The top balcony was trapped with spikes that shot up from the floor, bolts that fired sideways, and poison gas. Maurice stepped nimbly around the spikes. Nin caught the bolts in ghost webs. She had learned something from Madame Wu's spell. Everyone thought that was amazing. The poison gas would have been a bigger problem. Little ghosts and astral projections didn't breathe, however, and Maurice was in Nhao's body. The kirin could not be poisoned.
Unaware of his circumstances, Maurice processed that as "stale gas."
Studying the balcony carefully, he found the secret door. Then he found the trick to open the secret door. Beyond it, a narrow corridor led to more corridors. Some went up. Others went down. Every now and then a small room opened on one side or another.
The rooms were empty.
"Why make a room if you're not going to fill it with treasure?" asked Richan.
There were traps in unexpected places, but that was to be expected. Humbled by his failure to identify the gas and bolt traps, Maurice was more effective at avoiding new pitfalls. Finally, he opened a secret door which led to another balcony. There were no traps.
The balcony overlooked another octagonal room, and was the second highest platform up from the floor. The room had plain walls. There was no mosaic. A forest of columns filled it, but its trees were more sinister and intimidating than those in the first octagonal room. Iron chains hung from the ceiling. Bits of armor hung in the chains. Nearly invisible spectres twisted in the chains. Piles of debris lay on the floor beneath them.
Though terrifying, the spectres showed no reaction to intruders.
Maurice climbed to the floor.
The rest of the party floated down after him. They converged on a stone sarcophagus in the center of the room. Its lid was carved in the likeness of a young warrior king.
"Is he an elf?" asked Nin.
"Half elf," said Abi. "Half fox."
"Like you?"
"I am half an elf," said Abi. "But not a fox!"
"You are pretty cute, though," said Maurice.
"This room is full of power," observed Edrus somberly.
"What kind of power, Edrus?" asked Nin.
"Binding power," said Edrus.
"Part elf, part fox — sounds like a vampire to me!" said Richan.
Abi thought Richan's math was about right. Nin thought a vampire sounded amazing.
"But why imprison a demonic entity here?" asked Edrus.
"Vampiric demonology was an Elven fashion trend," said Abi.
"Are you a vampire demon, Hermes?" asked Nin.
Hermes grew fangs and snarled menacingly. Nin clapped. Hermes bowed.
"This is more than a fashion statement," said Edrus.
"Should we open the lid?" asked Maurice.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea," said Abi.
"It must be an incredibly bad idea," said Edrus, "or you would be sure we should do it."
"I'm just thinking…," said Maurice, "there might be treasure, Second Master!"
Treasure sounded like a good reason to open the lid to Richan.
"Absolutely not!" said a tiny voice.
The little ghosts, astral projections, and Maurice looked around for the source. Nin spotted a fuzzy white mouse perched on the edge of the sarcophagus. The mouse had absurdly long whiskers.
Abi peered at him closely.
"Minerva sent you back down as a mouse!?" she exclaimed.
"How did you find this place?" asked the Grand Preceptor.
"How did you find it?" asked Abi back.
"I found you! Leave here at once!"
"Now you listen to me, Grandiose Precept," said Abi. "I can tell you're much weaker than you used to be. I could just send you back up to Heaven right now without breaking a sweat."
"For once, you listen to me!" said the Grand Preceptor. "No one was meant to find this place!"
"Nin found it," said Abi. "So there!"
The Grand Precept peered at Nin. She waved.
"Nin Yue," the Grand Preceptor said. "Marquis Yue's daughter?"
"That's me!"
"Did you have anything to do with what happened to her?" asked Abi sternly.
"Of course not!" replied the Grand Preceptor. "Did your father find this place?"
"Nope!" said Nin. "But he might have been looking for it."
"Why do you think that, Nin?" asked Richan.
"Warlocks are always looking for what they don't understand," sighed the Grand Preceptor.
"Just tell us what's going on," groaned Abi. "You know you want to."
"Look around!" said the Grand Preceptor. "You have ideas already."
"Richan's right," said Abi. "It's a binding array for a vampire fox."
Immediately after saying that, Abi's gift realized there was more to it. The details came in unusually slowly for a mystery right next to her. But despite his many flaws, the Grand Preceptor was also more or less correct: this place was meant to remain forever undiscovered.
The First Elven Emperor was always doing stuff like that.
"I don't have details either," said the Grand Preceptor. "But this binding is part of something larger."
"Yes," agreed Abi. "I'm starting to get the vibe."
"Get out before the vibe gets you!" said the Grand Preceptor.
"You're much more animated as a mouse than you ever were as an old man," said Abi.
"This is serious!" insisted the Grand Preceptor. "I thought I could have a long rest after your dirty rotten trick…."
"It was not a dirty rotten trick!" protested Abi. "You tried to trick me first! How dare you complain? You were going to get Richan and Edrus killed by Sorrow Woe Society assassins!"
The mouse pulled himself up to his full height and waved his little arms angrily.
"That was never going to happen!" he insisted.
"It was never going to happen because I wasn't going to let it happen!"
"Just get out of here and we can continue this argument somewhere else!"
"Second Master?" said Maurice. "I have an observation."
Abi blinked at her dazzling thief.
"Really?" she asked. "I don't mean to be mean, but…."
"What do you know about demonic bindings?" asked Edrus.
Abi nodded.
"This young man is…," said the Grand Preceptor. "Wait! That's not his body!"
"It's basically his body," said Abi.
"You linked his mind to the kirin!?" cried the Grand Preceptor. "Girl! How many forbidden techniques do you employ on a regular basis?"
"Hush," said Abi. "Proceed, Disciple."
"Kirin?" asked Maurice.
"Don't worry about that," said Abi. "What do you know about demonic bindings?"
Maurice adopted a suitably pretentious and scholarly posture.
"As the venerable mouse suggested," he said, "warlocks are always trying to find what they don't understand. In addition to being a terrifying swordsman, my First Master is also a warlock."
"Who is he talking about?" asked the Grand Preceptor.
"Jian Peak Abbot," said Abi.
"It gets worse and worse!" cried the mouse. "Why would you bring such a debaucherous scoundrel to a place like this?"
"Seriously," said Abi. "Your personality has completely changed."
"I'm stuck as a mouse and you're about to destroy the world!"
"Ridiculous!" said Abi.
"Actualy," said Maurice, "the mouse might be right."
Everyone looked at Maurice strangely.
"What do you think is going on, Maurice?" asked Edrus.
"My First Master likes to draw still lifes and figure studies," said Maurice. "He often asks me to sit for his drawing. Sometimes he gets distracted with sect business and I look around."
"Stealing from Jian Peak Abbot is as bad an idea as stealing from the Ancient Bailey," said Edrus.
"I would never steal from the Abbot!" said Maurice. "But I occasionally peeked at the scrolls he left lying on his desk. One scroll looked particularly absurd."
Abi folded her arms.
"Define absurd," she said.
"It was encrusted with jewels and gold," said Maurice. "It looked so gaudy, I thought it had to be fake. Anyway, it discussed the First Elven Emperor imprisoning an ancient giant."
Gears inside Abi's head spun rapidly — and clicked into place.
"The Asamati Polemarch!" she and the Grand Preceptor said at once.
"I couldn't understand much," said Maurice. "That might be right."
Abi rushed around the sarcophagus in a fit. The rock was impenetrable, but she could still look for clues. The Grand Preceptor scurried around in a bigger fit. Strangely, his little mouse feet stuck to the sides of the sarcophagus as easily as they ran across the top.
"Is it possible, Old Man?" asked Abi.
"It must be possible, Girl," said the Grand Preceptor, "or I wouldn't have been forced to come back down here to try and stop you."
"Is it possible to stop her?" asked Edrus.
"Why didn't Minerva just tell you what was going on?" demanded Abi. "Do you understand now why the fake gods must go? They spend so much time being ridiculous, who can take them seriously?"
"She doesn't know either!" snapped the mouse. "Elves break all the rules!"
"She should have sent you down sooner!" said Abi. "Our Elf already broke the exclusion spell!"
"I couldn't find you!" cried the mouse. "You were in the Gloaming Realm!"
Abi thought about it for a moment.
"Oh," she said. "Well, that's true."
"Will one of you bring the rest of us up to speed?" asked Edrus.
"The First Elven Emperor used five fox demons as spell components in a binding array that imprisoned the First God of War under the Imperial Mound," said Abi. "I should have known."
"Why didn't you?" demanded the Grand Preceptor.
"It takes time!" said Abi. "I've always said that!"
"Why didn't you wait until you knew what was going on before you broke the exclusion spell?"
"I couldn't break it!" said Abi. "Hermes broke it!"
"His Majesty wouldn't have done that if you hadn't asked!"
Abi could only concede that the mouse was right.
"You mean this fox demon has been stuck here for ten thousand years?" asked Nin.
Abi blinked several times.
"When you put it that way, Nin," she said, "it does feel unjust."
"Should we let him out?" asked Richan.
"No!" said the Grand Preceptor. "Absolutely not!"
"If there were only four demons," said Edrus, "would the spell fail?"
"Eventually," said Abi.
"Everything fails eventually," said Hermes enigmatically.
The group looked around the octagonal room for more clues — and potential treasure.
"If the First God of War was freed from his prison," said Edrus, "how bad would it be?"
"My master's scroll gave me the impression it would be bad," said Nhao-Maurice.
"Of course it would be bad!" wailed the Grand Preceptor. "Everybody dies!"
"You don't have to yell," complained Nin.
"I apologize," said the Grand Preceptor. "But releasing the Asamati Polemarch would precipitate unimaginable suffering for tens of millions of people."
"So the foxes have to stay in prison forever, Abi?" asked Nin.
Abi wavered on the precipice of doubt and indecision. It was her first time in such a place. She agreed with Nin that eternal imprisonment wasn't fair. Although Abi was comfortable with unbalancing the Charlatan Emperor's dynasty, potentially leading to succession wars, this was potentially worse.
Furthermore….
"If we break the binding array," she said, "the vampire won't be free, exactly."
"He won't?" asked Nin anxiously.
"He would be destroyed?" asked Edrus.
"His essence is committed to making the chain," said Abi.
"Break the chain," said Edrus, "break the vampire?"
Abi nodded grimly.
"What a terrible spell!" said Nin.
"The circumstances during which it was cast were terrible," said the Grand Preceptor.
"Maybe being destroyed is better than being imprisoned forever," said Richan.
"Can we ask the vampire?" asked Nin.
Abi shook her head. Communication required breaking the binding. Breaking the binding would destroy him. It wasn't the First Elven Emperor's intention, but it was a consequence of his solution to ending the Arkhanate of Urarhtu.
Nin started to sniffle.
"Before I met you guys," she said, "I was afraid of being a ghost forever — and I wasn't trapped in a box. It would be better not to be, than to be trapped in a box forever."
"I think so too," said Richan. "But could we free him?"
"Elf stuff," said Abi. "We can't do it. But Hermes can."
"I appreciate that the situation is difficult," said the Grand Preceptor diplomatically. "I don't know the right answer. But the suffering of five fox demons and one ancient titan must be weighed against the suffering and likely death of millions."
Everyone was quiet.
"What do you think, Edrus?" asked Abi.
"Hermes said everything fails eventually," said Edrus. "If the binding spells are going to fail, then I think knowing what's coming is better than being overtaken by an unexpected catastrophe."
"How can ordinary men and women prepare for a vengeful god?" asked the Grand Preceptor.
"What if he isn't vengeful?" asked Nin. "He shouldn't be imprisoned forever just because. If we can't ask the vampires, we should at least ask the old giant. I'm sure Abi can figure out a way to talk to him. Right, Abi?"
"Well…," said Abi. "Maybe."
"That's an enormous gamble," said the Grand Preceptor.
"If we do nothing," said Edrus, "and the catastrophe happens a thousand years from now, the risk will have been forgotten and nobody will be prepared. We discovered this. We should be the ones who address it."
The Grand Preceptor sighed.
"The Tenth Prince's sense of responsibility is commendable," he said, "but this isn't just about us. Millions of ordinary people are in the path of great danger."
Abi's mood trended away from uncertainty and doubt. Clutching Countess Niwa against her body, Nin was looking at Abi with great big little girl eyes. Richan's eyes were not quite that big, but he was also pained by the unfairness of being trapped in a stone box forever. The Grand Preceptor was not wrong that millions of ordinary lives were at stake, but Abi d'Ilga had a bone to pick with ordinary people.
"A thousand years ago," she said, "so many ordinary people were demanding an end to Elven tyranny, someone poisoned Hermes. But the idea of Hermes being a tyrant is ridiculous. He never oppressed anyone. He was ten! In Elf years that's barely a minute old!"
"Is it fair to blame the people of today for a deed done a thousand years ago?" asked the Grand Preceptor.
"If you're willing to be unfair to vampires and giants," said Abi, "why not be unfair to the people of today?"
"If you're willing to be fair to vampires and giants," said the Grand Preceptor, "why not be fair to the people of today?"
Curses! Abi always hated word problems.
"Hermes?" asked Nin. "You're the only one who can let the vampire go. What do you think?"
The blond imp with sharp ears floated to the sarcophagus, and put a small hand on it.
"I'm not mad about a thousand years ago," he said, "but if someone put me in a box just to keep someone else in a box, I wouldn't think that was very nice. How can it be nice if we do it to someone else?"
"Your Majesty," said the Grand Preceptor respectfully, "we can't always be nice."
"Can't we?" asked Hermes.
"I'm sorry you've been sent down here as a mouse," Abi told the Grand Preceptor. "That will make it harder for you to figure out a way to help us communicate with the Asamati Polemarch. But you're just going to have to make it work. Hermes, please let the vampire go by destroying him."
Nin and Richan clapped. Hermes destroyed the vampire.