Chapter 33: Interlude 4, Ch 2: The Tomb of Steel

I stop. When Victor sees me interested, he motions for me to follow him, and leads me down the steps to the basement, breathing like an excited dog. I run to catch up. Inside the dark and dry area, he lights a lantern on a table next to the door.

As Victor carries it, it casts a dreary light on the small room, packed full of dusty books and bundled papers. More shelves line the walls and the middle of the room, and there’s barely any room to walk. For fire safety, and to preserve the documents, there’s no light in this room save Victor’s tiny lantern. Victor leads me down to the back corner.

There, he takes a stack of papers, tied with a fraying string, and places them on a small end table. I hold the lantern as he unties the bundle and sifts through it, pulling out a scrap of paper, its edges burnt. He hands it to me. “Third line from the bottom,” he says. “It’s from a census during Mendar Steel’s reign.”

Delicately, I handle the paper and read it while Victor goes into a story about why he thinks this census was burnt. It’s full of names, and births, and deaths. The census is just names I’ve never heard of till I find one name that stands out: Steel, died, buried on Oak Hill.

“Just Steel?” I ask.

Victor stops his monologue. “At first I thought it was Mendar Steel,” Victor says, and takes the paper back, sliding it back in place with a cautious and deft hand. “But the date’s wrong. And his death is listed in many other places where this is the only mention of a man by the name of Steel anywhere.”

“Who is it?” I ask.

“Here,” Victor says, and hands me another scrap of paper. This one is wrinkled and creased. Many of the words are crossed out or scribbled over. “Last line down.”

I read out loud, “went for the last time to father’s grave. He always liked to meditate in that hill but would never let me come. I only wish he’d teach me more of his…” The words stop.

“The signature and date at the top are from Mendar Steel,” Victor says with an excited grin, waiting for my response with delight.

My mouth drops and my eyes go wide. I feel I can barely hold the paper anymore, as if it’s suddenly aflame with importance. Victor sees this and quickly takes the paper back.

“I still get goosebumps myself from handling things Mendar has personally written on,” Victor says.

“This Steel, he was Mendar’s father?” I ask.

“It appears that way,” Victor says, replacing the paper in its spot again.

“Is there anything more about him?”

“No. To be honest, you’re the first person to ask about him, or about events before Mendar Steel.”

“Let me see it again,” I say. Like a child with a fragile toy, the historian hesitates before pulling it out again. I read the passage again and again, still finding nothing more than the fact that Mendar had a father named Steel. “Why hasn’t anyone asked about this? Why isn’t there something in the history books about the father of our kingdom?”

I read the passage a couple more times, just in case.

“I’m a historian of Grundar, greatness. I don’t waste my time on other things. If you want to speak about things before our nation was founded, speak to one of the Sever historians, though there’s only one left alive, I believe. And I doubt he’ll tell you much about Mendar Steel,” Victor says, gently replacing the paper and putting the bundle back on the shelf. “Now, let’s go back upstairs and talk. If you want to know about Mendar Steel, I can tell you all the details you’ve never heard about how he forged the foundations of the citadel, and how his government set in motion the Grundlin War.”

He talks about history and stories. I don’t pay attention. My mind is racing. History doesn’t just begin at the founding of Grundar. There’s so much more that led up to it! This might be that lost history Eelian was talking about. Okay, so I find out what this Steel guy was all about and then get back to work on the war. I’ve had enough stress lately anyway.

Zoned out as I am, I suddenly realize we were talking at the top of the stairs. “…was the most interesting part,” Victor babbles on. “The Grundle Lords were actually receptive of Grundar’s army. They thought to use it to their—”

“Where is the hill?” I ask.

Victor clears his throat. “Lord Mundle had a hill named Mark’s Hill next to his manor that—”

“No, I mean Oak Hill. Where Mendar says his father’s grave is. Where is it?”

“Oak Hill, changed its name to Spear Hill after the trees were cut down in preparation for the invasion of Shalem when there was a lack of material,” Victor says.

I know exactly where that is.

“Thanks, Victor,” I say, and walk hurriedly toward the door. My guards follow.

“That hill is an historical place,” Victor says, following me to the door and shouting out after I leave. “The Sever Army camped there before the Crimson Charge and it’s where Queen Jans Grundarin killed King Grendar! And where—”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I reign in Hunter and take a quick look at Spear Hill. It’s nothing more than a low mound about a quarter mile across. Foot-high grass and vibrant wildflowers decorate the landscape.

“Beln,” I say.

Beln edges close to me.

“Fan out and search the grounds. Concentrate on the edges. If this was a tomb, find a door or some kind of marking,” I say.

Beln nods, and relays the command.

We spend several minutes walking around the hill. All the trees have long been cut down and the grass shows nothing but more grass underneath. The hill is almost perfectly circular, and after three laps I’m nearly ready to give up there’s so few signs of anything worth seeing.

“It’s not worth mentioning,” I hear Keller saying a few feet off.

“Of course it’s worth saying, look at it,” Beln says.

“It looks like a gopher made that.”

“The prince wants to find gophers, we find him gophers.” Beln raises his voice. “Greatness! I think we’ve found something.”

I sigh, and walk Hunter over to join them and dismount. “What is it?” I ask.

Before Beln can respond, I see the ‘gopher tunnel.’ It’s way too high a mound to have been made by a gopher. And gopher tunnels usually cave in or erode into the soil after a few months. This has a cluster of tall-stemmed kin flowers standing up toward the end of the mound. The flower gets its name from how its roots and leaves latch with the other flowers to keep erect the otherwise too-tall bulbs.

“Move away,” I say to the two dismounted guards. I lean down at the tip of the mound and run my hands through the grass. On my hands and knees, I search for some sign that there’s a tomb entrance down here. As I scoot down to search more, my knee bumps something hard that makes me stand up in shock and pain.

“Greatness,” Beln says, leaning down to examine the flat, grassy ground, “It’s a chain.” Beln pulls up the muddy chain as clumps of grass come up with it. It stops after a few inches, and the other guards and I see that it’s hooked into the ground. Beln tugs at it a few more times, straining. As he grunts with effort, the entire land seems to open up beneath me and I’m thrown to the ground.

I roll over as Beln helps me to my feet, and I see an open metal door where I’d just been standing.

“Are you alright, Millar?” Beln asks as he helps me up. “Sorry, I didn’t know the chain opened the door.”

“The grass hid it,” I say as I look down into the hole, too excited to care about being thrown to the ground. There are stone stairs leading down. But here’s the surprising thing: the stairs have muddy footprints.

“Greatness, what is it we’re looking for?” Keller asks, swallowing hard.

“Something lost,” I say, and walk down the steps.

Beln and the others follow.

Inside, lit by the dim light coming through the door, is a wet, old-smelling tomb. The stone floor covers the ground in tiles and the walls are made of thick iron. The air is lifeless and stale, and Beln coughs loudly as I approach the massive steel box in the middle of the room.

The room feels less like a tomb and more like the inside of an unlit stove. Keller taps on the walls and they give a light, metallic reply. I examine the box and wipe dust from the front. Steel it says simply.

“Who’s Steel?” Beln asks.

“It can’t be Mendar Steel,” Keller states. “He’s buried outside the Iron Palace.”

“So who’s this, greatness?” Beln asks, looking around as if something’s going to jump at him in this tiny room.

I spit on my hands. “We’re about to find out,” I say. “Help me lift this lid.”

It’s too close to be a coincidence. Eelian wouldn’t have told me about it if it was. This man helped found Grundar. When the old king wrote Teach me more he probably meant that Steel taught Mendar how to make steel, technology never seen before. And he had only one name. All the Prophets only had one name.

It takes all of us to lift the thick lid, but it finally comes off with a pop of rushing air. “Gently, gently,” I say as we set it down with a light thud.

“Good thing it wasn’t welded,” Keller says, and looks down into the tomb. “So who were they, greatness?”

“They?” I ask, and see two bodies lying side by side. Their skeletons grin back at me, pleased with my shocked face, and lie with their hands clasped together. Beautifully etched with gold above the left body’s head is the name Steel. Etched in platinum on the right is the name Sander.

“Sander!” Beln says, and jumps back. The others go all the way to the wall and I have to hold onto the edge of the coffin just to keep from doing so myself.

“Close it, close it!” Beln says. “I don’t want to be near Sander’s tomb!”

“It’s Mendar Steel’s father,” I say, slowly gaining the courage to blurt out those words. The tattered clothes of the body on the right are decayed and indistinguishable. The body on the left wears a fabric like nothing I’ve ever seen before and only has a few holes in its colorless and now thin material. It’s a long dress that looks to have covered the entire body, connected with a golden pendant in the middle. The pendant is a red sword over a golden shield. “And his mother.”

The story I’ve loved, the history I’ve believed, I wouldn’t be surprised if the great library’s ceiling collapsed at that very moment, history brought down by a fact sealed up long ago.

There’s only one thing missing. “Where are their blessed weapons?” I ask.

Creak-crack-snap!

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Keller and Graham Halem, standing in the corner, fall down with the floor collapsing below them. Beln, I, and the other two guards dive after them. Being the only one on that side of the room, I’m able to grab hold of both the men as they slip down into the hole.

“Hold on!” I shout, sliding down with them.

“Guts and grime and…” Keller grunts. He puts another hand out and Beln grabs it as the other two guards come over. “Bull’s grease!” We begin to lift the two.

I notice as we lift that this corner of the room is planked up with rotting wood. As we get the two men half-way up, I also realize that I’m lying on the edge of it with Beln standing on it.

Snap!

“Sever’s pride!” I curse as I go head-first into the hole. I slam my head on the tilted dirt and flail my arms for a handhold. My left hand grabs a clump of dirt from the ground but my right latches onto a thin root. I fall further and pull the root out of the ground, spraying dirt all over me as I tumble down the inclined tunnel. A few feet down, the root catches and I stop.

Not taking a moment to breathe, I put my other hand on the root and try pulling myself up.

“Millar! Are you alright?” Beln asks, barely visible at the tip of the hole. Luckily, he and the guards yanked up Keller and Graham when I fell in.

“I’m hanging in there,” I say, and begin climbing up the root. “I’ll be okay, I just need to…” The root pulls out further then catches again. “No, no I don’t think I’m okay!”

“Hold on! We’ll get some rope!” Beln shouts, and two guards rush out. “I’m coming in after you!”

The root pulls out further. “No!” I say, and look down. It’s pitch black beneath me. I have no idea how far this tunnel goes or what’s down there. “I’ll be alright. Just get that rope and make sure you’ve got a way out before you come after me!”

“Greatness, we…” Beln begins.

The root snaps clear of the ground and I fall into darkness.