"But you cannot tell me what guards that door?"
"If I had to guess I would say a demon. But it would only be a guess."
"So what now?"
"Now," Shiara said, bending to her kit, "we need a stalking horse. Something to enter the cave in our stead and see what lies within." She looked up at him. "Plug your ears."
Cormac clapped hands to his ears while Shiara drew from her bag a gnarled brown root no longer than the length of her index finger. Looking more closely Cormac could see that the root was bifurcated and vaguely man-shaped.
Shiara blew upon the root and spoke softly to it. Instantly the valley was filled with a hideous inhuman screaming. The root writhed and screamed in Shiara’s grasp until she completed the spell. Then she stood up and threw the root to the ground.
Cormac blinked. Standing before him was himself, an exact duplicate down to the scars on his arms and the creases in his worn leather swordbelt.
"How do you like our stalking horse?"
"A mandrake image." Cormac walked around the figure and nodded approvingly. "Lady, you outdo yourself."
"Let us hope the guard at that gate finds it satisfactory," Shiara said. She leaned close and whispered in the ear of the homunculus. Wordlessly the thing turned and strode up the path toward the cave.
"It even has my walk," Cormac said as the thing climbed to the cave mouth.
"It is your true double."
The homunculus went fearlessly to the cave mouth and stepped in without breaking stride. Shiara and Cormac held their breaths for three long heartbeats. Then there was a terrible bellowing roar from the cave and the sounds of swift combat. They saw movement in the darkness and then a tiny brown thing came flying out of the cave to bounce off the opposite wall of the valley.
"A demon in truth!" Cormac breathed. "How do you slay such a one?"
"With a more powerful demon," Shiara said, still transfixed by what they had seen.
"You don’t have one of those in that bag of yours do you Light?"
"Not likely. But if it cannot be slain, then perhaps it can be immobilized." She set down her bag and rummaged around in it. "First we must know more about it."
"You’re not going to send another homunuculus of me into that, are you? It does me no good to see myself slain."
"That was the only mandrake root I had. But let us see what happens with something different."
With her silver wand she sketched a quick design in the dirt and spoke a single phrase. Now another warrior stood before them, a tall lean man with dark hair, a lantern jaw and icy blue eyes. He was dressed in a mail hauberk and carried a two-handed sword over his shoulder.
"Donal to the flesh!" Cormac laughed. "He looks as if he just stepped off the drill ground at the Capital."
"No flesh, just an illusion. Now let us see what the demon makes of this one." She spoke to the thing and without a word it turned and started up the ledge.
At the mouth of the cave the false Donal halted and bellowed out a challenge that made the valley ring. There was no response. It approached the entrance and thrust over the threshold with its great sword. Again nothing. Finally it strode bodly into the cavern calling insults to whatever was within.
Once more Cormac and Shiara held their breaths. But this time there was no sound of battle from the cave.
After a minute the illusion returned to the cave mouth and waved to them.
"It didn’t go for it."
"But that does not make sense," Shiara protested. "The illusion was indistinguishable from the homunculus."
"Not to the demon," Cormac observed.
"Yes, but I don’t see why the demon would attack a homunculus and a dragon but not an illusion. It doesn’t…" she stopped short. "Fortuna, a true name! The homunculus had a true name but the illusion did not." She turned to Cormac with her sapphire eyes wide. "That thing can sense a being’s true name!"
"Dragons don’t have true names," Cormac protested.
"Adult dragons do. Oh, not juveniles such as our cavalry ride, but when a dragon becomes a full adult it acquires a true name. The homunculus had a true name just as any demon does. That is how you control them. But the illusion did not."
Cormac eyed the cave mouth. "A very pretty problem then."
"Worse than that," Shiara said. "The demon did not know the true name of homunculus and I doubt the dragon stopped for conversation before entering the cave. Yet the demon killed them both."
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning it distinguishes beings with true names from beings without them. But that it does not have to know a thing’s true name to find it and kill it. It is enough that a thing has a true name."
Cormac gave a low whistle. "No wonder it is tied so tight to that cave. With that power it could seek out and destroy anyone in the World. Light, do you suppose the demon itself is the treasure?"
"I doubt it. I think the demon merely guards the treasure."
"It must be treasure indeed to have such a guardian."
"Aye," Shiara said, studying the cave mouth. "Well, we will learn little more sitting here. I think it is time to take a closer look."
"Tread softly, Light."
She turned to smile at him. "I will, my Sun."
The pair approached the cave mouth cautiously. Cormac had his broadsword out and Shiara held her silver wand before her like a torch.
As they came closer Shiara stopped and pointed to a line carved in the living rock across the front of the cave.
"The ward line. The demon cannot cross it."
"Are you certain?"
"Certain enough. Give me a torch."
Cormac reached into his pack and pulled out one of the pine torches Shiara had prepared. The wizardess tapped the end with her wand and it burst into flame. Shiara drew back and threw the torch across the line and they both ducked back out of sight of the cave mouth.
There was no sound or movement from the cave. When they peeked around the corner they could see the torch lying on the rough rock floor of the cavern, burning brightly.
The space revealed by the torchlight was perhaps three times Cormac’s height and somewhat less than that wide, but it ran back into the mountain well beyond the circle of illumination. There was no sign of life or movement.
"The demon must only materialize when someone enters the cave," Shiara whispered.
"Well what now?" Cormac whispered back. "Are you satisfied with your view of the demon’s empty home?"
"Wait," said Shiara, pointing inside the cavern. "What’s that?"
Cormac followed her finger. There was something lodged in a crevice high on one wall of the cave. "A box, I think," he said.
Shiara eyed the thing speculatively. "I wonder… Cormac, have you a rope in your pack?"
"You know I do, Light. And a grapnel too."
Quickly Cormac retrieved the rope and hook from where they had dropped their packs.
"You want that box then?"
Shiara stood by him, her wand in hand. "I do. But be ready to run if we get more than we bargain for."
Cormac swung the grapnel and cast it expertly into the cave. There was a hollow "clang" as the hook connected with the box. Cormac tugged and it clattered out of the crevice and onto the cave floor.
In the torchlight Cormac saw that his prize was a bronze coffer, decorated in high relief and apparently bearing an inscription on the top. Another quick throw and Cormac dragged the box out of the cave and across the warding line.
"Don’t touch it," Shiara warned. As Cormac recoiled his rope she bent to examine the coffer.
Shiara opened the box with a pass of her wand and a whispered incantation. Nestled inside was a smoky gray globe about six inches in diameter.