The Kinstrife
Part
14
In
which we explore the vault of Anwar Serni, discovering a tunnel leading under the Ephel Duath; we find in the said
vault a moderate amount of treasure, some dragul root
and several disquieting documents concerning the Royal succession at the end of
the Second Age; we loot the vault of just about anything valuable or useful,
despite intervention from foul multi-legged arthropods from Mordor.
Evening
of April 27th 1441
Without
much discussion, Pimm inserts his amulet in the recess in the hatch in the
floor. Immediately, all the filigree lights up and the hatch opens,
iris-fashion, with a deep grinding noise. Looking in to the hatch, I notice
iron rungs and a crank in the side of the shaft, which obviously closes the
door within. Pimm's amulet is just visible and
presumably removing it will close the hatch from without. Brand bears the
lantern behind me, I follow Pimm,
he regarding the vault as his by right of ownership of the key.
We
find ourselves in a moderately large chamber. The walls are bare, of hewn
stone, well finished. There's an archway in the east wall and a large ring pull
set in a low plinth before us. I draw my sword and move my shield from my back
to my arm as we investigate the arch.
Through the arch we see a corridor stretching for as far as we can see,
under the Ephel Duath,
toward Mordor! The stone quickly turns to rough-hewn natural rock. We see marks
in the dust that Pimm suggests might be some form of
large centipede or something of that ilk out of Morder.
I shudder and none of us seem inclined to explore too far, except Brand, of
course.
Pimm moves to pull the ring. A loud grinding noise signals the vanishment of another portion of stone floor to reveal
another shaft descending in to darkness. My fears of bad air are allayed by s
strange draft rising from below. As we descend in to a second chamber, Ilvrin observes that there's no crank this time.
We
find ourselves in another chamber, identical to that above, save that there's
no central ring and this arch has a door in it. On the wall next to the door is
a mechanism with a wheel. Pimm turns the wheel,
closing the shaft with the familiar grinding cacophony. It reopens when the
wheel is spun back, which I find a relief.
Through
the door is a smaller chamber with doors in the walls to either side. In this
chamber are stacked all manner of items: spades, tents, backpacks, saddlebags,
a chest of clothes, barrels of lamp-oil, three boxes of waybread,
made by the dwarves (which Brand reckons are still good – after how many
centuries?)
There
are also three chests: one contains (by my estimate) 100 gold crowns; a second
200 crowns worth of silver and gold plate; the third gems to the value of around
200 crowns. The coins are all 2nd Age and so over 1500 years old. Pimm seems to be very happy though it will take some work
to get it all out of the vault.
The
left hand door leads to a small armoury containing a chest of arrows, 3 swords
in scabbards, a longbow, 2 shields, 1 back & breast, 4 pot helms, a pile of
leather jackets, a knuckle-duster (which I pocket – you never know when it
might come in handy), 2 quarterstaffs, a great axe and 4 knives, which Ilvren assures me are weighted for throwing (Ilvren and I split these between us).
Pimm graciously allows Brand to take the back & breast and
Aerin a leather jerkin.
The
remaining door leads to a cupboard with three shelves. The bottom shelf holds
many bottles, vials, pots of unguent and bundles of dried herbs. The middle
shelf bears just 4 scrolls. The top shelf holds a long roll of parchment and 3
books.
The
parchment roll is a navigational chart of coast south from the Ethir Anduin to Umbar. The books
are 'Diseases of the Harad'; 'Spells of Este' (both these are taken by Aerin) and a book of spells,
which of course is taken by Brand.
The
scrolls are much more disparate: Brand avers that the first is a copy of the
spell 'locked door' in Quenya; in another, someone caller Fuinur,
calling himself lord of Near and Far Harad, claims to
have defied the curse of death and has sealed himself in a vault where he waits
for Melkor to bestow his gift of life.
A
third scroll is a contract by which Anwar Serni sells his vault to the Guardians of the Mirror of
Fire, part of the payment being 'a sapphire gem in silver known as the
"Heart of the Key to Fuinur's Well"!' Is
this my jewel? Fuinur was clearly a most unsavoury
fellow.
The
last scroll purports to be a genealogy of the House of Altayib
(which if my memory serves is Aerin's name), showing its descent from the House
of Edhelion, written by Akkud
Altayib, grandson of Fuinur.
A
gloss on the genealogy explains that Akkud and Liklud each took 2 parts of the key to 'Fuinur's
Well'. Liklud fled south to the Raj and there gave a
part of the Key to each of his sons, one of whom went to Umbar to seek his
fortune.
Akkud sold the central jewel (also a part of the Key) to purchase a
vault to store his history and learning, He gave one part of the Key to the loremasters of Pelargir, the other to his son, Han Altayib (who may be a distant ancestor of Aerin's).
Akkud was clearly of a different mettle to his grandfather and
wanted Fuinur's Well sealed
forever. Fuinur's
This
is disturbing: if true, it means that a scion of the Kings of Numenor lies in a vault not overly far away. Furthermore,
the 'key' to this vault is effectively in 5 parts, of which it seems I may bare
the central jewel and the other 4 parts are with the loremasters
of Pelargir, somewhere in Umbar and one or two parts in House Altayib of the Raj. Though the key Pimm
used to open this vault is of similar design to my broach, and was acquired by
his Uncle Bergil on his journeys in the south, it
would seem to have been made in imitation of the parts of the Key to Fuinur's well. We
therefore have a central part of the Key to Fuinur's
well and pointers to where the other parts may be hidden. I suspect we may soon
attract the attention of those who would open Fuinur's
Well.
Edhelion
|
| |
?
x Fuinur Herumor
| |……………
| |
Han
Altayib x Fuinen Ancalime (daughter of Ar-Pharazon's
captain
| | and cousin of Ar-Pharazon)
| | |
Akkud Liklud Aglarien
| |
| | |
Han Aramen Edhelud
The lone good news is that Aerin identifies
dragul root among the dried herbs, so Doronil can be made well as soon as we can get back home.
Having taken a handful of items, we load three
rucksacks with the treasure and start the hard work of lugging it to the
surface.
As I emerge in to the darkness of the
middle chamber, I sense rather than see something launch itself out of the
shadows. I gain an impression of large scorpion-like pincers scything over my
head as I drop back down the shaft.
Assuming the creature, whatever it is, is
unused to light, we hurl several torches up the shaft and once a couple are
clearly shedding light, I return up the shaft, without pack but with sword, to
engage whatever vermin awaits.
I clamber up in to the middle chamber to
find a filthy creature much like a centipede but with pincers, some ten feet
long and three feet off the ground shrinking back from the torchlight. Ilvren joins me and we each use a torch to herd it back
toward the arch but at last it gets up the courage to attack but we hack it to
death before it can hurt anyone.
Ilvren and I guard the arch with a bullseye lantern while the others haul up the baggage. Most
of it is up when we see a second creature. Pimm joins
us but takes a couple of nasty gashes, even through his armour, before we can
put it down.
Ilvren and I keep watch while the others haul the
baggage to the surface level; I'm last up and out and I pull out the key and
hand it to Pimm. The iris folds shut and I for
Aerin
tends Pimm's wounds, cleansing them of any poison.
Despite my disquiet, we sleep in the upper chamber. In the morning we ride for
Minas Ithil, where we hopefully have an appointment
with an engineer. But I want to be riding for the Anduin
two sunrises from now.