For the remainder of the winter, until snowmelt inundated the low valleys and made continued activity impossible, Lady Indili, the Redbone Explorers, and I joined with the Bahab of the Tasgusun Hills to purge wizard-king tombs throughout their territory. In this effort we were accompanied, and in some sense gently imprisoned, by a rough company of Bahab warriors. This varied group, which ranged in number from twenty to twenty-five at any one time, came from almost as many villages in the hope of grabbing a share of the wealth on offer for their communities. They were skilled fighters, but mostly young and lacking in experience. Primarily the relatives of tribal chieftains, they sought glory but were also somewhat lazy. In the evenings, after digging out nightly shelters from the deep snow, they would drink heavily. Their intoxicant of choice was a variety of mead, based on fermented plums and seasoned heavily with honey from hives they kept on the ridge-top meadows. A potent and, to my taste overly sweet, brew, I was spared by preference from sharing in more than obligatory toasts on celebratory occasions. Those were offered only when we had the opportunity to be both successful in our efforts and remained close enough to a nearby village to share in a feast. Lady Indili found the mead foul, and avoided it, but the Redbones were more inclined to indulge, though with sufficient discipline so they were not impaired come morning.
Each morning the warriors worked off the damage of their nightly festivities through vigorous and highly competitive weapons practice. This often turned surprisingly violent, with numerous injuries inflicted by the edge of a greatsword or broad-headed spear. Several rotated out of the company as a result of these wounds. The Redbones generally avoided participation, citing their greater ages and scouting duties. For my part, I was regularly pressured to participate, and though I was usually able to refuse despite insults regarding my unwillingness to defend the honor of the Sanid Empire, on a few regrettable occasions I failed to find a suitable excuse and ended up in the ring. Such sparring did not go well. Martial prowess is not a trait to which I can lay claim. The long knife suffices for defense, but I am ever a scholar, not a warrior.
Thankfully, scholarship offered an opportunity to regain respect lost in the fighting grounds. The Bahab have maps, drawn on goat skins, but they are crude, lacking a proper understanding of the cartographer’s art and the necessity of representing topography in such rolling terrain. By keeping such considerations at the forefront, I was able to quickly map out numerous valleys and, keeping in mind the historic flood lines upon exposed rock faces, allowed the Redbones to locate several tombs otherwise completely lost to local memory. Several of the warriors considered this act, though nothing more than the utilization of well-established mathematical and surveying principles, a positively mystical achievement. While I worked hard to disabuse the Bahab of such assumptions, it later became clear that in a society that melds scholarly knowledge, sacred ritual, and sorcery together in the singular figure of the shaman, such conflations were inevitable. I confess, as the winter wore on my efforts to disabuse the warriors of their false assumptions grew considerably less diligent.
The process behind our work was a simple one. Based on old reports from hunters and herders we searched out caves in the walls of little-used valleys that might have long ago been converted into tombs. This required much careful scouting, as naturally formed holes in the hills, seemingly shaped by the action of wind and ice over millennia, are abundant. Bears, also, often widen the entrances, making disturbance by human hands difficult to detect from a distance. Thankfully, the old tombs themselves were generally marked with stone inscriptions in ancient, unreadable language and the entrances plugged by great stone slabs of a composition that did not match local materials. While some were simply exotic rock carried to the tombs over a great distance, other slabs had been transformed by wizardry into strange, otherworldly composites unlike any known natural material. My role was largely confined to this task, working with the Redbones and a pair of Bahab hunters who spoke good Kharal to confirm the presence of each tomb.
Once identified, we would form a cordon around the tomb and determine if it remained sealed or had been previously breached. The presence of the stone sealing slabs used by the wizard-kings greatly aided this endeavor, since there was no means without wizard-enhanced strength of removing and replacing those great stones and they were generally shattered with mauls or hauled aside using chains. A tomb plundered by past robbers would usually have the slab lying on its side on the cave floor before the entrance, as the chain-and-pulley method, often with a great bear or stout ox doing the hauling, was by far the most common method to obtain access. Robbers, being secretive and rushed, would never bother to drag the stone further than necessary.
Slabs found out of alignment, still keeping the tomb closed but leaving a gap to allow wind and often water passage, indicated a different sort of robber, that of another wizard. These possessed servants with the obscene strength necessary to lift the stones and then return them in place, but almost never did so with proper care for a good seal. Such actions seem to have been extremely common, with many slabs later pulled down already in a position suggesting they had been lifted and moved at least once before. As might be expected of such ancient heathens, it seems the wizard-kings offered each other little respect in death. Despite such defilement, tombs only breached by the actions of other wizards might well retain both valuables and active guardians, for the wizards who plundered such places did so to claim the secrets of wizardry left by their colleagues, most often found chiseled into the interior walls, not to take gold or jewels for themselves.
A slab found shattered to shards, not merely caved in at the base by destructive masonry, represented a rare but dangerous case. Such circumstances, we learned, indicated that a guardian puppet had smashed through it from within during a rampage. This was potentially very serious, for they sometimes returned afterward, and might be waiting just beyond the shadows of the portal.
To find a tomb completely untouched was almost completely unknown. Over the course of the winter, we examined forty-five, nearly one for every day spent among the Bahab, but found only a single tomb that had not been previously opened.
That most tombs were breached in some manner, even by a gap no wider than needed to poke a finger through, allowed for the efficacy of the next step in our strategy, one wholly reliant upon the Lady Indili. She would summon a shade, a sorcerous conjuration of wind, ash, and dust formed by concentrating and shaping essence into the facsimile of an animal. These spell-forms, controlled by her will, would then be sent inside the tomb, their ethereal, unbounded edges able to slop through the smallest gap while still retaining the power to strike using shadowy claws and teeth.
Corporeal shades with force behind their strikes are a demonstration of mastery of the essence path. Seemingly forged out of black mist and bearing the form of an animal chosen by the sorcerer, they are terrifying to behold. Lady Indili universally shaped her shades from marine inspirations, fast, flexible, and powerful. This, I later learned following much research, was rare. Most commonly form shades in the image of apes, bears, or wolves, common things easily summoned up in imagination. As to why she departed from this legacy, that was one question she never answered. The Bahab, none of whom had ever seen an ocean in their lives, found them horrific as they swam through the air. The warriors, otherwise men who recklessly engaged in violence, would regularly seek purification following a day spent plundering tombs with the shades nearby. Even the shamans who offered that service avoided looking at these emanations. Truthfully, it was a sentiment I initially shared, and it took a long time to achieve trust through seeking the mind behind those shifting shadows. Mist that moves with the power of a living animal and can strike with the strength of a sharp sword is a frightful creation indeed, and such manifestations of mystic power test even strong bonds of companionship. Small wonder that sorcerers are inclined to remain within their chapter houses and control their interactions with outsiders carefully.
The shades had an advantage perfectly suited to this exploratory mission. Whatever mystic sensation a shade conveyed of its surroundings to Lady Indili functioned completely unimpeded by absolute darkness. At the same time, they represented a completely disposable asset. Though the swift strike of a roused puppet to slam a fist the size of a pillar through the shadowy mist shattered and dissipated the construct, the cost was measured in pain across the skull of Lady Indili. A bitter blow, one I winced to watch her suffer multiple times, often knocking her to the ground and leaving her dizzy for many minutes, but without any capability of dealing permanent wounds. Said method allowed us to discern whether or not puppet guardians remained active without sacrificing a life or being forced to engage in desperate battle within the tight confines of the tombs.
Several possibilities unfolded following this scouting by sorcerous shade. Firstly, if a tomb was unguarded, most often as a consequence of being previously plundered, or if the passage of time had rendered the puppets inert and devoid of essence, then all that remained was a matter of cleansing and sacking. In the case that we discovered an active guardian, there were two alternatives. Many times, upon destroying the shade with a single swift strike, the puppet simply returned to dormancy, as its limited senses detected no additional threats to its long dead master. When this happened the Bahab waited an hour to confirm the quiescent state and then painted the exterior slab with a symbol of forbiddance. They declared that they would return again after a century had passed to test the puppet once more. Far more dangerous was when the guardian responded to the intrusion by charging forth from the tomb in fury, seeking lives to destroy. This most often occurred when there had been previous attempts to plunder the tomb and the exterior slab lay sundered.
The resulting combats were brutal and terrible. Forty-five tombs produced a mere four charging guardians, but that was enough to nearly ruin everything. One, a simple stone form, had been damaged in previous encounters and retained only one arm. Despite this weakness, it still smashed the torso of the first Bahab warrior who approached it to ruin and broke two more arms beneath blocking shields before its legs were hacked apart and its toppled form could be slowly shattered using the long reach of heavy mauls until all flailing ceased. After that debacle, the Bahab accepted the plan of the Redbone Explorers to dig pits or place log barricades in front of the caves in order to forestall the terrifying initial rush.
This served well enough, trapping a whole stone puppet and a second one whose frame was imbued with additional fiery energy whose surfaces scorched flesh and weakened metal. These were then worn down through careful encirclement and daring combinations of rushes and retreats. Lives were still lost each time, but disaster was averted. The Bahab considered the casualties suffered, one or two lives for each puppet, a fair trade. I would not agree, but then I was born on my father's estate, however minor it might be, in a prosperous land ruled by a potent empire. It is not my place to judge the desperation of these mountain dwellers. They considered the possible wealth stored within the tombs worth the risk, and being young men they were highly tolerant of such dangerous ploys. Certainly, such losses were quickly replaced by new warriors whenever we returned to the next village.
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Neither bravery nor precautions sufficed to fully prevent disaster.
Wizard puppets exist in five general formulations, a practice that has been maintained across millennia, being recorded in ancient manuals discussing golems. The basic form is simply an overbuilt stone statue with articulated ground joints, resembling a hulking human with oversized arms. Additional essence may be used to augment the surface with flame, frost, or lightning, providing additional damage to glancing blows and making close approach highly dangerous. This makes the puppets significantly more intimidating, but against the standard strategy to hack off the feet and then smash them from the end of long poles makes for only a modest difference in the danger. These constructs already possess such impossible strength that they kill with almost trivial ease, I watched one punch a horse at full strength and launch the heavy animal into the air twice the length of its body while shattering every bone in the back, that an additional bit of burning or blasting makes little difference in their capability to kill. Perhaps such adjustments increase their utility as siege weapons or halts the use of sorcerous countermeasures, but I am doubtful as to such things. It seems more likely to me that such modifications offered visceral satisfaction and additional intimidation capacity to the wizards who create such things. Certainly, the sight of an orange-shaded puppet that gives off baleful heat and scorches the ground with each step is a monstrously hard thing to oppose.
The fifth formulation, by contrast, is far more practical and utterly devastating. Somehow, the wizards of ancient times refined the stone comprising such puppets to produce a metallicized composite that, for lack of a better label, is known as stonemetal. This substance, though no harder than stout stone, possesses the flexibility of metals, making it far more resistant to breakage when struck heavy blows. Greater fluidity also reduces the tension of the carved joints, allowing the puppet to move not with the lumbering heaving of an ox, but the swiftness of a horse to the point that these creations can run down a man in full sprint.
Especially one trying to flee across trails of packed snow.
We came across but one of these stonemetal puppets that remained functional. Twelve Bahab warriors died trying to halt its initial rush, reduced to red ruin spread across the snowbanks. Only through the cleverness of the Redbone Explorers and Lady Indili repeatedly summoning decoy shades until she collapsed from the feedback and strain was it overcome. No blade or blow broke the terrible construct. Weapons shattered against the shimmering metallic skin. Instead, it was defeated by time and the simplicity of an automaton capable of nothing more than obeying simplistic commands. By a clever ruse of timed throws of stones and sticks, the Redbones kept the machine switching back and forth between their positions, with a shade intervening to draw it off each time it got too close. A full hour passed in this seemingly comic but horrifically deadly game of tag while men screamed with pain and bled out atop the grubby snow. Through it all I stood vigil, knife in hand, before the sorceress even as I knew the blade would be useless.
Eventually the stores of essence powering the puppet ran down, and its motion failed. There was no slow stilling. It simply stopped mid-step and toppled over into the cloak of white. Once this occurred the remaining Bahab did not pause before charging up and hacking it apart with hammer blows. This process took many hours and hundreds of blows with heavy stones and iron quarry bars.
There were no healers present in our little tomb-breaking band. As the only person present with any training in the internal structure of the body, I applied such aid as I could, binding wounds and splinting bones, but even after the puppet was silenced three more Bahab perished of injury, shock, or chill. A shaman, arriving the next day, told me frankly that my actions saved two lives, which she called admirable and kind, but the absence of a proper healer, who surely could have spared half-a-dozen or more, haunts me. Such a great tragedy that this whole people are deprived of proper care. The shamans do what they can, but it is not the same as those properly trained who know the structure and rhythm of the human form inside and out. This is the price that is paid for the failure to spread the revelation and its guidance across the whole of the world.
The Bahab assigned no blame to outsiders for this disaster. They accounted such losses within the ordinary course of events, and valued the stonemetal, though it could be used for nothing more complex than jewelry once reduced to shards, as more valuable than gold or gems. I was told by the shaman, haltingly through translation, that the last time one of these most deadly of golems escaped a tomb an entire village was leveled before it was overcome. The other warriors, in the moment they observed that reflective, shining, multicolored metallic form lumber free of the cave cried out for the mercy of the Divines, believing their deaths were certain. Those who survived raised endless toasts to the Redbones, until the men were too drunk to even hold their mugs, and sang songs of praise in the Lady Indili's name that I am certain were horribly heretical and I therefore am glad I could not understand. She did not much enjoy this fervent attention and I spent many nights thereafter arguing for solitude and standing vigil to secure her privacy. The linguistic barrier was, for once, a blessing.
Such suffering and death was rewarded with treasure. Forty-five tombs, all belonging to ancient tyrants and those they favored. Of these, thirty-three either possessed quiescent but still functional guardian puppets and were left for future generations or had been breached and completely plundered in previous ages and offered no wealth to visitors in the era of Enduring Peace. Twelve remained either partially or completely untouched, with the riches of former days left behind to be acquired. This amounted to considerable monies indeed.
The typical wizard-king tomb possesses a simple passage design. A long, sinuous corridor was hewn deep into the hillside and lined with broad upraised stones as supports. These passages were neither tall nor wide, usually offering barely sufficient space for the oversized hulking frames of the puppets to fit through. Such restrictions were among the many reasons fighting them within the confines were thoroughly unwise. The entry passage generally proceeded for twenty to fifty meters before reaching the sealing stone slab behind which was an antechamber where a guardian, if present, would be stored. After this chamber there would either be a continuation of the main passage, or it would split into three. In the former case this passage would proceed for several meters before opening up into a treasure room. The latter case was the same with the addition of a laboratory and a library at the end of the side passages. Beyond the treasure chamber, always hidden behind a false wall intended to appear as the rear of the cave, would be a narrow passage to the burial chamber. In three-passage tombs a second guardian puppet would often be placed at this point as well as a final defense. The burial chambers were always the same, featuring a large stone sarcophagus raised up on a bier surrounded by statuary and shelves featuring various ancient apparatus of wizardry along with additional treasures.
Of the twelve tombs we joined in plundering only three were of the multi-passage type. This included the most impressive example, which as may be anticipated was the same as possessed the stonemetal golem. The riches stored within these tombs were considerable.
Anything perishable, including writing in paper or leather, clothing, and wooden artifacts was long since reduced to fragments by decay and time. Stonework and pottery, though considerably more durable, were swiftly smashed to bits by the Bahab, who considered the creations of the Wizard-Kings offensive in the sight of both Divines and humans. A true enough perspective, given the blasphemous nature of their subjects and makers, but I cannot help but mourn the strange geometrically aligned and highly abstracted sculptures I briefly glimpsed by torch and candlelight. Beauty and history alike lost beneath the hammers of vengeful newcomers. Though I have little good to say regarding any wizard, and considerable bile to direct at most, perhaps these long dead monarchs deserved some acknowledgment of their works in addition to ignominious desolation.
Lady Indili and I did make some brief sketches of the pottery and statuary we found here, mostly those in library and laboratory rooms the warriors neglected. These are preserved in the Library of Imperial Arts, under the seal of the priesthood, and I will say nothing further regarding their nature.
Rather than history or legacy, and I note that the Bahab smashed open the stone coffins, hauled out the brittle and crumbling bones and burned them alongside any wood or paper fragments large enough to handle, the goal was enrichment. This came almost entirely in the form of gemstones and precious metals, materials that, because their value is tied to their inherent nature rather than the forms to which they may be shaped, are broadly immune to corruption by past craftsmen. Gold and silver, though they be shaped into the forms of idols most foul, can be melted down and remade anew. Gemstones and semi-precious rocks can be struck from heretical jeweled assemblies and fitted to new creations without harm. Even less obviously precious but still valuable metals such as copper, tin, lead, bronze, and the mysterious substance known as zinc can be recycled in this manner. All such materials were acquired by the Bahab for such use. Curiously, there was no iron, suggesting the ancient wizard-kings had not yet mastered the secret of its production.
As we were accounted members of the war party, the Redbone Explorers and I were together granted one-eighth of the total plunder as our collective share. It was considered unseemly by the Bahab to pay a sorcerer in battle spoils, and so Lady Indili was instead gifted a bulging purse full of precious gems, mostly sapphires as these were her favored stone, assembled by the chiefs of every village who contributed warriors to the effort. With regard to the gold and silver I made every effort to acquire as part of our portion ancient coins, in as many different delineations as could be found, hoping that study of the images stamped upon them might reveal some fragments of the ancient past. Some few of these pieces were, ultimately, returned to Crisremon for study. However, our focus in the acquisition of wealth was directed elsewhere. Upon learning of our plan to aid the Bahab in opening tombs, I was advised by our Master Apothecary, Francand Olon, to prioritize valuable pigments, reagents, and other materials including mercury, ground lapis lazuli, and exotic salts, all of which could be used in trade with Nikkad alchemists as they are essential for the production of the best class of elixirs. The Bahab, who had little use for such substances, readily agreed to these comprising a great portion of our share and our camels made the return journey to Inukudish most heavily laden indeed.
Never has Shdustu's reputation as a land of gold been so clear as upon entering those tombs after fighting the way inside. Though blind to almost all arts mastered by our societies since the Enlightened Revelation, the ancient wizards who ruled these harsh hills possessed material wealth in abundance. The tomb of the stonemetal guardian, richest of them all by far, contained sufficient gold entirely on its own to almost equal the mass of Lady Indili. In silver, its bounty was at least twice as much. I myself watched, eyes wide, as a Bahab warrior whose previous most valuable possession had been his prized wolfskin hood melted down a golden sword covered in jewels that surely matched the value of the elaborate ceremonial blade worn by the emperor himself. Some things of the past are truly beyond all we can imagine.