The Masked smiled tightly and swung the other door open.
Beyond lay a rather bare hall with a high, vaulted ceiling, stretching off to unseen endings left and right. Flagstone floor and unadorned stone walls, with another pair of arched doors centered in the far wall.
And three stone blocks serving as tables, arranged in a line just inside the doorway they were looking through.
On the table to their left lay a single silver coin that was as large as a grand circular serving-platter. On the center table stood a lone ceramic potion vial, stoppered and sealed just like the ones they were carrying. The right-hand table displayed a glowing sword. No scabbard or belt or anything else, just the gleaming blade.
Tantaerra's lip curled.
"Are we thought to be greedy children, or merely fools?"
The Masked made no reply, but looked up warily for falling blades or anything else in or just within the doorway, or on the ceiling beyond.
There was a vast stone dragon up there with a long, sinuous tail, curled around the bosses of the vaulting, but it looked to be a carving, and certainly wasn't moving. It and all the rest of the ceiling gave off a gentle white radiance that lit the room below dimly.
"Keep an eye on that," he muttered to Tantaerra, pointing at the dragon, and strode through the door, turning sharply right and hastening along the wall for six or seven paces. Then he stopped to look and listen.
Silence deepened. Nothing happened, nothing moved. The dweomercats had stopped outside the doors and were standing in a silent, watchful line, shoulder to shoulder, barring any retreat.
"Try not to get into any mischief while we're gone," Tantaerra told them, and darted through the doorway after The Masked, following his route along the wall.
The dragon on the ceiling hadn't moved in the slightest, and continued to not do so.
The Masked waited for her to join him, then proceeded along the wall with caution, tapping and probing each new flagstone with his pole. Every one proved to be solid, and to react not at all to either the pole or The Masked's cautious booted strides. Around the walls he proceeded, to stop short of the inner doors.
Neither he nor Tantaerra made any move toward the three tables, now some seventy feet or so away across an empty, dusty floor. Crude, obvious traps.
So were the keepers of the tomb of Mahalagris just seeking to kill anyone intruding into it, or had they other purposes in mind? Collecting magic from adventuring wizards, perhaps?
"I dislike the look of these doors," The Masked told Tantaerra, waving at the closed inner doors-and then at some dark stains on the dusty floor about halfway to the tables. She peered at those marks, then up at the doors. They were even taller than the outermost doors, some sixty feet or more, and were apparently fashioned of single slabs of stone. They loomed up impressively over anyone trying to read the writing graven across them above each door handle:
Mahalagris the Mighty
sleeps at last.
Tantaerra read those words, then looked back at the stains on the floor again.
"No," she agreed, "I don't like the look of them, either."
The handles were massive knobs of stone, shaped as if someone had found a matching pair of gigantic dewcap mushrooms and had them petrified.
The Masked looked at the nearest one for a moment, then down at where its door met the floor.
Aha!
He peered back along the wall in which it was set. "See if you can find even the slightest trace of a concealed door, anywhere along there."
Tantaerra nodded and set to work on that-and once she was safely down the far end of the wall, The Masked slid his pole behind the flange of that nearest doorhandle and gave a gentle tug.
Nothing happened. It was as if these doors were solid stone, mere ornamental carving that could never open.
He pulled a little harder, planting his feet and hauling.
The door didn't budge.
With a sigh, The Masked went into a crouch and put his back into a huge heave.
And as he'd expected, the doors moved suddenly-toppling forward together, with an ominous roar.
He flung himself headlong toward Tantaerra the moment they started to shift, hurling himself and then rolling, clawing the air to keep himself moving just as fast as he could. So he was well clear when the heavy doors crashed down against the floor. They were solid blocks of stone, pierced through their backs to take massive chains-chains that even now were beginning to haul them back upright again with a slow clack, clack, clack, covering the narrow hole behind them, through which The Masked caught a glimpse of another large room.
No hinges at all, unless one counted the little trench in the floor that the bottoms of both doors could move about in. Both doors fixed together …
"Not an unfamiliar trap," Tantaerra murmured, beside him, as the doors rose back to their former position again, settling into the wall. "By far the largest of its type I've seen, though."
"Large budget," The Masked replied. "Much coin-and nastiness, too."
Tantaerra glanced at the bloodstains again, then told him, "I found the door. Opens readily, and no traps I could find-but there's hard fighting ahead of us if we go on. When yon smashflat doors fell, they pulled open another door, farther in, letting guardians into the chamber we'll have to traverse next. It's the same room as the smashflat doors let into, and it's lit just like this one."
"What sort of guardians?"
"Metal men. Three of them. Striding along, all whirring gears and puffs and jets of steam. Green steam. Huge bulbous forearms."
"Clockwork," The Masked muttered. "I've heard rumors, wild tales. They explode when destroyed-blasting metal shards and those gears in all directions."
"So do we turn back?"
The Masked shook his head. "Of course not. We find a way to lure them to where those doors can fall on them. Or some other nasty trap will take them down for us."
"Surely they'll know to avoid it."
"'Surely' nothing. Maybe they will-and maybe they can't think at all. Maybe their orders are stronger than whatever sentience or self-preservation was built into them."
Tantaerra frowned. "I don't like maybes."
The Masked shrugged. "I've yet to find anyone that does. Me included. Yet we do what we can with what the gods give us, yes?" He hummed for a moment, thoughtfully, then asked, "How quick are they?"
"Faster than I am. But then …"
"Many things are faster than halflings-who specialize instead in wit and charm. Not to mention, in your case, sharp tongues and good looks."
"Flattery, hired brute, will get you nowhere with me. And even less far with these men of gears."
"Did they see you when you opened the door?"
"Of course. My opening it caused another of these stone blocks displaying treasures for the gullible to rise up out of the floor, just inside the room. The treasure is an open chest of old coins-silver, gold, and some metals I've not seen before. Bluish, and greenish, and a few that are redder than copper, too."
"You have been busy. Hmm. Did the gear-men charge at you, or seem interested?"
"They seemed interested, and were moving my way. I didn't enter the room, and they might well be waiting for that."
"So we have a pole, a rock, our daggers, and our wits," The Masked muttered.
"Some cord, too, remember. With a grapple."
"Ah. I wonder, if we used the pole to whack that coin flying-to, say, almost out of the Tomb-do you think it would lure the dweomercats in?"
Tantaerra gave The Masked a dubious look. "The cats must be able to feel magic coming from this place, yet stopped-in a neat line, mind you! — well back, instead of streaming inside when we opened the doors. Nor do I particularly want your ankles and all of me, from heels to head, gnawed and scratched down to bare bones by more dweomercats than I can count, let alone fight. Unthink that idea and provide some better ones, hey?"