“I have heard much of you, Minstrel. I’ve picked up many pieces of information and collated them together to form a picture of you. From where you obtained your lute infused with the magic of Auriomauch I do not know. But I know you used it to torment and kill Wyrous of the Eastlands. The next time you appeared in my knowledge you had lost the lute and gained a scar, likely a scar given to you by Auriomauch himself. You are lucky that was all he gave you.

“You also obtained from somewhere the mythical Amulet of the Dead, an artifact I myself had thought lost, destroyed even. For while the Amulet is powerful it is supposedly fragile and you are lucky it was not damaged during your exploits in Nargathrum. For I know much about your exploits in Nargathrum.

“First you made a name for yourself by trying and failing to find Rogo despite all the great power over the dead at your disposal. Then you agreed to a series of games, indeed I have read the contract you signed, given to me by the Black Spider Gang themselves. A clever little thing, getting poison into your body without you even noticing. Poison that was just waiting to be activated.

“It is truly a shame that the poison was not activated sooner for much of your destruction could have been avoided. Sadly you noticed a Phoenix in the latter stages of its life arrive in Nargathrum and if my deductions are correct you managed to obtain its eye to heal yourself right before succumbing to the poison. Lucky once again.

“After that you wasted no time in slaughtering all who remained in the destroyed city and conquering it for yourself. At this point you had the Amulet to master death and the Eye of the Phoenix to master life. You must have thought yourself invincible. But you were not.

“My last source relates to me the story of your battle with Kulrod of the Beastlands. The battle where one sorcerer and one blade should have killed you despite all your powers and artifacts. Why didn’t it? I have a few theories. The Demon Lord of Fire has been stirring and I myself have encountered some of those unfortunate enough to enter into a deal with him. I suspect that he saved you and in doing so gave you the sword the sorcerer slaughtered all of your shadows with.

“Now you have the Amulet, the Eye and the Sword and you are likely feeling unstoppable once more. I have no doubt you’ll be searching for the Stone of Falling Stars next. If you do find it and I hope you don’t I leave this note for you to let you know that there are still those in this world more knowledgeable than you. I know every trick you’ve used, every artifact you have. And I know far more than you possibly could about the demon you have sold yourself too.

“I now ask you this; a final query before you claim the Stone if you can; you survived Auriomauch which means you must have gotten very lucky once. You survived the poisons of the Black Spider, getting very lucky again. And lastly you survived a battle with Kulrod by taking a deal with Raqos at the last moment, lucky a third time. Do you really believe this luck will last? Do you think you can continue to play with powerful artifacts and live? For I believe that underneath the Amulet and the Eye and the Sword there is just a little man whose luck is running out.”

The Minstrel put down the note and looked over it at the vault in the wall. His shadows floated around him, Wegrel, Taros, Keya and the Warlord. They had all read the note as well, they were silent as their master pondered it, as anger and fear began to appear across his face.

“Who is this person?” he asked scrunching up the paper the note was written on in a white fist. “And how do they know all this about me?”

The shadows remained silent. They did not know. In all their hunting and investigating, searching the world for the Stone they had learned nothing of who had taken it after it was used to destroy Elkring. They could not speak to anyone other than the Minstrel and so what information they had gathered was only through listening in on conversations they happened to notice and they had never heard anyone mention the Stone. They had only found it through a systematic canvassing of the entire countryside around Elkring and even then it had taken them years.

Now the Minstrel and his shadows stood in the hut before the great vault that contained the Stone and they had found a note written by someone who knew the Minstrel far too well. Someone they knew nothing about, someone who could be anyone. The Minstrel had slaughtered an entire city, fought a demon and a sorcerer and lived. Yet this mysterious person. Someone who was probably a human with little to no access to magic. This person scared him.

“The vault is likely trapped,” Faros spoke. “If they knew you were coming they would probably have-”

“I am aware,” the Minstrel replied, tossing the crumpled note away. “Look inside it again, tell me all that you can see.”

The shadows flowed into the vault and examined it. Inside the vault was a chest bolted to the floor and inside the chest was a metal jar bolted to the chest. The jar was filled with water and at the bottom of the jar was the Stone of Falling Stars. A little red gemstone, glowing so faintly it was only visible within the pitch blackness of the water jar. The shadows could not enter water, that was a weakness they had that it seemed this mysterious person also knew. So they could only look down at the stone from above and even then they could hear it trying to whisper in their heads. The words were not clear but the malice was. The Stone was one of the most evil and destructive artifacts in the world. It wanted to be used.

The shadows flowed back out of the vault.

“We found nothing,” they said to the Minstrel who glared at them angrily.

“Check again,” he replied.

This time he stood well outside the hut and made them attempt to trigger any traps they potentially couldn’t find. The shadows were insubstantial but their weapons weren’t and so they flew about inside the vault attacking everything they could, making the whole hut ring with the sound of metal clanging on metal. Yet nothing moved. Everything in the vault was bolted down and so they could budge neither the chest nor the jar while all they could do to the walls was give them the lightest scratches.

Soon they returned to the Minstrel and told him that once more they had been unable to find anything. The Minstrel though, was still angry and scared.

So he made them do it again, and then once more, before he finally walked back into the hut himself. He drew Feather, the Sword in the Sky, the magical blade he had taken from Kulrod when he’d slain him at Nargathrum. With that he gathered his courage and rent the door to the vault in two. The two halves of the door crashed to the ground and dust and rubble and noise filled the hut, covering the shadows and the Minstrel.

Then, slowly, the noise faded and the dust began to settle and there was the chest in the centre of the vault. Ever so slowly the Minstrel walked forward into a vault whose walls and floor were covered in the scratches of his shadows. He stepped over the collapsed doors and stood before the chest. It was a metal chest made of something harder than the vault as the shadows had been unable to mark it for all their efforts. But the Sword in the Sky could mark it.

The Minstrel swept the sword horizontally and shore the top of the chest clean off, sending it clattering away. He looked down at the metal jar within, the water lapping gently against the sides and deep within it the red gemstone. He could already hear the whispers. He reached for the stone, the most directly powerful artifact he had ever seen and he had seen some powerful artifacts. His hand plunged through the cold water that had kept away all of his shadows and he leaned over, putting his face right above the water to see within, putting his mouth and nose directly into the stream of odorless fumes coming out of the poisoned jar.

The stone disappeared. His hand found nothing and he looked desperately into the jar where it had been moments ago. He scrabbled around inside it, sloshing the water out of the jar but he found nothing. He stood up in confusion, his arm still dripping with the water.

“Where is-?” he said to his shadows but they were gone. He stood alone in the hut. He reached for the Amulet at his chest but that was gone too. So was the Eye, and the Sword he’d just been holding. He had nothing, no weapons, no magic. He spun around, frantically searching for anything as fear began to grip him. He could still hear the whispers of the stone. The whispers of hatred and anger, but most terrifying for him. The whispers of mockery. He had failed. He had fallen into some trap and despite all of his powers and all of his magic he had lost.

He turned back to escape but the door was back, sealed once more with him inside. He felt panic rising and turned to look back at the chest but now that was gone too. But there was a door, a door in the wall that hadn’t been there before. Fear filling him he reached for the door and opened it. Beyond it was a corridor that he ran down, but the corridor branched off into more corridors and those corridors branched off into more. It was a maze and by the time he turned around he had already lost track of the way he’d come.

His heart was hammering and sweat was dripping down him. He tried to relax, tried to calm himself and analyse the situation logically. Some part of his brain knew that there was an explanation for this. This was magic or witchcraft or something and if he could just think about it for a minute he’d be able to figure out what it was. Then he heard skittering.

He turned and there it was, a raven, hopping along the corridor toward him, looking up at him with curious eyes. The fear rose up in him again, bringing with it the memories of the birds that had so nearly torn him apart all those years ago. This time he had no shadows to defend him, this time he had nothing.

He blinked and the bird was gone and he breathed a sigh of relief. Then it landed on his shoulder. He screamed and batted it away before running into the maze. He no longer cared where he went, he just wanted to get away.

As he ran he heard more skittering and then the chirping and cawing of birds. Then they started to fly. All around him were wingbeats and they were catching up no matter how fast he ran. Then they started to billow out from the corridors, swooping and screaming and attacking him. He felt the bites of their beaks and the stings of their claws and he had no artifacts to beat them back with this time. He swatted at them with his hands and arms but they just tore into those as well. His body was bleeding and burning with pain and there was no Eye of the Phoenix to heal him. He opened his mouth to scream but a voice interrupted him.

It was a calm and soothing voice and even as it spoke the birds vanished leaving him uninjured but covered in blood. He wiped the blood from his eyes and looked up to see he was in a central chamber of the maze and in front of him sat a man whose eyes were closed. The man was the one speaking.

He was bald and dressed in monastic robes patterned with symbols of eyes and a spiralling symbol of an eye was tattooed on his forehead as well. He spoke simply and the Minstrel listened.

“It seems you are very afraid,” the man said. “Be not afraid in the maze for it will reflect your fears upon you.”

“I am not afraid,” the Minstrel lied, flicking the blood from his hands and looking around the chamber for more birds.

“You cannot lie to me,” the man spoke. “All of your feelings are in plain view in here. I see your hatred and contempt for me. I see your rage and most of all I see your incredible arrogance. Misplaced arrogance.”

“Who are you?” the Minstrel shouted, growing angry now. He could still hear the whispers of the stone now that the birds had quieted and the whispers were growing louder and angrier.

“I am the Trapmaker,” the man replied, still remaining calm and not opening his eyes. “I am who witches go to when they need help dealing with your kind. With monsters. But while you may be a monster you are still a man. A man in far over his head.”

“You know nothing about me!”

“I know everything about you.”

“If I am so weak and you so powerful why am I still alive? If you truly could kill me why trap me in this maze instead?” The whispers were becoming deafening now and the faint red glow of the stone was starting to turn the chamber red. “Why not face me and-”

“You are not trapped in this maze. Not physically at least. Your mind is here, bound by the poisons I put in the water jar. Poisons that the Eye of the Phoenix could not heal you from and poisons your shadows could not detect. You were an interesting challenge to set a trap for with all the powers you hold.”

The entire chamber was glowing red now and still the Trapmaker sat calmly with his eyes closed. The Minstrel had no weapon but his anger overcame his fear and he marched angrily toward the man sitting on the ground.

“So it was tricks and poisons again? Is that all you people can bring against me? Is that the best you can conjure?!”

The man smiled. “Oh but tricks and poisons are my speciality.”

“Who are you anyway?! If I’m here because you poisoned me how did you get here?! What are-?!” The Minstrel reached the man and reached down to open those infuriating eyes. The whole room was red as a sunrise and he could almost feel the heat of the stone. He could almost feel the rage and fury of the Falling Stars.

He reached toward the eyes but just before he touched them they opened. They were redder than anything else in the room.

“-you?” the Minstrel tailed off. Golden eyes were for sorcerers but red eyes? What did red eyes mean?

“I am the Trapmaker,” the man said as all around him the room began to grow hotter. “Enjoy my trap.” Then he disappeared and the Minstrel cowered as all around him there were suddenly Falling Stars.

Back in the hut the shadows watched helplessly as the Minstrel stood frozen, staring down at the stone in the water jar. Wegrel, Keya and Faros all murmured amongst themselves. What had they missed, what trap had been sprung and what had happened to the Minstrel? Why wasn’t the Eye of the Phoenix healing him? The Warlord simply hovered beyond, looking down at the note all scrunched up. There was information in there that only one living person could know. Information about the lute imbued with the power of Auriomauch. The lute that had killed him.