Many Hidden Rooms

by S. J. Varengo

  Cerah sat in silence for several minutes, not quite believing what she was seeing. The sacred plant that had been placed by Ma’uzzi himself and had guided the wizards for countless millennia, lay still and lifeless before her. She did not know if it had been her manhandling of the Sarquahn when she first commanded it or the thrusting away of her presence by Surok which had brought about its demise.

  “You might as well come down,” she heard Tressida’s voice say in her mind.

  “Yes,” she replied. “I’m coming.”

  She stood and turned to leave the chamber. Before she exited, she turned one last time to look at the entity which, according to the runes of Onesperus, Ma’uzzi himself had called “the symbol and the source.” She realized that its extinction would be a blow to the wizards of Melsa. They would not be able to conceive their lives without it, for it had ever been there, and they had carried its spark with them from the dawn of their history. Now that spark was extinguished. Cerah held her hand over her nose. The flesh of the Sarquahn was rotting, and it gave off a fetid stench. Ma’uzzi’s Rest had become a sepulcher.

  She hurried out, eager to rejoin Tressida. But as she entered the Hall of Whispers she felt an almost physical presence restrain her, and she came to a sudden and complete stop. To her surprise, she saw a misty figure of a man appear before her. Even before he spoke, she knew that it was the great wizard Therrien.

  “Tarry, daughter,” he said.

  Cerah nodded her head in respect, and the wizard went on. “I offer you an account of what has transpired. It was neither your dominance over the sacred plant, nor the filthy hand of the beast that caused its end. This was ever the will of Ma’uzzi. He indeed brought it into being. He made it the symbol and the source. But always its tenure was to be complete upon the ascension of the Chosen One. The spark of the Sarquahn has been consumed by the Greater Spark. Wizard-kind no longer requires it to guide them. They shall now reach out to you. All authority is given to you, Cerah of Quadar.”

  The wizard’s words made their way into not only Cerah’s ears, but into her body; indeed, into her entire being. They were not only an explanation, but a blessing. They were her final commission. She was now, as Tressida had presciently spoken, fully the Chosen One.

  Therrien said no more, and Cerah sensed that he had released her. She walked out of Onesperus, unsure of when she would again find her way back to it.

  Twenty minutes later, she was again riding upon the golden dragon. She felt drained. Her will did not falter, but her flesh was weary.

  “Take me home, my sweet,” she said to Tressida. “I need to rest in my husband’s arms. Tomorrow we begin the liberation of our planet.”

  “I will hurry,” Tressida replied. Then she addressed Cerah’s confrontation of Surok. “Do not concern yourself with that monster’s foul words. He will cower before you, begging you for mercy.”

  “And he will find there is none,” said Cerah. “None at all.”

  Chapter 7

  The Army of Quadar

  Had there been any ship sailing the Mayduk between Melsa and Illyria, and had anyone aboard looked to the sky, the sight that met him would have been a challenge to his reason. Cerah had left a force of only fifty to guard the island. The rest, wizards with their match-mates as well as the great swarm of the riderless, were now flying behind her to Harundy. Slurr sat with her on Tressida’s back, while Parnasus and Dardaan kept pace. Kern and Zayan flew just behind them. The journey by sea from the port city of Harundy to the island of wizards had taken the better part of a week. By dragon, the return migration would take only two days, and they had almost completed the first half. Cerah told Tressida to be on the lookout for an island large enough for the nearly five hundred dragons to rest.

  Kern moved alongside Cerah. “When we reach Harundy we shall have to see if Baldor’s old forge is available for Zayan to use. He has told me that he will need less time to prepare Slurr’s weapon and armor if he has a proper smithy’s shop in which to work.”

  “Well,” Cerah replied, “we certainly know that Baldor won’t be using it. His days of smithing are over, thanks to Slurr, the champion of Harundy.”

  “I hope no one expects me to defend my title,” Slurr said.

  “No, your career in the prize ring is over. You fight for bigger stakes now,” Cerah said. “At any rate, if the forge is in use I will see that it is vacated for Zayan to work.”

  Kern was still getting used to the command with which Cerah now spoke. Having seen her go through the months of struggle to get to a point where she could even say the words “Chosen One,” let alone accept that she was indeed just that, it was amazing to him that she now moved, talked, and thought as though it was a role she was born to. Well, he thought, I suppose she was born to it, but it has only been a matter of months since it has become a reality to her. And now she leads with confidence and power. It is wonderful to see!

  “That place looks big enough,” Tressida told Cerah, flying downward toward what appeared to be an uninhabited island. It was sparsely vegetated but appeared to have a sizable lake toward its center.

  “Yes, I think that will be suitable. Kern, spread the word. We will pass the night here.”

  Cerah led the descent, and upon Kern’s command the rest of the flight followed suit. Before landing, the entire mass of dragons spread out, flying low over the water and began to catch their dinner. Although Tressida had communicated to all of them that they were embarking upon a time of great peril, they still fished with great exuberance, tossing food to one another, sometimes grasping a fish in each claw just for the purpose of throwing three to other dragons while lofting one in the air for their own consumption. It was such a joyous exhibition that Slurr and Cerah found themselves laughing with glee at the sight of it.

  “They certainly know how to throw a party,” Slurr said.

  “Tell him a dragon’s meal is the highlight of its day,” Tressida said into Cerah’s mind. “Since one has to eat, one might as well enjoy it fully.”

  Cerah told Slurr what she had said, and he reached down and patted her playfully on the flank, “By all means, your majesty!” he told her. She curled her tail around and poked him in the ribs.

  Finally, the comic ballet was finished, and the flight set down upon the island. It was indeed completely void of life aside from a few straggling patches of scrub. The water of the inland lake was quite good, however, and the wizards and dragons both partook of its cool, refreshing wetness.

  After the wizards ate from the provisions they had packed before leaving Melsa, they settled in for the night, lighting numerous fires across the island to keep them warm. The winter season was almost fully upon them now. Cerah thought about this as she sat by a roaring blaze with her core group of Parnasus, Slurr, Kern, and Zayan.

  “It is good that the cold has come,” she said. “It will help acclimate the army to the Frozen South.”

  “I’m afraid nothing can quite prepare a person for that cold,” said Parnasus. “The Frozen South is far more frigid than even the worst winter in this latitude. Of the ten continents, six are in temperate zones where the seasons change as you have known them to do during your years on Illyria. Frezza lies almost directly on the central latitude of Quadar and as such remains warm year-round. Ceekas and Jenoobia are also in the tropics, while Pydigia lies far to the north and remains cool almost always. The Frozen South sees so little sunlight for most of the year that the temperature never even approaches freezing. Freezing would be a heat wave there.”

  Cerah pondered this. “Does it storm badly?” she asked.

  “In truth it does not, for the most part. Although it is sealed in ice miles thick, it is really more of a desert, albeit a bitterly cold one.”

  “Desert? When I think of desert I think of sand, like the Ochoka.”

  “That is what most would picture,” Parnasus said. “But the Frozen South meets the criteria for a desert just as well. There is no precipitation there. The ice is ancient, b
ut very little snow falls, with one exception. The peak in which Surok’s lair is located is so high that it creates its own weather. There is a chance that we could encounter brutal storms there.”

  Zayan made a sound indicating displeasure. “I certainly do not relish the thought of that. I have lived most of my life in steamy jungles. I have already found the clime of this latitude a bit chilled for my taste. Mile deep ice and mountains giving rise to their own blizzards? I shall require even more of the warm clothing you’ve so generously provided me.”

  Slurr clapped him on the back. “We will see that you are protected against the elements, friend Zayan.” The Riddue smiled at the man for whom he would be soon creating another of his unparalleled weapons.

  “Regardless of how cold or how snowy, we will march across the ice, up the mountain, and into the monster’s cave. I will finish what Opatta started,” Cerah said. The others voiced their agreement with her declaration. “There is another topic I wish to discuss with you, my most trusted, before we begin our invasion in earnest.”

  “Speak, Chosen One,” said Kern.

  “I have seen the human captives in my visions. Their liberation is one of our most pressing objectives. It is my hope, no my prayer, that somewhere among that mass of prisoners we will find the remainder of my family. Obviously, they were among those taken when Kamara was destroyed. I hold tightly to the hope that they are not among those whose gruesome fate I observed when I Went Within.”

  “I hold that hope as well,” said Parnasus. “You told me that when you returned there the second time there were still many thousands.”

  “There were, though I could tell that there were but a fraction of the vast multitude I had seen the first time. Every day that passes means certain death for more and more of the prisoners.”

  They fell silent, each considering this truth privately.

  After several minutes, Parnasus cleared his throat. “I too have a subject to broach,” he said.

  “What is it?” asked Cerah.

  “The fate of the Sarquahn.” Cerah had only briefly spoken to them about the death of the sacred plant. “I do not yet know what its dying means for the race of wizards. Nor do I fully understand how its passing came to be. You said that its actions were different even as you arrived in Ma’uzzi’s Rest?”

  “They were. When you brought me to see it, and then when I went back alone, it was very active, very kinetic. Its branches swayed and danced, its flames flickered, growing alternately brighter and dimmer. It was always in motion. This time, however, it stood completely still.”

  “And when you reached out to it?”

  “It reacted in what I can only describe as fear. It did not want to accept my advances.”

  “What do you make of that?” Kern asked Parnasus.

  “I do not know what to think. Neither can I imagine our race without it. Even when a wizard leaves Melsa, he carries a connection to the Sarquahn with him. He can always Go Within, reaching out to it over time and space from wherever he may find himself. What we will do now I do not know.”

  “I can answer your questions,” Cerah said. “Because it was explained to me by the spirit of Therrien as I prepared to leave the cave. I had believed that perhaps the Sarquahn was completely overcome by my presence. I did not approach it with much benevolence in my heart after the way it used me during my last encounter. My ability to make use of the Greater Spark has gone beyond the boundaries of the things you and Kern taught me, and certainly beyond the limits of anything the sacred plant had ever experienced before. I have not yet found the limits of my own will, my own power. The Greater Spark allowed me to punish the Sarquahn for its attempt against me, and although I did not intend to destroy it, it was destroyed. I also thought that perhaps the evil of Surok, reaching toward me, may have contributed to its end. But according to Therrien it was neither.” She went on to outline the interpretation that her great ancestor had presented to her. “The Sarquahn was Ma’uzzi’s gift to wizard-kind, but he knew when he first brought it forth deep within Onesperus that he would one day give to you a greater gift, capable of aiding you far more than the sacred plant ever could.”

  “Hmmm,” was Parnasus’s only reply, though he thought deeply on what Cerah was saying. He alone was not shocked by what she said next.

  “As for what we will do now, I can tell you this: I no longer require the spark of the Sarquahn to Go Within.”

  “What? Are you certain?” asked Kern in absolute shock.

  “I am,” Cerah replied. “And what is more, none of you need it either. The Greater Spark is all that is required. You will learn to channel me in the same way you once reached out to the Sarquahn. I will bring you where you need to go, I will show you what you need to see. And just as it was true that you did not need to be in the presence of the Sarquahn to Go Within, so you will not need to be with me. You will only need to reach out to me in spirit and in will. This has all been confirmed and made clear to me in the hours we have been traveling. I’ve seen the young wizards arriving in Nedar. I’ve seen their assembly begin their new task of gathering ships for us. The visions come to me easily now. They will come just as easily to you. You will no longer be at the mercy of the Sarquahn’s whims. You will not need to wrestle with an entity which contains equal parts of lightness and dark, which would as soon possess you as it would assist you. I am the new gift that Ma’uzzi offers to you, that he has always planned for you. The darkness is banished. The Greater Spark will guide us all.”

  The old wizards marveled at Cerah’s words. Even Parnasus, who, while not caught quite as off guard as was his student Kern by Cerah’s revelation, found himself in awe of the woman who sat beside him in the glow of the fire.

  Slurr, however, was not astounded. In fact, the only emotion he experienced was the same one that was with him every day. He merely felt his love for his wife grow another measure stronger. Thank you, Ma’uzzi, he prayed silently as he sat beside her, for letting me walk with this woman again today.

  With much to consider, they gradually fell asleep, each eager to finish the journey to Harundy the following day. Cerah, however, lay awake long into the night. She had felt something for the first time in the moments after they had finished talking. Parnasus had reached out to the Greater Spark. He had used Cerah to Go Within. She did not see what vision he had sought; apparently that was not Ma’uzzi’s intention. But that first sensation of another wizard coupling with the Greater Spark was not something she would soon forget. She had felt a strengthening, both of the seeker and of the Spark itself. Cerah sensed that she had given something of herself, and that Parnasus had taken it. And she had felt a rush of an emotion that she could not name, though Jul Passel would have recognized it immediately. Jul would have called it “maternal.” Having never given birth, Cerah could not connect the two experiences. But still, she understood much. A new aspect of being the Chosen One is revealed to me, she thought, in spite of not being able to label the sensation. The wizards of Melsa are no longer just my teachers and my allies. They are my charges. Even the most ancient of the elders will draw from me what they require. My responsibility grows ever greater.

  “No, I will not give you my ship to use!” said the sea captain, one Kakarius Fairharbor. Kerval stood before the defiant sailor on the docks of Tarteel, the largest port on the continent of Pydigia. “I earn my livelihood with this vessel, bringing goods and passengers from port to port. Am I to just forget about feeding myself and my crew so that you can transport some rag-tag group of Pydigians who think they are an army?”

  “You and your crew will eat, good captain. But I tell you this: there will be very little in the way of goods to transport while the war is being waged. Likewise, your passenger trade will be virtually nonexistent. Those who need passage now are the warriors of the free people.”

  “I have no stock in your imagined war. Who are you fighting? I see no enemy!”

  “Come with us,” said Kerval, “and I will show you enemy eno
ugh for a dozen lifetimes.”

  “I will not!” Kakarius shouted once again.

  Kerval was quickly growing impatient with the captain’s stubborn refusal to listen to reason. So, Captain Fairharbor, he thought, rational discussion is not your cup of tea, eh? Let’s move beyond that then. “Captain, you will lend your ship to our cause.”

  “And if I don’t? Do you think I fear a scrawny hooligan like you, just because you claim to be a wizard of Melsa? Of all the impudent, brazen, impertinent—” The captain was so angered he could not even complete the thought. “I should just throttle you myself, right here on the dock, then throw your bony carcass into the water for the fish to dine upon.”

  Kerval smiled. “If you do not yield to my request, then your ship is of no use to me, and I will see to it that you cannot use it either.”

  Fairharbor’s ire grew even hotter. “A threat? And how do you propose to keep me from using my own vessel? In fact, how do you propose to keep me from exterminating you?”

  Kerval pointed his staff to a small dinghy floating near the dock on which they stood. “Do you see that vessel?”

  “Of course, I see it. What of it?”

  Continuing to aim the staff at the small boat, he said, “Well, that boat is of no use to me either. Let’s see exactly what I propose, shall we?” A bolt of flame leapt from the staff, striking the dinghy and incinerating it in a matter of seconds. As the ashes sank beneath the waves, Kerval, still smiling, said, “That is my proposal. It is no more work to do that to your ship. And it matters not to me whether you are on board when I send its remains to the sea floor. If I cannot use it, no one will.”

  Kakarius swallowed hard and took a long step away from the young wizard. He looked to where the small boat had bobbed in the water only a moment before, then said finally, “The Artoine is at your service. When do we set sail?”