Chapter 7 - Part 7

"Creeeeeeepyyyyy," Ermos sang, his words echoing in the darkness, raising the hairs on Pash's neck.

Mane turned around to give him a sharp look, not needing to say anything. Ermos ignored him and continued looking around as though they were on nothing more than a leisurely stroll. Pash sighed. He supposed, being the strongest in the world, as Ermos surely was, there was no cause for him to fear anything.

They attempted to explore the space further. Fingers went off somewhere. Pash couldn't see him, he could only hear him padding in the darkness, his claws clicking off the smooth stone slabs of the floor.

After nearly a minute of walking, their torchlight finally caught one of the walls. A sandy stone brick, just like the rest of it, littered with cobwebs.

There were spaces in that wall. Regular rectangles where the brick had been cut out. The perfect length for a human being to lie. And that was exactly what lay there – long-dead humans, with their hands folded across their chests. Like bunk beds, five of those open coffins were stacked on top of each other. The fifth went high up into the ceiling, higher than the height of three men, begging the question of how the corpse was even put up there.

Some of the dead still had wisps of hair clinging to their browned skulls. There were both men and women alike. Some with helmets on their head, some with jewelled rings on their fingers, and all of them with a weapon in their hand, whether it be a sword or an axe or even a hammer.

Ermos noticed those jewels on their fingers and he shared a smile with Pash, putting a finger to his lips, indicating that they should keep quiet about it. He had the sense to know that Mane would raise a fuss if he saw them stealing from the dead. Even Pash wasn't so keen on it.

When the torchlight fell on those corpses, Mane looked at them for a long while, clearly expecting them to move. Then, he stared suspiciously into the darkness. From the way he moved, he was like a soldier, always alert and rigid. Pash found it almost fascinating. He'd wanted to be just like Mane at one point – a soldier of the Duke's army… but then he had discovered his master and that goal no longer seemed so grand.

"We need to find a way to light this room," Mane said quietly. "They won't have built this all in the dark."

"Won't that wake these guys up?" Ermos pointed out. Pash was worried about the exact same thing. Where they stood, merely on that portion of wall, they could already see twenty dead men with weapons in their hands. There were sure to be many more about that room. If they all came to life at once, things would not be pretty. Especially when Pash had struggled so much against but one of them.

"Our caution must be balanced by speed," Mane said back, "there are lives to be saved."

His own words seemed to spur him towards further speed, for he began to pace around the room in an agitated fashion, looking for anything that might give them clues as to how to proceed forward. Pash and his master could do nothing but follow him, relying on the light cast from his torch.

Pash looked around him as they went, searching for his own kind of clues. When it came to puzzles, he held a certain modest confidence, for he had always seemed to be rather good at them, though there was seldom any chance to demonstrate that.

As they went, their light passed over a blue painted symbol that Pash recognized. A swirling blue rune. Pash gasped as he looked at it, instantly remembering back to the doors of the Stone Tree. "Look master! It's that rune again! Just like on the Stone Tree!"

Ermos turned to look at it, not entirely sharing Pash's enthusiasm. "Oh, so it is."

Mane overheard what they were talking about. "The Stone Tree? You've visited there as well?" He almost sounded impressed.

"Well, you know, we get around," Ermos said cryptically, having his fun.

"You say you saw this rune there as well, boy?" Mane asked, speaking directly to Pash, knowing that Ermos would be unlikely to give him a straight answer.

Pash nodded seriously, nervous under Mane's gaze. "Upon the doors, glowing bright blue. It was that for a certainty."

"That's a Teacher's rune then," Mane said darkly.

"What does it mean?" Pash pressed.

"I'm unsure… The Teacher's guarded their secrets closely. Their language was no exception," Mane said, though worry had altered his voice now. "We had best be on our toes. We can only hope that the Bishamons saw that rune and merely chose to copy it… Else, these catacombs might have been under the influence of a Teacher." He looked to Ermos as he said that, expecting that such a threat would finally get his attention.

Ermos froze, apparently growing serious. He put a finger to his chin, making a show of thinking deeply. "That means… We're still fine?"

Mane sighed loud enough to put the wind to shame. "…Let's keep moving."

A tense silence fell over them as a result of Mane's words. It was Finger's that finally broke it, barking without reservation, his sound amplified by the large space. Pash couldn't help but flinch.

"Looks like Fingers found something," Ermos said with a smile.

The bark came off from somewhere in the darkness and Mane had to trudge with his torch towards it, apparently unhappy about following the lead of a dog. But when they drew nearer, it was clear that they had been wise to listen to him, for right next to Fingers – who was wagging his tail merrily – there was a large bronze brazier, fully stocked with dusty coal and rotten kindling.

Mane wordlessly nodded his approval to the dog, but Fingers didn't need it. It was his master's praise that he lived for.

"Good boy," Ermos said, patting his head. Fingers squeaked in delight and wagged his tail even faster.

Whilst the brazier was fully stocked, the question remained whether the wood was too rotten to be usable. It had likely been there for hundreds of years after all. It wouldn't be strange if it was all dust by now.

Mane held his torch next to the fuel testingly and their luck must have been with them, for it immediately roared to life. They must have oiled the kindling, Pash realized.

The whole room was bathed in light from that large brazier. Its rays reached even to the far corners of the room, breaking them out of complete darkness, but still leaving them cloaked in a light shadow.

Now that they could see all of it, the room was even bigger than Pash had expected, and the number of dead men and women even greater.