"Is anyone dead?"
Lorcan's voice pulled Zathrian out of the hazy darkness that his head had been full of. He opened his eyes slowly looking at his surroundings. They were in a dark cavern of some sort a burrow underground. The only light was the few strands that leaked through the hole above them that Thanatos had made himself.
Thanatos. A death god. Something that Zathrian had always thought was a myth. He brushed his clothes as he got back coughing slightly with all the dust in the air.
"Lorcan?" Kailani's voice hissed in the darkness. "Please tell me you didn't know that the treasure you've been after this entire time belonged to the god of death? Do you realize what trouble we are all now in?"
"Of course I didn't," Lorcan said, cursing. "Any injuries? Sound off!" he shouted.
There was a chorus of mumbled groans, Kailani rolled her eyes getting up and twisting her wrist slightly. Spreading her fingers wide once more she summoned orbs of fire that she let hover above them, circling them all and giving light to the darkness they were now in.
The cavern that they were in was surrounded by tunnels that led who knows where. "Mapmaker?" Lorcan asked.
Kailani turned to face him with fury. "You have got to be joking. You can't possibly accept that Zathrian will just be able to give you a path."
"Actually I think I might be able to," Zathrian said looking at the different pathways.
"How?" Kailani demanded.
"Give me a light, " he asked.
She waved her hands and one of the orbs followed where Zathrian was looking. "You see here, there are the remains of footprints, there are not a lot, but they do seem focused on these two different paths."
"How do we know which one?" Kailani demanded.
"Thanatos. He didn't want us going any further. He probably had us come here because of the many tunnels. According to myths he had paths made long ago to ferry between the lands of death and of the earth itself. In the legend, the path to hell was always on the left." Raoul said.
"How do you know the legend?" Zathrian asked curiously.
"My family was all seminaries, I left because while I loved the scriptures and legends of old, I also loved adventure. I wanted to be a part of the stories, not sitting in a dusty old room reading about them," he said, gesturing to the path.
"Let's go," Zathrian said. "Either it's the right path or the wrong one. Either way, we won't know until we try."
They walked up the tunnel not finding anything to be too worried about when it suddenly dipped and they were all falling down the tunnel in a swirling mass of bodies.
Zathrian groaned as he was thrown hard on his back, feeling a body fall on him. He looked up and saw Kailani on top of him, she touched his face slightly her eyes searching before she seemed satisfied enough to get up and look around.
"Where the hell are we now?" she said with a sigh. The rest of the pirates got up looking like they had minor scrapes and bruises, which led to Zathrian realizing he could actually see in this particular cavern.
"That's a good question." He said walking forward and realizing they were on a steep incline. He looked down and saw that they were no longer in the cavern but an underwater grotto of some sort.
Not just a grotto but a place where there were piles and piles of treasure mountains of rubies, sapphires, and emeralds winking in the crystal blue waters, clusters of diamonds set into the walls themselves. Zathrian glanced at Lorcan who looked beyond pleased.
"We found it." He said his voice touched.
Kailani looked down in the grotto and glanced back at Zathrian who had the same wary look on his face. "I don't think that's a good idea," he muttered even as Lorcan moved away from them both finding a way down the rest of the pirates following them down.
"Pirates." Kailani scowled.
"What do we do, now?" Zathrian asked.
"Thanatos is a death god. He would not give up the pirates or his treasure." Kailani said looking down at the grotto. "That treasure is cursed and that place is no more than a death pit."
XXX
Lorcan was beyond the moon, looking at all the treasures that awaited him, shiny bars of gold, rivers full of emeralds and rubies, piles of coins as far as the eye could see. There was so much treasure around that they were literally walking on the gold itself. Lorcan looked around and noticed immediately that Zathrian and Kailani still stood on the ridge. He looked up at them and noticed their worried faces. He narrowed his eyes.
This place had been his dream for many a cold night on the sea. There had been so many times when he had nearly given up hope, but he had spent all those years looking for the map pieces, finding them and eventually locating a mapmaker that could piece the map together.
It had all come together. Even Kailani was here, someone he had always wanted to share this moment with. He knew why they both were still on the ridge, the threat of Thanatos still hung above them all.
"Raoul. Is there a legend as to why Thanatos might have this much treasure at his disposal?" he asked.
Raoul stepped forward and now that Lorcan was paying proper attention he realized that his pirate looked a tad uneasy at the treasure itself.
"Thanatos was said to help the Ferryman of the underworld, he was known as Death itself. The shroud we put on death people is for Thanatos himself." Raoul said uneasily. "This treasure is the treasure hoarded by death itself."
One of the other Pirates stood suddenly. "Death itself? Didn't the caretaker of the underworld have legendary armies?" he asked.
"Armies?" Lorcan asked.
"Death soldiers," Raoul said.
"LORCAN YOU BASTARD, GET OUT OF THERE NOW!" Kailani screeched from above them. Lorcan looked upwards and saw that in the very walls bone men were peeling themselves out of the rocks itself climbing down towards them.
"Men, Draw your swords! Prepare for battle!"