Ultimus Thesaurus: The last Treasure (Era of Change Book 1)

by Maximilian Warden

The titan looked down at me and began to laugh. He knocked me so strongly on the shoulder that I almost fell forward and said: “You remind me of the Sun King. He also was a man who didn’t know his place. Let us travel to Singasteinn. But if it turns out that you have lied to me, to steal the knowledge, than I will kill you.”

  With every further step I wondered what life Jasper had led. Slowly I understood why he could never return. He was the reason why this world existed. And now that he was dead, we had to take his place, even if this was not always easy.

  Chapter 11: The Corpse of a Hero

  I followed the titan, who despite his name wasn't as big as I would’ve imagined him. He resembled a human so much that at first he wouldn’t even seem that different, were it not for the glowing blue runes on his skin. We ran up to a guard control point, but it was unmanned and the titan stopped. He touched a stone, mounted on a metal plate and closed his eyes.

  “Here it is. With these stones they control the cells. I will now show you why the Sun King feared me,” he said and the runes on his body darkened.

  He sent out a strong pulse, which I felt but could not see. It took only a few seconds, until he opened his eyes again and let go of the stone.

  “This world is old. Many of which I knew are no longer, but how could all this happen? I can still not believe that a human should have managed to open the chambers of Singasteinn. And you human, you I seem to have underestimated. Behind all that fear that you bear, I can see a deep and strong anger. Your plan to sacrifice the people, who helped you infiltrate this place, and your betrayal of the woman you love. You don’t want to save the knowledge, you want to destroy it.”

  I wasn’t sure how he did it, but he had managed to read my mind like an open book. He must have used the energy from the prison network to use this ability.

  “I am fighting for what I believe is right. Initially I wanted to save this book and I wanted to believe that with the knowledge death and disease could be beaten. We humans have a place in this world, and from this place life and death aren’t determined. I had a choice. My life could have been very different from what it is today and still I am standing here with you. It is therefore impossible for me to now look the other way, especially when I think about the fact that the entire world must be in search of this knowledge.

  What could a monster with such power do?”

  The titan touched the stone again and his runes began to flash. He turned it around and a loud noise travelled through the entire prison block. His actions were not bound by his feelings of pity or anger; he was looking for understanding in the thoughts of others. He wanted me to show him what to do because he alone, wasn’t able to act.

  “We need to go to human. The men that I freed, among them there is someone with the name Lloyd ‘Greybeard’ Dylan. He is a famous pirate of your time and he will travel to Amnia with high probability. He owns a vessel anchored in the harbour of your hometown, which can only be controlled by him personally. We will follow him, and when the time comes, he will accompany us to Singasteinn,” said the titan and was already moving forward.

  “Who are you? Could all titans do these things? Read the thoughts and wishes of people, and of so many at the same time?”

  He turned around and looked down at me with his emotion-free face.

  “Call me Aton. My people once received the gift to gather, store and conserve the knowledge of the world so we could secure it for all eternity, but one day the Sun King came and ended our lives. It was the will of the Ettins and thus it was fair. It is not in my power to do something about it. Your questions will have to wait as the prisoners will soon leave this prison,” he said and ran down the corridor.

  As he had seemingly gathered all of the thoughts of every being in this fortress it seemed to be a good idea to follow him for the time being, at least until I understood what exactly was going on here. Jasper Lawrence had always amazed me, but as a little boy I thought only about the adventures of which he told me. The treasures that he found, the creatures he saw and the people he protected. Today I saw it for what it really was, namely the life of a lonely man who had to die so that the world could know him.

  The titan guided me back to the hall just before the throne room of the king. I wanted to talk to him, but he just nodded and showed in the direction in which he afterwards disappeared. It was as though it had become unnecessary to even speak with him. But he seemed to have forgotten that I was not as gifted as he was.

  My goal was to take Magnus back to then finally leave this fortress. As I arrived in the throne room I was greeted by a very disturbing sight, because the king and Magnus were sitting side by side talking like friends and sharing the food.

  “The life of a king is wonderful, I get all I want, the food of a king is wonderful, and I will never break this bond!!! The life of a king is bitter sweet as all that’s on the table, all these decked out tables, the life of a king is bitter sweet, it’s like a genuine fable!,” they both sang and ate, while I cautiously approached them.

  “My king, I think that it is time for the mage to begin his spell,” I said and the two stopped.

  The king looked at me and laughed while Magnus studied every single move he made and while he tried to copy them.

  “True! Give it your all, Magnus!”

  Magnus stood up and came running to me. His in grease and food covered clothes had become so sticky, that they seemed to entwine him like a rope, while he still held a chicken wing in his hand. I handed him a sip of the elixir, which he immediately took into his hand dancing and jumping through the room.

  “We ate and we drank, so I give my thanks! And even when we fought you told me what you thought. But now it is too late, no longer can I wait, so start the drums and dance with me and sing aloud with hope and glee!”

  Like a magic trick he threw the bottle in the air and caught it with his mouth. He emptied it with a sip and fell over like a dead man.

  The throne room was suddenly silent, but after a short time Isaac jumped up from the ground and even the king couldn’t believe what he saw.

  “Wonderful! Remarkable! A true magician! Have you seen this, Patrick? Is this not incredible?” cried the king to his servant, who had entered the room with disturbing messages.

  “My king, the prisoners broke free from their cells. At first it was only block 4, but now all of them have been opened. If we do not bring the situation under control soon they will all escape.”

  The king looked around and considered his actions, but then replied: “So be it! They can flee all they want. Let them shatter this resistance. Once the dust settles, we will take new prisoners. Just close of the royal palace. I do not want this scum to bother me while I eat.”

  “Very well, my king.”

  Our time was beginning to run out but together with Isaac I ran through the heavy iron door before they could close it off. The king had no other choice than to let us go and so we followed the path of the titan. He had marked the direction in which he had gone. And as we reached the end of his trail, we found the room in which the corpses were stashed and later discarded. Lucia just stood there and looked at the body of her father, while the titan looked into the seemingly endless abyss of Jik'Zur.

  “Our time is running short. You still want to escape this place, right?” I asked and the noise and the violence behind us became ever so loudly.

  “He did not deserve this end, Iago. We only ever waited, only because we never really believed in what he did. And now here we are, leaning over the corpse of a man who wanted to save the world and who is now rotting inside a prison. I hadn’t seen him for a very long time. I barely knew what he looked like. I cannot leave him here,” she said and began to weep.

  Her sorrow was understandable, but our time was short. All this time it had been me standing around weeping. She helped me and was always so strong and independent. And right now, right here, I had to be like that. Much had changed in such a short time.

  “We cannot save him. No o
ne can. But if we want to do what he couldn’t, then we must leave this place now. That is all that remains for us. We have unleashed the darkness from the Fortress of Shadows, we ran away from our home but now we have to go back and face the spirits upon which we called. Your father only ever had one dream. He wanted to return home, but neither of us ever will. The knowledge in this book is more dangerous than anyone can imagine, and we must ensure that it is destroyed.”

  Aton gasped at my words and Isaac turned his gaze. My proposal to destroy the sacred knowledge of the gods was certainly not popular, but nevertheless it was the only way to save the world we knew.

  “We can help him, Isaac can. If we find the book, then he can save my father. Magnus has said it himself. We therefore need to take him with us,” begged Lucia and looked me in the eyes.

  Aton still looked down into the abyss. My thoughts developed faster then I wanted them to, but he could read and understand them before I was aware of them at all.

  “Are you sure, human? This decision will change your life,” Aton asked me and I knew that my decision had already been made.

  “It is no longer just our life, Lucia. We are fighting for the life of everyone out there. I am sorry,” I said. While I spoke, Aton grabbed the corpse of Lawrence and threw it down into the Gate of Hell.

  Lucia cried out flailing her arms around in sorrow and madness. Each of her tears was like a needle in my heart, but when I looked into this abyss, I knew that there was not only fear in my soul. There was a darkness that was so deep, that none could ever dare to fight it. I needed to be cold so I could save this world.

  Chapter 12: The Way back Home

  What should you do, if you are presented the choice between serving the common good and helping the people you love? Not every decision has two sides, some are simply always bad. Only a few seconds after I had decided that the corpse of my idol, and the father of Lucia, had to be thrown down into the Gate of Hell, I felt sorry. It was no mistake, but I still had to suffer for it now. Lucia was hardly able to think clearly and thus Aton carried her outside on his shoulders. We blended in with the rest of the prisoners and tried to keep our heads down as much as possible. Isaac realized now that I would also go up against him if I would deem it necessary, and I knew, that it could make keeping this group together increasingly difficult.

  The crowd’s anger grew by the minute and it only made worse, what I knew would happen next. As soon as the gates opened and the bridge was lowered, I could see the faces of Danton and his men in the distance. They were rebels going up against the king and were therefore not considered anything more than criminals themselves. But people like these, locked away and tortured for years in dark prison cells, didn’t care about these differences. It only took a minute before the first man fell, and only a few seconds for the next. The massacre offered us a good opportunity to escape, but I knew that this blood was on my hands.

  “We must hurry. The pirates will soon gather. Only a few days left. Meet me in Amnia,” said Aton and ran forward with Lucia on his back.

  His speed was breath-taking. Neither the density of the snow nor the cold air could stop him. Only Isaac and I remained now, but the carriage we had used to get here was lost. We had left it behind believing that we would no longer need it, and now where time was the only limiting factor, we had no other choice than to steal horses from the stables of the city.

  “Did you ever plan on granting me a look at the book? I doubted you from the beginning, but now it seems almost ridiculous to have ever thought otherwise,” said Isaac and tramped forward through the high snow.

  Around us one could hear the cries and shouts of the people running away or standing around, stunned by shock, staring at their houses burning down and seeing the resistance vanish in a tidal wave of blood.

  “My father always thought that I am a weakling, a person without the courage to make difficult decisions. Today I know that he is wrong. The decision to free these men was mine, and even though it was Aton who did it, it was my strong will that made him do it. This fear that I had felt right before we walked onto the property of your father, or when I even just thought about the fact that a power existed, that could make a man become a god; all of it had been too much for me. Jasper had always been my role model because he was strong and charming, but what I really wanted from life, were freedom and power. No, I never wanted to grant you anything. And I never wanted to save Jasper, just as I never expected to support Lucia in her beliefs. For me this is not a treasure, it is a curse that rests on all of us.”

  My words came as no surprise to him, but he appreciated my honesty despite it being everything he never wanted to hear.

  “Don’t get me wrong, but I think that you are a fool. The power in this book may be used for something good. Lawrence knew this, and he has sacrificed his life for it to be retained. Why would he have sent you otherwise? He could have just destroyed it to begin with. We should understand and improve the world, but you want to protect it, by destroying it in the first place. You said that we should not raise ourselves up to the gods, but you have already done so. Hundreds of people died today just because you allowed it to happen. There may be a way to make use of this knowledge, without unnecessary bloodshed. My path and yours continue to be intertwined, because alone none of us will ever find this treasure. And yes, I think it is a treasure.”

  There was the possibility that Isaac was right, but all that I could see within his petty words, was shrouded by his past and the still unknown reason why he even wanted to find this treasure. I couldn’t believe him when he told me, that he wanted to save his family and I was especially sure, that he didn’t just want to save the world. He still had secrets that he kept from us, and even if Lucia trusted him, I couldn’t do it at all. My actions may have led us down the same path, but when the time would come, I would be ready to sever this bond without hesitation. With all this chaos and destruction, it was not difficult to steal two horses, without it being noticed. So we rode in the direction of Amnia, although not as fast as we would have wanted to. Isaac still had plenty of his elixir left, but without Aton, telling us how much time remained, we had no idea what to do. But a further trip with Magnus would make reaching Amnia almost impossible, as his fear and fragile mind wouldn’t make for a great travelling companion.

  So we reached an inn on the Golden Road, the main road through all of Jimosien, once built to unite all of the kingdoms. Many traveling merchants and scholars, who went from town to town, used this road and thus there were guest houses like this every few kilometres. We did not attract any attention and we planned to spend a whole day at this place, since it was a much bigger risk moving on while Magnus assumed the control.

  “Two nights? Quite unusual for travellers, what brings you to this place? Are you refugees from the city? I heard that the resistance had started its attack on the fortress. I wonder what comes next for these countries. There are exciting times ahead, or dark times, depending on who you are,” giggled the old woman behind the counter and showed us our rooms.

  They were outfitted with simple beds and nothing else, but we wouldn’t need anything more. And as much as we were pressured to reveal who we were, so we tried to prevent it. No one should know that we were involved in the attack, but it was unlikely after the death of Danton and his men. But as soon as the nightfall started I began to hear disturbing noises from the distance, which made me understand, what beasts I had let loose into the night.

  If beings like Aton had been held captive at this place for thousands of years, than I couldn’t even dare to imagine, what horrors had been caged in these shadows. More and more of my attempts to fall asleep failed, so I started to just stare out of the window into the dark night. I thought about seeing my father again after what I had done to him. Although it was not even a month ago that I had seen him last, this was the longest period of my life I spent separated from him. A life like that of Isaac was inconceivable for me, to always be united with one person, without any
possibility of solitude.

  There was a time when I wished that Lucia had been more than just a friend. Today I prayed to the gods that she could even accept me as that. One day she will understand why I did it, but she could probably never forgive me.

  “So you can’t sleep as well. I thought to myself that perhaps you might like some company before I take my elixir and my father takes you with him into the madness,” said Isaac quietly while he opened the door gently.

  “Come in, I just thought about what will happen next. This island Singasteinn, what do you know about it?” I asked Isaac and lit a candle, while he sat down next to me on the bed.

  “I hadn’t even known what you have told me. I only knew the titans from legends and the Sun King of course from children's fairy tales. Just the thought that he really once existed amazes me even now. We have grown up in times in which the magic has almost completely disappeared. For us there is hardly a mystery that has not already been uncovered. Perhaps that’s why you want to keep yourself from the truth within this book.”

  “Giving people an incentive to live is the least of my worries. When I think about why I had begun this journey, all I can do is laugh. I seriously thought for a moment that Jasper was still alive, and that all of this was just a rumour. The treasure that he sought and the help that he needed, that all of this was just an easier way for him to see his daughter. But when I stood there and when I saw Lucia leaning over his body I felt nothing.