by Carrow Brown
I stood taking in the room with my senses. Hardin’s words had left me cautious.
My eyes noted the weapons—swords, daggers, and spears—along the walls in protective cases, magical staffs and wards stacked neatly against the wall by the main entrance of the room; the power in the air hummed.
“I thought you said this was some magical library,” David whispered into my ear. “This looks like an armory.”
“It was a library seventy years ago. They’ve expanded, it seems.” I walked to the center of the room. “No wonder Aaron doesn’t want me hovering around. I wouldn’t want anyone in here, either.”
Despite the change in its nature, shelves of books were still present with their magical reinforcements to protect and preserve them from the influence of time. More tomes had been added since my last visitation—an impressive amount. Stepping toward them, I spied Homer’s Margites, Shakespeare’s Cardenio, On Sphere-Making by Archimedes and—
“Oh. My. God.” I grinned at the title. “It’s the Gospel of Eve. Kinky-kinky.”
David was at my side in a moment. “No fucking way. I read about that in class.” He looked at me, his stern and serious eyes shifted to adorable puppy. “Can we take it? Please? Think of all the good it will do.”
I slapped him on the shoulder. “The Christian sex bible stays here.”
He snorted. “Fine.”
Shaking my head, I moved to eye the new glass cases mounted to the wall since my last visit. Weapons, relics, and mirrors rested on cushions within. Mirrors hung on the walls, their reflections watched us in silence. Some banged on the surface, screaming with reddened faces, while others glowered.
“And part-time prison, too,” I murmured. “What is going on here?”
Apart from the books—most of them—everything held a deadly purpose. It bothered me that a place of knowledge had been transformed to one better suited for war.
I sighed. “What did you see to set this into motion, sweet child?”
If I had to guess, a lot of death and chaos. My kind of party.
My fingers tapped along my thigh. “This is becoming an even bigger pain in the ass. I miss the days when I could come in, take stuff, and ‘poof’!”
Ratatoskr climbed up my leg to perch by my neck. “Where would they keep the Kuglehost?”
“It’s a book about the Outer Ones, so it’s likely locked up over”—my eyes rested along the wall lined with safes—“there.”
Moving to the safes, I saw they were labeled by letter range. I walked until I came to J-L.
“This has to be it,” I murmured. My eyes looked over the safe, noting the combination dial and glowing wards. Unlike the others, the safe looked much older and made of iron. Nothing stopped magic like iron.
Silence said, Let me see it. I pulled him free and pressed his pommel against the safe. Hrm. Silence’s runes flared as he inspected it. Got the typical ‘you shall not enter’ wards on the door. And, oh... that’s interesting.
My fingers drummed along his hilt. “What kind of interesting?”
It has wards on the inside and outside.
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t like the sound of that. Can you see why?”
Give me a moment. Silence went still, though I felt him vibrate in my hand. Hey, I see the Hope Diamond.
I let out a groan. “Awesome. What else?”
Some rolled up painting—ack! The eye in it looked at me. What else... there’s a teddy bear as well.
“Stars and void,” I muttered. “What are the inside wards?”
They look like the time-out wards Vainya uses on me. Stuff in here can’t leave or influence anything outside.
David nudged me. “What’s wrong?”
“Some clerk decided to put a bunch of cursed items in one place.” I looked back to the safe. “We have to damage the wards to get inside.”
“How bad could it be?”
“Well, if I do this badly, we are looking at a bunch of Silence-equivalent entities on the loose. For all I know, a face-hugger alien will jump me.” I motioned him away. “You might as well take a few steps back.”
David did so, and I faced the safe once more. “Just eat what will stop me from opening the door. Leave everything else.”
Silence, presented with yet another magical feast, didn’t need to be told twice. Several wards shuddered and spilled into the pommel. I knew he was done when he let out a long mental belch.
You can open it, but I wouldn’t leave the door open for too long. Some of the stuff in there got excited when I saw it.
“All right.” I tucked Silence away. “It’s ready to crack.”
David, still standing a relatively safe distance off to my side, shifted his gaze from the safe back to me. “Do we have a magical item to open this thing?”
I dug around in my bag. “Nope.”
“Some secret method for safe cracking you learned?”
“I can’t claim it’s super-secret. There’s a how-to video about it on the internet.”
David pointed from me to the safe and back again. “Then how...?”
My hand closed around my stethoscope, and I pulled it out. “With this, my trusty crowbar, and hammer.” When David stared, I snorted. “Look, you don’t use a gun to open a door. Same thing applies to magic. Everything doesn’t require a finger-twiddling solution.” I tapped a knuckle against the dial. “This looks over fifty years old. Magical wards aside, it’s an easy crack.” I jiggled the stethoscope. “We are doing it the old-fashioned way.”
Wiggling the stethoscope in place around my head, I pressed it to the safe and fiddled with the dial while I listened for the tumblers inside to drop. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw David move to position himself near the door. He kept his ear by the hinge, listening for anyone walking by. Given the quiet, I suspected the pucks hadn’t yet done anything to get the attention of the magi yet.
The last tumbler dropped, and I opened the safe slowly to keep it from making noise. When it was open enough to look in, and I was sure nothing had tried to assault me, I peeked inside. I found labeled boxes made of various materials—some of them wiggling in the dim light. I skimmed the one in the front and found “Hope Diamond” and the “Eye of Brahma.”
“So that’s where they went,” I murmured, my hand lightly tapping the tops of the cases. “I could make a mint if I gave the Eye back to the owners.”
And piss off Hardin.
“Don’t give me incentive to do it.”
Remembering Silence’s comment about not keeping the door open for long, I shuffled through the boxes until my flashlight landed on “Kuglehost.”
I reached for it. “Bingo.”
My hand brushed against something soft, and a dark lump lifted as my hand closed around the box. The thing, a teddy bear, turned its head to gaze into my eyes. I never thought sewed on button eyes could look demonic, but those glowing red ones did. It reached out for my hand with its stubby arm, and I shrieked as I yanked the Kuglehost out and slammed the safe shut. Light taps could be heard from inside as I sprung the dial.
I think I saw skulls in the worn-out fur pattern. Can we take it home?
Placing a hand to my chest, I took deep breaths to slow my pounding heart. “No, we are not taking it home.”
But he looked lonely, and I could use a friend. Do it for my much-needed socialization.
Just the mental image of that teddy bear running around with Silence gave me shivers. “No. Absolutely not. Vainya can barely stand you.”
Spoil-sport.
I turned the container over in my hands. The box itself was black with a faint sheen to it. It was smooth to the touch, and it took me several tries to find the places where the stone merged with the rest.
“All said and done,” I said with a smug smile. “Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.”
“So, this is it?” David walked over to look at the box. “What’s that thing made of?”
I turned my head to Ratatoskr. “This is choke slab, isn’t it?�
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He climbed down my shoulder, sniffing at the box with his nose. “It is.”
David arched his eyebrow at us. “Choke slab?”
“It’s a material used to block out magic. Takes a skilled alchemist to create it,” I said, keeping my eyes on the box. I tested the weight in my hand and found it was much lighter than I’d expected.
I gave it a shake to make sure something was inside and nodded at the light thudding from within.
“It’s not a naturally formed material, but magi made,” Ratatoskr said while I tucked the container into my pack. “It’s often used to contain or restrain questionable items.”
I don’t like the box, Silence said. It’s all dark and quiet in there.
“Makes sense,” David said, looking from the safe and then to me. “But choke slab inside of that thing which already had a bunch of wards? Definitely a bit of overkill to me.”
I eyed my bag, worrying my bottom lip. “This is something that we’ll have to think on later. This isn’t the time or place.”
Ratatoskr climbed up my leg and up to the top of my head. “How are we getting out of here?”
“The way we came in.”
His tail twitched, something in the movement made me think he was amused. “Are you sure?”
I turned to look at our exit. “Of course, I am. We—”
The doorway was gone.
“No-no-no,” I said, turning to go, but stopped as I eyed the wall we’d entered from. The archway was gone, and even when I pressed my hand to the wall, it didn’t give way.
Tilting my head to the side, I walked over to it and ran my hand along the surface. The hidden door remained sealed shut. I tilted my head, adjusted my sight and blinked at the combination of wards and seals along the wall. No longer the ones left by Merlin, layers on layers of additional wards and seals lay over them. Some interfered with the originals, while others networked into each other, allowing entrance into the room, but no exit. Looking from one corner of the wall to the other, I found a trigger ward—set to put the others into action if the first wards became active.
Hardin’s promise of being allowed to take what I wanted, but not leave with it sounded in my head. I growled, taking my hand away from the door.
“What’s wrong?” David asked, walking to my side.
“We’re trapped in this room. I can’t get the way to open.”
“I thought you were allowed entrance into this place?”
“I am. Magi tend to the literal. But the wards have changed. If you could see them, this would be easier to explain. We can come in, but getting out is going to be difficult.”
David grunted. “It’s like a fish funnel.” At my flat stare, he added, “You know, the trap that fish can swim into but can’t leave because they’re not—oh, that’s why you’re giving me that look.”
Did he insinuate we’re dumb fish? Silence asked.
Ignoring Silence’s comment, I inspected the wards again. “Silence, do you think you can get us out?”
I can eat the wards, Silence said, but it will take some time. You see how they are worked into the support structure of the room? They’ll bring the ceiling down onto us if I eat the wrong one. It wouldn’t kill you, but you’ll be pinned under the rubble. David would die, even with all those magical blessings he has.
“How long will it take you?”
A few hours.
“Hours? Geez, well, better than—”
David elbowed my side, his eyes fixed on something behind me. “I’m confident we don’t have a few hours.”
I turned to see what he was talking about. At first, I didn’t notice it, but the slow turning of the dial of the cursed item safe caught my eye. It continued to rotate until a faint click sounded.
“Silence!” I hissed. “I told you to not eat the wards that stopped them from influencing the outside!”
I didn’t! I ate the wards that stopped you from opening the door.
The careless mistake of my words hit me. Because if I could open the door, then anyone could open the door. Including anything inside.
The low creaking sounded thunderous in the still room as the handle of the safe turned down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Peaches
Iprided myself on my training and physical abilities. Though not faster than a locomotive or able to leap tall buildings, I was still faster and more spry than the standard run-of-the-mill, factory-standard human. Having said that, I couldn’t remember a time I moved as fast as I did to leap across the room and grab the handle of the safe to stop it from opening.
“Fuck!” I said. The safe rattled, and I could feel the light pressure of the handle fighting against my grip. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Quick! Find something to brace the handle against!”
“I got you.” David appeared with an antique chair in hand.
My eyes darted from the chair and then around the room. Magi didn’t throw some random chair in the vault for no reason. “Where did you find that?”
He jerked his head toward the wall. “It was hanging over there.”
I turned and quickly found the vacant area with a “Dead Man’s Chair” label over it.
“Why is that here?” I groaned. “And whose idea was it to put all the cursed shit in one room? This is like a room of nukes sitting on another room of nukes and fireworks ready to go off.”
Less whining, more doing things.
David hesitated. “Should I not be touching this thing?”
Ratatoskr’s head emerged from my hair. “You can touch it, just don’t sit in it unless you wish to die prematurely.”
“Yeah, how about not.” David wedged the chair under the handle, and I loosened my grip to see if it would hold. The handle pressed down, but the chair kept it from lowering all the way. The safe shuddered, and I could hear scraping sounds inside of it.
“That’ll hold it for a little bit,” I said, taking slow steps from the safe, “but we aren’t going to stay to find out how long. Let’s go.”
David waved a hand toward the wall we’d come through. “Go where? You said we’re trapped in here.”
“We are, but we aren’t.” I pointed to the main entrance to the room. “We’ll leave like everyone else. And later I will come back and leave something nasty in Aaron’s chair for fucking with my way out.”
We moved to the double doors, and I cracked one door open to peek down the hall. Finding it empty, I opened it farther and gestured for David to follow. Once I’d closed the door to the vault, a muted crash sounded on the other side.
You are going to be in so much trouble, Silence snickered.
I looked around and found a stone statue of some woman looking off into the distance with a thoughtful expression. “You’ll do.” I picked it up with a grunt and walked it over to the double doors.
“How much does that thing weight?” David asked.
I straightened myself up. “Felt like a couple hundred pounds. Combined with the wards, I’d hope it’ll stop most stuff from opening the door.”
“You’re not sure?”
“I’d rather be walking away from the room than talking about it.”
Ratatoskr bobbed his head, an odd gesture to see on a squirrel. “Agreed.”
Dusting off my hands, I turned to look down the hall. On my last visit, decades prior, nothing decorated the hallway other than the lux orbs floating overhead, which illuminated the space with a faint blue glow.
The orbs remained, but the stone floors were covered with a mish-mash of deep red rugs while the paintings were evenly spread out. Most of the paintings were landscapes with an occasional portrait here and there. David walked on while I studied the portraits and noted their subtle movements within the canvas—more magical prisons. One thing I had to give the magi was they didn’t mess around with their incarceration methods. When they sentenced someone to prison, they spent the rest of eternity in a painting. Looking away from one of the silent screaming figures, I eyed the marble statues and large di
splay cases that rested between stone pillars.
David approached one of the glass display cases holding… something. I found myself curious and walked over to it as well. It reminded me of an anti-tank launcher, only as tall and wide as me with runes carved into the sides. Fire opals grew from the front and back ends, giving a contrast to the dull gray of the body.
My eyes dipped to the label for the thing. “Draco Spiritum.”
“What’s it do?”
“Well, I’m assuming something involving fire seeing how its name translates into ‘Dragon Breath.’”
“It makes huge explosions? I want one.” He turned to me with a serious expression. “Can we stick it in your Mary Poppins bag?”
“Absolutely not. Outside of toasting marshmallows, I don’t want to be near anything involving fire. Anyway.” I pulled out a folded bit of laminated paper and opened it for David to see. A self-drawn map showing a rough idea of the layout of Oaken Staff. After all the years, the paper didn’t retain the pristine white it’d once been, but the ink remained legible enough to read. “So, we are here.” I pointed to the upper right corner labeled “Vault.” “We’ll have to go down the hall and then back up to get to the way out. Otherwise we’ll have to sneak to the main entrance of Oaken Staff.”
“I think we’ll get noticed if we take the main door.”
“Agreed. Should be able to use the passageway by the Head Magi’s office.” I closed the map and handed it to David. “Should be a piece of cake.”
David jabbed a finger into my side. “You jinxed us.”
“Please, this will be easy.” And I kept telling myself that, too, because sometimes self-deception was the key to success.
The walk to the exit remained uneventful and quiet. I took in more paintings, mentally noting the labels on the door. Magi were creatures of habit and generally didn’t change things, but Oaken Staff either had conducted a thorough makeover of the space, or I had remembered it wrong. It felt bigger and more than once I noted a new door. Even the exits leading out of the vault looked larger.
Behind one of them I heard muted sounds of two people speaking. David and I shared a nod before moving closer and pressing our backs up to either side of the door. I tilted my head toward the small gap and listened.