Varhola
Synopsis
"Swords of Kos: Necropolis" is a swords-and-sorcery novel set on the Aegean island of Kos. It follows the adventures of Paros, a streetwise rogue with a penchant for alchemy, Parthenia, a savage female Elf barbarian, and Selene, a priestess of the outlawed Titan moon goddess, as they brave the hazards of a long-abandoned cemetery and the catacombs that lie beneath it. Dangerous though the hazards and supernatural guardians of this place are, an even greater threat might be the Necropolis itself ...
Excerpt
Chapter 1
Paros could only venture a guess as to how many graves the forsaken burial ground in the little valley before him contained. North to south it ran about a half mile and, from where he stood beside the wrought iron fence that zigzagged along its eastern edge, it stretched about a quarter mile to the edge of hills that surrounded it. The rolling, broken ground of this unkempt area was heavily overgrown with grass, vines, copses of scrubby little oaks and brushy gray-green juniper, great clumps of flowers in every color, and probably every other sort of vegetation native to the island of Kos. Obelisks, statues of patron deities, and other stones marking the gravesites of families and individuals lay broken and tumbled amongst the rampant growth, and mausoleums of every size were interspersed throughout.
Paros did not know the extent to which the place had been looted over the century since it was last known to have been used but there were undoubtedly hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of graves that had not yet been pillaged. And they were not even the object of his quest: That he could see halfway up one of the hills at the other end of the necropolis, a small, columned temple of black marble. And there was no telling what else might be hidden within this wild, desolate place ...
The young rogue glanced over at his companion and regarded her briefly, reflecting upon the sort of woman he was attracted to. Parthenia looked like a bronze statue of an idealized Amazon come to life, with a lean compact frame, small high breasts, buttocks like an unripe peach, and lithe rippling muscles covered with numerous obscure tribal tattoos. Her narrow, lozenge-shaped Elven face was pierced by two sharp, violet eyes and marked with streaks of warpaint and her white-blond hair was matted into long, coarse locks. She wore a coat of leather armor reinforced with metal studs and in her slim, strong hands carried a powerful Elven longbow, an arrow nocked and ready to be drawn and loosed. Across her back was slung a greatsword with an improbably slim steel blade that was nearly as long as she was tall. She was the wildest, most savage Elf he had ever seen, and had made her way to island Kos after the mainland forest hamlet where her barbaric clan dwelled had been overrun by the Hobgoblins of the local warlord.
Yes, Paros knew what he liked in a woman … and this wasn’t it. Even had she been, he certainly was not her type, and if Parthenia wasn’t simply a Sapphite then she was something even more extreme and unapproachable, a true spiritual daughter of Artemis. He felt no desire for her at all but was fairly certain that he stood to lose any appendage that he might allow to give her offense.
Just as well … He was easily distracted by the sort of woman he liked most, the quintessential woman of metropolitan Kos, dark haired, at once bright as a summer day and cool as a twilit evening, soft and inviting and talented and fragrant as a cup of wine … If a woman like that was with him he wouldn’t get a damn thing done and he knew it. So, to the extent that Parthenia was not his feminine ideal, it was to everyone’s advantage.
He liked her, of course, more than any other potential adventuring companion he knew — and had more confidence in her than any other as well. He recalled that night at the Four Winds Bar in Kos city some months back, when she was one of two drunken sword swingers whose friends had wagered drinks as who would be able to make the biggest cut in the piling of a ruined dock out by the beach.
Reddog, the young human mercenary soldier who faced her in this contest, stood a foot and a half taller, probably weighed twice what she did, and wielded a massive hand-and-a-half sword that he was able to manage in one hand. When he took his turn, however, he choked up on the grip with both hands, and yelled a battle cry as he brought his blade cleaving down at an angle into the eighteen-inch-thick piling. His blow hacked out a six-inch deep fissure in the wood.
When Parthenia took her turn, however, she howled in a paroxysm of self-induced rage, leapt into the air and spun around in a full circle, and brought her greatsword down onto the piling well below where Reddog’s weapon had struck. Shards of wood had exploded in every direction as her weapon struck the timber, ripping straight through it and splitting it in two at an angle. Maybe she had just gotten lucky, and maybe Reddog’s blow had just weakened the integrity of log, but Paros didn’t think so … With his own keen-edged shortsword he knew that he could get lucky all day and never be able to chop in half a piece of wood as thick as his forearm was long. Parthenia was, admittedly, not worth much the rest of the night, and after drinking a flagon of wine that was proffered by someone who had bet on her and won she had passed out under one of the crusty dunes. Paros had draped his cloak over her and watched over her until dawn and knew that she would be the one he approached about accompanying him next time he had a big scheme he wanted to undertake.
Just a few weeks ago the seeds of that plan had been born in his mind while going through old cemetery records in the library of the Dream Temple of Hippocrates (access to which had been arranged by the priestess Sacroilia, his lover of the moment, a lean, hawk-faced woman several years his senior who was almost as unlike his feminine ideal as Parthenia but with whom he was nonetheless engaged in an enjoyable tryst). It was there that Paros had discovered records for the necropolis that bore the hopeful name of Elysion, once an exclusive burying ground for the cream of Koan society. If what he had read was correct, the sprawling necropolis had been unused this past century since the great cataclysm that had destroyed the civilized world; many of the families that had once buried their dead their did not even exist anymore, and people were more inclined to venerate those who had been annihilated in the disaster or died since it than to pay any mind to the generations that had perished before it.
And so any of the wonderful and valuable things those forgotten peoples had had buried with them might still be there … It was certainly possible, almost a certainty that other robbers had stumbled on the necropolis and looted some or even much of it, but he had never heard of such a place being discovered and exploited, so that spoke against it being widely known.
Now, a firsthand look at the necropolis revealed the truth of much of what Paros had read about it. He noted, for example, the placement of the largest and most elaborate tombs and cenotaphs upon the highest and most attractive spots which, he recalled, had been claimed by the most prominent families, leaving less desirable ones to less influential clans. Paros could also clearly see the chaotic nature of the place, which corresponded to the flow and features of the natural terrain rather than any prevailing central organization; pockets of the place had been laid out on grids, circles, or other patterns, but much of this had been undone or obscured by a century of wild growth and decay. At some point — some centuries after people had begun using the place as a burial ground and perhaps a hundred years before Paros and Parthenia arrived at it — the priests of Hades Polydegmon, “He Who Receives Many,” arrived and built the dark hillside temple and began to adapt the caves beneath it into catacombs. They were said to have invoked the power of their dread deity in their labors and to have made it into a compelling representation of the underworld. And, beyond the innumerable relatively modest graves and mausoleums, these extensive subterranean catacombs were the true gem of the place and were said to have been among the largest and richest known to the people of Kos.
“That is what we’re here for,” Paros said to Parthenia in a low voice as he pointed toward the black marble structure that loomed over the necropolis. It had only taken about four hours for the two of them to make their way up into the wooded hills of Kos and, although they were now somewhat less than six miles southwest of the bustling capital city, there was no sign of habitation or activity. It was only a little past noon and the rogue was eager to begin exploring the funereal edifice.
Parthenia nodded and began moving north along the fence line, toward what looked like a gate. While it was by no means in perfect shape, the fence was nonetheless still largely intact, and there did not seem to be any easy way to slip through its bars. The two of them probably could have clambered over the top fairly easily, but what was the point? The wide, iron-barred double gate was closed but not locked and — after confirming that it did not appear to be trapped or in any other way suspicious — the rogue opened it with a loud, prolonged creak.
Bow in hand, Parthenia stepped through the gate onto the grounds of the necropolis. As Paros came up beside her, he could see that she had narrowed her almondine eyes and was scanning the broken, overgrown ground that surrounded them. Good; keeping them alive was her primary job and he was glad to see that she was doing it.
Rather than head in the direction of the hillside temple, the Elven woman instead bore to their left and moved toward a mausoleum a bit less than a hundred feet inside the gates. Upon reaching it, she clambered up a plant-choked embankment, which had built up along one side of the structure, and onto its peaked roof. Following her, Paros could see that she was trying to improve upon their limited visibility and gain a better sense for the lay of the land.
Paros remained silent while Parthenia scanned the desolate burial ground for hazards, taking the opportunity to peruse the area for especially promising-looking sites for them to investigate. All at once, Parthenia held up her hand to silence him or arrest his actions, somewhat extraneously in that he was not doing very much and was managing to do so pretty quietly already. She then tapped on one of her own ears and pointed to the west.
Turning an ear toward the direction the barbarian Elf had indicated, Paros strained to hear for himself whatever she had apparently detected. And then he heard it too … Low, and probably at least a few hundred yards distant and somewhere out of sight in the overgrown area before them, the rogue could make out rough, guttural voices that seemed to be barking commands of some sort. He could not make out any words, however, or even know what language was being spoken.
After conferring briefly, the two companions agreed that it would be best to determine who else might be in this place with them before exploring it any further. Accordingly, they descended from the mausoleum and began stealthily picking their way over the rough ground toward the sound, moving around piles of crumbling masonry and through the alleys that lay between the irregular rows of overgrown funereal edifices. The voices grew incrementally louder as they advanced toward them and presently had added to them a “chuff-chuff-chuff” noise that they agreed could have been the sound of someone digging in the ground.
By the time they had gone about three hundred yard west by northwest, Paros and Parthenia had reached a low, thickly-vegetated embankment and it seemed that the voices emanated from directly behind it. Cautioning Paros to remain silent, Parthenia crept carefully up the side of the mound and, as she neared its crest, slowly raised her head to peer over it.
What she saw were eight humanoids, four each of two different sorts. Laboring away with shovels and picks about twenty yards from her were four short, bow-legged men with long arms and flat, brick-colored faces. They appeared to be digging a broad hole, somewhat more than five feet across in a washed-out area above which an eight-foot tall obelisk leaned precipitously. She recognized these grim little creatures as Goblins.
Some ten yards beyond the Goblins she saw four large, muscular, gray-skinned men with fleshy faces and broad, piggy noses lounging in the shadow of a mausoleum and periodically barking some instruction to the little laborers. At least three of them were armored to one extent or another and Parthenia could see an array of heavy, ugly weapons scattered amongst them. These, by all accounts, were Orcs or Half Orcs and, if they were anything like the majority of their kind, they were presumably as mean and dangerous as they were ugly.
Parthenia slipped back down the embankment to Paros and reported to him what she had seen, and the two of them agreed that the humanoids were searching for loot, whether in general or for something in particular.
“But what are they doing out in the middle of the day?” Paros asked quietly, glancing up at the early afternoon sun. “Aren’t both Orcs and Goblins nocturnal?”
“Well, sometimes we do things at night,” Parthenia whispered back with a shrug. “So, it figures that sometimes they might do things during the day.”
Paros nodded slowly in agreement but did not seem satisfied.
“Yeah, it makes sense that they can … ” he said. “But why are they?”
Parthenia shrugged again. “I think we should kill them. We don’t want them skulking around and giving us trouble later. We can take out two of them by surprise and that will only leave one for each of us to finish off.”
Cautious Paros squirmed a bit at this rash suggestion. “Even if we succeed in killing two of them right off I don’t like the odds of going toe-to-toe with two Orcs …” he said. “And you’re just talking about the Orcs, right? You’re assuming the Goblins won’t just jump in and help them.” He had a chilling vision of one of the ugly little men axing him in the spine with a shovel even as he grappled with one of the hulking Orcs.
Parthenia reluctantly consented to defer killing anything for the time being. Both of them also agreed that it would be too risky to try to sneak around to the other side of where the Orcs were located to see if there were any more of them nearby and so they both crept off as quietly as they could northward, toward the dusky temple.
Chapter 2
“We should find a place to sleep tonight …” Paros said cautiously once they had gone several hundred yards from the Orc excavation through the overgrown cemetery. “Do you think it’s going to rain?” As a city dweller he generally cared little whether it rained or not and had no capacity for being able to tell if it was or was not likely to, but he knew Parthenia was skilled at all manner of wilderness lore.
She glanced up at the bright, nearly cloudless blue sky before answering him. “It’s rained the past couple of nights and feels the same today as it has for the past few,” she said. “I expect it’ll probably rain about an hour or so sometime before dawn.”
Other than the dark temple itself, there did not seem to be much more than mausoleums to choose from for places to expropriate for shelter, but there were certainly plenty of these, and so they started searching for an appropriate one, far enough from where they had seen the Orcs that they would not likely bump into them again and close enough to the temple that they could easily reach it at will. Before long, they found a suitable little stone building tucked into a woody ravine alongside the hill and well away from the nearest main pathway. This structure was about ten feet wide and fifteen feet long and had a single large, stone bier in the middle of it. The skeletal remains of its inhabitant had been scattered around the tomb, along with sticks and leaves that had been blown in through the open doors, dung deposited by some animal that had laired there, and other debris.
While Parthenia kept watch and scouted around the immediate area for anything of note, the fastidious Paros fashioned a makeshift broom from a tree branch and some dry clump grass and then proceeded to thoroughly sweep out all the debris and make the place suitable for habitation. He then examined the bronze-framed wooden doors to see whether they could be secured against intruders. They was not equipped for a bar — the dead generally not needing to keep people out of their final resting places — but he figured he could tie the handles shut so as to slow down or dissuade anyone who might try to get in, in the unlikely event that should happen.
A shelter secured, Paros and Parthenia decided to make use of the remaining hours of daylight and at least scout out the temple. A broad, rugged pathway, probably once suitable for carts, curved up the side of the hill toward it and opened onto a small meadow that looked as if it had once been a flagstone-covered plaza. At the far end of this open area lay the ominous temple, a classical edifice of black marble that had big Corinthian columns along its north, south, and east sides, its western end being built into the side of the hill. Within the perimeter of columns was a paved porch that surrounded a rectangular stone building that appeared to be about thirty feet wide and sixty feet long. A pair of large bronze doors, green with age and each about five feet wide and perhaps twice that high, were set into the eastern wall and, above them, a sculpture of a ram’s skull in black marble adorned the wall. The righthand door was ajar and opened outward toward them a couple of feet, revealing a bar of darkness beyond it.
Paros and Parthenia advanced carefully toward the entryway and, as they came within about ten feet of it, stopped and carefully listened for any sound of activity from within. Then, while the warrior kept watch, the rogue searched the perimeter of the temple, paying special attention to the door for anything notable (traps being foremost in his mind). Satisfied that there were no hazards for them to be concerned about, Paros pulled open the right-hand door while Parthenia stood partially behind the closed left-hand one, ready to draw and loose an arrow at any foes that might await them.
Light filtered down into the room from narrow, bronze-grilled clerestory windows that pierced the wall about fifteen feet above the level of the floor, dimly revealing a long, dusty hall scattered with leaves, the remains of dead birds, and other debris. Along each opposing wall and at about ten foot intervals from one other stood four man-sized statues, eight altogether, each upon its own three-foot-tall stone pedestal. At the western end of the hall, the end that was built into the side of the hill, they could see a wide, dark doorway.
Cautiously, Paros stepped into the temple, followed by Parthenia, and walked up to the nearest statue. It was cast in bronze and of a handsome, well-formed young man who cradled in one arm a baby-sized person and held in the other a staff that had twin serpents intertwined around its head. A funeral shroud was draped over its head and shoulders, a light helmet decorated with a pair of small wings adorned its head, and its feet were shod in sandals that were also decorated with small wings. A small dish-like space for offerings, stained with ash, was built into the edge of the pedestal.
“Hermes Psychopompos, Conveyor of Souls!” Paros said excitedly. He was a passionate student of art, architecture, and religion and believed that he could benefit from applying these areas of knowledge to ventures like the one he was currently involved in. “It is in this aspect that Lord Hermes escorts the dead to the gates of the underworld.” (As a thief, Paros felt a certain affinity for Hermes, especially in his aspect as a cunning trickster, and, while he had not prayed or made offerings to him to any excess, he had done so more than for any other deity.)
Parthenia shrugged, keeping her eyes peeled for any possible threat that might materialize from the dark opening at the end of the hall, and it was clear that she didn’t care one way or another about the statue. To Paros, however, any detail might be relevant in unlocking the mysteries of this place and in securing the riches it contained.
Paros walked across the hall to the statue opposite the one of Hermes and noted, as with the other he had looked at, that its pedestal included a small space for offerings. This bronze statue was of a bearded, severe-looking man arrayed in rich-looking robes who wore upon his head a large crown emblazoned with the symbol of a ram’s skull. This, he knew, was dark Hades, King of the Underworld, and the spiritual ruler of this place. He shuddered a bit and averted his gaze from the figure’s dark, brooding eyes.
Paros proceeded to examine the rest of the statues while Parthenia kept watch. Three seemed to be of a type, clad in regal clothing and with crowns on their heads, and from the iconography he identified one as Minos, King of Crete, one of the three Judges of the Dead, and another as Aeacus, King of Aegina, another one of the judges; he could not identify the third or remember the name of the remaining judge but assumed that the statue must represent him. The final male figure was of a muscular, bearded man clad only in a lion skin and resting upon a large club.
“Herakles,” he thought to himself, remembering that the monster slayer was said to be one of the few beings ever to have entered the underworld and then returned from it. Hermes, he thought, would probably not begrudge him paying some obeisance to this demigod if he was so inclined …
The final two statues in the hall were of female figures. One was a beautiful young, robed woman, a metal pomegranate in her outstretched hand. “Persephone, Queen of the Dead,” he thought, recalling the story of the young goddess who had been abducted by Hades and become trapped in his domain after consuming fruit that had been grown there.
The other female statue, however, baffled and even somewhat disquieted him and was of a three-faced woman clad in robes of an archaic cut. Classical sculpture was intended to depict ideal aspects of the human form so the intent of this one somewhat baffled and even revolted him a little — although he would not have been impious or rash enough to say so out loud — and he did not know of any three-faced goddesses and was at a loss as to who it might be meant to represent.
By this time the duo had reached the far end of the hallway and the ten-foot-wide opening in its western wall. In the darkness beyond it they could see a small, ten foot square chamber and, at its far end, a broad stairway descending into the darkness. Standing quietly and listening for what the region below might contain, they heard a trickling sound like that of flowing water.
The sound of feet scraping and equipment rustling outside the temple prompted them to turn and face the partially opened door; Parthenia raised her bow and drew the nocked arrow back to her ear, aiming it toward the illuminated opening, and Paros skulked over to the nearest statue, hiding behind it, unlimbering the crossbow from his back, and readying the weapon for an unseen sneak shot at whatever might enter the hall.
The figure that stepped gingerly through the open doorway was clad in a suit of armor consisting of iron scales sewn onto an undercoat of leather and carried a heavy, spiked club in one hand and a large wooden shield upon its other arm. Upon the shield was the image of a white crescent moon upon an indigo field.
“Selene!” cried Parthenia joyfully, lowering her bow and moving quickly toward the newcomer. Paros stepped out from behind the statue of the three-faced woman and lowered his crossbow as the two women embraced each other in greeting. Selene was a priestess devoted to the worship of the pre-Olympian moon goddess Phoebe, one of the Titans whose worship was outlawed, and the crescent that most people would take as a symbol of Artemis, virgin Goddess of the Hunt, instead represented a much older being (albeit a great aunt or some such in the family tree of the gods).
Selene was similar in appearance to Parthenia in many ways and was clearly of Elven descent, although was just as clearly not of pure blood and equally Human. Paros observed that she was somewhat more buxom than Parthenia but had the same ratty blonde hair and rural mannerisms. And when she heard the Half-Elf woman talking over the meal they broke to take together inside the colonnade of the temple he could not understand most of what she was talking about and could tell that she had a worldview that was almost completely alien to him or most Koans. This Titan worshipper might as well have been from the moon as worshipped a goddess associated with it and did well to live in some nameless hilltop hamlet in the middle of nowhere.
Paros and Parthenia — although mostly the female Elf, who seemed better able to communicate with the priestess — apprised Selene of everything they had thus far done and learned about the necropolis. Paros did start somewhat excitedly start explaining to Selene the significance of what he had gleaned from the statues but she gave him such a blank, uncomprehending stare that he ceased his efforts almost immediately. There was, apparently, nothing sacred in this place to her and she was no more interested in iconography, architecture, or anything of a similar vein than was the barbaric Parthenia. He had not felt any initial attraction to the moon priestess and was now confident that he never would. So much the better.
While the companions ate, they discussed what their next move should be and agreed that a descent into the catacombs, where they believed the greatest wealth of this place to be located, was in order. Paros, however, had opposing concerns, one being that the bronze doors to the temple would somehow become closed and sealed, trapping them within the temple, and the other that something — such as that band of Orc toughs — would enter the temple while they were down below and ambush them. The women did not seem overly concerned about either of these eventualities and Paros unilaterally decided that the latter fear was the more probable one and, accordingly, set about looking for something appropriate to drop into the metal slots affixed to the inside of the doors and the adjoining walls.
There was not much suitable looking available and the only apparent possibility was the five-foot-long bronze club upon which rested the right hand of the statue of Herakles. It was firmly affixed to both the hand and the pedestal and he would have needed heavier tools than those in his pouch to successfully dismantle it. Paros decided that he would go outside and look for a tree limb or something similar that would do the trick and descended the path from the rocky shelf upon which the temple sat in order to search for one. After about twenty minutes in the ruins, however, he had not found anything appropriate; most of the dead branches he found were too small or deteriorated to be of use and a couple of uprooted live oaks were too big or their limbs too twisted to serve well as bars. He was confident he would eventually find something if he looked long enough but suddenly felt very alone and exposed and, feeling as if something might be watching him, scanned the surrounding undergrowth fretfully. He decided that the risks he faced continuing with this venture were greater than those associated with not barring the door to the temple and quickly returned to it and his companions and, by the time he did, they were more than ready to continue.
Chapter 3
The three companions gathered at the head of the stairway and peered down into the murky depths into which they descended. None of them could see in pitch dark — although the two Elf-blooded women could see as well in dim light as Paros could in broad daylight — so the rogue retrieved the lantern that he had been carrying in his backpack, added oil to it, and lit it. He handed it to Parthenia so that he would have his hands free and be able to lead the way and search for traps and other hazards as he went. Parthenia took the lantern in her left hand and with her right hand drew a long dagger from a sheath on her belt.
Paros led the way down the stairs into the darkness, moving slowly and cautiously and searching for hazards as he went. Parthenia followed about five feet behind him and Selene another five feet behind her. After a minute or so they had descended about thirty feet and come to a ten-foot-square landing. In the light of the lantern they could see that the stairs continued downward to the west and that a figure had been carved in bas relief into the wall to their left. It was of a fair, muscular youth with outstretched wings, a naked sword raised in his left hand.
“Thanatos,” Paros said in a low voice as he identified the unvenerated God of Death. The style of this sculpture was much more archaic than that of the statues from the chamber above, and it was in a more primitive medium, so the rogue figured it had been carved centuries — possibly many centuries — before the bronze statues had been sculpted. “There’s no place for an offering … ” he added, running his hand across the rock beneath the being’s feet.
“Why?” Parthenia asked in spite of herself.
“Hmm?” Paros said, caught off guard by her interest. He shrugged. “I expect that because death can’t be bargained with and that there is thus no point in making offerings to it.”
The group continued down the stairs a distance about equal to that which they had gone before reaching the landing and then stopped at the entrance to an open area that was perhaps forty feet square. In the southwestern corner of the room water poured from a fountain carved into the rock of the wall in the shape of a demonic, vaguely female, hate-filled face and then flowed across the room in a broad, shallow stream that ended in a pool in the northwestern corner of the room. On a pedestal above this pool stood a bronze statue of a warrior in a martial stance, armed and armored like a myrmidon, its shield and sword upraised. A broad hall continued beyond the stream to the west and a five-foot wide passageway led off to the north.
Not spotting any movement or other obvious hazards, the companions stepped cautiously into the room; Selene held back to keep watch while the other two moved toward the statue to examine it more closely. Paros stopped before passing in front of the open passageway to the north, not wanting to expose himself to whatever unknown dangers it might contain, but Parthenia walked right up to the statue. Standing beside the four-foot-tall limestone pedestal, something behind the warrior caught her eye, an especially fine-looking arrow that was a uniform dark green in color. She picked it up and, when she did, was surprised at its weight and realized that it was made entirely of bronze, head, shaft, and fletchings alike. Intrigued, she added it to the score of common missiles in her quiver.
Parthenia and Paros then decided it would be a good idea to do a clockwise circuit of the room and search it for any less obvious features of note. They went back to the stairway and then moved toward the southeastern corner and thereafter along the south wall. Almost immediately, keen-eyed Parthenia spotted a hairline seam in the stone of the wall.
“It’s a secret door!” she called out. She had actually had an intimation that she might find such a hidden portal and had been actively searching for one as she and her friends made their way into this underground place, so she was especially pleased to have discovered this one. She pointed out its outlines to Paros and the two of them decided to finish searching the rest of the room before investigating the hidden area any further.
Continuing along the south wall they came to the demon-faced fountain from which the water flowed. The two putative tomb robbers were wondering what it might represent when they heard a voice come from behind them.
“She is an Erinyes,” said Selene in a formal tone. “A Fury, one of the infernal goddesses who are sometimes called up from beneath the earth to punish those who have offended the gods or sworn false oaths.” Selene’s companions were both surprised and impressed to hear this sure assessment from her; the Titanic priestess had shown absolutely no interest in or knowledge of the Olympian gods in the temple above them but this ancient, chthonic thing was immediately recognizable to her.
This identification made the naturally cautious Paros even more nervous than usual and he began to issue warnings to Parthenia about what he perceived to be the potential hazards of the place.
“Don’t touch the fountain,” he said as they began to move along the little stream, from south to north. “And be careful not to get any of the water on you … ”
“Coins!” Parthenia cried exultantly as she noticed metallic glittering from within the water, which was clear and only about six inches deep. Dropping to her knees beside the stream, she set down her dagger and plunged her hands into the water before the horrified Paros could do anything to dissuade her and was committed by the time he could squawk a panicked “No-o-o!”
Even as the barbarian scooped up a bunch of coins in her cupped hands, the party’s attention was drawn to a creaking sound from the north end of the room. There, they could see that the head of the bronze warrior had turned to face them and that its waist was rotating with a metallic scraping noise, bringing it into alignment with them. It then leapt from its pedestal, landing with a heavy thud on its metal-shod bronze feet, and advanced straightaway toward them, its shield raised in a defensive posture and its sword poised for an attack.
Parthenia jumped to her feet, drew the greatsword from the oiled sheath on her back with a whisking sound, and, as the construct closed in on her, slashed at it with the prodigious blade. Her hands were still wet from the stream, however, and, as the weapon shot out of her grasp it was everything she could do to keep from losing it and its tip bounced across the hardstone floor, kicking up sparks, before she could regain control of it. This left her open to the assault of the bronze warrior, which moved inexorably forward while slashing with its shortsword, the keen blade of which caught Parthenia in her abdomen, cleaving through her light armor and painfully cutting into the flesh beneath it. She gasped in agony and glanced down quickly, knowing she was lucky to not be seeing her intestines.
“Flank it!” she yelled to her companions. Paros had already set down his lantern and moved back toward the stairs so as to avoid the metal creature’s deadly blade, thereafter maneuvering toward the pedestal from which it had come in the hopes of launching a back attack against it. Selene also gave the creature a wide berth and then slipped around behind it as it continued to press its attack against Parthenia.
Gripping her weapon firmly in both of her slim, strong hands and raising it high above her head, the Elven barbarian counterattacked, leaping toward the bronze warrior and deftly bringing the five-foot-long blade crashing down at the spot where its neck rested on its shoulders. There was a loud clang and a terrible rending screech as the steel of the weapon tore into the softer bronze of the statue and cleaved halfway through its torso, creating a ragged cut that ran from its left shoulder to its waist. The creature staggered under the impact of this attack and the companions could see that it was hollow, with a half-inch-thick bronze exoskeleton cast in the form of flesh and armor. And then, though split nearly in half, it raised its sword and continued to slash at Parthenia.
Gasping in horror, the wounded woman yanked at her sword, trying pull it free from the gash she had cut in the metal body of her opponent. Even as she put all her might into this effort and wrenched free the greatsword, it spun out of her hands and went flying through the air, landing with a loud, reverberating clanging noise on the floor behind her.
By this time, Selene had maneuvered into position behind the construct and swung her spiked club at it, striking it squarely in the back, but the crude weapon bounced off without appearing to do any damage to it. The creature wheeled on her and slashed with its sword but she managed to get her wooden shield up and deflect the attack with it.
Freed from the monster’s attention, Parthenia turned and ran to retrieve her sword while Selene continued to engage it and Paros, realizing he would not be able to launch a sneak attack on the creature, jumped into the fray, slashing at it with his own shortsword. He and the priestess traded blows with the animated statue for several seconds, striking it a number of times but not inflicting any telling damage against it. The bronze myrmidon then struck true against the thief, hitting him in the throat, slashing it open, and sending a spray of blood across the cavern floor. Paros dropped his sword and, as it hit the floor with a clank, he staggered and clutched at his severed neck, blood flowing out from between his fingers, and then collapsed as a shroud of darkness enveloped him.
Chapter 4
Paros was naturally gifted in just about every way and could have pursued almost any occupation he chose, so the decision to earn his daily bread as a rogue was a matter of preference and not necessity. Not everything he did was illicit, of course, and he was skilled as both an apprentice locksmith and alchemist — professions that gave him license to carry any number of tools or substances that could be used to assist him in his primary vocation.
Even thievery and the like were not completely anathema in Kos, of course, especially for a member in good standing in the Guild of Beggars, Guides, Locksmiths, and Exterminators. This organization did actually include many individuals who pursued those titular occupations in whole or in part, in addition to the many others who used them merely as euphemisms for more questionable lines of work. Anne Pieger, for example, an especially delectable young woman who he had bumped into both at the guild hall and on the street a number of times, apparently earned her way completely as a guide in and around Kos city. Likewise, Osboodle the Gnome was, by all accounts, a completely legitimate locksmith (albeit one with a penchant for gambling). And their new guildmaster, Little Achmed, had ostensibly never made his way as anything by a beggar. He would not want to fall afoul, however, of any of those so-called exterminators …
Breaking into shops, homes, or dockside warehouses or even robbing fresh graves in and around the city, then paying his cut to the various more senior thugs that dominated the neighborhoods in question, and periodically getting pinched and then being fined or temporarily incarcerated was, however, not the path he opted to follow. Nor did he relish the thought of installing locks in those same homes or compounding potions and other substances as an understudy to a master alchemist for long years until he could effectively establish his own shop and take on apprentices of his own (although he did, indeed, fondly desire to open such an establishment, both as a workshop for developing substances that could aid him in his roguish endeavors and as a cover for them). He needed more stimulation and reward for his labors than that. And so he studied and learned about the world around him and sought out the places where the wealth he yearned for, the riches that could afford him the comforts he craved, might be found.
Paros had several acquaintances who had dabbled in grave robbing but they were considered to be near the bottom of the roguish hierarchy and he himself had found this line of thievery distasteful and avoided it. When he discovered the abandoned necropolis, however, he had completely different feelings about pillaging it. For one thing, the people buried there were not ones he might have encountered on the streets of Kos, or whose families might yet visit their gravesites and be horrified to find them defiled. These were people who had died many decades or even centuries before and, moreover, whose very world had died in the great cataclysm. No one would be visiting their gravesites or, in all likelihood, even be thinking about them; in a sense, he thought, he might even be doing them a favor by visiting their final resting places and, to the unlikely extent that their shades might be aware of anything at all, they might welcome his company. And the thought of untold wealth lying forgotten and unused beneath the earth offended his sensibilities to no end. Did the dead need to eat? If they did, they would have to find their sustenance in the land of the dead and their grave goods would not benefit them in any event. And, if they could use such wealth, Paros would not begrudge the inmates of the necropolis anything they might have already spent for their upkeep in the otherworld.
Finding one or more companions of a like mind was, naturally, a delicate situation … Parthenia was a genuine find in this regard. On the one hand, she was a competent combatant and adventurer and, on the other, she was of a decent, friendly disposition. He could have easily found any number of thoroughly depraved thugs to accompany him, but he shuddered at the thought of the vandalism and wanton defilation they would perpetrate (which would at the least leave him feeling guilty and soiled and at the most call down some divine retribution upon them), the inevitable damage to his reputation that association with such robbers would lead to, and the chances that such companions would attempt to kill him or each other in order to take everything for themselves. He had no apprehensions on any of those accounts with regard to Parthenia or even to the Titan worshipper Selene.
When Paros had queried the Elf about a similarly discrete and reliable person whose skills and abilities might complement their own, Parthenia had proposed a friend of hers, a rustic priestess from some little hamlet in the wooded, hilly interior of the island. Paros was, a first, somewhat apprehensive about this suggestion. A thief by definition had no compunctions about stealing — especially from the dead, who did not need to buy anything anyway — and the barbaric Elf clearly had no regard for the customs, funereal or otherwise, of civilized folk. But a priestess, as useful a supplement her abilities would be to Paros’ stealth and Parthenia’s might, was presumably prohibited from engaging in such activities and might thus be problematic, and the rogue could easily envision her second guessing the propriety of everything they were doing or even calling into question the validity of the entire enterprise. Paros was relieved, however, when Parthenia mentioned that the deity revered by her friend was the titanic moon goddess Phoebe. One human deity sounded the same as the next to the barbaric Elf, who was not particularly religious to start with and whose people worshipped their own gods and goddesses (or Elven aspects of widely revered gods like holy Apollo). To her, Phoebe and Artemis and any number of other feminine lunar deities probably seemed like the same thing and the Elf had no basis for understanding that the latter deity was one of the archaic Titans whose worship was generally outlawed in lands where the Olympians were revered. The lines of worship were probably blurred for many members in the matriarchal societies of wild women that Paros envisioned living in hamlets in the rugged wooded hills throughout inland Kos, and they were much more united in their commonalities than divided by their sectarian differences. And, as far as Paros could tell, Selene was motivated to adventure both to hone her abilities as a priestess and to acquire the wealth that would allow her to promote and defend devotion to her deity.
Paros did not sense that his own deity Hermes would begrudge him associating with this Titanic priestess, who did not seem to be actively opposed to the Olympians in any way (Hermes never actually spoke with him, of course, and gods were notoriously irrational and capricious, but his deity had always appealed to him as one of the most pragmatic and sensible of divine beings.) And, while Titan worship was technically illegal on Kos, the laissez faire government of the island did little to enforce this or any laws that infringed on most personal freedoms, in marked variance to the authorities in other Hellenic states. Paros had heard of resurgent Titan worship and the existence of people who still clung to the old ways, had even believed the rumors on some level, but had never actually met anyone affiliated with this forbidden religion (at least not knowingly). His image of such people was informed by stories he had heard of the bestial, cannibalistic followers of Saturn who had overrun the coastal cities of North Africa and slaughtered their inhabitants. Even though Selene’s worldview was almost completely alien to Paros, this solid, somewhat serious but nonetheless pleasant countrywoman had nothing suggestive of all that about her.
And so Paros, Parthenia, and Selene comprised a very suitable party, each motivated to seek out wealth to meet their various needs and none opposed to aspects of the current endeavor that might make any number of other adventures squeamish.
Chapter 5
When Selene saw Paros clutch at his slashed-open throat and then collapse to the floor she immediately broke off her attack against the bronze warrior and dropped down beside her fallen companion. She placed her hands upon his throat in an attempt to stanch the flow of blood from it but, realizing that even if she did he would still be unconscious and unable to either continue to fight or flee, she uttered the syllables of her most potent healing spell. As she completed the invocation, the flow of blood from the wound ceased, the severed flesh closed, and the life force that he had lost in the attack was restored to him.
Paros’ eyes fluttered open just in time to see the mutilated bronze warrior slash at the priestess, slicing the crown of her helmet but not injuring her. Selene scrambled away from the monster and, as she did, Parthenia darted forward from the other side and laid into it with her retrieved sword, causing it to turn and for the two of them to once again begin trading blows with each other.
Still lying prone on the floor, Paros reached over and grasped his fallen sword, collected his wits, and prepared to get up and rejoin the fray. But, before he could, something caught his eye … There, in the left heel of the bronze statue, was a vertical slot, perhaps an inch-and-a-half long and a half-inch wide. Of course! He recognized the iconography now and realized that this guardian construct was cast in the image of heroic Achilles — right down to a slot designed to hold an arrow like the metal one that Parthenia had collected from the pedestal and placed into her quiver. There was no time to try to retrieve that — the Elven warrior was already once again hard pressed by the metallic myrmidon — and so Paros simply dragged himself forward a few feet in the direction of the construct, grasped his sword in both hands, and, lining up the blade with the slot, jammed it into the monster’s heel. Immediately, the facsimile of great Achilles spasmed as if in agony. Its shoulders slumped, its sword and shield sagged in its slack arms, and it staggered forward a few steps and then it collapsed to the floor with a great crash.
Everyone remained where they were for a few seconds, breathing nervously and watching the fallen monster to see whether it would do anything else, but they appeared to have defeated it. Paros got to his feet and eyed his sword, deciding it might be better to not make an attempt to retrieve it from the heel of the sundered construct. Meanwhile, Selene went to her friend to determine the severity of the wound the construct had inflicted on her and saw it was substantial but not life threatening. After the two of them rejected the idea of using a healing potion Parthenia had brought with her but could not readily replace, the priestess cast her last potent curative spell on the barbarian. They would have to be especially careful until the priestess could regain her spells the following day.
Parthenia then proceeded to collect the coins that lay in the six-inch-deep water of the allegorical little River Styx and, despite their promising glitter, found them to consist of just eighty-nine copper chalkoi and eleven silver obols (being unschooled in numbers she was unable to make this determination herself, but Paros did so and noted them on an inventory of party treasure that he proceeded to start). The party might be able to treat themselves to a fairly nice dinner with this two pounds of minted copper and silver but paltry offerings made to chthonic deities came nowhere near to approaching what they ultimately hoped to haul out of this place.
Paros regarded the stream. They could easily wade through it but he was still not confident that the water might not produce some ill effect and glanced apprehensively over at Parthenia to see if any such were evident. It was only about five feet wide so he was confident that he and Parthenia could jump over it easily enough but was concerned that Selene, with her shield and armor, might not be able to. She could always strip it off and toss it over ahead of her but that raised the specter of entirely new problems … Better to finish searching this area, whatever lay beyond the secret door, and the passageway to the north — and perhaps even rest and recuperate — before taking what he felt would be a portentous step.
Moving over to the pool beneath the pedestal upon which the statue of Achilles had stood, Paros could see that it was about three feet deep and that it was stepped so that someone might easily enter it (whether to bathe or for some other purpose he did not know, although this place was by no means inviting as a bathhouse). Water apparently drained out of the pool from a six-inch wide hole at the bottom that had a corroded bronze rim and might have once had a now-disintegrated metal latticework of some sort over it.
Paros then carefully examined the remains of the bronze warrior in the light of his lantern. Bronze was valuable — albeit not as precious as silver, gold, or gems, but moreso than copper — and might easily be sold but there was no way to readily transport the statue and if they wanted to do so would probably need to acquire a cart and draft animals the next time they resupplied. He might also be able to cut it up into more easily transportable chunks if he could acquire a heavy-duty steel saw for these purposes. He was hoping that its shortsword might serve as a ready replacement to his own but, like the club of Herakles in the hall of idols, it was integral to the statue.
Chapter 6
The trio of adventurers decided to investigate the passageway to the north, figuring that whatever lay behind the secret door or beyond the stream would likely present a greater challenge. Paros led carrying a dagger in one hand, Parthenia followed with her own dagger and the lantern, and Selene came last, shield in one hand and spiked club in the other. The passageway went about sixty feet and then ended in a sturdy-looking wooden door.
Paros got out his toolkit and thoroughly searched the door but did not find evidence of any traps or even that it was locked, so he slowly opened the door and scrutinized what lay beyond it as it was revealed to him.
What he saw was a room that was perhaps twenty feet square and lined with benches and open-faced wooden cabinets in which hung robes and other apparel. The rogue did not see anything else and so he cautiously stepped into the room, followed by Parthenia, and Selene kept watch outside the door while her two companions searched the chamber.
Numerous items of clothing filled cabinets, including black robes, sashes, caps, and what appeared to be other vestments, but these were all rotting and in bad shape — as were the cabinets and benches, which were not of notable manufacture in any event — and Paros did not suspect they would be able to sell them for anything. His detailed search, however, revealed a small iron box hidden beneath a pile of deteriorating garments in the bottom of one of the cabinets. Ahead of anything else he first thoroughly examined it to ensure there would not be any dire consequences to moving it. He also knew that a box like this would sell for a full thirty gold drachmas if it had a key but probably only two-thirds as much without one, so he was confident that he would be able to liquidate it for ten. And when he lifted the box out of the cabinet and placed it upon one of the benches so as to more easily work on opening the lock, Paros noticed with some excitement that the box was fairly heavy, and visions of gems and jewelry danced through the rogue’s mind.
Paros began to work on the relatively simple lock built into the box and figured he would be able to have it open in short order. As he manipulated the pair of slim tools he had slid inside the keyhole, however, the box suddenly jumped of its own volition and a loud “crunch” emanated from within it!
Paros was stunned. He didn’t know what this indicated and it occurred to him that there may have been a relatively sophisticated magical trap on the lock that he had failed to detect. He glanced up at the watching Parthenia and then continued his attempt to open the lock. Again, as the rogue attempted to open the lock, the box jolted and there was a loud “crunch” from inside of it. He continued working the locking mechanism and presently there was an encouraging metallic “click” as he successfully disengaged it.
Opening the lid, Paros discovered that the box did indeed contain jewelry of a sort, but by no means what he had been hoping for or expecting. Inside the box were three lead amulets fashioned in the shape of rams’ skulls (not unlike in appearance to the device that hung over the entrance to the temple above them), each affixed to its own chain of blackened silver links. Beside them were the remains of two other amulets that were now irrevocably smashed and sundered into multiple little chunks, apparently by some magical means activated by Paros’ failure to immediately open the box. To him these were pretty clearly holy symbols of the aspect of Hades that was venerated here and he figured that it would not be impious to take them if they intended to sell them to a temple of that deity (for seven or eight gold drachmas altogether, he guessed). Selene recognized them as the symbols of a god anathema to her own religion and wanted nothing to do with them but Parthenia volunteered to carry them and looped them over her neck accordingly.
Paros suggested that the party next investigate the secret door at the south end of the room with the stream.
“Why do we care what’s behind the secret door?” Selene asked. Paros was baffled and his jaw even dropped a little bit in response to her query; she was so earnest and open in her complete lack of interest about what the portal might conceal. The very fact there was something someone cared enough to hide behind a secret door was reason enough for the thief to want to know what it was, and if it was something of value or something that could help them in the rest of the catacombs then so much the better.
“I don’t care one way or another,” Parthenia said curtly. This also baffled Paros, although he knew the Elf could be somewhat mercurial and was subject to mood swings. Still, she had been so intent on finding a secret door, and why this should have been the case if she did not give a damn one way or another what was behind it seemed kind of alien to him. Did Elves regale each other with tales of secret doors they had found and then relish and extrapolate upon the mystery of what lay beyond them? This seemed frustratingly, even repulsively strange to him. Selene then explained that in her mind all sorts of horrible things had to lay behind the door and that she believed the builders of the catacombs would have placed its very worst hazards there. To Paros it was absolutely absurd to think that the worst dangers of this necropolis would be hidden where most intruders would never notice them. What’s more, the iconography suggested that the strangest things this place held lay beyond the “River Styx” — toward the west and the land of the dead — and not behind a false panel in a ritual entryway. He decided, however, that he would do just as well trying to explain this to the first wild animal he found wandering around in the hills above, and was more succinct in his remarks.
“We need to see what’s behind the secret door,” Paros said.
