The Secrets of the Moonstone Heir: Book One of The Scale Seekers

by A. R. Cook

  “This is like trying to push a log upstream,” Mac chimed in. “Either of you keeps-ssck pushing, the other’s gonna push back. As I see it, it looks to me like you both got-tkk the same duty, which is to stop this-ssck Nasty fellow. So what’s got me all puzzled is, why aren’t-tkk you two working together?”

  Desert Rain and Sir Valdrase both stared at Mac. For something so complicated, the Bayou man had a superb way of simplifying it.

  “He’s right,” Desert Rain said. “I do not wish to be on bad terms with you, Sir Valdrase. We both want the same thing. We can surely come to some compromise?”

  Valdrase scratched his chin, and after a moment of thought, he nodded. “If you are to go,

  you will be escorted. And, perhaps, it is my turn to confront this problem.”

  The outer walls encompassing Syphurius formed an amazing masterpiece of stonework. They appeared to be carved from one gigantic slab of stone, for there was barely a crack to be seen in the thirty-foot tall parapet of quartz. Entering from the west, the stone appeared to be rose in color, yet somehow the stone looked greenish when one entered from the east. From the north it appeared white, and from the south blue. No one could account for the strange change in colors, for the entire gate was made from the same variety of quartz. Along the walls rose the occasional cylinder tower, each capped with a white-tiled cone roof and a small flag at the very top. The western entryway into Syphurius was a wonder to behold—two large ivory statues guarded the massive doors, noble warriors whose helmets masked their faces and therefore their race. All one could tell from the shape of their armor was that one was male, the other female. The great doors were polished hard wood, decorated with bronze and engraved with mystical shapes and symbols. These gates were more for art than for protection, for rarely had Syphurius been under threat of invasion.

  Desert Rain, General Valdrase, and Mac stared up at the impressive doors. Desert Rain was still not sure why Mac had insisted on coming along, but he did seem the least worried, which helped calm her a little.

  “I’ve seen the damage this demon can do,” Valdrase stated. “I wonder why these gates appear untouched?”

  “This wall is a very long, large structure,” Desert Rain pointed out. “It may be too much for Katawa to waste his magic and energy on. I think he’s not as interested in distorting structures or inanimate things as he is in…” She trailed off, absent-mindedly rubbing her arm. She felt the shaman’s bracelet under her sleeve, and its promise of protection cleared away her anxiety. It cleared away some of it, at least.

  Entering through the great doors was not their plan. There were secret ways into Syphurius, which the Syphurians and Knights of Luuva knew—Knights had to know secret passages into any place. Valdrase led them along the wall, to a

  spot about fifty yards from the entry doors. In the grass at the base of the tower was an iron ring, but the ring was scarcely noticeable as it was covered in moss. Valdrase pulled at the ring, revealing that the patch of grass it was attached to was a trap door. There was a stairway inside that led down, which the three descended. It was pitch black for a while, as the three had to hold hands so as not to lose one another. Finally, there came a blazing light from a torch that Valdrase had ignited with a pocket tinder box that he had. Before them stretched a long hallway, the ceiling being rather low for anyone except a Yopeis-Gichen. The walls were stone, the floor dirt.

  “Follow me,” Valdrase said unnecessarily. It was his habit to give obvious commands to anyone who was not of elven origin, for he had come to learn that even the most apparent answers were mind-boggling to non-elves.

  Desert Rain followed along, ducking to avoid the low ceiling. “What is this place?” she whispered.

  “These hallways are beneath the city,” Valdrase answered in normal volume. “There are several entries into Syphurius from here. You don’t have to whisper. We’re low enough underground that no one can hear us from above.”

  “Does Katawa know of any of the entryways leading down here?” she whispered again, out of instinct.

  “I couldn’t tell you for sure. But he can’t be waiting at every entry point at the same time. We’ll enter from a place where we’ll know if he’s nearby before we’re in view.”

  “This Nasty, do you think-kk he might be down here in these tunnels-ssck right now?” Mac asked, with an abnormal nonchalance.

  “I highly doubt it. We knights can feel dark energy when it’s close by. If he’s down here, I’ll warn you in plenty of time.”

  They walked a long time, passing conjoining halls and stairways, going up steep passages and down them. The labyrinth looked to have been built in a rush, or copied from a blueprint of another city’s underground passageway by amateur architects. It was obviously not an appreciated work of masonry, since Syphurius’s mayors had not wanted to spend too much time or money on building something that the people could not look at—or more importantly, shop at—regularly.

  After what Desert Rain felt was close to an hour, Valdrase finally turned towards a stairway and ascended it. At the top of the stairs was another trap door, but instead of pushing up on it, Valdrase grabbed the door’s thin handle and slid it sideways. No light came from the open door at first, and Desert Rain saw why after Valdrase reached up and pushed aside a rug that covered the entry.

  We must be entering someone’s house, or an inn, she thought.

  Valdrase paused a moment, searching for any dark presence, then motioned for the others to follow him. Desert Rain went before Mac, and after passing through the trap door, they found themselves behind a wooden shop counter, in the middle of a dusty room. It did not look like the place had been abandoned for long, for there were no cobwebs or signs of isolation. The dust was mainly from wood shavings all over the floor. Along the walls was a line of finely crafted—

  “Coffins-sssssck?” Mac swallowed, showing his first signs of nervousness. “You’ve taken us-ssck to the undertaker!”

  “Relax,” Valdrase said gruffly. “The coffins are empty, I assure you. This shop is in a remote part of Syphurius. At the end of the street is a good lookout point, so we can see if we can spot where the Wretched is.”

  “And what’s to keep him from seeing us-ssck?” inquired Mac.

  “You can either trust me about this, or not,” Valdrase retorted. “If you’re afraid, you can stay right here and we’ll come back for you later.”

  Mac glanced warily around at the coffins. “That’s all right-tkk,” he said with an anxious smirk. “I’ll follow you.”

  Silently, the three stalked out of the undertaker’s hut and glided swiftly down the street, staying close to the shadows. This street was not as well-paved or colorful as the others. It was gray in comparison to the rest of the city, but as they reached the end of the street, Desert Rain saw a tall building standing guard ahead. It was a sand-colored, cone-shaped marvel, pointing towards the heavens, with a giant glass sphere at the top. The glass was tinted dark blue, so it was impossible to see what was inside, but one could see all of Syphurius reflected in its crystal face. The style of the construction was quite old. It would have been no surprise if this was one of the very first buildings ever erected in Syphurius.

  Remaining out of direct light, Valdrase slunk past the shops at the end of the street and made his way to a first level window at the tower. The tower’s windows had no shudders or glass, but were gaping mouths with wooden-frame lips, so the three spies hopped inside without any difficulty. One look at the inside, and Mac and Desert Rain’s breath was halted.

  It was all one large space from the floor up to where the glass sphere glistened overhead like a blue eye. A spiral staircase was in the very middle of the room, and against every inch of wall were bookcases overflowing with papers, books, and blotchy sketches. Tables covered with glass viles, cups and bowls were randomly placed all over, and the variety of colored powders, plants and stones shimmered in vibrant hues among the clutter. Yet this was not the kind of clutter caused by panicked
people rushing away from an oncoming terror. There was method to this mess.

  “My my my,” Mac gasped. “This is the fanciest place-ssck I’ve ever seen. But I must say, these people need a housekeeper-crk.”

  “These look like spellcasters’ tools,” Desert Rain said.

  “Alchemists,” Valdrase corrected her. “They’re loons who spend all their time trying to turn one thing into another, mainly anything worthless into gold or silver. They look to the stars for secrets…but all they ever see is what’s in their own heads.”

  Valdrase began to ascend the staircase, which wobbled a bit with each step. Desert Rain and Mac cautiously followed. When they got to the top, there was no entryway into the glass

  sphere to be seen. Before Desert Rain could ask how they were to enter, Valdrase continued to ascend upwards—and walked right through the glass. Mac found this extremely exciting, and nudged Desert Rain forwards so he could try. Desert Rain put her hands forwards, feeling the glass first before pushing through it. It felt like a refreshingly cool bubble. She stepped up into the spherical room, almost slipping on the glass floor as her feet came through. Mac came up through the glass—not right away, since he enjoyed bopping up and down through it first before he fully walked through.

  Walking in the spherical room was tricky at first, since the floor was concave, causing one to slide towards the center of the room. In the center, however, was a flat elevated platform, upon which was a golden-plated telescope that would have needed at least ten strongbacks to pull. It was odd in shape, resembling a seven-foot wide unicorn’s horn mounted on two stands that looked like golden tiered cakes. It was upon the platform of this telescope that Valdrase already stood, waiting as his two companions slipped awkwardly towards him across the glass floor. Both of them slid into the platform with a soft thud, and then climbed up onto it.

  “So, are we gonna use-ssck this big ol’ scope to find the Nasty?” Mac inquired.

  “No, it’s too cumbersome for our purposes.” Valdrase removed a red spyglass from his belt pouch and used it to look down through the glass over the city. From inside, the glass of the room was as clear as water, which made Desert Rain wonder how this could be when outside, it was opaque dark blue. Scanning the city, one could see among the buildings strange distorted masses of bruised color that were hard to tell what they once were, as well as distortions that still had indications that they were once recognizable edifices. Roads were warped, gardens were torn asunder, and shops were half-melted. Yet not all was ruined. There was plenty of city left to contort, and Desert Rain figured that Katawa would take his time as long as he was waiting.

  “You know, it’s awfully quiet-tkk,” Mac mentioned after a couple minutes of silence. “Is-ssck it possible that Nasty might’ve slipped out-tkk of this place when no one was looking?”

  “That is a possibility,” Valdrase said. “We haven’t heard much commotion from outside the gates, and not all of the Knighthood has yet arrived. There may have been gaps around the city the beast could have used to sneak past us.”

  “Katawa is capable of making himself smaller than his true form,” Desert Rain added. “But I doubt he’s left. He’s lying in wait for Swordmaster Skyhan.”

  Valdrase nodded in agreement with Desert Rain, and then continued to observe with his spyglass. He jerked to a sudden halt. He face became tense. “What in the name of…”

  “What is it?” Desert Rain asked.

  Valdrase adjusted the lens of his spyglass to focus. “I can’t believe it! Those idiots!”

  “What idiots-ssck?” The lizard went to take the spyglass

  from Valdrase, but the elf flinched away. “Do we have more company than we knew about-tkk?”

  “You two, remain here.” Without explanation, Valdrase quickly turned and walked across the room and exited down the stairs. Mac wondered how the general managed to not slip or slide at all across the glass.

  Desert Rain fidgeted with her fingers. “What do you supposed is going on?”

  “I don’t-tkk know, but I’m darn curious-ssck,” replied Mac. “Let’s follow him.”

  “We shouldn’t go against what Sir Valdrase tells us—”

  “Hey, we didn’t come all this way to stand in some glass-ssck ball. You wanna help, right-tkk?”

  “Well, yes—”

  “Then let’s go find out what’s-ssck going on.”

  Mac jumped down from the platform, and as soon as he took a step on the glass floor, he slipped and fell flat on his stomach. Desert carefully climbed down and helped him up. “We better go slowly,” she warned.

  “Hold on, I got-ttk a trick-kk.” Mac sat down on the edge of the platform and began to rub his toes rapidly. After a couple seconds a scaly red skin broke over his sole. Then little round pads grew on the bottoms of his toes. When he placed his foot down on the glass, the pads stuck solidly to the floor.

  “Sticky toes-ssck,” he said with a smile. “I had a gecko for a great-tkk grandaddy.” He took Desert Rain by the arm, and pulled her gently along as he walked with ease across the

  smooth floor to the stairs.

  Valdrase made his way through the city much faster now, not having stragglers to worry about. His speedy glide was also due to his building rage that was infecting every crevice of his body. For a moment, he had hoped what he had seen in the spyglass had been a mistake, but then he never made such mistakes.

  Quickly, he reached the street that he had observed from the alchemists’ tower. It was a broad street, one of the main ones that led to the center of the city. The street was made of white stone, lined with crooked streetlamps and torn banners. He ducked behind a shop, peeking around the edge. Sure enough, what he saw coming towards him was exactly what he had seen through his spyglass.

  It was a battalion of black-armored warriors, marching with heavy steps through Syphurius.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Distortion and Fireflare

  The elven general immediately identified these warriors. They hailed from City Cindrea in the Land Ablaze, and were by far the most brute, unorganized, and—according to Valdrase—unintelligent group of fighters that the Knighthood had ever had. It was almost an insult to include them in the Knighthood, but they were devoted and ferocious warriors, and provided more than a fight for the barbaric Bloodburn clan. City Cindrea was a good distance from Syphurius, at least a three week trek by foot, so Valdrase surmised that they must have ridden those mangy Gadderbats of theirs to have come so quickly. The leader of the Cindrea warriors must have received the hawk-delivered message about the situation a short time ago, so they must have arrived either today or the day before. That meant that they decided to barge right on into the city without checking in with any of the other Knights of Luuva first. Such lack of respect made Valdrase’s blood boil near to the point of evaporating through his skin.

  Valdrase stepped out from his hiding place and came to stand directly in front of the approaching army. He could see that his conclusion was correct, for hobbling aside the warriors on both sides of the street were Gadderbats, large mammals with leathery wings for front legs, and they had narrow wolf-like faces, and fur splotched with patches of black, brown, and orange. These creatures were perhaps the best trackers in the Luuvian animal kingdom, able to focus and track any one scent by land and even by air for miles—but, like their Cindrea masters, intelligence was not their forte. For a minute, it looked as if the warriors and their animals would not stop and were going to run over Valdrase. When they came to be about five yards away from the elf, the brigade came to a clumsy stop, the men glaring at the elf Knight from under their obsidian helms.

  From the middle of the front line stepped a man, whose breastplate—steel covered in a coat of volcanic obsidian— had the carved image of a crimson claw surrounded in flame. This was the icon of those who drew strength from the spirit of the Sage Dragon known as Burning Talon. The man’s black circlet—not a full helm, for he would never wish to muss up his hair—displayed a d
ragon’s face on his forehead, two rubies set in it as eyes.

  “Is there a reason you chose to get in the way of my men?” the man asked with a voice that cut like a dagger.

  “Yes,” Valdrase replied, not liking the attitude he was receiving. “In case you didn’t know, several of the Knight leaders and their armies are stationed around the city. We agreed that there would be no frontal assault until more of our brethren arrived. As accustomed to the Knights’ code, any battalion of knights summoned to meet with their brethren must send word out to the others and wait for reply before initiating any strategic move. Seeing as how I never received word of your arrival, you chose to ignore our code and disrespect your fellow knights. Tell me, how did you manage to sneak so many men into the city?”

  “Sneaking around like frightened weasels is not our method,” the warrior general replied. “Why should we hide in the shadows when it’s easy enough to fly in over the gates and take back what belongs to the Noble Races?”

  “You flew in right over the gate??” Valdrase must have missed seeing them in flight when he was in the tunnels under the city. “I thought it was bad enough that you should blow your cover marching out in the open, but that demon probably saw you coming miles before you even got here!”

  “You elves really need to learn to relax.” The warrior, his red cape fluttering in the wind, advanced closer to Valdrase. “The Wretched need to be shown that we have no fear of them. I find it ridiculous that the rest of you have been sitting around, doing nothing while you let this lowly bastard own Syphurius. From the reports we were given, it’s one measly demon.”

  “And I suppose it’s normal for one ‘measly’ demon to overtake an entire city by itself in less than a week?”

  “Two.”

  The men turned to look at the owner of the small voice that interrupted them. Standing in the shadow of a shop was a merchant and a donkey-eared girl with a blue moonstone on