“The library...” Ramukhan murmured thoughtfully. “Wait a minute. What made us think we... fell?”
The crazy thought voiced by the sorcerer struck the others. Indeed, according to the legends, the home of the ancient magicians had flown through the air and that was why the gods had unleashed their anger on them — because ordinary people had dared encroach on their territory — the Heavens.
“The little wizard isn’t very stupid,” the creature chuckled.
Before they managed to puzzle out the rest, the figure struck the ground sharply with its staff. The stones suddenly came to life in the ridge of rock that blocked their passage forward. They began to move, crawling over each other, creating the illusion of an anthill. Natural facets were leveled, porous rocks were compacted, ornaments and carvings appeared. Part of the ridge seemed to move to the side, while the other, on the contrary, leaned forward. A few minutes later, real gates appeared in front of the squad — huge, three hundred feet high gates with two closed doors that were locked with such a wide and massive bolt that it could’ve easily served as a bridge of the fortress.
“Go forth, worthy seekers, and let the spirit of wisdom lead you.” The figure struck the ground once more with its staff and disappeared.
“Am I the only one who thinks this is a trap?” Glen asked, testing the sharpness of his saber with a finger.
“You think everything’s a trap,” Tilis snorted and walked toward the gates first.
By the Evening Stars, Hadjar agreed with the Baliumian this time. Things were really going too smoothly. And their previous trial hadn’t been all that difficult. Startled, Hadjar touched the stone that he’d been given, which was hidden in the inside pocket of his caftan. When the others reached the gates, he heard the same voice from before:
“You’ll find no gods here,” the golem that had vanished whispered, “but maybe you’ll find the truth about your blood.”
The sense of the golem’s presence vanished. Sighing, Hadjar rubbed his nose and followed after the others. More than intrigue, he didn’t like riddles. Whatever they were, whatever they meant, whoever asked them, he hated them.
***
“My Lord,” Arliksha knelt behind her father.
Sankesh seemed to be contemptuously kicking a leather ball around. However, after a few seconds of careful observation, it would became clear that this wasn’t a ball, but someone’s head. It had once had golden hair, which was now rolled up in a bloody mess, gaunt, gray cheeks with blue runes and tattoos, and an expression of absolute terror frozen on its visage.
“There are only ten survivors left, counting you, me, and your three bodyguards.”
Sankesh, after kicking the head down the slope of a dune, wiped his bloody hands on his wounded chest. He pulled out his halberd, stuck it into the sand, spat, and growled out:
“Weaklings. They don’t deserve a place in the world of my new order.”
He turned and walked on, toward the high mountains in the east. Behind him, scarlet streams flowed slowly across the sand. The sandy plain looked like a field that had been hit by a massive artillery barrage. There were charred pits, glass pools where sand had once been, ice and fire puddles, gurgling acid swamps, and even a visible interference in the flow of energy that was being expressed with a slight rattle of air. A lot of broken, torn, and pulped human bodies lay on the ground. Behind them, the broken body of a giant golem towered like a huge hill. It was gradually disappearing — turning once more into dark sand which was then carried away by the north wind. Recently, Sankesh had stopped liking this cold wind…
“Konung!” Greeting him in the northern manner, his head of security fell into step alongside Sunshine Sankesh.
He was a hard warrior from the harshest lands of the Empire. Only half a head shorter than Sankesh himself, he had broad shoulders and huge fists like sledgehammers. He carried no weapon, except knuckles fashioned to look like wolf heads. Made of metal vaguely resembling silver, they were now covered in sand and a gray substance that looked like glue. That had been the golem’s blood.
“What, Ragar?”
Ragar silently pulled out what seemed to be a bundle from behind his back. Closer inspection revealed a small girl wrapped in some rags. Her once-beautiful face was covered in dark and purple bruises. Her left arm was bent at an unnatural angle. Her right leg dragged through the sand.
“Did she try to escape again?” Sankesh asked.
Instead of answering, Ragar kicked the girl and she fell to the sand. But there was no moan of pain, no cry of anger. She remained perfectly calm.
“We’re so close, Key,” Sunshine Sankesh growled, pulling the child up by her long hair. “Can you smell the scent of your homeland?”
“The stench of your soul is too overpowering.” The girl frowned, turning away from him.
Sunshine Sankesh laughed cruelly and threw the girl back down.
“It won’t be long now.” Sankesh said, and, striking his chest with both hands, walked on.
Ragar grabbed the child by the hair and dragged her behind him. Their squad, which had once numbered more than half a thousand warriors, had been reduced to ten.
“You’re right,” the girl whispered, trying to scratch the northerner’s icy skin with her fingernails. “He’ll kill you. The Dragon will devour the Sun and plunge this world into darkness.”
Chapter 394
“How are we supposed to move that out of the way?”
Glen tilted his head back until his neck cracked and stared at the huge stone bolt fifty yards above them. The two steel hinges on which it rested could’ve easily been used as raw material to make enough cannons for at least three armies.
“Let’s break it?” Tilis suggested, and even raised her staff.
“Don’t you dare!” Ramukhan roared at her. “By the Evening Stars, I am sure it’ll work just like the previous trap.”
“I agree with Ramukhan,” Karissa said. The witch walked closer to the gates and began studying the carvings. “The spell will surely bounce back at us.”
“What do we do, then?” The Baliumian insisted. “You can do whatever you want, but I’ll be turning back soon. I sense that Sunshine Sankesh is close. I have no desire to fight that maniac. That’s more Hadjar’s cup of tea.”
“Shut up,” Karissa snapped.
Glen swore nastily, gestured at the witch’s back using an obscene gesture which symbolized making love in a very shameful position, and turned away to look out toward the west. He figured Sankesh was hurrying toward the library of Mage City from that direction. The Executioner of Cities, the Lament of Mothers, and a dozen other terrifying nicknames.
Hadjar, sheathing his sword, followed Karissa’s example — he moved closer and began studying the gates. He took out little Serra’s gift and tried pressing it against the pattern. Nothing happened.
“I think it only keeps spirits and golems away,” the witch muttered. It was as if she were telling him about the weather, not as if she were telling him that what he’d thought of as a secret hadn’t been one at all. “A sort of pass for the local guards.”
Hadjar started, and Einen opened his eyes slightly in surprise. The gleam of his purple eyes indicated the islander’s utter shock.
“How do you know about it?”
Instead of answering, Karissa turned toward him sharply. For a moment, her face showed a mixture of disgust and haughtiness.
“Don’t presume that everyone around you is stupid, barbarian.” The witch advised him and then resumed her examination of the gates. “Or do you honestly believe I took your things to the barracks without examining them first? Or that the head of the Auction House wouldn’t report any anomalies to the heads of the other departments?”
Hadjar looked at Ramukhan, who smiled back at him smugly.
Damn it!
The sorcerer had known about the stone, too.
A sudden thought struck Hadjar, and he clutched at the wallet on his belt. In his blue eyes, a wisp of rage erup
ted and a sleeping dragon awakened.
“Don’t even think about it, barbarian.” Karissa nodded at the blue amulet on Hadjar’s arm. “I don’t think it’s a good time for you to be writhing around in pain on the sand.”
Hadjar had to breathe in and out slowly several times before he was able to calm down. He understood that Karissa had simply done her duty and that caution had made her examine the personal belongings of her future subordinates. However, deep in his heart, Hadjar hated anybody touching his friends’ wedding bracelets. Even Einen, who knew about this quirk of his, never allowed himself to touch the leather wallet when they sparred.
“I agree with Glen about one thing,” the witch said, ignoring Hadjar’s anger. “Sankesh, or someone else no less powerful than him, is close by. There’s only a couple of hours left before the comets intersect. By the Evening Stars, I’m sure we’ll get to see them as well.”
Hadjar looked up at the sky. If they’d understood the golem’s hint correctly, they hadn’t fallen through the bottom of a lake, but, on the contrary, had flown up.
Unfortunately, nothing remained of the once magnificent city. Only the sand and the guards hiding within it. In the center, looking like both a stronghold of great power and a repository of wisdom, the library towered. After all, the mages hadn’t valued power, but knowledge. This had affected Underworld City’s philosophy, so its witches and sorcerers were physically equal to ordinary mortals. Power based on wisdom and knowledge surpassed the might of the majority of cultivators and practitioners who were on the same level of the more physical cultivation path.
“Wisdom,” Hadjar muttered.
What the hell! Maybe they’d get lucky.
Hadjar put his hand on the gates and said:
“Open.”
Nothing happened. Glen, who was standing nearby and had heard the command, chuckled sarcastically:
“Of course it won’t-”
He was interrupted by a deafening creak. Everyone instinctively ducked and covered their ears with their hands. The massive hinges, driven by an unknown mechanism, retracted inside the shutters. The bolt trembled and swayed. Karissa and the others jumped back, everyone except Tilis. She was too busy watching the carvings on the surface of the monumental gates as they moved.
“Look out!” Hadjar shouted.
Blurring into the shadow of the Seven Ravens, he leapt toward the witch and managed to pull her aside at the last second. The great bolt landed only a few feet from them. Air and sand waves covered Hadjar and Tilis. When they emerged from the sand, Einen helped Hadjar up, but the witch had to climb out by herself.
“This doesn’t change anything between us,” the girl’s multicolored eyes flashed angrily, and she was the first to leap over the fallen bolt and head for the stone-hewn stairway. It, writhing like the snake the islander had recently defeated, wrapped around the entire mountain range.
“Don’t put your stone away, Northerner,” Karissa said.
Ramukhan followed the women, leaving the strangers behind. It was obvious that the witches and sorcerer were eager to get into the library.
“Gods and demons,” Glen swore, “I can’t believe that worked and I can’t believe I’m even here. First it was Underworld City, and now it’s Mage City. I’m like the hero of some fairy tale.”
“You’ll have some great stories to tell your children.” Einen clapped the Baliumian on the shoulder again, climbed over the bolt, and then headed for the stairs.
Hadjar was the last to follow, not because he was afraid or he had to guard their rear. His heart was simply beating too quickly, and something inside of him was calling out and beckoning him into the building. Despite the fact that the call was coming from the depths of his own soul, it was... alien to him. When, from the depths of the mountains, he heard a deep, feminine whisper utter ‘Darkha-a-an’, Hadjar understood it was all too real.
Putting his hand on the hilt of his sword, he boldly jumped over the huge bolt and followed after the others. The ruins of the dead civilization wouldn’t make him turn around. Nothing would ever make him slow his stride or halt his sword. Nothing in this world or any other could stop Hadjar Darkhan. On the path to his goal, he wouldn’t flinch at any danger.
Psyching himself up with such thoughts, Hadjar resolutely walked forward. In some places, the steps had collapsed or were so narrow that they had to press their backs to the wall to go farther. Einen would jump over the gaps first and then extend his staff toward the witches and the sorcerer. Their bodies weren’t strong enough to jump over 15ft abysses. Glen and Hadjar walked in the back. To them, these gaps weren’t difficult obstacles. Slowly, they climbed higher and higher.
The gates, which had once seemed enormous, had disappeared from view. Now they were just a small speck glinting in the depths of a dark, rocky chasm. They soon passed through the clouds, climbing so high up that the sorcerer and witches had to put masks with talismans on their faces once again. Their bodies couldn’t handle the pressure, the temperature difference, and the thinning air. The practitioners merely slowed down slightly. Their bodies could withstand far more than this, and their lungs could do without oxygen for at least fifteen minutes.
Their ascent, which took at least several hours, ended with them standing on a plateau. The view reminded Hadjar of the fact that this world could surprise even the most experienced traveler. Ahead of them, on the cliffs and precipices linked by stone stairways and bridges, long-abandoned pavilions and stone buildings stood. They were domed and oval as all buildings in the Sea of Sand were. The subtle grandeur and exquisite ornaments were a breathtaking contrast. The domes were made of amber, but the amber appeared blue from a distance.
Blue sparks of power danced across the spires of the library’s towers. Even after millions of years, the place was still active. Energy, twining around the ornaments and flowing over them, broke away from the domes and surged into the sky, disappearing with the discharges of blue lightning bolts.
“Now I see why the golems are still active,” Ramukhan whispered admiringly, and leapt across the yawning chasm that separated the plateau from the crumbling stone bridge without Einen’s help.
Ramukhan was soon followed by the others. Hadjar was the last to jump over the blue clouds that lay below the bridge. Before he could even think ‘just like little Serra’, the clouds beneath him swirled, rose up in a high column, and Hadjar landed not on an ancient rock, but on ... a cloud.
In fact, there was nothing but clouds all around him. And a voice that said:
“Greetings, descendant of the Enemy.”
Chapter 395
Hadjar drew his sword and looked around, but he was in a solid white, cloudy space. There were white clouds below him, white clouds on either side of him, stretching out into the horizon, and even white clouds above him instead of a sky.
Over the course of his rather short life, Hadjar had visited many illusory, non-corporeal places, and he’d learned how to distinguish them from reality. He did so not by using his sense of touch or any of his other senses, but rather, with his soul. That was why the place he was in now frightened him as much as it was possible to frighten Hadjar Darkhan. Gripping his sword tighter, Hadjar searched for the source of the voice. His mind frantically tried to cope with what was happening, as what surrounded him wasn’t an illusion. It was full-fledged reality. It was indistinguishable from where he’d been only seconds ago.
“Descendant of the Enemy... Enemy…”
“Who are you?” Hadjar exclaimed. “Where am I?”
The voice answered him:
“Blood of blood... flesh of flesh... fated... Enemy of the enemy. Friend. Traitor. Freak. Servant. King. Sister. Revenge. Sweetheart. Brother. Death. War. War. War. War. War. War. War. War. War. War…”
The echo messed with Hadjar’s perception. He spun like a top, trying to face the owner of the voice that was chanting ‘war’ in front of him, then behind him, then from his left and right. Each time the voice changed direction, panic fo
rced Hadjar to strike out with his sword. His attacks became angry dragons as they surged out of his blade and disappeared among the clouds.
“WAR!” The voice roared behind him.
Hadjar turned around, and his heart skipped a beat. The clouds behind him were moving, like the carvings on the gates he’d seen recently. They piled onto one another, thickening and compacting, then changed their color. The eyes appeared first: the left one was emerald, with a black human pupil, and the right one was amber, with a reptilian, elongated pupil. Then white eyelashes, so big they looked like ropes, formed from the twisted clouds, as well as thick eyebrows. Instead of skin, it had the azure sky. Covered with small streaks of clouds, it bulged into the shape of an oval face with sensual lips and a slightly snub nose. The face looked no more than eighteen years old. Hadjar had seen many beautiful and even frighteningly beautiful women in his life, but none could compare.
Despite that, the entity was somehow off, and its body seemed comprised of treetops hidden by the clouds. Thick curls descended onto the shoulders of the forest. Behind her, floating in space, the stars shone in the black velvet of the universe, seemingly illuminating her, drawing attention to her.
The creature Hadjar saw was so huge that Hadjar could’ve easily sat on the tip of its lashes. As soon as Hadjar thought that, the creature’s face shrunk down to the size... of an adult. Hadjar stood at the edge of the clouds, over the abyss of the starry universe, staring at a regular-sized human face, one made of clouds, the sky, and rustling treetops. If he hadn’t already met the Tree of Life, he would’ve gone mad.
“Who are you?” Hadjar repeated, recoiling. A thought popped into his head. “Are you... a god?”
The creature’s lips curled into a grin and it laughed. Its laughter sounded like the murmur of a spring.
“No, I’m not a god,” the voice from before said.
It was like a refreshing breeze caressing one’s skin after a day of hard work, like the last embrace of lovers, or the very moment when you realized that you were in love, as gentle as a baby’s first breath… Her voice was painfully pleasant.
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