The shadowy figure—the corpse of Barth—rushed towards Hina, claw-like hands extended.

She jumped back, startled. She tripped on a grave stone and fell to the soft earth of the grave with a painful thud. "Oof!" She dropped the iron poker.

Barth stepped forward towards her, then turned—facing Kai.

She frantically swept around in the grass for the poker, but she couldn't find it—there was no time to look, the knife would have to do. She scrambled to her feet. Kai and the corpse were facing one another, its hands raised against Kai's spear. Kai jabbed at it, and the thing pushed his spear point aside with one hand while stepping in to slash at him with the other. Kai yelped and hopped back, bringing the spear back into line.

Hina ran around the grave, coming at the thing from the side. There wasn't room to get behind it.

Barth turned partially to face her, but Kai kept it distracted, the spear tip darting out to jab into the thing's side. It turned back to Kai, and he stepped back, out of its reach.

With a step forward, Hina plunged her knife into the corpse's back. The blade slid into its torso with little resistance—she gagged on the stench of its rotting body.

The corpse caught her in the chest with its elbow as it half turned, the force of the blow sent Hina reeling.

She winced—she could feel the bruise beginning to form, but she wasn't seriously injured. Kai was putting too much pressure on the thing for it to be able to hit her with full force.

Kai thrust his spear, and the point connecting with the Barth's face.

Its return slash caught Kai in the ribs, fingers passing through his shirt. Kai gasped.

Knife held high, Hina ran forward and plunged her blade into the base of the thing's neck. She felt something crunch under the point of the knife, and a bitter smell filled the air.

Something shrieked, a high whining sound that hurt Hina's ears.

The corpse collapsed to the ground, leaving behind a wiggling insectile thing on the blade of Hina's knife.

The shrieking continued for half a minute and then grew quiet and stopped. The thing on the knife stopped moving.

Kai took his hands from over his ears. "Was that... it?"

"I think so?" Hina's ears were still ringing. "Let's go inside and get a better look at it."

* * *

The man—Alik—sat on the floor, once again staring into the flames of the fire. He looked up as they came in.

"Barth has been put to rest," Hina said. "Or, he's lying on top of the grave at least. He'll need to be reburied, I suppose." She held up the knife. "This was attached to him."

The firelight revealed a black, spider-like creature, the size of two fists together. Four of its twelve limbs were thin and twice as long others. All of them ended in sharp tips. It was segmented and covered in coarse dark hair. It didn't have eyes or a mouth or anything else that Hina would have expected to find.

She held it away from her body, her knife at arms-length. Thick grey ichor oozed from the wound in its center.

"I... what?" Alik's face went pale as his eyes took in the corpse of the creature. "Where did you... find that?"

"It was on his body—attached to his neck," Hina said. "Some kind of parasite?" She leaned down and pushed the body off of her knife with the end of the iron poker, which she'd found again in the grass after the fight.

It fell to the floor, a dark and dead thing.

"But..."

"We've helped solve your problem," Kai said. "You mentioned treasure?" He had his spear resting against his shoulder.

"And you said you'd help us find the way out," Hina added.

"Right... Of course," Alik said. "I—I suppose you have resolved the problem. A puppeteer..." He shook his head. "I'd—I'd never have guessed."

"You've seen them before?" Hina asked.

"Oh yes." He rose to his feet. "But the boy is right—I promised a reward. I—I will not go back on my word."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Alik took three steps away from the door, then crouched on the floor. He lifted one of the weathered floorboards before fishing something out of his pocket and reaching down into the hole. There was an audible click. The man replaced the floorboard, and moved to the corner where he lifted a sizable section of boards up—a hatch. "Please, follow me," he said.

Hina glanced at Kai, who nodded. They followed Alik down a short flight of narrow stairs and along a corridor, and then right at a four-way intersection. There was no mist, but otherwise the path reminded Hina of the corridors they'd come through to get here.

Alik led them to a square room with a ladder leading down. "Ah, yes." He began to climb down it. "This way," he said, as he moved out of sight.

The room below was a chapel of some sort—four rows of pews before a raised platform and an altar, and high arched ceilings. There were no windows, but the room was lit by the same sourceless light that had been everywhere except the shack and the graveyard itself.

A wooden box sat on top of the stone altar, which was little more than a rectangular slab of stone. As Alik moved down the aisle and approached the box, Hina caught a glimpse of something moving under his ponytail.

Hina grabbed Kai's arm and pointed while Alik fiddled with the lock on the chest.

The lock clicked open, and Alik lifted the lid of the chest. "Here we are. I'm afraid it's not much, but it's all I have. Please take it... take it and go."

"Thank-you," Hina said. She moved around the other side of the table.

The chest contained an assortment of small items—a silver bell, a gold coin and a brown leather bag.

"Gold and silver," Kai said. "But not much."

"Take it, with my thanks. I must... I must return to my work," Alik said. "When you're done, come and find me. I'll... show you the way out."

"Of course," Hina said. "Thank you."

Alik vanished up the ladder. A scraping sound followed.

"What?" Kai whispered. "What just happened?"

"I think... I think he had one of those things on his neck," Hina whispered back.

"Do we—do we kill it?"

"I'm not sure."

"We should help, shouldn't we? He needs help—that's what we're here for—that's the trial."

Hina paused then nodded slowly. "Okay... When we go back up, we can try it."

Kai picked up the gold coin then flipped it into the air, watching it sparkle, then passed it to Hina.

It was heavy, about the length of her little finger across and thin. On one side, the weathered face of a bald man, frowning. On the other, a nine pointed star in a circle.

"Shiny," she said, passing it back. "You hold on to it for now."

The leather bag looked like a purse but bigger, and it clinked when Hina picked it up. It had a belt loop and a draw string that she pulled open with her fingers.

Inside were a bunch of shiny metal stones, black and about the size of Hina's thumb to the knuckle. "Huh." She picked one out—it was heavier than it looked.

"Oh, interesting." Kai took one and held it up to his eye. "Hang on to those, for sure."

Hina wasn't sure how they'd be useful, but maybe they could sell them later. She untied her belt and threaded it through the pouch, so it would sit opposite her purse, on her hip to the right. It pulled her belt down a little, but not so much that it was uncomfortable. It was lighter than Hina thought it should be, given the weight of the stones individually.

A high, keening chime rang out as Kai lifted the silver bell. The sound of it echoed in Hina's head, a heavy and oppressive note that drowned out everything else in a painful cloud of noise.

"Don't—don't do that." Hina groaned. "Don't do that again."

Kai had a pained look on his face. "What—what was that?" He set the bell down on the table again, movements careful to avoid ringing it again.

"I don't—has that been there the whole time?" There was a door set into the wall behind the altar, nearly the same colour as the stone-work, but it was unmistakeablely a door. There was no way she could have missed it earlier, was there?

"No." Kai sounded unsure. "No, that wasn't here before. Was it?"

"Did the bell do that?" Hina picked it up off the table, carefully holding the ringer away from the edges of the bell. It was the width of two fingers together and made from slightly tarnished silver, with a ring at the top so it could be hung from a hook or a string. The face was carved with tiny letters in a language that Hina didn't know, all sharp angles and curves. "Grab me the string?"

"You think it makes doors?" He shook his head. "String's still in your bag, I think."

"Right." Hina carefully set the bell down on the table. She took off her bag and fished out the string, then cut a short length. She wrapped several layers around the bell ringer, then tied it off. Wincing in anticipation, she tilted the bell.

It didn't make a sound.

"Safe now, I think." Hina put the bell away into her bag, along with the bundle of string, and slung her bag back over her shoulder. "I don't think it makes doors, no. But maybe it reveals them?"

"Hmm. That could be useful."

Hina pushed on the center of the door, and then when it didn't move, tried pulling the recessed handle on the right hand side. The door swung open to reveal another corridor that stretched off into the distance.

"Hina," Kai said. "Where is the ladder?"

It was gone. Even the hole in the roof through which they'd climbed down was gone, the only sign that it had ever been there was a handful of scratches on the stone wall.

"Alik must have locked us in here..." Hina said.

"But why?"

"I think," she said slowly. "I think he's one of those things. There was something moving on his neck." She shuddered. "I think he's keeping us here for later."

"Or he's afraid of us. We did kill the other one. But I bet he doesn't know about this door." Kai patted it. "Let's see where it goes."

The hidden door clicked shut when Hina pulled it closed behind her, and they walked up the corridor. Hina's legs were stiff and aching, but the further they walked away from where Alik had left them, the better.

"Do you think we did it?" Kai said, after they had been walking a while.

"Did what?"

"You know—the trial—did we win?"

"If that's what it was," Hina said. "I don't know. We got some treasure—the gold coin has got to be worth a lot. It could buy a whole house in Grambe, maybe even a few houses."

"Oh, yeah. Maybe we could buy a pack beast to carry all of our stuff."

"Do you know how to look after a pack beast?"

"How hard can it be?"

Around a bend, the corridor ended. Through a doorway to the side at the end of the passage, there was a small round room, with an oversized ladder set into the wall.