Ultimus Thesaurus: The last Treasure (Era of Change Book 1)

by Maximilian Warden

  Many guests had arrived and most of them were known to me, although I did not know their names. They were glad to see me and over a period of hours the celebration went on without my father. For me it was not a surprising fact, but Edgar was greatly worried because he assured me that my father would always put me first.

  As the last guests left the celebration my father finally returned back home and annoyed took off his clothes. Without a word he drank glass after glass of his best bottles and stood in front of the fireplace, into which he now looked for over an hour while I watched him. It was a strange feeling to see this man and yet to expect someone else. For me his death hadn’t been a moment in which I felt loss, not even pain, but now in his presence I felt sadness and regret.

  “Can I help you?” I asked him albeit not being exactly sure why I even cared.

  He put the glass aside and sat down in the armchair beside the fireplace. When he offered me a place to sit I joined him, whereupon he began to tell me about his day. This man tried to improve the world and he was worried that it was not enough what he did. To make things worse he even thought that he failed me because he had missed my celebration.

  It was clear to me that this could not be real and also that my real father was dead, but to see him here, or what he could have been, made me happy, even if only for a moment.

  “I know that this is not real. And even if I wish that it would be real, so I must go back into my world,” I said and hoped that it would relieve me.

  But my father did not hear what I said and went to close the door of the room. In his eyes I saw that glimmer as was already the case with the prince and my worst fears had been turned to truth.

  “My son, do you want to leave me already? Haven’t I done everything for you? Is this not your biggest wish? Everything works and everything is real, believe me. If you wish to remain, it only needs a single word from you,” he said with evermore darker voice and approached me slowly, while his body changed.

  “How can you control this dream? Aton had to be more powerful than you.”

  “He cannot understand how this works. He is nothing more than a transmitter whose signals I can change arbitrarily. I admit that your plan was of almost masterful nature, but none of you will leave this island. I will give you a little more time to think about what you did today and tomorrow we are going to see if this is a happy dream or a nightmare,” he went on and turned back to my father again, who just sat down next to me and smiled as if nothing had happened.

  The powers of the prince were appalling and now that I knew their true scale, I could only doubt our chances. All my thoughts, my fears, desires and dreams were like an open book for him and by releasing Atons powers I had only magnified those of the prince. It was inconceivable what he would be capable of if all the energy of the stone would be unleashed and thus it was now up to me to stop him before that could happen.

  Even if he was in control of the dream, Aton was still involved to a large extent, which is why I thought that he could maybe hear me. However, since he had already lost most of his human capabilities before we even arrived on the island, I couldn’t begin to imagine what else he had lost when he drank the elixir.

  That is why I first tried to get in contact with Isaac, which initially was difficult. Simply thinking about him or talking in monologue as if he was present, were not enough to disrupt the signal that Aton was sending out. But then I looked at the small golden pen that my father had given me and the book that came with it. I opened it and started to write.

  As nothing further happened I first regarded it as pointless, revised my opinion however when words began to appear without me writing anything. Since this book never really existed, it had to be a part of the dream that the prince changed. Therefore I was sure that the book itself was nothing more than a signal that was changed by my words and thus could perhaps affect the dreams of my friends as well. It was difficult to assess whether or not I was wrong, because the words that I found in the book did not follow logical rules. It was mostly a meaningless accumulation, partly the same words again and again, but one of them aroused my interest.

  In an impure font sentence after sentence disappeared and even if just for a short moment, I could clearly spot the name Iago in-between. My name and a reminder of the day I heard him for the first time. Lucia had not known my real name at the time, but she was certain that my name was Iago and that is how she called me since.

  It was on the field on which I had arrived in this dream and I was sure that I would now find the answer in this field, even if I hadn’t seen it before. So I grabbed paper and pen and sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night. Certainly the prince was watching me, but he was already certain that he had the upper hand in this dream and thus he wouldn’t interfere with my struggles. He was just enjoying my headless behaviour and relished the thought that I was slowly losing my mind.

  A dense snow drift sat in while I was traversing through the village in the direction of the field and it became so thick that my range of vision fell under one meter. Not much was recognizable and what little I could perceive was just enough to go on ahead. Even if none of this was real, I still felt the cold air on my skin and the strong wind that moved over my body in full force.

  Only when I reached the field, the snowfall began to abate and revealed a house in the middle of the otherwise empty field. With curiosity and caution I approached and knocked on the heavy door of the unknown building. Never before had I seen such a construction and it was very difficult to imagine that this construct arose from my subconscious mind.

  No one opened me, so I pressed the handle down and pushed against the door with my whole weight, which hardly moved a centimetre. I had forgotten that I was only a little boy in this world and so it was impossible to enter the house through this door. I therefore decided to find another way into the house and found a barrel, based on the back side of the building. It allowed me to, even if it was only with the greatest difficulty, access the roof and from there I looked down through the chimney into the dark fireplace.

  I told myself that this was just a dream and thus it should be possible to enter the house this way, although it would be madness to even try it in normal circumstances. My gaze roamed the otherwise empty field and nothing except this house was left to me. The answers were inside and still it was difficult for me to forget everything I once believed in. But dreams do not follow the rules of nature and they have also no clearly defined logic and thus I jumped down through the dark chimney.

  It took a very long time until I realized that I did not try to pass through this chimney, but that I much more attempted a connection to the person who controlled this part of the dream. After many seconds of falling I noticed that I already sat on a chair, and opposite to me I saw a man who I now met for the third time.

  It was his house that I entered, but both its exterior and interior had changed significantly. Neither the material from which everything was made, nor the objects inside looked familiar. He looked at me and exchanged nothing but his rigid glances. His clothing was strange and it seemed to me that he did not belong here.

  “Are you Thamyris?” I asked him in the hope that I could finally understand what was going on.

  He didn’t react and instead stood up and went out. For him it was not difficult to open the door and even if I wanted to follow him I could not do it, because something prohibited me to move. Every time when I thought about doing something I forgot about it so quickly that my mind seemed to chase my thoughts, although I had already forgotten about them. It was a strange feeling, as if I knew things, but I just knew that they did not exist.

  Only when the man entered the house again, I could get up and move around. He showed me a big heavy book, but neither the worn outside nor the blank inner pages could help me. Only after closer examination I noticed that it was the same book that my father had given to me in my dream. It was very old now and the copy that was in my possession was gone.

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p; I found only the golden pen in my pocket, but it also looked aged and useless. The man now pushed the book closer to me and asked me to write something into it. I did not know what he really wanted, but his wordless request was more than just a friendly invitation in this world, it was much more a command.

  Without even thinking about a word I started to write and only when I had finished, the pen disappeared from my hand and I saw and understood what I had written. The man rose up and took another book from the cabinet behind him. It was small and a red tape closed it. With a knife het cut the tape and he opened the book. But instead of reading it or showing me the contents, he merely took it and threw it onto the wood in the fireplace, which spontaneously inflamed, just because he looked at it.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked him and he showed me the words that I had just written.

  The creation of seven and ascent of six, appreciation of five and prohibition of four, brought the fight of the three and the hate of the two while one remained silent and rotten in core.

  And as six of them vanished and perished with time, only one remained silent and hateful and sore.

  The first Army keeps vigil and beacons the way, through wisdom and knowledge ‘til the final day.

  But he stole the knowledge and took their soul, thus died the heirs who were sacred and sole.

  The tears of the gods burned with a fire, lighting the way and torching the pyre.

  And as the sun burned in the heavens, he held all the power and the goddess shed a tear that rained as darkest shower.

  And nothing but burning hatred reigned this rotten land until the ground broke slowly open from the human’s hand.

  The last of this most dreadful kind unleashed on us the darkness, a power that no single soul could ever dream to harness.

  And even though a hero came and slayed this mighty foe, we hear at night a creeping sound that keeps us on our toe.

  When I looked up again the man had vanished, but he had left me a gift. It was the blade with which he had cut open the book and when I took the blade into my hand I felt a strange power. It was no ordinary knife, even though it appeared rather normal. I grabbed the book he gave me and tried to open the heavy door once again. And just as I thought I could now leave without problems, but outside I found a peculiar view. It was no longer the field from which I had entered.

  The place where I was now was very old and I could not only tell from the fact that it did not even look like our planet. I noticed that the sun in the sky had darkened. A heavy shadow was cast on me and up in the sky I saw them - the dragons. Nothing except a wasteland was located here and their cries and shouts warned me to approach them. Not far from me there sounded a tone, similar to a chime, with such a massive shock that the earth began to split apart.

  The dragons fell down to the ground and the sun began to glow. With every second the temperature rose and a bright light dispelled the shadows around me. I had never seen the sun so close, and its force alone burned the earth. And even though nothing happened to me, I saw how the dragons in the sky turned to ashes. I did not run away, because this was a moment in which actions could bring no change and so I waited until the earth had been divided and the wasteland slowly disappeared.

  The sun began to move faster and faster and I felt that it moved away from me. As soon as it reached its natural point I found myself back on the barren field in front of the house. I opened the door and stepped inside, where the man was waiting for me.

  “It will happen again. I have tried everything to prevent it. You have to end it. End it before it is too late,” he said and pointed at the blade in my hand.

  “You are the Sun King, aren’t you?” I asked him and he nodded to me.

  “That what remained of him. I am everything that he could leave to this world. But now you must prevent the abuse of his legacy. Destroy the stone. Thamyris is the key. If you fail, no one can prevent it anymore. The sun protects us against the dragons, but if it disappears, then no fire of this world will save us.”

  This had to be the reason for the fire in front of the temple. But why did the dragons fear the fire?

  “You cannot help me?”

  He looked at me and realized that I was not able to leave this dream on my own.

  “Your friends are caught just like you. Cut the bond that connects you to Thamyris. Only then will you be able to leave this island. Now he has everything he needs in order to destroy this world. Protect the stone from his influence; otherwise nothing will ever be the same again. Go now through the door behind you. You will find what you are looking for,” he said and the door opened.

  Chapter 33: Escape from the Island

  I learned a simple truth on this journey. The right decision does not exist, because no matter what happens and no matter what we do, nothing is just good. The wrong decision however exists and I felt this existence with every breath I took and every idea that I allowed to become reality. Perhaps it is true that some people carry a fate on their shoulders that makes it impossible for them to do more than just fail, but I did not want to believe that. The Sun King, Jasper, prince Marko and also Magnus Doyle were all in one way or another connected to me. Our destiny was the same and if I thought that there was nothing waiting for me in the end but death, I could only laugh.

  The world behind the door that the king had opened for me was at first glance quite normal, so I decided to follow the colourfully paved road under my feet, but with every step I took the vegetation around me became more and more strange. None of the plants that I saw were real and I knew this precisely, because as the trees began to stand on their head and their roots began to stretch through the air to create a giant dome before me, I was sure that this could only be the dream of a mad man.

  I searched and found the entrance to this dome very quickly, but the interior of this maze like structure seemed not inviting nor did it look like the construction of a sane human being. No matter which way I went and no matter what I tried to do, in the end I would wind up at the very same entrance again. The dense interwoven roots rolled along the way and made a further progression impossible, were it not for the blade of the king. With all my strength I created a path, but ended up at the entrance just the same.

  I decided to leave the dome and search another way around it, but only thinking about leaving obscured the only entrance and showed me that my way had to be found on the inside. Caught in the dark interior of the dome I made the best of my situation and sat down on the floor.

  Even if waiting it out wouldn’t change anything I was sure that I wouldn’t lose any more time or nerves in the process of finding another dead end.

  And soon my theory confirmed to be correct, when I saw Magnus who nakedly danced through the mace wearing only a hat made of aluminium foil. He gracefully made his way towards me and sat down.

  He simply babbled in monologue and couldn’t even realize that I was there while he excitedly bobbed his body up and down and moved his head from left to right.

  “Magnus? Can you hear me?” I asked and tried to get some distance from him, because I was afraid that he could embrace me when he realized who I was.

  But even after many attempts of speaking with him nothing happened. I decided to wait, as it was clearly him who controlled this dream. I was sure that I could more easily progress forward at his side. My theory was that he would find the exit to his dream.

  Suddenly he jumped up and like madness incarnate he ran ahead into the maze. I tried as good as I could to keep up with him, but I now understood that his limits did almost not exist in this dream, while I felt weaker than ever before. This weakness manifested itself all the more when Magnus simply ran straight through a thick wall of branches without even hesitating, while leaving me behind without another exit.

  “Magnus! Come back!” I cried into the deep dark forest before me and just a second later Magnus tipped me on the shoulder from behind.

  He never ran into in the forest and yet I had seen it. I underst
ood now that this dream was not entirely in his hands, since it must have been Isaac who I saw. The two fought for the control of their thoughts and the stronger of the two would eventually subdue the other.

  “Pst! He can hear us! Here, take a hat, otherwise he will also read your mind. He is a being from another world and he will steal our dreams!,” said Magnus in very urgent tone and anxiously provided me with an aluminium foil hat of my own, which I promptly put on with the desire in mind to finally escape this dream of his.

  “Where to now? We can’t just wait here. Where is the exit?” I asked him but he just looked paranoid and was easily incited from the smallest noise.

  “Not so loud! Don’t you get it? If he finds us, everything is over! There is no exit. No way out, just forward.”

  And so he ran again and soon split into two persons. Every time he ran away and split up into Isaac at the same time it became harder for me to even know who I was following. Although I was not sure whether this was still a part of the dome, I was at least not at the entrance anymore, which for me was a sign of progress.

  “You there! Wait! Have you seen this old man?” called Isaac and struggled through the wild growth.