A rebuked Zedd’aki toned down his bitterness.
“Are you going to be okay? Should we continue?”
“Hurts like hell, but I’ll live. Thanks for asking,” Ja’tar spat.
“We should try to be more careful ….”
“No, really?” an irritated Ja’tar sardonically quipped. “You think?”
Zedd’aki disregarded his friend’s rants. “So how do you want to approach this?”
Ja’tar was still upset, but more at himself than his friend. That had been plain carelessness on his part. He knew better. They, he, had been rushing and had become careless. Too many years of superficial study had left him weak and dull witted. He vowed to never be complacent again. He steeled his jaw and growled.
Ja’tar didn’t realize he hadn’t answered his friend until he looked up and saw a quizzical look on his face and heard an impatient, “Well? Or are you gonna just growl at me all night?”
A flush-faced Ja’tar mused, “I think that we should expect the unexpected. The Ten were very clever. They were overly proud of their mastery of the craft and filled with pride at their clever solutions. Although they designed this Keep, remember that my father was the last to access this place, so his knowledge and skill was sufficient.”
“Your father was practically a god,” Zedd’aki grumbled.
“— And?”
“— and hopefully, he passed on all that knowledge to you,” Zedd’aki smirked. “— I don’t know about the skill!”
Ja’tar resigned himself to the fact that Zedd’aki was by no means going to change, so he brushed off his latest remark and turned his attention to the problem at hand.
He pondered out loud. “So how do you get around a bolt of lightning?”
Zedd’aki shrugged.
Ja’tar was standing in front of the door scratching his chin. “Hmm, How long does it take to recharge? Water perhaps to diffuse it?”
“Water won’t work,” Zedd’aki reminded his friend. “Remember when Joll’ab was hit by lightning in the rain? We never did find much left of him.”
Ja’tar nodded his understanding. “I’m open to suggestions. Let’s put our heads together here …”
“Perhaps a shield?” offered up Zedd’aki.
The two mages wove shields of air and tried again. This time their wards kept them from injury, but they were no closer to solving the puzzle. The two kept at it for well over an hour, trying many variations of dispersal spells. None worked.
Zedd’aki scratched his head. “Why don’t you use that fancy marble of yours? Maybe it works for more than the outside door.”
“That would be stupid … the first rule of magic is to never repeat …,” Ja’tar lectured.
Zedd’aki merely said one sentence. “The Ten never followed the rules.”
Ja’tar was amazed at the suggestion. It was brilliant.
“Zedd’aki, you are a very clever mage ….”
“I’m only clever if it works,” Zedd’aki replied a bit embarrassed.
“Better refresh our protections first,” Ja’tar suggested. “Just in case —”
Zedd’aki tilted his head. “In case of what?”
“In case you’re … wrong.” Ja’tar laughed.
“I’m rarely wrong,” Zedd’aki stated dryly.
“Just the same …”
“Better bolster yours then,” Zedd’aki added with a big grin. “I don’t plan on getting within an arms length of that door.”
“— But it’s your suggestion,” Ja’tar reasoned.
“No buts. You’re the Keeper, lead!”
Ja’tar harrumphed and let Zedd’aki add to his wards. At the last minute, Zedd’aki added a spell to muffle the sound. Ja’tar nodded his head as his ears went quiet. Zedd’aki stepped away and graciously motioned his friend to the door.
“Showing me the door?” Ja’tar joked loudly.
Zedd’aki rolled his eyes. “Just trying to help …”
Zedd’aki cast a hearing spell on himself.
Ja’tar reached into his robe’s pocket, pulled out the marble, and began chanting. He felt a chill as the metal spread up his arm. Once he was fully metal, he reached for the door. A loud thunderclap shook the room as the brilliant flash of the discharge made him jerk his hand back, but he felt no pain. He cursed as he was seeing bright white spots and streaks in his eyes. He looked away, and turned his head to guard his eyes. He slowly slid sideways closer and closer to the door. The lightning danced and twisted around his hand and arm until he fully grasped the knob. He gave it a twist and felt the door give way. As soon as the door cracked open, the lightning stopped.
He opened it completely and after returning the marble to his pocket, he smugly motioned for his friend to enter. Zedd’aki slowly approached the door, keeping his back tight to the side opposite of the knob, no sense in taking any chances. Once he crossed the threshold, he quickly moved into the center of the room. The lights flickered on as they entered the room and the both of them gawked in awe.
He stood in the entry of an immense library with rows and rows of shelves as far as his eye could see. The luscious volumes handwritten and leather bound stacked to the ceiling. He couldn’t help but let out a whistle of admiration.
“By the Ten, it’ll take us years to find the volume you seek!” Zedd’aki shouted defeated. He realized he still had his ears shielded, so he released the spell, letting it unravel, as did his friend.
“Maybe not,” said Ja’tar enthusiastically. “My father showed me a book listing once that referenced the books to certain rows and shelves. We need to find that list. Let’s look, but not touch.”
The two began to systematically search the room. The size of the room had both mages in awe. Ja’tar didn’t remember it being as large as this, but reconciled that fact with the assumption that his father had continued work on the Cave long after he had last taken Ja’tar to visit.
Ja’tar didn’t find any list as he had expected, but he did finally happen upon a Librarian. Walking up to the kiosk, he spoke to the mirror surface and waited. After a long while, the librarian apparition appeared, adjusted his small thin spectacles and cleared its throat. “Yes …”
Ja’tar excitedly shouted out for his friend. “Over here, I found it.”
By the time Zedd’aki found him, he had already been talking to the librarian for some time. Not that he was making much progress, but he knew a lot more about the library than when he had first entered the room. The rooms to the rear were locked and required two different keys to open, the lower chamber was strictly forbidden, and the librarian had warned that it was heavily protected. The general library was accessible; however, some of the tomes were warded.
An out of breath Zedd’aki panted, “Make any progress?”
“Not really,” a frustrated Ja’tar conceded.
“Well, if this one is anything like the scheduler, we could be here all night —”
“It seems to only be able to answer direct questions,” a beguiled Ja’tar muttered.
“That is strange,” Zedd’aki agreed. “Maybe it doesn’t wish to answer the questions for some reason. Can I try?”
Ja’tar aloofly waved his friend to the podium with a grimace on his face. “Give it a try …”
Zedd’aki thought for a bit and very carefully worded his question, “Are you able to answer any question posed to you about the tomes contained within these walls?”
“Yes,” the librarian answered dryly.
“Will you answer any question?”
“No!” the librarian said, looking down its nose.
“Will you tell me why not?”
“The questions you ask are uninformed. You obviously know nothing about the library and do not belong here, therefore, I refuse to provide you the information you seek. You should leave before you are injured.”
Zedd’aki again paused before replying. “We were children when the library was sealed. It has been closed for almost thirteen-hundred years. We are
in desperate need of information to protect the Guild. Would you reconsider?”
The librarian stared at Zedd’aki for a long time before he spoke. “I sense the truth, so maybe. And what is it that you need?”
“A watcher was incinerated this week through an orb. He was observing a fireball thrown from a dragon that upon impact turned into a fiery demon many trees high that destroyed an entire village. We wish to find out if there has ever been such a thing in the past.”
“Oh my, that is not good!” the librarian said, in a totally different demeanor. “I know of such events. You are indeed in need. Try row 66, shelf 8, in the third quarter. The book’s title is, ‘Demons of the Fourth Plane.’ But, I warn you to not explore further without permission.”
“Thank you,” a grateful Ja’tar replied.
The two rushed down the main isle to find the third quarter based on the directions from the Librarian. As they walked, a very worried Ja’tar spoke in a hushed voice out of habit. “A demon from the Fourth Plane is not good news. It takes a lot of power to bring a demon of that stature up out of the bowels of the Lower Planes.”
After walking for ten minutes, they found the quarter and rushed down the rows until they found the right one. The eighth shelf was high above their heads. Ja’tar searched up and down the rows until he found the small ladder. He set it next to the row and stepped on top. He stepped up and in a quiet voice commanded, “Eighth row.” Small arms extended from the ladder and began pulling the ladder up as it elongated. He motioned for it to stop when he reached the row and methodically worked his way down the books, reading each title.
“Another step right, please?” he demanded. The ladder took a small steady step to the right.
“Another, please?”
“Ah!” he exclaimed as he pulled the tome loose, “Down.”
The ladder collapsed in on itself and by the time he was on the ground, he was already paging through the ancient text. It had been a long time since he had read High Torren. He was much more accustomed to the common dialect of Torren’al. High Torren hadn’t been used for years, not really since Ror, except for certain ceremonies. Of course, they were all required to learn it in school, but that was a long time ago.
Zedd’aki watched over his shoulder as he delicately flipped through the ancient pages. Each page was meticulously hand lettered and sometimes, illustrations were included. The tome was thick and they were running out of time for the night. About a third of the way through the tome Ja’tar stopped on a page and drew in a sharp breath. A picture of a demon very similar to the one he had seen in the orb was there, hand drawn on the page. He scanned the text, looking for familiar words and phrases.
Having found what he wanted, he read, “The librarian was right, look here. Let’s see. The demon is from the Fourth plane and was last seen before the final battles of Ror.”
Ja’tar rattled off the details, “The demon, called a ‘Soul Storm - Nagracumulo’ - is initially very small and empty, but expands as it destroys, feeding on the souls of the living. It stops growing once it has consumed all the living beings it can hold. It collapses into itself and returns to the plane with the souls it collected. Each demon can only be summoned once. It was not known who conjured or created the demons, but it says that it was used for two purposes, to destroy a concentrated cluster of the enemy and to …”
Ja’tar paused and expressed worry, “Oh, no!”
Zedd’aki heard the terror in his friend’s voice. “What? Tell me.”
“And to close the gates …,” a horrified Ja’tar said, reading on as his voice quivered.
“I thought the totems weren’t created until after Ror? Wasn’t Ror the reason why the gates were devised?”
“Yes, and No,” explained Ja’tar. “The Guild came up with safety mechanisms for the gates as a means to sequester rogue mages. They didn’t have the totems, but the gates themselves could be closed by use of certain kinds of magic in their proximity.”
“Who could have dreamt up such a horrible thing?” Zedd’aki stomach turned.
Ja’tar rolled his eyes.
“Oh!” said Zedd’aki knowingly.
“All I can say is that there were many horrible things created in the days of Ror. It’s why we decided to remove ourselves from the world.”
“And still they built the cave and filled it with reminders of those times?” said Zedd’aki sourly. “We should never want to be in a place where those kinds of things happened again.”
Ja’tar just stared blankly.
Stunned, they both stood there for several minutes letting the information set in. They returned the book to the shelf and turned to leave the library. Having lost their sense of direction, they wandered down a row of books that they had not passed on the way in. When they broke out of the shelving, they saw the entrance to their left, and just off to their right, they saw a set of double doors. The overly large doors were made of elaborately engraved and polished metal and had a head-sized seal in the center. Zedd’aki could feel the magic oozing from where they stood and it made his spine tingle.
“I’m willing to lay a wager that those doors hide the back rooms,” Ja’tar said, motioning with his hand after stopping to stare.
“Don’t get any ideas …,” Zedd’aki said, as he looked at Ja’tar with a foul gaze. “You promised.”
“I wonder why they have those immense doors. Don’t you wonder how they got items that big down those narrow stairs?”
“They were the Ten …”
“I’m just saying —”
“Me too!”
Ja’tar stopped as they neared the doors.
“You promised …,” said Zedd’aki forcefully.
“I’m just saying,” Ja’tar said. They walked out the main doors and watched them close. They could both feel the wards and traps being reset. Ja’tar grabbed Zedd’aki by the sleeve and tightly gripped the tel’faz and they stepped through the door together.
The trip back to the living quarters was dressed in silence as they both reexamined what they had learned.
Ja’tar was feeling the futility of the task at hand and his shoulders slumped as they walked. “We’ll need to think this over. I fear that our worst nightmares are coming true.”
Zedd’aki sighed, “I cannot say that I am overly surprised at what we learned. I had hoped for better news … We are not ready for this.”
“Ready or not, if the demons are using the Nagracumulo to close the Gates, the realms will be cut off and we will be isolated.”
“Thank the gods that the Keep cannot be choked off from magic like the rest of the realms.”
“I don’t think the gods had anything to do with this!”
Zedd’aki snorted.
— and we assume they can’t be cut off,” said Ja’tar, in a near whisper.
Zedd’aki was rather confused. “Why would they do that? There were no totems in the times of Ror.”
Horrified, Ja’tar spoke in a hushed voice, “We know that totems can be used to close the gates, but what if closing a gate doesn’t necessarily activate the totems and close the borders?”
“That would mean that travel is limited, right?” Zedd’aki reasoned.
“Yes, but it would also mean that those realms would still have access to magic.”
“And, the gates could be used to block entry of magi if the realms chose to limit access using the totems,” Zedd’aki added.
Ja’tar postulated, “So, theoretically, if all the gates were closed, the Keep would be completely isolated from the rest of the world.”
“What?” Zedd’aki asked wide-eyed.
“Remember I told you? The realms could control access through the gates from realm to realm and posted sentries at the touch points.”
“So why?” Zedd’aki rubbed his eyes. He was tired, having spent the entire day training the three mages for their quest. “I cannot think straight I’m so tired. We will not solve this tonight. I’m going to try to get some sleep.”
Ja’tar dropped Zedd’aki off near his quarters nodded and turned to leave, “Good night.”
“Good night,” an exhausted Zedd’aki mumbled as he opened the door to his room after dismissing his ward.
Ja’tar continued his lonesome trek to the opposite side of the Keep. He climbed the tower stairs alone, listening to his footsteps echo, and eventually made it to the dodecagon. He walked around the circumference to his room, undid the wards and entered. He recast his protection and after shutting his door and getting undressed, he sat on the edge of the bed, lowered his head, and fretted.
Unlike Zedd’aki, Ja’tar understood exactly what the appearance of the Nagracumulo meant. A dark mage had returned.
Quaint Rundown Inn
The spells came at him fast and furious. Dra’kor fought back, rolling over his shoulder to avoid a blast. His face grimaced as he concentrated. He countered the fireballs and attacked. He screamed in anguish when he wasn’t fast enough and the crippling spells got through his defenses. He refocused and tried twice as hard.
“Watch your back … watch your back—” Grit screamed.
“— Got it,” Men’ak triumphantly replied, as he was quick to counter a lightning bolt.
“I need help,” Grit cried out a desperately.
“I’ll take the fireball,” Dra’kor growled. He threw up a shield and deflected the spell to the dirt to the side.
“They’re coming too fast — I can’t keep up,” Men’ak shrieked.
“You can do it,” Dra’kor replied back defiantly. He bore down and loosed a wicked paralyzing spell at his foe that took him to his knees. There was little relief as another simply stepped up to take his place.
They battled on.
Dra’kor’s ankles were bruised and a deep gash on his leg was crusted over. He had torn his robe somehow, but couldn’t recall when, only that it caught on his arm when he tried to throw too fast. It didn’t really matter, it was ruined anyway; dirt, mud, grass stains and blood had been ground into the fabric. He would have to give it to the housekeepers to use as a rag when his training was finished.
The Legacy of the Ten: Book 01 - Eyes of the Keep Page 25
