Thad had heard of the glass desert, but had not made the trip himself. Bending down, Bren scooped up a pile of glass and ran his fingers through it. The glass was fine, almost powder yet the tiny shards still dug into his skin. Turning his hand Thad let the glass fall back to where it had been.
As soon as they were all gathered in front of the shimmering doorway, Thad found himself staring at the scion on the other side. “I will open the doorway,” Humanius said looking around. “Let the scion enter first. While there is strong magical energy gathered here, it will not be enough to sustain it for long. Once it has fallen I will reopen the doorway so that we may enter through it.”
Everyone moved back from the doorway as Humanius and Belaroan working together pulled it apart. It looked almost as if they were parting a waterfall. The shimmering stopped in the center and moved outward until it looked as if they were looking through a slightly misty window.
The second the doorway was completely clear the scion stormed through. The scion’s eyes focused on Bren and it took a step forward, then a second. With each step the scion started to move slower. By the seventh step, it looked more like a statue then suddenly it crumbled to the ground.
Thad had watched the odd creature, not though his normal sight, but through his magic. It pulled in vast amounts of magical energy, more than he could ever believe possible. It was not the first time he had seen something draw in magical energy; Avalanche lived the same way, but the amount she pulled in was like a pebble compared to a mountain.
Walking over, Thad picked up one of the shards of the creatures body. Once it was between his fingers he could feel the immense power that it held. It was like a heartstone, yet more refined. Without even trying, Thad began to think of the things he could do with such gems. He could make enchanted items that were immensely powerful that could work forever without worrying about them losing their charge.
Slipping a piece of the scion into a pocket inside his cloak Thad moved to stand with the rest of the group.
With the scion dead, Humanius and his sister once again opened the doorway. It didn’t take as long for the door to open this time, and within moments it was completely open. Humanius was the first to step through quickly followed by the godlings and Bren, then Thad. Belaroan was the last, and as her foot crossed the threshold, the doorway behind her slammed shut.
Thad turned and looked through the door. He could see the piles of glass on the other side, but it was like looking through a dirty piece of cheap glass. Turning back, Thad took a long look around. It looked like a place straight out of a dream.
Walking over, Thad bent down and ran his fingers over the grass. It bent and swayed in the wind, but glittered in the sunlight and felt like stone beneath his fingers. Everything was made of gems, from the grass to the very stones beneath his feet.
There was so much magical energy in the air, Thad could feel it entering his body even without him trying to call it. At first Thad paid it little heed as he walked behind the gods, but before half the day had passed, Thad was finding it hard to breath. It was as if something was pressing down on his chest. It didn’t take him long to figure out what was happening. The magical energy was building up in his body at an alarming rate so he released it. Unlike back home releasing the magical energy wasn’t as easy as simply letting it go, but he had to force it out, which was painful in its own right. Thad looked at Bren and the others who didn’t seem to be affected at all.
I have spent a lot of time with your son. The amount of magical energy that you just expelled wouldn’t be enough to fill his little finger. Still given enough time I am sure that it would cause trouble for him and the other gods as well.
At least we know what killed the other humans who had entered the center. Unless you were a mage the magical energy would literally eat you alive. Even if you were a mage, it did a fare job of trying to eat you alive.
As the night began to fall they picked a place on the side of the road to camp. At first Thad thought that they would simply be sleeping on the ground, which made him regret not bring a pack; then again his travel gear was years old and still in Farlan. Before Thad could find a place to sleep, Humanius bent down and placed his hand on the ground and a large wooden stricter popped into being. At the same time the building began to build itself, the gemlike grass began to break apart and turn into dust.
“Not even we can directly draw magic,” Humanius explained. “It is too strong. We would be consumed by it. The only way we can work magic is to pull it from the gems that have collected it. I would suggest you do the same though I would still take care. Compared to us or your son you are like a blade of grass to a tree. Take care, I have grown… fond of you during our time together and I would hate to see you as a burnt out husk laying in the dirt.”
“I will take that under advisement,” Thad said as he looked at the building. It was small yet detailed, far more detailed than was needed for one night.
It would seem that your friend has a flair for the dramatic.
“That it would,” Thad replied.
The inside of the building was as elegant as the outside and even came with large beds, though they looked good they were not very comfortable. After more than an hour of trying to sleep Thad gave it up and went outside for some fresh air. Shortly after he left the building he heard the door and turned to find his son standing there.
“Having trouble sleeping as well?” Thad asked looking toward Bren.
“It’s the magic,” Bren replied. “Doesn’t it bother you as well? It’s like a gentle tugging at my mind.”
“I can feel the magic though I bet it is not the same,” Thad said looking at his son. “I can feel it, though it does not call to me.”
“You have never felt the call of the magic?” Bren asked his eyes brimming with curiosity.
“I have felt the call of many things over the years the foremost of those was that of your mother,” Thad said with a smile. “Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am enchanter, and not a regular mage.”
“How do you see magic?” Bren asked.
“I see magic like threads,” Thad answered. “Most the time the threads are thin and easy to pull and manipulate into the shapes I want. Here it is a bit different; the strands are too thick for me to hold, but they are still nothing more than strands of energy. What about you?”
“I see them more like rivers of mist. I bend them to my will and shape them. I can feel them as well. They are alive,” Bren replied hesitantly. “I find myself getting lost in them sometimes.”
Thad laughed and Bren quickly gave him an annoyed look. “I used to view them like rivers as well, though not of mist. I could bend them to my will, but it wasn’t easy. I will agree they are alive, but I learned long ago that it was much easier to move them by giving them the idea that I wanted then forcing it upon them. As long as you know how something works you can make it. Why do you think mages spend so much time pouring over books? Thuraman told me that you are far stronger than I am and honestly I could tell that with one look, but you must learn. The more you know…The more you understand the easier magic will come to you.”
“I remember Thuraman saying the same thing,” Bren said with a faint smile. “He always said that while I have more power than you ever dreamed of, I was still weaker than you because I lacked knowledge and even worse, I lacked the desire for knowledge.”
“That is not always a bad thing, though with magic it can prove to be deadly,” Thad replied patting his son gently on the shoulder. “Magic is a gift and one that we do not choose. I have known men who could sing better than any troubadour, yet they hated crowds. Magic, like any other gift, is only one part of us and we shouldn’t let it decide the course of our life. Yet you should still yearn to learn to use it properly.”
“I wish you would have been around to say that when I was younger,” Bren said with a weak laugh.
“So do I,” Thad replied his voice catching slightly on the words.
The two
sat in an eerie silence; nether knowing what to say to the other. After the silence became deadening Thad stood up and went back to his bed. He found the cushions no more comfortable than before, but he was tried and when one was tried even a rock would look appealing after a while.
CHAPTER IV
As the days went by, Thad found little chance to talk to Bren. It wasn’t as if his son was never alone, it was that each time he saw him it didn’t feel right. Besides watching Bren’s back, Thad spent most of the quiet days looking around at the scenery.
For the past two days, Thad had seen what appeared to be buildings in the distance. At first he thought it was a large mountain, but the closer they came the more clear it became. They were massive, tall, and just like everything else, they were made of gems. Once Thad knew they were buildings, he thought that they would reach them in a matter of hours, but as the days passed and the buildings grew closer, he began to be amazed. He had seen tall buildings such as the tower he had helped build, but that was like comparing a blade of grass to a tree. The tower had no more than ten floors, but some of the buildings he was seeing in the distance were easily four or five times that height.
Thad had met a few of the gods during his travels when he was younger, but the few meetings he had with them had not made them friends. Just as Thad started to feel utterly alone Humanius dropped back and started to walk beside him.
“You have been keeping to yourself for the past few days,” Humanius said. “Even when you wanted nothing more than to cut out my heart you would still talk. Is there something on your mind my friend?”
“Many things,” Thad said nearly laughing to himself. “The magic here is so strong I have to constantly drain it away. Then there is my son who I am finding it hard to connect with. At the same time, I have found myself alone with only my staff for company. It is not the first time I have been alone, but it’s different this time. There are people around me, but everything and everyone feels so distant.”
“You are home yet nothing is the same as you remember it,” Humanius said. “That is completely understandable. You son is ages older than when you last saw him in person and though you watched him it is not the same as having been there with him as he grew. To make things worse, instead of a grand reunion your life has forced you to come on a journey that you and I both know will most likely take your life.”
“I could live through it,” Thad replied. “It’s just not very likely,” he added with a smile.
“Let us place the hard topics aside for now,” Humanius said. “What do you think of my homeland so far?”
“It is unique,” Thad replied. “I can see why you and your sister have such strong magical powers if you came from here.”
“It was not always like this,” Humanius said as he looked in the distance. “Long ago there was real grass and trees. You must understand that it has been more than ten thousand years since I have been home. I don’t know when the wall fell nor how long afterwards my homeland was turned into this.”
“Does it bother you?” Bren asked his godly friend.
“Yes and no,” Humanius replied. “I have been gone so long I find it really hard to see this as my home. The only things that I loved here were my sister and my father, and my father is long past gone and my sister is still here with me. In all honestly, we lived less than five hundred years in this land so if I had to choose, your world is also my own.”
“I guess that should be comforting,” Thad said. “At the moment though it doesn’t seem to really matter.”
“What could matter more,” Humanius replied. “As I told you, there are countless worlds, and for over thirty years hundreds of thousands of people from this world were sent to other worlds. There is even a chance that your ancestors might have come from this world.”
“I understand what you are saying, but it is a little much for me to think on,” Thad replied. “Where I come from never concerned me as much as where I was going. To know now that we might be connected by more than chance is… I don’t know if it is comforting or not. Not to mention that there might be many other worlds with people on it that are connected in the same way.”
“I know it is a lot to think on, but having something to keep your mind busy might be a good thing everything considered,” Humanius said with a slight grin. “I have lived a long time and understand being apart better than any other. Knowing that there are things larger than yourself is sometimes helpful in these situations.”
As the god picked up his pace and started to head back to the front of the group, Thad looked at his son. Bren was a lot like him but in many ways he was better. He was confident and strong, never having to look to others for answers. Thad was proud of him.
I raised him as best I could in your absence. That devil of a wife of yours didn’t make it easy, but I believe he turned out ok, though he never learned my lesson about women. Just like you, he will have to learn their dangers on his own.
“You have done a fine job my friend,” Thad said to Thuraman. “Speaking of Maria, how was she when you last saw her?”
I guess it was too much to believe that your feelings toward her might have changed. She was much the same as when you left. At the time, she was fighting with Eloen as usual over something that didn’t matter. Your daughter was doing well too. For a female she isn’t as bad as many of the others, but she still has years to come into her own.
Thad let out a long laugh that drew the attention of his other companions. Shrugging his shoulders he turned his attention back to Thuraman. “I have missed you my friend. As much as I have complained over the years about you and your quirks, without you I felt more than lost.”
I felt much the same way. Your son was a good companion, but it was not the same. When you left it was as if one of my gems had been ripped from my body. I know one day you will leave me, but I could still feel you. It was weak, but I knew you were there somewhere. It is the reason I pushed your son so hard to find you.
“Then you are partly to blame for this situation,” Thad said, his mental voice sounding slightly sharp.
Yes, though I believe it was still worth it. I am a creature of pure magic and no fool. I knew that there was a chance that the veil would be completely destroyed. I didn’t care, what mattered was that you returned.
“I always forget that you are like that,” Thad said shaking his head. “You never care about the consequences, you only care about what you want. I think one of these days when this is over we will have a long talk about this.”
I am not human. I have no real feelings, or at least not in the way you feel them. Through my connection to you I can feel some of your feelings; that is why I don’t like Maria. She is the only one who can hurt you so badly. Why should it matter to me if the world ends? I care nothing for the rest of them. They mean nothing to me.
Thad could think of nothing to say. It was easy for him to forget that Thuraman was only alive through magic and was no more human than the rocks on the ground. It was a tool, it was just one that happened to have its own thoughts.
Thad turned his attention back to their surroundings as they walked. Everything looked much like he would expect with grass and mountains; they even passed a few buildings. The only real difference in this world and his own was that everything had been turned into crystal.
After countless hours of walking, Thad’s foot started to ache. For a while, he thought that he might have gotten a small pebble in his boot, but he didn’t have the time to stop and check. By the time the sun went down the pain had moved from a slight annoyance to nearly bringing tears to his eyes.
That night they picked a large tree to camp under. The sky was clear, and Thad had seen no sign of rain in the sky so he saw no real reason to look for a place to stay dry, but he figured it was more of habit then for any real tangible reason.
As soon as he had found a place for the night Thad began to strip off his boots. When he took off his first boot it revealed a metal leg that was attached right a
bove where his ankle should have been. Thad ran his fingers slowly across the cold metal as he remembered when he had first lost his foot. It had been ages since the Ablaians had captured him during the war. They were a warlike nation and their way to keep prisoners from escaping was to remove one of their feet.
Thad looked over the boot and checked it for wear. It was still in good repair though the heel was slightly more worn down than the rest of the sole. Setting aside the first boot, Thad removed the other. Thad had to hold back a shocked yell as he looked down at his foot. His pinky toe was stiff and hard and had a slight sparkle to it. Thad didn’t have to think hard to figure out what had happened. Just like the other things on this planet his body was slowly turning to crystal and it wasn’t a painless transformation.
“Thuraman can you do anything about this?” Thad asked having no clue himself about how to solve the problem.
I have been draining away the excess magical energy as fast as I could, but it looks like I was still too slow. It is amassing in your body and crystalizing much the same way it does within the earth, though in this case it is doing it much faster. Unless you can block the magical energy or harness it somehow there is nothing that can be done to stop the process.
“What about the others?” Thad asked a slight trace of concern in his voice.
Unlike you, they can hold a lot more magical energy and most of it is naturally drained away though some still lingers. Should they spend enough time here the same thing would happen to them though it would take years for them to start showing signs. That includes your son.
“That’s some good news at least,” Thad said as he probed his crystal toe. “How long do you think it will take at its current rate to completely take over my body?”
It is hard to say, but my best guess would put it at no more than twelve days.
Twelve days was not that long and Thad was sure that it would take longer than that to reach their destination and return home. He had to find a solution, and fast, otherwise he would become nothing but a burden to the others.
Crystal Throne (Book 1) Page 3
