The Tomb

It was a typical morning at the café; the regular customers were coming in, some yawning and greeting the girls who served them with a smile. Henry, accompanied by Tasha, were having coffee while leisurely enjoying breakfast.

Kate moved gracefully among the tables despite her enormous centaur body, supervising the girls at their work.

Leira was timidly serving a table full of students. Beth was flirting with a couple of bachelors who had been up all night. Hina was demanding a couple of bags from Yoko for the takeaway service. Yoko was grumbling while swimming through the kitchen, preparing various kinds of pastries.

"Huh? Where is Serass?" asked Kate upon not finding her around the café, not even hearing her typical villainous laugh.

"Well, umm... she vanished a while ago; she had a very serious look on her face..." Leira replied.

"What the hell could have happened..." murmured Kate worriedly. That Serass would vanish and do as she pleased was normal, but she had never seen her with a worried expression.

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It had been hours since the group had split up, lost in the kilometer-long tunnels that delved into the underground of Brachan. Only two of us remained: Kriss, a beast-man from the Tiger tribe, tall and burly, a born warrior, and me, Harald, a half-breed of human and wolf—more like a dog given my size, though ideal for a thief.

"By the archons, if we go any deeper we'll hear the whispers of Solium!" Kriss complained.

"The legends say that the mausoleum is buried deep beneath the Temple of Lumine," I replied.

"But the temple is on the other side of the city!" Kriss protested.

"The current one, yes, but the one that existed in the time of the great King Wolf I, 50,000 years ago, was near the old palace," I continued.

"Heh, you talk about legends as if they were true, Half-breed," Kriss laughed.

"Every legend has some truth," I said, bringing the torch closer to a wall of the chamber we were in.

The mural depicted a battle; faded by the passage of millennia, several figures could be distinguished. A being with greenish armor and golden hair, a tall bluish figure with wings and a dragon's tail, a small orange blotch that had once represented someone. The figures were surrounded by a tide of dark silhouettes—an army of shadows.

I raised the torch to follow the mural; at the top appeared her, that four-winged being, the goddess.

"Well, this one looks like the one in the stained glass windows of the Temple of Lumine," Kriss remarked.

"It's Serass, the goddess of light and darkness, a Lilim," I replied.

"Aren't they the ones who rule the Dark Realm?" Kriss asked.

"That's what the books say; everything blurs into legends," I sighed as I noticed that the Lilim's hand was pointing at someone else in the mural. There was the drawing of a huge wolf wielding a sword of light and darkness, facing the hordes of shadows.

"Lobo  and... Dawn! The sword is real!" Kriss smiled greedily.

Ignoring Kriss's sinister smile, I slid my fingers over the mural towards the silhouette of the King. With a slight pressure, it sank, and everything began to move, opening slowly. It wasn't a mural; it was a door!

The heavy and thick wall opened; the dense air of the crypt wafted through the opening. In the distance, hundreds of small and strange lights illuminated the colossal chamber.

We walked among the enormous sarcophagi that filled the vast chamber before us; more than a room, it seemed like a vault whose ceilings vanished into the darkness.

"This doesn't make sense; there can't be lit candles in a room that's been sealed for over 50,000 years..." I murmured to myself.

Kriss approached one of the tombs; the text was written in Ancient Common, a language that, despite being the ancestor of the one I spoke, was almost impossible to understand... except for those who had at least attended the first course at the Inasmont Academy.

I smiled and approached the engraving.

"Kamill, queen consort of the Kingdom of Beasts, Lady of the Fox Clan, wife of Lobo, King of the Beast-men," I recited aloud.

Kriss's eyes lit up.

"Then the legend of the Mausoleum is real! We've found it!" he exclaimed.

"It seems so," I said, looking at the other sarcophagi that lay in the room.

I briefly read the enormous polished stone sarcophagi: Wulf, King of the Beast-men; Indira, wife of Wulf.

My gaze then turned towards a separate sarcophagus, elevated on a sort of staircase.

"It must be that one," I said, walking towards it.

As I advanced, I felt as if the atmosphere grew denser; did I really want to desecrate the rest of a legend? Of the greatest king the Kingdom of Beasts had ever known? But if the legend was true, Lobo had been buried with the most powerful sword ever forged, Dawn.

Kriss, with his long and muscular legs, got ahead of me, wiping the dust off the inscription on the polished obsidian sarcophagus.

"Read!" Kriss ordered.

"'My dearest friend, Lobo.' What a strange inscription..." I said, puzzled.

"What does it matter? It's him, right? Let's open it! Dawn must be inside!" Kriss roared, placing his claws on the slab that sealed the coffin.

Suddenly, the atmosphere felt oppressive; my breath caught. Struggling to breathe, I looked at Kriss; his eyes were not on the coffin but were staring wide open, terrified, to its right.

My gaze followed his, toward a stone throne that I could have sworn was empty before; however, there she was, a woman of unreal beauty, completely naked, sitting on that cold stone throne, watching us; an enormous sword rested by her side.

"I would appreciate it if you removed your filthy hands from my friend's tomb; it is very precious to me," said the woman.

I stood staring at her; her blue eyes with pupils fully contracted like a reptile's glowed in the darkness. Two delicate horns in the shape of a tiara adorned her silky hair as white as the purest snow; a white, scaly tail coiled around the sword.

The sword! Of an abyssal black, adorned with blue diamonds like the woman's eyes; its blade, however, shone with a fine line of light, bright as day.

"Heh, you've come for this, haven't you?" the woman said, sliding her delicate fingers along the blade of the sword, with a sensuality that made me swallow hard.

"Yes, the sword! Give it to us, woman!" Kriss shouted.

Her face, which had been displaying a diabolical smile, turned serious.

"Woman? Who do you think you're talking to, vermin?" she said in a tone of absolute disdain.

Then everything in my head clicked—the mural, the winged figure with white hair. Automatically, as if something in my head snapped, my legs failed me, and I fell prostrate, with my head touching the ground.

"Forgive our actions and ignorance, goddess; so much time has passed that your existence was relegated to legends. We beg your pardon," I stammered.

"Do you speak for your friend as well?" Serass asked.

"Yes," I replied.

Kriss stood there, bewildered; I gestured for him to kneel, and incredulously, he did. I breathed more easily, raising my head slowly.

"So you have come here, to the deepest part of Brachan, to desecrate the resting place of my most precious friend and his family, all for the legend of a sword," Serass sighed.

"Yes, that's right; I'm seeking a sword worthy of a warrior like me," he responded rudely.

The Lilim looked at us with pity.

"Well, how far are you willing to go to obtain it?" she said as she rose from the throne, walking towards us, dragging the enormous sword and thrusting it into the ground right before us, between Kriss and me.

"Take the sword and kill your friend; show me your resolve!" Serass shouted, looking at both of us as she stepped away from the sword.

I couldn't believe it—she wanted us to kill each other? I didn't even consider moving when I realized that Kriss had stood up and was heading to grab the sword.

"Kriss, what are you doing?" I asked, worried.

"What I must do; the life of a half-breed is nothing compared to what I will achieve with this sword. I could even become the King! Conquer the human kingdoms or who knows! A life for the most powerful sword? It's a very cheap deal!" he laughed as he grabbed Dawn by the hilt.

"Kriss, please!" I pleaded as my friend's fist closed around the hilt.

However, that was all the feline could do; as soon as his fist closed around Dawn, his body turned to dust.

"This is not the sword of a conqueror, nor of a warrior; it's the sword of a king, of someone who would give his life to protect everyone. You were never worthy of the sword, vermin," Serass said with disdain.

Then she looked at me.

"Stand up, child," she said with authority but kindness.

I stood up, and as she approached me, I realized that I was more than two heads taller than this being, and I hesitated; I began to kneel again.

"Heh, why are you kneeling?" Serass laughed.

"My goddess, I do not consider that my head should be above yours," I replied fearfully.

"Ha ha ha ha, such a formal boy; Lobo never did that, you know," the Lilim laughed.

"Well then, do you want the sword?" she smiled diabolically. "Take it as your 'friend' tried to."

"No, my goddess, for I am neither a warrior, nor a conqueror, nor, above all, a king," I said honestly.

"Well, at least you're honest," Serass replied, taking the sword and moving it away from my face.

"Now go; forget that you have been in this sacred place, because if there is a next time, I will not be so benevolent."

I stood up and looked at her, grateful.

"Knowing that the legends are true and having been able to see you is reward enough for the rest of my days," I said, walking backward.

As soon as I crossed the mausoleum's door, the walls trembled, and the ceiling collapsed, sealing it again. I sighed, and with the memory of her alive in my heart, I began my journey back to the surface.

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Serass walked slowly towards Lobo's sarcophagus, caressing it with her hands, moving the heavy obsidian slab of several tons with delicacy until revealing its contents.

Dust; there was only dust.

"There is nothing left of you, my friend; dust, an empty mausoleum, an almost forgotten legend. Yet your memory will always remain in my heart, and the infinite affection I have for you."

Still with tears in her eyes, Serass tore through space toward a warmer and more pleasant place. As she crossed the rift, she gestured, and the entire vault of the mausoleum collapsed.

"Serass?! Where have you been? Why are you crying? Are you okay? What happened, dear?" asked Kate, almost galloping toward the kitchen entrance, where Serass had rematerialized.

"Nothing, I just went to visit an old friend. Hey, what do you think if we hang this somewhere in the café?" Serass said, smiling and holding Dawn in her hands.

"Sure, I'm sure it will look great somewhere," Kate smiled back, seeing how Serass's eyes were filling with tears again.