The journey took them uphill most of the day, climbing along a still-visible road not used in centuries. Nerves frayed, hardly a word was spoken that wasn’t necessary. Lu Bei stayed in book form. The climb leveled out onto a smooth plateau, as if a giant god had sliced off the top of a wide hill. Valleys surrounded the plateau on three sides. Turesobei guessed the roughly square plateau was two leagues across.
Lu Bei shot out of the backpack. He circled overhead three times before returning.
“We’re here!”
Here didn’t look like much of anything. A flat expanse of tall grasses and yellow wildflowers wilted by cold autumn nights. A crescent-shaped lake. Two grass-covered mounds, one wide and one narrow. The narrow mound started on the shore inside the crescent and stretched away from it. The wide mound stood a hundred paces away.
“You sure this is it?” Shoma said.
“Indeed, Lady Shoma. I lived here in Sooku for two centuries.”
“You did?” Shoma asked. “Where?”
Lu Bei pointed to the wide mound. “Chonda Tower.” He gestured to the long, narrow mound. “That’s the Monolith of Sooku.”
Buried beneath the turf? Disappointment stabbed deep into Turesobei. How would they ever use a buried monolith?
Zaiporo hopped down off the denekon to stretch. “Chonda Lu didn’t live in Ekaran back then?”
“The Chonda Clan’s first home was in Sooku,” Turesobei said.
Awasa and Enashoma, at the same time, said, “I didn’t know that!”
“It’s not commonly known because the clan likes to pretend we were always in Ekaran. But Sooku was the first place Chonda Lu went when he returned here to settle. Right, Lu Bei?”
“After Master returned to Tengba Ren, having discovered Okoro, the Jade Emperor, right nasty piece of work that he was, ordered four clans that were rivals of his to colonize Okoro. So the entire Batsa, Ta, Gana, and Chonda clans set sail. All five Chonda ships were lost at sea during a storm. Even Master’s power could only save our flagship. Master, twenty of his descendants, thirteen of his wives, and a score of servants were all that made it here.”
“Thirteen wives!” Shoma shouted. “That’s — That’s ridiculous.”
Zaiporo whistled. “Awesome.”
Enashoma rode up beside him and kicked him in the shoulder. “Shut it!”
“How could that be?” Awasa said. “The Law of the Baojendari forbids multiple wives.”
“Things were different back then,” Lu Bei said. “The Law of the Baojendari was rewritten for Okoro after the Great Darkening, when contact was lost with Tengba Ren. The reasons are complex, but to put it simply, even though the baojendari conquered the zaboko, they slowly adopted many of the native customs. And remember, Master was a Kaiaru. The rules for Kaiaru are different anyway.”
Turesobei imagined being married to Awasa and Iniru. That would solve two problems. And create the worst situation ever. He laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Shoma asked.
“Nothing. I was just thinking about … something. Never mind.”
The k’chasans sort of had relationships like that, multiple wives and husbands, although he wasn’t sure if that was in the same sense that his people meant husband and wife. They didn’t use the same terms and there were all sorts of rules to it. And then they had bonded friends, and … Iniru had explained all of it to him, but he still wasn’t sure exactly how it worked. He suspected it only made sense if you were k’chasan. Their culture was very different from that of the zaboko and the baojendari.
“Over the course of a hundred years, the clan blossomed,” Lu Bei said. “A town grew up around the tower, and people planted fields covering the plateau. We were running out of space, and then, while Master was away on an adventure, an earthquake struck. The tower crumbled, the monolith fell, and the town, made primarily of wood, caught fire and burned. So we migrated and founded Ekaran.”
“Why didn’t he take the monolith with him, if it was so powerful?” Turesobei asked.
“Master was heartbroken, and the monolith wouldn’t work anymore. He gave up on it. His wives had died, and he took no others after them. He said he’d lost more than enough of them over ten millennia. But he made Aikonshi what she is during that time. That made him happy for a while.”
Lu Bei fluttered around, clearly lost in thought.
“Well, now what?” Zaiporo asked.
“Simple,” Lu Bei replied. “We just have to set it back up.”
“Do you see how tall it is? It must weigh tons.”
“What were you thinking, Lu Bei?” Shoma asked. “We risked our lives to get here. There's not a chance we can get that thing up.”
Turesobei sighed. “We’ll just have to try. I guess … we can dig it out and attach rope to it, and then I can make all of us and the denekon stronger through magic. The spell of decreased weight scribed several times on the pillar should help. It’s going to take me a day to get everything ready.”
“None of that will work, master. It’s way too heavy.”
“You got a better way, Lu Bei? You were the one who brought me out here and told me it could be restored.”
“Page 493.”
“What?”
“Master’s grimoire.”
Turesobei flipped to the page and found the spell of upside down becomes right side up. He remembered this one. “This spell is gibberish — it makes no sense.”
“Recite the spell seven times, master. Just use your internal kenja, naturally. Target the monolith.”
“Care to tell me what it does?”
“And ruin the surprise?” Lu Bei giggled. “No way!”
He shrugged. Lu Bei would be Lu Bei.
“You three take care of the denekon and get some rest. This will take me at least three hours.”
With the book held in front of him, Turesobei began chanting the spell. The syllables were all standard Old Tengba Ren, but the arrangement was mumbo jumbo. There were only two runes to picture: a stylized Chonda Goshawk and one he’d never seen before. If this was Kaiaru magic, it wasn’t going to work.
The sun set. He squinted. He couldn’t cast darksight in the middle of another spell.
“Lu Bei,” he heard Shoma say. They were sitting around a campfire chatting quietly. “How’s Sobei supposed to see?”
“Oops!”
Lu Bei flew over and perched on Turesobei’s shoulders. He nearly stuttered on a syllable. He’d never practiced this before. If he messed up, he’d have to start over.
Lu Bei made his eyes glow. They cast enough light that Turesobei could read the page. He nearly laughed, but he kept his focus. I need the monolith to save Iniru. I must save Iniru.
He chanted the last syllable. Power rushed out from his kavaru, from his soul, from the land itself.
The air around the mounds shimmered. The ground quaked. Amber-colored flames erupted around the ruins. The fire burned so bright everyone had to turn their heads.
Once the flames faded to a soft glow, the Monolith of Sooku and Chonda Tower stood again, in pristine condition! Turesobei’s mouth fell open, and he staggered backward.
Lu Bei pumped his fists in the air and buzzed around in crazy circles.
“It worked, master! It worked! Just like you said it would!”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
On Chonda Tower, a seam in the stone outlined a door, though it didn’t have any hinges or a handle.
Lu Bei rapped his knuckles against the stone. “Only you can open it, master.”
Turesobei touched the door. “And how do I—”
The stone rectangle shimmered, then vanished. Not an illusion … so where had the door gone? His companions oohed and awed. But he was speechless. This was ridiculously powerful magic, though not as grand as resurrecting the entire tower, of course.
“So no one can open the door but me?”
“Or anyone you designate.”
“Why me?”
“Because you —” He clapped his
hand over his mouth. “Because you are the heir of Master’s kavaru.”
Turesobei stepped in. Hanging lanterns flared to life, and flames blazed in a fireplace on the other side of the room. No wood. No coal. Magical flames rising from rune-carved stones. Was the entire tower enchanted? Where did all the power come from?
Mahogany-stained reed mats lined the walls, holding in the warmth. But cold marble stretched across the floor of the tower. A six-pointed star contained within a circle decorated the center of the floor. A shaft of white light shone down onto the pattern. Otherwise, the room was entirely bare. No furniture or wall scrolls or plants.
The door reappeared and closed them in.
“You might want to let the others in, master. Touch the door and invite them.”
He let them in and, following Lu Bei’s instructions, gave them all the right to open the door any time.
“There’s no staircase,” said Enashoma.
“No need, Lady Shoma.”
“Then how do you get upstairs?”
“Step onto the star, master, and name the level you want to go to. There are seven levels.”
Turesobei walked onto the star. “Level Two.”
His feet came up off the floor and he levitated upward, as if the by the spell of levitation. He stopped rising up at the second level.
“What now?”
“Step off if you want to enter the room.”
He stepped into another bare room. The only difference was that the floor had reed matting and the walls had six windows, matching the orientation of the points on the star pattern. That was weird. He hadn’t noticed any windows from the outside. They seemed to be made of normal glass, but when he touched one it disappeared, just like the front door had. When he thought about it returning, it immediately reappeared. This magic, used for such common purpose and still lasting, exceeded anything described in tales about the Kaiaru.
Now the part that required trust. He shut his eyes and stepped into the glowing shaft of light. He didn’t fall. He hovered again. The white light shone down from a matching star pattern on the ceiling of the seventh floor.
“Level One.”
He drifted back down.
“Lu Bei, there are windows upstairs. I didn’t see any on the outside.”
“You can only see them from the inside, master. Master valued privacy.”
His companions wandered over, eager to try a turn at levitating.
“Is the High Wizard’s Tower like this?” Awasa asked. “With a levitating … portal?”
The tower was off limits to everyone except Turesobei and Kahenan and their servants, and even the servants couldn’t access the top three floors. Of course, Shoma perpetually invited herself over, and Kahenan didn’t seem to mind her wandering about. She reminded him of his deceased wife, their grandmother.
“Hardly,” Shoma said. “It’s furnished, but not magical. It’s a bit dingy.” She turned to Turesobei. “You really need to remodel the place when you take over.”
“Why is this place so empty?” Awasa said. “Since it’s magically restored, you’d think it would have furnishings.”
“The magic restores the tower,” said Lu Bei, “but we took the furnishings to Ekaran. Those don’t come back. Master had his limits.”
Turesobei wasn’t sure about that at the moment.
“You know,” said Enashoma, “you’d think if Chonda Lu made a second tower in Ekaran, he would’ve made it magical like this one.”
Lu Bei shook his head. “Master was … disinterested … when he built the High Wizard’s Tower. That’s why it’s so simple. And it could never have been as spectacular as this one. We’re standing on an intersection of ley lines.”
“On what?” Zaiporo asked.
“Channels of power that cut across the land, like rivers or roads through Batsakun,” Turesobei said. “It’s a natural process, created by a number of geographic features and processes. It’s a complex science. The Kaiaru knew it well, but not all the knowledge has passed down to us. I’m not that good at reading them, honestly. The boost in power is subtle, unless you’re on a particularly strong one or the intersection of two or more.”
His companions’ eyes glazed over. The ley lines explained a lot. Of course the monolith would sit along an intersection of ley lines. Oh, the star pattern!
“Lu Bei, are there six crossing lines here?”
“You’re picking up the art, master!”
He pointed at the star on the floor. “I wish.”
“I bet you can pick these up if you tried, master.”
“I can feel the crossing, even see it,” Turesobei said. “I just didn’t detect the individual lines before now.”
“This is one of the strongest crossings in Okoro,” said Lu Bei.
The crossing of six lines would provide a tremendous boost in power to a Kaiaru with the knowledge of how to channel that current.
“So is it worth sleeping in here?” Zaiporo asked. “I mean, it’s warm and all, but the floor looks hard.”
“The second floor is matted,” Turesobei said.
Turesobei went back upstairs, checking each level. Levels Two through Five were identical. Level Six had padded matting on the floor. Level Seven had plain stone flooring, no windows, and no fireplace. Clearly the workroom. This tower had a conical, slate rooftop, so this was as high as it went. No rooftop workspace like at the High Wizard’s Tower.
He went back down and let the others take turns levitating up and down through the tower, wide-eyed and laughing, except Awasa. She enjoyed herself, but was quiet. Lu Bei spiraled up alongside Shoma, singing a nonsensical song. She laughed and chatted with him, and then laughed with Zaiporo as he went up and down.
Awasa had no one. She was alone.
She was always alone. He’d never considered that before. But if her mother resented her, then the only other people she had in her life were servants like Marumi and Zaiporo. And if all of them felt like Zaiporo … she had friends her age, other girls. But were they really friends, or just people who wanted to be seen near the pretty girl with all the social status?
Well, if she was still alone, it was her fault. He couldn’t help her anymore. He’d tried, and all he’d gotten for it was her out on the quest with him and having to talk her off the cliff and into apologizing to the others. All requiring energy he couldn’t afford to give away.
Shoma landed and grabbed his hand. “Why are you standing there with that sourpuss expression? Have some fun!”
“But … it’s just levitating.”
Enashoma and Awasa looked at him, stunned. Zaiporo poked his head into the hole from the second floor and stared down at him.
“You’ve levitated before?!” Shoma exclaimed.
“Well, yes, of course I have. It’s a standard difficulty spell. I learned it two years ago. Naturally Grandfather made me practice. You know how he—”
“You can levitate with a spell and you’ve never taken me levitating?! I’m your sister! What kind of brother are you?!”
“Umm … not the good kind?”
She punched him on the shoulder. Hard. “You got that right.”
“You know Grandfather wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“Like that ever stopped you?”
She had a point, but magic was this whole other thing, this serious thing that he didn’t share. Maybe that was wrong. But that’s how it was done. For some reason.
“I’m sorry, Shoma. I’ll never do it again.”
“Better not. I let you use my origami creatures all the time.”
They made camp on the plush sixth floor of the tower. They ate early and went straight to bed, which was easy to do. No cold autumn air. A nice roaring fire. Lanterns he could turn off with a word. No worries of being attacked. One night of relaxation.
But while the others went right to sleep, he couldn’t. Tomorrow he had to use the monolith, and it had to succeed. He couldn’t accept the alternative, that all of this effort, and all the tro
uble they were going to get into, would have been for nothing. He sat in front of the fire and pulled out the note from Iniru. He read over it again, touched the bloodstains.
“That the letter?” Awasa said from over his shoulder.
He hastily folded it and put it away. “Yeah. Why aren’t you asleep?”
She sat down beside him, close but not too close. Just close enough to make him uncomfortable.
“I really am sorry. About all this. I shouldn’t have come.”
“If you want, I can try to get you back to Ekaran after tomorrow. We’re not that far away from—”
“I’ve gone too far to turn back now. If I went back without seeing it through …” She sniffed and wiped away a tear. She couldn’t go on.
“I understand. It’s hard to go back when everything has changed.”
“And when everything is miserable already. No, I don’t mean that. I’ve got a good life. I … I could have a good life at home. I am sorry for coming. This wasn’t about me. It shouldn’t be about me. Now you’re stuck with me here and I don’t know what to do about you and me and …”
“Don’t worry about it. That’s probably the best thing we can do, right?”
“I guess so,” she murmured. “Guess you’re really worried, huh? That you won’t be able to find her.”
“If she’s alive. This spell isn’t designed for this. I have no idea if the monolith can boost it enough, or if I can work it.”
“You’ll find her.” Awasa stood and patted him on the shoulder. “You’re gifted in a way none of the rest of us are. Even other wizards. I’ve no doubt that you can do it. I believe you can do anything you want.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Monolith of Sooku was a hexagonal pillar the height of twelve men. The base was hollowed out inside at ground level with a narrow archway that led inside. Turesobei touched the stone, then drew his hand away. The black stone, whatever it was, was hot to the touch. Not so much as to burn one’s hand, but enough to be uncomfortable.
“What is this stone?”
“Fallen star, master.”
“You mean it’s a meteorite?”
Storm Phase Series: Books 1-3 Page 49
