Prologue
A crackling sound echoed through the quiet dread of the night. Ermes had stepped on a broken branch. Ilyon’s heart skipped a beat. He looked around, waving his torch to see if the sound attracted anyone. When he did not see any movement he continued moving toward the previously planned place.
He should have been relieved at this apparent absence of movement. However, it filled him with a sense of uncertainty that he had never felt in all his years of grave robbing. The surrounding was eerily stagnant. Even the green foliage around them had stopped swaying to the soft music of night wind as they closed near the crypt that Waul, their scout, had recently discovered. It was as if the mere presence of the structure affected the entire forest.
Despite his misgivings, Ilyon moved forward. He was too experienced to let his feelings affect the job. And it was too late to back away now. They had spent a lot of time and effort to gather information and secure this place. Who knows if he would ever get another chance if he let it go today. He was determined to find the hidden treasure trove stashed somewhere under the vast forest.
After a few minutes of walking, he heard a shrieking noise of metal hitting rock. “I will kill you if you make another sound,” he whispered, looking back at Ermes.
The soft rays of moonlight lit his companion’s face brightly; something Ilyon thought might haunt even his worst nightmares. Ermes’ face was displeasure to eyes on any normal day, but it was revolting now. He hoped to get done with the entire deal quickly and get back to the sweet confines of his bed. Ignoring the fool, he quickened his steps. At last, after what felt forever, they reached the marked area.
“Come on, you fool, dig up,” he barked quietly at Ermes, who had yet to catch up. After several excruciating hours, they had finally made the pass way into the crypt.
The glow from his torch illuminated the dark and dusty stone walls. He could hear Ermes’ footsteps over the cackling of fire.
The crypt was larger than expected. It looked like it could shelter plenty of bodies. The task of finding chambers that were filled with gold seemed almost impossible. If his experience taught him anything, the white hair on his head and wrinkles formed in his skin were a testament to that, nothing was impossible. There were no hidden passages that he couldn’t breach. As if guided by his instinct Ilyon moved. At last, he entered a chamber farthest away from the pass way.
What greeted him was not hoards of gold, as Waul had promised. He had stumbled on what looked like junk. Not wanting to let the excursion go to waste, Ilyon went to the item nearest to the entrance, an old pot, and brought his torch near it to examine it. The light seemed to have triggered something in the artefact, for the previously dull earthly pot was surrounded by a glimmer and was glowing a shade of red that he had never seen.
This was better than he had expected. Not wanting to waste even a minute, he called Ermes and pushed him inside the chamber. “Fill whatever you can reach and carry. If you slack off, I will make sure that is the last thing you dare to do in your entire life,” he said as he took his own sack. “Remember my words. Now scram and fill those sacks.”
Ermes followed his instruction without any complaint, as he was trained. It was not until he saw a peculiar item did Ilyon stop in his zealous attempt to fit as much treasure in his sack as possible.
On the far wall of the chamber, there was a bronze statue of a strange figure. The more he looked the more familiar the image looked. He had seen it before, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t recall where and what the statue was. Intrigued, he went up to the statue. Only then he saw the jar hidden behind the statue.
The jar was filled with opaque liquid that moved around the glass jar like a smoky vapour, a sight that was bizarre to even his standard, enclosed inside it was a bright crystal. One of the biggest and clear crystals he had seen in all his years. Ilyon grabbed the jar without a moment’s hesitation and wrapped it with a piece of cloth lying nearby. After properly securing it he searched around the place in hopes of finding more such jewels.
He was so lost in this treasure that Ilyon forgot about Ermes. When he turned back he did not see the other man and crashed into him. Ermes’ stature was not small by any means, and Ilyon felt the passage of time now more than ever. He was on the floor before he realized what had happened. But that was not the worst thing, at least in his opinion.
The crystal jar touched the ground just moments after Ilyon’s fall. The glass jar shattered, letting out the liquid-gas. The previously dull crystal started to glow brighter by minute until it resembled a lit torch. Added to this was the sudden humming and thrumming that came from the crystal. Ilyon had never seen such as thing.
A sense of dread slowly started to rise in his heart.
“Don’t stand there and gawk at that thing. Help me up,” he said, looking at a dumbstruck Ermes. As Ermes helped him up he continued, “We have to leave this place. Now!”
Before they could make it to the entrance of the chamber, a blinding light attracted Ilyon’s attention. Despite his efforts to ignore it, he turned back. What Ilyon saw after getting up was not something he could explain with words. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he never ever got a chance to even try.
The crypt that housed hundreds of chambers and bodies had two new residents that night as one of its chambers collapsed on itself.
Even from the rubbles of the collapsed chamber, the glow was visible.
