Colin Demill stepped into the small clearing in the middle of the dense forest. He took the map out of his leather pouch and studied it. This had to be the spot. He shrugged his backpack off his shoulders and swung it to the ground as quietly as possible. He wasn't about to give any hints as to his whereabouts.
He flipped the map over, but the backside was still blank. He walked into the center of the clearing and let the moonlight wash over the ancient parchment. Slowly, ever so slowly, markings bled onto the surface. He couldn't read the Ancient Elfish, but it was there. That would only happen in this clearing, this graveyard. Besides, he had the pronunciations memorized.
Colin walked to one edge of the clearing and spoke a few words of the lost language. He didn't know what they meant, he just knew his mouth had to form those exact sounds. He started around the edge of the clearing, stopping every few feet to speak the breezy language. When he had made the full circle, he knelt and grabbed two handfuls of dirt. He raised his right hand above his head, whispered another phrase, and tossed the soil into the middle of the clearing. He then repeated the process with his left hand. The ground rumbled. The shaking was isolated to the middle of the clearing. The topsoil parted as if it was water, and two coffins--one gold and one silver--rose to the surface. They levitated a few feet above the earth while the ground healed itself, and then lowered down.
Colin set the map on top of the silver coffin, marking-side down, and spoke another verse in Elfish. A sound of searing metal hissed from under the parchment, and a small white wisp of smoke floated up. He picked the map off the silver coffin and placed it on top of the gold one. He again spoke the ancient words, and this time he could smell the burning metal. When the hissing stopped, he folded up the map and shoved it into his pocket. He ran his hands over the new markings on the coffins.
"Remarkable," he said. This was the final clue. It would point him to the power and riches. He reached into his backpack and grabbed for his journal so he could translate the new symbols.
No! Gone. But how? He'd had it earlier tonight, he was sure of it.
"Looking for this, Mr. Demill?" Colin spun towards the voice and found the Mistress of Pain. "I knew you weren't to be trusted, so I took the liberty of holding this for you."
"This isn't what it looks like, Mistress," Colin said.
"Really? You're not here to rob us of our rightful treasure? Because that's what it looks like."
"I was just scouting out the ritual. I figured I'd get a head start on the riddle. It may take some time to decode, and after that, who knows how tough the riddle itself will be."
"Likely story, but I agree. The riddle might be difficult." She tossed the journal in his direction, and he caught it before it hit the dirt. "Get started. The others will be here soon. And don't try anything foolish." She pushed her cloak away from her belt, showing two large hunting knives. He'd seen how deadly they were in her hands.
Colin grimaced and nodded. He flipped his journal open to his notes on the Ancient Elfish symbols and got started.
#
Colin struggled with the translation until well into the next day. The rest of the group had joined them about an hour after sunrise. No one had said anything to Colin, but he had the distinct feeling they had unhealthy plans for him once he solved the riddle. He had no option, though, but to keep working.
Midway through the day he had a breakthrough, and the words came together. He did his best to keep his excitement to himself. The only chance he saw was to solve the riddle and claim the power before the others knew what happened.
The riddle didn't make much sense until he varied some of the words. Ancient Elfish didn't translate seamlessly into English, so he took a few liberties. But after all of his hard work, he came out with an imperfect but poetic riddle:

The graves of the twins
With treasures and power inside.
Is it in one, the other, or both?
That is for you to decide.

Only one sure of himself
Has a chance to see greatness
But if he holds even one shred of doubt,
He is damned to an eternity in darkness.

Simple enough. Unless he'd translated something wrong, which was possible. Maybe he could buy a bit more time to double and triple check his work.
"You're finished," the Mistress of Pain said. Colin glanced up and saw her looking over his shoulder. "Were you planning on sharing this information or were you going to attempt to steal the glory for yourself?"
"I just now finished," he said. "Although I'm not certain if I got everything exactly right. If you'll just give me some more time . . ."
"Let me see it." She ripped the journal out of his hands and scanned the page. "Straightforward, to say the least. You'll stay right here if you know what's good for you."
The Mistress of Pain strode over to the others. Colin couldn't hear what was being said, but he could see the excitement and greed light up their faces. This was his chance to open one of the coffins, but how could he be sure? If he had the riddle correct, he just had to be confident with his choice. But if he was wrong, some horrible, unspeakable death would claim him. He studied the inscriptions again on each. Both were exactly the same.
Wait.
On the silver coffin, one character looked slightly different. He scrutinized the top of the gold, then went back to the silver. Yes, subtle but different. If he only had more time, he was sure this was the key. Time, though, wasn't on his side.
The Mistress of Pain grabbed him by the back of his neck and flung him to the ground. He hadn't heard her return.
"Out of the way, scholar." She spit the word scholar as if it were an insult.
The rest of the party stepped over and around him. More than one of them got in an "accidental" kick to his ribs. Colin crawled back away from them, hoping to be out of sight, out of mind, but still close enough to hear everything.
"It's the gold one," the Mistress of Pain said. "Power and riches would be in the beauty of gold." Murmurs of agreement rippled through the group.
Colin didn't like the confidence in her voice. If he had translated and deciphered the riddle correctly, she would take the riches and power no matter which coffin she opened. He couldn't allow her the mighty power of the Elves.
"I think I made a slight miscalculation," Colin said. "It could very well be the silver one. There is a slight difference in the message between the two, something I hadn't noticed before."
Fury flashed through the Mistress of Pain's eyes. "Which is it? You are certain it is the silver?"
Colin shrugged.
"Someone silence him," she said. "Don't hurt him, just shut him up."
One of the bigger members of the group walked up to him. Not a word was exchanged between them, but the look the big guy gave him made everything quite clear. Colin gave a slight nod to show he understood.
"Stand back," the Mistress of Pain said. "It's the gold coffin."
"But what if the scholar is right?" one of the group said.
"Shut up, shut up! It is the gold one. I'm sure of it. It has to be." With a slight hesitation, she threw open the lid. The entire group, including Colin and his guard, jumped back, but when nothing happened, everyone stepped forward to look. Colin closed his eyes to make sure he couldn't see anything.
"Empty!" the Mistress of Pain said. She slammed the lid shut and pointed at Colin. "It's all your fault! You knew it was the silver one and you told me because you knew I wouldn't believe you."
She walked towards him, directing the big guy to grab him. As soon as her back was to the gold coffin, the rest of the group rushed in to open it. Colin wanted to call them off, but he knew any position of authority he might have was now long gone.
The guard grabbed Colin while the Mistress of Pain unsheathed her notorious daggers. All of the stories Colin had heard about her suddenly didn't seem so exaggerated. She smiled, drew one back, and said, "This will hurt. A lot."
Colin shut his eyes and cringed, but the dagger never touched him. Instead, the Mistress of Pain screamed and the guard pushed Colin away. He caught his balance and saw she had fallen to her knees. Blood poured from every orifice in her head, and her stomach swelled. Time seemed to freeze as everyone watched her dying moments. Finally, mercifully, she slumped to her side, dead in an ever expanding pool of blood. The swelling of her stomach abated as even more blood streamed out of her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears.
Everything was quiet until the first yelp of pain came from someone in the group. Less than a minute later, everyone except Colin and his guard suffered the same fate. It only took a moment for them all to die.
"Are we next?" the big guy asked.
"Not unless you looked inside the coffin," Colin said.
"So it was the silver one," the guard said.
Colin shrugged, walked over to the coffins, and retrieved his journal. He studied the inscriptions on each again and cross-referenced his notes. He could find no indication of what the slight change in the one character between the two coffins meant. It could just be an abnormality, but he doubted that.
"If it's the silver one, why don't you just open it?"
The voice startled Colin. He looked up and saw his guard, still standing in the same spot, staring at him. "Feel free to try it yourself," Colin said.
"Uh-uh, no way." The guard spun and tried to dash away, but in his haste he tripped and fell flat on his face. He clawed his way to his feet and dashed out into the wilderness. Colin imagined he probably had a bloody nose after that tumble.
Colin turned back to his journal and hoped he had overlooked something, but no such luck. Maybe the character on the silver coffin said the same thing as the one on the gold, just written a bit differently. It was possible, but was it probable? Even he, a so-called expert of this dead language, didn't know enough to venture a guess. This would call for months more research back in the libraries. Unfortunately, if he reset the ritual, the coffins would remain buried for at least another hundred years. Patience was not a virtue in this particular instance.
If he just opened either coffin with the confidence of discovery, the treasure and power would be inside. If he hadn't thrown that seed of doubt into the Mistress of Pain's mind at the last moment, she would hold the power now. He could do it, too. The riddle was straight-forward, easy to understand. All he had to do was open either lid to claim his reward he'd worked so long and hard for.
If only he hadn't noticed that slight difference. With a sigh, Colin Demill placed his journal into his backpack, pulled the map out of his pocket, and ran through the ceremony to reset the coffins. Once they were underground again, all that remained were the dozen or so bloodstained bodies lying in the clearing, symbolizing his failure.

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