The Third Sign

by Scott D. Muller

  Ja’tar looked at his feet and saw the scuffmarks they were making as he moved around and nodded.

  The hall went on for well over five-hundred paces. Zedd’aki cast his own globe and peered into the empty rooms. Classrooms filled with chairs, tables and tools used to teach magic. Not all of the rooms could be peered into because some had solid doors, and with others, the glass was too dirty to see through. He would have loved to explore more, but they had to get to the tower.

  They kept walking until they reached the end of the main hall, “Which way next?” Zedd’aki asked.

  Ja’tar stood in the center of an intersection. He motioned the globe in each direction. The halls continued for as far as the eye could see.

  “I don’t suppose you know where you’re going?’ Zedd’aki asked skeptically.

  Ja’tar was about to protest, when he saw his friend casting a spell. He let loose the magic and waited for the pixie dust to settle, all the while staring at the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Ja’tar asked, with obvious irritation.

  “I’m figuring out where the halla we should be going,” Zedd’aki spat. “Now, shut up and watch.”

  Soon, several sets of footprints appeared glowing in the dust, “That’s the way we head,” Zedd’aki reasoned, pointing down the hall.

  Ja’tar’s jaw dropped open, “Sometimes you are scary brilliant.”

  The two continued down the hall following the glowing tracks. All of a sudden, the hallway shimmered.

  “That was strange,” Zedd’aki grumbled.

  “What just happened?” Ja’tar asked, glancing over at this friend.

  “Look,” Zedd’aki said, as his mouth hung open. “The tracks are gone!”

  Ja’tar turned around and looked back in the direction from whence they came and the floor was clear, no tracks, no footprints, just dust.

  “Where the Ten are we,” Ja’tar asked.

  Zedd’aki shrugged and took three steps backwards toward the direction from which they had come, fully expecting to be transported back, but nothing happened.

  Zedd’aki stared at the floor and stroked his long beard. “Mighty fine! Mighty fine indeed.”

  Ja’tar glared at his friend, “Care to elaborate?”

  “Well, we aren’t there anymore, er ... where we were anymore.”

  “Really? I never would have guessed! So, where are we?” a frustrated Ja’tar growled, barely containing his ire.

  “We’re in a long dark hall. You see nothing unusual. You had better beware of the Grue!” Zedd’aki cackled to himself.

  “Grue? What kind of nonsense are you talking?”

  “It matters not. I am just amused, that’s all. I have no idea where we are ....”

  “Well, get us the Ten out of here!” Ja’tar demanded.

  “Of course, your Excellency,” Zedd’aki said, cheerfully with a deep bow and a flourish of his hand.

  “And the foot-prints?”

  Zedd’aki pushed up his sleeve and recast his spell. The faint yellow prints appeared again. “I guess we continue?”

  They took several strides in the direction of the tracks before the room went pitch black.

  “Of all the ...” Ja’tar groaned, casting another light globe. The globe formed, but was insufficient to light the way and Ja’tar could barely see it even when it was just inches from his face.

  “Any ideas, Keeper?” Zedd’aki taunted.

  “We follow the walls ...”

  “And if they hold snares or traps?”

  “Then it is a good day to die!”

  “You can die,” Zedd’aki mumbled. “I’m still a young man and have centuries of living to do.”

  “I’ll cast wards, if that will make you any more at ease,” Ja’tar offered.

  “I feel a strange calm coming over me already,” the mage said wryly.

  Ja’tar snorted and cast his wards anyway.

  Ja’tar’ placed his hand on the wall and started walking in the direction they had been heading. After a while, the wall turned to the left and the two stopped.

  “Which way?” Ja’tar asked his friend.

  “Stay where you are,” Zedd’aki said. “I’ll check to see if the hall ends or if it also goes to the right.”

  Zedd’aki shuffled off leaving Ja’tar by himself. Zedd’aki snickered to himself, right before he screamed and made loud shuffling noises. Zedd’aki made a haunting growl.

  “Zedd’aki! Zedd’aki? Oh, God! Where are you?” Ja’tar screamed in fright.

  “I’m fine,” Zedd’aki said, after sneaking up on the mage from behind. “Just stubbed my toe!”

  Ja’tar swung out, missing the mage in the mirk and smacked the wall, “You ass ...!”

  By now, Zedd’aki was laughing at the top of his lungs. His eyes were wet from the tears he was crying. Payback was sweet!

  “Enough of this ....” Ja’tar swore.

  “Enough? You should have seen your face!”

  “Bah! You can’t see anything ....”

  “You are right, but I can imagine you with your eyes wide and your jaw hanging to the floor.”

  “We go left,” Zedd’aki said, still chuckling to himself. “The hall doesn’t end, but the other way doesn’t feel right to me.”

  The two took another three steps down the hall to their left before the darkness ended and the hall was again illuminated by the globe. Zedd’aki turned around to see what was in the other direction and was surprised to see that the hall continued, but that there was a deep dark chasm that fell down to lower floors of the Keep. The only way across were several one-foot-square pilings that stuck up from below at intervals that would allow one to jump from one to another.

  “I’m glad you have those feelings,” Ja’tar said, with a smile. “I’m beginning to think someone intentionally set traps for any who wander this hall.”

  “You think?” Zedd’aki said

  The hall only reached another four paces before it turned and reversed on itself, returning to the original direction in which they were walking.

  Zedd’aki was in the lead as they hurried down the hall. Zedd’aki threw out his arm and yelled, “Stop!”

  Ja’tar almost fell over his friend who shoved him backwards, “What now?”

  “Look!” he said, conjuring a weak spell and blew some dust down the hall.

  Then Ja’tar saw it. A slight shimmer. “What is that?”

  Zedd’aki shrugged, “Don’t know, but it doesn’t belong here!”

  Ja’tar got down on his haunches and examined the shimmer. “I can’t feel the spell, can you?”

  “No.”

  “Then how did you know it was there?”

  Zedd’aki glowered, “I saw the light break. I saw a slight shimmer.”

  “Well, I’ll be ... I would have stumbled right into it. What do we do?”

  Zedd’aki reached into his pocket, pulled out one of the braided loaves of bread that they had taken from the kitchen, and held it in front of himself as he inched toward the shimmering curtain. He pushed the loaf through the shimmer and watched as it disintegrated before his eyes.

  “Waste of good bread,” he mumbled to himself.

  Ja’tar snatched the loaf from his hand, cast an intricate spell over it, ripped off a chunk and tossed it down the hall. It also dissolved in a cloud of dust.

  Ja’tar grumbled to himself and tried another spell, and another, and another. Finally, the loaf glowed green as it entered the curtain, but then fell to the ground on the other side unharmed.

  Ja’tar harrumphed and cast the spell over himself, and before his friend could stop him walked into the shimmer. His body convulsed and he foamed at the mouth and fell to the other side.

  “Ja’tar, you fool!” Zedd’aki cried, pacing back and forth. Ja’tar’s motionless body was smoking, and limp on the far side of the evil curtain.

  Ja’tar rolled over and belly laughed out loud. “Payback is halla isn’t it.”

  Zedd’aki frowned,
but he had to admit, to himself at least, that Ja’tar had got him good.

  Zedd’aki cast his own spell, followed his friend across the curtain, and proceeded to walk down the hall forcing his friend to scurry to his feet and run to catch up.

  The two continued down the hall following the glowing tracks until they found the curved entry to the east turret, at least they thought it was the east turret. Ja’tar stood at the bottom and stared up the hollow shaft sending his globe spiraling high into the dark.

  “Where are the stairs?” he asked incredulously.

  Zedd’aki stepped into the center of the large circle. The room, more than twenty paces across and tall enough to disappear into the night far above, was missing stairs. Paintings decorated the walls high above where they stood. “Gone!”

  Ja’tar paced the perimeter of the turret. “Really? I thought maybe I was just imagining it...”

  “What do you think?” Zedd’aki asked, rubbing his beard and examining the stone walls.

  Ja’tar used his globe to examine the floor, “I don’t see any obvious way to get up.”

  “Well, the footprints stop here,” Zedd’aki said, pointing to the half a print that ended at the arc of the turret floor, right under the wall. “I wonder where the stairs went? You think whoever it was just levitated up?”

  Ja’tar cast a spell of seeing and found nothing, “The magic doesn’t show me anything. There’s nothing here.”

  “Can we climb?” Zedd’aki asked, as he examined the wall. “Or levitate?”

  Ja’tar looked at his sore and blistered feet, and his new boots, “Would rather not ...”

  “Well, do you have better idea?” Zedd’aki steamed, placing his hands firmly on his hips.

  “All the turrets had sweeping staircases, I know it. I’ve been here before. See that painting, the one with the two men fighting?” Ja’tar said, pointing up where his globe was hovering. “I know that painting. I used to watch it when I was young. It replays a famous battle from before Ror, during the time of the Feuds.”

  “So someone removed the stairs?” Zedd’aki asked incredulously. “And no one noticed?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ja’tar commented. “Maybe it’s a trick.”

  “Trick? Like what?”

  “I don’t know, but maybe if you need the stairs, they’ll be there, otherwise...” Ja’tar shrugged and lowered his brows.

  “So you are saying all I need to do is pretend to step up on the stairs like this ...” Zedd’aki said, stepping up from where the last footprint faded.

  A stair appeared under his foot, seemingly growing out of the wall.

  “Whoa!” he said, wobbling on the new stone. He took another step up, and the second stair appeared.

  Ja’tar shook his head in disbelief, and watched as Zedd’aki took another four steps up. The first step that Zedd’aki had used had just as mysteriously faded back into the turret wall and he was now suspended on four steps that seemed to float out from the wall.

  Ja’tar bent over to get a better view of the step and knocked on it with his staff, “Seems solid enough ...”

  Zedd’aki rolled his eyes,” Now you test it after I climb eight feet into the air.”

  Ja’tar gave him a gap toothed grin and lifted his hands innocently, “Maybe we should see what happens if you just stand there for a few seconds.”

  “Why?” Zedd’aki asked slowly.

  “Well, if the steps eventually fade away, better to know that and fall eight feet than to tumble a hundred!” Ja’tar said flatly.

  “I guess we should find out. I’m not thrilled that I’m the one who may tumble to the floor ...”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll catch you with a cushion of air.”

  Ja’tar’s assurance didn’t give him any secure feelings as he stood waiting with one foot on each step. After a period of time, all the steps that weren’t touched disappeared back into the walls.

  “Well?”

  “I guess we can go,” Ja’tar said, quickly trying to dash up the steps. Just as fast as he stepped the stairs appeared.

  “That’s brilliant,” he mumbled to himself, as he reached the same level as Zedd’aki.

  “Are you through playing around?” he asked impatiently.

  Ja’tar chortled and grinned, “Suppose so.”

  The two magi walked briskly up the stairs, pausing only to look at the paintings. They watched the painting that Ja’tar remembered as a child replay the famous battle in the days before Ror, whereby a mage won the day using subterfuge against a superior army, tricking them into battling each other. No wizards had been lost that day!

  They climbed until they reached a solid floor. They stepped off the last stair and stood in front of a stone wall where they expected to find a door. Zedd’aki reached out to touch the wall, but Ja’tar grabbed his hand and, wide-eyed, scolded him, “You trying to die? There’s magic written all over that wall.”

  Zedd’aki stared at the wall blankly, “I don’t see anything.”

  Ja’tar scooped up a little of the dust that had gathered on the floor and held in his hand in front of his face and blew it into the door. Bright red and yellow energy bolts danced over the surface, burning the dust away.

  Zedd’aki jumped back. “What manner of magic is this?”

  Ja’tar shook his head in disbelief, “This is very old magic, very powerful magic. I recognize the spell hiding the door, but not the one protecting it.”

  “What do you mean old magic?” Zedd’aki asked, scratching his head. He was put off by Ja’tar’s unfortunate choice of words.

  Ja’tar looked sadly at his friend. He had forgotten that Zedd’aki couldn’t remember. “This is magic from back around the time of Ror. It doesn’t use the Zylliac.”

  Zedd’aki scoffed as if Ja’tar were touched, but his friend’s demeanor let him know that he was dead serious. His mouth fell open.

  Ja’tar scowled. “It appears that we have forgotten far more than just events and people.”

  Ja’tar pulled out his journal and flipped the pages until he found a specific entry that Zedd’aki had left for himself. He handed the journal over and watched as Zedd’aki read. Ja’tar knew when he had reached the passage as he watched Zedd’aki’s eyes narrowed before opening wide.

  “Now what?” he asked discouraged.

  Ja’tar held his hands up and chanted, searching for the magic flow. His eyes rolled back and only the whites showed. His body rocked slowly and he chanted, going deeper and deeper into his trance. He left this body standing there while he moved as a spirit. He found a thin crack in the wall and sent his spirit self down the serpentine path weaving in and out of the stacked and mortared blocks that made up the wall of the turret room.

  He reached the inside and coalesced. He saw the small magical artifact sitting in the center of the table in the middle of an elaborate casting. The symbols, shapes and patterns were drawn on the table, the walls and the floor. The sheer number of glyphs and symbols was staggering. This single spell must have taken years to dream up and even longer to perfect. Ja’tar was humbled by whoever had created this devious spell, their mastery of magic was so far beyond his he could only grasp parts and pieces of the entire picture that the glyphs painted.

  He moved on to check for any way into the room. The walls and door were well protected. He was quite sure that they would never get into the room through there. Next, he checked the windows, and again found spells. Lastly, he checked the roof. To his surprise, the roof was not protected. Whether it was an oversight he could not know, but he checked twice and was sure that there was nothing protecting the roof.

  He fled back to his body following the crooked path through the stone and shuddered as his spirit rejoined his flesh.

  “Where’d you go?” Zedd’aki asked curiously.

  “Into the room,” Ja’tar replied. “We’ll never get in through the door or windows, but there is a way!”

  “How?”

  “Roof. We need to get in t
hrough the roof,” Ja’tar said quietly.

  Zedd’aki scoffed, and then he cursed under his breath to himself, “Are you sure, it has to be the roof?”

  Ja’tar stared blankly at the ceiling.

  “So how do you propose we do that?” Zedd’aki asked, throwing his hands up.

  “Well either need to climb, or fly.” Ja’tar said pessimistically.

  “Fly?” Zedd’aki asked, mouth agape. “I haven’t flown since school days, and I never was good at it!”

  “I know. Me neither! It’s either climb or fly, unless you can think of something else.” Ja’tar said, with a heavy sigh.

  Zedd’aki walked over to the narrow slit window and pulled open the sash and peered out. He let his eyes adjust, stared down into the courtyard far below, and then looked up at the eves on the edge of the roof, some ten feet above his head. He stepped up on the ledge and leaned out a little further, holding on to the jamb with his right hand.

  A strong gust of wind almost pulled him out and he struggled to pull himself back into the turret.

  “It’s impossible to scale, the rocks are too tightly fit. We’ll have to fly.”

  Ja’tar bowed and waved at his friend to give it a try. Zedd’aki cast his spell and slowly levitated, but couldn’t control it. He pitched to and fro and wobbled wildly. He fell back to the floor frustrated, landing hard on his butt.

  Ja’tar tried to fly next. He had no more success than his friend did. As the two sat on the cold stone floor, he thought out loud, “Well, that presents a problem. We’ll just have to try again.”

  Zedd’aki shot his friend a look as he thought to himself, “just like him to keep knocking his head against the wall, he thought. Well, he can try to float all day and night as far as he was concerned. He wasn’t about to step off a perfectly good ledge and try to fly, and that was that.”

  Zedd’aki stood up and rubbed his sore derriere. He walked over to the window and stared out. If the wizards of old could grow rock, so the blazes could he. He wove his hands and chanted loudly.

  Ja’tar watched him from the floor, recognizing the growth spell.

  He looked out below the ledge and saw an almost undetectable stubble of rock protruding out. He doubled his effort. Soon, he had a very narrow ledge. He puffed his chest out all full of himself. He chanted again and with even more passion. Soon, his little ledge was almost a foot wide.