrans trying to be mages was wrong…dangerously wrong. Dreadspells, indeed. Still, if by some miracle what lay at the other end of this teleport was not one huge trap, it just might lead to enough magic to win them Darklady Avroana's holy approval… and survival long enough to enjoy it. He smiled slowly at that thought, said, "Karsus," with slow deliberation, and watched the world whirl away.
A red radiance lit up the darkness, gleaming back from a hundred curves of metal and countless gems. The light was coming from the floor…wherever they'd walked, the boot prints were a-glow.
It was too late to cry out a warning about awakening guardian spells or beings…Vaelam was already wading through knee-deep, shifting wonders to pluck at a gauntlet whose rows of sapphires were winking with their own internal light: the lambent glow of awakened magic, echoed in sinister chatoyance from a dozen places around the crypt. The low-ceilinged room was crammed with heaped treasures, most of them strange to the eye, and all of them, by the looks of it, harboring magic.
Elryn managed to keep from gasping aloud, but he was conscious of the quick glance Daluth threw him and knew his awe and wonder must be written plainly on his face.
The junior Dreadspells certainly hadn't wasted any time. Hrelgrath seemed to be waltzing with an armored figure as he tried to wrest a gorget from it, and a row of sheathed wands slapped and dangled against Femter's right thigh, depending from a gem-encrusted belt that enwrapped his waist as if it had been made for him. It had altered to fit him, of course. The eager-eyed priest was already reaching into another heap of armbands and anklets, seeking out something else that had caught his eye. Vaelam was drawing on the gauntlet, now, his eyes already on something else.
Only Daluth stood empty-handed, his hands raised to deliver a quenching spell should one of the reckless younger Dreadspells unleash something that could doom them all.
Elryn darted glances in all directions, saw nothing moving by itself and no doors or other ways out of the stone-walled room, and asked quietly, "Oh most diligent Dreadspells, has anyone spared a thought for how we'll be able to leave this place?"
"Karsus," Hrelgrath said clearly, the gorget clutched triumphantly in his hands.
Nothing happened, but Vaelam was already pointing into the farthest, dimmest corner of the chamber. "Another 'K' in a clear spot of floor yonder," he reported. "That'll be it."