The Prologue: Anatok

I

        A loitering squall spit the remainder of its small drops on the rubber-lined canvas of the squat albino’s gray cloak. Steamy breaths puffed from under his hood, briefly streamed behind him and then dissipated into the night chill as he stumped furiously across the slick wooden deck of the ship. Despite a trifling wind and a clinging mist that shrouded the water below, his every movement seemed to echo across the glassy lake. He slammed the butt of a thick staff loudly in time, thump-clomp…thump-clomp…thump-clomp, the sounds of his worn ironwood boot heels and the staff reverberating faintly in the distant craggy foothills as he strode towards the dimly-lit quarters at the back of the ship. His rage ebbed from him in voltaic fibrils of delicate blue-white lightning that rippled from his tightly gripped left hand and danced over the long, crimson and cobalt-pearled, hook which crowned the staff. The staff itself, named ‘Corpsefinder’, crackled with its own deep violet static energy as the soft rain spattered off the enchanted erezium surface.
        He moved with the confidence of one who spent more time on the rocking and pitching deck of an air vessel than on land, closing the distance to the captain’s cabin with a speed much more fleet than his stocky height would indicate. Though he did not anticipate a fight, he was not beyond getting physical with the captain and was glad no see that there was not a guard at her door, something the captain only entertained when meeting a client or staked in port. Mashoke, though old, was a deadly combatant with little fear, surely not of her loyal crew who were either sleeping or  bellow decks at games of flags. The Anvil had just made its pass and the strikers were out on the perimiter of the lake, too far away to see respond if things got ugly in the cabin. The look-out in his pod above would not be focusing on the deck bellow, so there was little worry about. Good. If it comes to blows, no hindrances.
        Without pause in his stride, a gnarled white hand laced with blue and red knotwork tattoos darted out from under his travel-worn cloak, clicked the door open and swung it inward, making a loud whooshing bellow's, inhale Swooooo.... and then a clamorous wooden wallop, Thok...as he slammed it shut behind him in a rapid fluid motion.  The scent of storm and the faint loam of the lake the Horizon's Shadow floated over abated to the warm smells of burning wax, furs, and kana spice that hung from small canvas bags in the corners of the captain's room. Her pet moonbaby, Chatter, made a timid meow and scampered from her lap to it's napping basket on the ledge of the cabin's main port, only her luminous eyes visible from the creel.
        “You know what's down dhere in dhe deep don’t you? Don’t you? You incompetent hag!” The irate klygot exploded at the sober-faced captain. He thrust his staff threateningly at the captain, the violence of the motion knocking his grey hood back the barbed lines of the blue and red tattoos exaggerated his menacing glare. She sat unflinchingly in her high-backed wooden seat at a small simple, deep brown, varnished wooden table, with a pen in hand and a thick leather-bound logbook in front of her. She rocked back in her cushioned chair and set her pen in the seam of her logbook with a steady breath in; keeping her eyes on the gray-swathed, dripping albino that now stood panting in her private cabin.              
         The contumacious klygot slammed the butt of his corpse hook on the darkwood floor of the captain’s cabin and took a step forward for emphasis, the web-like threads of light danced from his hands and crackled for half a second like the sound of a foot crushing crispy leaves, gossamer strands of static surged around the hook but he did not loose a spell. “You said dhis was to be a routine treshure hunt.  Just anodher easy haul in some flooded and forgotten ruins. But dhose aren’t ruins, dhat's a tomb and you knew it all along, didn’t you? I know Lok well enough to know he doesn’t send his best crew out sniffing at some ‘unfindable’ cavern wit out filling in his favorite Captain wit some serious details; which means you’re holding out Mashoke.”          
        He spat at the captain’s boots the gob landing just shy of her left foot. A small rivulet of yellow-tinted spit drizzled down his pale skin thinning in the rain drops collected in the kinky thick white hair of his full beard. The captain’s pale blue eyes remained fixed on the fuming warder but still she did not speak. “You know as well as I, dhere is no black rock nort out here in dhe Weald. Dhe wall around dhat door is onyx but dhis whole area is old granite and basalt; lafa stone and crystal." He swung his arm in a wide arc, rainwater still dripping in rivulets from the wet sleeves of the grassy colored long coat that he wore beneath his gray cloak. "As if dhat is not strange enough, dhe stone all around dhat door is ruined and shattered, like dhe door and dhe wall around it just erupted dhere beneat a million mass of stone hills. Gladdie, Plek, Quohn, Sin, skret efan Col wit his brains haf scrambled looked at dhat tomb and  we all tryin to figure out why some ancient door would be sixty span deep in a lake and dhen back sixty span up some flooded chimney hole. Dhere it sits dho, all beaudiful and out of place; and its not efan set right." He paused and shook his in disbelief. "Who sets a ten span door off kilter like dhat Cap?” Mashoke simply arced her eyebrow but did not speak.
         “Nodhin about dhat tomb is right Mashoke. To top it all off, dhe door is wofen wit more sirancal bound wards dhan I haf efer laid eyes on and more of it radiates from widhin. Why would any caster bind wit dhe life realm unless dhey meant to keep dhe undead out? Sirancal realm is deadly stuff, hard to weafe because its so chaotic and unpredictable. Doubly so ofer time.”
        “Or maybe to keep something in.” Finally speaking, Mashoke considered more to herself. She steepled her fingers beneath her chin. “Nothing we can’t handle Ana, lighten up.”
        “No. Its dhe excess of wards and power of dhe sirancal magic in dhe spells dhat’s telling. If dhere is somedhing undead in dhere, well it is a big somedhing; dhat alone is enough to make dhe crew leery of any safecracking attempt. Eidher way, who efer warded dhat door eidher meant to keep people like us from getting to whatefer is in dhere or to keep somedhing really nasty from getting out.”            
        Mashoke spoke in an even yet warm tone, “I don’t believe I am hearing this from you. You are one of the greediest scuts I have ever known. You have never, in all of the twenty some odd years that we have been raking ruins together, ever walked on a pinch and pack.”            
        “Dhis one is different dho, it is not like any tomb Ife seen before.”            
        “Ha! That’s rich coming from you! The only thing more renowned than your greed is your curiosity.” She gave another lusty laugh. “So you’re telling me that you have found an ancient locked door warded with the very fabric of the River of a Thousand, Thousand Suns, possibly placed there by forces beyond my wildest imagination, possibly housing the treasure of a lifetime and you don't want to loot it? I think someone on the set-up crew slipped you something while you were scouting the site this morning." She continued to snicker to herself.
        "So you know more dhan you are telling? How old is it? Who placed it there? Why..." Mashoke cut him off.
        "To your 'hows and whos', I am not sure, and I have said as much. Believe or not, alright. Best I can tell from the reports is that it is of outworld origin, likely stowed there during the Great Hunt. I don't know why but it was likely void-warped there. None of this should be of suprise to you." She looked out a port window at the spattering rain. "I thought one of you would have been able to actually answer those same questions for me. Did you weave a window through the wards?"
        “Of course I knit a portal in dhem wards you damnable mental midget!” He banged the butt of his staff on the wooden floor in frustration.
        "Well? What did you see? Answer your own questions 'cause I am dying for some insight too"
        “Efan dhough dhe sirancal was gifing off some light, I could not see anydhing. Dhere was only darkness. I could not pass an eye dhrough eidher, dhere is a trap in dhe door wit a hair trigger. Best I can say is dhat It felt like somedhing was waiting just on dhe odher side. Erie like dhat haunted sepulcher we hauled, what was it fif years ago? Dhe one wit all dhose damn frost phantoms and dhat farging gontoag turned carrion corpse.” He looked at Mashoke for a response but she remained quietly statuesque.
        “It was darker. Much darker. Like I could feel somedhing reaching for me, dhrough dhat portal, like grasping death….or worse,” He paused for a full three breaths, staring blankly through the captain and beyond her through the cabin's wall. With a look of stark dread on his face his last words faded into a whisper. “It was rafenous emptiness.”          
        “How about that? Who knew that you'd get poetic when you're spooked." she laugh quick and uneasily, "You’re doing a fine job of near spooking me too. Scary critters or no, you've got to get a grip and trust in the crew kid. I know you can rise to the challenge.”              
         “You know I lofe a challenge, treashur hunting is in my bones, ‘Dhe bigger dhe challenge the bigger dhe haul.’ Right? But something deprafed and hideous is waiting on dhe odher side I assure you Mashoke.” He slammed the butt of his corpse hook on the floor to punctuate his conviction.
        “Okay, okay, I hear you! You can stop banging that damn hook, you’re scuffing my floor.”  
        “No, you are not hearing me. Dhis 'sary critter' was stashed away dhere for a reason. I got a strong notion dhat we are not meant to crack dhat tomb. Dhe only dhing keeping it down dhere is sixty span of bloody cold water and dhat damned sirancal wofen door. If you yegg and haul, I am gone, I wont be around to see you commit suicide.  I'll want my pay, in full, and a skiff so’s I can put plenty of distance between you and me.”            
        Known for her quick temper, Mashoke leaned forward her mien washed with an icy cast. “I have heard enough.”  She leaned forward her thick gray braid falling over her left shoulder as she tapped her index finger hard on the wooden desk to punctuate the finality of her statement. “It is you who is not hearing me. I will bring that treasure up from the vault and you will help me retrieve it.” Her voice had become as cold and succinct as the look on her face. “There is always a chance that something can go wrong and you are paid accordingly.  You are this crew's warder and you will not receive a single sunner until this haul is done. You will get the agreed pay when we return to Galant Hill and you may do whatever you wish after that.”            
        Again he spat, this time a perfectly aimed gobbet of sputum on Mashoke's left boot. “You can shofe your agreed pay up your dirty...”            
        A rail-thin pockmarked captain rose deliberately to her feet the heavy wooden chair skidding over the throw carpet beneath the dark timber table, and banging against the wall behind her with a thud. “Enough! Not in my cabin, not on my ship.” Her left hand swept back the left panel of her gold-embroidered pale blue suede vest, her right hand darted to a row of luminescent throwing needles nestled under her small breast in a soft leather harness. Anatok instinctively took a step back. Mashoke, though pushing sixty-five years, was still a legendary barrager whose accuracy and speed at throwing those prismatic glowing needles was three shades beyond deadly.            
    She stepped from behind her desk and closed the short distance between her and the warder. “I am not sure what sort of ‘hungry emptiness’ you think we are dealing with,” She stood so close that Anatok could smell black salt and fish on her breath. “But you and I have worked together for too long for you to doubt this crew’s ability to handle whatever may be guarding that treasure. What Lok has told me about this tomb is very little. The search crews found a door in the deep and were here to crack it. Period!” Red-faced, her nose almost touching his as she stooped to yell at him, she poked him hard in the sternum for emphasis and then straightened.
    “What’s important for you to understand is that it has been located and it is only a matter of time before word leaks on the location. That means that some other crew, like those damn Skelgarian scrounges in the Night Flame Guild, would get our loot and I can’t allow that Ana. It’s not the first time we have hauled with little research. We work for Lok not because we are some third rate cheap pay crypt crashers but because we are the best of the best.” She moved her face away from Anatok’s as she stood erect, her eys never leaving his, her tone softening just a hair. “I hear your fears but I trust your skills even more, you’re the best damned warder I have ever had the pleasure of working with; even if you are a mangy klygot.”            
        She paused a moment to weigh her words, the albino warder looked a bit more relaxed. “Besides, that treasure is more likely than not to be the biggest haul we've ever found. So what if there is some ‘Big Bad’ guarding it. We can handle it. Think of it Ana, artifacts worth a hundred times more than you and all of your ancestors have ever owned. You can't walk away from that you greedy bastard and you know it.” Sure she had won him over she was surprised at his reply.            
        “Shofe dhem artifacts Mashoke.” The statement was brusque but had little bite. She had known him long enough to recognize that the fight had gone out of him. She moved back a few steps and leaned against her desk. Smoothing her vest down over her cream colored undershirt, she pressed on.            
        “You can't turn your back on the crew, they all know what's at stake and they want this haul. We can't do it nice and quick without out you.  I tell you what, let's vote on it. If you can convince Sin, Plek, Glad, and the rest that we should pull stake and drift then I am in. But, if the crew votes for loot then you will unbraid those damn wards like you were hired to and at the end of the week you will be bloody rich and I will be accepting your apology.”            
         His face wore a wrinkled scowl like a crumpled dish rag. He was furious because he knew she had won out. It was not the first time he had threatened to abandon the crew, he simply did not know how to do it. These were his friends and his family . Besides, he surely could not convince them to walk away from this treasure, they all knew as well as he that this was a big score. Knowing he had been outwitted, he could barely summon a snort.            
        “And after your apology, you can polish my boots.” Mashoke waggled her spit-stained boot playfully at Anatok before she sauntered back to her chair, smiling a knowing smile.                                            

II

    The dank wetness of the granite chamber had seeped through his white skin, the chill reaching deep into his bones his lips and fingers cyanotic blue blending in blotches with the blue tattoed lines around his lips.  He could not remember how long he had been shivering but it had been a very long time and his teeth were rattling against each other in short waves even with his inhalations, breath in…chatta-chatta-chatta…breath out, breath in…chatta-chatta-chatta. Despite the chill of the cavern his brow beaded with sweat that collected in his bushy white eyebrows and seemingly evaporated there.
    He continued the delicate work of unbinding the complex sigils cast upon the massive circular door, a ten span marvel forged of erezium, steel, and stone, braided with magical wards that glistened faintly red under the detecting spell cast upon them. Wards that were meant to ward against plunderers like him; or so it had always been with warded doors.
    This one felt different though. Everything about it was just slightly unsound, the more Anatok thought on it the more he was convinced that this door, and whatever was behind it, had been hastily placed here as a prison or dungeon for something that should not be found. The mages who were once powerful enough to have translocated this door a had been banished for over three hundred years and the power of their magic with them, the tales of their feats fading into memory.
The tales of their vast wealth and treasure from beyond time and space did not fade so quickly. It was his knowledge of those treasures that pressed him on...no, if he was honest it was not knowledge it was greed. Plain and simple.  And if not for his own greed, then for the avorice of his crewmates. Wealth has a way of drawing out one's inner glutton. He could not afford to let his mind wander else he might ‘mis-think’ his counterspell and potentially cause serious harm, or worse. No sense in getting us killed now. Nearly dhere. Focus.            
    Eyes closed, rocking rhythmically on a thick padded mat laid between him and the muddy cavern floor he continued to guide his mind through the tedium of unraveling the door’s knotted wards. The weaving itself was extensive and complex, this had quickly become the most arduous and intricately crafted warding spell he had ever unbound. What he had thought to originally be sigils crafted only from sirancal he discovered were actually cleverly braided with strands of magic from the four season realms of etzoth, haize, irredus and lur. Though binding multiple realms was not unusual, weaving five pools was impressive and to be so cleverly plaited told of the extensive training and power of the caster who could so artfully meld these magics into one very tricky abjuration. The predominant cord of this braided spell was sirancal though, and his mind skittered over the brilliant path of the spell like a vark climbing over jungle vines except these vines were hot to the touch and writhed like scalding slippery strands. His body and mind ached from the strain and swelter of unraveling the radiant life energy magic that had been knotted into hitches and whorls hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Nearly dhere. Focus.
    Exhausted, he knew that he could not let the tension get to him now as he was terribly close to finishing the puzzle but also that it was the tail end of the unbraiding process that was the most dangerous. If dhe mage who set dhese glyphs is half as crafty as I dhink he is, dhen dhere will surely be some hidden little nasty waiting for me at dhe end of dhis weafe.            
    Then, as if the thought had triggered its discovery, four sirancal bound creatures that he had never seen before but had heard about in traveler’s tales drifted into his mind's eye. Onaegos. And big ones at dhat. Really big ones! Rare creatures indeed, similar in creation to the more commonly encountered darken bound malaegoes. Fashioned from the four different aspects of the seasons, one air, one water, one fire, and one stone all crackling with the radiant light of burning stars. Ah, dhis explains dhe season realms wofen into dhe wards.
    The proximity of sirancal left an iron and copper taste in his real body’s mouth so strong that he could taste it in his shadow form. Odd how somedhing so beautiful can be so dangerous. All four onaegoes rested there spring loaded in the timeless void space of uerayle, hemmed in by the magic of the slave sigils woven into the door and the rippling current of Anatok's linear reality. He noticed that they were staring into the darkness of the vault not out. Like sentinels standing guard against something getting out, instead of facing the door waiting for something to get in. The soft white light ebbing from the their sirancal infused forms illuminated out maybe two and a half span from the backside of the door, but in that short distance he could see that vast riches awaited. Massive golden statues of mythological beasts stood on counterpoint to the onaegoes, he could not recall what they were called. Garnets, emeralds, and amethysts adorned the masterfully crafted claws and lower legs. The lines so intricate that the gold looked like real fur swirling in elegant motes around the glistening gems. The figurines were so tall that the glow from the onaegoes could not shine light past their bejeweled ruffs. Just beyond stood silhouetted cabinets and urns silver, gold, and platinum filigree twinkling in the faint light. But it was not the treasure that he was looking for, it was the madness in the dark.
    He lingered there, his spell form gazing past the bejewelled hoarde into the black. Nodhing. His mind began to wander, had his impression of horrible shadowy death been a delusion? He saw nothing, he sensed nothing. Just darkness and dusty loot. He almost forgot about the onaegoes. He was perilously close to alerting them to his presence. He pulled his thoughts away slowly returning his focus to dismantling the threads of the trap. In a blink he thought he saw something move, like a shadow snaking between the massive paws of the statue. It was gone if it was really ever there at all. He had a trap to spring. Nearly dhere. Focus.
The abjured leashes that held these dangerous creatures were also like the thin gossamer strands of a web, which if tugged or nudged too much would bring the wrath of those creatures down upon the nudger of said strands. He now held all of these calescent spell fibers in his the hands of his spell form, the other end of the thin wisps knotted like collars around the onaego’s misshapen necks and limbs. All he needed to do was untie those bindings in such a way that the sirancal that bound them would unfurl and the elemental components would be released back to their respective planes.
    He yearned to ask them what they were waiting for but doing so posed two immediate problems. One: Though the crew’s materianst could understand the unintelligible utterances of the elements, he could not. Two: He had unraveled the abjuration too far to leave his trance and alert Numxot. Doing so would surely invite four very dangerous beasties to mash him into pulp. Damn! More questions, fewer answers. Nearly dhere. Focus.              
    Standing at a distance behind him the rest of the crew waited anxiously for him at the makeshift dock built on the stony lip of the chimney hole that rose from the lake. They waited for him to give the “all's clear” sign, or for something treacherous to explode from the faintly reddish glowing glyph-work inlaid into the massive off-angle door. Anatok had been rhythmically rocking in his trance for hours and the crew was tense. This was the longest unweaving any of them had ever witnessed him perform. The elder crewmen were worried. Enayle, the crew’s claviger, had been closely watching over him, standing close by but never interfering with his trance. Just translating his body language. She watched him chatter and sweat, not sure whether to wrap a blanket over his shoulders or not, she left him as he was. He had made it this far as is. Better to leave well enough alone.
    She looked grim, though most in the crew found that to be the mainstay of her expressions when she was concentrating but Gladdie had known her for some time and he was doubly worried for her and for his best friend sitting on a dirty mat, rocking in front of a massive door, attempting to unbraid ancient magical wards that guarded Sartur knows what. After Ana had returned from his meeting with Mashoke, he had mentioned that he had a bad feeling about this one but then he just trailed off. Gladdie didn't enquire any further, chalking it up to jitters. How he wished he would have pressed him. He was so fidgety and anxious he could not even find it in himself to tinker with any of the various contraptions he incessantly created. He had brought only two small artillery aparats, light ones at that due to the weight restrictions of the submarine and they flanked Anatok, to the right and left standing guard between the crew and the door.
    He was audibly grinding his teeth when he first saw it , the rest of the crew had long drifted into that spring loaded idleness that sees big danger but misses the little things. Enayle was holding her breath, that’s how he noticed that Anatok had stopped rockiing back and forth. She began to stand from her crouching position between the two aparats about a span and a half behind Anatok, then the blast came. A gust of wind exploded from the door, Hreeeeooooo! Dust, dirt, and small sharp stones flung into and past the crew. Wind weirds blasted out of the door and soared helter-skelter through the chamber. The aparat on the right was knocked over, Enayle was lobbed at least three span towards the dock, the sub rocked under the force of the gale and then it stopped.
    Quohn Adi, the battle-thirsty warrior jumped down from a large, fairly flat hunk of shattered granite and began revving the massive chopper buckled to his right arm, chee-chak…chee-chak…chee-chak, the blades making a rhythmic grinding noise as they rotated against each other. He rose to his full height of nearly three span, wiping dirt from his eyes and quickly closing the distance between him and the Anatok with an expectant grin on his face. The door began to glow red hot and flames wafted from the glowing glyphs adorning the door. Heat belched out in a sweltering puff, Fwoooosh….fire weirds flashed  across the walls racing about like burning shasts disappearing into the tiny cracks and holes of the alcove and were gone. Tendrils of smoke rose from the fine hair that covered Quohn’s massive body, he had slowed his advance likely due to the momentary blindness and the lack of air, which the burst of fire had consumed. Gladdie caught his breath he was roasty but not otherwised harmed. Comotion erupted all around him as the crew leapt into action. He grabbed his tri-cannon, and began to run in closer to the door, choosing to take partial cover behind on of the many smaller boulders littering the ground between the door and the dock. He barked command words at the aparats, the standing one moved in closer to the door gunning stone bolts in a rapid volley karak-karak-karak. The prone one began to right itself with loud clanks and thuds.
    The floor of the cavern rumbled, first just a little and then like the foot of a monolithic beast stomping the mountain above their heads, the entire world around them was struck with a jarring blow. Bahrrock! Large and small rocks alike were dislodged from the ceiling and cascaded down. Someone behind Gladdie cried out. Sounded like Col. Everyone was thrown to the ground but as suddenly as it came, it went. Dust filled the air like choking fog.
    The sigils woven into the door then began to weep and wink out. From the top of the door gushing downward the faint shimmer of the wards drained away in a gentle babbling trickle. Water weirds flooded across the floor and poured over the lip of the chimney hole, mingling with the dark waters of the pool where they frolicked in waves and jets knocking the sub into the wooden dock with a loud Gong. Then in the blink of an eye and then flowed away into the deep. The pound of rushing feet spattered over the now muddy ground as the crewmembers closed rank in front of the door, taking cover wherever it was available. The second aparat was now up and hurling stone bolts, weapons scraped and revved, spells crackled the echoes off the cavern's walls quickly grew into a cacophony.
    Through it all, Anatok had remained unfazed. He had was holding his breath, sweat poured from his face saturating through his under shirt and his grass green coat. He began to rock almost imperceptibly again, the thin stuffed mat that he was sitting on was thoroughly soaked and the rocking motion made a soft squishing that only he heard. He smiled at the little sound. He let out a sudden quick breath, a plume of steamy heated vapor interjected into the clammy cavern air, the crew jumped in their skins, hackles rose, spells nearly launched in anticipation of pending catastrophe. Then a long slow inhalation like the deliberate filling of a slightly whistling bellows. The crew inhaled too, in unison, a collective hive breath. They were not yet at ease, for this would not be the first time any one of the six treasurer hunters had seen a caster laid low by insanity, an all too often crippling side effect of powerful magic on the mind. Anatok started laughing a deep hardy, albeit haggard, guffaw, one that would be more likely heard from a booze-addled saloon scrounge in the early stages of a psychotic break. The sound did not succor Gladdie. If Ana’s mind got crippled in the process of dispelling the wards they would have to take him out. That notion that did not appeal to him on any level. Sinjonna broke the silence.
    “Frak! Did that door just belch, fart, and piss all over us? Sartur be damned, this better be fargin’ good or I’m gonna pop a fire ball up his filthy keester.” Threatening through clenched teeth, white-knuckling her oversized flame virder towards the klygot.
    All at once Anatok stopped laughing and pushed himself up to stand, using his hook to prop himself up “Sin, Gladdie, yer up!” He shouted over his shoulder to the crew's yegg and tinkerer. He had successfully unbound the wards of the door and released the sentinel monsters set to guard the tomb, but he was still worried. Something on the other side of the vault was either never meant to be found or did not want to be found and he had disabled the first line of defense against it. He could not shake the feeling of dread that had overcome him, both yesterday upon peering through his portal and again at having encountered the onaegoes guarding…the darkness. As much as he tried to convince himself that he had felt nothing, he could not shake the memory of contacting some wicked unbridled insanity, burning like evil lust, dark like murderous shadow. It made him visibly spasm, a wrack which nearly made his cramped and tired knees buckle.            
    “Ana, you alright?” Sinjona asked him as she ran up and put her hands on his shoulders for support, a rare display of affection. In the second it took for him to answer she called to the crew's claviger, “Enayle! Get yer arse over here!” The claviger was hanging back, kneeling in the same location she had landed after being flung by the door’s gusty episode. She rose dust and muck falling away as she did so and sauntered over, her boots making a spluk…spluk…spluk sound in the slick mud.
    “I'm fine Sin, just uh.....just a bit tired, dhose were some tricksy wards.” That was an understatement and though he knew it was pointless to spook her or the rest of the crew any more than they were, he could not just leave it at that, they all knew he had taken on a very complex trap and he would have to give them a modest report. Before he could continue on, Sinjonna, red-faced, walked around to face him. “That’s it?! That’s all you have to say?”
    “Ease up ‘Stunty’.” Ana wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve. “Dhere were onaegos. Four of dhem. Dhey were big bastards too but I unraveled dheir bindings.”
    “No wonder you look like twice-excreted oily skret. Four of them hunh?
That cannot be a good sign.” Enayle said.
    He smiled a small smile at the dark-skinned saihmoq woman. “I would say you are very perceptive Enayle but I dhink efen a retarded urma knows dhat four onaegoes are not a good sign.”            
    “Ow moach tahm baefur zhi ahss kehckeen stahts, obaiahk?” The gehbar warrior had geared up for a fight during the door’s elemental expulsion incident and he was eager to get physical.            
    “Sorry to get your hopes up Quohn but like I said, I dispelled dhem already and dhere are no odher surprises I could find. Dhere are two big golden guardian statues just on dhe odher side of dhe door dhough. Did not see dhem move but dhey could be aparats or dhe like.” He was not sure how a crestfallen gebahr was supposed to look but Anatok saw the wicked grin turn to a horrible grimace and assumed that would have to suffice. Enayle crouched down and looked at Anatok more closely.        
    “And not a scratch on you eh?”            
    “I snuck up on dhem and unraveled all dheir bindings as quick as I could. Dhe onaegoes plus dhe ancient magic in dhe door wasn’t easy by any stretch. I am beat.” He turned to Sinjonna who had been quietly observing, scrutinizing as she always did and gazed silently at the curmudgeonly pip for a moment. She stood with one hand on her tall virder at her right side the other hand on her hip resting on the hilt of her favorite wand, Shockwave. He was not sure if she was trying to look threatening or commanding but the pose translated as simply sassy. He snickered. “Sin, you and Glad be extra cautious on dhat door all right?”            
    “Bugger you, mister suspicious! If you botched that unweaving I will chop off your hands and piss down the stumps.”
He barked a hardy laugh that made his stomach muscles ache.
    “Listen to dhat mout, and dhat’s you being pleasant.” His smile drifted to a stern look. “Like I said, be careful.” She stood back a pace in mock exacerbation, but seeing the seriousness on his face decided to uncharacteristically lighten up just a hair.
    “Yeah Ana, of course anything in particular got your arse hackles up?”            
    He nearly broke and told her about the feeling of horror he had when looking through the portal and about the onaegos facing inward, eternal sentries at the edge of darkness, but it was only his perception and quite frankly, the thought of saying it out loud made him feel like a coward. “No Sin. ‘Dhe bigger dhe lock dhe bigger dhe haul.’ Right?”            
    “Hot skret, this is gonna be a big haul eh?”
    He nodded his answer towards the entire crew. It was better to tell it straight and let them try for the loot than to make a case for them to pack and leave. This was a greedy lot and he knew they would rather have a go at unbeatable odds and stagger away, near death, with booty than to simply walk and have never tried. He could not blame them. Just common nature. “Well kid, dhose big golden statues I mentioned are covered in garnets, emeralds, and amedhysts. More than I could count. And just beyond dhat I could see odher relics inlaid wit platinum and gold, and dhat is just in he first dhree span from dhe door. So yes dhis will be a pretty big haul is my guess.”
    A rare thing indeed, Sin smiled. She reached into an inner pocket of her black leather jacket and withdrew a gasper and flamer. The diminutive safecracker took a long drag in, her eyes getting that ‘far away’ look they did when she began dreaming of swimming in piles of gems and sunners. Then with a quick about face, she puffed spicy smoke out as she stumped away, “Why the frak are you just standing around Gladdie!?! Let’s pop this fargin door already!” She shouted at the idle crew to get to work, leaving Ana in the claviger’s care.
    Sin was the crew boss, second only to Mashoke. Diminutive though she was, she had no qualms throwing her weight around. She did a quick head count and saw that Plek was missing. “Where is that waxy turd of a limner? How come nobody did a body count? Yer all a lazy bunch of genital warts, Sartur be damned I don’t know why I try! If he’s dead under one of them fallen stones I am gonna launch a bloody lighning storm on somebody’s pucker!”
    Anatok heard the crew’s jumpy reaver, Colunir reply meekly. “He’s scroungin’ fer crystals Sin.”              
    “We’ve got a fargin’ giant door to crack and he’s off snuffling for rocks! I’ll strangle him with his own alien balls!” She grabbed a specter lantern from her box and marched off towards one of several narrow tunnels around the edges of the chamber. “Fall in ‘Fire-tard’.” She screamed over her shoulder at the reaver. Col slinked dotingly behind her. Her rants continued as she marched away. “Sartur be damned! Do zenilds even have balls? Shadows know they don’t have fargin brains.” Her voice faded out.  
    “Col still got it bad for dhat bellicose runt eh?”              
    “Seven Stars go black, I will ever know what he sees in her; must be a damn masochist to keep chasing that one. She’s like a damn rabid cujanir…with fleas…that hasn’t eaten for a week.”            
    “So, you still got it bad for old pale-eyed Col, eh?” Anatok asked tauntingly.            
    “You shut it ‘Pasty’. I was gonna heal you but now I am thinking a nice hurtin’ would suit you well.” Her wedge-shaped ears wriggled with angst. She furrowed her brow, in mock exasperation, her thick eyebrows knitting together over her small nose.          
    Anatok would have normally welcomed the playful banter but the exhaustion was coming on in waves, he almost wished he had not started it. He could only summon a half smile and a sigh.            
    “I wasn’t kidding when I said yer a damn pitiful sight. How can an albino look any sicker is beyond me? Damn, even your tattoos look like skret.”            
    “If you are finished I would like to lie down for a bit, dhat was some pretty tricksy counterspelling work.”            
    “Sorry Ana, but I wasn't cracking wise. Lemme see what I got fer ya.” She smiled as she reached into one of the many brightly colored pouches that hung from her worn leather bandolier. She extracted a small fogged-glass vial with a petite rubber squeeze dropper in it. She unplugged it with a small pop and held out the dropper filled with autumnal orange oil, “Open your mouth.”            
    “Does it taste bad?”            
    “Depends on what you mean by bad. Most people say it taste like flowers, but I don’t know much about klygot taste buds and some flowers smell bad. Open up. Under the tongue and don’t swallow right away.”            
    “That bad hunh...?” He begrudgingly opened his mouth. After a few quiet seconds he swallowed and grimaced at the pithy flavor. “By dhe way, it tastes like rotten flowers and we klygots don’t eat flowers. What is dhat stuff?”            
    “Anthon Oil. You should start feeling a little more relaxed, I am going to channel some sirancal energy into you and it might tingle a bit, that’s what the anthon’s for.” She returned the small bottle to it’s pouch and then extracted a palm-sized ornate tin box from a purse buckled to her left hip belt strap.            
    “Like dhat time we was skirmishing and you had to bring me back from shade’s edge and mended my crushed ribs?”            
    “Kinda like that, why?” She removed pinch full of a black-green fibrous material that smelled strongly of mold, even from the short distance. Bantling’s Soil, nothing else smelled quite like it.            
    “Cause dhat was no tingle Enayle, dhat hurt almost as bad as dhe crushing. Should hafe mended me first, dhen stuff my shade back in my body.” She snickered to herself, he had a sneaky suspicion she enjoyed his grief a bit too much. She tucked the wad of fine cut mold into her left cheek and sucked at it for a few seconds.            
    “Guess I’ll make good on that hurtin’ I promised after all.” A drizzle of meconium-colored spittle drizzled from the side of her mouth and her eyes seemed to take on a glazed sheen, her dark green eyes gone black as the pupils expanded and crowded out all color. Again she gave a wry smile. “Now lay still, close your eyes and relax.” He felt her warm hands, one on his forehead the other over his heart and then slumber took him.

III
             
Anatok passed out half from the pain of Enayle's healing spell and the other half from the exhaustion of his own taxing spell work. He did not know how long he had been sleeping but he did feel a bit more rested. His head was foggy, his joints ached, and he was still tired from the strain of casting but no longer disabled. Getting old.
His slumber had been suffused with dark visions of war in a sand blasted desert, soldiers consumed by black fire, crumbling to cinders only to rise again as smoldering ravaging ashes, burning through the ranks of their comrades. Something familiar challenged him to remember, but the dream was fading fast. Was it more than some abstract vision? He thought for a moment of recanting the dream to Enayle, maybe she would know what it meant, but he quickly decided against it. She would just dismiss it as spell fatigue or mild casting psychosis and then give him some tincture that would change his mind or knock him out. He let it go. He was done with dark thoughts, better to chalk it up as exhaustion and move on. After all, he felt like he could easily sleep for a day. Maybe he just needed to eat.
He sat up slowly, feeling each muscle protest the action, his head began to throb. Enayle was sitting on a small pillow at his side, apparently in deep meditation as she usually was. “You hafe any sweet bean cake in dhose pouches of yours? I am really crafing somedhing sweet.”            
“No. How’s about some dried aigurdu or a sugar lump?”            
“I’ll take boat if you can spare it.”            
She reached into a backpack on the ground next to her and riffled around for a minute. Nearsighted as he was, he pulled his spectacles from a simple steel case tucked in a pocket of his green jacket. He looked around only now noticing that the two pips were well underway cracking the door. Must haf slept a few hours. He watched Gladdie guide one of his flame-cutter aparats as it sliced through a thick band of steel near the top of the door.            
“Here ya go Ana.” Enayle proffered a marble-sized ball of sugar and a small, pregnant, yellow cloth bag, which he guessed held the dried aigurdu. “There are rations on the sub, go eat and then get some rest. I am sure Sin and Gladdie will be awhile on that door so go back to the sub and sleep. We’ll wake you when the door pops.”            
“No arguments here.” He eagerly stuffed the sugar ball into the side of his mouth and sucked at it in his cheek. As he walked back to the makeshift dock, his shoulders already began to feel a bit less tense and the headache that had been slowly rising in his temples was abating. As it receded the swirling fires of his dream's vision flitted through his mind. Burning shadows, what did it portent? He had never been one to focus on bookish study; his skills as a warder were more of a knack than anything else, but something about that dream nagged at the back of his memory. Let it go, just a bad dream.
But he could not. That little part of himself that warned him that a situation was going sour before it rippened was all abuzz. As a veteran he knew better than to ignore it. He had witnessed killing, been the killer , and wept for the killed and that 'thing' whatever it was, is what kept him from being one of the 'wept for'. That dream tugged at his darkest thoughts, stirred the burried things.
    He knew all too well the wicked entropy that dwelled in the shadows of every soul, a pervasive gloom that grew from the hate and grudge of war and loss, an iniquitous facet that allowed one to commit unspeakable atrocity and laugh at the prospect of death.  Somewhere in those years he had become desensitized to terror and impervious to trepidation but at that moment on the dock that 'thing' told him to be afraid. Try as he might to let it go, the dream had galvanized his resolve to flee. There was something in the tomb more sinister than any treasure was worth and he did not want to stand around waiting to die.  
So there he stood on the roughhewn wood planks of the dock with only the thinnest of plans for his escape. First things first, he needed to ensure that no one caught wind of his elopement. He took stock. Every member of the crew was preoccupied with the business of busting into the tomb except one. He scanned for the crew’s limner Plek but the enchanter was nowhere to be seen. He was either meditating inside the sub or, more likely, skulking about the cavern snooping for precious stone and such. The eerie zenild caster was a sharp one and would surely guess him at his game and alert the crew to his flight where he to spot Anatok running off.
Ana whispered a spell into his hand where an opaque pale blue orb formed. With a light upward toss, the magic eye leapt from his hand and quickly sped off over his left shoulder into one of the several narrow volcanic-formed tunnels interconnected with the large chamber. Anatok closed his eyes and linked his mind with the floating orb, the shadowy walls of a tunnel swelled into view, passing him on all sides as the orb whizzed through the passageway. Quickly coming into view in the distance was the wavering glow of a spectre lantern and he could see the familiar outline of Plek and hear him picking at the granite walls. He halted the orb far enough away to avoid detection and watched for a moment, just to ensure that Plek would be at his task long enough to be a non-factor. He backed the orb away a bit and then left it to hover there, just in case he needed to check back in on him. Now to come up wit an escape plan.
He leaned against a square pylon and considered his options, few as they were. Can’t steal dhe sub…can’t pilot it. He looked around the dock for other physical assets. He could wake the crew’s rose-skinned materianist Numxot, who was sleeping curled up like a kedrin in some cargo netting at the other edge of the small dock. The xien ‘wind warper’ was horribly gullible and could probably conjure up some spell that would safely get him to the surface but then he would lose the ‘chaos factor’ of nobody really knowing what happened to him. He stood there staring at his slumbering crewmate blissfully sleeping for a minute or so. It was not the process of escaping that was evading him it was the abandoning of his friends and it rankled in his guts. He could not avoid ruminating on it. On one hand the guild was just a job but the years and memories made it so much more, it was a dilemma he had faced before and never successfully found a solution to.              
He turned pushed his goggles close over his crimson eyes with a stubby calloused forefinger and gazed at his companions as they set to work breaking down the door. He looked long and sorrowfully at each of his friends, etching them into his mind because he knew that once he turned his back and fled that he would never see them again. He closed his eyes and let the memories of his past wash over him.
For thirty-one years he had worked for The Lodestar Guild, twenty-seven of those years were aboard the Horizon’s Shadow. The guild was his family and if he abandoned his family then what would he have left? He had fled genocide and war in his homeland, choosing exile over slavery, crossing a treacherous ocean, risking starvation, drowning, and being eaten at sea. Eventually crashing landing half dead in Xhamantil. It was a true stroke of fortune that he did not get tossed into the alleys or beneath the docks with the supernumerary hoards of beggars and daleks. His skills as a warder matched him well with a life as a treasure hunter and it was not long before he found a home in the Lodestar Guild.
Most of his adult memories were intermingled with his service to the guild. He was the last guildsman hired by old man Rovafael, an imposing legend among trackers and treasure hunters alike and the founder of the guild. In those days he was in the winter of his years sick with heart disease and only the nominal guild head but he was a feisty bastard and still had the final say on the new hires. He shook Ana’s hand to welcome him into the guild-family and that was that, he was family.
Now that may not seem like much but the humans in those parts had a long running hatred of his alabaster skinned kin, which regularly pillage the coastal villages and hamlets of northern Zavoor. That he was not related to the Viselgarnian and Necralnian klygots except by race was of little concern to most humans but Old Rover did not care about those things. Being a member of the guild made him a member of the Martan family and gave him armor against those supernumerary ignorant few that found it acceptable to vent their bellicose bigotry upon him.
Old Rover made it nearly two years and then died quietly in his sleep. Ana had drank wine wine with family and crew over the deceased, collected ashes, stashed a wish for the old man in the wishing wall, and spread seeds in the gardens with his ashes. Indoctrinated into the strange custom of the human wake he was even more so a member of the ‘guild family.’ He could have left then but to what end. To be spit on in the streets of Galant Hill? Mugged in a dark alley because of the color of his skin? Or murdered for his race? No, he needed the Lodestar Guild.
Gerraric the eldest son, took over the guild. He was a great tracker, like his father, but was a hothead with a nasty booze tooth. In his bouts of sobriety, Gerry was a mastermind, able to negotiate the best treasure hauls the crew had ever known. But when deep in his cups he often took jobs that either paid too little or compromised the lives or integrity of the crew. At times it seemed like the guild was little better that one of the over abundant merc guilds that farmed themselves out to any number of the various wars that perpetually festered around the globe. That was the first time Anatok had considered leaving the guild but it just happened to be one of those slow periods in the adventuring industry and there was little work elsewhere. So he stayed on for a while longer.              
Tears welled in his eyes when he fixed his eyes once more on his comrades.
Gladeos he had known for thirty some odd years. The curmudgeonly Sepoorian tinkerer  was one of the first loot hunters he had ever worked with. He was hired by Gerry to replace Barricas who retired after the old man died. For all his bluster and ire Gladdie had quickly become Anatok’s closest friend and guild-brother. After several years both took jobs aboard the company’s primary exploration vessel, the Horizon’s Shadow.  So he stayed on a while longer.
Seven years in, while plundering blasted ruins on the outskirts of the war zone between North and South Enevoor, Gerraric died shielding Anatok during an ambush. The crew’s venerable and brooding sutra mihr claviger, Kud-Dral also died in that ambush. With the healer dead, Arrya, captain of the ‘HS’ and youngest of Old Rover’s children, died before she could be safely transported to a hospital from horrible burns incurred during that ambush. Gerry’s eldest child, Lokfael, a green-eared kid fresh out of the Xhamantilese Army, took over as tracker and guild head in his father’s absence. He asked Anatok to stay on while he got the family business righted. The upshot was that Lok was not prone to becoming crude drunk. Downside, he was unlearned in the arts of treasure hunting. Anatok almost called it quits again. The fact that Gerry had died saving him left him feeling indebted to the Lodestar Guild. So he stayed on a while longer.            
In the rebuilding of the guild Sinjona and Mashoke were hired. Sin replaced Kapeus, the guild’s previous yegg who suffered severe brain damage in that same ambush and was neither able to speak again nor remember anything other than a few glimpses of his childhood for more than a few minutes. Mashoke was already a seasoned pilot and merc from the Enevoorian civil war who came on as the new captain of the Horizon’s Shadow. Enayle came to the guild several years later after cycling through several unmemorable clavigers. Wulford the ancient limner and Hoc the crew’s brutish savage, both survivors of the Enevoorian Ambush and the last of the Old Rover’s crew retired and were replaced. New members came and went and through it all he thought of moving-on but always stayed on a while longer.
So here he was again, standing on the dock, but this time it was for real. He glanced over his shoulder at the crew again, Gladdie’s machines were making short work of the thick metal hinges and he needed to think fast if he was going to ship-off.  And then it came to him, both the resolve and the way out.  Damn it Gladdie it’s going to break your heart when you find out I used your gadgets to slip away.        

IV

    He moved quickly, before the fancy left him, maneuvering as quietly as haste would allow so as to not wake his slumbering crewmate. He sidled up to one of the lockers on the side of the haul sub then slowly raised the lid of the locker box on the side. Little by little he removed a lung virder and a ballast belt from the sideboard, a task made all the more difficult as the sub bobbed lazily in the calm indigo pool, the shifts in weight causing the vessel to rock and bang the dock.  It did not seem to wake the snoozing xien. Damn Numz, you always could sleep dhrough anydhing. He stopped for just a moment, reminiscing the adventures with the pale-skinned pilot but he quickly suppressed them for fear of changing his resolve to leave.            
    With another quick look over his shoulder, to ensure that none one had seen him, he slunk behind a large hunk of tumbledown stone near the dock. He slipped on the thick layered suit, donned the bowl-like glass helm of the virder, cinched on the belt, and almost forgetting to grab one, retrieved an aqua torch from the locker. Corpsefinder lay at his feet, he was not sure where or how to fasten it to the suit but he would be damned if he went without it; he had brought it with him all the way from the motherland. Fussing with the straps he managed to lash it across his back without being too encumbered. He had only worn the virder once before and that was only upon the goading of Gladeus who had constructed the damn thing and wanted all the crewmembers to marvel and try out his latest creation. Everydhing in order…I dhink. Without another look back he slid into the water. Sartur be damned I hate cold water.
    Bobbing there, he waited a moment to adjust to the chill before giving the command words to begin his descent. Shivering in the pool, he again almost aborted his timorous plan, this time for fear that he would freeze to death before navigating the vent and reaching the surface of the lake. To worsen matters he was drained, the unbinding of the door’s wards had nearly sapped all his stamina and despite Enayle’s interventions he was still very weak. The small amount of energy that the virder would draw from his body was probably all he had left. Now or never, probably be dhe deat of me.  
    With a word, marble-sized stones shimmied away from the walls of the lava-form chimney, like curious fish and began tucking themselves into various pouches on the ballast belt. The dark surface of the pool passed the eye line of the glass globed helm and then over his head. The stones stopped stowing themselves away in his belt and the darkness snapped in around him. He clicked on the aqua torch creating a beam of pale greenish cobalt light blending into deep tourmaline, then black after only two spans. Outside of the beam, the darkness was profuse and gave the sense of murk but the water was remarkably clear, save for some bits of algae which now danced lazily near the stonewall, dislodged by the stones now in his belt. It was colder than he had anticipated, fatigued as he was, he began to chatter just a bit, the sound echoing like a babe’s rattle in the helm. When his teeth were not clacking behind his lips he could hear a fizzling gurgle, he searched the darkness not sure what to make of it. The sound was always just behind his head and he started to feel the shadows of panic addle his wits. Preferring to play it safe he brought a missile spell to mind. His body's constant quavering was taking its toll by draining his meager reseves, he doubted he even had enough pep left to pull off that simple spell. If dhe beastie don't kill me, I'll end up killing myself just trying to surfife.
    The thought, though morbid, struck him as funny and he snickered audibly, the sound overly raucous in the smothering silence. His chortling stopped almost as soon as it started. No sense in anouncing myself to dhe beastie. Then he sniggered again, quieter this time, as he thought of himself as an alabaster meat snack with a beaming light source plunging through the water. Not fery inconspicuous. When he quieted down, the sound was still there, a wet burbling hiss trailing him just out of sight. He craned his head and scanned with the light but he just could not see anyhting beyond his beam. The chill seeping into his marrow did nothing to keep his mind from wandering. He was not even sure what sort of treacherous monsters may frequent this lake. Chosk with their massive toothy jaws and myopic eyes? Crowler, sleek blind bottom feeders the size of a small ship? He shuddered at the thought. He shown the light down and thought he saw motion. Or was it only in his mind? Well if your out dhere beastie, I hope you are not hungry for klygot.
Chattering, shivering, and trying hard to supress the terror brought on by the mysterious sound, he watched bubbles lazily float away back towards the surface. They trickled evenly from two small valves near his cheeks on either side of the glass helm, then the recollection struck him, Gladdie had explained ad nauseum the details of the virder’s inner-workings and that the gurgling  sound was created by a small box at the nape of the helm where the air was extracted from the water or some such thing. He shook his head and let out another tense chuckle as he continued to descend into the bitter gloom.
    He stayed close to the wall, hoping that he would be able to detect the exit. It had to be a fairly large hole for the sub to fit through but that meant nothing if he could not see it. He knew it was about sixty span down but he had no real understanding of how fast he was descending. It felt slow. He watched the stone features of the wall slide by. The time it took for an a distinct point to travel from the his toes to the top of the globe was about two seconds but that meant nothing without a reference point. He grabbed a stony out cropping and stopped himself, looking above him he could see the tiny speck of light which was the surface but it did not help him gauge the rate of declination. His brain was adled and he could not think of a quick way to discern his depth, and it was too cold to linger so he let go and continued down.
    The weight of the water against his suit made him feel like he was being squeezed which did not help the fact that he was feeling short of breath. He was not sure how much energy the virder required from his body to function but as sapped as he was he hoped the helmet was not breaking down or that he was was running out of juice. Oddly, the water felt like it was getting warmer. Hoping for any sign of the outlet, he scanned the darkness for the hole. He that he saw something in the murk that looked like little spots in the distance. With a command word the suit shuttled him towards them but never came any closer. Then the wall loomed before him again. He had either traversed the tube or made a small circle and gone nowhere. He felt deflated. Rufusing to give in to despair he commanded the suit to continue diving. If I surfife dhis, I dhink I will mofe to a desert. I hafe had my fill of water and cold.  
    His lids were heavy and each blink was an effort. He felt the summons to dream beckoning. "Got to stay awake." He  spoke outloud, the sound was jarring enough to bring him back to attention. A smile came to his lips as he recalled how had had come to the Lodestar Guild in the first place. By-way-of water and and now I am leafing dhat way too. His smile broadened, the memory reminded him of how he came about the name Anatok, which was not even his real name. 'Anha Tohgc' just happened to be the first thing he blurted out to the Coast Guard who slapped him into consciousness after his little skiff was picked up on the remote shores of the southern Tine. It meant fresh water. The forint-speaking sailor had actually asked him his name but Ana did not speak forint and the sailor did not understand Sargahasian so the sailor kept calling him ‘Anatok’. Then the Coastie told the hospitalers his name was ‘Anatok’ and so on and so forth until it stuck. The fact they brought him as much fresh water as he could drink made the error all he more ironic. Skret, I should hafe asked for wine.
    He snickered in his air-filled globe. Come to think of it, only Gladdie knew his real name. Reflecting on the persnickety runt brought his thoughts back to the lung virder. The helmet was still effervescing so at least it was still working. His body was beginning to wrack with shuddering spasms. He had only been this cold once before, on a wreck salvage in the Thunder Drift Channel in late autumn when pouring sleet storms blasted cold slush sideways. Colunir was new to the crew by about six months an was gutted, and nearly killed on the icy shore of some darken forsaken island. The Horizon's Shadow had staked in a sheltered valley and he and the away crew ran snow skiffs to the abandoned wreck.
    The looting had gone well enough. Col being the fire mage, had been holding back a few pernicious frost phantoms and did not see the topigots shifting through the blizzard. He went down quick and Enayle had to work fast to keep his guts from freezing in the snow. With the two of them out of the fight it got ugly for a bit. The frost phantoms were dealt with easily enough but the topigots kept darting in and out, it was the biggest pack he had ever seen. They had to drop the job and run getting separated from their skiffs and holing up in the tattered remnants of the wreck they had been plundering. It was less than an hour before Mashoke had sent out the ships strikers to investigate but it stood out as the coldest near-hour he had ever known. That was only four years ago and the chill was still fresh in his mind, the howl of the topigots circling the shattered hull of the wreck, the scream of the gale force winds, the hiss of the icy snow snaking through any spot the wind could fit, the gurgling bubble...
    His eyes snapped open, had he been dozing? He circled around, or at least he made motions that felt like circles. He had drifted away from the wall. His torch revealing nothing but the deep blue bleeding into darkness. He was having trouble focusing.  Got to find dhe wall. He was so tired. He tried to rub the sleep from his eyes, forgeting about the glass globe and blinded himself in the effort by shining the torch into his eyes. He paniced groping for the wall, his eyes only seeing fading discs of light when he blinked. The halos faded as his eyes quickly adjusted and all was darkness. Skret, I dropped dhe torch! He looked down and thought he saw a light shimmering far below him but it could have been the halos or even the elusive lights he had been chasing before. The futility of his failure was all consuming. He was going to die blind and alone in this gelid abyss and he did not care. The sound of cackling resignation rang loud in his ears but was only heard by the brutal gloom. He closed his eyes.

V

            A loud knock and scrape rattled him to his senses, something had hit him in the head. He looked around.  Lights swirled off of glass just in front of his face; it took a second for his eyes to adjust and for his brain to remember. Ah, helmet. He was bobbing in the pool, his helmet just above the water line, a dark object closed in quickly from his right side and again there was a loud knock and scrape as it struck the glass globe, pushing him below the water and then moving away. He corked back up. He squinted to see what was assailing him, readying a spell at the same time, or trying, he was very confused and could barely breathe. It was the aft end of the sub swaying taught against its mooring lines and then lumbering back towards the rough-hewn dock. Anatok was between the two. He did not remember resurfacing. He remembered dying in the fridgid deep, or was that a delusion? A dream? How did I survive? Did the suit know to return to the surface? His brain was throbbing and too addled to discern how he was alive. He simply knew he had to get out of the water. The sub was closing in for another knock on the dome. Need to get on to dhe dock.
    He saw shadows and lights erupting from the dock and deck hatch of the sub. Squinting he saw the shapes of Colunir launching rays of fire from his hands and Plek hurling orbs of prismatic death into the gaping maw where the tomb’s door once lived. Sin was standing at the hatch shouting at the two casters, but he could not hear through the helm. She leveled her oversized lightning staff Shockwave at the opening and and let loose with a blinding bolt. Plek and Col clammored past her and ducked into the sub. She followed and slammed the hatch shut.
Blinded by the flash of lightning and battered by rushing water, he felt, more than heard, the deep mechanical whir of the sub’s propellers rumbling beneath the water. A gust of force buffeted him towards the dock, as an air-filled orb surrounded the sub, displacing the water around it. The sub bobbed slightly at the center suspended on a cushion of air, pale rose tendrils crackling along the periphery of the globe. The propellers went from a sonorus rumble to a roaring whir, the sub and its prtoective shell descended. Dhere leaving!
    His eyes attuned just enough to make out the frothing spray of water that enclosed the descending sub, the illumination of the sub’s lights rapidly dimming, the shadows of the cavern coalescing, collapsing onto the pool as it submerged. He swam towards the sinking sphere but was thrown back by waves of displaced water. Then it was gone, only the faint glow of an abandoned spectre lantern on the dock to illuminate the pool. He gave the command word for the suit to descend, hoping that he could intercept his companions, but nothing happened. Again, he screamed to descend, deafening himself, his voice cacauphonic in his helmet. To no avail.
The water went calm, and he swam to the dock. He was quaking from the chill, his limbs wooden and stiff, it was all he could do to clamor up onto the planks. The gurgling whir of the helmet’s air making device suddenly stopped and then it was not only dark but deathly quiet. He was to exhausted and cold to be adequately frightened but he knew this was a very bad situation. He lay, facedown on the dock for awhile, shivering and trying to figure out what his options were. None. The glass bubble over his head was getting thin on air now that it was not functioning. Rolling to his back he felt something hard, like a pole dig at his shoulder blades. Oh yes, Corpsefinder. Still dhere. Dhat is some welcome good news.
    His fingers nearly petrified, he fumbled at the neck clasps to pop off the helmet, pffssss...He slowly unfastened the straps that banded his hook across his back. Unburdened, he took a few deep breaths, propping himself up on his side to assess his surroundings. The ground between him and the tomb's portal was scorched, the massive door lay flat on the floor of the staging area where only a short while ago he had been sitting, dispelling that same door. It was like a massive soot-covered coin, easily one hand thick, maybe one and a half but it was inset into the ground, the weight of it had sunk it into the muddy earth. Nothing else seemed out of place. His only companion was a spectre lantern hung from a pylon glowing brightly on the other side of the dock.
    The spicy scent of magic hung in the air, the after effect of an assault at something beyond the gaping maw of the tomb’s door by his retreating crewmembers. Somedhing could still be out dhere. He sat deathly quiet and listened for movement, the scent magic in the air seemed to get stronger, more bitter. Dhat's not right. His hackles began to rise. Every bit of his training as a warder had taght him to know the subtlies of magic, every ebb and flow. He knew the difference between Col's fire and Plek's prismatic orbs, one a hot citric smell that caused the sides of the tongue to water, the other was an peppery scent that crinkled the nose. This was neither. It was putrid, the rancor of parboiled flesh left long to rot a scent that could only come from one source of magic. Dhat's darken magic!
    Thump…Shhhlict-t-t. A sound echoed in the chamber. Anatok knew all too well it’s origin; the tomb. Now he was adequately frightened. “Shhhai-Rakkk!” A voice like desert wind blasting and snapping at parched leather convulsed through the quiet of the cavern. A bloody crimson radiance burst into exisitence inside the tomb and then smoldered. Thump…Shhhlict-t-t. A bit louder this time. It’s coming!
    Anatok sat bolt upright, despite his shivering convulsions, leaned Corpsefinder against a tumbledown slab of granite and grabbed the glass bowl helmet. Got to get back in dhe water. Not enough strengt to fight it wit magic. He thought as quickly as panic and lethargy would allow. Thump…Shhhlict-t-t. The crimson glow ebbed into the chamber, he thought he could see a form. It is moving fast. He fumbled at the latches. Thump…Shhhlict-t-t.
    The fetid odor of decay crowded out the fading incence of citrus and pepper. He was not entirely sure what he would do once he got in the water but he knew that as long as he stayed on the dock he was trapped. Thump…Shhhlict-t-t. The helmet snapped tight and the foul redolence was shut out. Just got to tighten dhese straps. The chill and the panic made his hands almost useless. Thump…Shhhlict-t-t. The sound of the approaching monster was muffled through the helmet but it’s proximity rattled faintly though the ground. He looked again towards the tomb as the glimmer of the advancing light shown faintly on the rough wood of the dock. Thump…Shhhlict-t-t. A creature of primeval fable loped through the gaping portal. It was hideous. The thing that advanced from the blackness rattled him with revulsion so great that he no longer quavered from the effects of the fridgid pool, but with fear. To terrified to know it he soiled himself.
    It may have been a bipedal creature at one time, similar in proportions to a tall human or zenild from the trunk up but more emaciated and elongated. Still largely hidden in shadows, he could see that serrated black claws tipped it’s delicately thin fingers. They clutched open and closed hungrily at the air as it ambled closer. Thump…Shhhlict-t-t. A sickly garnet orb hovered an arm’s span above the head, shadows coming alive inside the burn of it’s magic glow writhing like agitated serpents, the light illuminating the face of ancient horror. Its mouth bristled with row upon row of smutty ivory needles, the lips pulled back, tattered and withered, in a perpetual grimace. Acidic drool dripped and sizzled on the ground, motes of vile green steam rose to meet the writhing shadows. Thump…Shhhlict-t-t. Where the legs should have been a snarled network of desiccated ropy innards elevated the body a good five span high even though they hung down and dragged behind it. One of those braided entrails snaked forward, Thump, and hauled the tangle of viscera behind it, Shhhlict-t-t.
    A thicket of groping tentacles danced from its back, convulsing and clashing with themselves, forming into wing-like shapes and then untangling and lashing about again. Weeping stoma opened and closed along their surface, tiny flying insects buzzed in and out of those gasping mouths. Thump…Shhhlict-t-t. The belly was a pregnant festering mound slathered in purulent frothy goo from which bloated grubs plopped onto the floor. Some burnt away in the puddles of caustic drool, some crushed under the knotted guts, and a growing few squirmed across the floor towards Anatok. Thump…Shhhlict-t-t.
    The skin, aside from the tumescent belly, was blood-blackened and taught like parched, heat-blasted hide, something he had seen when the guild had been hired as skirmishers along the South Enevoorian coast. The southerners had fired all the villages and livestock to keep the advancing Skelgarian troops from gaining supplies. The bodies of the saroak and gur had that same scalded look. Its face a paler hue of the same bloody red, as if it had dunked its muzzle from the ears forward in clotted gore. Thump…Shhhlict-t-t.
    Anatok wanted to run, every fiber of his body screamed for him to bolt, but before he could shake the fog from his mind the beast swung it’s head and gazed upon him. Two large predatory eyes stared ravenously, unblinkly at him, so black that light seemed to die as it entered those fuligin orbs. A myriad of smaller grotesque eyes were festooned haphazardly across it’s temples and brow, each oscillating through the various colors of visible light but adulterated into it’s deadest hue. Anatok was paralyzed.
    “Haaaazzzh-Uhm-BAAAAAAHH!” The alien words blasted from it’s throat, the roar like a strike to Ana’s entire body, knocking him nearly off the dock. The cavern shook and small stones and dust were knocked down from the walls. Ana began to drag himself towards the edge of the dock, multiple tiny cuts littered his face from the shrapnel of his shattered helm, blood flowed freely from his nose, and something warm trickled from his ears. Mercifully they were ringing too loudly to hear the creature close-in behind him.
    Out of the corner of his eyes he saw movement, shadows began to slither towards him, like streams of oil.  As his fingers clutched the edge of the small wooden pier, he hauled his body to the lip of the dock. Then a razor-sharp pain wracked him with pain, a first in his right and ankle and then again in his left foot and calf. He turned to see the turgid grubs swarming over his legs, secreting gobbets of caustic ooze that melted and perforated the thick layers of the dive suit. The holes steamed and then the larval creatures promptly burrowed through and from the feel of it began feeding on his flesh.
    He cried out in agony and horror, he may have even pleaded for his life but as the shadows closed in, they themselves emanating an impossible heat, he was reduced to madness. The beast loomed over him, it expurgated oily blistering gloom that made more of the undulating shadow. The smell of his own broiled flesh filled his nostrils and he puked down his front side aspirating some of it in a deep breath in, gagging, gasping, suffocating, as the burning shadows cooked him and the rapacious larva feasted on his legs.
    In that dying moment a song sung among the Skelgarians groaned through his anguish.
     
From the bloody crimson shadows rise
            A hungry madness, a wicked beast
            Last of her kind, beyond death
            Burning alike animal and man.
Horror stares from fifty deadened eyes
            Dancing shadows spill from yellow teeth
            Maggot children, thunder breath
            Sirric’Hoc the last of the Draukan.
         
    As impossible as it seems, in those dying moments, as his screamed himself into the darkness of oblivion, he remembered the dream that had haunted him, what was it only two hours ago? Winds on a desert of rusty sand, raging sideways, tearing at the flesh of thousands of soldiers trudging towards a gnarled keep shrouded in beckoning shadows. Among those troops a black figure swooped among them, darkness belching from it’s mouth, that umbral matter consuming all it touched. Burning them alive. Their ashes then rising and attacking their allies. It was a vision of the “Last Hunt.” A horrible battle to slay the last draukan, Sirric’Hoc. The once luscious plains that lay at the foot of her keep were consumed by her burning shadows and to this day, three hundred years later the souls of tortured warriors still haunted that wasteland as cinder wraiths. In his mind they screamed in pain. He screamed in pain too as Sirric’Hoc consumed his soul.