“No keyhole?”
“Locked from the inside.”
“Inside? That’s creepy. Since when do dead men lock themselves into their own graves?”
“Something is alive in there,” Royce said. “I can hear it.”
Hadrian felt a chill run down his back as his mind ran through all the possibilities of what might lie beyond the door. Who knew what the ancients could have placed in their tombs to protect their kings: ghosts, wraiths, zombie guards, stone golems?
“And you can’t open the door?”
“Haven’t found a way yet.”
“Tried knocking?”
Royce looked over his shoulder incredulously.
“What would it hurt?”
Royce’s expression eased. He thought a moment and shrugged. He stepped back and waved toward the door. “Be my guest.”
Hadrian drew his short sword and, using the butt, tapped three times on the stone. They waited. Nothing happened. He tapped three more times.
“It was worth a—”
Stone scraped as a bolt moved. Silence. A snap, then another bolt was drawn. The stone slab shuddered and shook.
Royce and Hadrian glanced nervously at each other. Hadrian handed the lantern to Royce and drew his bastard sword. Royce pushed on the door and it swung inward.
Inside, it was dark and Hadrian held up the lantern with his left hand, probing forward with his sword. The light revealed a small square room with a vaulted ceiling. At the center was a great headless statue. The walls were filled with holes filled with piles of rolled scrolls, several of which lay ripped to pieces, their remains scattered across the floor. On the far side was another stone door, closed tight. Hadrian could see large bolts holding it fast. The ground also contained clay pots, clothes, blankets, and the melted remains of burned candles. Not far away the room’s only occupant was in the process of sitting back down on his blanket. When the man turned, Hadrian recognized him immediately.
“Thranic?” Hadrian said, stunned.
Sentinel Dovin Thranic moved slowly, painfully. He was very thin. His normally pale face was drawn and ghostly white. His dark hair, which had always been so neatly combed back, hung loose in his face. His once-narrow mustache and short goatee were now a full ragged beard. He still wore his black and red silks, which were now mere shades of their former glory, torn and filthy.
The sentinel managed a strained smile as he recognized them through squinting eyes. “How loathsome that it is you that finds me.” He focused on Royce. “Come for your revenge at last, elf?”
Royce stepped forward. He looked down at Thranic and then around the room. “How could I possibly top this? Sealed alive in a tomb of rock. My only regret is that I had nothing to do with it.”
“What happened?” Hadrian asked.
Thranic coughed; it was a bad sound, as if the sentinel’s chest was ripping apart from the inside. He reclined, trying to breathe, for a moment. “Bulard went lame—the old man was a nuisance and we left him at the library. Levy—Levy was killed. Bernie ran out on me—deserted.” Thranic shifted uneasily; as he did, Hadrian noticed a bloodstained cloth wrapped his left thigh.
“How long have you been here?”
“Months,” he replied. He glanced across the room at a pile of small humanoid bones and grimaced. “I did what I must to survive.”
“Until the wound,” Hadrian added.
The sentinel nodded. “I couldn’t sneak up on them well enough anymore.”
Royce continued to stare.
“Go ahead,” Thranic told Royce. “Kill me. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over and you’ll fare no better. No one can get the horn. It’s what you came for, isn’t it? The Horn of Novron? The Horn of Gylindora? It lies through there.” He pointed at the far door. “On the other side is a large hall, the Vault of Days, which leads to the tomb of Novron itself, but you will never reach it. No one has… and no one will. Look there.” He pointed to the wall across from him, where words lay scratched. “See the EH? This is as far as Edmund Hall ever got. He turned back and escaped this vile pit, because he was smart. I stayed, thinking I could somehow solve the riddle, somehow find a way to cross the Vault of Days, but it can’t be done. We tried. Levy was the slowest—not even his body remains. Bernie wouldn’t go back in after that.”
“You stabbed him,” Royce stated.
“He refused orders. He refused to make another attempt. You found him?”
“Dead.”
Thranic showed no sign of pleasure or remorse; he merely nodded.
“What is it about this Vault of Days?” Hadrian asked. “Why can’t you cross it?”
“Look for yourself.”
Hadrian started across the room and Thranic stopped him. “Let the elf do it. What can you hope to see in there with your human eyes?”
Royce stared at the sentinel. “So what kind of trick is this?”
“I don’t like it,” Hadrian said.
Royce stepped to the door and studied it. “Looks okay.”