Chapter One: Taking the Waters

Alaeron sat, naked, on a natural stone bench in the sacred pool, the chest-deep water just a bit warmer than his own blood. He leaned into a fortuitous hollow in the rock, closed his eyes—hardly necessary, considering the depth of darkness in the cave—and let the healing waters soothe him. Or tried to. He’d paid enough to be soothed, at the very least.

The Balneal Springs retreat, nestled in the northern hills of Andoran east of Darkmoon Vale, was home to legendary waters that reportedly cured arthritis, muscle atrophy, toothache, heavy metal poisoning, and spiritual malaise. Alaeron suffered from none of those ailments, which might have explained why he didn’t feel particularly cured now. He was young, in good condition (being unusually physically active for an alchemist), blessed with fine teeth, always careful when handling quicksilver and other toxic materials, and possessed with a combination of curiosity and impulsiveness that insured he would never be bored. Despite his rosy health, he’d come to Balneal to take the waters anyway.

And by “take the waters,” he meant take the waters. He’d gathered samples from all the other springs on the property already, many of the pools hellishly hot and stinking of rotten eggs (from sulfur, not magic, as some more ignorant folk supposed). The volcanic activity to the north presented itself in a somewhat gentler aspect here, with bubbling hot springs that were locally renowned, if not as famous as the Brimstone Springs of Nidal.

The final waters he needed to sample were here in, Hanspur’s Bath—a sacred spring-fed pool deep in a black cave where the foreign river deity was reputed to have paused once, on a journey to the sea. Alaeron’s visit to the retreat, and access to this cave, had cost a tidy sum of gold he’d earned translating a profane text for a deranged patron. The profiteering priests who ran the retreat guarded their secrets closely, but despite the enforced nudity in this sacred chamber, Alaeron had smuggled in a bag made of thin watertight material, wadded up and hidden in his cheek. Unfolded and filled, the bag would hold a few precious ounces of liquid. Once full it would be too large to smuggle out the same way, but he had a plan to stash the bag in a dark crevice by the entryway and return later to create a distraction—explosions were quite distracting, he’d found—which would enable him to duck inside the cave mouth and retrieve the bag.

The plan was a bit elaborate, and more than a little dangerous, but what matter was the risk of life and limb in the service of his art? If the waters really were as efficacious as the priests and satisfied customers claimed, their properties should prove useful in his work, and could be diluted to create a score of potions to cure—or cause—an impressive variety of ailments physical and spiritual.

He took the bag from his mouth and prepared to fill it—then froze when he heard a splash on the far side of the pool. He had not been promised a private visit to the healing waters (that option was far too expensive for him), but he’d deliberately come early in the morning, when most of the wealthy visitors to Balneal would be sleeping or gorging themselves at breakfast.

Alaeron wasn’t sure whether he should speak, as the etiquette of sitting in a black pool of magical water was not something he’d ever had occasion to learn. Before he could decide, the newcomers began talking.

“It would be an adventure,” a voice—male, hearty, and self-confident—said. “The sort of bold act that made the Selmy family great.”

“I’m not sure breaking into my dead thrice-great-grand-uncle’s crypt compares to traveling to far lands for pillage and war,” a second voice said—also male, but rather less hearty and confident.

“Oh, come, your whole family is founded on ancestral fortunes anyway. Raiding your uncle’s tomb would be much the same, just… more direct.”

“The treasures are supposed to be fabulous,” the second voice—presumably a Selmy—said. “But I can’t imagine they’d be easy to carry out. Uncle Brant had all his favorite things buried with him. He left us his money, at least some of it, but he was particular about his things, by all accounts. I’m sure there must be protections against graverobbers. Traps, and so forth. I’d rather not die on this trip, Rodrick. I’m here for my health, after all.”

Alaeron is more scholar than warrior, but explosives have a funny way of solving problems.

“Nonsense, Simeon,” Rodrick replied. “We know about the wards he laid to protect his barrow—only the blood of a Selmy can open the door, isn’t that right? The fact that he made it possible for you to open the door suggests he wanted some descendant to come take his treasures away someday, doesn’t it?”

“More likely he just wanted someone capable of setting him free if he was accidentally entombed alive,” Simeon said. “Or perhaps to return occasionally and leave treasure, or shoo away spiders, or do a bit of light cleaning.” A long pause. “My great-grandfather remembered Uncle Brant, from when he was a child and Brant was ancient. He said Brant was the sort of man who’d steal the coins from a beggar’s bowl, even though he was rich as Artokus of Thuvia. Brant couldn’t remember the names of his own grandchildren, but he had particular favorites among his coins.”

“Then it’s time someone took a few of those coins off him. No sense letting such precious things go to waste in a hole in the ground. The treasures he looted were precious antiquities when he stole them, two hundred years ago. Imagine what they’re worth now!” Rodrick paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was very low, barely audible above the gentle lapping of water. “Or you could ask your father for the money to pay the Ratter the money you owe—”

“Oh, yes, that would go over well,” Simeon said dolefully. “You know about mother’s gambling problem. If father found out I’d lost that much at Towers, after he’d already spent all this money sending me here to recuperate… Is there no other way? You couldn’t loan me the money? You know I’m good for it.”

“Alas, I lost my own allowance gambling—though I paid off my outstanding balance, so the Ratter doesn’t want to take me in his jaws—and mother won’t send another purse for a month. No, it’s the barrow, Simeon, unless you’d like to try your luck at busking in the streets for coins?”

“You know someone who would buy the things we found?” Simeon said.

“Oh, yes, indeed. There’s a man I know in Almas who pays buckets of gold for relics.”

“We could at least look,” Simeon said. “The barrow isn’t far, less than a day’s travel. We could nip inside, and if there don’t seem to be any dangers, carry a few things away. I daresay Uncle Brant can rest just as easily less a vase or statuette or two.”

“An adventure!” Rodrick said. “Though personally I hope we encounter a ghoul or two. I’d hate to think I sharpened my sword for nothing.”

They sat in silence for a while longer, taking in the waters and discussing their plans for departure and the best route, then left to walk down the dark and twisting tunnel back to the light.

Alaeron let his little bag float away. Ah, well. The sacred waters weren’t going anywhere. He could steal a dram of those another time. But a barrow full of ancient relics, that could be opened only by the blood of the dead inhabitant’s relatives? That was the sort of opportunity that wasn’t likely to come his way again.

∗∗∗

Alaeron wasn’t much of a tracker—his natural habitat was the laboratory, the workshop, and the library, though he was surprisingly comfortable crawling into dark holes in the ground in search of treasure, both because he was fascinated by history and because a man had to fund his researches somehow. Fortunately, Simeon and Rodrick had said where they were going. Alaeron packed his bags and left his room, which was smaller than his sleeping quarters in Almas and cost as much for three nights as his entire workshop was worth. Only the very rich would consider it reasonable to pay so much for quarters so incredibly spare, presumably because austerity (and magical waters) were good for the soul—but only in moderation.

He walked along the crushed gravel paths, among the ancient weathered statues and small ornamental gardens, to the outer courtyard. The retreat was protected by high stone walls, because while they weren’t too close to Darkmoon Vale, incursions from the dark forest weren’t impossible.

One of the servants who bustled everywhere at the retreat brought him his horse, brushed and saddled and well fed, and helped Alaeron mount. He needed the help. He’d never been comfortable on horses, and would have hired a carriage (or at least a cart), but wheeled conveyances couldn’t make it up the steep paths to the retreat. Alaeron cajoled the horse, a black pony he’d spent far too much money on, to amble northeast, through the lightly wooded foothills. This general area was fairly safe—the guards at the retreat kept the woods free of bandits and monsters, as rich people being eaten was bad for business. The barrow of Brant Selmy was half a day’s ride away, at most, and Alaeron followed old colliers’ paths through the forest, munching on dried meat and pausing occasionally to let the horse rest, though the pace was hardly punishing.

He didn’t want to overtake Simeon and Rodrick. Better for them to arrive first, open the barrow, and delve deep inside. Alaeron was confident that, in the dark, with his experience and the advantage of his extracts and mutagens, he could move past the rich brats, snatch up some choice loot, and escape again unnoticed.

The barrow was unmistakable, an immense mound of earth and rock furred with moss and topped by gnarled, scraggly trees. Rodrick and Simeon had made some token attempt to hide their presence, tying up their horses in a copse some distance away, but this was a little-traveled part of the forest, and they hadn’t worried overmuch about being discovered. Alaeron tied his own horse farther away and crept toward one side of the barrow. He hadn’t expected this level of pillage when he’d set out for Balneal, and so hadn’t packed his full adventuring packs, but he had enough in the way of reagents and elixirs and weapons to manage a brief delve into a crypt.

The door of the barrow was an immense oval stone, scratched a bit from past unsuccessful attempts by graverobbers to pry it open. The door was etched with runes that were faded and worn but still legible, though a few were smeared with what looked like fresh blood, and the stone was tilted to one side, revealing an opening just large enough for a man to slip through sideways. Alaeron crouched when he heard familiar voices inside.

“It’s dark in here,” Simeon complained.

“That’s why we brought the lantern, isn’t it?” Rodrick answered cheerfully.

Despite Alaeron’s leisurely pace, the rich fools had only just arrived themselves. He was in awe at their slowness. Had they stopped to have a picnic lunch on the way? He decided to wait for them to make it a bit deeper into the barrow, then—

“Watch out!” Rodrick shouted. There was a peculiar sound—the twang of a taut wire snapping, if Alaeron was any judge—and then a horrific, meaty thunk, like a butcher bringing the weight of the cleaver down to crack open a cow’s skull.

Rodrick swore, which meant he was still alive. Simeon didn’t scream, which meant… something else. They’d triggered a trap. Apparently Uncle Brant wasn’t so keen on having his descendants visit after all, or else Simeon hadn’t been given the list of dangers to avoid.

“Simeon, you fool,” Rodrick said. “Why didn’t you look where you were—hold on. Damn it!”

Alaeron tensed, expecting the sound of another sprung trap—which would, at least, leave the barrow free for him to explore—but instead Rodrick just let loose a torrent of cursing. Alaeron slipped inside, hoping Rodrick would be too focused on his misery to notice the intrusion.

The light of Rodrick’s lantern, set on a shelf of rock, revealed the barrow’s interior to be typical of its kind: walls of timber and earth and stone, faintly rounded roof too low for comfort. A second door stood across the small room, directly opposite the exterior door, and that’s where Simeon had met his fate: a length of timber as thick around as a man’s waist, studded with stone spikes, had been hidden in a slot on the ceiling, doubtless connected to some tripwire in front of that interior door. Simeon’s approach had set off the trap, dropping the log onto himself, and the result was a bit like what happened if you hit a tomato with a hammer. Alaeron realized that he’d never seen the boy in one piece, having only eavesdropped on him in the dark and from concealment.

Rodrick was standing over—or, rather, in—his dead friend, peering at the interior door. The surviving man was dressed in clothes too fine for dungeoneering, though he’d put on a mail shirt, and had a sword at his hip. His boots looked sturdy, at least. Alaeron couldn’t see his face from here, but his shoulders were dismayingly wide, and in general he had the kind of muscular and well-proportioned physique the old poets called “thews.”

“More runes,” Rodrick muttered. “You died for nothing, Simeon—I can’t even get in.”

Well. There was no sneaking past him and snatching up a few treasures unawares now. Alaeron considered slinking away, but there was a barrow full of relics, with nothing between him and the treasures but a stone etched with magical writing, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to leave.

He cleared his throat instead. “Excuse me,” he said. “I couldn’t help overhearing your problem. I think I can get the door open for you.”

Rodrick rounded on him, sword in his hand before Alaeron even saw him start to draw, and roared.

Chapter Two: A Damsel with the Dead

Alaeron had been prepared for a violent reaction, and so when Rodrick drew his sword, he tossed back a vial of extract—the one he’d planned to use to help him creep through the barrow undetected. Rodrick was fast, and Alaeron’s preparation might have been useless if the man hadn’t been standing in the ruin of his dead friend, which necessitated careful footing rather than a headlong charge.

Alaeron shivered as the extract—which tasted strongly of wormwood—took effect. The only change from Alaeron’s viewpoint was a certain fuzziness around his peripheral vision, but Rodrick paused, frowning, and Alaeron moved as silently as he could to the far side of the entry chamber.

“Invisibility,” Alaeron said, and Rodrick snapped his head around, looking straight at the spot where Alaeron had spoken… which was why the alchemist never stopped moving, creeping back and forth as he talked. “I find it makes conversations with armed men more pleasant. I am not here to fight you. I was in the forest gathering botanical samples—I’m an alchemist, not a wizard, if you were wondering—when I noticed the barrow had been disturbed. I investigated, and heard your friend trigger the trap there.”

Rodrick knelt and snuffed out the lantern, plunging the room into darkness, except for faint illumination around the door.

Alaeron moved toward the door, hoping Rodrick would hesitate to approach the light. “Ah, making yourself just as invisible as I am. That’s good. I can tell already you’ll be a great ally.” He listened, but heard nothing, not the faintest scrape of leather on stone or the clink of shifting chainmail. “I gather from the blood on the barrow door that there was some magical ward your friend’s blood was able to overcome?” Only more silence. “And that, with his death, you feel you cannot continue, as you have discovered another warded door? I only came in, you see, because I know how you can open that door—”

Something cold touched Alaeron’s cheek, but he had the strength of will not to flinch. “Is that a dagger blade?” he said, moving his lips as little as possible when he spoke.

“It is,” Rodrick breathed in his ear. “Tell me how you can open the door.”

“If your friend’s blood is the key… at the risk of being indelicate, he still has lots of blood, now more accessible than ever. It would be trivial to gather some and use it to loosen the wards.”

The knife moved slightly, the flat of the blade against his cheek gradually becoming the stinging edge. “Of course I still have his blood,” Rodrick said. “But I don’t have his knowledge. Only Simeon knew which runes should be daubed with blood—and marking the wrong one could set off some horrible trap. But perhaps I can profit from this trip anyway. I’m sure some of your potions are valuable.”

Most of Alaeron’s potions would have no effect on anyone but himself, being fuelled by his own aura, and the few that could be used by others didn’t have beneficial effects, but Alaeron didn’t point that out. “Ah, well, of course,” he said. “But I can read the runes, so I know where to put the blood.”

After a long moment, Rodrick chuckled, and the knife withdrew. While Alaeron tried to decide whether or not he could move, the light of the lantern flared anew. “Prove it,” Rodrick said, crouching by the inner door, sword sheathed, dagger in hand.

“We should formalize our arrangement,” Alaeron said. “I will accompany you into the barrow, lending my considerable skills to your enterprise, and we will divide any relics or treasures we find equally.”

Rodrick’s ethics leave something to be desired.

“That’s fine, if you can actually get us in.”

“Move away from the door.” Alaeron knelt and dabbed his handkerchief into a bit of Simeon’s readily available blood. Rodrick narrowed his eyes. Seeing a bloody bit of rag floating through the air, moved by an invisible hand, was probably unsettling. “Bring the light closer,” Alaeron said, and Rodrick held up the lantern while the alchemist squinted at the markings on the door. They were far less weathered on the interior barrier, which made them much easier to read.

Not that Alaeron could read them, really. The language seemed Northern, but the Mammoth Lords and Linnorm Kings didn’t produce much written work, so Alaeron had never learned their writing. But he’d seen the runes Simeon daubed with blood outside, and now he saw the same pattern here, on a different part of the door, so he thought it was worth a try. It was strange to find Northern runes here, so close to the Inner Sea, and focusing on that anomaly was a nice alternative to thinking about how he might soon be pulped or fried by a magical trap.

But the door swung open at the touch of the blood, and Alaeron stepped back, keeping an eye on Rodrick in case the man decided to take a stab at Alaeron’s invisible kidneys. “There. Do we have an agreement?”

“All right,” Rodrick said. “But only because there may be more runes inside that need reading. I get first pick of the loot. You get my cast-offs.”

“I woke up this morning expecting no profit beyond a few herbs,” Alaeron said. “The prospect of any treasure at all is delightful to me.” He was confident that he could manipulate Rodrick into taking shiny but less valuable items. Alaeron filled a vial with more of Simeon’s blood, just in case there were further wards inside.

“In we go, invisible man.” Rodrick stepped through the opening, lantern in hand. Alaeron followed, keeping an eye out for traps. The corridor, just wide enough for two men to go abreast, was angled steeply downward, suggesting that much of the barrow was dug into the ground, or built into natural caverns. There were faintly glowing lights ahead—luminous crystals or fungi, of the kind cultivated by builders of subterranean lairs. “You don’t seem terribly upset by the death or your friend,” Alaeron said.

“What? Oh, Simeon. I see. You’re under the impression that I’m a rich idiot, like he was.”

That was quite true. The fact that Rodrick knew that much was worrisome. Rich idiots were generally so used to being treated like brilliant paragons that they never doubted themselves, or expected anyone else to doubt them, either.

“I’m not a rich idiot,” Rodrick said. “I’m an impoverished genius. I’ve been posing as a wealthy brat, and cultivating Simeon’s friendship for weeks. I knew he was wealthy and had poor judgment, which meant some opportunity for profit would present itself. When he told me about the barrow of his avaricious uncle Brant, crammed with all the pillage Brant was too greedy to pass on, I knew that was my target. I convinced Simeon’s parents to send him to the retreat—he was always sickly. The waters may even have done him some good, so at least he died in good health. But I wanted him at the retreat because it’s so close to the barrow. “

Alaeron recalled that he wasn’t supposed to know anything about these men, and tried to ask an appropriate question. “But if Simeon was wealthy, why would he agree to go graverobbing with you?”

“Oh, I lured him into a crooked card game at the tavern in the village south of the retreat, run by a man I know called the Ratter. Simon went deeply into debt, and his father’s rather strict, and wouldn’t have approved. I presented this as a convenient way of paying what he owed. I didn’t expect him to die. I was going to play it straight. Why not? Ratter had agreed to split half of Simon’s payment with me. But now that the poor boy is dead… at least I’ll get a good price for his horse.”

“You, sir, are a scoundrel,” Alaeron said.

“There’s no sort better to raid a tomb with,” Rodrick said.

The corridor turned sharply, and something deeper in the tunnel whimpered. Rodrick put down the lantern, raised his dagger, and darted around the corner, Alaeron close behind him.

In a small alcove in the wall stood a petite young woman dressed in a blue-and-white checked dress, her blonde hair disarrayed, her face beautiful and smudged with tears, her eyes blue and wide.

“Have you come to save me?” she said. “I’ve been trapped here for so long!”

Rodrick lowered his dagger. “Of course,” he said. “How did you come to be in this terrible place?”

“I can’t remember.” She shook her head, eyes spilling tears. “I was alone in the dark, I was so frightened…” She broke down in sobs.

“Would you like to escort her outside?” Alaeron said.

Rodrick snorted. “And leave you creeping through here on your own? I think not. We’ll both take her.”

“Please don’t fight,” she pleaded. She looked at Alaeron. “I only wish to be free of this dark and terrible place.”

“Oh, am I visible again?” Alaeron said.

“As of a few moments ago,” Rodrick said. “I assumed you knew.”

“Yes, of course, I was just… distracted.” Alaeron frowned. Something was… wrong. How had this woman gotten sealed inside the barrow? Had it been looted before, and then used as a headquarters by bandits with a penchant for kidnapping milkmaids? And why didn’t any of those questions seem more urgent?

“I will lead,” Rodrick said. “You, my dear, can follow me, and the alchemist will bring up the rear—”

“Oh, no, I’ll go last. I don’t wish to be in the way if there are dangers.” She eased out of the alcove, sliding along the corridor with her back to the wall.

“Duck, alchemist.” Rodrick said it casually. Alaeron acted without hesitation, dropping to the stone floor. Rodrick let fly with his dagger and put a hand on his sword. Alaeron scrambled to one side and turned to see the beautiful blonde crumpled on the floor of the corridor. She’d sprouted a dagger from her left eye socket.

“You killed her!” Alaeron shouted.

Roderick drew his sword. “Yes, of course I did. That was rather the point.”

Chapter Three: Coils in the Dark

Rodrick struck off the dead girl’s head with his sword, the blade clanging against the stone floor as it severed her neck cleanly. Her head rolled until the hilt of the dagger hit the floor and arrested its motion. Alaeron choked back a scream. Had the scoundrel gone mad?

Rodrick turned the dead girl’s torso over with his foot, flopping her over on her belly and revealing her back—

—which was nothing but a hollow shell lined with wood, like the interior of a rotten tree or a walnut shell. She was an emptiness.

“Some kind of monster,” Rodrick said. With the tip of his sword, he prodded at a lump in the back of the girl’s skirt, lifting its hem just far enough to reveal a tail like a fox’s. “Guarding the barrow, I’m sure. I knew there was something unnatural about her right away—I liked her, and wanted to protect her, and didn’t think at all about how valuable she would be to certain slave traders of my acquaintance. I knew she must be bewitching me somehow.” He glanced at Alaeron. “I’m too good at being charming to be easily charmed myself.”

Rodrick, charming? Ha. “I’ve heard of creatures like this,” Alaeron said. “She’s fey. Huldra, I think they’re called, or hilders—but they are creatures of the far north. She may not have been a guardian of this tomb, you know. She could have been a prisoner, her spirit bound to some cursed or magical object in the barrow—”

“Monster,” Rodrick said. “Now a dead monster. Why are we still talking about her?”

“I just prefer not to kill, without provocation, creatures who are capable of holding a conversation with me,” Alaeron said. “She may have been charming us because she needed help, and wanted us to save her—”

“I suppose that’s why you didn’t kill her, and I did. Let’s go. There must be loot here somewhere.”

“But why would a huldra be here at all?” Alaeron muttered. “They’re from the north, the lands of the Mammoth Lords, or the White Witches, or the—”

“Linnorm Kings,” Rodrick said, bending to retrieve his dagger from the huldra’s eye. “Yes, Simeon said something about that. Apparently when Brant was a boy, raiders from the Land of the Linnorm Kings laid waste to his little fishing village. Brant survived, nursed vengeance in his heart, and so forth. When he was grown, he led an expedition to raid the raiders. You have to admire the old boy’s confidence, don’t you? Apparently they ended up exploring some ruin called the Spire of Snow or the Frostbite Citadel or something similar, slaying a dragon inside—”

“Linnorms aren’t dragons, exactly,” Alaeron said. “Related, probably, but—”

Rodrick rolled his eyes. “Fine, they slew the linnorm, though it killed or cursed everyone else in the party, and Brant alone escaped unscathed. He came back with all manner of valuables, not just the gold and jewels that made the family fortune but rarer things: a sword with a blade of ice, a bell that summons blizzards, a petrified linnorm egg, a magical ring that lets you conjure a mystical twin to do your bidding, and other wonders. That’s what old Brant took to the grave with him, along with a hoard of gold and jewels, or so the story goes. If even half of it’s true, I’ll be a very wealthy man.”

“We will be, you mean.”

“Of course.” Rodrick didn’t even bother trying to sound sincere.

“That explains the huldra, at least. She must have been bound here, or enslaved to serve Brant even in death, or—”

Uncle Brant hasn’t aged so well.

“Dead monsters bore me,” Rodrick said. “Live ones are more interesting. Let’s see if we can find some.”

They proceeded into the depths of the barrow, following the twisting corridors, and investigating a couple of dead-ends that terminated abruptly in deep pits. Even along what seemed to be the proper route there were traps, more ingenious than the spiked log, but Rodrick proved adept at spotting them. They encountered a shelf bearing stone skulls that spat acid, an ordinary-looking room that Rodrick said would have flensed them alive if he hadn’t discovered and pressed some hidden buttons to deactivate the concealed blades in the walls, and a door that sprouted dozens of bone spears when Rodrick prodded the wood with his sword. Nothing Alaeron couldn’t have coped with himself, of course, but it was nice to have a strapping thief to handle the stray acid droplets instead.

“We make a fine team,” Alaeron said, after Rodrick set off a bear trap with a tossed stone.

“You’ve done exactly nothing except open a door,” Rodrick said. “In that respect, you’re no worse a partner than Simeon was, I suppose.” He slipped into another chamber, and whistled.

Alaeron joined him in the next room, and in the lantern’s pool of light saw part of a massive stone throne, occupied by a skeleton dressed in elaborate black armor. They’d reached the main burial chamber, then, and after only a few hours—these modern tombs were so much more manageable than the vast crypts of the ancients.

“There are torches on the walls.” Rodrick lit a taper from his lantern and carried it through the dark, igniting two torches and filling the room with flickering light.

The throne stood in the center of the room, and behind it were stone shelves and platforms holding… well, the wreckage of smashed treasure chests, mostly. Bits of shattered wood and twisted metal. A scattering of coins and precious gems remained, probably enough to buy a small house in Almas, but not the riches they’d expected. Alaeron wondered what sort of remarkable valuables the room had originally contained, if the original looters hadn’t bothered to stoop to pick up these gold coins and jewels.

“Someone got here first!” Rodrick said. “But how? None of the traps were sprung, the doors were unbreached, I don’t see how—”

Alaeron squinted at the shadows at the far end of the room, then picked up the lantern and advanced. “Look at the wall,” he said, holding the lamp aloft.

He and Rodrick stared together at the great hole that had been smashed through the wall, a ragged circle easily ten feet to a side. Alaeron pushed the lantern through the hole, revealing a tunnel of packed dirt that angled down and away.

“Graverobbers digging a tunnel to break in, perhaps?” Rodrick said.

“Or it might be the work of interlopers from the Darklands,” Alaeron said.

Rodrick chewed his lip. “We should investigate. If there’s any chance of finding the treasure… But to take a light into those tunnels could be dangerous. If there are subterranean monsters down there, light would be a beacon to them.”

“I have a potion that lets me see in the dark,” Alaeron said. “It’s rather more expensive than a torch, which is why I didn’t use it before—”

“Excellent. We’ll both drink it.”

“I could go down on my own,” Alaeron began, but Rodrick cut him off.

“Ha. And find the treasure and a convenient path to the surface? No. Let’s take the potion together.”

Alaeron shrugged, took a vial from his pack, drank down half of it—it tasted of carrots, mainly—and then handed it to Rodrick. The extract would have no effect on the thief, since like most alchemists’ preparations it only worked for the creator, but he’d let Rodrick figure that out on his own. The thief drank, made a face, and handed back the vial.

“In we go,” Alaeron said, and slipped into the tunnel.

“I’m not sure it’s working,” Rodrick said doubtfully behind him, but Alaeron shushed him. His own vision had already altered, allowing him to see the tunnel clearly, albeit in black-and-white. Roots poked down through the top of the tunnel, and an earthworm dropped from the ceiling before Alaeron’s face and wriggled away.

The passage was angled steeply downward, and crumbling—it seemed more like an animal’s burrow than a tunnel hewn by human hands. Alaeron had terrible visions of being buried in tons of dirt as he slid forward, going as silently as possible, trying not to lose his footing and roll down. The tunnel ended abruptly, in a huge cavern—occupied by something almost equally huge.

A great serpentine body filled almost the entirety of the space, its coils moving slowly in steady breath. Far above, Alaeron thought he could discern a head, its huge eyes closed in sleep. The chamber was filled with gold and gems and other things, most of them nestled under the great beast’s body or its huge forelegs, each digit tipped with a claw like a greatsword.

After a long moment of staring, not even daring to breathe, Alaeron turned and scrambled back up the tunnel, pushing past Rodrick and clambering back into the burial chamber, where he knelt, gasping and trembling.

Rodrick arrived after him. “Your stupid potion never worked for me. What’s wrong with you? What did you see down there?”

“Did you say one of the treasures Uncle Brant brought back was a petrified linnorm egg?” Alaeron said.

“So Simeon told me.”

Alaeron lifted his head and looked into the rogue’s eyes. “The egg hatched.”

Rodrick blinked. “You’re lying. You’re trying to trick me—”

“Didn’t you smell it?” Alaeron said. “The stink of a vast beast?”

“I thought that was you,” Rodrick said, and gave a weak smile. Alaeron laughed despite himself. The thief sat down on one of the shelves of stone. “Well, then. Where do we go from here?”

“Out, and swiftly,” Alaeron said.

“You corrected me earlier, when I called a linnorm a dragon,” Rodrick said. “That suggests you know something about the beasts—more than I do, anyway.”

“Just what I’ve read in books. I’ve never been farther north than the south shore of Lake Encarthan.”

“Books about linnorms were presumably written by people who survived encounters with them,” Rodrick said reasonably. “What did they have to say?”

Alaeron sighed. “They’re huge, of course. Eighty, a hundred feet long? I think it depends on the variety, and no, I don’t remember the different types, or have any idea which kind our linnorm is. It doesn’t matter. A battleaxe can kill you just as well as a mace. The beasts are intelligent, but generally cruel—gluttonous, greedy, lovers of treasure, obviously, since it took everything from in here into its hole. The thing must have cleaned out this chamber when it was smaller. Made itself a nest, then grew.” Alaeron shook his head. “I do remember reading that they can hibernate for centuries, for so long that people living nearby forget they’re even there, until the linnorm bursts forth to devour everything in the surrounding landscape. For now, we’re lucky, and this one appears to be sleeping.”

“I imagine news of this beast would drive down the price of property hereabouts,” Rodrick said thoughtfully. “What sort of treasures did you see in its chamber?”

“I hardly took a complete inventory,” Alaeron said. “I saw a sword hilt protruding from beneath its belly. Some sort of black cask, big as a sea chest, under one of its claws. Gold, jewels, ingots of precious metal, bits of statuary… I couldn’t say more specifically. I was too busy trying to control my bowels.”

Rodrick stroked his chin. “How deeply is it sleeping, do you think?”

Alaeron stared at him. “You can’t possibly mean to go back down there and try to steal from the monster?”

“Of course not,” Rodrick said. “I can’t even see in the dark.” He drew his sword and smiled, showing all his teeth. “I want you to go down there and steal from the monster for me.”

Chapter Four: Poison and Knives

“I will not,” Alaeron said. “I won’t risk my life to enrich you.”

Rodrick clucked his tongue in disappointment. “Ah, you misunderstand me! To go down into the linnorm’s treasure chamber is to risk death, certainly. But to refuse is to ensure your death. Because if you do not, I will cut you down where you stand. Ah, ah! Don’t reach for any of your little vials or potions, please. Then I’d have to cut off your hands, and you’d have a terrible time gathering riches for me with your stumps.”

“We can divide the coins and gems that remain here,” Alaeron said, feeling desperate but trying to sound reasonable. “We can take the armor off Uncle Brant, that’s valuable, surely—”

“The sword is the most important thing, I think,” Rodrick said. “I’ve heard great things about that sword—it has a blade of living ice, Simeon said, whatever that means, and was reputed to possess its own intelligence and give wise counsel. If you see any rings or cloaks or helms, I’ll need those too. Feel free to scoop up any particularly fine gems—they’re worth more than gold by weight.”

“What if I wake the linnorm?” Alaeron said. “Then you risk your own death as well.”

“I suspect the beast will spend long enough killing you to allow me to escape,” Rodrick said. “I’m good at escapes. But I have great faith in you, alchemist! Surely you have some tinctures there that will allow you to move silently, to be fleet of foot, and so on?”

Alaeron did, of course, but who knew how perceptive the linnorm was, or how deeply it slumbered?

But what choice did he have? “All right,” he said finally. “But what proof do I have that you’ll let me live when I return with your treasure?”

“I’ll have no particular reason to kill you, then,” Rodrick said. “I don’t have any particular qualms about killing people, but it’s not something I go out of my way to do—it’s messy and unpleasant. I’ll settle for knocking you out and leaving you in the tomb, fear not. And even if I’m lying… what choice do you have?”

Alaeron looked at the hole gaping in the wall, and crept inside.

He crawled partway down the slope, then paused. He wouldn’t be able to take Rodrick in a fight, and the thief wasn’t nearly as stupid as Alaeron would have preferred, but the alchemist might still win in a battle of wits. “Make yourself comfortable, Rodrick,” he said, raising his voice just enough for it to carry. “You should be feeling the effects soon.”

Rodrick’s voice drifted down from above. “You’re wasting time, alchemist. Hurry along and bring me back my sword.”

“It’s not a terribly fast-acting poison,” Alaeron went on, crouched in the tunnel, watching the opening at the top. “But it’s not the slowest, either.”

“What poison? There were no poison traps here.”

“That ‘potion’ I gave you. It was a toxin, of course. That’s why it didn’t allow you to see in the dark. That’s not what it’s meant to do. It’s meant to kill.”

Rodrick snorted. “A sad attempt at a bluff. You drank from the same vial.”

“Yes, and after we came down into the dark, I also drank the antidote, along with a real potion of night vision.”

“You lie,” Rodrick said, but there was just a hint of doubt. “Why would you poison me? We were working well together, you said so yourself.”

“I decided to poison you the moment you murdered that poor huldra girl,” Alaeron said. “You were clearly dangerous, and needed to be stopped.”

“Listen, you can’t trick me, I’m a trickster, I—”

“The first symptoms are fairly subtle,” Alaeron said, allowing his voice to take on a lecturing, pedantic tone. “Slight tremors in the hands and lips. A sensation of cold in the hands and feet, though for some, the hands and feet sweat instead. Racing thoughts, and difficulty concentrating. Some nausea. The need to urinate. An unusually rapid heartbeat.”

Alaeron was experiencing most of those symptoms himself—understandably, as they were the effects of stress and physical exertion—and it was a fair bet that Rodrick would be feeling them, too.

“I suppose this is where you tell me that if I race back to my horse and up to the retreat, a dip in the healing waters will cure me?” Rodrick said.

“Oh, no. You’d be dead long before you make it that far. Possibly before you reached your horse. I’ll just wait you out, I think. It’s quite cozy here, in a rabbit-in-a-burrow sort of way.”

“All right. Say I believe you. What do you want in exchange for the antidote?”

Alaeron considered. “Nothing. I can’t say your death would bother me overmuch. I’m not a murderer, but at this point the poisoning could be construed as self-defense, albeit a bit… retroactive.”

“I can come down there and kill you and take the antidote.”

“You’re welcome to drink from every vial in my pack,” Alaeron said. “The antidote is in one of them. Though none of the vials are too clearly marked—I use an organizational system of my own devising.” Alaeron felt in his pack until his fingers touched a vial with the shape of a spiral cut into the cork stopper. He took that silently from his pack, opened it, and took a sip. The extract made his tongue tingle, and his heart immediately began to race even faster. His senses grew sharper, every root and speck of dirt in the tunnel appearing in crystal clarity, almost seeming to vibrate.

Rodrick came sliding down the tunnel, a dagger in each hand, and tumbled into Alaeron, bowling him over. The stopped halfway down the slope, having rolled sideways in the narrow space. Alaeron’s head pointed downward, with Rodrick on top of him, one knife to Alaeron’s throat, and the point of the other near his belly.

“I am faster and more agile than any mixer of potions, alchemist.” Rodrick’s face, rendered in black and white and shades of gray by Alaeron’s altered eyes, was sweaty and smeared with dirt. “You will give me the antidote, or I will slice open your belly and leave you for the linnorm—I’m sure the stink of your entrails will wake him just as well as the scent of frying bacon wakes me.”

“I find your argument compelling,” Alaeron said, trying hard not to talk as fast as he wanted to. His muscles thrummed with excess energy, like wires under tension. The potion he’d taken was a powerful stimulant, one he used to fuel days-long sessions in the lab, conducting his researches. “If you’ll climb off me, and let me get my pack…”

Rodrick rolled aside but kept the knife near Alaeron’s belly as the alchemist sat up. Alaeron felt in the pack and withdrew a small metal flask, one of the few potions he’d brewed that would work on people other than himself. “Here you are.”

“Ha.” Rodrick wiggled the dagger, making Alaeron wince. “Drink from it yourself first.”

“The problem among modern adventurers,” he said, “is a lamentable lack of trust.” He took a swig from the potion.

“Now give me your pack,” Rodrick said, “so you can’t drink another antidote, hmm?”

“No trust at all.” Alaeron slipped out of his pack and handed it over.

Rodrick shoved the pack up the tunnel behind him, then plucked the flask from Alaeron’s hand. He took a drink. “Huh. This tastes like…”

“Lavender, mainly,” Alaeron said. “Which doesn’t taste as good as it smells.”

Rodrick yawned, then looked alarmed. “What? What have you…” His eyes drooped, and he slumped over, cheek pressed against the dirt of the tunnel floor, knives falling from his hands.

The sleeping potion would keep him deeply unconscious for a couple of hours, at least. Alaeron’s sip of the potion had acted to counteract the powerful stimulant he’d ingested earlier, with the result that he was now just a little bit sleepy, instead of dead to the world.

He listened hard, but heard no sound of stirring from the linnorm’s chamber. Alaeron searched Rodrick—the man had an astonishing quantity of knives hidden about his person—and helped himself to all the smaller weapons, as well as Rodrick’s coin purse, adding them to his own pack.

He considered how nasty he wanted to be. He could cut the man’s throat—but Alaeron had never killed a man in cold blood before, and didn’t savor the prospect. A time-delay bomb placed near the linnorm’s chamber would give Alaeron time to get away, and serve to wake the beast, which was another way to take care of Rodrick—but that was still murder, just more indirectly, and the linnorm would certainly rise from the earth, lay waste to the countryside, and so on. Better to let sleeping wyrms lie.

That went for Rodrick, too. The thief didn’t even know Alaeron’s name, and had only seen his face in flickering torchlight. The odds were good they would never meet again, and the alchemist could take steps to improve those odds.

Alaeron settled for stealing Rodrick’s boots, tying the man’s ankles and wrists with the laces, and climbing back out of the tunnel as silently as possible. In the upper chamber, he collected the jewels and gold the linnorm had left behind. There was enough to buy him another night at the retreat, and give him another opportunity to steal a sample of the waters… but Rodrick would wake up eventually, and Alaeron would be better off leaving the vicinity before then.

He considered Uncle Brant’s armor, but the prospect of taking it off the skeleton and then dragging it out of the tomb was both unpleasant and daunting, as sleepy as Alaeron was. He doused the torches and took the lantern with him, down the branching corridors, up toward the surface world’s light. When he came upon the dead huldra, he cut a bit of her hair, and took a few scrapings of the bark from her hollow interior, for later study—the remains of the fey were hard to come by, and could be powerful reagents. He did his best not to get any of Simeon on his shoe when he passed into the entry chamber.

Best to let sleeping linnorms lie.

Alaeron emerged, blinking, into the late afternoon light. It was nearly dusk. He shouldered the door to the barrow closed, and though it didn’t magically seal, it would, at least, keep passers-by from wandering in. He paused beside a nearby tree, chipped some of the bark away to reveal white wood, and carved the words “Beware the linnorm.” There. That was the best he could do. Not that most graverobbers were terribly literate.

He stole Simeon and Rodrick’s saddlebags and slapped the horses to send them running away, though he left a waterskin for Rodrick at the base of a tree—he wasn’t a monster, and the gesture might mollify the thief’s rage. Alaeron saddled his own horse and made his way south through the hills, heading in the general direction of Almas.

As night fell, he saw a campfire, and took a chance on introducing himself. The men around the fire greeted him warmly enough when he offered to share the fruit and dried meat he’d taken from the stolen saddlebags.

They were a motley lot of adventurers, a grizzled bearded veteran, a boy barely old enough to shave, a pale girl with tattooed cheeks reading by firelight, and a surly half-orc lurking off in the trees by himself. “Where are you bound?” Alaeron asked.

“The boy and I are going north,” the old veteran said. “To the land of the linnorm kings. My old homeland.”

“We’re going to slay a linnorm,” the boy said brightly. “Snowbeard says all you have to do to become a king there is carry the head of a linnorm through the gates of a village. His brother’s a king, he stole the head of the monster Snowbeard killed when they were young, and—”

“He doesn’t need to know our history,” Snowbeard snapped.

Oh, my, Alaeron thought. He generally gave the gods little thought, but this certainly seemed like some deity’s idea of a good jest. Alaeron considered telling Snowbeard there was a linnorm rather closer. But the practical difficulties of transporting the head of a dead monster all those leagues to the land of snow and ice would be hellish. Why, the stink alone, as the head began to rot… Better to let them make their own way.

“I’m thinking of going north myself,” Alaeron said. “Farther east, though, to Numeria. I hear there are amazing relics just scattered all over the ground up there, amid the wreckage of some ancient cataclysm.” He would have to go home first for provisions, but he’d been pondering a trip to Numeria’s capital, Starfall, for a while, and it was even more tempting now. The Black Sovereign’s realm was an unlikely destination… which meant even if Rodrick woke with a taste for vengeance, he wouldn’t look for Alaeron there.

The tattooed woman closed her book and looked up for the first time. “Numeria? I am bound in that direction as well, though my destination is the Worldwound. We will likely travel the same route. Would you care to journey together?”

Alaeron hesitated. She was comely under those tattoos, and clearly quite intelligent, but… “I think, for now, I would prefer to pursue my quest with no company other than my own. I fear I am a… poor adventuring companion.”

The woman shrugged and went back to her book.

Alaeron leaned back against a fallen log and looked up, watching the smoke from the fire drift up toward the stars, thinking of monsters, and holes in the earth, and the open sky.