Do you have a better hiding spot in mind? Hamil said silently. The halfling might not have been close enough to hear Geran muttering to himself, but apparently he’d been close enough to catch Geran’s thoughts with his mind.
“Keep it in the vaults of Griffonwatch? Or give it to the Initiate Mother and let her look after it since it belonged to a priestess of Lathander?” Geran trotted back down to the mound’s edge and hopped down. “For that matter, I could do worse than to hide it under a rock in some lonely hollow out here in the Highfells. If we actually find it, I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
They picketed the horses at the base of the mound and carried their saddlebags and provisions back to the stairwell at the top. Then Geran took a heavy pry bar down the filled-in stairway and set to work on the old mortar and stone under the sunrise symbol. There was not room for more than one to work at a time, but Hamil helped carry up the stones Geran dislodged. The halfling was careful to spread out the rubble instead of leaving it in a pile that might be seen from a distance.
After half an hour of vigorous work, Geran broke through the mortared wall to a space beyond. Cold, stale air sighed out of the opening. He quickly backed away to avoid breathing in the barrow-air. Old, foul air could kill the unwary, so he decided to let the barrow breathe while he and Hamil sat a short distance away and ate a cold lunch. At one point Geran stood to stretch, and he thought he glimpsed a shadow slinking beneath the bare stone of the hilltop, a shadow where one shouldn’t have been. But when he stared up at the spot, he saw nothing unusual.
“Is our friend back?” Hamil asked.
“I’m not sure. I didn’t get a very good look-it could have been anything.” Geran glanced over to the picket line, but the horses placidly grazed, plainly unconcerned. “The horses don’t seem nervous.”
“I’m not reassured.”
“Nor am I.” Geran rested a little longer before he returned to the stairwell and attacked the wall again, working to make a hole big enough to wriggle through. Despite the chill mist that blew over the Highfells, Geran was soon streaming with sweat, but he shed his cloak and kept at it until he had an opening he could squeeze through.
“You should knock out a few more stones,” Hamil observed. “You might get a small pony through there, but I don’t think you could fit a draft horse yet.”
“Feel free to have a go at it,” Geran said with a snort.
“It’s not my fault that my people have a sensible stature, while all you Big Folk take up three times as much room as a normal person and manage to get half as much done. I could’ve been in that barrow half an hour ago.”
“Well, then, why didn’t you go on ahead?”
“I didn’t want to get lonely,” Hamil answered.
Geran shook his head and turned away. He decided to examine his shields and wards before going any farther; the barrows they’d seen before had been opened by others, but this one hadn’t felt fresh air in hundreds of years. They’d seen no evidence of traps or guardians in the other Lathanderian tombs, but that didn’t mean the tomb of Terlannis would be safe. Closing his eyes, he stilled his thoughts and focused his awareness into a single bright point. The Elvish swordmage spells rolled easily from his heart and will as he renewed the spells he routinely wore. To these he added another defense and whispered the words to summon the pale aura of the silversteel veil. Finally, for good measure, he drew his elfmade sword and passed his palm over the eldritch steel. “Reith arroch, reith ne sylle,” he chanted softly. A thin white radiance began to shine in the blade.
Hamil looked up from where he stood, stringing his bow. “I don’t recognize that one.”
“It’s a spell of sharpness, but it’s especially baleful to ghosts and other such spirits.” Sword in hand, Geran descended the narrow stairwell again and peered once more through the dark opening he’d made below. A small, dusty passage led deeper into the mound, but he saw nothing else. Carefully he set one foot on the far side and ducked under the sill, working his way inside. In the shadows, the pale radiance of his sword began to shine more brightly, driving back the darkness. Geran advanced a few steps down the passage, and Hamil followed a moment later, an arrow laid across his small horn bow. The air was cold and stale.
The passage led to an antechamber, where two dark doorways beckoned. A niche in the wall between the low doorways held a small statue of an angel, made from some porous white stone that was splotched green and black with mildew. Geran ventured right first and descended two steps into a larger, barrel-vaulted chamber. Here stood two full-sized statues of armored warriors, one on each side of a heavy frieze in bronze that was set into the far wall. A faint yellow light spell still glimmered in a small, tarnished lantern suspended from the ceiling. The swordmage studied the chamber from the doorway for a long moment and nodded. “I think it’s a memorial,” he told Hamil. “The crypt must be in the other room.”
“What does it say?” Hamil asked.
Geran moved closer to the frieze. It showed a battle scene; a lady in armor riding a great charger led soldiers over a drawbridge against the gates of a dark castle. Mailed skeletons stood in serried ranks against the lady and her soldiers, but she was raising high a rod with a sunburst device for its head. Rays sprang from the rod, striking the dark castle’s gates, which seemed to go up in fire at their touch, while skeletons in the way withered away like autumn leaves. Dethek runes nearly filled in with dust and debris were cut into the smoothly dressed stone beneath. Geran knelt and brushed his hand over the old runes until he could make them out.
“Old Tesharan again,” he murmured. “I think it says something like, ‘The downfall of the Wailing Tower… the-glory? fire? — of Lathander burns the’… something ‘warriors’… ‘Aesperus is cast down in defeat… High’… something… ‘Terlannis in her hour of victory, may Lathander’s… blessing?… follow after her forever.’”
“So this is Terlannis’s crypt.” Hamil padded closer and studied the frieze himself before pointing to the far corner of the work. “Look, I bet that’s Aesperus there. He doesn’t seem very happy.”
Geran followed Hamil’s finger. Flanked by knights in black armor, a skeletal king in regal robes fled from the destruction of the gates, going down into some sort of tunnel or doorway that disappeared from view. “It shows events pretty much as Mother Mara explained them. Terlannis destroyed the tower, and Aesperus fled into some dungeon or retreat below his fortress. Let’s have a look around and see if the book is hidden somewhere in this room.”
They carefully tapped, poked, and prodded at the frieze, the warrior statues, even the walls and the floors as thoroughly as they could, but they found no secret compartments or hidden doors. Giving up for the moment, Geran returned to the antechamber and tried the other doorway. This led down several steps into another barrel-vaulted room, dominated by a great stone crypt. Its lid was carved in the image of a stern woman in plate armor lying in repose, her hands holding a great sunburst emblem over her heart. The walls and floor were finished with smooth, polished stone, but the chamber was otherwise bare.
“Terlannis, I presume,” Hamil said.
“So it would seem.” Geran could make out her name cut in runes at the foot of the sarcophagus. He looked at the big stone structure and frowned. Was the book actually entombed with her remains? Digging out the stairwell to gain access to the chamber in the mound was one thing, but he found that he didn’t want to be the one to actually damage the crypt. It was possible that they might be able to drive anchoring pitons into the ceiling over the crypt and rig some sort of block and tackle… but he would still have to disturb the ancient priestess’s bones, and somehow he felt that Amaunator-Lathander-would not look kindly on that. “I hate the idea of breaking into the sarcophagus.”
“Afraid of curses? Guardian spirits?”
“Among other things, yes.” Geran looked around and sighed. “Let’s check everything else before we try the tomb itself.”