“Not that. Look.” Cormac shifted his torch and used his sword as a pointer. At one side of the bone pile lay the crushed and mutilated corpse of a man in a brown robe.
“An acolyte of the League! Then they are here before us.”
“Yes, but why only one body? Surely they would not send a brown robe alone on such a mission?”
“Surely not. But they might use an acolyte as we used our mandrake homunculus.”
Cormac nodded grimly. “Aye, that’s just the kind of thing they would do. But then where are the rest? Did they scatter away at the sight of the demon?”
“Most likely they are somewhere up ahead of us. Once they knew the demon was here, they found a way to counteract it. I do not think they tampered with the box, so perhaps they had the password.” She looked up the tunnel. “I think we face an interesting meeting.”
“Best be on with it then,” Cormac said, shifting his grip on his sword.
The passage sloped up, climbing steadily toward the summit. Cormac went first, naked sword in one hand and smoking torch in the other. Shiara followed with another torch.
“You’re unusually pensive,” Cormac told her when they had gone a small ways into the cavern. “What bothers you, Light?”
“That demon.”
“Well, it is trouble past and overcome. I am more concerned about what we might find above us.”
“Yes, but it is how we overcame it. Why was the box where we could reach it? A few feet further back in the cave and the demon would have been safe from our efforts.”
Cormac shrugged. “So our sorcerer made an error. Even the best magician can err through overconfidence.”
“I know,” Shiara said. “That is what troubles me.”
Their way climbed steeply upward but the path was smoothed and widened. Either this had never been a natural cavern or it had been extensively reworked. The smooth black rock seemed to soak up the light of their torches and the darknes pressed in on them from all sides. Shiara hurried slightly to stay within touching distance of Cormac.
There was a low, distant rumble and the earth beneath them moved slightly.
“Earth magic,” Shiara said. “Very potent and barely held in check here.” She looked around. “Left to its own, I think this mountain would have erupted hundreds of years ago.”
“A fitting lair for a sorcerer.”
“More than that, prehaps.”
“Light, will you stop being so gloomy? You’re beginning to make me nervous.”
She smiled. “You’re right, my Sun. This place is affecting me, I am afraid.”
They climbed and climbed until it seemed they would emerge at the very top of the mountain. Finally their way leveled out and there before them was a door.
The portal was of the deepest black granite, polished so smooth the burning brand in Cormac’s hand threw back distorted reflections of the two adventurers. A gilt tracery ran along the lintel and down the doorposts. Runes, Shiara saw as she moved closer. Runes of purest gold beaten into the oily black surface of the granite.
Shiara formed the runes in her mind, not daring to move her lips. “It is a treasure indeed,” she said at last. “A trove of magic of the sort seldom witnessed. This is the tomb of Amon-Set.”
Cormac wrinkled his nose. “The name is somewhat familiar. A boggart to frighten children, I think.”
“More than that,” she told her beloved. “Before he was a night-fright, Amon-Set was mortal. A sorcerer. So powerful his name has lived after him and so evil he is a figure of nightmare.”
“Aye,” Cormac breathed. “The great dark one from the beginning of the World. And he lies here?”
“I would not take oath he is dead.”
“I mislike rifling the tombs of sorcerers,” Cormac said apprehensively.
“I like it even less than that. Such places are mazes of traps and snares for the greedy or the careless.” She sighed and straightened. “Fortunately we do not have to steal. Only keep what is here from being loosed upon the World.”
“But before that we must enter.”
“So we must, love.” Shiara set down her pouch and knelt beside it. “Leave that to me.”