They followed a long corridor forward. Dorian took the lead after a hundred feet, squeezing past the others with his sword drawn. Mother kept Corvo close. Sometimes they came to archways carved in the rock, and overhead they saw more runes, pulsing with magic.

Corvo still felt nothing except a chilly draft.

At a sharp bend they came to a staircase that led deeper below ground. Dorian sank slowly as he went first, his head bobbing until the angle of the roof became such that Corvo could no longer see him.

Mother waited.

“There’s a door,” Dorian’s voice echoed back.

“Don’t touch it,” Aletheia said. She descended slowly after him. “It might be trapped.”

Corvo went to follow Aletheia, naturally, but Mother’s grip stopped him. She held him in place until Aletheia had also vanished from sight.

“What do you think?” Dorian said.

“It’s hard to tell. But I don’t think so.” Aletheia’s voice echoed up the steps. “It’s okay. You can come down.”

They proceeded, until soon the ground leveled again and the door came into view.

It was the door of a vault, made of black steel and spanning the whole length of the corridor. Runes ran up and down its sides. It had no threshold or gap or hinges that could be seen. At its top, at both sides, carved heads of horses gazed down on the party, and at its center, where might have been a lock or lever at chest-level, was instead the head of a lion.

Its mouth was open and roaring. It was cast from the same dark iron as the door behind it, and its two top feline fangs glinted silver in the magelight.

They were not fangs.

They were daggers.

Corvo wondered if the head were alive. Like if he came too close it might finish its yawn and bite at him. The facsimile was not realistic—it had no eyes and was clearly a statue. But he felt a tingle of terror when he looked at it anyway.

“I think it’s a door, anyway,” Dorian said. “What else would it be?”

“A trial,” Mother said. “But one can resemble the other, should circumstances permit.”

She nodded to Aletheia, and with that gesture the women exchanged guard on Corvo; Aletheia came up behind him, smiling, and put her hands on his shoulders, while Mother stepped forward.

“What does it want?” Dorian asked.

“Is it not obvious?” Mother said.

She came to the lion’s head and stopped. Looking it over, she glanced back at Dorian.

“Explain it like I’m a child,” he said.

“There is nothing to explain.” She reached her free hand—the other held her staff, as always—up to the lion’s fangs. But she hesitated as her thumb touched the lighter-tinted steel. “Not more than what Deror told us already.”

“A stupid child,” Dorian said.

Mother gazed into the lion’s eyes. “In the time of the Old Kingdom, a magician was more than he is today. There were no rogue sorcerers such as us. He could be trusted, and he was. I have seen trials such as this before. What it wants—is proof of our status.”

“She means blood,” Aletheia said. “A magician’s blood. That’s why Deror needed us. More than just because he couldn’t come here himself.”

“Precisely.”

Mother pulled her thumb down the length of the fang. She hissed in pain and pulled her hand away, but it was done already; a droplet ran down the steel blade, and it gathered on the fang before dropping into the lion’s mouth.

Mother stepped back.

Corvo saw nothing. Nothing seemed to be happening. But he strained against Aletheia. He wanted to go grab Mother. He didn’t know what he could do, but he expected the lion to come alive, and only he would be fast enough to make the difference. He was certain something terrible was about to happen.

Dorian glanced around them.

“You’re wrong,” he said. “It didn’t work.”

“It worked,” Aletheia said, and she tightened her grip on Corvo.

Suddenly the lion’s mouth closed. Not in the manner of a real cat, but like a piece of machinery, its top and bottom drawing loudly together with the sound of scraping steel. The eyes of the horses at the door’s top had been empty, eerie and lifeless, but now they ignited with violet fire.

Silence followed, for a moment. Then, the door moved.

The earth shook. The ground rumbled. Corvo’s eardrums nearly shattered as screeching echoed around him, as slowly, very slowly, the vault door twisted around itself, pulling itself to the wall.

A black chamber was revealed beyond. The door had no track or mechanism but slid itself across the ground like something with a million tiny, invisible legs, until at last the noise stopped, and it came to a halt against the left wall.

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A light came on in the chamber. A circular vault was revealed.

And at its center, a lion stood.

It cocked its head at them.

Corvo had never seen a male lion. The depictions of lions in Veshod and other places were always the Lioness, Leaina, and thus always female. He recognized it only from a story book he had read at Castle Erod, by its mane.

Yet although he was no expert, he was certain that this was not a normal lion.

Its mane was made of leaf-shaped panels of bronze. They sparkled in the light and flared from its neck in a dense panoply. Its head was of the same black steel as the vault’s door, angular and cold. The muscles down its legs were not muscles at all, but metal, and its joints were articulated like a well-made toy’s. The tail that swept back and forth behind it was like a roll of forged iron, and when it opened its mouth, its fangs were just as the statue on the door’s: not fangs, but steel daggers, sharp and deadly.

Its eyes flickered purple. Runes stretched across its body like tattoos. And beneath its neck, glowing bright enough to cast a red light on the ground, was a sanguine gem—long and wide, like a heart showing through its metal skin.

It took a step toward them.

Aletheia grabbed Corvo and tugged him up the first few steps. He fought against her, but that was no use; he could only protest.

“Mama!” he shouted.

But she didn’t seem to hear. She raised a hand and regarded the metal lion, saying, “Come no farther.”

The lion stopped.

Aletheia stopped, too. She wrapped her arm around Corvo’s chest and whispered, “It’s okay. Mother knows what she’s doing. Be calm. I’m calm, aren’t I?”

He shook his head. Goblins, trolls, and bandits were scary, but they were nothing compared to what he felt seeing this lion. A primal fear gripped him—the fear of predation, of being eaten alive. He had never felt anything like it before.

He cried. But the adults stayed still.

“Do you speak, construct?” Mother said to the lion, in Regal.

The lion regarded her. And it nodded.

“We have come to retrieve things of value from this vault, and to release you from service. You will allow us to do so freely.”

“Yes, Your Eminence,” said the lion.

The party recoiled. Even Mother, who was always calm when confronting danger, cringed backward at the hissing, grating bass. When it spoke, its mouth did not move, but the red gem at its chest blinked in time with its words. The voice seemed to issue from its mane.

“You will permit us entrance?” she said.

“The plebians are not authorized,” roared the lion

“Plebians?” Dorian said.

“He means you,” Aletheia said. “And Corvo.”

“Much has changed since your task was given to you,” Mother said. “Do you know how long it has been? When was this vault last accessed?”

“It has been three thousand, seven hundred, and twenty-one years,” the lion said.

“Thus you see the laws of the Magisters have changed. The plebians are now authorized. I have come to decommission you, for we no longer have use of your service.”

The lion stared at her. It said nothing, like it was stuck, like it was thinking but could not make up its mind.

Then it nodded again.

“Yes, Your Eminence.”

“Good,” Mother said. “Proceed to the wall. Sit, and do nothing.”

Without acknowledgment or delay, the lion did as instructed. It went to the far end of the circular vault and sat down, like a dog, staring back at the party in silence.

Mother looked to Aletheia.

“We must remove its gem,” she said. “Help me.”

Aletheia nodded and stepped forward. “Watch him,” she said to Dorian, and she entered the room.

Corvo whined and cried again, begging her not to go, but she did anyway. Dorian was left with him.

He took tight hold of him.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked. “Killing it? It’s cooperating, isn’t it?”

“The elf wants the enchantments dispelled,” Mother said. “We have no choice.”

“And you think that the gem is related somehow?”

“Do you see some other source of power for this magic so far belowground? The gem is its battery. The barrier will fall when it is removed.” Corvo and Dorian both stepped closer to watch the scene unfold, but Mother turned to them. “Come no nearer. Stay in the corridor. We will handle this.”

Dorian took hold of Corvo and brought him back to the steps. But not looking was torture. He cried, and said, “Mama is going to get hurt. I don’t like lions.”

“Your mother will be all right,” Dorian said. “She knows what she’s doing. Just sit with me, chicklet.”

So he did, but it made no difference. He listened to the voices of the women from the vault, hearing sentences like:

“This rune must be deactivated. Tap it of its mana,” from Mother; and, “It’s enchanted. I can’t scrape it off,” from Aletheia. From the stairsteps, the lion was out of sight, but standing up again Corvo could get a better look, and he saw as Mother and Aletheia tended to the metallic creature like technicians caring for complicated machinery. They removed one piece, cast a spell, and removed another, and the lion did nothing in the meantime except answer any questions they asked.

And they did ask. Mother asked it about who had left it here, what the purpose of the vault was, and why it had remained active for so long. It replied as best it could.

“This feels wrong,” Aletheia said. “It shouldn’t let us kill it like this.”

“It is an automaton,” Mother said. “Like the guardian of the manaforge. It cannot think for itself. It must do as commanded.”

“The guardian of the manaforge tried to step on us,” Aletheia said.

“Circumstances are different. But I think—its core is nearly drained. It knows the end is near. It no longer has the will to resist us. Be grateful,” Mother grunted as she removed a plate on the lion’s chest, “that it is so docile.” She sighed as the metal clattered to the ground. “I am more curious why the Magisters chose the form of their protector here to be a lion here, and not something larger.”

Aletheia considered this. “A lion was the only thing that fit through the corridor.”

Corvo relaxed at the sound Mother and Aletheia conversing so calmly, but only slightly. He slowly inched his way toward the door to get a better look of the proceedings.

And as time went, Dorian let him. They both drifted closer to the vault door, to the invisible threshold between the corridor and the vault, until he could poke his head across it and see all clearly.

But when he reached the door, he came too close to the wall. The magelight following him was centered, and for a moment his own shadow was cast along the underground rock to his side.

Corvo looked at it for just long enough to see.

His shadow was not his shadow. It was something hunch-backed, broad, and of a totally different shape.

An arm raised up to the shadow’s mouth, and a finger was brought to its featureless lips.

He screamed and stumbled inside the vault. Around him he saw shelves of books like the library of Keraz; he saw artifacts lining shelves; he saw countless piles of coins and much more treasure besides, all circling around him like the stars arising at night.

Dorian shouted, “Corvo! Get back here!”

But he didn’t care. He went straight to Mother. She turned and shook her head, saying, “Corvo, you must not—”

But that was all he heard. Because the moment Corvo reached the room’s center, the lion roared.

It locked its purple eyes on him and stood. With a single bat of its hand, it hit Aletheia in the chest and sent her flying toward the far wall; she landed at a shelf and toppled to the ground.

It tried to do the same to Mother, but she used a spell and vanished—and reappeared behind Corvo.

She picked him up and pulled him backward.

“Desist!” she said to the lion. “Stop at once! I am a Magister! I command you to halt!”

But the lion did not halt. Instead it stalked toward them, one shoulder at a time, swaying like a predator. And its eyes never left Corvo.

“A non-human entity has breached the demonic suppression field,” it said. “Prepare for neutralization.”