You possess his spellbook. I would start there.
“I can’t understand half of it. More than half. That means I’d have to find another wizard to help me. And I told you, I’m through with wizards. Any one of them’s as likely to gut me and steal Deinre’s grimoire as help me.”
Not all wizards are such, said Vapor. Deinre was not. There are others.
Mithris bit off a sharp retort as he came to a sharp bend in the tunnel. Moving cautiously, as silently as he could, Mithris crept around the bend. He froze at what he saw.
A few paces ahead, the tunnel widened out into a roughly circular chamber about forty paces across. On the far side, the cave narrowed again to a cramped tunnel. In the middle of the round chamber squatted an enormous, hairy beast. It looked up from the bloody remains of a stag. If not for the magnificent antlers, lying broken to one side of the carcass, Mithris could never have identified the savagely torn animal. As for its massive killer, with its thick limbs and blood-dripping muzzle of jagged razor teeth, Mithris drew a blank.
“What in all the foundations?”
Erbear, Vapor provided the name. Dread chilled Mithris’ blood. He’d heard of erbears, though he’d never seen one. Never thought he would.
The erbear reared up on its hind legs. It had roughly the appearance of a bear, though it stood fully fifteen feet tall when it reared up like this. Its head more resembled that of a wolf. Its forearms terminated in massive hands—not paws, but hands. These were as covered in hair as the rest of the beast. It opened its mouth wide, the jaws spreading far enough to swallow Mithris whole. It roared, and the entire cave seemed to shake and reverberate with its furious challenge.
The cave, even here where it widened out, offered no cover. Within the erbear’s lair, the walls were smooth. There were no outcroppings, no loose boulders to hide behind. As the erbear dropped back to all fours and stalked toward him, Mithris shouted the words of a cantrip and closed his eyes tight.
Blinding lights exploded in the air over his head. Even with his eyes squeezed shut, Mithris was dazzled by the glare. The erbear, about to charge, howled in pain and surprise. It shuffled back, snarling and mewling and covering its massive head with its hairy hands.
Mithris didn’t hesitate. This was no bandit without magic. The erbear might be the most dangerous animal in the world. With one hand upraised and the other flung toward the erbear, Mithris cast a second spell. A large ball of unearthly fire flew from his fingertips and enveloped the erbear. It threw itself to the cave floor and rolled madly, roaring pain and anger as it tried to beat out the unsnuffable, magic flames.
In moments, it was over. Melted fat and flesh mixed with charred hair and bone, the stench filling the cave. Eyes watering from the foul aroma, Mithris jerked to the side and vomited. Wiping his mouth, he covered his nose with his sleeve and moved across the wide, circular chamber.
You see what I mean? Vapor asked. Face it, Mithris. You will never live a life without magic. What I can’t see, with all the natural dangers of this foundation, is why you would even wish to.
Chapter 28
The Cave
The cave seemed to descend forever. The slope was gentle, but continuous. Mithris did not know how deep beneath the mountain he was. There was a humid heat which permeated the narrow tunnel. Painfully aware of the thousands on thousands of tons of rock over his head, Mithris imagined himself in the very bowels of the earth.
He reached a stretch of tunnel where the ceiling descended sharply and he was forced to crawl along on hands and knees. The rough stone overhead scraped occasionally along his back. It was tight, cramped, claustrophobic. The thick, soupy air was hard to breathe.
Growing beets sounded more and more appealing by the minute.
Would you truly enjoy that life? The crystal voice seemed genuinely curious. Never to try a new spell? Never to translate an ancient text and discover long-hidden wisdom? Never to learn anything new? Instead to spend your days with dirt beneath your nails and sweat on your brow for no greater reward than the food on your table?
“Better than crawling through uncomfortable cracks in a mountain,” countered Mithris. His voice was breathless. Even so, he continued. It became a diatribe, almost a mantra. “Better than sore feet and an empty table, or no table at all and no food besides. Better than omnitors and devinists and erbears and evil wizards who hire mercenaries.”
Better than a magically heated bath? Better than magically summoned servants to prepare your meals? Better than knowledge and power and even riches? Better than sleeping sound in the knowledge your wards will keep knives from your throat and wild animals from your camp?
“Perhaps I will cast wards,” Mithris allowed, gritting his teeth and dragging himself through the narrowest stretch yet. Rock scraped him above and below. He worried he might become stuck. How would he get out? “Perhaps something more complex from time to time,” he added. “Say, if I have to escape a tight situation.”
And so you’d practice simple magics, but leave the grand wizardry to others. Others whom you will avoid at all costs. So you’ll live among the normal people. I suppose you’ll keep all your magicking a secret?
“I won’t do anything dangerous, that’s for sure,” grumbled Mithris. He felt cool air up ahead, and dared to hope this awful squeeze was nearly over. “And, yeah, I’ll keep it quiet. That way no one tries to murder me.”
Why do you think wizards live in fortified towers?
“To show off,” Mithris replied without hesitation. “To impress one another with how powerful and grand they are.”
Wizards like Ileera, perhaps. Even Nethrin, perched atop his waterfall. But does that really sound like Deinre? Was he so petty, that he needed all the world to see how high his tower reached?
“No,” admitted Mithris. “I don’t suppose he was. But, as you’ve pointed out more than once, I barely knew Master Deinre.”
I never said that. I only reminded you that your knowledge was incomplete.
“Yeah, well.” Mithris shook his head. The tunnel did widen out just ahead. Wiping sweat from his brow, he pulled himself forward and soon he was free of the constricting rocks. Why, the tunnel was nearly large enough for him to stand up in! It felt like an enormous, empty room after the tight confinement he had just passed through. “I hope there’s another way out of here.”
I’m sure there is, said Vapor. Wizards never build their towers with only one escape route.
Mithris blinked at that. “We’re in a wizard’s tower?” he demanded angrily. But, as he said the words, he realized they were true. They were in the mountain itself, but this was the lair of a wizard. A very protective wizard, judging from the difficult way in and the erbear left to guard the entrance.
Mithris quickly followed the cool air back to its source. A fissure in one wall of the tunnel opened out onto a narrow ledge. Holding to either side of the crack, Mithris leaned through and found himself overlooking a lush grotto.
The cavern was enormous, its more distant reaches hidden in shadow. Before Mithris, and below him, a verdant jungle spread. Ferns and palm trees swayed in a cool breeze. A meandering stream burbled its way among them before emptying into a broad moat surrounding a stout fortress with high, thick walls that looked like thick glass or crystal. Above this grotto, high above Mithris’ own perch but still within the cave, hung a burning globe of fire that gave heat and warmth and life to the jungle below.
“Okay,” said Mithris, taking in the massive grotto hidden in the bowels of the mountain. He found himself wondering if that magically artificial “sun” burned all the time, or if the wizard re-cast it each “morning.” He shook his head. Whoever lived here must be mad.
“Okay,” he said again. “This wizard obviously built his tower because he wants to be left alone.”
That’s likely, agreed Vapor. But you still haven’t answered my question. Why do you think wizards build their towers?
“Isn’t there something else we should be doing right now?”
Mithris asked, gesturing toward the fortress below. “Like figuring out how to get down there, find the crystal, and get back out of here?”
It’s important, Mithris.
“Safety.” He said the first word that came to mind, but even as he spoke the word Mithris knew he’d gotten it right. “They build towers for safety. Some of them to keep others out, like this poor mad fool. Others to keep their experiments from getting out, I suppose.”
He thought for a moment. “I’ll have to have some kind of tower, won’t I? Otherwise, something bad will happen.”
How long will you keep your tower, I wonder, if all you do is dabble in wards and cooking spells?
“Okay! You’ve made your point.” Mithris shook his head. “Can we please just focus on what we came here for?”
Of course. What are you doing standing around on this ledge, anyway?
Mithris bit off an angry reply. Casting his eyes down around his feet, he spotted the treacherous trail leading down from his ledge to the thick jungle below. He made his careful way down into the grotto. The trail leveled out and followed the course of the stream. Mushrooms grew thick in the underbrush, their broad tops glimmering with an eerie, violet luminescence.
Soon, Mithris was pushing aside two gigantic fronds and stepping out at the edge of the moat itself. Twenty paces across the torpid water, a drawbridge was shut firmly up in the crystalline wall of the castle. The iron-banded wood of the drawbridge looked strange, fitted snugly into the glittering diamond wall.
Mithris was just trying to figure out how to get the wizard’s attention when a thunderous voice boomed all around him:
“Who trespasses the enchanted grotto? Who is it that dares approach Zerto’s Keep?”
Startled, Mithris took a step back in alarm and readied his wand to defend himself.
Chapter 29
Zerto
Three paces to Mithris’ right, the air shimmered as if from a heat haze. The shimmering mirage resolved itself into the figure of a man. He was impossibly old and wizened, stooped of shoulder and emaciated. Mithris was startled. This wizard—Zerto, was it—must be a thousand years old at least!
“Well?” demanded the gnarled and shrunken old man. “Who is it that disturbs me, eh? Who are you?”
No, I don’t think so, said Vapor.
“What?” Mithris was confused.
“I said, who are you?” repeated the old wizard. He leaned on a walking stick taller than he was. It was of dark-stained wood, and as gnarled as the old man who held it. He hobbled forward then lifted the stick like a heavy speak—too heavy for him to lift very far – and jabbed it weakly at Mithris. “Answer me!”
Yes, I saw it too.
Mithris realized Vapor must be speaking to Depths. He wished they wouldn’t do that, not when he could only hear one side of the conversation. The foundation crystals always seemed to choose the worst times to distract him, as well.
“My name is Mithris,” he told the wizard. “You must be Zerto.”
Zerto’s eyes narrowed beneath bushy white brows. He opened his mouth in a hissing sneer. Four teeth hung lopsided in his mouth. Mithris had never imagined a person so old.
“What do you know of Zerto?” demanded the suspicious little man. “Hah? Tell me now, or I’ll blast you to cinders!”
Mithris threw up his hands, empty palms open toward the paranoid wizard. He tried his best, most reassuring smile.
Yes, you’re probably right. But where?
Mithris shook his head, wishing he could tell Vapor to shut up. But this Zerto was on edge enough as it was. He didn’t want to go talking to himself and setting the old man off. Why was he always getting himself into these situations?
“I…I’d heard tales, of this marvelous tower.” Mithris turned slightly at the waist, lifting both hands higher to gesture toward the crystalline fortress. “The fame of your…enchanted grotto has spread far, Master Zerto. I only wanted to see its majesty for myself.”
Zerto peered at him suspiciously for a long moment. Mithris held his smile in place. Flattery, he thought. That was the way to win over wizards.
You shouldn’t have said that, Mithris. Vapor sounded worried. This Zerto didn’t build his tower in such an inaccessible place just to have people talk about it. He wants to stay hidden.
But the foundation crystal’s suspicion seemed unjustified. Zerto’s crinkled face softened, and the old man broke out in a prideful grin.
“Have you now? Did you now?” The old man cackled in mad delight. “Well, then.” He waved one hand airily, and the wooden drawbridge opened up. It dropped rapidly, but came to rest on the moat’s edge gently. The bridge lay just between Mithris and the other wizard.
“You must see inside, then,” said Zerto, his rheumy eyes twinkling. Mithris realized he had made a terrible mistake.
Zerto led Mithris through a curving passageway built of the same translucent crystal as the outer walls. Shimmering lights danced behind the crystal, like blue-tinted fires glimpsed through sheets of ice. The light refracted and reflected from every surface. Mithris almost felt as if he were under water.
“I built it, you know,” said Zerto in the muttering voice of one well-accustomed to isolation. How many years, how many centuries, had passed since this wizened little man spoke to any but himself? “Took many decades and much skill.”
Zerto ran his hands over his tattered, heavily stained robe. It had been a fine raiment once, cut from luxuriant cloth and delicately sewn. Magnificent a garment as it must have once been, Mithris thought the filthy robe was half a century late for consignment to a dish rag.
“It’s truly wonderful,” he said aloud. Zerto twisted his neck around so he could peer over his shoulder, and Mithris hurriedly cast his eyes upward to the play of light on the ceiling. He whistled appreciatively. “I especially like the lights.”
“Hmmm,” said Zerto. His upper lip rippled with a blown exhalation that sounded like flatulence. The strange little wizard continued down the hall, his too-long walking staff slapping regularly against the crystalline floor.
This one’s witless, said Vapor. Mithris kept his agreement to himself.
The curving corridor ended abruptly, opening out into an enormous room. Zerto took a few steps past the end of the hall, then spun in place. Stretching out his arms, he indicated the cavernous chamber. It, too, was constructed of crystal. But here, the lights playing behind the walls came in a tumult of varying shades. There were reds and pinks, magentas and violets, a sultry orange flickering in contrast to blue-green shimmerings. Waves of light splashed across the ceiling high overhead, melting against one another and mixing their hues to produce new bursts of vibrant color.
Mithris drew up short, wide eyes slowly taking in the grand chamber. He did not have to feign amazement.
“This,” proclaimed Zerto in his crackling, reedy voice, “is my Arcanium, where I perform my greatest feats of magic.”
Mithris looked down from the breathtaking ceiling and took in the rest of the room. The chamber was five-sided. The walls met at odd and mismatched angles in the corners. He and Zerto stood opposite the longest wall. In the center of that wall stood a tall dais which bore an altar shaded by a massive arch of solid gold. Candles of red and black wax alternated along the length of the altar; their wicks burned green.
Beneath this altar, set out from the wall several paces, sat a long, wide table cluttered with spellbooks and magical implements, crystal flasks and miniature cauldrons, jars stuffed with dried herbs or filled with arcane liquids that bubbled.
The rest of the cathedral-sized Arcanium was given over to free-standing braziers. These stood about as tall as Mithris’ chest. Their wide, shallow bowls were filled to the brim with simmering hot coals sprinkled with fragrant spices that sizzled and sent pungent smoke wafting up into the air.
This was the Arcanium of Zerto. It was truly an impressive sight, all the more so for the almost comical contrast presented by the proudly smiling little wizard who stood bef
ore Mithris. Zerto must have been an impressive wizard at one time; the shriveled gnome standing here now was pathetic and mad.
“How did you do it?” Mithris asked in wonder.
“As I said, long years and dedication. Skill and craftsmanship, mmhmm.” Zerto nodded to himself. He spun suddenly in place. “My Arcanium alone took fourteen years, even with the help of…”
The ancient wizard broke off suddenly. He ceased his mad spinning, and one hand darted into a fold in his robes. Bony, arthritic fingers seized around a large pouch hanging from a leather cord about Zerto’s throat. Touching the leather pouch calmed him. He stroked it lovingly, and watched Mithris through eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Tell me, boy,” he said, releasing the pouch and shoving it back beneath his robe. He shuffled quickly over and stood right in front of Mithris, looking up at him from beneath those bushy white brows. “Who sent you?”
Oh bother, said Vapor.
“What? I don’t understand.” Mithris was afraid he did understand. He swallowed a nervous lump in his throat. “Why, no one sent me here. I had only heard…”
“You heard nothing of Zerto’s Keep! Nothing!” The old man’s crinkled face flushed purple with fury. He pounded his staff furiously against the floor. Flecks of spit flew from his lips as he raged. “A secret, that’s what my Grotto is! No, you were sent by one of them!”
Zerto waved his hand and barked an esoteric command. There were five doors leading out of this room, Mithris noticed as the doors all slammed shut in unison.
Chapter 30
Envy
“Now wait a minute…” Mithris held up his empty hands in front of him, taking a step back from the furious little gnome confronting him. “I told you, Master Zerto. No one sent me!”
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