The Emperor's Shadow War (Tales of Alus Book 2)

by Donald Wigboldy

  Tavish's voice exclaimed behind him ecstatically, "Thank you, my lord wizard, and thank you. Long life to you, sir."

  Darius turned briefly and nodded with a smile.

  After they had moved off for a time, Electra stepped closer to his side. "Thank you for the gift, wizard," she said with a smile. "Why did you give the merchant more than he asked for anyway?"

  He shrugged, "I have no need of money. I could have ordered the dagger from him, if I had felt the need, but the money is deserved. Tavish needs it to support himself and his family after all. As wizard, I have the power and authority to ask for more from the people. I simply gave him what I thought that he deserved besides, he didn't tell the truth about its value. This is easily twenty gold pieces or more for most people to purchase, though fifteen is the lower end of fair."

  "So," she began by pointing her finger into his face, "what you are saying is that you still ripped the man off? I'm only worth a cheap gift is that it?"

  Laughing in response, Darius knew that she was only making fun of him at his expense, thus the gift was made more expensive though this helped the merchant not at all. "Please, I'll make it up to you," he responded with a twinkle of playfulness in his eyes. "I'm sure that I can find several more cheap gifts to honor you with in the future."

  An elbow found his rib cage in retaliation.

  "Indeed," the woman replied trying to stay straight faced. Electra turned her eyes back to the dagger and sheath as she slid the blade free again. Running a finger along its

  gleaming surface, the hunter smiled a small smile that was meant to be shared only between the two of them. "I keep noticing more similarities between you and Janus."

  His brow wrinkled slightly in confusion, "How so?"

  "He too has great power over the people of our land. Janus doesn't betray their faith in him by abusing his authority or strength either. Perhaps that is why I like you so."

  "Because I'm like Janus?" he asked with curiosity.

  The elbow found his ribs again. "No, of course not. At least, I didn't mean it that way! There are definite things that I like about Janus, but they were never enough to draw me to him as I've been drawn to you." She looked at him with a serious and examining gaze. "I still can't put the reasons into words though."

  As her voice faded in thought, Darius turned to face where he was going. "I haven't bothered to try and put my feelings into words, but I think that I could. I love your exterior beauty without a doubt, since it echoes the beauty within as well." Turning back to her renewed stare, the wizard added, "I find myself living to wake to your looks and touch. If I'm sad, you brighten my day."

  "But can you define why?" she wagged a finger at his nose. It was a distraction designed to draw his vision from her blue eyes fighting back tears from his words.

  He took the hand in his and held it at his side. With a light kiss to her lips, Darius replied, "What more can I say? I love you as you are, not for just one piece. That is why you can't define such individual points."

  A quirky half smile tugged at the side of her mouth, "Do all of your wizards know how to talk like this, Darius? Such magic could make your order virtually unbeatable."

  He shrugged, "We almost are here in our home world."

  "So where are you going to lead us to first then, great wizard?"

  "The libraries above first, I think. After that I think that we'll need to find Dorvin or at least his family."

  Electra looked at him curiously, "Why them?"

  He smiled, "Not yet. It’s a wizard's secret. Come on. Whether Janus believes this city to be large enough or not, we still have a lot of walking to do to before we find this library."

  The city of Darvus was much as Jaran and Dorvin had described it and more. Most of the buildings tended to be three or four stories within the inner city walls. Made almost entirely of stone, Darius was impressed that such constructions could so easily sustain their weight much less for the decades and maybe even centuries that they already had so far. It wasn't until after they had stopped to eat in an airy cafe and continued into the innermost buildings that he really became amazed.

  The king's castle soared upwards from behind some of the largest stone constructions that Darius had ever heard of let alone ever seen. The buildings made those in the city of Ciciles look like the merest of hovels. When they found the first of the great libraries, Darius let out a low whistle of admiration.

  He turned with a small smile to Janus, and asked, "Does your Nemeya have buildings this large as well?"

  The holy knight turned up his nose slightly and replied, "Bigger."

  Shaking his head, Darius led them up the tall flight of stairs to the library's entrance. "I'd love to see Nemeya one day then," the wizard added as he reached for the copper door handles.

  The interior of the Library of Emecles was built on just as grand a scale within as without. Darius and the others stared up at the vaulted ceiling hanging at least forty feet above their heads supported by huge stone columns like those fronting the entrance to the library. Within the spacious building, were few true walls. There were many rows of tall, wooden, shelving units, some of which had to be almost twenty feet high themselves. As Darius led the way in, he spotted a large set of desks in the center of an open area formed between the fully laden shelves. A grouping of them was placed in a nearly closed square. Several old men sat or moved busily about in the middle of these. Younger men came and went on errands for the elder men. Darius stepped towards them assuming these men to be the librarians and hence the most likely to have access to the information that he needed.

  Stepping to the desks, Darius cleared his throat attempting to get one old man's attention. The man sat directly before him reading through a scroll and ignoring him completely. Clearing his throat again, a few of the men behind the old librarian looked over with angry looks that quickly evaporated upon noticing the rank of wizard about Darius and Matalchus directly behind him.

  One of the men stepped over and tapped the old man on the shoulder, "Liechus."

  The old man ignored him a moment longer before growling, "Let the man wait, Verek. I'm trying to finish this."

  The librarian known as Verek pulled on the white hair at the back of the older man's scalp drawing Liechus' eyes up to face Darius. A retort of anger stalled into fear as he took in Darius' appearance. The old man jumped upward almost toppling the chair that he had sat upon. Verek stepped away after it hit him holding his stomach.

  "My lord wizard!" Liechus half shouted in surprise. "Please, forgive a silly old man! I was absorbed in these words and did not realize who was before me."

  Darius glanced at the empty tables surrounding them, "With such rude old men here to service this place, there is no wonder that no common man comes here. You should be finding ways to encourage the people to learn rather than hoarding all this for yourselves. What would those that created this place think of all these empty tables?" he replied showing only a little anger, not for himself but for the people of the city. "It took nearly half a dozen people for me to find one who actually knew where you existed, Liechus. What good does it do to have only old men who are nearly dust learning and not sharing what they have learned?"

  The old man paled noticeably, "My lord, I do not know what to say."

  Darius waved him off angrily, "I do not have time for this now, old man. Right now I have need of information, if it is indeed here."

  "What is it that you need, sir? Anything that an old librarian can give is yours for the asking."

  "I need information on a relic known as the Armor of Norn. Do you possess this information?"

  Old Liechus was trembling before him worriedly now. "Give me a moment, lord wizard, and I'll see if we can find such a piece."

  The old man gathered his fellows about him in a huddle before they scattered from their little barricade to all directions of the library. As Darius and the others stood watching the scrambling men as they roamed the library shelves intently, Matalchus whi
spered, "A little hard on the old fool weren't you, boy?"

  Darius turned with a frown that quickly shifted into a smile of satisfaction. "Maybe," he answered, "but I wasn't kidding. These men should be here to help teach this city, but it isn't getting done. Let me ask you something as well, Matalchus. Why don't the wizards visit Darvus more often?"

  The older wizard laid a hand upon his chin thinking a moment. The sounds of the librarians crashing into things or dropping books in their haste, was shut out as he thought. Matalchus nodded, "I see your point, Darius."

  "What point?" Tate and Electra echoed from either side.

  Matalchus smiled with the merest bend of his lips, "We rarely visit because there is seldom reason to do so. There are almost never any candidates that show the thirst for knowledge that people like you and Darius have shown, Tate. There is rarely any glimmerings of magic evidenced and there never has. If people don't want to learn, there will never be candidates for wizards here. You know how much there is to learn and understand to become one, Tate. If you were raised here, you may not have had any of the traits either. There is no quest for learning generated by such cities."

  "Perhaps that is not the only reason," Janus put in. The knight had his arms crossed as he listened to those around him. "Maybe there were glimmerings before the dwarves, but surely now any magical abilities or innate skills have disappeared from their line. It is the anti-magic of their race that quells such needs.

  "This place was built before their coming, I would guess. The library has an air of the magic that was once used here, but the city becomes dwarven.

  "I do not say that dwarves are inferior, of course, rather that they put faith in the works of their hands only. Dexterity of hand is almost like magic in its own way, but this city dwells in anti-magic and would thus be useless to your kind. They can not learn the magic because it is not their way. I suppose that, if you chose to give them the time, they could learn, but it is not their first nature like it is for my people."

  Darius stared at the elf a moment appraisingly. "You say that they are not inferior, but your voice betrays your true beliefs. You are right in your words though. I believe that these may be people of anti-magic, but let's not jump to too many conclusions just yet, Janus."

  The holy knight grunted and they returned to watching the librarians as they ran around their library.

  Chapter 36- Darius

  Darius was soon glad enough that he had sent Matalchus and Fioren to the other two libraries along with their elven escorts, of course. It was after nearly an hour of the nearly two dozen men searching through rack upon rack of books and scrolls before even one piece of information on the armor was found. Liechus came back with a triumphant grin and laid an ancient, worn scroll upon the table before Darius.

  "This is it!" he proclaimed. "This is the scroll of Alig or rather the descendant of the original wearer of the armor."

  "Did it say what happened to the armor or the descendants of Alig?" Darius asked quickly.

  The old man's smile faded somewhat, "You hadn't asked..." he began, but not wanting to incur a wizard's wrath the librarian started again, "That is, this is the only thing written on the armor at all within this library. It details many things about the armor and the escapades it endured for two centuries. It doesn't tell of its exact last resting place after this writing, of course, but at the last written word it was held by one of the Norn family in Darvus."

  Darius caressed his chin in thought before asking a more dangerous question. "Does it tell of its origins? Perhaps word of another world aside from our own."

  Liechus began smiling again and unrolled the parchment in front of the wizard. "Well, you know how the ancients were about superstitions and myths and the like. This scroll tells of the father of the Norns, a King Alig of Norn to be exact. It says that he fought a dark lord to a standstill and locked the creature away in a tomb of silver. It was enchanted to hold the undying dark thing, until a time came when the king or his descendants could find a way to destroy the beast entirely." The old man skimmed down the length of the paper, unrolling it further as he did so. "Blah, blah, blah. Ah! Here it is. Ten generations of Norns used the armor to battle dark races of the north and the beasts that were spawned in the first war, but then Alig, the second, used the armor and the enchanted sword to cause a breach of their world to find a paradise, as they called it here.

  "Sick of the fighting with the dark things and a race, only referred to as the fair folk, Alig led more than a thousand followers here to our world. That is where it ends except to say that Alig and his first followers settled and created a great fortress. It is called Darvus, hence this city."

  Darius had followed as best he could through the scroll though the script and old language were hard enough for him to follow. He shook his head disheartened. "Nothing else?" he asked of the air.

  "No, Wizard Darius, I'm afraid that is it in this library," the librarian replied worriedly.

  To show that the lack of success was not going to cost the man his life, or whatever the superstitious old man was truly thinking, Darius praised him lightly, "Good work, Liechus. It's a start at least." He moved his thoughts from this dead end to another possibility that the man had already thought of earlier. "Let me ask you something that you should know. Are there any libraries besides these in the center of the city, perhaps another hidden under ground?"

  Liechus called over a dwarven old man, "Samekh? You know the elders of Lower Darvus. Have they any true libraries constructed down there?"

  Darius noticed a wariness come into the dwarf's eyes that seemed caused by the question. The wizard wondered about it even as the little man answered slowly, "None such as Emecles, Liechus."

  "How about smaller less noticeable collections?" Darius pushed through the attempted sidestep.

  "Um," Samekh started sweating in the cool room. "I can't say," he finally answered.

  Darius let a little of his annoyance show through his former visage of calm. "Perhaps you can answer this for me, dwarf," he had to hold on to his temper to avoid growling at the little man, "do you know if the descendants of Alig changed their name enough to sweep aside their legacy? Is the MacNorn family actually his descendants?"

  The man was white as a sheet and looked ready to pass out beneath the wizard's glare. "I know not," he squeaked weakly.

  "I don't believe you, Samekh," Darius warned sternly, "but your own lies tell me the truth well enough. Thank you," added the wizard dismissively.

  The dwarf scurried away towards the only true wall built within the library. Darius watched the man's movements carefully. He had been forcefully blunt for a reason.

  "Liechus, I was told that these old libraries have hidden stairs leading down to Lower Darvus. Is that true?"

  "Yes, Wizard Darius, it is," the old man answered and looked towards where the wizard's gaze fell. "Do you think that Samekh goes to use it now?" he asked reading Darius' mind.

  "If he knows the way," the wizard muttered grimly. He stood and started to follow the dwarf who had already disappeared through a wooden door in the wall. Darius turned and spoke to the others, "Electra, wait here to..."

  "No, I'm going with you," the woman said adamantly. "You can't leave me behind."

  With a sigh, he looked at Tate, "Then you will have to stay here or go to warn the others that we are going below. Have them follow."

  "Why can't you just have these librarians tell them?" his friend asked gesturing to the men who had returned to their earlier work. "I think that I should go with you, as well."

  Darius pulled his friend closer, "I can't leave this with them. We don't know if they are loyal to us, do we?

  That would leave us trusting both our lives and the others to these men. You saw the dwarf's reaction to my accusations. Can we be sure of the rest? I need someone that I can trust to let Matalchus and Fioren know what's going on now. Electra won't stay behind no matter what I might say. Janus will refuse just as much I would guess, and Bagheer? H
e would worry himself to death before the others ever returned. That only leaves you and I know that I can trust you more than anyone."

  "All right," Tate sighed grudgingly, "but I'm going to tell them and come right behind you. They can come with or wait, but I'll be behind you as soon as I can return again."

  The wizard nodded, "Good enough." He strode off followed by the others and pushed through the small doorway even as the patter of Tate's boots ran outside.

  They entered a room full of old books so covered with dust that Darius sneezed. He looked around for another door. At first, he couldn't find it. There were just the shelves loaded with books surrounding them. Janus pointed to the floor, however, indicating the marks of boots in the dust. They led to a wall of shelves that seemed firm enough, but under the holy knight's questing fingers soon yielded as he pulled on a secret book that wasn't a book but a lever. The case fell away revealing a stone stairway leading into darkness unlit by any torches that they could see. The dwarf had obviously moved quickly into the depths.

  "All right, we'll follow the little man now and find out what is going on here," the wizard declared. Pulling a waiting torch from a holder within the back room, Darius lit it with a taste of wizard's fire and started towards the stairs.

  An arm took hold of his and pulled him back, "Allow me, sir. There might be traps laid for us down there," Bagheer insisted. Darius passed the torch to the man's waiting hand and followed as he began to carefully navigate his way down into the depths.

  Darius noticed the man pulling away spider webs from his face as he pushed ever deeper into the earth. He smiled as Bagheer began to curse the dwarf's diminutive height. "You asked to lead," whispered the wizard with no expected response.

  Bagheer stopped his grumbling with a last grunt and pushed onwards without any further complaint. They moved deeper into the earth as the stairway began to wind back and forth. Occasionally, they came to a landing wide enough for them all to stand on long enough to push on yet again. Darius could feel the weight of the stone hemming him in as they moved ever lower down the stairway. He began to wonder if they would ever find the outlet into Lower Darvus.