“One day I’ll learn to keep my damn mouth shut.” Vash grumbled as he crept down the narrow corridor. He had a vial of glowmoss elixir hanging on a string around his neck, leaving his hands free as he moved carefully, placing each foot deliberately, senses alert for any signs of traps or triggers.
The narrow passage forced them to walk single file. Vash didn’t like not being able to see the others. Especially not knowing where Zakarias and his creepy servants were.
Feels like they’re staring at me.
He glanced back periodically to check on his companions. Corwin followed close behind, holding his own glowmoss elixir high. The big man gave Vash an encouraging nod every time he looked back. Jabez was next in line, the dwarf grumbling under his breath about "shoddy stonework." The scholar and his two servants brought up the rear, but they were far enough back that the shadows swallowed them and all Vash could make out were rough shapes in the darkness.
Vash's foot connected with something, sending it skittering across the stone floor. He stopped and looked down, dreading what he might find.
Just a skeleton. Vash breathed a sigh of relief. He knelt to get a closer look. Its bones scoured clean and scattered as if it had lain there for ages. He saw no obvious wounds or damage, but with just bones, it was hard to tell. The positioning disturbed him. He looked up and saw several other skeletons a short distance ahead in the tunnel. They all lay face down, arms splayed forward as if they had fallen while running.
"These poor bastards were trying to escape something," Vash murmured.
"And failed clearly," Jabez said. "So keep those elf eyes peeled, eh?"
Vash frowned. Unless he concentrated on keeping up his low-light vision, it lapsed back into his normal, more comfortable human sight. He focused on adjusting his vision, feeling his eyes molding themselves to what he wanted. Blinking rapidly, the corridor became suddenly brighter, and Vash could see further into the gloom. However, colors were more washed out and his vision warped slightly at the edges, unsettling his sense of where things were.
Vash gritted his teeth against the wave of dizziness from the sudden shift in perspective. The distortion from his more sensitive eyes made the walls feel even closer. He felt trapped, confined. His heart quickened. He had never liked tight spaces. He wanted to rush ahead to get out of this corridor. Memories from the year he spent working in the mines as a part of a Penance Detail came rushing back.
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The fight had been stupid.
Jannick always taunted him about his poor reading skills, but it came to a head when Vash had voiced his desire to join the Order of Rasander. An ancient organization dedicated to exploration and discovery. A group of Rasanderians had taken rooms at the Inn Vash worked at. He had gotten to talk with them and even pointed out some notable ruins in the area around Durron’s Ford that he had explored. One of them was even a part-elf like himself.
When Jannick heard Vash talking excitedly to Corwin and Kat the next morning, the older boy hadn’t been able to resist crushing his dreams.
You have to be able to read to join any of the Orders, knife-ear. Jannick taunted.
I know my letters. Vash protested, holding desperately to this thin hope. It won’t be long before I get the hang of the words.
Jannick laughed, needling that Vash would have to have a real understanding of reading, not just sounding out words from a Temple primer. Then his friends had chimed in on all of Vash’s faults, everything they could think of to keep him from joining the Order.
Corwin tried to put a stop to it, but Kat held him back. He had already gotten into trouble with Domai Matthias for sticking up for the ‘impure creature’ on other occasions. Getting a formal reprimand from the Temple would put even more strain on Corwin’s family.
The little group of bullies wanted a show from Vash to see him humiliated and crying. So they pushed and wheedled, listing all the reasons he should just give up and throw himself into the river.
It was Jannick, however, who crossed the last line. Look at him, you just know that his whore of a mother died of shame. Imagine having a reminder that you sullied yourself with an elf looking back at you every day!
The fury had come over him so quickly that he had no time to process it or even hold it back. Jannick didn’t even see the fist that broke his nose. One moment the tall, slender boy was laughing with his friends, the next there was a sickening crunch and blood began pouring down his face.
If Vash had stopped there, then he might have gotten away with a local penance. But the anger he let loose that day had been building within him for years. He tackled Jannick, driving him to the ground. The other boy flailed with one arm, trying to catch himself. The snap of his arm breaking, followed by the howls of pain, made Jannick’s circle of friends flee, abandoning him to Vash’s barrage of flailing fists.
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Corwin hauled him off of Jannick after a moment of stunned bewilderment. Vash’s hands were red with the other boy’s blood, and he struggled against Corwin’s grip, trying to get back and finish the job.
Jannick lay in the dirt, screaming in pain. His nose knocked to one side, and he was missing one of his front teeth. Clutching his right arm, Jannick wailed and rocked until some villagers came running to see what the problem was.
The next few hours were a blur.
In the end, the Holdmaster and Domai Matthias agreed Vash needed to be sent to the Ducal Penance detail. No one, not even Vash’s foster father, Sam, had spoken out against the punishment. Corwin said that he wanted to, but his brother Wil forbade it, saying that Vash had caused enough trouble for their family.
For the next year, Vash had toiled in Duke Gellar’s silver mines. Alongside petty thieves, bandits, and violent brawlers, Vash spent every day except Temple Day below the ground. The sun became a distant memory, and his joy from exploring caves and ruins snuffed out like a candle. Because he was small and slender, the overseers sent him into the tightest offshoot tunnels to work. Fear of becoming stuck, the small alchemical light vial dying slowly while the other penitents laughed at his pleas for help, haunted his nightmares.
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Taking a long, shuddering breath, Vash brought his focus back to the here and now.
Focus on what you can control. The mantra that Byar had repeated when Vash’s fears threatened to overwhelm him. You might be surprised at what you can accomplish if you just take things one step at a time.
Breathing was the first thing that came to mind. Taking slow, controlled breaths of the stale air, reassuring himself that he wasn’t suffocating. Then he inched forward, slowly. He wasn’t stuck, not trapped by thousands of pounds of rock and soil.
Now do your job. Vash thought, carefully scanning the walls and floor for any cracks or holes that could indicate a trap. Nothing out of the ordinary, just old stone.
Up ahead, the corridor opened into a larger chamber, big enough for them all to enter at the same time. Vash hesitated at the threshold, peering inside. His enhanced sight could make out a high ceiling of rough stone and circular tiled floor. Four pitted stone pillars supported the ceiling, smaller than the ones in the first chamber, but of the same design. Aside from the pillars, the chamber appeared empty.
Vash took a cautious step inside. The others filed in behind him, fanning out to examine the pillars and walls. Vash crossed the room towards a dark opening on the far side. It was a similar corridor to the one they just exited. Vash blinked and let his eyes return to normal, regaining his composure while his companions explored the small room.
"Well, this looks safe enough," Corwin said, rapping his knuckles against a pillar.
"Careful," Jabez said. "We don't know anything about this place. I wouldn't trust any of this to be safe just yet."
Corwin nodded, taking a step back from the pillar. "Good point."
"I didn't expect so much hand-wringing from experienced adventurers," Zakarias said, inspecting some faded carvings on the wall. "Second-guessing every step, moving at a snail's pace. Where's your sense of adventure?"
His oily tone made Vash bristle. He did not trust the scholar's motives for a second. "If we knew what we were getting into, maybe we'd be more willing to move faster. What exactly do you do at the Collegium? Maybe knowing what you were studying will help?"
Zakarias gave Vash a thin-lipped smile. "It would neither interest nor help you in this situation. My apologies if I sound critical. It's just this expedition is the culmination of several years’ worth of work."
“Work doing what?”
“My specialty is in studying pre-Malconian celestial powers. Specifically, how the unification of the Temple affected mana structures and power dynamics on a purely metaphysical level.” Zakarias said condescendingly.
“That’s quite a mouthful.” Vash said, unimpressed.
“You asked.” Zakarias shrugged.
Vash met the scholar's gaze, trying to get a sense of what the man was thinking. He could tell that Zakarias was lying about something, but couldn't decide what, exactly.
“These markings don’t look like Temple glyphs.” Jabez said, studying the carvings that ringed the room.
The carvings, though faded, did not look like anything Vash had ever seen in any of the temples dedicated to the Malconian pantheon. An odd, spiky script stood out beneath stylized pictograms of strange ritual practices.
They look familiar, though. Vash thought, recalling the clay tablets in the Eth Mitaan temple beneath the great tree back in Ragpicker’s Hollow. A feeling of dread passed over him. The things that they had done in the old temple had been useful and given him many gifts, but the experience had been harrowing.
“Likely an old Baedan writing form.” Zakarias said, squinting at the carvings. “We know several tribes migrated down here from the north before the Malconians expanded east.”
"Let's move on." Jabez said, frowning at the carvings and stepping back. "We've dallied here long enough."
Turning away from Zakarias, Vash moved toward the next passage. Approaching the archway, Vash felt a slight warning thrum in his Core. It’s reacting to something nearby, not like a danger sense, that goes off when something actually happens. Could it be reacting to mana?
“Something wrong?” Corwin asked, joining Vash at the archway.
Vash felt his Core thrum, echoing a release of mana somewhere nearby.
"What was that?" Corwin asked, drawing his sword and looking around.
"That was a trap." Jabez said, giving Vash a dark look.
Vash was about to say something in response but his attention was drawn to the corridor they just exited. The unsettling sound of dried bones clattering together, then scraping against the stone floor. Down the corridor, he could see several pinpricks of orange light. As the lights moved closer, Vash could see that the pinpricks were illuminating the skulls of the skeletons that they had left behind.
Slowly, but with inexorable menace, the skeletons were coming for them.
"Move." Jabez said, taking Zakarias by the wrist and leading him toward the exit corridor. He stopped, looking past Vash, a frown creasing his weathered face.
Vash turned, looking down the other corridor. For a moment he didn't understand Jabez's reaction. Then he heard the clatter of bones, the scrape against stone. Finally, as though coming around a corner, he saw the glowing eye sockets appear and stare directly at him.
"Dammit."