from THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE
FARCHRIST TALES - BOOK TWO
Speculative Fiction
Approximately 46,000 words
Copyright © Eric Lanke, 1990. All rights reserved.
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In Farchrist Year Eighty-Five, eighty-one years after his birth,
King Gregorovich Farchrist II died. The whole of the valley felt and grieved
the passing of such a great and most-loved ruler. Born four years after the
start of the Farchrist Empire, he was the son of the people as much as he was
the son of his father. He was the first sign that the Empire would continue,
that it would not expire like so many other temporary monarchies. He founded
the Order of the Farchrist Knights and later, as King, had conveyed that title
upon countless deserving young men. He had orchestrated the attack against
Dalanmire and lost his only son to the winged lizard. He had opened trade with
the dwarven nation to the north and ruled his kingdom with a gentle and loving
hand. But of all who loved and respected him, and were saddened at his passing,
when the crown was passed on to Gregorovich Farchrist IV, no one grieved more
than Sir Gildegarde Brisbane II.
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Brisbane drew the last watch that
night. He would guard the camp in the final hours of the night and wake the
rest of the party when the sun rose. When Shortwhiskers awoke him after the
second watch, Brisbane did not even think about the lost temple and what
mysteries it might hold. But when he found himself sitting awake outside,
listening for noises in the night, he found it hard to think of anything else.
This was no little shrine. That
thought occurred to him time and time again. This was not a tiny place where
people passing through could stop and pay their small respects to their god.
This was a temple, where a group of ancient people spent and lived out their
lives in devotion to a mythology that pleased them so much, they accepted it as
doctrine. Who knew what these people had left behind? Who knew what Brisbane
and his friends would find inside? Brisbane was not so uneducated that he did
not realize his journey and search for the lost temple of Grecolus was not also
a journey and search for Grecolus himself. But he also knew this was not a search
for the Grecolus of today, the one he had been taught to fear and love, the one
who had been turned into the ultimate protective father by the leaders of his
religion; but it was a search for the Grecolus of yesterday, the one who used
magic to battle Damaleous, the one who gave Stargazer her healing powers, and
the one who had angels on earth in the shape of unicorns. Whereas Brisbane was
firmly convinced that the Grecolus of today was a sham and a device to instill
moral behavior on the populace, he was still open to the possibility that the
Grecolus of yesterday might still be alive, stranded out here in the wilderness
and abandoned by his own worshippers.
It was one of the longest nights
in Brisbane’s life, longer than the nights he had spent beside his mother’s
death bed, and when the sun began to lighten the sky, he quickly went over and
shook the rest of his companions awake. Only Dantrius seemed annoyed at the
disruption of his slumber, and as Brisbane took a small delight in that, he
supposed the rest were just as eager as he to begin exploring the temple they
had finally found.
The business of breakfast and
packing up camp was quickly attended to and it wasn’t long before the party was
gathered before the entrance to the temple on their side of the river, ready
and anxious to go in.
The portal was almost an exact
replica of the one at the shrine down the river. It was ten feet high and five
feet wide, placed in the middle of a wall thirty feet wide and twenty feet
high. The doorway had the strange and ancient runes bordering it on three sides
as well. What was different about this portal was that it did not open directly
into the temple itself. Inside there was a small, narrow antechamber, and
inside that, directly opposite the entry portal, was a massive stone door.
Stargazer, dressed in a blue tunic
and tan trousers and holding her iron-tipped staff before her, stepped up to
the portal and examined the runes that surrounded it.
“They’re nearly the same as the
ones on the shrine,” she said. “These on the left proclaim this to be a temple
devoted to Grecolus, and these on the right warn that entrance to this temple
is possible only for the faithful.”
“Does that mean it’s trapped?”
Roystnof asked, dressed in red and black, his own staff in hand.
“It doesn’t say so specifically,”
Stargazer warned. “It just says only the faithful can enter.”
“The trap is implied,” Roystnof
said.
“How can we be sure?” Brisbane
asked. His chainmail poncho twinkled in the sunlight.
“We cannot,” Roystnof said. “The
warning means one of three things. One, it means exactly what it says. The
entrance is magically barred and only the truly faithful to Grecolus can pass
through. Two, the entrance is trapped so that one who knows the trap can enter
and those who do not cannot. And three, it means nothing. It is an empty
threat. Since only the second meaning contains some sort of potential danger to
us, it would be wise to operate under that stipulation until something compels
us to change that viewpoint.”
“Sounds sensible to me,”
Shortwhiskers said. He already had his sword out. “What sort of trap should we
be looking for?”
No one seemed to know and they
looked at each other helplessly. Finally Dantrius, his black hair falling in
his hollow face, spoke.
“The deadly sort.”
“Well,” Shortwhiskers said. “I’ll
go take a look at the way this thing’s constructed. Maybe I can find a secret
way in by looking at the stonework.”
Roystnof said that was a good idea
and Shortwhiskers went off to inspect the outside surface of the temple. He
returned shortly and proclaimed the place seemed solidly constructed to him.
“On this side of the river, at
least,” the dwarf said.
“The place has a certain symmetry
to it,” Roystnof said. “I would assume what is present here will be present
there.”
Shortwhiskers shrugged. “Doesn’t
matter, really. Unless we want to get wet.”
“We will just have to proceed
carefully and hope for the best,” Roystnof said. “Nog, you have the best eye
for stonework. Why don’t you lead us in?”
Shortwhiskers swallowed visibly.
“All right. But don’t crowd me and don’t step anywhere I don’t step. Single
file. Get it?”
Everyone agreed and they quickly
decided on a marching order. Shortwhiskers would lead the way, followed by
Roystnof, Stargazer, and Brisbane. Dantrius would bring up the rear. That
wasn’t where anyone wanted to put Dantrius, but he put up his usual stink and
this time, instead of arguing, they let him have his way. Brisbane would make
it a point to watch his back as well as his front.
Before proceeding, Shortwhiskers
sheathed his sword and took Roystnof’s staff. The dwarf then approached the
entrance and used the staff to poke the earthen floor inside the portal. He
jabbed it sharply in several places and then quickly withdrew it before it
could be damaged by whatever trap might have been sprung. Lastly, he set one
end of the staff in the center of the antechamber and leaned on it heavily.
Still, nothing happened.
Shortwhiskers gave Roystnof back his
staff. “Light, please,” he said, and Roystnof waved his hand and filled the
small antechamber with one of his light spells.
Brisbane held his breath as
Shortwhiskers stepped into the antechamber. This was a nervous business and it
was starting to get to Brisbane. He did not like the danger the unseen trap
posed for him and his friends, but he knew one thing because of it. There had
to be something pretty special inside the temple for the ancient worshippers to
build a trap in order to guard it.
Shortwhiskers stood in the center
of the antechamber, his hands on his hips and turning in a circle, examining
everything he saw. He touched nothing. The antechamber itself seemed to be a
perfect ten foot cube of empty space, with hard stone for its ceiling and walls.
One wall was cut with the open portal and the one opposite that had the heavy
stone door chiseled into it.
The party waited as Shortwhiskers
went on with his examination. He looked at the door for a long time, studying
the hinges and the small cracks between them. It looked unremarkable to
Brisbane but Shortwhiskers seemed absorbed by it. When he was done, he examined
the flanking walls, one at a time. With the second one, he got down on his
knees before it and crouched way down to peer at the line where it met the
earth floor. He still hadn’t touched anything.
He sat back and began running his
fingers through his beard. The dwarf isolated one of his short whiskers between
his thumb and forefinger and, with a quick jerk, pulled it out of his chin. Bending
back over, he brought this hair next to the wall way down by the floor and held
it steady.
Brisbane stood on his tiptoes to
get a good look at what Shortwhiskers was doing. He could just see the hair in
the dwarf’s fingers and he saw it wiggle around in a soft current of air.
Shortwhiskers stood up and craned
his neck to look at the ceiling. He walked slowly about the antechamber,
holding his head up the whole time. Just when Brisbane thought Shortwhiskers
was going to get a neck cramp for the rest of his life, the dwarf stopped
looking up and stepped back out of the antechamber.
“What’s the news?” Roystnof asked.
Shortwhiskers pondered to himself
for a moment longer. “Near as I can figure, that ceiling block is rigged to collapse.
I’m not sure what triggers it, but I would assume it has something to do with
the door. I mean, the floor is obviously not the trigger. Also, there is a
passage behind that one wall. There’s most likely a secret entrance there.
That’s probably how they got in without crushing themselves.”
“Are you sure?” Roystnof asked.
“No,” Shortwhiskers said. “But I’d
bet on it.”
“How do we get in?” Stargazer
asked.
“Somebody has to figure out how to
open the secret door into the hidden passage,” the dwarf said. “They’ll have to
touch it to do that, and that might trip the stone block, too.”
Brisbane looked up at the ceiling
of the antechamber. There was the tiniest of cracks running all around it, less
than an inch from the tops of the walls. Without Roystnof’s light spell, he
didn’t think anyone would have noticed it. The ceiling of the antechamber was
ten feet high and the temple itself was twenty feet. That meant the block could
be as much as a ten foot cube of stone. That had to weigh several tons and would
surely kill whomever it smashed down upon.
“You’re the stone mason, dwarf,”
Dantrius said from the back of the group. “Why don’t you do it?”
Shortwhiskers looked angrily at
the mage and then dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
“You’ve taken enough risk, Nog,”
Roystnof said. “One of us will search for the hidden entrance.”
“No, Roystnof,” Shortwhiskers
said. “It’s my game. I set the odds and now I’ll roll the dice. Give me your
staff.”
Roystnof gave the dwarf his staff.
Shortwhiskers stood outside the antechamber and rapped the end of the staff
against the side wall, much like he had done to the floor. When nothing
resulted, he gave the staff back to Roystnof and stepped inside the small
chamber. He began to run his hands over the surface of the stone, covering as
much of the wall as he could reach. He started from the bottom and worked his
way up, running both his hands over every inch of stone. When he got up to a
spot about four feet off the floor, about even with his forehead, he stopped.
He put his finger on the spot and then leaned away from the wall to get a
different view of the stone. Lastly, he moved in close and, standing on his
tiptoes, placed his nose against the spot and inhaled noisily, sniffing the
stone like a bloodhound.
“Gil,” Shortwhiskers said. “Come
here.”
Brisbane exchanged glances with
the rest of the party. Roystnof’s and Stargazer’s eyes were saying be careful. Dantrius’ were saying so go already. He stepped into the
antechamber and stood behind Shortwhiskers, trying not to think about the rock
above his head.
Shortwhiskers still had his finger
on the spot. “Put your finger here.”
Brisbane placed his index finger
next to Shortwhiskers’ and when the dwarf pulled his away, Brisbane moved his
over a little to cover the exact same spot. It looked like any other part of
the wall to him.
“That’s the spot,” Shortwhiskers
said. “It’s too high for me so you’ll have to do it. You have to push on that
spot with a hard and constant force. Don’t push against it in jerks, it has to
be slow and steady and even. Understand?”
“I think so,” Brisbane said.
“And push directly into the wall,”
Shortwhiskers went on. “Don’t push into it on any angle, that’s why I can’t do
it, it’s too high for me to push on it right. Slow, steady, and straight into
the wall. Okay?”
Brisbane nodded. “Anything else?”
“Just one more thing,”
Shortwhiskers said as he looked up at the ceiling and began backing out of the
antechamber. “Good luck.”
Brisbane dryly thanked him and
turned back to the spot he was saving on the stone wall. He certainly hoped
this worked. He placed both hands against the spot, braced himself, and began
to push, hard and steady. At first, nothing happened and Brisbane was just glad
the stone block didn’t come crashing down on his head. But as he continued to
apply pressure, the wall began to turn inward, revealing cracks that were
invisible before as the whole slab of rock turned slowly on its center pivot
support.
“Keep pushing,” Shortwhiskers
reminded him and Brisbane kept pushing. Fairly soon, the wall had been turned
ninety degrees and the hidden passageway was open for their travel.
“Well done, Gil,” Shortwhiskers
said as he again took his position at the head of the line. “Was it heavy?”
“Not too bad,” Brisbane said as he
took his own place in the line-up.
The passageway they had found was
a narrow one, and even walking in single file, it was a tight squeeze.
Brisbane’s broad shoulders brushed both sides of the corridor and his head
nearly touched the ceiling. He suffered a momentary pang of claustrophobia but
he put it aside when he realized the passageway must open up into a larger room
eventually. The corridor went in a few feet, turn to the right, went on for a
few more feet, and then did open up as Brisbane had hoped.
Shortwhiskers stepped out of the
secret corridor and into a dark room. He stood in the way and let no one else
in.
“There’s nothing warm in here,” he
said after a while, his voice echoing strangely in the open space. “Light it
up, Roystnof.”
The dwarf stepped aside and let
Roystnof in. The wizard set his backpack down, rummaged through it, and pulled
out a small crystal ball, about the size of a grapefruit. He also brought out a
small sling made of gold chain with a specially-designed ring, meant to carry a
small round object. He put the ball in the sling and held onto the end of the
chain. The ball hung from the chain’s length a foot below his hand.
“What are you doing?” Stargazer
asked him, slipping her way into the room.
“You’ll see,” he told her.
Roystnof cast his light spell, but
this time, instead of casting it into the room, he cast it into the crystal
ball. The ball flared with an inner light and began to illuminate their
surroundings like the most powerful lantern.
Brisbane and Dantrius stumbled
into the room as their heads looked around, with those of the others, at their
newfound surroundings. The room was thirty feet square with a twenty foot
ceiling. To their immediate right was the stone door Shortwhiskers had said was
trapped, still shut, and thirty feet away, on the opposite wall of the room,
was an archway leading into another chamber. Running down the other two walls,
creating a sort of hall down the middle, were lined a great number of tall
slender statues. They were all of men, they were all ten feet tall, and they
were all squeezed next to each other like peas in a pod.
For a moment, the sight of the
statues reminded Brisbane of the run-in they had with the basilisk and the
sorry fate from which Roystnof had to save Roundtower. But almost immediately,
Brisbane saw these could not possibly be the victims of such a creature. They
were much too tall to have once been human. Their slender figures could not
have existed in the flesh. Their arms ran down their sides and their vertical
lines only enhanced their thin height. Most had long beards and all had their
heads bowed as if to watch people walking through the room.
Stargazer stepped out to get a
better look at them.
“What are they?” Brisbane asked.
“They’re the ancient prophets,”
Stargazer said, counting them with her finger and mouthing their names with her
lips. “All twelve of them.”
She spun around to look at the
twelve against the other wall. They were the same but they were in the reverse
order.
“The ancient prophets?” Roystnof
asked.
Stargazer nodded. “The men who
wrote the scriptures. Grecolus made his will known through them. They now all
reside on the highest thrones in the heavens.”
Brisbane knew all this from his
childhood teachings. He tried to remember all their names now, but could only
come up with three or four. They were men who had devoted their whole lives to
the worship of Grecolus and to the teachings of his religion. They were men
whose lives were to be emulated by all devoted children of Grecolus. They were
often called saints.
They also made Brisbane nervous.
He thought of the centuries these statues had spent in the dark before they had
come along with Roystnof’s magic lantern. He imagined the ancient priests of
the temple looking up at their stone faces in awe and wonderment. To elevate
men so far above their fellows felt somehow wrong to Brisbane. These prophets
were just men, uneducated men largely, who, because of their ravings about
Grecolus speaking to them, were now remembered as great men, more than men and
less than gods. Brisbane wondered how a man who claimed Grecolus spoke to him
today would be received. He would be called blasphemous or insane, and could be
thrown into prison for either.
Shortwhiskers called for a search
of the room and everyone began to investigate all the corners of the chamber.
All kept a discrete distance from the stone door they had bypassed. After
several minutes, it was obvious the room contained nothing but the statues.
They moved on, this time in a
small group instead of single file, with Roystnof and his magic lantern near
the front. They went through the archway in the far wall and entered into a
large chamber that could only be the chapel room of the temple. It was much
wider than it was long, the far wall being another thirty feet away, the left
wall ten feet from the arch, and the right wall lost on the other side of the
lantern’s range. There was a stairway leading down into the mountain in the
visible corner.
The party walked out into the
center of the room so that the lantern could illuminate all of it. They stood
on the floor that was suspended over the Mystic River and saw that the hall was
fully ninety feet wide. Two pillars supported the arched ceiling and between
them were the chamber’s two main features. The first, hanging against the wall
through which they had come, was a gigantic tapestry, depicting a scene much
like the one back at the shrine, that of titanic, powerful hands parting a
cloudbank against a blue sky. The second feature, sitting near the opposite
wall, was a solid stone altar, five feet high and ten feet long, decorated with
the strange runes seen around the entrance portal. There was a matching
staircase and archway on the far side of the room.
No one said anything for many
moments. There was a stale smell in the air and not a sound to be heard.
“I’ll go check the other arch,”
Roystnof said and everyone looked at him as if he had shouted.
The wizard went over to the arch,
held up his lantern and peered in. When he came back to the group he reported
the room inside to be an exact duplicate of the one they had come through.
“Looks like you were right about
the symmetry of this place,” Shortwhiskers told Roystnof. “I hope that keeps
up. We’ll only have to search half of it.”
Roystnof laughed nervously and
another silence fell over the group. Stargazer went over to examine the altar
and Brisbane went with her. The others looked around the room aimlessly. A
detailed search would not be necessary. It was obvious this place was as empty as
the last chamber.
“So where is everything?” Dantrius
asked the air. Brisbane was sure it was a question on everyone’s mind. “Where’s
all the treasure and gold?” He turned to Shortwhiskers. “Wasn’t this place
supposed to be full of treasure?”
Shortwhiskers shrugged. “Those
were the rumors I heard. Rumors aren’t always true.”
“Well, what the hells kind of
religion was this, anyway?” Dantrius said, his voice much too loud for such a
long silent place. “Did they make everything out of stone? Don’t they have
anything made out of gold? Sacramental candlesticks or bowls or something?
Jewel-eyed idols or jewel-handled daggers or something? Anything? I mean, look
at that altar. It could be a snack table.”
A very uneasy silence settled down
among them after Dantrius’ outburst. Shortwhiskers broke it.
“This place has been deserted for
quite some time. Who knows how many times it has been looted?”
Dantrius shook his head and moved
away from the group.
Brisbane was still with Stargazer
at the altar. She stepped closer to him.
“Grecolus does not require such
baubles for his worship,” she whispered to him. “They serve no useful purpose.
Flashy things only cause trouble and take minds off Grecolus and puts them on
greed and sin.”
“You don’t have to tell me,
Allie,” Brisbane said. “I didn’t say anything about it.”
Stargazer smiled at him. “I know,
Gil. It’s just that Dantrius. He makes me so mad.”
“Well,” Brisbane said, “you won’t
have to worry about him much longer. Once this adventure is over, Roy plans on
giving him the boot.”
Stargazer shook her head. “He must
be truly evil if he can’t even get one of his own kind to tolerate him.”
Brisbane stiffened.
“I’m sorry, Gil,” Stargazer said.
“You know what I meant.”
Brisbane nodded. “I know,” he
said, forgiving her. He thought again of what he was going to do when Roystnof
really did give Dantrius the boot, and he expected Brisbane to officially
continue his training as Roystnof’s apprentice. He didn’t know what he could
do. He only knew that he couldn’t tell Roystnof no and he couldn’t say yes and
continue to see Stargazer. It was not going to be an easy time for him.
“Come on, everybody,” Roystnof
called out to the group. “Let’s go check out downstairs.”
It was the next logical step in
their exploration of the temple, and if it hadn’t brought the time in which
Brisbane would have to make his difficult decision another step closer,
Brisbane might have welcomed it.