As the entrance to the sixth level came into view, he sent his sight forward, quickly searching for any hint of danger. Finding none, he continued down. By the time he reached the seventh and lowest level of the staircase, his legs and lungs burned. Anja was bleeding freely and leaning heavily on Jack. Alexander opened the door to his Wizard’s Den and Jack helped her inside. Lita followed.
He closed the door without a second look and sent his sight forward into the seventh level. A shout of warning brought him back before he could do more than discover that the room before them had only one exit, but two archways that were filled with stone.
He looked back up the stairs and saw Jataan kill another of the creatures, but there were many more behind it. Stepping into the fifty-foot-square room, Alexander scanned for threats. Down the corridor, he saw the movement of twisted and unnatural colors, followed by a shriek that would have been more painful if his hearing wasn’t already impaired. More of the creatures were coming from the passage leading out of the chamber.
Magda grabbed him by the shoulder and he heard her speak clearly and calmly in his mind.
“Library,” she said, pointing to one of the archways filled with stone.
Alexander nodded and ran to it. As he placed his hand on it, a tingle of magic raced over him and his hand pushed through. With a thought, he opened his Wizard’s Den and urgently motioned his friends inside. Jataan was the last to enter as a number of the creatures converged on Alexander. He slashed three in half before pushing backward through the magical door, stumbling and falling hard, dropping Luminessence.
He staggered to his feet, his breath knocked out of him, half expecting the creatures to flood through the door and renew their attack, but they didn’t come. He started to breathe a sigh of relief when he noticed movement behind him and his battle sight showed him the coming moments. Even with the magical warning, the attack came too quickly to avoid. A tentacle, black and thin but terribly strong, wrapped itself around him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides. Another coiled around his neck. Both constricted as they lifted him from the ground and turned him to face a creature that looked like a nightmare.
The thing stood six feet at the shoulder. Its skin was black as pitch, except for dark red stripes radiating down its forelegs. Each of its six feet was clawed like a cat’s, except the claws didn’t look like they retracted. Its head was large with a long snout and its mouth was filled with black needlelike teeth. Six eyes wrapped around the sides of its head, just below two blood-red horns that curled back from its brow. Sprouting from its shoulders were two long tentacles—both of which were currently wrapped around Alexander.
He didn’t hesitate, his blood already hot with battle and fear. With just his wrist, he swept the Thinblade up and through the two tentacles, cleaving them both in a blink. He fell to the ground, the beast roaring in pain and rage. It leaped, arcing through the air along a trajectory that would bring it down right on top of him. He rolled to the side, but not quite far enough. A clawed foot came down on his left shoulder, tearing deeply into his flesh and pinning him to the ground, hot pain ripping through him.
He swept the Thinblade into the creature with all of his strength, slicing up through its belly, cutting the thing nearly in two. It toppled to the ground, its jaws still snapping, even as its blood, black and angry, boiled across the floor toward him. Alexander rolled out of the way, scrambling to avoid the growing pool of demon blood that made the stone floor sputter and smoke along the leading edge of the expanding pool.
Regaining his feet, he snatched Luminessence from the floor before the blood could reach it and backed away, wincing in pain from the deep gouges in his shoulder. Only then did he see the full scope and grandeur of the room he stood in.
Evenly spaced panels in the twenty-foot ceiling provided soft glowing light. The entrance opened to a space about twenty feet on a side with a magic circle inlaid in gold and silver. A small sitting area with a table and comfortable chairs was just to the right. The walls were two hundred feet on a side. The floor was lined with row after row of bookshelves, all filled to overflowing. Some books screamed of magic, while others simply glowed softly with the telltale colors of enchantment. A path ran straight down the middle of the room, offering easy access to the rows of shelves.
Alexander sent his sight through the room quickly, searching for any other threats, but found none. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, deliberately calming his pounding heart, he opened his Wizard’s Den, then sat down heavily on an overstuffed chair in the sitting area.
Jataan was the first out, short spear in hand.
“Lita, Lord Reishi is wounded,” he shouted, scanning the area before checking the demon cleaved nearly in half on the floor.
Lita bustled up to Alexander and frowned at his wound, shaking her head and pursing her lips. She laid her hand gently on him and began muttering the words of a spell.
Abigail stepped out of the Wizard’s Den, took one look at the dead demon and gave her brother a withering glare. “We could have helped,” she said, too loudly.
Alexander just nodded.
Magda and Cassandra took only a moment to survey the carnage before they smiled like children in a candy store, looking out at the countless magical tomes accumulated over two thousand years of study by the House of Reishi.
“How’s Anja?” Alexander asked without looking up.
“Resting,” Lita said. “She’ll be fine in a few hours … and so will you, provided you agree to lie down and rest.”
He nodded again. Jack offered him a hand which he took gratefully, regaining his feet.
“Stay away from the back wall—it’s trapped,” he said, heading for a cot in his Wizard’s Den.
“If they told you about a trap, they might have mentioned the demon,” Abigail said, still talking too loudly.
“I didn’t ask about a guardian, and Malachi isn’t one to volunteer information.”
He lay down, closed his eyes and let Lita go to work cleaning his wounds. Before she was finished, he lapsed into a deep sleep. When he woke, his shoulder was stiff and sore, but not as painful as he would have expected. His hearing was also back to normal. He worked his jaw to pop his ears and felt a slight stab of pain, a reminder of the enemy he would have to fight again to escape the Keep.
He got up and went out into the library, stopping to check on Anja along the way. She was still asleep, breathing deeply. Lita smiled at his concern from the table where she was watching over her patient.
Surveying the library anew, Alexander noticed the large three-dimensional map table off to the left side of the entrance. With a frown, he went to the side of the table that had a panel of stone set into it at a slight angle. The outline of a handprint was cut into the stone. The table top itself was a detailed model of the Reishi Isle and the surrounding fortress islands.
Alexander placed his hand on the handprint and felt magic wash over him. Right before his eyes, the features of the Reishi Isle began to morph and change. He watched with rapt attention. Standing on either side of him, Jack and Abigail watched as well.
In the center of the island was a tiny model of the Keep. When Alexander focused on it, it enlarged to fill the entire map table. But more amazing than that, the broken section of the Keep where Phane had attacked just after Alexander had recovered the Sovereign Stone looked exactly as it did in the present moment.
“Look,” Abigail said, pointing to the wall surrounding the Keep and the soldiers encamped within.
“Remarkable,” Jack said.
“Huh,” Alexander said.
Suddenly, the scene changed, shifting to a large toroid room just across the entry hall on the seventh level, the warded passage opposite the door to the library. In the center of the room was a silvery sphere glowing brightly with magic.
“What’s that?” Abigail asked.
“I think it’s the power crystal,” Alexander said. “At least the chamber looks just like the one inside Blackst
one.”
“What’s that around it?” Abigail asked.
“I suspect it’s a stasis field,” Magda said. “It was said that the Reishi created a spell that would stop time itself.”
“I guess that would protect the crystal without letting it stop spinning,” Alexander said. “Now I just have to figure out how to turn it off.”
“Can you see the rest of the island in detail?” Magda asked.
The table shifted again, showing the entire isle surrounded by the five fortress islands. He thought of the island that Zuhl was occupying and it filled the table.
“Huh, this is even better than my clairvoyance because I can let you see what I see.”
The top of the island was filled with soldiers, drilling with their weapons in large unit formations. Three of Zuhl’s warships were anchored nearby and a number of drakini flew around the island in pairs. Alexander pushed in, searching through the interior of the fortress. He found Zuhl sitting in a small library near the top level, reading a book that looked very old. He seemed at ease, as if his plans were proceeding as expected.
“I’m going to kill that man … again,” Abigail said.
“If Ixabrax wasn’t in there, I’d consider destroying the fortress island right now.”
“Where do you think he is?” Abigail asked.
“Try deeper inside the fortress,” Cassandra said, “about midway from the top.”
Alexander shifted his view, finding a large cavern in the center of the fortress that served as the birthing chamber for the wyverns. In the center of this chamber slept Ixabrax.
“Makes sense,” Magda said. “The passages are large enough for him to get in and out.”
“And it’s the safest, most secure place in the fortress island,” Cassandra added.
“I wonder what else this map can show us.” Jack said.
Alexander drew the view back to the entire Reishi Isle again.
“I suspect it’ll show anything within these boundaries.”
“Perhaps a look at Zuhl’s coastal encampment would be helpful,” Jataan offered.
Alexander shifted to the north coast where Zuhl had been landing soldiers. It was a sprawling, somewhat disorganized camp, that held well over a legion. A smaller unit, several hundred strong, was preparing to leave, lining up along a freshly cut road that wound into the forest in the general direction of the hidden fortress and the Nether Gate.
“He has sufficient force strength to overpower our defenses here,” Jataan said, “yet he doesn’t appear to be interested in the Keep.”
“Probably figures the Nether Gate is the endgame,” Alexander said.
He focused on the mountain concealing the fortress where the Nether Gate was hidden and the scene shifted again, revealing a large force encamped in the area outside the fortress entrance. Their fortifications were still under construction, and the work to excavate the chamber housing the Nether Gate seemed to be progressing more rapidly than Alexander would have imagined.
He moved inside the newly dug corridor and saw that it was being rebuilt with what looked like freshly quarried granite slabs for the floor, ceiling, and walls. Carts filled with dirt and stone were being pulled out by teams of Zuhl’s men, while empty carts were traveling back toward the ever-moving work site.
Dozens of men with picks and shovels were digging, while others loaded carts with the loosened debris. As they made progress, a wizard was casting a spell, over and over again, bringing a slab of stone into being with each casting. He used his magically created stone to form the corridor walls, floor and ceiling, protecting the workers from the risks of further cave-ins.
“Looks like they have their own version of Wizard Jahoda,” Magda said.
“At this rate, they’ll reach the chamber within a few weeks,” Jack said.
“The question is, what then?” Alexander said.
“That’s hard to say,” Magda said. “Zuhl is an accomplished wizard with a great deal of experience. Left alone with the Nether Gate for long enough, he may well devise a way of making it work.”
“Or he may discover the secrets of its construction,” Cassandra said.
“Either way, we have to stop him,” Abigail said.
Chloe buzzed into existence and landed on the edge of the table.
“Can we see the tree, My Love?”
With a smile, Alexander shifted the view of the table to the secluded grotto that protected the last vitalwood from the outside world … but there was nothing there, save for a little mountain lake with an island in the center. Evidence of the rift torn in the world of time and substance by Selaphiel was plainly visible, but the tree itself was gone.
“Where did it go?” Chloe asked.
“I don’t know, Little One, but I intend to find out,” Alexander said.
“Where could it have gone?” Jack asked. “I got the impression that Selaphiel’s spell protecting it was well beyond any mortal power.”
“Me too,” Alexander said, frowning at the scene before him. “I’ll take another look with my clairvoyance once we’re out of the library.”
“I must say, Alexander, this place is a treasure trove beyond imagining,” Magda said. “Cassandra and I have walked the stacks. There are tomes on every conceivable magical topic—many of which neither of us has ever even considered. I could spend a hundred years in this room and never be able to study them all.”
“More to the point, there are a number of tomes that we would like to take with us,” Cassandra said. “With your permission, of course.”
Alexander hesitated, scanning the shelves arrayed before him. This library represented two thousand years of accumulated knowledge, all safeguarded from the ravages of time and war and theft. In a very real way, this library was his family’s greatest legacy—a repository of knowledge and history, magic and experimentation. Whatever he did, he couldn’t allow this library to be diminished.
“No, Cassandra, these books must remain here.”
“But … there’s so much to be learned,” she said with more emotion and distress than he had ever seen from her. “Such knowledge should be shared with the world. It could do so much good.”
“I agree, but such knowledge must also be preserved and protected,” Alexander said. “And I believe that that is the first and most important purpose of this library.”
Both Cassandra and Magda’s colors flared with loss and dashed hopes. Both women had spent the majority of their lives pursuing magical knowledge. This collection represented the best opportunity in the entire Seven Isles to further that study.
“Let me consult the sovereigns,” Alexander said. “I’m sure you’re not the first who wanted to borrow a book from this library. And I do intend to share this knowledge, but I have to do it in a way that preserves this place for future generations.”
They both nodded, though somewhat reluctantly.
“I see the wisdom in that,” Magda said. “While we’re here, may I look for a book on transformation that will help me reverse Taharial’s plight?”
“Of course, look at any book you like,” Alexander said.
Chapter 28
Alexander took his seat at the Reishi Council table.
“I’ve reached the library.”
Malachi’s habitual frown morphed into a scowl.
“Your guardian is dead,” Alexander said, holding the Sixth Sovereign with his glittering, blind eyes.
Malachi harrumphed, shaking his head.
“The tentacle demon fell to Luminessence then?” Constantine said.
“No, it fled my light. We gave chase and found a race of creatures living under the Keep like nothing I’ve ever encountered.”
“Then which guardian do you speak of?” Balthazar asked.
“The demon that Malachi left inside the library.”
The first five sovereigns sat forward, concern etched in their faces.
“Were the books harmed?” Balthazar asked.
“Of course not,” Malachi s
pat before Alexander could answer. “The demon was there to protect them, not destroy them.”
“So you left another trap for your own son,” Demetrius said, shaking his head sadly.
Malachi shrugged. “I taught Phane to be ruthless and ambitious. He learned those lessons well—so well in fact that he became the greatest threat I faced. Phane was far too eager to rule and I had no intentions of dying prematurely to give him the chance. Precautions were necessary to dissuade him from a rash attempt on my life. It would have been such a tragedy to have to kill my last remaining child.”
“You mean like he killed all of your other children?” Alexander said.
“Their deaths pain me to this day, but Phane won out. He demonstrated that he alone was fit to rule.”
“Murdering your brothers and sisters doesn’t make you fit for anything but a hole in the ground,” Alexander said.
“If by some miracle you do succeed in killing my son, and Zuhl, and the Sin’Rath, and the Babachenko, and all of the other enemies that will challenge your rule, you will come to understand that power hindered by morality is always a short-lived proposition.”
“Your forefathers demonstrated the lie of such an absurd assertion,” Alexander said. “For eighteen hundred years, they ruled the Seven Isles according to a moral code—a set of principles not derived from whim or self-interest, but from the nature of life and the world itself. And it worked. Peace reigned and life for the average person was blessedly ordinary. You destroyed all of that, and I intend to remake it. But I didn’t come here to argue with you, Malachi. I came to ask about the library.”
“What would you like to know?” Balthazar asked.
“Is there an easy way to find the books that I’m looking for? And did you ever loan books out?”
Balthazar nodded. “Say the word ‘librarian’ and the librarian will appear. He will be able to assist you with any of the workings of the library. As for lending books, we all maintained a strict policy that no original book was ever to leave the library. However, there is a device along the wall, next to the map table, that allows for the copying of books. All that is required is a blank book of sufficient pages and size to accommodate the original text.”
Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept Page 32