“They were our guardians,” Calester said. “They had the bodies but also the hearts of lions, borne skyward by eagle’s wings. Their minds were as fine and wise as any philosopher’s. I regret that I must mourn them.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes.
“Did you make them?” Serafina asked gently.
Calester turned to her. “Yes, but we could not give them the character that they brought with them. They had been soldiers and scholars. Brave, intelligent, and self-sacrificing, they guarded the Compendium for a hundred centuries. Who would have guessed that one man could defeat them and undo all that we did?”
“Nemeth was desperate,” Olen said. “He was desperate and angry and hungry with curiosity. The thought of the book drew him so strongly he was willing to kill for it.”
“It is my family and people he nearly destroyed, Master Wizard,” Soliandur said dryly. “You can be less admiring of him.”
“I must admire one who managed to undo the wills of six Makers,” Olen said. “And, you must admit, my lord, you are not blameless in the episode. Because of you, a mouse transformed himself into a serpent.”
The king glared, but Halcot put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s done cannot be undone, my brother. Our creators know that once time passes, what happened in that moment is set forever.” The ruefulness of his expression was not lost upon his brother king.
“Ah, well,” Soliandur said with a glance at Halcot. “If you can forgive, then I must. He cannot come back, and I shall not make the same mistake again.”
“Nor I,” Calester said. “This time when I close the path it will be for good. I cannot leave the possibility of access to an ill-meaning wizard. The world is too vulnerable as it is.”
“How will we do this, then?” Olen asked keenly. “I see a road that leads onward past this spot.”
“Where?” Tildi asked. “I don’t see anything but more trees and plants.”
Serafina smiled at her. “If you can’t see, then listen. Some of the trees are illusory. You will hear no song from them. In fact, it might be wise to follow this path with one’s eyes closed, and go where there is inner silence.” Tildi concentrated. Serafina was right. The trees did make their own sound, everywhere but a narrow section to the southeast. That part seemed empty, like a hollow log.
Calester beamed upon her as if he had invented her, too. “Well thought out, Mistress Serafina,” he said. “Though the way is not unguarded, even without its protectors. We designed this place never to be approached alone. I will require you to open the path for me, and keep it open until my return, or I shall be trapped within the mountain until the end of time. No matter what you think of me, little one,” he added, to Tildi, “does that seem fair?”
She felt her cheeks burned. “No, master, it does not.”
“But if no one can approach it alone,” Magpie asked, “how did Nemeth do it?”
Calester looked startled. “I do not know. Had he allies?”
“None that I know of,” Magpie said. He glanced at his father. Soliandur’s eyes burned with shame.
Olen sighed. “I fear the secret died with him. What do you require of us?”
Calester tactfully ignored the expressions that passed between father and son. He gestured in the direction of the emptiness. “Think of the passage inward as a long tube of cloth that lies flat until it is needed. It must be raised and held open. One wizard can do it. Who shall it be?” He looked from Tildi to Olen to Serafina.
“I would like to see the book settled in its place,” Tildi said. Her voice rang brittle on the clear air. “May I go with you instead?”
Calester eyed her. “I had planned to go alone, but as you have borne the Compendium all this time, the request is not without merit. Master Olen?”
“I will maintain the way,” her teacher said. “With these fine people to guard me, I should have nothing to fear from mundane interruptions.”
“Then I shall come with Tildi,” Serafina said in a firm voice. Calester snorted.
“Three, then, but no more!” he said, holding up a hand to forestall protests.
Magpie sat back in his saddle. Tildi could see he had been about to ask. She smiled apologetically at him.
“When you come back, tell me all of what it was like,” he said to her. “I can’t end my song without it.”
“I will,” Tildi said, but in her heart the words did not have the force of a promise. She gave him a wan smile. He looked concerned, but she turned away hastily. She stepped down from Rin’s back. The book floated after her.
“Don’t go doing anything foolish,” Gosto said.
“I won’t!” Tildi said impatiently. She stalked over to stand beside the Guardian. Serafina rested a hand on Tildi’s shoulder. Tildi shook her off, feeling as though everyone was looking at her. She hated the sensation, more than she ever had. Well, it would be over soon, one way or another.
Olen turned back the sleeves of his long robe and held up his hands. He closed his eyes and reached out. “I feel the edges of the spell,” he said. “They are heavy but malleable, like . . . curtains made of lead.”
Calester nodded approval. “You have it, my friend. That is our doorway. Can you manipulate it?”
“Oh, yes.” Olen opened his eyes. “I wish you all good fortune, my friends. Tildi, there were promises made. Do you remember them?”
She looked up at him, startled, as if he were reading her thoughts. “I remember them, master.”
His green eyes fixed upon hers. “Good. I will see you upon your return.” He raised his hands slowly, as though he were balancing something flat upon his palms. “Hurry, then. I will not fail you.”
Calester led the way. He ducked as he passed Master Olen and gestured to the others to do the same. Serafina reached up, and her hand flattened upon something that Tildi could not see.
Lead curtains was an odd idea, but Tildi could understand what Olen meant. Though they walked in green-dappled sunshine for more than a mile, she was aware of the feeling of being closed in. The air in the passageway smelled like a closet that had been closed for a long time. Not musty, but cold and abandoned. The book floated beside her serenely, glowing in the brilliant sun like a beacon of ivory. The voices sounded excited. She wished she could share their joy. The pathway wound through exquisite countryside, spiraling in toward the mountainside.
Calester, ahead of them, suddenly held out his palm. Blue light burst into being on his palm. Within two steps they had passed under the foot of the mountain, and all the sunlight was extinguished. The book still held its own light. Tildi kept a hand on it.
They walked through solid stone, where there was no passage but the magical corridor, and across secret caverns that had never seen sunlight. Stalactites hung from the ceiling in lacelike profusion. An occasional plunk of water resounded in the magical roadway, though no water ever touched them. Runes lit up the walls in the winding passage. They were not only the names of the objects themselves.
“What are these inscriptions, Master Calester?” Serafina asked, peering curiously at an elaborate sigil.
“Spells, instructions, and warnings that we left here when we sealed the book away the first time,” Calester explained. “Look there.” He pointed to some signs that did not look as perfectly scribed as the others. “Your book thief’s work. He undid these words of power. He must have been a powerful seer to know which ones would allow him to pass. It is a pity I did not have the teaching of him. In our company his gift could have made him great.”
And that was all the eulogy that poor Nemeth would ever have, Tildi thought. She wondered what words would be said over her one day. Unbidden, Serafina’s hand touched her shoulder. Tildi forced gloomy thoughts away from her.
The darkness around them gradually grew grayer. Calester let his beacon of light drop. He followed the curve of the corridor around to the left.
“Come, Tildi,” he said. “This is the final place. The entire mountain is above us now.”
Tild
i trotted to catch up with him, and had to throw up her hand to shield her eyes. Calester led them into a flattened dome, a broad, low, smooth-sided chamber like a hollow lens. Runes decorated the narrow rim, but the room was entirely empty except for a pillar of light at the center. Tildi approached it warily.
“You may touch it,” Calester said. “It is wizard-crystal. As you see, it was purposely made to contain the book. I continue to marvel at the way the Compendium was removed, without doing damage to the pillar. Somewhere Nemeth must have found a record of our spells, or he simply intuited them.”
Tildi put her hand on the smooth surface. She felt the prickling of great power coming awake. Light coruscated from the center and surrounded the Compendium with rainbows. The book danced, and the voices cried out for joy.
“No!” Tildi exclaimed. Her voice echoed in the hollow chamber.
“I am afraid yes,” Calester said, not without sympathy. “It knows the object it is meant to protect. You must let it go now, Tildi. I will allow you a moment to say your farewells.”
Tildi snatched the book out of the air and clutched it to her. At that moment she knew she would not be able to let it go. She felt its smoothness, its texture, its cool surface.
“You cannot take it from me,” she said defiantly. “It is part of me now. It is the only thing that makes me happy.”
“Tildi!” Serafina said warningly. “You have always known you must give it up.”
Tildi felt her eyes flood with tears. “I know, but now that I must do it, it’s too hard!”
“I will get Olen,” Serafina said. “If I can’t talk sense into you, he can.”
“No,” Calester said, his deep-set eyes glowing blue like sapphires. “She has to make the choice. You have been touched by it, Tildi. It will always be a part of you, but you know what destruction it can cause.”
“I know,” Tildi said. She put her chin up. She had been thinking hard for days, and she knew that she had the only solution. “I will stay here with it. Put me inside it.”
“You can’t do that,” Serafina said. “Your entire life is ahead of you.”
“But look at Knemet! He was separated from it, and it drove him mad.”
Calester shook his head. “It was not the lack of the book that changed him. It was loneliness, and lack of purpose. But you may stay if you wish. You will be left alone here forever with the book. Is that what you want? Think of your family. You rescued them, but you will never see them again.” He took a step toward her, his hand outstretched, palm up. Sensing a trick, Tildi backed away. Calester stopped. “They are just a few miles away from you. What would they think if their sister entombed herself, when you had just been reunited?”
The voices invited her to join them. Knemet, the newest, sounded joyful and content, his translucent red rune on the back of the parchment now intertwined with Boma’s, even offered his welcome in words that she could understand. They were happy. She could be happy with them, if she wished. But Tildi had no love to spend her eternity with.
“You would be lonely, with no purpose, for all the rest of time,” Serafina said, as though she could hear that insecure thought in her mind. “You would be with the book just to be with it. You haven’t even finished your education as a wizard. Let go, Tildi. Come back. There is so much for you out in the world.” She, too, extended a hand to Tildi.
Tildi burst into tears. She fished Gosto’s cloth from her pouch and buried her face in it. The voices echoed in her mind, inviting, persuading. She felt a reluctance growing within her. They were strong, but they were strangers. Her brothers were waiting. Master Olen had all but made her promise to come back. Silvertree was waiting. She hoped to get a new twig from her to replace the one destroyed by the kotyrs. That might never happen now.
“You said you would describe this place to Prince Eremilandur,” Serafina reminded her. “How will he know what is here if you do not tell him? I won’t.”
“You won’t?” Tildi asked, astonished.
Serafina set her narrow jaw. “No. He asked you. I won’t say a word.”
“Well?” Calester asked. “I can wait forever, but Master Olen cannot. The spell will begin to weary him. You would not trap Mistress Serafina in here while you dally.”
“I am not dallying!” Tildi said, provoked beyond her endurance by the irritating Maker. He grinned, and she realized he had done it deliberately. The words were the most difficult ones she had ever forced past her lips. “Very well.” She put her hands on the bobbing scroll. After enjoying its touch for a moment, she pushed it toward Calester. “Take it.”
“You will let it go?” Serafina asked. Tildi looked at her and realized how concerned she had been that Tildi really meant to stay. “You will come forth again?”
Tildi went to embrace the young wizardess, realizing how dear she was to her. “Yes. You are right. I can’t leave the world just yet.”
“But the Compendium must,” Calester said impatiently. “Hurry, now. The longer we wait, the more regrets you will have. Since you have been of so much help, I will allow you the singular honor of placing it in the crystal.” Serafina gave her a fierce hug, then released her.
“Thank you,” Tildi said, her eyes shining with more than tears. “Show me what to do.”
Calester knelt beside her and put his hand on hers. “There is a way into the pillar of crystal, but it does not exist in the world. It is only inside the Compendium. Find it.”
With her free hand, she gestured at the book, which spun obediently to a page. She gestured to it to draw near, so she could look at the runes depicted on it. There were the symbols for chamber and round, and the runes for the three of them in between them. The pillar stood at the opposite corner of the page from them, as if it existed in a different realm than they did. Tildi opened her hand to expand that symbol so she could see it better. The symmetry of the word was as perfect as the object itself, and decorated with rainbow illuminations. Tildi searched it, looking for anything that said door, or opening. She stared at it again and again, until she realized that tendrils from the sides appeared to stretch outward to infinity. “It isn’t closed at all.”
“Not inside the Compendium. You must concentrate upon what you see there, at the same time that you send the book into the pillar.”
“She has to put the book into a rune that exists only inside itself?” Serafina asked.
Calester pursed his lips humorously. “It wasn’t meant to be a riddle any fool could work out,” he said. “Come, now. Concentrate. Keep it in your mind. The Compendium contains all of reality, therefore what you see before you is real. Believe it.”
Tildi closed her eyes. In her mind she saw the image of the pillar as it appeared on the page. The rune for the book was before her. With Calester guiding her hands, she pushed the two of them toward each other. The book was within the crystal pillar that was within the book. She held her breath until she felt something snap just like the lid of a box. Serafina let out a gasp. Tildi’s eyes flew open.
The Compendium hung before her, sealed inside the crystal. Tildi pressed her hands upon it, but it was solid. The book was out of her reach now, forever. She felt as though she might cry. It looked so perfect there, perfect and not quite real any longer.
“It is done,” Calester said. “Thank you for your assistance.”
As soon as the crystal was sealed, all the runes except those that had been written by the ancient Shining Ones winked out. Tildi looked a question at Calester.
“The pillar dampens its influence,” he explained. “Otherwise it would continue to make mischief in here. You can still see runes in everything because you are an apprentice wizard, but no one else can.”
Tildi flattened her hands on the case and stared at the scroll. Its companionable presence was gone. Only the image remained. “I feel as if a piece of me has been cut off. I will miss it so much.”
“Remember the Law of Contagion,” Serafina said.
“The Compendium will still be a part o
f you,” Calester said. “You just won’t be able to touch it. You have the leaf, don’t you?” Tildi fished in her pouch for the pathetic scrap of parchment that had started her on her journey. It was only the second time looking at it in months. She sighed, looking at the glorious scroll. She had never and would never again see anything as beautiful as that. The poor, ragged leaf hardly compared. “There, you shall have a link to it forever.”
Tildi smiled. “It’s not the same, but it’s enough. It’s all that someone like me ought to have, truly.” She bid it one final farewell. One last glance over her shoulder at the perfect parchment scroll, suspended in glistening crystal, and she turned away. Even the voices were muted by the pillar’s substance, but she fancied she could hear them saying goodbye, even Knemet.
But as they walked out of the lens-shaped chamber, Tildi realized that she could still feel the book. She had a special bond to it, and always would.
“Come, sister,” Calester said, smiling benevolently upon her.
Tildi hesitated at the word. He bent down to touch the top of her head. “Oh, you deserve the title, my dear smallfolk. Not only have your people developed beyond our greatest dreams for them, but you and your family have proved to me that they can be great in the world as well. Your future will be as glorious as you care to make it.”
“Well!” Tildi said, ever harkening back to her practical roots. “We’ll see if it ever needs to be glorious. I will settle for being able to learn again, without having to risk so much.”
“Magic is always a risk,” Calester said, redrawing the runes on the walls of the round chamber, “as I believe your friend told you. He is a wise man. I look forward to many days in his company.”
“As do I,” Tildi said. She took one more backward glance at the book, held forever in midair, as if waiting for someone to open it and read its beautifully drawn pages. But that would never happen again. She touched the tightly rolled fragment in her pouch. All that would come hereafter was a pale imitation. Better to embrace real life.
A Forthcoming Wizard Page 59
