The Two That Came To Ilarnek

Chapter 16

The mage wrapped his coarse black robes about him, against the chill and damp subterranean air, and drew himself to his full height. Katemperos-Tsa, initiate of the Magi, was a tall, gaunt man, but not without the rangy muscular development of long and constant exertion.
    Katemperos-Tsa was a brooding and imposing figure in the strange light that filled the dank stone chamber in which he stood. He stared at the reliquary of Xaltos, black sorcerer of the Old Ones. Xaltos was dead, sprawled even now, just a few yards behind his slayer in the corridor that led to this chamber, the wound the mage’s dagger had inflicted to his chest still oozing with red gore.
    The mage shrugged fatalistically and reached down to the reliquary. The peculiarly spectral violet light of the chamber played upon the surface, and with it came a sense of palpable, tenebrous evil, that seemed to writhe about him hungrily. Katemperos-Tsa pondered what morbid rites had been performed within those walls, and to what black ends. But Katemperos-Tsa was no neophyte to be daunted by such things, he has seen things that would blast a weaker man’s mind, in his long wanderings.
    The mage lifted the lid slowly with his left hand, and as the reliquary creaked open there was a flash of motion from within. The movement was so swift it barely registered upon Katemperos-Tsa’s conscious mind, but it was not the mage’s conscious mind which had precipitated the movement of his own right hand in that moment. Although he did not count himself a warrior, his long training had included many years in monasteries high in the far eastern mountains, where his body was trained in methods of combat that yoked mind and spirit to muscle and nerve-ending, training that had honed in him through long repetition, speed and grace any warrior might envy.
    It was this training that saved the mage, for when he looked down he saw that his strong narrow hand grasped the sinuous shape of a live cobra, just below its hissing, venomous head. With a start he smashed the reptile’s head against the side of the reliquary, dashing out its brains, and tossed its still wriggling body across the chamber.
    “So you left one last trap, you sly bastard,” hissed the mage, with the hint of a relieved laugh. He looked down into the box and saw that there was a false bottom, which he removed with renewed caution. A startled hiss escaped Katemperos-Tsa’s lips as he gazed at the contents of the reliquary, there were three Greater Star-Stones, not the single stone he had expected. This was a great victory in the endless war against the Black Lodge and the servants of the Great Old Ones, mused the mage, silently.
    He scooped the stones up and placed them in his satchel, then scanned the remaining contents of the box. There was a small black leather bound volume which he, flipped through quickly discerning its importance, it was a record of Xaltos’s journeys concerning the stones. He added the book to his growing collection of booty.    
    The mage reached for one last folio that remained in the reliquary, that had originally been partially concealed beneath the sorcerer’s journal, then he recoiled, shrinking involuntarily from the artifact. It was larger than the black book, and bound in a strange yellow leather, its face emblazoned with a weird twisting sign in a deeper almost jaundiced shade. He knew of this tome only from fearful whispers, it contained a play penned under strange suns, and was reputed to send its readers into madness and despair. Katemperos-Tsa hesitated, then remembering the protective nature of the Star-Stones, snatched up this final prize.
    The mage stood straight, and smoothed his robes. There was work yet to be done, he thought to himself, his face turning stern. He knew he still had to slip out of the city, and retrieve his horse, there was a long ride back to the ruins of Ib before he dared rest.