Cerril followed the flickering glow of the candle he'd taken from Hekkel down into the bowels of the secret crypt beneath the burial house. The spiral staircase had either been crooked when it had been installed, or it had shifted during the decades or perhaps hundreds of years it had been there. Cerril had to lean away from the central pole at times and against it at others.

Still, the spiral staircase was a short trip to the rooms below.

Once he gained the ground, Cerril discovered that the floor there had been hewn from bedrock then covered over with stone. Dank, bare earth walls drank down the candle's glow. In a half-dozen places, though, small streams of water trickled along the walls and ran through cracks between the stone flooring. The thick, cloying smell of damp earth and rancid water tickled his nose as he stared around the chamber.

The other boys gathered around Cerril. They stayed behind him and well within the fragile safety of the candle.

"We shouldn't be here," one of the boys said. "This is a bad place. I can feel it."

"Damn," Two-Fingers said. "This is a cemetery. It's a bad place for anybody."

"Grave robbers steal from them that are fresh dead," Hekkel said. "Only reason they don't steal from them that are old-dead is because somebody done got to them."

Cerril raised the flickering candle and said, "Nobody's been here since this place was sealed."

"You don't know that," Hekkel said.

Feeling Malar's coin warm and heavy in his hand, Cerril said, "Yes, I do."

He moved forward, drawn by the coin's pull. The candlelight slid across the ceiling. For a moment he thought none of the others were going to follow him, then he heard the rustle of their clothing.

The trickle of water running down the walls echoed throughout the room. Boots and bare feet slapped against the wet floor.

"It's raining outside," Hekkel said. "Coming harder now."

Cerril knew that. The sound of the storm rumbled in the distance, and the sibilant rush of rain threaded through the burial house.

"Who built this place?" Two-Fingers asked.

"Eldath's priests," Cerril answered.

Cerril followed a curving, narrow passageway from the chamber the ladder had led down into. The candlelight had no problem illuminating the height or the width of the passageway, but it didn't penetrate the depth.

"Why?" Two-Fingers asked.

"To keep people away from whatever is being kept in here," Hekkel said. "Any half-brained lummox could have figured that out."

"Probably got all kinds of gold and treasures down here," someone said. "We'll fill up our pockets and get out of here before anyone can stop us."

"Yeah," another boy said. "Alagh?n is a city filled with secrets. It could be somebody stuck a corpse down here and then forgot all about it. Whatever they left on it will be our gain."

"I'll bet they didn't leave anything on the corpse," Hekkel griped. "I don't see how anything could be left as long as this thing must have been left here. Chances are that rats have been at whatever was left. I'll bet you can't even strip the clothes from the body, wash them, and sell them to a ragman."

"We're not here for rags," Cerril said.

He wanted the other boys to stay brave, to stay behind him.

"Then what are we here for?" Hekkel demanded.

"Something more. Otherwise Malar's coin wouldn't be pulling me."

Cerril stepped with more care, following the downward slope of the uneven floor. He wondered if the whole underground area had somehow been wrenched out of kilter at some time in the past.

"Should have let that man keep it," a boy farther back in the crowd muttered.

Cerril started to turn around and curse the boy, if he could find him, but his attention was riveted to the end of the passageway. The candlelight caught the walls surrounding them, twisting shadows as the flame danced, but only revealed the tilted rectangle of darkness at the passageway's end.

Blood boomed in Cerril's ears as he raised the candle to get a better look.

"There's something in there," someone said.

"I thought I saw someone moving," another boy said.

"That's just your imagination," Two-Fingers growled, but a quaver of fear rang in his voice. "Whatever's in there has been dead a long time."

"Just because it's dead don't mean it can't hurt you."

"We should leave," Hekkel whispered. "Just turn around and walk back out of this place and forget it ever existed."

Cerril wished they could do that too, but the coin wouldn't let him turn or take a backward step. It drew him on like a moth to flame. His hand trembled as he stepped toward the waiting darkness, but the shifting shadows of the underground crypt disguised that.

"You leave," Two-Fingers said. "I'll be glad to take your share."

With his heart thundering in his chest and feeling as though it was going to explode at any instant, Cerril stepped through the darkened doorway. Two steps later, the candlelight revealed an elaborate coffin that occupied the center of the room.

"Rats!" Hekkel exclaimed.

"They ain't going to hurt you," Two-Fingers said. "They're… they're all dead."

Cerril gazed down at the floor in front of the mysterious coffin. Dozens of rats, most of them reaching from the tips of his fingers to his elbow in length, lay stretched out on the floor. Only a few of the creatures had come to their deaths in recent times. Most of them were skeletons. Spiders, once industrious enough to make elaborate webs, hung dead in the center of their creations or on the floor. One of the arachnids struggled in its web. The legs twitched, but the spider gave no indication that it would ever get free.

"Tymora's blessing," someone breathed into the stillness of the room. "Goddess look over us."

"Cerril," Two-Fingers called. "We shouldn't be here. Whatever killed them rats and spiders is like to do for us as well."

"No." Cerril took a step forward, drawn toward the coffin in spite of the overwhelming fear that filled him. "I can't leave."

"Well, I can," someone said.

"If you leave," another said, "you don't share in what we find down here."

"What we find?" Hekkel repeated. "We're gonna find whatever killed them rats and spiders. That's all. Me, I don't want none of that."

"Cerril," Two-Fingers called. "Is that what we're gonna find here? Just death?"

Cerril took another step forward. His fear made his legs weak. He hoped they'd collapse beneath him, thinking that way he'd never have to take those final few steps to the coffin, but his knees held. Only three short strides later he stood at the coffin's side.

Candlelight danced along the icy surface. Dozens of facets caught the gleaming reflections of the burning candle. A wet sheen clung to the coffin, but Cerril knew the coffin wasn't melting.

Two-Fingers called for him again, but Cerril couldn't answer. All of his attention was riveted on the strange coffin.

Despite the muggy heat trapped inside the small room, a preternatural chill ate into Cerril's bones, chewing through his flesh without pause. Over the last few minutes, the candle had burned down to little more than a stub that leaked melted tallow over the thief's fingers and hand. Earlier the heat from the tallow had been almost hot enough to burn and had caused some discomfort. Now the melted tallow hardened almost at once, adding layers of thickness that created a shell over his hand.

"Cerril," Two-Fingers whispered. "C'mon. We shouldn't be here."

Cerril gazed at the diamond-bright coffin and saw the reflection of the boys behind him. All of them had moved back and filled the small passageway that led into the crypt.

The coffin had been crafted from chunks of ice. All the pieces had been shaved so the fit was precise despite the angles that were required to encase whatever lay within.