What We Have Done

Jandar had decided there were only so many ancient mysteries a man should be expected to solve in one day.

They had found a lost temple in the middle of a swamp, survived rooms that refused to remain where they belonged, fought three drakes, killed a dead thing that could reach into their minds, walked through a wall that was not a wall, recovered a book none of them could read, and discovered a sword Jandar was increasingly convinced had been waiting specifically for him.

That seemed sufficient.

The Temple of Orozon disagreed.

The passage that should have returned them to the outside world ended at a closed stone door.

Jandar stood before it with both hands on his hips.

“No.”

Vegon glanced at him. “No what?”

“No more.”

“That is a door.”

“I am aware.”

“Then what are you objecting to?”

“The principle.”

Deacon pushed past them and tried the door.

It did not move.

Jandar nodded. “You see? It knows.”

They had spent the better part of an hour retracing their route through the temple. Without the strange shifting of the earlier chambers, the return had been easier, although Jandar did not trust that enough to say so aloud. The dead drakes remained where they had fallen. The guardian's chamber was empty. The false walls remained false. Nothing pursued them.

Somehow, that had made the walk worse.

Every quiet corridor gave Jandar time to think about the pack on Deacon's back.

The Grimoire of Orozon was in there.

They had come north looking for it without knowing whether it still existed.

Now they had it.

That should have felt like victory.

Mostly it felt heavy.

Not physically. Deacon had complained about the weight only once, and Jandar suspected that had been more for Vegon's benefit than because the fighter actually cared.

The weight was something else.

You do not know what it is you have done.

The guardian had spoken those words before they found the Grimoire.

Jandar kept reminding himself of that.

It did not help as much as he wanted it to.

Zook began clearing cobwebs from the wall beside the door.

“There's something here.”

Jandar sighed.

“Of course there is.”

Behind several layers of old webbing and dust, a rectangular panel had been set into the stone. Eight symbols had been carved into it, arranged in two rows.

Vegon moved closer.

Jandar caught his arm.

“No.”

The high elf looked down at his hand.

“Remove that.”

“Say you are not going to touch anything.”

“I am not going to touch anything without examining it first.”

“That is not the same sentence.”

“It is a better sentence.”

Xil crouched beside Zook.

“The symbols move.”

Jandar looked at him.

“You touched one?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“They're raised.”

Jandar stared at the panel.

Eight raised stones.

Eight unfamiliar symbols.

A sealed door.

He looked back toward the passage.

“Can we go through the fake wall again and live in the treasure room?”

“No,” Deacon said.

“I wasn't asking you.”

“You were asking everyone.”

“I was thinking aloud.”

“Then think quieter.”

Mills sat down against the opposite wall.

“I vote for the treasure room.”

Jandar pointed at him.

“Thank you.”

“There was less swamp there.”

“Exactly.”

Deacon looked at both of them and seemed to decide neither deserved an answer.

Zook brushed the final cobwebs from the panel.

The symbols were strange but simple. One resembled an arrow whose point rose from a horizontal line. Another looked vaguely like two bent lines facing one another. There were loops, bars and curves, each distinct enough to recognize but not enough to explain itself.

“Writing?” Deacon asked.

Vegon shook his head.

“I don't think so.”

Jandar leaned closer.

“You don't know.”

“I said I don't think so.”

“That means you don't know.”

Vegon stared at him.

Jandar smiled.

He had waited all day for the opportunity.

Vegon turned back to the panel.

“They may represent numbers. Or positions. Perhaps instructions.”

“Or they might simply open the door,” Zook said.

Vegon looked offended by the simplicity of the suggestion.

Zook pressed one.

The stone sank beneath his finger.

Something clicked inside the wall.

Everyone went still.

Jandar slowly looked at the ceiling.

Nothing fell.

He looked at the floor.

Still there.

He looked at Deacon.

“Did we win?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“The door is still closed.”

“Details.”

The first symbol remained depressed.

Zook pressed another.

Both symbols sprang outward.

There was a louder click from somewhere inside the wall.

Jandar stepped backward.

“Excellent. We have discovered how to reset it.”

Vegon frowned.

“No. We've discovered the first symbol.”

Zook looked at him.

“How?”

“The first remained depressed until you made the second choice. That means the first was correct.”

Jandar nodded slowly.

“That is irritatingly reasonable.”

“It usually is.”

“You should try being less pleased with yourself.”

Vegon ignored him.

They tried again.

The first symbol sank and remained.

The next failed.

Reset.

Again.

A different second symbol.

This one stayed.

Jandar's interest increased despite his determination not to have any.

“Two.”

Zook smiled.

“Two.”

Deacon leaned against the wall.

“So we keep going.”

“That,” Jandar said, “sounds suspiciously like a plan.”

It was, unfortunately, the only one they had.

They worked through the symbols slowly.

The first two were known.

The third took longer.

Every wrong choice released everything they had already pressed, forcing them to begin again.

Jandar discovered that hearing the same sequence of clicks repeatedly was capable of becoming offensive.

First symbol.

Click.

Second.

Click.

Third.

Release.

Again.

First.

Second.

Different third.

Release.

Again.

They tried another.

The third stayed.

Mills raised both hands weakly in celebration.

No one told him not to.

“Three,” Zook said.

“Wonderful,” Jandar replied. “Only five more opportunities to die of old age.”

The fourth took even longer.

Vegon began searching for relationships among the marks. Xil studied the shapes as though religious meaning might reveal itself if he stared hard enough. Zook concentrated on remembering which combinations had already failed. Deacon watched the door, which Jandar thought was perhaps the wisest contribution anyone was making.

Jandar sat beside Mills.

The new rapier rested across his knees.

In the dim temple light, a faint silver glow traced the blade even while it sat partially inside its sheath.

Mills noticed.

“You really like that.”

Jandar looked down at it.

“It is a very good sword.”

“You've said that.”

“It remains true.”

“You haven't stopped touching it.”

Jandar removed his hand from the hilt.

“I am guarding it.”

“From who?”

Jandar looked at Vegon.

“People who make questionable decisions.”

Vegon did not turn around.

“I can hear you.”

“I know.”

Mills smiled and rested his head against the wall.

His color had improved since the grung village, but not enough. He still looked too thin, and his voice remained rough. Yet he had walked through the swamp, survived the temple and somehow found the energy to write down half of what they said.

Jandar was beginning to suspect rescuing him might become expensive.

“You're coming back with us,” he said.

Mills looked at him.

“Was there another option?”

“I don't know. You seem drawn to terrible places.”

“So do you.”

“Yes, but I do it professionally.”

Mills smiled.

Then his expression changed.

“Do you think the guardian meant the book?”

Jandar looked across the corridor.

No one else appeared to be listening.

He lowered his voice anyway.

“I don't know.”

“That isn't like you.”

“What isn't?”

“Admitting it.”

Jandar looked offended.

“I admit things.”

“You told the frog people you meant to fall into the water.”

“I did mean to.”

“You screamed.”

“That was tactical.”

Mills waited.

Jandar sighed.

“No. I don't know what it meant.”

Mills nodded.

“Xil thinks it matters.”

“So does Vegon.”

“He took the book.”

“Yes.”

“Deacon?”

Jandar looked toward the fighter.

Deacon stood with his arms folded, watching Zook try another symbol.

“Deacon thinks if something comes after us for it, he can shoot it.”

Mills considered that.

“Can he?”

“Usually.”

“And you?”

Jandar looked down at the moonlit edge of his new rapier.

“I think we were sent to find something, and we found it.”

“That wasn't what I asked.”

“No.”

Mills waited again.

The man was becoming irritatingly good at that.

Jandar looked toward Deacon's pack.

“I think leaving it behind after killing everything protecting it would have been stupid.”

“That still wasn't what I asked.”

Jandar glanced at him.

“Are you sure you're a minstrel?”

“I ask questions. Then I make them rhyme.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“My voice is damaged. I need another skill.”

Jandar almost laughed.

Instead he looked back toward the panel.

“I think I want Eticus to tell us the guardian was wrong.”

Mills's expression softened.

“Ah.”

“Do not write that down.”

“I wasn't going to.”

“You were thinking about it.”

“I was.”

“That counts.”

Across the corridor, something clicked.

The fourth symbol remained depressed.

Zook grinned.

“Four.”

Jandar stood.

“See? Progress. At this rate we'll be out before the next Sundering.”

The fifth came faster.

Not because they understood the puzzle.

Because they had eliminated nearly everything else.

When the fifth symbol remained in place, Vegon stepped back.

“There is a pattern.”

Jandar groaned.

“You said that after the second one.”

“There was probably a pattern then too.”

“That isn't helpful.”

Vegon pointed.

“The symbols are arranged deliberately. Look at the first and the one opposite it.”

Jandar looked.

He saw two shapes.

Then he looked at the second and another across the panel.

Something bothered him.

Not the shapes themselves.

Their relationship.

He moved closer.

“Do the first one again.”

Zook pressed the first five in sequence.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

They remained depressed.

Jandar leaned toward the panel.

The first mark looked almost like a number if he stopped trying to understand it as a symbol.

Not the number as he usually wrote it.

Reversed.

The shape opposite it—

“Oh.”

Vegon turned.

“What?”

Jandar pointed.

“They're pairs.”

“Yes.”

“No. Not pairs because they're across from each other. They're the same.”

Vegon looked again.

Jandar traced the shape in the air.

“One faces this way. The other faces the opposite way.”

Zook moved beside him.

He saw it.

Then the next.

“Two.”

Jandar nodded.

“Two of each.”

Vegon's expression changed.

He began examining the remaining symbols rapidly.

“The first pair corresponds. The second pair also—”

“Wizard certainty,” Jandar said.

Vegon ignored him.

Xil came closer.

“So four pairs?”

“Four numbers,” Vegon said. “Mirrored.”

Jandar looked at the panel again.

Eight stones.

Four pairs.

The shapes had seemed unrelated because they had been reading each one alone.

They were never meant to be read alone.

Jandar smiled.

“That's rude.”

Deacon frowned.

“The puzzle?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it looks intelligent until you understand it.”

Zook laughed.

They knew the first five positions already.

Now the rest followed.

The sixth symbol was the counterpart to one they had pressed earlier.

It stayed.

Six clicks.

The seventh was the mirrored partner of the next.

Another click.

Everyone looked at the final raised stone.

Mills got to his feet.

Jandar pointed at him.

“If this kills us, I want it known I was against puzzles from the beginning.”

“You pressed three of them.”

“That is not relevant.”

Zook looked toward Deacon.

“Ready?”

Deacon checked the straps securing the Grimoire.

“Do it.”

Zook pressed the eighth symbol.

For one terrible heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then something heavy moved inside the wall.

Stone ground against stone.

Dust fell from the ceiling.

Jandar drew his rapier.

Not because he expected the door to attack him.

Not entirely.

The massive slab began to rise.

Cool air entered beneath it.

Real air.

Wet.

Heavy.

Swamp air.

Jandar had never been happier to smell rotting vegetation.

Zook dropped to his knees to look under the rising door.

“Outside?”

“Passage,” he said.

“Does it lead outside?”

“I can't see.”

“Then why did you sound pleased?”

“Because it doesn't lead farther inside.”

Fair.

The slab stopped high enough for Deacon to pass beneath without ducking.

No one moved.

Jandar looked at them.

“Well?”

Deacon gestured toward him.

“You first.”

“Why?”

“You wanted out.”

“That does not mean I should be first into whatever Orozon considers an exit.”

Zook passed beneath the stone.

Jandar sighed.

“There goes our sensible one.”

He followed.

The passage beyond was familiar.

Not immediately.

Then Jandar recognized the broad stone corridor through which they had first entered the temple.

The sight of it surprised him.

So much had happened since then that the beginning of the place felt days away.

Perhaps it had only been hours.

The temple made time difficult to trust.

They crossed the corridor quickly.

No shifting doors.

No drakes.

No guardian.

At the far end, gray daylight filtered through the entrance.

Zook reached it first.

Then stopped.

Jandar nearly walked into him.

“What?”

Zook stepped outside.

Rain struck him immediately.

He lifted his face toward it.

Jandar laughed.

It was raining hard enough to turn the ground outside the temple into black mud.

Two days earlier he would have complained.

Now he walked into it willingly.

Cold water hit his face and ran through his hair. It washed temple dust from his coat, diluted the blood dried along one sleeve, and turned the leather beneath his boots slick almost immediately.

He did not care.

Behind him came Deacon.

Then Xil.

Vegon emerged next, blinking at the gray sky as though surprised it was still there.

Mills followed last.

For several moments they simply stood in the rain.

The swamp stretched around them.

Ugly.

Wet.

Alive.

Jandar looked back at the temple.

The stone remained exactly as it had been when they entered.

No collapse.

No shaking earth.

No magical fire bursting from the roof.

Nothing announced that the Grimoire of Orozon had left its resting place after centuries.

The absence of catastrophe should have been reassuring.

It wasn't.

Xil stood beside him.

“You're thinking about it.”

Jandar did not pretend otherwise.

“What it said?”

Xil nodded.

Deacon adjusted the pack containing the Grimoire.

“We have it. That's what matters right now.”

Xil looked at him.

“Until we know what it means.”

“We can ask Eticus.”

Vegon joined them.

“He may not know.”

Jandar turned toward him.

“You're supposed to say he will.”

“I am?”

“Yes. You're the hopeful intellectual portion of the group.”

Vegon stared at him.

“When have I ever been that?”

Jandar considered it.

“Fair.”

Zook was already looking toward the swamp.

“I want to leave.”

“Finally,” Jandar said. “A plan with no obvious flaws.”

“We still have to cross the swamp.”

“One obvious flaw.”

Mills pulled his cloak tighter around himself.

“Do we know which way?”

Every head turned toward Zook.

The gnome sighed.

“I hate all of you.”

Jandar grinned.

“No, you don't.”

Zook looked north, then toward the drowned road they had followed to reach the temple.

“No,” he admitted. “I don't.”

They started walking.

The temple disappeared slowly behind them.

First the entrance vanished through the trees. Then the lower stone. Finally only its upper edge remained visible above the swamp canopy.

Jandar watched until that too was gone.

He had expected to feel something.

Relief, perhaps.

Triumph.

They had done what the Order sent them to do.

More than that.

They had found evidence that the madness spreading through Istram was real. Tavalon had not been an isolated ruin suddenly stirring in the dark. The blue crystals were not some forgotten curiosity. Gnolls were not simply raiding farther south than usual.

The old world was still moving beneath the new one.

Somewhere in Deacon's pack was a book that might explain why.

That should have felt like an answer.

Instead, Jandar had more questions than when they left.

He looked at Deacon.

The older man walked near the front, shoulders squared beneath the weight of his gear and the Grimoire. Jandar knew without asking that the crossbow was ready.

Zook moved several paces ahead, reading the flooded road and the trees beyond it.

Xil walked behind Deacon, rain sliding from white hair and dark skin, his attention divided between the swamp and the people around him.

Vegon was already distracted. Jandar could almost see him reopening the Grimoire in his mind, turning pages he could not read and refusing to accept that he could not read them.

Mills stumbled over a root.

Jandar caught his arm before he fell.

“Careful.”

“I had it.”

“You absolutely did not.”

“I was dramatically delaying the ground.”

Jandar stopped.

Mills smiled.

“You said that about losing.”

“I regret rescuing you.”

“No, you don't.”

Jandar released his arm.

No.

He didn't.

They continued.

The rain grew heavier.

Jandar found himself counting without meaning to.

Zook.

Deacon.

Xil.

Vegon.

He knew where each of them was.

That had not always been true.

When this began, they had been five strangers wearing the same silver mark because another group of five had gone north and never returned.

Jandar had not chosen the Order.

He had certainly not chosen the four men walking through the rain with him.

Yet somewhere between Arrowdale and Tavalon, between gnolls and dead cities, Travel Stones and poisoned minstrels, they had stopped being five people trying not to die in the same direction.

He could not say exactly when.

Perhaps there had not been a moment.

Perhaps that was how these things happened.

One fight at a time.

One argument.

One bad decision saved by someone else's better one.

One hand appearing when the ground disappeared beneath you.

Jandar touched the hilt of the moonlit rapier at his side.

“Do you think it'll have a name?” Mills asked.

Jandar looked at him.

“The sword?”

“Yes.”

“It already does.”

Vegon glanced back.

“No, it does not.”

Jandar smiled.

“It does now.”

“What did you name it?”

Jandar thought for a moment.

Then shook his head.

“I haven't decided.”

Mills looked disappointed.

“You just said—”

“I said it has a name. I didn't say I know it yet.”

Vegon made a disgusted sound.

Jandar grinned.

There.

That was better.

For several minutes they walked with nothing but rain, mud and the miserable buzzing of insects around them.

Then Xil spoke.

“You do not know what it is you have done.”

Nobody asked what he meant.

Deacon kept walking.

Zook slowed slightly.

Vegon said nothing.

The humor drained from Mills's face.

Jandar looked through the rain toward the road ahead.

“No,” he said.

He rested one hand on his new sword.

“But when it comes looking for us, at least it won't have to search very hard.”

Deacon glanced back.

“That was your joke?”

“I am tired.”

“It was terrible.”

“It released the tension.”

“It did not.”

“Give it a moment.”

Zook laughed first.

Xil tried not to.

Vegon failed more quietly.

Even Deacon's mouth moved.

For a few seconds the guardian's warning loosened its grip on them.

Then the silence returned.

Jandar let it.

Some things did not need to be talked away.

They had the Grimoire.

They had survived the Temple of Orozon.

Whatever came next would have to wait until they reached Eticus.

Jandar looked once more at the four men who had begun this journey beside him.

He did not need to count anymore.

Whatever they had done in Orozon's temple, they had done it together.