The Puzzle VaultAuston Habershaw
7200 words Only fools or relatives came to Posto Nessum, and the four men on horseback were no relatives of Beatriz Faro’s. She paused in sweeping the dust off the steps of her shop and squinted against the heat of the rising sun. Four men on hardy Eddon steppe horses, with a fifth horse in tow. The men were armed, too. Yes, definitely fools. “Benito!” she yelled to the boy drawing water from the well. He, too, was watching the horsemen approach. Ten years old, now—he had the look of his late father. Gangly, with golden eyes fixed far away. Sometimes it made her heart skip to look at him. “I’ve almost got the water, Mamma!” “Hush! Go inside. Lock the door.” Benito frowned and looked at the men. “But, Mamma—they will be thirsty!” “They can draw their own water—go now!” The boy caught her eye and went. When Beatriz heard the bolt slam home behind her, she breathed easier. Hann bless him, but he was a good boy. Fools were better dealt with when there were no children about. A few minutes later, the men rode through the gap in the ancient stone walls of the old outpost and around the well in the courtyard. They peered into the open doorways of the abandoned buildings on either side before deigning to greet her. “There is nobody living in those places,” she said to them. “The barracks have been abandoned for ten years, the stable has no horses in it, the guardhouse is full of dust and sand weasels. If you’re looking for someone to talk to, señors, I am it.” One of the men dismounted. His boots were of good quality, but well-worn. His cape was dusty and tattered, but had once been a fine garment—the clothing of an almost or once-rich man. He bowed in a manner more fitting to a court. “I am Carlos Santuva de Otove y Norada. My companions and I are looking for a guide.” “I am the guide.” Beatriz said. “There are very few places to go from here, señor.” Santuva smiled. His men smiled, too. “I believe you know where we want to go.” Beatriz grimaced. Fools. “The Puzzle Vault.” “Your fee.” Santuva produced a small bag and threw it to her. It jingled, but not enough. “The fee is per man, señor.” Santuva laughed. The men laughed, too. “That is very expensive for you just to show us a door.” Beatriz planted her feet. “It is not just for that.” It’s for dragging your bodies out of the dark. It’s for defending myself from your anger when you fail. It’s for making me return to that cursed room and making me relive its horrors. It’s for a thousand reasons. Santuva shook his head. “Very well.” He jerked his head towards his men, who dismounted and began to tend to their horses. One produced a somewhat larger bag and gave it to Santuva, who in turn gave it to Beatriz. “How long will the journey take?” Beatriz checked the sun. “If we leave now, we will arrive at nightfall, but your men need to water their horses and I must get ready, so we should expect to camp before reaching the entrance to the vault. You may attempt it in the morning.” Santuva smiled. “Excellent. Perhaps some refreshment, then?” “This is not a café. The well is behind you. Excuse me.” Benito let her in. She locked the door behind her. “Benito,” she said, “go and get my things.” 
Beatriz gave Benito the keys to the strongbox, told him how to go for help if she did not return, and made him recite the names and homesteads of their closest five relatives. She took time in the small family shrine to say her prayers to Hann—one for Benito, for protection; one for her daughter Inez, for guidance with her new husband far away; and two for her husband Juan and her eldest son Alonso, for forgiveness. Then she took her satchel full of illumite shards, sparkstones, and enchanted rope, threw her talismans around her neck, and went out to meet Santuva’s band. Benito locked the door behind her. Good boy. The men were already mounted. Santuva put his hand out to help her up into the saddle. “Are you ready, señora? The sun is almost at its peak.” Beatriz ignored his hand and brought the mule out of the stable. “You will be trying the Vault tomorrow, one way or another.” She mounted the beast and tapped her heels against his side. “Follow me.” Outside the crumbling walls of Posto Nessum, Beatriz wrapped her face in a headscarf and thanked Hann for the dust talisman she wore that kept the terrible grit of sand from her eyes. It was hot and Santuva’s horses were tired, so they kept a modest pace as they rode across the dry steppes, their capes fluttering in the harsh winds that came off the wastes. Santuva rode abreast of her. “Once you take us to the entrance to the vault, what is to stop us from telling anyone we please where it may be found?” He took a swig from his canteen. “Perhaps I could start a competing guide service, eh? Make my money back.” “True, but then you would have to live out here.” She gestured to the pan-flat brown of the steppes, stretching off as far as could be seen, with nothing but the swirl of dust devils for scenery. Santuva grunted, conceding the point. “And why do you live out here, señora?” Beatriz did not let herself scowl. “If I did not, who would lead fools to the Puzzle Vault, señor?” Santuva laughed. This time, his men did not. The men were mercenaries, clearly. Two Verisi and an Illini, the former wearing colorful, patterned headscarves and neatly trimmed goatees and the latter wearing a black cap and a long black moustache. All three wore swords and had bows lashed to their saddles. When they spoke, they spoke Verisi among themselves. Beatriz could understand some of it—the language was not so different from her native Rhondian—but missed some of the more complex lewd jokes. All she knew was that the jokes were about her. Her skin crawled. Why do I do this? Why do I keep going back? The answer was there, though. It had always been there. Only Beatriz refused to face it, to admit to it. As always. There was little shelter to be had among the sagebrush and tree-like cacti of the steppe, so when the sun began to kiss the western horizon, she suggested they set camp beside a great orange boulder where a thick concentration of brush grew. Santuva agreed. “Should we light a fire?” The Illini—a man named Ozzik—asked. “Do you like being cold?” Beatriz said. “No bandits?” Beatriz laughed as she hauled the saddle off her mule. “Who would they rob? Me? You? We are too far from any caravan route to worry. Build a fire. I am not so young that I enjoy the evening chill.” And so the fire was built, and one of the Verisi took out a bone flute to play. The music—some sea shanty—was bright and lively. The small party shared its food with Beatriz, and with them she shared some of her own provisions—dried fruit and nuts, a small wedge of hard cheese. Besides Beatriz, the mood among them was light. Ozzik the Illini was passing a flask of ouzo around. Beatriz took a sip and was pleased to find that the flask had an enchantment on it that kept the liquor very cold, just as it would have been served in an Illini café. It made her shiver. “You are a well-equipped party.” Beatriz said, holding the flask up to the Illini in salute. Santuva reclined against the boulder. “I am a man of means. I pay my followers well.” He leaned forward. “And yet you do not seem to like us very much. I saw how you hid your son from us, how you barred your door against us.” He put his hand out for the flask. “Not very hospitable, señora.” “I have my reasons.” Beatriz handed him the flask. “I do not commonly encounter gentlemen in the wastes.” Santuva laughed. “There is an exception to every rule, señora—and here I am!” Beatriz permitted herself a tight smile. “We shall see.” “What can we expect tomorrow? I have heard so much and yet so little about the Vault. What can you tell me?” The flute fell silent. Beatriz looked across the fire at the other men. They were all listening now. “It is hard to explain. I can tell you that most of you will probably die, and those of you that live will blame me for what happens to the others.” “Why? What is so fiendish that guards the treasure?” Santuva gestured towards his saddlebags. “I have antispell, wards, talismans, weapons—what could it be?” Beatriz closed her eyes. She could picture the Vault clearly, as though it were etched in her eyelids. “The warlock king who devised the Puzzle Vault knew his enemies would seek to plunder his treasures with sorcery and brute force, so he devised a trap that uses no sorcery and cannot be overcome by force of arms. Within is a lion’s head. One of you must put your arm inside the lion’s mouth. This will open the shaft leading down to the maze and, beyond that, the treasure vault itself, but the man who puts his arm in will be trapped. Those of you who descend will have exactly three minutes to solve the maze, enter the vault, pillage what you can, and return.” “And the man who puts his arm in? What happens to him?” The Illini asked. Beatriz opened her eyes. “He dies.” The men looked dumbstruck. Santuva scowled. “What kind of a puzzle is that? Nobody mentioned this! Of all the men I spoke to who had come here, not one had—” “Tell me, señor, if you had forced one of your companions to sacrifice his life for your own enrichment, would you share the tale with others?” Beatriz shook her head. “No doubt they all warned you against coming, assuming they had any decency in them.” Santuva stroked his goatee. “There must be some trick, some catch.” Beatriz hugged her knees to her chest. “The fact that you have come this far and invested this much to claim the treasure means you will fail, by definition. If you are wise, you will realize this before it is too late.” Beatriz looked deep into the fire, blinding herself with the light. “Most men are not so wise as that.” “And yet men have brought wondrous treasures from the depths of the vault.” Santuva countered. “I know this. I have seen them with my own eyes in the palaces of Itiara and Veris and Ihyn.” Ah, he is from a merchant family, then? Beatriz rubbed her hands to hide how they shivered. “Bought with the blood of their friends, and spread out over two thousand years. For every bauble that escapes the clutches of that fiendish Vault, a hundred expeditions end in failure.” Santuva stroked his goatee for a moment, contemplating the stars. “In all things, señora, I strive to be the exception.” Beatriz had heard words like this before—from the lips of her husband, Juan. She could still see those faraway eyes, looking up at the night sky just as Santuva did now, and hear his cool voice speaking of the same treasures and the ambition that would see them realized. The memory hurt like a cut. As always, she pushed it away. She focused on the fire, on the cold air, on the ordeal to come. No one said anything more— Beatriz had spoiled the mood. She pulled her blanket roll up to her chin and lay down to sleep. As the fire died, she could hear the singing of desert toads and the chirps of the crickets they fed on. She shivered. And slept. 
They made the Vault by midmorning the next day. Beatriz could always tell when they were getting close—the air was no longer as dry, and her black hair began to frizz up into clumps beneath her scarf. The plants on the ground grew greener. Birdsong could be heard. It was around then that they found the river. The Guasto River was not much of a river, at least not by this point. It began up in the Artavi Mountains away in the west and ran to its death in the wastes, splintering into little streams and creeks, never to find the sea. This particular stream was one of the larger remnants— about twenty feet wide and three or four feet deep at its deepest point. It ran swiftly, though, and the silt bottom shifted easily underfoot— Beatriz told them it was unwise to cross on horseback. They paused to water the horses. “We will be there soon.” Beatriz said in answer to Santuva’s questioning look. “We follow the river east a bit further, and then we will see it.” The river terminated in a crack in the earth itself—a ragged maw of stone that swallowed the water entirely in its dark, crashing depths. Here a hitching post had been driven into the ground by ancient hands, long since dead. Beatriz dismounted and tied up her mule. The others did the same. “Bring your things,” she said, “the entrance is down there.” She pointed into the chasm. “Once we are on the stair, the sound of the water will be too loud for us speak over. If you have any questions before you enter the Vault, ask them now.” “Will we need weapons?” The Illini asked. “Probably not.” Beatriz checked her talismans— all present. The Illini raised an eyebrow. “Probably?” “Only if you intend to use them on each other.” At this, the men left their bows. All of them wore their swords; even Santuva strapped on a gentleman’s rapier. The stairs down to the Vault were impossible to see unless you knew where to look. A narrow set of water-worn stone steps, they were cut into the side of the cavern ages ago and became so slick and uneven that previous expeditions had to set iron rings into the wall and run a rope to aid in the descent. When these iron rings had rusted away and the ropes rotted to nothing, new ones had been added. And then others. And others after that. The last set— the set Beatriz and her husband had installed— were of mageglass, and so would never rot nor rust nor spoil. She spoke a word, and her enchanted rope flew from her satchel and threaded itself through each ring. She put a shard of illumite around her neck on a leather string and set off down the precarious steps, one hand clutching the rope. The sound of the river crashing into the darkness below was an overwhelming, bludgeoning force. The mist stung her dry cheeks. She kept her eyes fixed on the steps and a firm grip on the rope. On her last trip here— about five months ago— a new stair had given way, and one of the treasure hunting party had fallen into the abyss. They descended until the light from above was thin and pale, filtered through the water vapor thrown off by the falls. The stairs stopped at a small landing, ten feet across. An ancient stone sconce was set into the wall beside a broad door. Beatriz fished another piece of illumite from her satchel and placed it there, illuminating the floor beneath their feet. It was not a natural landing— square flagstones, smooth and gray. Beyond the door was another stairway, this one better preserved and not at the edge of an abyss. It was wide and descended beneath vaulted ceilings. Beatriz had heard that the walls had once been gilded with gold and embedded with jewels and mosaics of jade, but thieves over the ages had stripped them bare. Eventually the roar of the falls dimmed behind them so that Beatriz could hear their footfalls. Santuva whistled. “It will be some feat, raising treasure from this depth.” He looked back at his men. “You boys will be earning your pay for certain.” They all laughed. “No one has ever had that problem before.” Beatriz said. She thought of all the bodies, broken and bloody, that she had dragged up these stairs over the years or cast into the abyss. Her hands shook. She was about to do it again. Forty pieces of silver is not enough. It is never enough. And yet I come, again and again. At last the stairs stopped and they stood before a grand archway. On either side stood stone colossi, their features marred beyond all recognition by the greedy picks and axes of thieves. Bones, broken and yellow with age, piled in the corners; toothless skulls leered out from rusty helms—the legacy of ancient disputes over shares of the take. Beatriz didn’t pay them any heed. “Welcome to the Puzzle Vault of Askar, Fifteenth King of the dead kingdom of Shendrazail.” She looked at the men, who also wore illumite shards around their necks. Their eyes glittered in the blue-white light. Santuva’s teeth seemed to glow as he smiled. “Will you come in with us?” “I would prefer to wait here.” One of the Verisi pulled a dagger. Santuva frowned at him, but did not object. “I’m afraid we must insist. We can’t have you taking your rope and abandoning us. You understand, of course.” Beatriz nodded, outwardly calm. “Of course.” Beyond the great arch was an even greater room, its vaulted dome lost in the shadows. Placed around the tiled stone floor were braziers filled with pitch-soaked straw or dried brush or whatever else would burn with a healthy flame. Beatriz left the men to explore and set about lighting them with a sparkstone until, at length, the whole chamber could be seen in the orange light of the flickering fires. Like most other places in the Vault, the walls were picked clean up to about fifteen feet off the floor. Above this, elaborate mosaics of semi-precious stones, soot stained from ages of torchsmoke, stretched up into the shadows. They depicted horses and soldiers, demons and angels waging battle, and the fearsome visage of the Warlock King Askar XV, resplendent in gilded robes, his visage not that of a man, but that of a golden-maned lion. “Hann’s boots…” Santuva breathed, holding a torch aloft, eyes wide. Beatriz turned. Santuva and his men stared, awestruck, at the very mechanism that would make them either rich or dead. A statue, thirty feet tall, in the form of a man with a lion’s head, muscular chest burnished in gold, teeth of ivory, eyes of gleaming yellow tourmaline. The figure seemed to gaze down at them, frozen in a fearsome pose of rage and warning. One great arm was raised, holding a huge onyx khopesh. The other arm was missing—a victim of particularly ambitious raiders from some unknown time past. Its crumbled remains still lay strewn across the broad floor, the thin layer of gold long since peeled away. “Where is the trap you spoke of?” Santuva asked. “There.” Beatriz pointed between the giant’s legs. There was another lion’s head, or what had once been one, before it had been bludgeoned, chipped, and cracked over the years. Its mouth was open, though, and jaws of unblemished steel were clearly visible. Down the front of this statue were black stains. At its foot was a fine layer of sand from which poked the occasional ancient bone. The men gazed upon it in silence, each contemplating the meaning of those black stains, those ancient bones. The Verisi with the dagger pointed it at Beatriz. “We could just make her do it.” Beatriz had steeled herself against this moment—there was always this moment. She caught up her talismans and shook them at the Verisi. “I am warded against blades and bear talismans of protection. If I do not return, my son will find my relatives, and my family will hunt you to the ends of the earth.” The Illini laughed. “Empty words, woman. The talismans probably don’t even work and that boy is not going anywhere.” He advanced on her. “Wait!” Santuva stepped between them. “Ozzik, leave her be!” The second Verisi drew his sword. Ozzik put a hand on the hilt of his saber. Beatriz backed towards the wall—towards a little alcove she had used before to escape such behavior. “Enough! Put up your swords, men!” Santuva slashed the air with one hand. “We haven’t come all this way to slay each other like pirates!” He looked at Beatriz. “Surely you must know more! There must be some trick!” Beatriz shook her head. “If I told you, I would doom you all to death. Leave now! Spare all your lives!” All four men paused. The Verisi with his sword drawn cocked his head. “Tell us anyway, signora.” Beatriz balled her hands into fists. “You must believe me!” Ozzik sought to come closer to her, Santuva’s hand on his shoulder. “You will either tell us, woman, or you will die. Your choice.” Beatriz looked at Santuva. He sighed and shrugged. “I am but one man, señora, and these men have come a long way. What can it hurt to tell us, eh?” She wanted to cry, but held it in. Hann forgive me! She spoke quietly, each word pained. “There is a legend— only a legend, mind you— that there is a secret catch in the vault that would release the prisoner of the lion’s head. Once struck, however, the vault will begin to close and those inside will have only a brief time to escape with their lives.” “What happens when the vault closes?” Santuva asked. “The maze between this room and the treasure chamber fills with water from the river. Those in the vault suffocate, those in the maze drown. No one who has sought the catch has found it. Ever.” Santuva clapped his hands. “There— see! I knew there was some trick to it.” Beatriz shook her head. “Listen to me! No one has found it! You have only three minutes to save the life of the man in the lion’s mouth— first you must negotiate the maze, then you must seize some treasure, then you must find the catch, then you must negotiate the maze on the way out. It cannot be done!” Santuva smiled. “Ah, but señora, you forget that I am exceptional.” He reached into his shirt and drew out a scrap of thin, dried leather. On it had been inked a rectangular shape—a map. The map. “A map to the maze!” Ozzik shouted and stood beside Santuva to look over his shoulder. The two Verisi came up, too, after sheathing their own weapons. Santuva let them pore over it and held his hand out to Beatriz. “There, you see? I am certain with the map to lead us through the maze, we will have plenty of time to seek the catch, yes?” “If it exists.” Beatriz came closer, but did not take his hand. She stared, instead, at the map clutched in the greedy fingers of the mercenaries. Her heart began to pound. She had seen this map before. Gods, why do you torture us so? Why lay such traps for our failings? Santuva’s eyes sparkled. “Just think, señora—all these years of watching men fail to best the vault, now to be on the cusp of observing their victory! You should be delighted!” He turned to his men. “Now, who shall risk the lion’s maw first, eh?” Beatriz kept her distance as they argued. She tried to calm herself, to steady her breathing, but it would not happen. The map had pushed her over the edge, and she felt like she was falling. It was all she could do to hold back tears. Finally, the men drew lots. One of the Verisi lost, and so he rolled up his sleeve, said a prayer to Hann, and put his arm into the lion’s mouth. Nothing happened. They all looked at her, expectantly. Beatriz took a deep breath. “There are five catches at the back. Hit them with each of your fingers.” He did. The lion’s steel jaws clamped closed around the Verisi’s upper arm. The entire chamber rumbled as a spiral stair sank into the earth at the exact center of the floor. Above them, the great arm with the great khopesh began to drop, slowly, inexorably, in an arc that would pass its ancient blade through the shoulder of the Verisi. The man looked up and began to scream. “Go! Go, my friends! Quickly!” Santuva, Ozzik, and the other Verisi darted down the stairs, Santuva holding the map in one hand, a torch in the other. For a time, Beatriz could hear their shouts echoing from below. Then, by the time the arm was a third of the way through its arc, there was only the heavy, grinding noise of the stone arm pivoting downward. The Verisi struggled against the trap, trying to pull his arm free. He chipped at the stone with his knife in his free hand. He growled curses. The huge blade was halfway down now. “Signora!” he called, “Help me!” Beatriz stomach boiled. She turned her back on him as tears began to blind her eyes. It was always like this. Always. She wanted to run away. Every time they screamed, she heard her husband’s voice, screaming the same way. Help me, Beatriz! Alonso isn’t finding the catch! Help me get out! The arm was two-thirds down now. She listened at the top of the stairs— no sound. They were not even in the maze, and only one minute remained. The trapped Verisi was beginning to panic. He clawed at his own shoulder. “For Hann’s sake, help me! They are not coming back! You can help me!” She looked at him. He was holding out his knife, his eyes wide. “Cut at my arm! Cut my flesh away, signora! I…I cannot do it myself!” Thirty seconds now. The sound of voices shouting came from below. They had not found the catch. “Signora! Please!” Tears streamed down the Verisi’s face. The great khopesh had almost completed its one-hundred and eighty degree arc. The man in its path looked tiny—a daisy before the scythe. If I am merciful, I will just kill him now. She took a step towards him, but stopped. The Verisi began to stab and slash at his own arm, trying to slice himself free from the trap. His arm slid out a bit—only to his elbow, though. He wailed in despair, blood pouring from his wounds. Five seconds, perhaps less. Ozzik, face pale, stumbled up from the depths. His saber was drawn, but unblooded. Next came Santuva, with barely a second to spare, something clutched to his chest. “NOOOO! NOOOOOO!” The Verisi shrieked one last time before the heavy weight of the stone khopesh tore through his arm and shoulder without the slightest pause. Blood spurted across the feet of the giant and the mane of the lion’s head. The Verisi stumbled back, one-armed, looked up at the sky, and fell backwards with a gurgle. His life’s blood spilled in the dust from his jagged wounds as the chamber rumbled, the khopesh returned to its original position, and the stairway sealed. Silence. Ozzik was on all fours, kissing the ground. Santuva sat with his back against the wall, panting. He did not look at her, nor at the dead man bleeding out on the ground. “We…we couldn’t find it. Damn, that place is enormous. I…I had no idea…no idea. Nobody told me!” I told you. But Beatriz said nothing. “That fool!” Ozzik had gotten up. He looked shaken. “That fool, Antosi! He wouldn’t come. He was still looking for the catch when we left him.” “Then he’s still there.” Beatriz said, her voice numb. “There will probably be air enough in the vault to keep him alive for a short time.” The color drained from the Illini’s face. “That is a cruel thing to say.” Santuva stood up. “Perhaps he’s found it! We can go back for him! Ozzik!” He jerked his head towards the lion’s mouth, where the severed stump of the Verisi’s arm still protruded. “What, and trade my life for his? You’re mad!” The Illini looked as though he would vomit. “I am never doing that again.” “But Ozzik, look at this!” Santuva held something to the light. It was a circlet of gold, too small for an adult—for a child, then. Emeralds studded its circumference and the shape of an eagle rising into the air was shaped into the front. Between its wings was cradled a white diamond the size of a man’s thumbnail. Ozzik looked at it for a long, quiet moment. “We cut our losses. I take the Verisi’s shares—more than I bargained for anyway. We leave this place.” The Illini turned to leave, but Santuva blocked his path, took him by the shoulders. “My friend! Think of what Antosi is doing right now! He’s finding the catch. He’s collecting more treasure—gods, man, he probably has a sack full of crowns and jewels right now! You saw the piles, didn’t you?” The Illini pushed him away. “I saw the bones, Santuva. That’s all I saw—that and the claw marks on the walls. The woman was right.” Beatriz went to the body of the dead man and used her own cloak to cover him up. His eyes were still open. The man had never been kind to her, that was true, but he hadn’t been monstrous, either. If no one else would mourn for him, she felt at least she ought to. It was her role in this place, perhaps— to come and mourn, over and over. Yes, there was some truth to that. She bowed her head. “What are you doing?” The Illini pointed at the body. “Leave that alone.” “This was a man who died so you could get that crown the two of you are haggling over!” Beatriz snapped. “Have some respect for the dead.” Santuva was still pressing his case. “Ozzik, this crown is worth a tidy sum, but it’s not much more than investment capital. It will buy you a tract of land, maybe. Perhaps a small ship with no crew to man it. Did we come all this way— did I hire you to come all this way and fail right at this moment?” Santuva put the circlet in Ozzik’s hands. “The moment of truth, señor. Stick with me and become a legend or leave and die a shepherd!” Beatriz shook her head. “Don’t listen to him, Ozzik. Go. I don’t feel like tending to another body, least of all yours.” The Illini handed the circlet back to Santuva. “I stay, but we put the woman’s arm in the lion’s mouth.” “I won’t do it.” Beatriz’s voice cracked. “Never!” Santuva pulled at his goatee. “You must know, señora, that I cannot walk away.” He shrugged. “I need more than this to save my family from destitution. I have tried every other means I know how. I am here; I must try.” Beatriz backed towards her alcove. Ozzik moved off to her right. The two men were closing on her. “Not so exceptional after all, then,” she snarled. “You can’t force me. I will never do it.” Santuva’s face darkened. The smiles and the constructed image of affluence fell away from him. His expression became as tattered as his clothing. “Ozzik: go back to the señora’s house. Find her son and hold him hostage. If you do not see me in two days, kill him.” Beatriz gasped. “You miserable—” “Ha!” Ozzik grinned, showing the gaps in his teeth. “What about my share?” “You’ll get it when I see you again. Go!” Santuva snarled. The Illini left with a snicker for Beatriz. Beatriz glared at the Rhondian merchant. “As I said— there are no gentlemen in the wastes.” There was a moment when Santuva looked ill— he paled, gulped air, but something entered his mind and his expression darkened. “It is only three minutes, señora. Do it now— put your arm into the lion’s mouth— and I will catch up to Ozzik long before he finds your boy. This does not need to happen.” Beatriz shivered with anger. She struggled to speak. “No.” Santuva drew his rapier. “I do not wish to hurt you, señora. But I must go back. I must get more than this trinket,” he waved the circlet around, “I have no choice.” “I will never put my arm in the lion’s mouth! Never, you understand?” She closed her eyes. She should not have: the image of her husband, shrieking on the ground, blood pouring from his severed arm. The sound of the vault sealing even as her eldest son was calling her name from the depths of the maze. The weight of the memory caused her to crumple. She leaned against a pile of debris and rocked, eyes closed, tears falling. “Never. Never never.” Santuva looked bewildered. “Well… then we are at an impasse, yes? I cannot leave, you cannot go forward, and so Ozzik will go and murder your son, and there will be nothing we can do about it.” Beatriz opened one eye enough to glare at him. “But for your greed, you might have left already! You might never have come! I might never have come to this place— not even once. I would be living in a little village outside of Via Durano with my husband and my children and we would be poor but we would never have come here! None of this would have been, but for the childish greed of men!” “Is it childish to wish a legacy for my son, señora? Is it childish to wish that they not see their father lose all that they have known? To be reduced to living in a hovel and eating gruel and begging in the streets? Is that the wish of a child? Eh?” Santuva kicked a skull across the floor and threw his rapier on the ground. “All this— all this I do for my family! Surely you understand that! I have traveled a thousand miles to a wasteland! I have shared meals with black-hearted mercenaries like Ozzik! I have threatened women and children! All for my own children! What choice do I have?” Beatriz drew a shuddering breath. “You could live in a hovel and eat gruel and beg in the streets. But you would live.” Santuva put his hands to his head and pulled at his hair. “Death first. Death first! I will not fail them, not while I live!” Beatriz hugged her knees to her chest. “Then we are at an impasse. As you say.” Santuva sat on the floor, head in his hands. Neither of them spoke— they each wrestled with their own demons in private for a time. Beatriz thought of all the months of preparation her husband had devoted to this room and the vault beyond. He had been an intelligent man— an educated man, brought up in the church, an expert in ancient languages and history. With the birth of their third child and a season of drought, he had bent all his skill and intelligence against cracking the secrets of the Puzzle Vault. They had moved here, to the abandoned outpost. He had been meticulous, cautious, rational. None of it had mattered. That was the puzzle, Beatriz felt. She had not known it until afterwards— after both her Juan and her Alonso had died here. It did not matter what brought someone to this terrible room, be it pride, greed, curiosity, or otherwise— the fact that they were here was enough to kill them. Santuva stood up, wiped his eyes, straightened his doublet. “My family lives in Otove. You could find them señora, yes?” “Yes, I suppose. Why?” Santuva strode past her, tore the bloody ruin of the Verisi’s arm from the lion’s mouth, and thrust his arm inside. The chamber shuddered as the mechanism came to life. “Go.” He said to her, forcing a smile. “Retrieve what you can. Bring it to my family. Tell them what you like.” Beatriz stood up. Her whole body was shaking, she realized. “Why…why did you—” “GO!” And so she found herself going— down those horrid, ancient spiral stairs and into the darkness of the maze. It was dank and dripping with water, the slick black stone of its walls glittering in the pale light of her illumite shard. She knew the way through— her husband had the map, too, and he and Alonso used to quiz each other around the dinner table. Inez, her daughter, would get into it, as well. They had family contests— who could solve the maze fastest. All of it came rushing back to her, so vivid that it was almost as though she were there, sitting at her dinner table with her husband and eldest child alive and well, laughing as they maneuvered an olive across an oilskin reproduction of the maze. She leapt over the bones of former adventurers, ignored the stench of rot from the more recent ones, and hurried her way down the narrow tunnels. Straight, second left, first right, third right, first left, first right, first left and… She came out of the maze and into the treasure vault itself. A place she had never been and never wanted to be. It looked to be a mostly natural cave— stalactites and stalagmites of a kind of stone that sparkled in the pale light. And there— and there and there— piled in the shadows of the chamber, on ancient stone tables and in the rotted away frames of ancient chests, were treasures undreamed of. For all her terror and urgency, Beatriz was compelled to tarry for a moment and gaze at the wondrous things. Piles of rubies as big as grapes; statuettes of jade and alabaster and onyx, gilded in silver and adamant; crowns, necklaces, shirts of mail, torques all of gold; coins enough to swim in. Beatriz had once wondered how long it would take before the entire vault were cleaned out. Now she knew it would be another thousand years, and perhaps another beyond that before it would come to pass; an ocean of blood would have to be spilled along the way. Something gleamed in the distant dark— the shard of illumite around Antosi’s neck! Gods— how much time had she wasted gawking? She didn’t know! Fire burned through her legs as she scrambled over hills of gold and pyramids of diamonds to get to the fallen Verisi. Antosi was splayed across the armrests of a golden throne, lions rampant on its backrest, his own dagger plunged into his own heart. Dead of despair. How much time? Antosi had in his hand a sack— it was heavy, and it jingled. She caught it up and threw it over her back. She turned to leave. She stopped. Out of the corner of her eye, something green. Her heart pounding, she looked— there, beyond the throne, far in the back of the cavern, was a great mountain of copper coins and greaves and helms all turned bright green with a thick layer of patina. Whereas everywhere else was something that glittered with the untarnished glory of gold and gemstones, here looked like an ancient, corroded dungheap— the leavings of some lesser treasure horde, cast aside over the ages. Of course. The catch would have to be hidden there. What burglar, pressed for time, would ever even notice it? But how much time? If she ran, she could perhaps make it out. Or perhaps not. She had no idea! Every second she tarried put her life and the life of Benito in danger. She just had to run, and now! And then watch as another man died horribly. Beatriz, you are a fool, she told herself, but dove into the pile of copper armor and coins like a tiger pouncing. She threw them aside, slapping at every exposed stone, every knobby outcropping. Something moved. A slate set into the floor. She pushed it and pushed it, but it would not catch. How much time! Run girl! But Beatriz did not run. She instead put down the sack and grabbed the Verisi’s body and dragged it over to the plate. With her and him together, the weight was enough for something to catch with a dull clunk. Then she ran. Fast as her legs could carry her, slipping and skidding across the slick floors of the maze, knocking bones and rusty bits of mail aside as she went. She reached the stairs as they were beginning to rise again and wriggled through the opening at the last moment, screaming as she did so. Then there was a strong hand around her own, pulling her. She looked up. It was Santuva, smiling at her. It was then that she remembered: she had forgotten the sack of treasure. They sat, side by side, backs to the wall. The fires in the braziers guttered low. Beatriz’s heart seemed unable to slow. The world seemed to spin. Santuva stroked his goatee and stared up at the sparkle of the high-up mosaics. “You didn’t bring anything back.” Beatriz shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. We… I could go back. I know how.” “No. I would not do that to you,” he said. He was quiet for a moment, as though seeking the proper words. “I must beg your forgiveness, señora, though I do not think you will give it.” Santuva took a deep breath. “When the arm was falling towards me and I was pinned there, helpless, I thought about how stupid I had been. Giving up my life for coin— what a…what a waste. I thought of my son growing up without a father. My wife, alone. I would have died proud, but to what end?” Beatriz looked at him. He looked sunken, withered somehow. But also at peace. Once she had hoped to see that look in the face of a different man. Tears blinded her. Beatriz had wept many times since that terrible day— in despair, in fear, in horror and pain. This time was different. She felt cleansed. This— this moment— had been why she had been coming. To see that it was possible. To stand witness to the moment a man redeemed himself— to see someone pass the test her Juan had failed. When she spoke, it was to Juan, and not to Santuva. “I forgive you.” Santuva offered her a hand. “Come, señora. Ozzik cannot have gone far. Let me bring you home.” |
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Auston Habershaw
Auston Habershaw is a science fiction and fantasy author whose stories have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Analog, and other places. He also writes novels, his latest being his complete fantasy series, The Saga of the Redeemed, published by HarperVoyager and set in the same world as "The Puzzle Vault." He lives and works in Boston, MA and spends his days teaching composition and writing to college students. Find him on his website at aahabershaw.com.
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