"The heart of the demon!" Shiara exclaimed triumphantly. "Now we can truly control this creature."
She removed the ball from the coffer and held it in her hand. Another muttered spell and a dense cloud of smoke began to form within the cavern. Through the smoke loomed a great black shape.
The huge horned head swivelled toward them, but before the creature could do more, Shiara raised her wand and spoke another spell. The demon froze as it was, the only sign of life the fire burning in its eyes.
Shiara sighed and sagged. "That should hold it," she said. Carefully, she replaced the sphere in the box and carried it back into the cave. The demon did not even twitch when she crossed the threshold.
The wizardess was still considering the coffer when Cormac came up to her.
"Do we take that with us?"
"I wish we dared. It is a dangerous thing to leave behind, but it would be a greater danger to carry it with us. There might be something above us which can undo what I have done and I do not wish to find a rampaging demon here when we return."
"Conceal it?"
"That is best." She cast about the cavern looking for a hiding place.
"Light, come look at this."
Cormac was standing over a head-high pile of bones.
"So our demon did clean the place deliberately."
"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."
The lock was a cunning blend of magic and mechanics. Slowly and deliberately, Shiara worked upon it, running her fingers over the surface to sense the mechanism within. Sometimes she operated upon it with cleverly constructed picks. Sometimes she used incantations. Finally she pushed against it gently and the door sung open. Motioning Cormac to remain outside, she entered cautiously.
The room was vast, so big the walls were lost in the gloom. The marble floor, tesselated in patterns of black and darkest green, stretched away in front of them. Shiara had the feeling that by stepping through the door she had become a piece on a gigantic game board.
The way was lit by witch-fires of pale yellow enclosed in great massively-carved lanterns, the light pouring out through the thin panels of alabaster or marble that formed their panes. The glow held an odd greenish tinge that gave an unhealthy pallor to everything it touched.
Here and there a censer smoked, emitting heavy fumes that curled and ran along the floor like snakes. The incense was pungent with hints of cinnamon and sandalwood, heady with the fumes of poppies and the sharp chemical tang of ether. It was neither pleasant nor offensive, just strange. It did not quite hide the musty odor of time long passed in a place undisturbed and the faint sweetish hint of corruption that hung in the air.
Worse than the incense to Shiara was the magic that closed around her as soon as she stepped over the threshold. It was as close and stifling as a heavy quilt on a hot summer’s day. It pressed against her flesh and blocked her nostrils until she wanted to gasp for breath. It twisted and moved around her in odd directions and peculiar angles. She felt that if she stared into the air long enough the magic would become visible. She did not want to contemplate what might follow.
Shiara took one more step forward and did gasp. There on the floor of the chamber, like a flock of crows dropped in mid-flight, lay half a score of black-robed bodies, already decomposing in the strange atmosphere of the room. Obviously the League’s sorcerers had found a trap that guarded the treasure.
In spite of the dead, Shiara’s gaze was drawn to the objects scattered around the room. Each sat on its own pedestal like exhibits in a museum—or pieces on a game board—and each of the ones Shiara could see was different. There was no obvious pattern or order to their placement, but Shiara did not doubt there was some subtle design there.