The Key of Amatahns

by Elisabeth Wheatley

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lucan and his remaining warriors shoved the gate at the far end of the bridge. After wrestling it open, they were now struggling to close it again. ‘Closed’ might have been the wrong word, they more dragged, grappled, and fought with it. Time was running out. The thousands of heavily armed shades were headed straight for them.

  As the nearest line of empty armor knights neared, the heavy iron door began to eek shut. Janir joined the others in shoving it along as quickly as they could. It had to have been at least a sword length of solid metal fixed on hinges the size of saddles.

  “Slab of Dwarvish scrap!” Saoven grunted, shoving as hard as he could.

  So dwarves had made the huge wall of metal that was their only hope, Janir mused with mild interest. Perhaps that meant it would hold against the oncoming horde.

  She drove her shoulder into it, straining with every ounce of her body to make it move. She braced her bare feet on the stone floor and threw her back against the iron, staring up at the top just to be sure it was moving.

  With all of them fighting to close the enormous hulk, it swung shut at an agonizingly slow pace. Karile stood to the side, encouraging them like a spectator at a tournament.

  “You’re moving! You’re moving! Just a few more sword lengths to go before it’s shut!” he cheered.

  They wrested the gate closed just as the first axe struck. The pounding of dozens of blades on the massive iron door thudded rhythmically, like drums before an execution. The creatures on the other side would bring it down if it took years. Something told her they were not the kind of creatures that gave up or backed down.

  It was a very thick gate, Janir reminded herself. It would take them days to dent their way through or so she fervently hoped. Karile pointed and pretended to give instructions while Saoven and the others were shoving bolts in place. As for Janir, she mostly just got in the way.

  Funny how everyone was suddenly friends—however briefly—under pain of gory death. They were all panting from the run across the bridge, which had seemed like it would never end. Lucan was doubled over, leaning against the door and looking just a little frightened.

  They were in a hall crafted of limestone. Lights seeped from under the cracks in the stone and around the pillars. Their source wasn’t clear. The pillars went on for about six rows and then a rectangular doorway led into what appeared to be a copy of this chamber.

  Strange markings—hieroglyphs and characters of an antique language—decorated the stone of the pillars and walls. The tiny pictures must have had meaning, if anyone had cared to stop and contemplate them.

  “Come,” Lucan snapped, straightening his back. “We must move on.” As an Argetallam grabbed each of the captives and followed after Lucan, he marched without any apparent fears or concerns. Yet he must have been afraid. He would know as well as her that they most likely had no other escape from this underground labyrinth. How did he keep it so well hidden?

  On they went, past the rows of pillars and to the end of the broad passage. Within a few moments they had stopped behind Lucan as he paused to take in the spectacle before them—Janir had been wrong, this room was very different from the first.

  Low pillars lined the inside of the rounded chamber, supporting the bottom edges of a soaring dome above them. The smaller, lower ring around the outskirts of the ceiling were lined with drawings and small columns plastered with mosaics. In the center of the dome, on a slightly raised terrace, stood the prize of this whole quest.

  The chamber—constructed of the purest, clearest crystal, about the height of a man and just big enough for one to stand inside. It sparkled like a lake in the moonlight, glistened like the sea under stars. Inside the thin walls, the pale outline of delicate crystal cogs shimmered faintly.

  Even Lucan stared in awe at the perfect, pristine sight. The chamber was flawlessly and seamlessly crafted from a single piece of quartz to contain the greatest power known to man. On the side that faced them, there was an empty space, just the right size for the Key of Amatahns.

  Instead of stepping up the terrace and inserting the Key where it was meant to go, Lucan barked a quick command to his warriors. They scattered to opposite ends of the circular chamber and reported back to him with exactly the same words. “No way out, my lord.”

  Now what were they going to do? Locked in a room with only one way out and empty armor knights blocking them in, what could they do?

  Lucan seemed to consider it a minor obstacle. He glanced to the gate they had sealed. He sat nonchalantly on the edge of the crystal chamber’s terrace. Drawing his dagger, he began running a smooth stone over the edge to sharpen the blade.

  “My lord.” The Argetallams looked confusedly to one another. “My lord, what would you have us do?”

  Lucan calmly ran the whetstone over his dagger. The blade rasped to almost the same cadence as the pounding at the gate. “Watch and wait, men. Watch and wait.”

  His tone said he knew what he was doing. The Argetallams seemed to believe it, though Janir was not so convinced.

  She decided not to question him, as she suspected the drawn dagger was a warning, and retreated to Karile and Saoven. The two of them had been left unguarded since coming through the iron gate. What would they do? Argetallams were the only ones who seemed able to kill the empty armor knights and the two of them had no weapons to fight their captors anyway.

  “What are you doing?” Janir asked.

  Karile was tracing his fingers over the small pictures and Saoven was peering curiously at a section not far from her. They all stayed close together, distancing themselves as much as they could from the Argetallams, though they were still under watch. Janir could feel the stern gazes of the mortahns on her back.

  “Reading them,” Karile replied.

  “Learning what the empty suits of armor are,” Saoven murmured absently.

  Janir was silent for several seconds. Neither the enchanter nor the elf offered explanation, so she interrupted them again. “What are they?”

  “It’s complicated,” Karile weakly answered after a space of hesitation. Both of them went on reading.

  “We have time,” Janir said, folding her arms across her chest.

  Karile shrugged. “They’re ghosts. Does that answer your question?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know the story of Amatahns?” Saoven asked.

  Janir shook her head. “I thought I did.”

  The tales she had heard involved a great enchanter who saved the world from eternal damnation. People said that a dark army had arisen from the sands of Stlaven and come to engulf all the lands in shadows and from there it depended on the version. Some stories turned the enchanter into a romantic hero in love with a predictably beautiful young woman whose name and origin changed as often as not. Others said he was the celibate epitome of goodness, born free of evil and pure of heart.

  Then there was a whole plethora of versions that fell somewhere in between. She had heard him described as a scholar, warrior, enchanter, king, shepherd, and nearly every combination of the lot.

  It all depended greatly on who was telling the story—a poet in the employ of an unhappily married noblewoman, a bard singing for his supper in a tavern, or a monk in one of the Enchanter Temples. Nonetheless, there had been nothing about Keys or empty armor knights in any of the versions Janir had heard.

  “It’s like this,” Karile began, making it sound as if he was doing her a huge favor. Then he went into an explanation that Saoven often corrected.

  As far as Janir could discern, the empty suits of armor had once been real knights, they were an entire army in fact. The soldiers who fought in the wars against the mazag all those years ago—which explained the outdated style. The mazag had been wiser then, great philosophers and scholars. They had possessed kinds of magic that had been lost since their collapse, for their entire existence relied on magic.

  Janir found it hard to imagine the beasts from the caverns as
architects or teachers, but for the sake of the story, she didn’t argue. She’d never heard this particular version of history, but she was in an open minded humor after the past months.

  According to her friends, the mazag had inhabited most of what she knew as Brevia and Stlaven, built magnificent cities and temples and lived with the other three races in peace for eons.

  They were the Father Creator’s guardian race. It was their duty to be spiritual and moral authorities, to lead and guide the other races. Then came the Bane Wars. No one could quite agree why, but the mazag and most the other chief races (“Dwarves, mortals, and elves,” Saoven interjected. “Trolls have seldom concerned themselves with wars.” ) fought for supremacy over the lands.

  During the times of peace, the mazag had taught much of their arts to a young mortal named Amatahns. Amatahns naturally sided with his people when the war broke out, a series of conflicts that lasted for a decade before it happened. With his former teachers inflicting great damages in battle, the enchanter feared for the future of his race.

  So Amatahns decided to negate the mazag’s greatest weapon—their magic. He and several enchanters from the three allied races, took a number of children from among their people. At Amatahns’ instruction, they conducted terrible and forbidden spells on these children, using instruments since destroyed (“The Creon,” Saoven supplied) to change them. Many died, but one—a mortal boy by the name of Drell—survived.

  For years, the enchanters relentlessly altered Drell until the process was completed. They used the magic of the allied races to create a being that would be invincible against magic, what they called “the Invulnerable.” Or in their ancient tongue, “Argetallam.” Brought into existence to be savior to a mostly defeated army, he was both their champion and slave.

  Using Drell’s memories of intense torture and pain, they constructed weapons for him. These they called the “karkaton,” made from Drell’s blood, the scales of a werewarg, and the tears of a griffin, melted down into rods.

  “This appears to be some manner of record,” Saoven decided. “Highly detailed. This might even be the birthplace of the Invulnerables. It would have been a city in the Bane Wars.” He looked pensive, touching a string of symbols at eye level. “It’s common knowledge amongst most enchanters and elves that Amatahns and the other enchanters created the first Argetallam, but we have never been certain where…”

  “I never heard this story.” Whether it was common knowledge or not, Janir’s tutor—who had left several years ago—had never made mention of these particular tales and he had been a notably thorough teacher, Armandius had seen to it that she had the best learning there was to be had.

  Karile wasn’t interested in discussing the tale’s obscurity. He plowed on with the story.

  Dismayed at the mazag’s behavior toward those they were supposed to protect, the Father Creator allowed Drell and Amatahns to take away the mazag’s knowledge and wisdom and seal their magic in the chamber. After that, the mazag were chased out of Brevia and into the caves and mountains to live as beasts. Knowing that they had once had knowledge, that it had been taken from them, and remembering that their own student’s creation had been their downfall, they were to live in regret and shame for eternity.

  Realizing that someone would need to protect the chamber, Amatahns imprisoned the souls of the warriors who had fought in the Bane Wars into their suits of armor and set them up in a grand temple, where they would stay bound to protect it until the end of time, when the stars rained from the heavens. Amatahns then disappeared. Some said he sailed across the sea where he felt that he was needed, but either way, he vanished from history.

  “Then what happened?” Janir pressed.

  “What do you mean? I’ve told you.” Karile was on the defensive for whatever reason.

  “What happened to Drell?”

  “That is rather simple,” Saoven interjected. “The generals and kings had no use for him after the war and cast him out. He returned to the farmlands of his home, raised an impressive family of thirteen children, and died in obscurity.”

  “You mean…everyone just forgot him?”

  “Until two or three generations later, when it was discovered that all his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren had his same abilities, yes,” Saoven confirmed.

  “Why did that happen? Did Amatahns intend for the…trait to be hereditary?”

  “I believe it was just a quirk in the magic and that he didn’t even consider it,” Saoven replied. “Drell’s children seem to have simply gained a version of his powers that was more potent and powerful than anything mankind had caused prior.”

  “You have so much to learn,” Lucan muttered from his place on the terrace. “Ignorant little thing that you are,” he scoffed. Janir hadn’t realized he could hear them and from their quick glances, Saoven and Karile hadn’t either.

  Janir found that the thought of facing inevitable death at the blades of empty armor knights granted her an undue amount of courage. “And I will live to learn it, will I?” she snapped.

  “Of course.” Lucan slid his dagger back into its sheath. “And you will learn the rest of what was left lacking in your education, sister dear.” With that cryptic statement, Lucan pushed off the terrace and went to converse with his men, leaving Janir confused and far from reassured.