The Hammer and the Blade

  "They go with you, Nix Fall," Rakon said again.

  Nix's anger made him think of striking Rakon, which made the spellworm squirm, which made him groan with nausea. Rakon smirked, no doubt surmising the truth.

  "Fine," Nix said. He faced the guards, and indicated one of the rope lines. "You and your men use that line and only that line. I don't want one of you slubbers falling on my head."

  Derg smirked. "You take care of your work, and we'll take of ours."

  "Just like you did when that Vwynn tore open your shoulder and filled you with poison, yeah? You're only standing here because of me."

  Derg colored, looked away.

  "That line," Nix said, pointing at the rope. "And you'll want to lose your mail, too, unless you fancy heaving another four stone of weight up that rope when we come out. Or maybe you don't intend to come out? You think they'll come out, Egil?"

  "Doubtful," said the priest.

  Mutters, sheepish glances.

  "I'm jesting," Egil said. "Find your balls, men."

  Nix continued, "When we get into the caves, you do exactly what we say. Nothing more and nothing less. Your lives will depend on that. Well enough?"

  The guards shifted on their feet, hesitated. Derg looked to Baras, but Nix spoke before Baras could offer any words.

  "Baras isn't in command once we enter the cave. So I say again: well enough?"

  "Yes, well enough," the guards said, and started to remove their mail shirts.

  "Fakking slubbers," Nix muttered, and set to evaluating his gear, weapons, and gewgaws a final time. All was in order. Egil checked his hammers, his crowbar, then offered a prayer to the god who existed only on his pate.

  For their part, the guards made the symbol of Orella and muttered prayers to Borkan, God of Warriors. Egil and Nix divided the torches between the two of them.

  "Ready?" Nix asked.

  Egil nodded; the guards nodded.

  "Then over we go," Nix said. "Keep those horses still, Baras."

  Nix and Egil went deftly over the side, Egil first, Nix following. The wind assaulted them the moment they hung exposed. Below, the surf roared over the rocks.

  "Mind the breeze," Nix called to the guards. "And don't look down."

  Egil and Nix braced their boots on the cliff face and walked themselves down. The guards followed on the other line, creeping awkwardly over the side and shinnying down the rope, using the knots Nix had tied.

  Egil looked up at them and tsked. "Hope they can swim."

  Nix looked down – heights did not trouble him – and waited for the surf and foam to pull back and expose the stone face of Abn Thuset.

  "Comin' for you," he said with a wink.

  While the guards made their slow, diffident climb down the rope, grunting and cursing throughout, Nix and Egil reached the cave mouth. Light from the lateafternoon sun set the large chamber's limestone alight. They swung off the rope and stepped inside.

  A thicket of stalactites hung from the ceiling, and stalagmites jutted from the floor. Along the sides they joined into single columns that reached from the rough, irregular floor to the low ceiling. Down the center of the cave, however, the smaller stalagmites and stalactites stretched for one another like hopeless lovers, but didn't touch.

  Beyond, the cave stretched back and down at a gentle slope, out of reach of the day's light.

  "Goes back a ways," Egil said.

  "Aye."

  The first of the guards reached the cave mouth. Egil grabbed him by his belt and pulled him inside. He did the same with the others, one after the other. Derg started to walk deeper into the cave but Egil grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to a stop.

  "Don't move unless we say," the priest said to them.

  Wide-eyed, Derg nodded.

  Moving his feet as little as possible, Nix examined the ceiling and floor, looking for man-made seams disguised as cracks. He saw none.

  "Don't look much like a tomb," Derg said.

  Nix did not bother to explain Afirion burial customs to the youth. Typically, Afirions dug tombs for their royalty in caverns that already existed.

  The earth awaited the body of wizard-king thus and so, the inscription usually read.

  "The tomb proper will be deeper in," Egil said.

  "If it's here," one of the guards said.

  "It's here," Egil and Nix said in unison.

  "How do you know?" the guard asked.

  Nix pointed with the tip of his falchion at a faint discoloration on the ceiling. "That's a soot stain. Very old."

  "And note the stalactites and stalagmites," Egil said. "See how they're thinner and shorter in the center of the cave?"

  "So?" the guard said.

  "So," the priest explained. "The ones in the center are not as old as those on the sides. That's because the original ones in the center of the cave were cleared to allow passage of workers and matériel. Probably that statue in the water was cracked or broken in transit and discarded by lazy workmen. Proved good luck for us."

  While the guards digested that, Nix used a matchstick from his bag to fire a torch.

  "I lead," he said. "Then Egil, then the rest of you. Don't touch anything."

  Nix led them through the thicket of stone, and followed the slope of the cave downward into darkness. The tunnel narrowed to a neck at twenty paces and they advanced in single file. The guards' rapid breathing betrayed their nervousness.

  The narrow passageway opened abruptly into a large vaulted chamber of worked stone. The flickering light of Nix's torch illuminated plastered walls and a ceiling covered in pictoglyphs and Afirion script, a riot of colors and imagery. A large metal door stood on the opposite side of the chamber. Nix saw nothing to indicate the name or station of the person buried in the tomb, but that was not unusual. The receiving room was used to prepare the body for eternity. Afterward, the room was typically covered in curses and trapped. It was probably a good thing he couldn't read much Afirion script.

  The guards filed in behind Egil, clustering around Nix.

  "Gods," one of them said in a hushed tone, eyeing the ancient artwork.

  "What does it say?" another asked.

  "I can't read much of it," Nix said, "but it's warnings against defiling the tomb, a promise of curses on tomb robbers."

  "What kind of curses?" said the youngest of the guards, his voice betraying a slight quaver.

  "The kind that makes your balls fall off," Nix said absently, studying floor and ceiling in the light of his torch.

  "Or that makes you shite yourself to death," Egil added.

  "Gods," said the guard.

  "Shite," said another.

  "Exactly," Egil said solemnly.

  "I need more light," Nix said. He handed Egil his torch and took his magic crystal eye from his satchel. He tapped it with a finger and spoke a word in the Mages' Tongue.

  "Wake up," he said, and the eye opened, blinked a few times, and emitted a beam of light. Nix used it to pore over the walls, ceiling, and floor, keeping his feet planted.

  "There," he said, indicating the floor before the door.

  "I see it," Egil said.

  "And there," Nix said, indicating a spot on the ceiling near the wall.

  "What? What?" asked a guard.

  "Traps," Egil said. "There are always traps."

  Derg cleared his throat. "I don't… feel like we need to enter the tomb any farther. Probably just be in the way of these two. You, mates?"

  Murmured agreement.

  Nix smiled. "Wise," he said.

  "Maybe that could stay between us, though?" Derg said.

  "Of course," Nix said.

  "Ought to spring the traps, then," Egil offered. "Else they'll set them off."

  "Right," Nix said.

  Nix ventured into the chamber and walked near the metal door opposite them.

  "This looks like a door," he said and stepped before it. When he felt the floor give slightly, triggering the counterpoise, he bounded aside. The metal slab fel
l forward and crashed onto the floor with a ferocious crash.

  "But it's a deadfall."

  "Shite!"

  "Gods!"

  "Pits, man!"

  On the otherwise blank wall revealed by the door's fall was scrawled a death curse. Nix pointed at it.

  "And there's Egil's 'shite yourself to death' curse. Nicely anticipated, priest."

  Egil half-bowed.

  Nix walked toward the tomb's actual door, its location hidden by the plaster coating the walls.

  "The actual door is here."

  "Where?" asked Derg.

  "Careful," Egil said.

  "Aye," Nix said.

  "I don't see it," said another guard.

  Nix took a chisel from his satchel and chipped away the plaster until it revealed another metal door, flush with the wall and with no handle, the hinges sunk into the stone of the cavern by screws. He examined the screws. Time had rusted them.

  "Hinges are soon to give," he said.

  A dusting of rust coated the door. Nix rubbed it off as best he could and read the characters engraved on the door.

  "Abn Thuset of Afirion, beloved of the people and the gods."

  "It's the right tomb, then," Derg said.

  Nix took his crowbar from his satchel, got it in the seam between the wall and the unhinged side of the door.

  "Mind," Egil cautioned.

  Nix nodded, pried at the door, once, twice, a third time before it finally gave. The moment it started to open, he heard the expected sound of falling counterweights. He leaped backward as the hidden pegs holding the block of ceiling stone above the door slid back and let the block fall. The huge block of stone hit the floor with a dull, ponderous thud, and would have crushed anyone standing under it.

  "The Afirions liked crushing tomb robbers," Nix said.

  The guards looked wide-eyed at the stone, at the now-gaping opening in the ceiling.

  "Help me slide it aside," Nix said.

  With help from Egil and the guards, he moved the stone aside and opened the door to the tomb. He held the crystal eye high.

  A series of carved steps led down into a large oval chamber. Smooth columns of limestone ran floor to ceiling. More artwork adorned the walls. Nix put away his magical eye and struck another torch to match Egil's.

  "Stay here and don't move until we come back," Nix said to the guards.

  "Aye," said the guards. Nix saw their nervousness. They eyed the ceiling, floor, and walls as if they might fall in on them at any moment.

  "If it'll make you feel better, close the door after we're through."

  He'd been jesting about the door, but the moment he and Egil stepped down the stairs and into the columned chamber beyond, the door squeaked closed behind them. They, like Abn Thuset, were entombed in stone.

  "Timid slubbers," Nix said.

  "Look at this," Egil said, holding his torch high and indicating the walls.

  Mindful of his steps, Nix moved closer to the walls and held up his torch to view the wall murals.

  Placatory to the gods, tomb murals always showed the truth of a wizard-king's life. A false mural risked divine wrath and condemnation to the Nether Void.

  The murals began on one end of the chamber and stretched along the wall. They began as they all did, with the birth of the wizard-king and a detailed rendering of the sky on the day of birth. Subsequent murals showed the wizard-king's childhood, education, tutors, parents, siblings, their entire life told in pictoglyphs painted on limestone. The workmanship was excruciatingly detailed and often done in symbolic fashion. Nix had seen enough of them to deduce meanings. He followed them along the wall but stopped, frowning, when he reached the images showing Abn Thuset in adolescence. The images of tutors and other servants looked typical but the clothing…

  "He wears a girl's clothing," Nix said. "Look. That's not a wrap. It's a dress."

  Egil grunted, his interest in Abn Thuset's life already slaked.

  Nix followed the murals along the wall, a spectator to the truth of Abn Thuset's life. Scenes showed the battles fought in the rebellion that put Abn Thuset's father on the Serpentine Throne of Afirion. Nix could hardly believe what he was seeing. He narrated for Egil.

  "Her brothers were killed in the rebellion–"

  "Her?"

  Nix nodded, his finger tracing the images on the walls as he narrated. "Her brothers were killed in the rebellion that put her father on the Serpent Throne. With no male heirs…"

  Nix stared at the image a long while. Egil moved beside him.

  "What?" Egil asked.

  Nix tapped the wall mural that showed Abn Thuset's transformation. "She became the male heir."

  "How do you mean? She pretended to be a man? I've heard of such things before, though not in Afirion."

  "No," Nix said, shaking his head and studying the mural. "She became a man."

  Egil's face wrinkled in confusion. "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying the Afirions were masters of transmutational magic." He pointed to the key events of the narrative, which occurred during Abn Thuset's youth. A scene showed her and her father in solemn prayer to a jackal-headed god. A subsequent scene showed her father pointing something at her – Nix assumed it to be a wand – and her body haloed in light. Scenes thereafter showed her with the hairstyle and clothing of an Afirion nobleman, not a noblewoman.

  "And they used it to make a daughter a son. She became a man."

  "One of Afirion's greatest wizard-kings wasn't a wizard-king at all?" Egil said. "But a queen?"

  "Aye."

  "But… the magic wouldn't last, would it?" Egil said. "No magic lasts forever."

  "Not forever, no, but it would last a considerable time." He recalled his introductory lessons at the Conclave. "The closer the changed form is to the original form, the longer the transmutation will last."

  "And the change from woman to man is slight," Egil said. "Though much in life rides on it."

  "The Serpentine Throne rode on it for Abn Thuset."

  Had one of her brothers lived and assumed the throne, she would have remained a woman. As such, she'd have been subject to the authority of her brother, who would have married her off to a husband to whom she would then be subject. By making herself a man, she had instead been able to rule and become one of history's great names.

  "Think of it," Nix said. "She was born with the mind and talent to rule, but only rose to it because her brothers were killed and Afirion magic could change her form."

  "What a waste had events not unfolded so," Egil said.

  "A waste indeed," Nix agreed.

  Images from her later reign showed her from time to time using the transmutational wand to renew the magic that had made her a man.

  To his surprise, Nix felt a kinship to her. She'd lived a lie, her true self buried in her core, visible to no one but the gods. Nix empathized, though his own secret self was trivial compared to hers.

  "You're in love again?" Egil said, his voice carrying a smile. "You wear a doltish smile."

  "No," Nix said, losing the smile. "Just impressed. And thoughtful. Think about it, Egil. Abn Thuset's talents were rare, but probably not unique. How many other Afirion women lived lives made for them by men but unsuited to their talents and natures? How many women in Dur Follin?"

  For some reason he flashed on his dreams, breathing doors, long hallways, screams, and bloody beds.

  "Your point's well made," Egil said, "though I question the timing. We're here to rob her tomb. We should be about it."

  "I believe I'd turn from this if I could," Nix said, and the spellworm churned his guts for the thought.

  "Yet we can't and we both know it," Egil said. "We've robbed tombs of men both good and evil. And now we'll rob this one, though she be admirable. Come on, Nix."

  Nix felt an odd sense of sacredness, but not out of respect for the dead. He'd long ago come to regard dead flesh as nothing but decaying matter. Its provenance was, instead, the connection he felt to Abn Thuset. Th
e truth of her life was known to her father, herself, and now Egil and Nix. There was something in that secret shared that demanded reverence.

  And yet he'd have to honor her in the breach, for he could not do anything but what he'd come to do. The spellworm would not allow anything else.