by Kay L. Ling
Arenia nodded in approval. “Good. Why did Kaff take S? Did he say?”
Jules gave a humorless laugh. “He claims we need dark powers to break through the barrier, and S was going to teach him about Dark gems.”
Arenia gave him an incredulous look. “S would never help a gnome.”
“Don’t count on it,” Lana said. “Somehow, Kaff won her over.”
“I find that hard to believe.” She fell silent for a moment, as if trying to come to grips with the idea. “Even if dark powers were the solution, Elias should be the one to use them. He knows the risks . . . and he’s experienced.”
She was right. Elias knew the risks, and he only used dark powers for something monumentally important—like turning S into a beetle. His face and body were already marred, and if Kaff had any sense he wouldn’t risk the same fate. But judging by the bumps on Kaff’s arm it was a little late for that lecture.
“I wanted to experiment with gem combinations this weekend, but I’m not in the mood now,” Lana grumbled.
“Neither am I,” Jules said. “Not after going without sleep and wasting most of the weekend looking for Kaff and S.”
“Two weeks from now, the clan leaders will be here. Maybe you should wait and let them help,” Arenia suggested.
Jules nodded. “Good idea. There’s no hurry. It’s just that we’re anxious to find a solution.”
Lana thought a moment. “There’s no reason they can’t run the experiments themselves. We can set them up with everything they need, give them a little guidance, and let them do the rest.”
“We’re in the habit of doing everything, but you’re right. They have gem powers now, and we should give them the reins.”
Arenia said, “The books you found in the armory have a lot of interesting information—and not just about gems and spells. Tyla and I are reading as many as we can before the clan leaders take them home.” She flipped through a few pages. “Take a look at this map.” She turned the book to face them.
Lana and Jules bent over the book, and Lana realized she had seen this map before. S’s library had one that was nearly identical showing three continents with six major cities, two on each continent.
“Tyla and I found this particularly interesting. Six red symbols, each by a major city.” Arenia ran her finger down to the legend. “The symbol stands for fortress. After comparing this map to others, I think we’re here.” She pointed to the symbol inside the original boundaries of the Amulet, its area delineated with a dotted line.
Seeing the Amulet’s pre-war boundaries was fascinating, but apparently that wasn’t what Arenia wanted to show them. They had barely gotten a glimpse when she flipped to a larger map of the Amulet and its outlying regions. This one showed towns, villages, mountains, streams, and mines, and their names were marked.
But the opposite page was the one that really caught Lana’s attention. It showed front and rear elevations of a building marked Elantoth Fortress.
“Wow,” Lana breathed. “That looks like Shadowglade.”
“Do you think so?” Arenia asked with a sly grin. She turned to a page that showed six identical fortresses complete with courtyards and outer walls. Only the courtyards and drawbridges varied. Elantoth Fortress was one of the six.
“They must have used the same blueprints,” Jules said. “Maybe all the fortresses were built in the same era.”
“Why were fortresses necessary?” Lana asked, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “From what we’ve read, woodspirits are no threat.”
“I wondered the same thing,” Arenia said. “Gnomes are peaceful, and woodspirits are supposed to be, too.”
“Back then, there could have been several portals to other worlds, and some may have posed a threat,” Jules suggested. “Maybe that’s how S got the idea of having outsiders help her conquer Ahmonell.”
“How long has the Amulet been around?” Lana asked. “It’s marked on this map, but what if it didn’t exist when they built the fortresses?”
“Good point,” Jules said. “The gnomes would need a means of defense if they didn’t have the Amulet to contain outsiders.”
“In any case, it looks like there are five other Shadowglades,” Lana said, examining the drawings. “That’s an amazing discovery.”
“It gets better,” said Arenia, her voice tense with excitement. “Look at this.” She turned to a page of fortress floorplans that showed the cellar as well as the first and second floors. “Tyla is more observant than I am. I looked at these several times and didn’t see what she did.”
Lana and Jules pored over the drawings. They showed every room and corridor, even the storage rooms in the cellar. Lana had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for, and she kept quiet while Jules studied the drawings. Finally, Arenia couldn’t wait any longer. She pointed to a small green dot near the throne room. “Do you know what that is?”
Lana instantly made the connection. “The hidden room!”
“You’re right! Where we found the staffs and shields,” Jules said, sharing her excitement. “That room may have been used to hide objects long before the Battle of Last Hope.”
Arenia’s brown eyes shone. “Now look at this.” Her finger traced a path from the green dot by the throne room to an identical green dot in the cellar.
A chill ran through Lana. “Another hidden room? In the cellar?”
“We think so.”
“And you haven’t gone to investigate?” Lana asked in amazement.
Arenia laughed. “Not yet. We wanted to, more than I can say, but we decided to wait for Elias and Jules to come back from the Amulet mission. And as soon as they returned, S went missing.”
“You’re far more patient than I am,” Lana said, shaking her head. “I can hardly wait to see if there really is a room. And what’s inside.”
“Elias ought to be here when we look for it,” Jules said, laying a hand on Lana’s arm as if expecting her to bolt from the chair and run to the cellar.
“And Tyla would never forgive me if we went without her,” Arenia added. “You said you were tired, Lana. Why don’t you take a nap until Elias gets back?”
“A nap! How can I sleep when there’s a hidden room waiting to be discovered?”
“I know how you feel,” Arenia said, grinning. “We’ve been living with the secret for nearly a week. Sometimes I dream about the room.”
“Do you ever see anything inside?” Lana asked. Arenia looked self-conscious, and Lana was sure that she had. “What did you see? You’ve been infusing gems, which can affect your dreams. Whatever you saw could be real. It wasn’t anything dangerous, was it?”
“No . . . nothing bad,” Arenia said. She seemed to be deciding how much to say. “I don’t remember much. When I wake up, it all fades away. But there were maps on the walls. And things in the middle of the floor, but I only got a glimpse, and I don’t know what they were.”
“Did you ask the book?”
“The spell book? About the hidden room? No, this particular book isn’t as talkative as some.”
“Spell Book,” Lana said hopefully. “Is there a hidden room in the basement?”
“There is,” replied the book in a deep, male voice.
“Do you know what’s inside?”
“I do not. There is nothing recorded within my pages.”
“Maybe it’s so secret no one dared write about it,” Arenia suggested.
Jules looked at Lana. “The room is sure to be warded.”
“That means Elias won’t be much help. Last time, he couldn’t see the hole in the passageway or the mosaic behind the wardrobe.
“Right. All he could see was a blank stone wall.”
Arenia looked surprised. “I never heard that part of the story. Why couldn’t he see it?”
“Because of his past—using Dark Gems,” Jules explained. “It was a ward that prevented anyone with dark powers from discovering the room.”
“And this is bound to be the same. It will
be up to us to get inside.”
Arenia said wistfully, “No one’s been in there for a couple hundred years. Whatever is inside, I can hardly wait to see it.”
Chapter 22
Elias and Tyla joined them in the library a few minutes later.
“We’re back,” announced Tyla, her face flushed with excitement. “Poor Raenihel! He was more than a little embarrassed to learn Kaff really was the culprit, especially after defending him. Raenihel is calling a meeting with the elders, and they’ll decide what to do about Kaff. As for Kaff’s friends, they weren’t really accomplices, but they’re still in trouble. Instead of going with him, they should have reported him to the elders.”
Lana could barely keep her mind on what Tyla was saying, and Jules looked distracted too.
Elias caught Lana’s eye. “What is it? Something is wrong.”
“I’m sorry. Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that we—well, Arenia showed us something.”
“I showed them the drawings,” Arenia said to Tyla. “And the green dot.”
“Oh,” Tyla said, meaningfully.
“Green dot?” Elias repeated. “Is someone going to tell me or shall I just read your minds?”
“Before I explain about the green dot, I have to show you this.” Arenia opened to the pages that showed the map on the left and the fortress on the right.
Elias bent over the book. “Shadowglade! Only by another name—Elantoth Fortress. Fascinating!” Arenia gave him a minute to look at the map before turning to the page with the six fortresses.
“My word!”
Lana stood and offered Elias her chair. “You’d better sit for the next part.”
He sank into her chair without protest. Arenia turned to the floor plans and pointed to the green dot near the throne room. “You know what this is.”
“The hidden room,” he said, nodding. “And it’s actually marked on the floorplan. Very interesting.”
Her finger traced a path from that dot to the one in the cellar. His eyes widened. “Another hidden room?”
“We haven’t gone to look for it yet,” Arenia said. “We waited for you.”
“That was good of you. No doubt you’re eager to explore. The location is marked, and it appears to be along an outside wall. As for the inevitable ward, I trust you will manage without my help as I won’t be much use to you.”
Jules stood. He was wearing the Challenger’s blade sheathed at his waist. “Last time, the ward’s energy field rippled when my knife touched it. It may do that again and help us find the room.”
Elias said, “I expect there will be a physical object covering the door—as an extra measure of protection. Last time it was a wardrobe. This time . . . well, we’ll soon find out. Lead the way,” he said to the gnomes.
Tyla took the spell book and they trouped to the cellar, a dark, mazelike place of storage rooms that Lana had never fully explored. On her first trip here, she had come through a tiny exterior door and found a low-ceilinged room with shelves of small kegs, clay pots, and old tools. Since then, she’d been in an area set aside for kegs of beer, wine, and fialazza. And another small room with sacks of grain, but that was the extent of her explorations.
Tyla and Arenia led them to a distant section of the cellar that was dry and didn’t smell musty. It held nothing of interest, as far as Lana could tell. Stacks of old lumber. Kegs that needed new wood or metal bands. Old rakes and hoes. And a twelve-foot span of floor-to-ceiling shelving, covered in dust. Arenia sneezed. If the amount of dust and cobwebs was any indication, no one ever came here.
Jules stood behind Tyla, holding up his lightgem while she studied the book. “This is the right area,” she said, and looked over at the shelves.
Jules moved his lightgem, letting its light play over the shelves. “These items have probably been here a hundred years.” He handed Lana the lightgem and unsheathed his knife. As soon as the blade began to glow, he made sweeping arcs in front of the shelves. “It’s here,” he said, his voice tense with excitement. “The air isn’t rippling, but I feel the energy.” He walked to the other end and back. “It’s strongest on the right side. Let’s see if the shelves move.”
Lana and Arenia went over, grabbed one of the filthy shelves, and pulled. Tyla gasped when part of the shelving unit swung outward like a door, moving with unexpected ease. Lana laughed in delight.
“Good job!” Jules sheathed his knife and pushed the door section back farther, out of the way.
Everyone took a few steps back and stared, the gnomes tilting back their heads to see it better.
Elias said, “All I see is a stone wall. What do you see?”
Lana was glad Jules answered, because she was having trouble finding her voice.
“Well, there is a stone wall, but there’s also a tall, arched, wooden door with three panels. “The bottom panel is blank. The center panel has a pedestal carved on it, and there’s a bluish-gray gem embedded in the wood above it. The upper panel had the name Elantoth and runes I couldn’t read.”
“If whatever is inside is half as impressive as the door, I can’t wait to see it,” Lana said in an awed voice.
Elias said, “Tyla or Arenia, place your hand on the gem. I imagine it’s like the other hidden room and someone with gem powers must touch the gem to open the door.”
“You do it,” Tyla told Arenia. “You discovered this room on the floor plan.”
Arenia hesitated and then stepped forward and laid her hand on the gem. “It feels warm!”
That apparently broke the ward; the door swung inward.
“Now I can see the door,” Elias said. He gave Tyla his lightgem. “Go ahead. See what’s inside.”
Tyla and Arenia went in with Lana and the others close behind.
The room was about thirty by thirty with walls made of whitewashed stone, and the floor was gray stones in a geometric pattern.
“Look, pedestals. Like the one on the door,” Tyla said. “Six of them.”
In the center of the room stood a row of waist-high pedestals.
“Six pedestals, six fortresses. I suppose that could be a coincidence.” Arenia said. She was standing in front of a framed wall map, studying it reverently. “This is a bigger version of the map in the spell book.”
“Are the fortresses marked?” Tyla asked.
“Yes, and it shows their names.”
There were other framed maps, and every wall held several framed portraits and documents, but Lana found the pedestals far more interesting. A fist-size gem sat on each one. Arenia continued to study the map, and everyone else went to examine them.
Elias said, “This bluish light is no good. Jules, unsheathe your knife.”
Jules’s blade gave off a more natural light, and as he held it over the closest pedestal, Elias studied the gem briefly and murmured, “Is it possible?”
“What is it?” Lana asked. His expression was giving her goosebumps.
“Do you recall the purple communications gems Franklin and I wore when he was a bird?”
“Yes,” Lana and Jules said together.
“Only one user needed gem powers; the other simply needed to touch the gem, and either party could transmit thoughts and mental images. The channel was always open, so to speak.” He gestured at the stone on the pedestal. “This gem is similar. In fact, it incorporates the purple gem. Notice, it’s purple on one side and green on the other. It’s a mixture of the gem I used with Franklin and a variation that turns telepathic thoughts into the sender’s actual voice. It’s called rizumen. I read about it in S’s spell book but never expected to see one.”
Jules said, “It must be really rare.”
“It is. And yet here we have six of them.”
“So, these gems are for communication,” Tyla said.
“Yes, apparently this is how the fortresses communicated with one another.”
As Lana looked at the gem, questions raced through her mind. “Does it work the same way as the gem you used with Franklin�
�only one user needs gem powers?”
“Yes. It’s an open channel, so a person without gem powers can send or receive a message, but someone with gem powers must be touching the gem on the other end.”
Tyla looked confused. “How would the other person know there was a message?”
“From what I’ve read, when you touch the gem it glows, and so does the one on the other end,” Elias explained.
“So each fortress must have someone watching the gems,” Arenia concluded.
“Yes. They would need someone on duty at all times.”
Everyone stared silently at the pedestals, and then Lana asked what must be on every mind. “So, is it possible to contact one of the other fortresses?”
Elias went to the map that showed all of Ahmonell. “I suspect communication may be possible even though our over-zealous Amulet won’t allow physical objects through.” He tapped a finger on the Elantoth Fortress emblem. “We are here.” He moved his finger across the map to the nearest emblem, leaned closer, and read the name. “Aberell Fortress.”
“How do we know which gem links us to Aberell? Arenia asked.
“Maybe there’s an emblem or name somewhere,” Jules said, and he began to examine one of the pedestals, eventually kneeling to inspect its base.
Lana dropped to one knee beside him and brushed dust from the wide base molding. “There’s lettering here,” she said. “Ominem Fortress. That proves these pedestals are associated with the fortresses.”
He moved to the next one and brushed dirt from the base. “Mierek Fortress.” He continued down the line. “Waymare. Pantirek. Here is Aberell. And ours is last—Elantoth.”
“Why do we need a communication link to our own fortress?” Arenia asked from across the room where she was examining portraits and documents. “We wouldn’t send messages to ourselves.”
“Maybe it lets you send and receive messages within Shadowglade,” Lana said. She wanted to add, like an intercom, but no one here would know what that was.
