Kara sat in the dirtiest, darkest tavern in the village of Alarna, surrounded by unhappy thieves.

            “This is not good,” Negal said, laying a nearly empty purse down on the table they shared.  “These strangers are not good men.”

            “Good men do not hire people to do their thieving,” old gap-toothed Himar said, pushing a cup of weak tea toward Kara.  “Drink, little one.  When you are bigger you can have something stronger.”  Himar was having something stronger.

            “They took the stone, but what of us?  They promised us payment, and we have received nothing.”  Negal slammed an empty cup on the table.

            “You were promised,” a terrible hissing voice said, from behind them, “a due reward when your work was done.”

            Kara tried to duck under the table, but a robed man’s hand clamped down on her collar, hauling her up out of her chair.  The dark-robed men stood at all the exits, keeping Negal’s band of thieves trapped within.  The tall rotting man advanced on Negal, part of his face visible in the dim light, partially desiccated, but oozing. 

            “Your work for me is not done,” he said.  “You have assembled the specialists I asked for, have you not?  We will need them.  I wish to open a door.”

            “I think we can open this,” Djaren said, looking at the door.

            Jon examined the moon carving with great interest.  It stood out from the door, and he could wrap his fingers around it.  “I think this turns,” he said.

            “Maybe we should wait,” Anna frowned.  “The Professor will be back soon.”

            “He should have come back half an hour ago.” Djaren frowned, looking at the fading light.  “If we don’t open this now, we won’t have another chance until tomorrow.” It was true.  The workmen had stopped their digging and gone back to their tents for supper.  The sun was low in the sky, and the Professor had not yet returned.

            “I do want to see, even if it’s just a peek,” Jon agreed.

            “We can close it again if it is boring,” Ellea suggested.

            “I can’t believe that an Ancient’s tomb could be boring,” Djaren said.  “Go on, Jon.  Try turning it.”

            Jon glanced at Tam.  Tam shrugged.  Jon turned the moon.  It gave easily under his hands, turning and locking into a new position.  There was a visible crack now down one side of the door frame.  Jon pulled.  Nothing happened.

            “Let me help,” said Tam.  Tam pulled.  The door edged open a little more, with a loud scrape.  Tam stood puffing.

            “If we tied a rope about the moon, we could all pull together,” said Djaren.

            Anna fetched a rope and they fastened it around the horns of the moon.  “If we break this, the Professor is going to be very angry,” Anna warned them.

            “We’ll pull carefully,” said Djaren, grinning, “and the Professor will be delighted to see that we found a way to open the door.”

            They all pulled together.  After a long, difficult, and sweaty time of pulling and heaving on the rope until their hands were raw, the door stood open a little over a foot.  Anna had a lantern and matches ready, and the others all clustered around her as she lit the lantern and held it up.

            They all peered into the narrow opening as footsteps crunched behind them.

            “Professor, look, we’ve opened it,” Djaren said, turning.  He yelled suddenly then, and the others turned too.  The corridor was blocked by a group of men in dark robes, and some ragged looking villagers.  One robed man had the pickpocket girl, thoroughly gagged, under one arm.

            “You do not want to make so much noise,” one of the men said, in a very odd voice.  “If you make sounds, I will have to hurt one of your small friends.”  The speaker stepped closer, into the glow of Anna’s lantern.  His face, shadowed partially by his hood, was disgusting and rotten; teeth hung from a grey jaw dripping some kind of slime, and his nose was withered and sunken like a mummy’s.

            Anna dropped the lantern and clamped both hands over her mouth in order to stifle a scream.

            “Good girl,” the rotting man said.  “Thank you all for opening the tomb.  It was very clever of you.  How would you like to see the inside?”

            Robed figures pushed past the children and hauled the door the rest of the way open.  Jon grabbed Tam’s hand, and Ellea and Anna grabbed Djaren’s.  Anna looked frightened.  Ellea looked angry.  Jon knew he must look petrified.

            “I think it is time for my thieves to be useful,” the rotting man said.  “Two of you men, go first into the tomb.”

            One of the taller ragged villagers stood forward.  “Apologies, lord, but first I would know what payment you propose to reward us for this work.  You have made us many promises, but have yet to give us coins.  We had a bargain.”

            “And I have a better one,” the rotting man said, with a harsh croaking laugh.  He grabbed one of the villagers, a very old man with missing teeth and frightened eyes, and gripped him by the throat.  Out from the flesh that the withered and rotting fingers gripped, blackness spread, with veins of sickly green.  The old man’s neck and face turned black, then his chest, and still the veins spread.  He choked and his eyes rolled back.  Red veins running across the whites turned to green and then to a slick and oily black.  The pickpocket girl was kicking the man who held her, furiously.  The rotting man dropped the old villager to the ground, where he fell without a sound, his head at an odd angle to his body, with some kind of dark slime oozing from beneath him.  There was a terrible stench, from the fallen man and from the rotting one.

            The other thieves all shrank away from the body.

            “Do as I say, and I will not kill you,” the rotting man said.  “Two men.  Go in.”

            “I don’t know what you are,” Djaren said, with uneven breath, “or who you are, but you will be stopped.”

            “How dramatic.  So like your father.”  The rotting man gave him a horrible smile that showed his cracked lips, rotting teeth, and grey bloodied gums.

            Anna closed her eyes.

            Two of the thieves were pushed forward, and entered the tomb nervously.  The others followed at a distance, with torches.

©2007 Ruth Lampi