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

by Maximilian Warden

  My gaze now turned to the ceiling, where the crystals began to shine in all colours until they found their old lustre and the destruction of the palace stopped. In this moment the throne also began to shine again and its bright aura surrounded me like a shield.

  Now I could move again and grabbed the arm of Isaac, who finally recognized me.

  “Where are we?” he asked with a weak voice and crumpled, whereupon I supported him and helped him up.

  “On the way home,” I told him and carried him in the direction of the exit.

  He did not stay conscious for long and even if my strength in this place was limited, I regained enough in this moment to reach the window. As soon as we had left this place, the gleaming of my skin ended and everything felt as before.

  While I traversed the window, I noticed that the radiating lustre of the ring had now completely vanished and its status had returned to the way in which I found it. Even if I still could not explain its benefits, so I was sure that Jasper had helped me to protect my friend.

  The spirit of Isaac disappeared when I stepped through the window and I saw his body that was still lying on the ground while Mel conducted the ritual. But now, when I had returned, the crowd stopped their singing and sank down to their knees. The fog was compressed and the window disappeared.

  Mel rose from the ground and slipped on his cloak, while I immediately ran to the centre of the field and checked the condition of Isaac. His breathing was very weak and his body weighed heavy, but something else seemed to have changed. His hair began to blanch and his skin was aging. Everything about him was different, until he eventually opened his eyes and stood up from the soil of the field.

  This was no longer Isaac, who I saw before me, it was his father, Magnus Doyle. His gaze wandered around and then finally stopped on me. Nothing of this situation seemed to unsettle him and after all this time where he now had been a prisoner in the spirit of another person his first word that he said was: “Interesting”.

  Chapter 43: Return

  A strange moment, the first time that I saw the man, who was rumoured to change the world. I had thought that this crazy old man had no idea what happened around him and yet I had risked my life to check if it was true. I expected no thanks and still his reaction was anything other than usual. The crowd broke up, the ritual was finished and even Mel returned to the shadows. Now we both stood here, on the field of dreams and Magnus looked straight at me, but he did not know who I was.

  “This is Jik'Zur, eh? I have read a lot about it. What happened here?” he asked me and started to slowly turn around.

  “You and your son, you are connected. I cannot explain how exactly this happened, but he still lives on within you. This ritual that occurred here was done to save your spirit and now that you returned, you need to help me,” I explained to Magnus, who did not really take me seriously.

  “You must be Jacob. I hoped that we meet someday. I cannot help before I have rested. It was a long day.”

  He ran away and left me in the field. Nothing had worked out as we had planned it and now I was completely alone again. Lucia had warned me and even if I did not heed her warning at that time, so I slowly got the feeling that I could no longer defend myself. At first I thought of finding Mel, but he was the only one who could freely move through the shadows and therefore I had to wait until he returned.

  My path brought me back to the tent in that Isaac and I had stayed and to my surprise Magnus was already there and read in the books that also had fascinated his son.

  “Apparently you remember more than you want to admit. These books were in possession of your son, like this tent. Tell me the truth at last; can you remember the time back then?” I asked him and he closed the books and threw them carelessly into the corner.

  “I do not need to remember, my dear chap. In contrast to my son, I am certainly able to formulate my own theses and evaluate them. This tent was secluded from the general population, it neither corresponds to the standards of these people, nor is it in any way a permanent residence. Also these books verify my assumptions, since only my son could believe that they are of value,” he said and continued to search our small property.

  It did not take long until I understood why Isaac wanted to avoid a confrontation with this man and my own patience quickly ran out as well. I seized Magnus by his collar and looked him in the eye, whereupon he just laughed.

  “Go ahead and bludgeon the friendliness into my old body. I should help you, right? What problems has my boy caused this time? All this time and I am still alive. Do you think that he is as strong as I am? My body was created by the spirit of science and the spirit of my son was only attached to it due to an accident. I will leave this place and you will have to help yourself”, he said and I eased my grasp, as I now understood what kind of man he really was.

  “You remind me of my father. He also was a proud man and he did not know the value of a family. Experiments such as yours have changed me and now that I no longer know who I am, I just have the connection to your son left. If you would remove it too, then I do not know how I should move forward. The threat we face is so enormous that nothing remains unaffected. There is a book and with the knowledge in this book, we can prevent this world from disappearing. Without this knowledge you will also die, no matter how much you surround yourself with science.”

  “Brave words and I understand what you mean. At that time I had found the solution and it was clear to me against whom you both have conspired to fight. This place, this book, these words. Everything had been just as bad as it is today. Believe me, if we keep the knowledge, the world will continue to exist. And if I die, then this is still better than translating even one more book. Some secrets should better never be revealed,” he replied and was already on the point of leaving the tent.

  “Wait! I have sacrificed so much on this trip and learned even more. Giving up and hiding in the shadows will not change anything. We need to fight the prince and we need to understand what is written in this book. Only thus we can end all of this. Don’t you want to also help your son?”

  He stopped and turned to me, but his opinion was the same as before.

  “If you're correct, then my son is still well. I will find a way to help him, but I don’t need a book for this. Your path ends here, just like mine ended many years ago. Keep the knowledge you have gained and do not look back with the desire to go on. The risk of that you speak is only as real as you allow it to be. He would never destroy this world, not before he has finally uncovered the secret.

  His goal is the same as mine has been such a long time ago. He wants immortality. But, if you find out its price, then you see things differently. Young people dream, but the old care no longer. This is how it has always been and you can’t change it,” were the words with which he left the tent and disappeared into the darkness.

  For me there was no reason that the prince would seek immortality because he already lived for many thousands of years. Even if his power decayed, so I was still convinced that Magnus was mistaken in the motifs of the prince. The glances Magnus shot at me confused me because he always seemed to observe my ring as if he knew what it was. Again I had met a man who knew everything about this world, but was not content to talk about it.

  Now that there was no goal left for me and no hope to cling to, I was waiting for Mel and believed in my despair that he could perhaps find a solution. I sat in the corner of the tent and suddenly noticed it.

  The two books, which Magnus had tossed away without consideration, were gone. He knew what was hidden within them and his plans had more to do with them than he had admitted.

  I ran as fast as I could, but without knowing in which direction he went, Magnus made it hard for me to follow him. At the beginning of the trip he distinguished himself by his chaotic, almost sick behaviour, but now he was cold and calculated. Therefore I decided to look for the easiest way to leave the town. He could not have come far, because the dense fog around the town made it di
fficult to find a suitable way out. This led me to the highest hill of the small town on which Magnus already waited for me.

  “I expected you to find me soon,” he said and was just about to burn both books.

  “What is written in these books? Why do you want to burn them? Do you fear what they reveal?” I asked him and he stopped for a moment.

  “You do not know how this world works. I have seen how my wife died, how her dreams disappeared and how I was too proud to accept that I was at fault for her death. My own son hated me so much that he wished for my death, and all this because I knew more about this world than anyone else. Thousands came to see me, they bought my books, my knowledge and they supported my research.

  The mystery which mankind faces from birth is seemingly simple. Why do we die? What is it that is lost with the times? It is easy to answer, and impossible to prevent. I found out that you could prevent it. This place is just one of many, but here the research originated. Not my research, because all of this happened thousands of years ago.

  The shamans of these people had the gift to control the spirits of the dead and they could capture them. This is the largest spirit prison of the known world. Do you still think that coincidence brought you here? You said that people experimented on you and yet you trust this stranger. The prince, as you call him, is not an ordinary man. Even all this time ago he controlled the entire world and he only had one interest - the truth.

  My talent is that I am able to understand everything, master everything, and hate it all. If you are like me, then other people mean less to you than the next book in your hands or the next research, because tomorrow everything could be different. My wife and I were particularly, because we understood each other only through competition. Unfortunately, I was the better of the two of us and so I lost her. My son was correct to hate me and I wish that I had reacted differently, when he told me about his fate.

  What fascinated him so much were no books and there is not a single letter written in them. These are control panels, artefacts which were formerly used by archmages to control the mind of the creatures of this world. They must be destroyed before someone uses them. With time, knowledge is lost and new people will find other ways to control us. People like me who know how the world works have only one choice to make; fame or death. I choose death,” he said and burned the books before his feet.

  “Help me to end it. With your help, I can do for the world, what you wished for all these many years ago. Your research must not be destroyed and it does not need to remain a secret. Jasper told me that you could lead me. Without your help I am lost, we all are. But together we can liberate this world.”

  “I will accompany you. I had intended to do so from the beginning. Just how could I be sure that you really are who you said? This is a dark place and each shadow conceals a mystery.”

  “And why did you run away? Was it all just a test?” I asked him and he pointed at the darkness within the shades behind me.

  “You've chosen the wrong friends, my dear chap. No one exists here undetected and nothing is outside the control of this monster. They helped you to heal me, but now they exact their toll. Can you see the vortex that devours all this darkness? There he gathers his forces and as soon as he is ready, he will bring us to his master.

  We are trapped and no one can help us now. Maybe I don’t believe in the words you said, but I will try everything to protect this world from the knowledge.”

  I saw the vortex of energy, which was growing in strength, and the darkness began to disappear. Out came a man whose aged and decayed body hardly had any skin left on his bones. He dragged himself through the vortex with the last of his strength and he breathed heavily as he fell aground. Magnus approached him and examined his condition. For him it was clear what was happening here, but I had been deceived as always.

  “Is this Mel? What exactly is he?” I asked Magnus, full of disgust as I looked down at the weak man.

  “It doesn’t matter what name you call him, he is just a spirit. Beings like him have existed for a very long time. They are the guardians of prisons like this. His tribe, that he so vehemently protected, was once also human. Everything that you can see here sways away from reality and he uses the dead bodies of his people to empower his own connection to our world. But regardless of what he tries, he is no longer a part of us.”

  Mel rose from the ground and the shadows gathered around him and were compressed to a coat that closely embraced his body and granted him new strength.

  “I'm sorry. This was never your own journey. I can only take you to the place where it ends. Everything is outside my control,” said Mel and the shadow swallowed up Magnus.

  “Why? What is it that enslaves you all to his power? Together we can stand against him and together we can win,” I tried to convince Mel, but as he raised his hand against me, the shadow also gathered around me.

  “There was a time when everything was different. I have made my choice and now I serve a tyrant. If I stand against him now, then I die and so will my people.”

  I fought against the darkness that surrounded me and tried everything to not be engulfed.

  “I can help you!” I screamed, but the fog got so close that I could not see anything that happened around me.

  But then I heard the voice of Mel that quietly travelled through the darkness towards me and whispered: “I wish you could.”

  Chapter 44: The final Confrontation

  The western world was a place of chaos, but also a place of upheaval. Since many generations people tried to gain a foothold on this part of the world, but they always fell victim to the extreme weather or the dangerous beings that lived there. Here lies the Dragonhoard, a gigantic burned plane whose erosions sank deep into the skin of the earth, down to the planet’s core. Often I had read stories of the castle Jikzalmoor, inside of which the last prince of the dragons had lived and died. These were stories for children, telling them of the brave knights who banished even the last of the terrors from our realm and brought freedom to the western world.

  But in a world like ours, where only a few people had lived and explored the seemingly endless land mass that surrounded us, we had only realized a few hundred years ago that humanity posed the greatest threat for themselves in times of peace. More and more kingdoms disappeared more and more borders broke away, until at the end no one would follow another human being and chaos dominated the whole world. The prince Marko was an ominous creature, but apparently he also was the constant that held this world together. For me the question now became if we needed destruction to heal.

  If you face the deep abyss and look into the face of evil while no way leads back anymore, then it is no longer clear whether fate exists or whether you are simply too weak to accept it. I felt no grief at that moment, much more my doubts about everything that had preceded it grew. Did no sense remain? My goals, my dreams, everything I had sacrificed for others, but I now understood that there were no other people. All of them were caught up in a plan that knew nothing but its own end. Now it would become clear whether I really was an adventurer and whether the prince was truly invincible.

  “We have arrived,” said Mel and released us from the shadows.

  We saw a devastated and desolate landscape and the black-red sand under our feet felt as if it was alive. This was the Dragonhoard, of which I had read, but the sky that we saw was not the sky of our world. I saw four moons of probably the same size at different distances. But our world knew only one moon and one sun.

  “Where are we? Is this the world behind the shadows?,” I asked Mel and saw how Magnus stood up from the sandy ground and again knew more about this place than I.

  “No. You have seen my world, how can you compare it with this horrendous place? This is Jikzalmoor, or in your language 'the heart'. Only few can reach it, because the magic of this place is of the highest power. Do you see the moons in the sky? Look more closely at their surface and you will know what they really are.”

  I
did what Mel said and I saw that they were the same crystals that I had previously seen beyond the window, but their size was enormous. They had to be as large as whole kingdoms and their radiation was enough to illuminate the dark.

  “This is the planet’s core. As a child I often dreamed about reaching the central point of the planet, but now that I see it, I think differently. Let us finish all of this,” said Magnus and walked into the distance, where I could already see a castle, whose magnificence was unrivalled.

  High up on a plateau, stood the fortress and we saw how the red sand slowly ran down the cliffs and thus, seen from afar, created an illusion, which could make you think that there was a waterfall formed from pure blood. And even though we were already in the core of the planet, there were still gorges reaching deep into the earth and just one misstep would mean certain death. But apparently Magnus knew no fear and so he ran unerringly along the thin edges of the ridge and continued his way to the glorious fortress.