A Prince's Errand

by Dan Zangari

  “Kaescis,” Cornar said the prince’s name harshly, hoping to draw his attention. The prince turned, glowering at Cornar. It’s the Darkness magic, isn’t it? He had seen this driving bloodlust before, when he and Iltar slaughtered those responsible for the demise of Iltar’s parents.

  “If I had known who he was, I wouldn’t have brought him here.”

  “Brought them here?” The prince cocked his head in confusion.

  “They lost their mapping tevisral,” Cornar said. “Solidin used me to lead him and the Sapphire Guard to this temple.”

  Kaescis looked conflicted, pleased but angry.

  Igan stepped close, putting a hand on Cornar’s shoulder. “Solidin was clever. But if we had had all the information at our disposal, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  Kaescis glared at Igan.

  “You obviously knew about the Sapphire Guard,” the wizard said accusingly. “If Cornar had been told about them, he probably would have led Solidin in circles. They would have never found the temple.”

  “Are you sure they don’t have the tevisral anymore?” Kaescis asked.

  “Yes,” Cornar said.

  Kaescis smiled sinisterly. “Then they’ll have no way to locate Dalgilur…”

  He knows about Dalgilur? Cornar thought. Well, of course he would. Kaescis seemed to know a lot more than he let on.

  “What is Dalgilur?” Nordal asked. “Is there more to this quest than finding this temple?”

  Kaescis didn’t reply. He stepped back, nodding. The news about Solidin’s tevisral seemed to placate him.

  “Kaescis!” Bratan yelled from the temple’s entrance. “Kaescis! I can’t find Laeyit.”

  That’s right, she was gone. Kaescis turned, raising his brow.

  “No one has seen her since we assaulted the courtyard,” Bratan said.

  “She’s dead,” Cornar said, pointing to the missing barricade. “Thrown off over there.”

  Bratan’s face flared with fury.

  “One of the mages did it,” Igan said. “He used a telekinetic spell to hurl her into the chasm.”

  “Laeyit!” Bratan called, dashing to the opening between the barricades. The prince, however, didn’t seem to care. Was Kaescis that callous?

  “Laeyit!” Bratan shouted into the chasm. “Laeyit!”

  “Bratan, don’t bother,” Kaescis said, crossing the courtyard.

  “But, Kaescis!”

  The prince turned, staring coldly at Bratan. “She’s fine.”

  How was she fine? No. No one could survive a fall from such a height. Besides, that hole probably stretched to the center of the world.

  “I apologize for my behavior,” Kaescis said to Cornar. “Now if you’ll excuse me we have a temple to search.”

  * * * * *

  Jahevial stuck his head into another room on the sixth floor of the Keepers’ Temple. It was empty, like most others he had encountered. He had searched a few rooms containing books, all of a strange craftsmanship. They had shiny pages and looked like they had been bound yesterday. Other than that, there was nothing extraordinary about this place.

  Where are the tevisrals? he wondered. The other scholars had broken up into teams and searched the seven levels of this place. No one had mentioned finding any weapons or tevisrals.

  “I thought this place was a treasure trove,” he grumbled, peeling away from the room.

  Jahevial opened another door, finding a bedchamber. He slipped inside, careful to close the door behind him. Bookshelves lined a squared niche to his left, with a chair and nightstand. A bed and wardrobe of a sleek design were on the opposite side of the space.

  Cautious, Jahevial tiptoed to the bookcase, then perused the spines. He didn’t know what half the titles meant. There wasn’t much else on the shelves, so he went to the bed. Jahevial rummaged through the blanket and sheets, but found nothing. There wasn’t even a speck of dust upon the fabric. How odd… He opened the wardrobe, but it was empty. Perhaps all the clothes had unraveled and turned to dust? That seemed a likely explanation… but why would the bedding remain intact? Pouting, he checked under the bed and found nothing.

  “This place is empty,” Jahevial groaned. “What a waste…” Grandmaster Alacor would not be pleased. Unfortunately, this was another of Krindal’s wild gosset chases.

  Jahevial pulled up his robe and removed his communication tevisral. He swiped his forefinger across the gem, and it pulsed a pale-blue hue—signifying that he was able to send a message. He flipped the tevisral’s receiving end to his lips and spoke.

  “We’ve reached the temple, but there isn’t anything here. Krindal’s and Kaescis’s speculations were correct, in that the Sapphire Guard beat us to the temple. But I haven’t been able to find anything of significance here. I will send another message once I can confirm any discoveries made by the others.” Jahevial twirled the tevisral and tapped the gemstone, sending his message. The light faded, and he tucked the tevisral back beneath his robes.

  * * * * *

  “Maybe it’s up here,” Krindal speculated aloud, climbing the stairs to the temple’s seventh floor. He wound his way through several corridors. An opened door led to a room with thrones.

  In there first, he thought.

  Krindal entered the room, finding an unfamiliar man beside one of the thrones. He wore odd clothing. Maybe it was a Mindolarnian style unfamiliar to Krindal. “Find anything?” Krindal asked.

  The man focused on Krindal. “To what are you referring?”

  “Uh… Any tevisrals?” Krindal asked, chuckling.

  “There are no tevisrals here,” the man said flatly.

  That struck Krindal as odd. “Okay… well, did you find anything else in here? Maybe some artifacts that prove my theories true?”

  The man raised his brow at Krindal, then stared at the necklace. Krindal had placed it above his robe, in case he encountered anything that might require the gem to activate.

  “Another potential…” the man said, humming thoughtfully.

  “Huh?” Krindal stepped forward. He crossed the room, passing through its center. Light shone from a gemstone above the far throne, near where the man was standing.

  Krindal stopped and gazed at the light. “Is this—”

  A beam shot from the throne, striking Krindal in the chest. Everything went white, and he felt himself falling. Images of his life flashed before him, particularly his training in the magical arts.

  “You do not fit amongst any of the Orders,” a booming voice said. It sounded like three voices in one. Where was it coming from?

  “You are an oddity, a corruption.”

  “What?” Krindal demanded. He was no longer in that room with the thrones. He was in some white void.

  “You are closest to the Deathbringers, but you cannot be allowed to join their ranks.”

  Join their ranks? The Deathbringers? That was one of the Orders among the Keepers of Truth and Might…

  “What are you talking about?” Krindal demanded, searching for the voice. But there was no one around.

  “Begone,” the voice said.

  The light faded and Krindal found himself back in that room with the thrones, still on his back. Hadn’t he gotten on his feet? Why was he still lying down? A sharp pain surged through his head, growing into a blaring headache.

  “An oddity,” the man said, sighing. Krindal glimpsed him still standing by the throne.

  “An oddity,” a woman said, coming from Krindal’s left. It was hard for him to keep his eyes open, but he glimpsed her walking toward the man. And there was someone else… Who were these people? And where had they come from? He strained to see the third person and glimpsed pointed ears—

  “Elf!” Krindal shouted with terror. He struggled to his feet, trying to escape, but fell. The headache was debilitating

  “An oddity,” another masculine voice said. It was probably that elf. “You are a corrupt mage.”

  “Perhaps he seeks to reform his ways,” the woman said.
/>
  “Ha!” the supposed elf laughed.

  The sensation of a thousand daggers pierced Krindal’s head, and he screamed.

  “He seeks truth,” the man said. “To prove himself…” those words had a certain sadness to them.

  “What’s wrong, Dusel?” the woman asked.

  Dusel? Krindal knew that name… it was associated with myth.

  “He wishes to prove the world has fallen from grace,” the man—named as Dusel—said in a solemn tone. “That men didn’t always live in a dark age.”

  The pain began to subside. An image flashed in Krindal’s mind of a small crescent-shaped island in the middle of the ocean. At the island’s heart, towering buildings reached to the sky. Each structure was majestic beyond measure, similar but unique. They stood at the base of a mountain range that stretched across the island.

  Dalgilur.

  What was Dalgilur?

  Another image flashed, and Krindal stood at the heart of those buildings, gazing at the mountainside. White statues stood all around him, guarding a path to a majestic structure carved out of the mountain, larger than anything he had ever seen.

  Krindal blinked, and more pain shot through his head.

  Those three people kept talking while Krindal recovered. He took a deep breath and rose to his feet. “Who are you?” he asked with a groan. The pain lingered, though it wasn’t debilitating.

  “We are the founders of the Keepers of Truth and Might,” Dusel said.

  “That’s impossible,” Krindal said. “You should all be dead!”

  The elf shook his head and rolled his eyes.

  “So, what do we do with him?” the woman pursed her lips, glancing to the man and elf. “To which Order does he belong?”

  “He cannot belong to any Order,” the elf retorted. “He is an oddity, a corruption.”

  “You always want to go to the extremes,” the woman said, sighing. “Surely, he can fit somewhere.”

  “He must be cast out!” the elf shouted.

  “He is one of us, now,” Dusel said, drawing his lips to a line. “A Keeper of Truth and Might.”

  “I thought there were safeguards against this?” the elf asked. “How could the Orders miss him being a necromancer?”

  “We weren’t as careful as we thought,” the woman said. She had brilliant lime-green eyes… how odd. Could she be an ancestor of the Mindolarnians? They all had strange eye color. Footsteps echoed from the hall and Krindal turned, seeing Prince Kaescis.

  “What do we have here? the prince asked.

  “I don’t know, Your Imperial Highness…” Krindal said. The three strangers were glaring at the prince.

  “Abomination!” the elf shouted.

  “What is a lish qui’sha doing here?!” the woman demanded.

  Upon hearing those words, Kaescis’s eyes flared with surprise.

  “You are not welcome in this temple,” Dusel said sternly. “Depart!”

  “You cannot banish me,” Kaescis growled, steadying into a wide stance. He uttered an incantation, like the ones he had spoken when fighting the Sapphire Guard in the Igeacean Sea. Its words were sharp and rigid.

  Black mist appeared around Kaescis’s right hand, forming that gigantic black blade of his. It was like an oversized claymore, though it didn’t seem to weigh anything.

  “The Ko’delish!” the woman said with a gasp… “How, how can this be?”

  Raising his blade in the air, Kaescis dashed across the room. Was he going to kill them?

  “Your Imperial Highness, wait!” Krindal shouted, but it was too late.

  Kaescis sliced diagonally across the elf.

  The elf shattered… like glass. Was this some kind of illusion?

  With the elf vanquished, Kaescis dashed toward Dusel. Dusel glared vehemently at the prince as the black dissolving blade crashed down upon him. Dusel shattered and disappeared just like the elf.

  “Your kind will never triumph!” the woman scowled. “The—” She shattered as Kaescis sliced through her.

  The prince dismissed his blade, and it puffed into mist.

  “Why…?” Krindal asked, “why would you do such a thing?”

  “They weren’t alive, Krindal.”

  “Were they a manifestation of a tevisral?”

  Kaescis chuckled. “Something like that. Have you found the attunement chamber?”

  “I think this was it…” Krindal said hesitantly. He removed his mapping tevisral from his pack and handed it to the prince. Kaescis held it while Krindal removed the gem from his necklace. Krindal placed it upon the tevisral and it activated in an explosive manner.

  The map spanned the space between Krindal and the prince. Kaescis’s eyes frantically searched the seas.

  “Where is it?” the prince demanded, his tone impatient. This was a side of Kaescis Krindal had never seen. Had entering this temple stripped the prince of all dignity?

  Krindal’s eyes fell upon a glowing white speck in the southern hemisphere.

  Dalgilur…

  That speck of light called to him. He felt an urge, an insatiable pull. He had to go there. No! Krindal felt horrified, realizing where the island lay—in the treacherous waters known as the World’s Frown. Dozens of islands formed the “frown” on the atlas of Kalda. Those islands lay between the Abodine Wasteland and the continent nicknamed the Forbidden Lands—though its rightful name was Meyitevar.

  “I… I see… it,” Krindal said fearfully.

  “Where?” Kaescis demanded.

  “There,” Krindal said, pointing a trembling finger to the southeastern sea and the World’s Frown.

  The glowing speck denoting Dalgilur’s location was in the center of the World’s Frown, about the same latitude as Soroth. In fact, when looking at the map—which included the various temples—Dalgilur and the temple at Klindil were mirrored, if flipped along the equator and meridian.

  “I don’t see the marker…” Kaescis said, anger boiling. Why was the prince acting like this? He had been so peaceful before.

  “Perhaps only I can see it,” Krindal speculated, frightened.

  Kaescis nodded, though he didn’t look pleased. “Magnify it,” the prince commanded.

  Krindal obeyed, revealing an island on the map identical to what he had seen in vision.

  “We need to go there,” the prince said. “Your proof will be on that island.”

  “B-bu-but,” Krindal said, stammering, “there’s plenty of proof here!” His voice shook with trepidation. He feared venturing into the World’s Frown. Those dreadful seas were rumored to swallow up any ship that dared sail their waters. But then that insatiable pull swelled within him.

  No! Krindal fought the urge. He had to quell it and dissuade the prince.

  “Take this room for instance,” Krindal said. “This shows that our ancestors were capable of mimicking life by use of advanced tevisrals. Nothing in the known world can create something so lifelike. We need to stay and uncover all we can about—”

  “We don’t have that luxury,” Kaescis said, walking to the door.

  What did he mean? They had driven off the Sapphire Guard and laid their claim. The temple was theirs, as were its secrets.

  “The Sapphire Guard will plunder the greater treasures on the Isle of the Ancient Ones,” the prince added. “We must beat them there.”

  The Isle of the Ancient Ones? Krindal wondered. Surely, that wasn’t the same place as Dalgilur… Not in the World’s Frown.

  A sudden pang of horror struck Krindal. The urge swelled within him as he considered the prince’s words. The Isle of the Ancient Ones was an island of myth and legend, the supposed birthplace of humanity. No scholar accepted the Isle of the Ancient Ones as a real place. There was no validity to its existence. But if the Isle of the Ancient Ones was in the World’s Frown that would explain the lack of evidence concerning it.

  “Plunder the temple,” Kaescis said, “but I don’t think you’ll find what you’re looking for, Master Krindal.”

/>   “Death will have no hold upon him, for he shall rise from the grave.”

  - Prophecy of Soron Thahan

  Cornar sat with some of his men inside the Keepers’ Temple. He didn’t want to be around the Mindolarnians, so he had sequestered himself in one of the many side rooms. This room was nothing spectacular. It had a bed and some bookshelves. Kalder said they had found other rooms like it. Those clusters of magic had said that Solidin could rest before making his trek; these rooms were probably guest quarters for the Ancient Keepers.

  “It’s not looking profitable.” Midar sighed with disappointment and sat down beside Cornar. “Just a bunch of books. No tevisrals or artifacts.”

  “It’s a shame,” Gregan said through a mouthful of food. He sat against a wall with a bowl of beans in his hands. “I guess this was another of Krindal’s wild gosset chases.”

  This temple wasn’t the end goal, Cornar thought. It never was, if what Solidin claimed was true. Dalgilur’s Isle was the real prize. Whatever was there was probably worth kingdoms. Solidin would get to it first, though. Perhaps I should have agreed to join him.

  “What are you thinking, Cor?” Shen asked.

  “That I made a mistake,” Cornar answered frankly, gazing at the ceiling. One of the twenty symbols—which he deduced was for one of the Orders—adorned the center of the ceiling with a bunch of other symbols around it, creating a beautiful pattern.

  “What do you mean, Uncle?” Ordreth asked.

  Cornar squinted at the ceiling. How was he going to tell his men?

  “Don’t hold back, Cor,” Midar said. “We can take it.”

  Cornar took in a deep breath before speaking. “Solidin offered me a chance to side with him.”

  “The elf?!” Ordreth blurted.

  “Is that why they avoided attacking us?” Nordal asked. “Every time I tried engaging them they backed off and focused on the Mindolarnians.”

  How much more should Cornar say to them? Dare he say that Kaescis was not what they thought he was? But what was he? Cornar didn’t know…

  The door to the chamber opened and Kalder entered with Igan.

  “Cor,” Igan said, “they want the things from this room.” The wizard just stood there. He was waiting for Cornar to respond. Igan had undoubtedly figured that this venture wasn’t going to be as profitable as they first thought.