Akatika's Legacy Read online

  “What way should we go?” Lafe asked waving his torch around to accentuate the myriad of different doorways.

  “I want to see the chapel.” Gabby replied, voice trembling with excitement.

  “Well let me look at my map, oh wait I forgot it.”

  “You don’t need to be snarky Lafe.”

  “Sorry, which door would you like to take first?”

  Gabby paused, thinking about what Alaric would do. “How about we try the last one and work our way back.”

  “We should hurry. We’ve have been here too long as it is. At this rate we’ll be heading back in the dark.” Lafe said.

  “Fine, but I want to find something first. We can do the last half and then go. How does that sound?” Gabby inquired.

  “Sounds great.” Lafe said as he started to make his way down the hall.

  When they reached the end of the hall a massive door laid on the floor in front of them. It was splintered in the middle and odd shaped chunks missing from around the area the handle should have been. It was as if someone had broken their way through it trying to get out of wherever the door led.

  They came to a stairwell leading down into the recesses of the monastery. They wound their way down the spiral descending into a new level of darkness. It was so quiet that Gabby could hear every breath that Lafe took even though he was a good five steps below her. The air here was stale and tasted of dust.

  Gabby nearly jumped out of her skin when Lafe asked; “You think this is the cellar?”

  Catching her breath and reminding herself not to be jumpy. After all, adventurers were calm and composed at all times she reminded herself. “Looks like it. There are lots of shelves set in the wall. Might find some hundred-year-old mutton.”

  “Great, just what I want. Old rotten mutton flavored with rat droppings.”

  “Don’t forget about the five inches of dust covering everything. Oh, my fire maker, lighten up we are on an adventure, its fun.”

  “Fire maker? That’s a new low for you. You know what, this might be fun. We might find a rare wine. Monks make the stuff all the time and I bet they have some around here somewhere.” Lafe said conspiratorially.

  “I am not doing that again!” Gabby said blushing.

  “Come now, we had a lot of fun.” Lafe said as he investigated one of the selves that were cut into the wall. “Ah, well it looks like we’ll have to keep looking, unless you consider rags and moth-eaten linen something of note.”

  “Maybe this is where they kept the supplies. The larder and pantry are probably in one of these alcoves.”

  A strange clicking noise started as Gabby approached the first alcove. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from. If the clicking wasn’t enough to cause every hair on her body to stand on end, the faintly glowing fungus on the wall would have been.

  “Lafe… LAFE!” Gabby screeched.

  In an instant, Lafe was at Gabby’s side belt knife in hand.

  “What, what’s going on?”

  All of her confidence and every lesson that she had gleaned from reading the adventures of Alaric fled instantly. She was paralyzed in place staring next to the small bed. All she could do was mumble and point.

  The glowing lichen cast an eerie glow on the corner of the room. The dim light had drawn her attention to a pile of old bones. Enough bones for at the very least two people.

  “They can’t harm you; they’re already dead. Long dead. Hundreds of years dead.” Lafe reassured her.

  “But what’s the clicking noise they are making?” she stammered.

  “Bones don’t make clicking noises. It’s probably beetles living off the fungus and anything left of the skeletons that’s eatable.”

  Gabby began to recompose herself. “How do you think they died?”

  “From the curse obviously.”

  “Lafe don’t be ridiculous. If it was cursed, we would be dead too. I bet it was some sort of illness. Like fever pox or something.”

  Lafe started backing out of the room. “That’s worse than a curse.”

  “It was hundreds of years ago it can’t be catching still.”

  Having regained all her previous adventuring bravado, she began look around the small bedchamber. One bed, a chest of draws, a small table or maybe stool covered in the glowing fungus, and a trunk.

  Gabby’s eye light up when she saw the trunk. It had a huge lock on it. She knew that adventurers always found treasure in chests locked with huge locks. All she needed to do was find the key.

  After making a quick search of the room she came to the conclusion that the key was either elsewhere or under the strange glowing fungus. She did not want to touch that.

  “Lafe, my burly hunk. Do you think that you are strong enough to break that lock off the trunk?”

  Lafe sighed. “I am strong but not so much that I can break metal, especially metal not already rusted to bits. I could, however, break to top off the trunk though.”

  “Uh, alright but be careful. I don’t want you to break whatever is inside.”

  It took a few tries but finally, Lafe lifted his foot and put his boot through the top of the chest. He tried to be as careful as he could, but it was a sound trunk. Gabby cleared the debris away so they could both look in at the prize. It was a chest full of books.

  “Wow. Books. That’s some great loot.” Lafe mocked.

  “They have to be important. They were locked up. I know you have more than muscle in that head of yours.”

  “If you say so, sweets.” Lafe said, brushing his hair back.

  Gabby put a few of the books into the satchel and they left the room. The next room was much the same as the last except no skeletons and no trunk. The one that followed had three skeletons in it. There had been a trunk, but it only held mostly disintegrated clothes. The last few rooms each had a skeleton neatly tucked into the bed. Well, they looked like they were neatly tucked in when the blankets were intact.

  So far, the treasure they found was a few books in mostly good condition. Gabby tried not to look downhearted, but she was sighing every few minutes. She needed more than a few books for her reward to her first adventure. Every time they left a room without anything new her shoulders slumped a bit more.

  Lafe tried to cheer her up, but Gabby only shrugged him off and walked to the next room.

  “Gabby let’s go back upstairs. I am sure that if we look into a few of the other rooms we’ll find something.” Lafe encouraged.

  “I don’t understand it, there is supposed to be treasure all over the place. That’s how it always is.”

  “I know, maybe we’re looking in the wrong places.”

  Gabby led the way up the stairs. Lafe following close behind with the torch held up as high as he could lift it.

  A rainbow was cast onto the wall as the light hit the crystal doorknob of the next door. The door was easily the tallest and widest she had ever seen. Strange holes were all over the surface of it, as if someone had put a pick through it several times. Stranger still was the board and long rusted nails keeping it shut.

  “Seems promising.” Lafe remarked noticing the bright colors on the wall.

  “Barred doors are always a good sign on adventures.” Gabby informed Lafe.

  It only took a minute for the plank to crash to the ground. The sound was much louder than Gabby was expecting. It seemed to echo all the back to the end of the entire complex.

  “Lucky no one lives here anymore because that would have given us away for sure.” Lafe said.

  “Except those beetles. I can still hear them clicking and buzzing.”

  “I doubt they mind the noise.” Lafe explained.

  They opened the door to find another pile of bones. The last rays of light from the setting sun shone through a roof which looked to have collapsed. The dim light fell on the pile. There were so many bones, it was like a graveyard had regurgitate its inhabitance into this room. The scratches on the back of the door made it clear they were trying to get out of the room whe
n they died.

  “We’re committed, we can go in and you can have your look around.” Lafe said as he plowed a path down the middle of the pile of bones.

  “Lafe!” Gabby gasped. “Have you no respect for these poor monks?”

  “Gabby they’re dead and have been this way for hundreds of years. They don’t mind.”

  Gabby looked increasingly annoyed the more Lafe talked, but he kept going on.

  “You guys don’t mind if we cut through the line, do you? See Gabby they don’t mind. We’re trying to get in and they want out. It’s all good.”

  Gabby stomped past him only remembering at the last moment her ankle was still burning with pain. So, with a huff and half limp half stomp, she moved past him.

  The air smelled of damp soil and mold. Like an old cellar that was not attended well. It was cold, too cold for the time of year. Not like a cellar a cave Gabby decided. A cave with ornate picture frames on the wall, gilded picture frames.

  Her pulse started to race, and she climbed over part of a fallen roof support beam. Her mind raced with possibilities. If this room didn’t have treasure in it none of them would, Gabby thought.

  It wasn’t just a room it was some sort of grand hall. The kind that was used to have elegant balls in the stories that Gabby knew so well. But this one had desks sitting next to the wall on one side. There was a huge carved stone altar. It had gilded carving all over the face of the sides. It had to be eight feet long and three feet wide. Atop it was the largest of the support beams from the roof.

  There were even more alters in the back of the room with more debris on top of them. More bones mixed with the debris. The ceiling must have collapsed while they were preforming one of their rituals.

  She moved deeper into the room and found a plush chair, almost like a throne on the dais. Gabby found that strange because no monks had thrones that she knew of. It must be where the leader of the order sat when they gave lectures or sermons or whatever monks did.

  No pews though. She was sure that there would be pews in a room like this. Maybe this order was the kind that knelt for everything. The cupboards on the wall opposite the desks were out of place as well. Probably for the stuff they needed for their rituals, Gabby guessed.

  “Gabby you need to come here and look at this.” Lafe called and after a few moments when she didn’t respond he called again. “Lady Adventurer come hither I have found your treasure! Now, please.”

  Two very moth-eaten curtains cascaded from the ceiling flanking the entrance to a small room. The room had been shrouded in shadows and hard to see from where she had been a moment before. She approached the room, and noted it was caged with thick metal bars and a sturdy looking gate. On the other side of the bars was an ornate desk of dark wood with stacks of papers and coins. Behind the desk were shelves laden with tattered bags.

  Gabby fell on her butt right to the floor where she stood mouth agape in soundless shock.

  Piles of sparkling treasure spilled from the tattered bags. Chromatic piles of Gold, Silver, Copper and even what looked to be Aluminum coins laid scattered across the floor of the room. Mixed with those piles were iron bound bronze chests hinting at promises of more treasure.

  Lafe looked down at his stunned love. “I think I know how I am going to pay the dowry to your father.”

  Several minutes passed as Gabby stared into the room. “How do we get in?”

  “We have to find the key.” Lafe said.

  “Can’t we break the lock or something?”

  “No, I don’t know what type of metal this is, but I can’t even scratch it with my knife. We’ll have to find a way to unlock it.”

  Gabby bolted to her feet. “Let’s find that key.”

  Gabby ran to the desks on the side wall and started rummaging through the drawers. While Lafe returned to the pile of bones and started looking for the key.

  Lafe spent a while sorting and found that there were ten bodies in the pile. He had them roughly sorted into their own piles; well a skull matched a pile of bones. There was a lot of bone left over that he had no idea where they went or to what skull they belonged.

  He also found a dagger plated in silver, three silver bits, two copper buttons, five rings with various gemstones, and no less than seven unique keys.

  Gabby couldn’t get several drawers open. So, she frantically pounded on them with a stone from the caved in roof until the wood cracked and they came out. Most of the drawers were full of vellum. Ultimately her exploits returned an armload of books, a few wax impression stamps, and three keys.

  Moments later Lafe and Gabby were once again in front of the gate. Lafe gathered the keys from Gabby and began to try them in the lock. One by one they failed to turn.

  “No, luck. There has to be something else.” Lafe said.

  “Let’s look by the altar. That’s where the Maerrythian Sefs keeps the key for the ceremonial wine in Maerryth’s kitchen in town.” Gabby stated.

  They made their way to the alter climbing over the massive support beams. The area around the alter held nothing but debris from the ceiling.

  “Gabby, this alter has a lid. Look see how it is skewed.” Lafe pointed out.

  “You’re right. Let’s see if we can look inside. I bet you anything the keys are there.” Gabby proclaimed.

  Lafe grabbed the end of the support beam and heaved with all his might. There was no way they were going to move the support beams from the top of the alter. He couldn’t move it at all he lacked the leverage necessary for such a task. There might be a way to shift it a bit more to the side and Gabby might be able to get her hand in he thought.

  “They won’t budge. We might be able to move the lid enough for you to get your hand in there though.”

  “Let’s do it.” Gabby exclaimed.

  They each braced themselves on the corner that was already out of alignment. With tremendous effort they got the lid to move.

  That’s not enough for me to get my hand in Gabby thought. I can’t even see in there.

  “One more time, I have small hands but not that small.” Gabby quipped.

  Once more they set to moving the lid. This time they stuck the end of the torch in the gap and used it as a lever. The lid scrapped a bit more along the edge. Now she could get her hand in.

  She felt around inside for a bit. It felt like velvet cloth or robes. There were some ridges and bumps in the cloth but nothing that felt like keys. “I can’t find anything. Feels like altar cloths or something. Lower the torch and so I can see inside.”

  Lafe Tried to position the torch so that it wouldn’t burn off Gabby’s hair. It was tricky to get it low enough to the lid for get light inside and still have it be far enough away. After some award repositioning he did it.

  She could see something in there. She moved in closer to try to get a better look.

  “MAERRYTH AND HER SEVEN SONS!” She yelled as she fell backward shuttering.

  Lafe was shocked he had never heard Gabby curse before and definitely not by Maerryth’s name.

  “It’s not an altar. It’s a coffin or tomb or whatever they call stone boxes with dead bodies in it.”

  Lafe put his hand on Gabby’s shoulder to comfort her.

  “AWW!” Gabby screamed, jumped and bolted away from the altar.

  She made it about ten feet in one leap over several obstacles. Lafe was impressed with her speed and tried not to laugh.

  “What’s wrong hero? We’ve been around skeletons all day.” Lafe remarked.

  “This is the first one that I touched. And, and this one still has its skin on it.” She said shuttering again. “It’s all wrinkly like a nasty two-hundred-year old raisin.”

  “What’s wrong with raisins?”

  “They’re pretty much the worst thing in the world. Well, other than the dead person there. No disrespect to them.” Gabby pointed out.

  “But no keys right, there weren’t any in there by chance.” Lafe confirmed.

  “No keys, unless nasty wither
ed fingers are keys.” Gabby protested.

  “Usually not, but if you want to grab the hand and pull it free, we could try it. It’ll come off with only a little resistance.”

  “Ewe, Lafe you’re gross.”

  “Well if it’s not any of the keys we’ve found. And you insist that it’s not old raisin face’s hands. We need to force the lock.” Lafe said.

  “Well, there’s always Ivy and-”

  “Not a chance. Tony flirts way too much with you. He’d steal everything anyway.” Lafe interrupted.