Wealday, Noon

I am not really a morning person. I spent nearly three years working as either a barmaid or server and—surprise!—taverns, pubs, and dining halls both open and close late. It was, in fact, the perfect schedule for someone who grew up spending more than a couple of nights each week staying out until the small hours. Though apprenticing for Osgood has forced me closer to what misguided people might call a “normal schedule”, I have so far managed to avoid getting up with or before the sun in my adult life. I am more than happy to keep it that way.

I was concerned the half-day’s hike to an abandoned house that I’ve not seen in several years would threaten that stance, but it turned out that there was not much enthusiasm in the group for an early start. The idea of having someplace close to the cairn that we could use as a base of operations meant that we didn’t have to plan for a round trip, so leaving early morning instead of stupidly-early was fine, as there would still be plenty of time left in the day. Granted, this was something of a gamble since we didn’t know what condition it would be in, but I was willing to take that chance.

We set out individually and rendezvoused just outside of town before making the hike. The idea there was to not make it look like we were planning something. One of the downsides of a town as small as Diamond Lake is that there aren’t many secrets, and seeing our group of seven leaving for the wilderness, carrying gear-laden packs and weapons, would likely attract the wrong sort of attention. And by “the wrong sort”, I mean “any at all”. This half-baked plan of ours would only work if we didn’t attract a following.

When we got to the house three or four hours later, it was pretty much as I remembered it except for the gaping holes in the roof. I could see the tattered remains of the tarps I had helped put in place seven or eight years ago.

Stars, had it really been that long?

We had actually done some upkeep on it as Night Walkers, with a large part of that being keeping the weeds in check. What we saw now was a good reminder of what happens when there’s years of uncontrolled growth. The fence had gaping holes, much larger than I remember, where roots and brambles had split the wood and dirt had rotted fence posts. The yard within was severely overgrown as well, and getting a foothold on the building itself.

Those issues aside, the structure still looked pretty sound. The upstairs was sure to be a mess, and there was likely water damage downstairs, too, but it wasn’t as bad as I feared. We were just getting ready to have a look inside when we heard buzzing noises coming from around back.

The source of the noise became apparent very quickly: four mosquito-like things the size of a house cat converged on us. Stirges. Vicious, blood-sucking pests that prey on just about anything that’s warm-blooded, and if enough of them get to you they can bleed you dry.

Just to be clear, these weren’t around the last time I was here.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to come across stirges since this isn’t their typical habitat. You tend to find them in the same place you’d find mosquitos, which usually means around stagnant water of some sort. There’s a huge nest of them not far from the Stirgenest Cairn—we don’t just make up these names, you know—which is closer to the southeastern shore of Diamond Lake (the lake, obviously, not the town that’s named after it).

Regardless of whether they should be here, they were here, and that was no good. I sliced two of them in half with my horsechopper. Viktor blasted another with magic. The fourth turned out to be a tough little bugger but it pushed its luck going after Sera and she skewered it in response. The whole thing was over in less than half a minute.

And then the front door, which was hanging slightly ajar, slammed shut.

Well, crap.

The whole point of this excursion was to claim squatter’s rights on the property, but that was not going to work if someone else was already there. So we did what any reasonable group of people would do in the same situation: we knocked on the door and announced our presence.

The answer came in a raspy draconic. “Go away, humans!”

I’ve spent the last couple of years getting combat training from anyone at the garrison who would teach me, in exchange for a small fee (well, it was a large fee relative to my income, but no one was getting rich off of it). Sometimes that came from commander Trask. Sometimes it was one of the holy knights that sporadically visit from Korvosa. Usually it was from one of the Korvosa Militia soldiers on duty. It was an agreement I made with the commander that, more or less, kept me out of trouble by redirecting my frustrations in a direction less likely to antagonize the Sheriff and his cronies. It also gave the militia a bit of spending money, and a way to break up dull routine. Osgood also encouraged his apprentices to actually learn how to use the weapons we helped forge. So other than keeping me mostly broke, it was a win all around.

You can’t spend that much time around a group of soldiers—I would add “surly” as an adjective there, but it’s more or less redundant—without learning a bit about their duties. Everyone in Diamond Lake knows there’s some tension between us and the lizardfolk that make their home in the marshes to the southwest, for example, but I had learned just how often those tensions turn into pissing contests with the militia. It also occurred to me that this, here, was way outside their usual territory. Enough that the commander would elevate its status to “incursion”.

I honestly didn’t want to start a fight with lizardfolk. Even given this little territorial matter, I see no reason not to live and let live, and try a diplomatic approach. I pointed out to them that they shouldn’t be here, and they answered with an insult followed closely by a javelin, tossed through one of the many gaps in the mostly boarded-up windows.

Well, okay, then. Pissing contest, it is.

Raiding a house is not an easy task, even one that is in severe disrepair. They were outmatched, but had an advantage in that we had to break our way in. Fortunately, the house was not able to put up much of a fight so all it did was slow us down. Viore and Zhog knocked the front door down going in, and Sera squeezed her way in behind them. They ended up face-to-face with three lizardfolk, and a fourth in reserve.

I stayed outside, and moved up to the windows. Two of them were tossing javelins through those, and I answered by stabbing one with the horsechopper. They went down and did not get back up.

Spells went off inside, sent by Viktor and Varin. Two of the lizardfolk in the front room collapsed. And then Sera got stabbed. I watched it happen through a window on my right. She was hurt bad. Really, really bad.

“Sera!” I cried, half in a panic. “Get out of there!” Though I think she had already figured that out on her own.

The remaining javelin-throwing lizardfolk appeared at the window in front of me, and I punched them with a spiked gauntlet. After seeing Sera get hurt, you might say I was in a bit of a mood.

Snagsby did something and I saw some of Sera’s wounds close up, but it wasn’t enough. Zhog and Viore distracted the lizardfolk in front of them by killing them, though, and that allowed Sera to back out of the fray. Zhog got in behind the one I punched, and then it was all over.

Almost over. During the fight, they called out to someone for aid and that aid never came, so we assumed it was still somewhere inside. Viore opened a door next to the stairs, and got it in one. This last lizardfolk was a bit tougher than the others, but had made the mistake of waiting until he was the only one left. I admit that I didn’t understand the point of that. We taught him a lesson in tactics that would last a lifetime: all 10 seconds of it.

This was my first time killing someone. The stirges didn’t really count, because it’s not like there’s a lot of love in the world for giant mosquitos. The lizardfolk, though, were sentient beings. They had lives, friends, maybe families. I don’t really know much about lizardfolk culture, but they operative word there is culture. When the fight started, adrenaline kind of took over and I didn’t think about it much, especially since I was trying not to die or get any of my friends killed. But afterwards? I don’t know. I don’t feel bad exactly, but I don’t feel good about it, either. It feels like the sort of thing that will stick with you.

I’d also never really seen much magic before. Sure, Varin uses little spells to cool drinks at the Rusty Bucket, and that’s fun and flashy, but to see spells cast in anger was a much different experience. Even Allustan, who is Diamond Lake’s resident bigwig, doesn’t go throwing it around. Based on what I saw today, presumably that’s because he doesn’t have to. If people know what you can do, you don’t need to go out of your way to give demonstrations. It also probably explains why his brother, Diamond Lake’s governor-mayor and chief pervert, is able to hold onto power. A little nepotism obviously goes a long way.

There was a surprising amount of stuff inside the house, much of it courtesy of the now-departed lizardfolk, which suggested they had been here for a couple of weeks, at least. The most grim discovery was a set of armor and weapons that came from one of the Korvosa Militia. I didn’t look forward to delivering that news. I don’t know everyone there by name, as the soldiers rotate, but I do know that every now and then one or two don’t come back. Like, for good.

Some magic scrolls, potions, and some coins suggested that more than one person had been using the house in the intervening years, and that not all of them had made it back, either. As Night Walkers, we never bothered to go down into the cellar—kids and cellars don’t really get along—but we’re responsible adults now, so nothing was off limits. There was a bunch of old mining equipment and a few odds and ends down there that were probably older than I am.

The rest of the house was much as Sera and I remembered it, just with a bit more water damage (gross), more snakes (also gross), and more giant rats (really gross). The upstairs was all but a total loss, but we could probably tarp the roof again to keep things from getting worse. It doesn’t rain much this time of year, so we have some time to get that done. For now, it would be fine.

The cairn beckoned.

I just hoped we could find it again. It occurred to me that I’ve never actually been there in the daylight.

Wealday, Afternoon

It took maybe ten or fifteen minutes to make our way to the cairn. Finding the entrance was a bit tricky because it was more overgrown than either Sera or I remembered, though I suppose that wasn’t surprising. Given how large the mouth is you wouldn’t think that weeds, vines, and brush would be enough to hide it, but six years is a long time and the vegetation here has always been thick.

We cleared away the worst of the thickets. People may have forgotten this place, but the wilderness certainly hadn’t. There were lots of animal tracks leading in and out, so many that they ran together, obscuring any obvious signs of what left them, and what, if anything, might be lairing inside. As we studied the entrance, a light breeze rose up and the cairn breathed out a long sigh, as if registering its opinion of our long-delayed return. Oh, you again. Believe me, I was having the same feeling.

The long hallway stretched into darkness. We could see a band of geometric shapes on the walls at waist level, or what remained of it. Most of it had either eroded away or, in some cases, been scratched off deliberately. Just inside the entrance was the graffiti from the kids that used to come in here: initials, faded names, drawings, and the like. These were the marks of those just seeking bragging rights for being inside the cairn, maybe trying to impress some girl or boy. They’d worked on the kids who didn’t ask too many questions, but didn’t stand up to real scrutiny. It just didn’t take much bravado to walk 10 feet in, where the sun was still shining, and ink your initials. This was the toddlers’ playroom.

We slowly made our way in along the dust-covered floor. It was a strange feeling retracing my old footsteps. I’d been in here maybe half a dozen times, and all but one of those was alone. And for all that time I was in here, I never really bothered to actually look. Probably none of us did, because the point was to be here in the dark and say you’d done it. So in a way, I was really seeing the cairn for the first time.

The wind kicked up, and a chorus of almost human sounds rose around us, and I could feel the goosebumps on my skin as chills ran up my spine. This was the cairn I remembered. Just being in here for a few minutes was one thing. Spending the night was another. Every breeze, every shift of the wind, sent new voices, sometimes even amusical tones, echoing throughout. It was not easy to stay calm. You couldn’t tell what sounds were real or just in your head, and of the former, whether they were the cairn or something else inside there with you. It drove more than one kid to panic and an early exit.

I remember my overnight stay in here vividly. Unlike Sera, I couldn’t see in the dark yet, and I was sitting in utter blackness for most of it. I was young, and Sergiu was still riding me, so I purposely chose a windy night because, paradoxically, that impressed the others more. It ended up working in my favor: the noise was nearly constant, and though the sounds rose and fell, I could still filter them out. Breezy nights, where the winds died entirely, were worse. The sounds would kick up with the wind just as you relaxed. You were always on edge.

Now that I had the time and inclination to explore, I could see where those sounds came from: small, metal tubes, hundreds of them, built into the walls. Some were broken off on the ground. The builders spent a lot of time trying to create this weird and unsettling effect. Given how long this must have taken, I had to wonder if they built this cairn first, and then decided “Let’s not do that again” before working on the others. Such a mundane source kind of ruined the magic of it, but knowing the cause didn’t change the fact the effect was still eerie.

Sera and I pointed out our names when we reached the alcoves. If you made it this far in, you were probably spending the night, and that meant you had a lot of time on your hands. It was the only time I used Sergiu’s red lantern, as it provided just enough light to slowly etch my name in the stone. It took a couple of hours, but it made me a proper vandal.

The second set of alcoves was just beyond. The short hall between the two was as far as I’d ever gone. When we reached it, a very human scream rose around us as the temperature plummeted.

I knew that voice. So did Sera. She called out, “Masildi!” and her name echoed within. Unsurprisingly, there was no response.

And then it was gone.

Snagsby had asked me yesterday if the cairn was haunted. I would like to change my answer.

We never really knew what happened to Masi. She went in, and she didn’t come back out. Sergiu and Alina went in the next day and found no trace of her in the first alcoves. That is, however, as far as they looked. There was this unspoken agreement that you didn’t go past the first junction. When Sergiu deliberately tried to wash me out at my initiation, his stone sent me maybe ten feet beyond, but I’d never been that far since. To my knowledge, neither had anyone else. The mental barrier of the first junction was just too much to overcome.

We’d just sort of assumed Masi had died that day, and I guess this was proof that we were right. I didn’t want to imagine what she ran into that caused her to scream in terror like that, but the problem was that I could imagine it. Very easily.

The guilt was overwhelming. Her parents knew she had gone out that night, believing she’d be spending the night out in the woods. It was something a lot of us did, so it wrung true. But I don’t think anyone ever told them the whole truth. They moved away a couple of months later, and we lost our chance. I can’t say that I blame them for leaving. Would you want to stay?

We found Masi’s old bedroll in the second set of alcoves. I don’t know if she had actually come in this far, or if it had been moved in the intervening years. There’s no way to know. It was behind a weird, marble platform, that had what looked like a fragment of a giant mirror frame sitting atop it. The base of the platform had some runes that we couldn’t make sense of, but Viktor said he had seen something similar before, so he made a rubbing of it for later study.

We could make out a faint, green glow in the distance. That was new. What wasn’t new was the sound of a canine growling. I had heard that sound during my initiation nine years ago, and it’s one you don’t forget: wolves. Back then, I was on my way out and admittedly I got lucky. This time, we’d have to face them if we wanted to keep going.

I didn’t enjoy fighting wolves. But we did it, and I’m here to talk about it, so I’ll leave it at that.

There was a third junction just a little farther in. The wolves had made their den to the right, among a pile of debris. It looked like there might have been a chamber beyond, but the structure had collapsed, filling the passage with rubble. This gave me the chills, too, as it was an uncomfortable reminder that caves collapse, especially man-made ones. Mom doesn’t say it, but I think she worries every day when dad goes to work. Cave-ins in the mines are rare, but two have happened in my lifetime and I am not exactly old. I try not to think about it.

We dug through the rubble and found a pack, an armband, and an old lantern with indigo glass. It reminded me of Sergiu’s lamp, only a lot fancier. Oh, and also a stone finger, like it had maybe been broken off a statue.

The other side was intact, and had an enormous mural wrapping around the wall at the end, in faded colors. If you stood there, the effect was one of standing in a room with seven passageways leading away from you. In the image, each hallway ended in a colored lamp hanging from a chain, with the colors arranged in the order of the rainbow. The lamps in the painting looked similar to the indigo one we were carrying, which felt too much like a coincidence to be a coincidence. I mean, I am new to this line of work, but it felt like one of those obvious clues you hear about in stories.

The main hallway continued deeper into the tomb, but it was filled with webs from who knows how many spiders. The green light shone through them from beyond, giving it a haunting appearance. Snagsby and I looked at the webs, then at each other. He nodded and then used a spell to create sparks that set them alight. The webs directly in front of us burned away quickly, but so did the fire before the rest could catch. It was apparently something he could repeat, though, so he ignited the next layer, then the one after that. We moved ahead cautiously, burning the webs as we went and sending hundreds of spiders scurrying into the holes and cracks in the stone. It was slow going, clearing what must have been a hundred feet of web-choked hall, but it was better than cutting our way through it and being swarmed by arachnids. I kept waiting for a larger spider to drop on us, but mercifully that wasn’t on the day’s agenda.

The passage opened up into a large, central chamber with hallways radiating out like eight points of a compass rose. The hall we came from was “south”. At the end of the others hung a lamp on a chain at roughly eye level, the scene nearly identical to the painting we had seen just a few minutes ago. The light came from the green lantern that was hanging straight ahead in the northern point, the only one that was lit. Two of the seven lanterns were missing: indigo, which we seemed to have in our possession, and red.

The ceiling above rose to a dome. In the center of the room sat a sarcophagus. Or what I assumed was a sarcophagus, since I had never actually seen one before. Again, it’s my first day. The lid was carved into a statue of a man lying flat on his back, eternally asleep. One of his hands was outstretched, and Sagsby noted that a finger was broken off. He pulled out the one we found, cast a spell, and it reattached as if it were whole. Neat trick.

Zhog and I each grabbed the lid to lift it off. This was a bad idea. Flames burst out from it as it opened, and in our surprise we both let go. The lid slammed back into place and we checked ourselves for serious burns. I was singed a bit and it hurt like made, but not as badly as my pride did. We tried again, only this time from the sides. Again, flames shot out, but this time we weren’t where they were and no harm was done. We set the lid on the ground and we were feeling rather clever until we discovered that it was as empty as it appeared. Raiding an ancient tomb was turning out to be a lot more complicated than I had thought.

We turned our attention to the other halls. Each went a short distance and dead-ended at the lantern hung from it’s chain below a low, domed ceiling. Taking a cue from the mural, we lit the remaining lanterns, and hung the indigo in its rightful place. Below the blue lantern in the northeast hall, though, we saw someone’s skeletal remains. Several of its bones were broken. Looking up, we saw the ceiling was quite higher than the others, and there appeared to be a passageway there.

“Looks like they fell to their death,” Viktor said. It seemed reasonable.

Several of us set our heavy packs down, and we all climbed the chain, one person at a time, to have a look. Viktor and Varin needed a little help, but we weren’t too worried: Varin said he had spells that could arrest a fall, just in case someone slipped. We emerged in a small chamber with a short hall leading away towards a giant carving of a head at the end, with a mouth several feet wide, open in a raging scream.

Everyone agreed this was some sort of wind trap because what else could it be? Sera and Snagsby pulled out sets of climbing pitons, and started driving them into the cracks in the walls on either side. Viktor, Varin, and Viore—the “V” club—stayed behind as the rest of us worked. Sera and Snagsby tied the ropes to the pitons, and we advanced along the hall, pounding the metal spikes in every few feet, forming a safety line that we all could hold on to. As Sera neared the face, the eyes began to glow red, forming swirling, mesmerizing patterns. Sera and Zhog couldn’t tear their gaze away. And then the wind began.

It was a stiff wind at first, like you might find in a summer storm. Sera and Zhog regained their senses in time to grab the ropes and hold on, and resumed their advance. The wind steadily picked up, growing fiercer and fiercer until it was so strong it was like a solid force, pushing us away.

“Let’s do a controlled retreat,” I called out, realizing I couldn’t hold on for much longer. That was easier said than done. The wind was a force so strong we couldn’t easily control our movements, which meant we couldn’t hold on to the ropes. One by one, we peeled away from the wall and tumbled down the hall towards the pit. I bounced hard, barely managing to stay conscious as I was blown backward. If it wasn’t for the spells, we all might have plummeted to our deaths.

We stood safely on the ground, the wind still buffeting around us from the hall above. “That would have hurt,” Varin said, unnecessarily. We were all thinking it.

Again, my pride took a heavier beating than the rest of me. The wind continued to rage for several minutes, and it was clear that we were not going to be able to brute-force our way through this. Much more complicated, indeed.

“We’re missing the red lantern,” Snagsby said.

Yeah. You think?

This sort of thing—finding clues and solving puzzles—was just not my thing. Once it’s clear what needs doing, I am there to do it and I won’t look back, but working out what to do? I’m not dumb, but this is a little byond me. Logically, I know that’s why we are doing this as a group, so that our collective strengths can cover our individual weaknesses, but it still stings.

“Let’s get back to the house and call it a day,” I said. I was tired. I could see the others were, too. “We can think on it tonight.”

And start fresh in the morning.