Well, if die he must, adorned with this bauble half ambitious Darsar sought, he'd die using it, by the Horns of the Lady!
First, let it be revealed who else was in the Silent House beneath him, just now-what creatures were breathing, which ones were moving, who was making noise… and who was working magic.
Aha! Scuttling things, gliding snakes, lurching skeletons mindlessly guarding this chamber or that… an ancient, sighing awareness that was more of a seeing shadow than anything else… and a large group of frightened men in armor, busily looting an inner chamber under the snapped orders of no less than nine Serpent-priests!
Well, now. The Silent House did have a deadly reputation to maintain…
Ezendor Blackgult smiled like a prowling wolf, clutched the Dwaer to his breast in both hands as if it was a newborn babe, and set off into the darkness at a run, letting the rage build, but using the Dwaer to cling to scene after scene of the House ahead of him, and thereby hold to his wits… the Three willing…
"This, Lord Sir?" the warrior asked timidly, lifting a crumbling shoulder blade and the dangling brown bones of an upper arm. Two slim metal bracelets slid down them, green with verdigris but still displaying either runes or graven script.
"Yes! Take care, mind!" the Brother of the Serpent snapped, pointing an imperious finger into the open coffer the warriors had brought. "Wrap them twice around in those linens, so they'll directly touch nothing else we put in there!"
His glare promised the warrior death or maiming if there was any inadequacy in the wrapping, ere he spun around to shout, "You, there! Elmargh, or whatever your name is! Pry out the block just above yon carving-pry, I said, not smite!"
Ilmark of Sirlptar hid his grimace well. He'd been skilled at tapping out old mortar when this bellowing priest was spewing up mother's milk, and was doing this just as deftly now. Another two gentle taps, and an entire line of mortar fell away, allowing him to slide the flat blade of his mattock in under the wall block. Carefully he rocked it, letting the block break the rest of the mortar-and then, ever so slowly, he slid… it… out.
A large, dark space was revealed behind the block, and the priest of the Serpent fairly crowed in triumph.
"The Great Serpent rises in me!" he cried, throwing his arms wide and nearly knocking teeth from the mouths of the lesser priests on either side of him. "He has made me wise! Stand aside, warrior, and let me see what treasure awaits!"
He snatched a lantern from the nearest priest and strode forward, barely noticing the alacrity with which the warriors faded out of the way and back toward the mouth of the chamber. The other priests crowded forward behind him, murmuring, "Careful, Masterpriest Thraunt!" and, "What can you see, great Thraunt?"
Masterpriest Thraunt raised the lantern and peered carefully into the cavity in the wall, sudden wariness afflicting him. The Silent House was said to be riddled with traps, and he'd heard more than a few grisly tales of overbold treasure seekers who'd found their deaths instead of riches…
After a moment of tense peering, he could breathe again.
A few breaths later, he relaxed. There were no signs of guardian creatures, enchanted or otherwise-no spiders spell-slept to awaken when intruders disturbed their niche, nor crawling bone-things held together and given horrible unlife by spells. Nothing awaited above to slam down, or behind to fire or thrust out. Just a small statuette of an armored prince with a sword-as tall as his own head, and seemingly carved of a single, massive ruby.
There was lettering around its base, script of an archaic, elaborate flowing style little used in these more hasty days, but words he could read: Blood of Silvertree Know Better.
Hmmph. Well, they hadn't had they? They'd come to this their palace and Died, in their dozens, all struck down by the Doom of the Silvertrees! Perhaps this hidden statuette bore the anchor-spell of that ancient Silvertree curse.
He whirled around and snapped, "One of those cloths, and be quick about it!"
The priests wavered, and then one of them turned to call a warrior. Thraunt was quick to roar, "No! One of you: the Holy of the Serpent!"
The priests all looked at him with fear or perhaps respect in their eyes, and then stooped and scurried and elbowed each other in a way that brought fleeting, swiftly suppressed grins onto the faces of the watching warriors. Thraunt resolved to deal with those insolent idiots later, after…
The cloth was laid into his waiting hand. He gave the priest who'd proffered it a brittle smile that warned that no praise would be forthcoming for something that should have been foreseen and done with no need for order, offering no delay to a superior-then turned and gingerly lifted the statuette, holding it only through the cloth.
It was hard, and smooth, and heavy, and did not feel as if it held hidden secrets in its innards, or bore a lurking surface enchantment. Thraunt turned it, marveling at the beautiful carving-solid ruby, all right-and then set down the lantern and with both hands reverently laid it in the coffer.
There was a murmur from the priests as they got their first proper look at it, and as the warriors started to lean for their own look, without quite daring to step forward from the edges of the room, Masterpriest Thraunt looked up at the holy men of the Serpent and said softly, "Let this not out of your sight for even a moment. Two of you must watch it at all times, for if it goes missing"-he flicked his gaze meaningfully in the direction of the warriors-"all of you shall make a very firm, perhaps final, answer for it."
They nodded, slowly, reluctantly, and silently. He kept on staring until he had seen each priest's nod-and only then did Masterpriest Thraunt flip the ends of the cloth over the ruby carving, straighten up with a satisfied sigh, and turn to see… dark wisps of vapor curling out of the niche in the wall!
He almost kicked the coffer flying in his haste to get back and away from that ancient trap-for what else could it be? -and stumbled, falling into the waiting hands of only two of the warriors, for the rest had fled in a wordless rush, and were now somewhere down the long passage they'd arrived by.
The pair of warriors roughly but skillfully thrust Thraunt upright, and he turned in time to see that fool of a novice, Ornaugh, choke, clutch his throat, and make a peculiar, desperate whimpering sound-before he fell over on his face, clawing at his neck.
He'd been unable to swallow, Thraunt realized-in his few moments of thought left before the other priests burst into and over him and out the doorway. The last two warriors sprinted in their wake, leaving the Masterpriest battered and winded on the floor, with a peculiar prickling sensation in his nose and throat…
No! By the Serpent, no! Masterpriest Thraunt was up and on his feet and through that door as fast as he could run, coughing around a tongue grown strangely thick, and trying to keep up with the bobbing lanterns of his craven fellow priests before they left him in utter darkness, here-
There was a bright burst of light from ahead, around the corner of the passage they'd just taken, and an echoing roar that sounded oddly like…
There was a second blast, and the tattered remnants of what had been Ilmark of Sirlptar, or Elmargh, or whatever his name was, came bouncing and whirling into view, all of the limbs rolling to a stop separately.
Spell-blasts! That was it! Just like those he'd seen in a courtyard in Sirlptar, when first observing a casting of the fireburst spell that the Brotherhood called "Fire of the Serpent." Someone-a traitor? a rival priest?-had blasted everyone under his command as they'd run along the narrow passage.
"Great Serpent!" Thraunt gasped, the words half a prayer and half a curse, and trotted forward warily, readying the best spell he knew: a "Wrath of the Serpent," the stinging cloud of flying, biting snakes that even anointed priests of the Serpent feared…