It was a simple matter that there were just not enough wizards around anymore to complete all the work of the Keep. Everyone was overworked. There were so few full wizards now. Moreover, as for the wizards in training — pfft, he uttered. Well, some were marginal at best. Regardless, they were but a handful compared to the numbers from years long gone, and still, there was the same amount of work. Things might have been different if the Warvyn had not come … if the battle of Ror hadn’t whittled down their numbers …if the Cleansing didn’t happen. So many ifs, so — so many!
He stood up, and turned away from the mess while setting the books down in the space he had made. Today he would try to organize some of the mess. For a while, he feigned an attempt to clean, even completely cleaning an entire table, but he slowly gravitated toward his table.
He inadvertently twisted away a might too quickly while holding a tall wobbly stack of books and felt a sharp pain shoot up his back. He winced, but managed to keep from crying out, or dropping the books. It would not be good to bring the attention of the Keeper upon himself. Besides, his back was always sore! His back was sore from the long day he put in yesterday…and the day before … and the day before that. Too many hours hunched over his orb, his fanny wedged into the Dragonbone chair.
He reached his desk and picked up the oversized leather-bound tome that was left there by the old man himself, Ja’tar. Inside was the cursed list, the never-ending list of realms to monitor. He shook his head, it took such a long time and he was so far behind. Yet Ja’tar said nothing. Ja’tar knew the job was time consuming, up to a score of years for each realm if he did a thorough job. There used to be many watchers. Now, he was the last.
He was always conscientious about his job. He put on his best face. He knew that Ja’tar was nearby. He could sense him! He pulled out the Dragonbone chair and winced as it creaked along the floor from its weight. He gingerly sat himself down, favoring his back, bunched up a firm pillow and crammed it behind him for additional support. His journal dug into his groin. He had forgotten about it and he leaned to one side as he pulled it free of his pocket and set it at the back of the table. He pulled the large book Ja’tar had left for him next to his orb.
Tar’ac rarely read the book’s entries himself. He really didn’t care anymore. Oh, he used to, years ago when he was filled with wonder and curious about everything. Occasionally, he would remember something. His other self would feed a tidbit to his conscious mind, and he would dream of what he had seen. Mostly, he just enjoyed the seduction of his mistress.
There in front of him, under the fine silk cloth, was the One Orb, his mistress, El’batar. Tar’ac had emptied his life into her, learning her secrets. The lure to use her was seductive, a pleasure as addictive as roots and powders. He complained about the work, but inside he knew that he could no more skip a day with the orb than a Vision Seeker could forego a day with tor root. He remembered trying tor root when he was younger, much younger and stupid. He still had a fondness for it, even after all these centuries.
Along the wall adjacent to the table was a tall barrister case full of orbs all silent and unused. There were no other watchers to use them. He was the last. He didn’t know their names, the orbs, that is, but he knew most of their watchers, or rather, he knew their fates. The orbs were covered in the magical wrappings that prevented them from reaching out and grabbing an unsuspecting mind. He could hear them calling very faintly. They cried in eternal loneliness. He knew others wouldn’t hear because they didn’t know what to listen for.
He sighed and placed his hands on El’batar. The orb shifted under his hands, purring, the clear glass transforming and becoming like perfectly smooth skin. He felt the orb pulse and breathe. He peered into her soul, her eye to other realms. He gave her access to his other partitioned self, the small part of his mind he was willing to risk. His eyes clouded over and his face slackened, becoming blank. He was lost to her until his strength was drained from his body. Tonight, late, he would struggle to rise. Spent, he would hobble back to his dormitory. He knew he would only desert his chair when he had insufficient strength left to feed the orb. Inevitably, his lover would scorn him; cast him out, back to his room. He would still want!
Deep in the Havenhold under the Winseer Mountains, Tar’ac the watcher sat staring into the globe, El’batar. His was the skill of a navigator checking on the condition, progress and promise of the realms controlled and guided by the Guild. The Guild was formed in the First Age by the original wizards, the Ten. After struggling against the evil of demons and sorcery on their own, they saw merit in forming alliances.
What he observed through the orb was recorded, written magically into the Book of Records. You could think of him as the constable of the Guild, he was their auditor. Yet, it was not by observations alone that he accomplished his assignment. What was viewed was also felt. A magical vinculum of the mind and body bound to the energies of the land and its people. These feelings were also written into the record, but could only be experienced by a seasoned mage, well versed in use of the orb. In this case, Ja’tar was the anointed one, the Keeper. He reported the visitations to the Guild.
He gently slid his hands across the smooth surface, leading the globe from plane to plane, location to location. He searched for a long time, as the folds of time and existence are constantly shifting. He knew that for which he searched, a small lonesome realm of barbarians!
He slid his finger down the Book of Records, slowly recalling his last visit as the Book talked to him. Naan? He remembered that the plane was under the guidance of To’paz, sister of the Keeper.
It had last been audited … three centuries ago. Had it been that long? He wondered. He rubbed his chin. At that moment, he realized just how far behind he was on his auditing. He was damn lucky that Ja’tar was patient. He pulled out the brand new ledger book, binding it to the Book of Records, the two-melted together, becoming one. It still smelled fresh, of newly bound leather.
He knew where to start, first the overview, general condition, and then, ask for the specifics. He wrote his initial entry in near perfect script, set down the pen and began his search; the Book of Records itself would fill in all the details and would talk to his other self.
He scanned from small village to city, mountains to plains, always feeding his thoughts and feelings to the Book. He never knew the names of the people whose lives he briefly touched and he didn’t really care. He was only there to take in all that was this violent plane. He stared in amazement at how much had changed since his last visitation. He wondered what year that was. He had to pause to figure it out, but gave up, unable to calculate the numbers while under the sphere’s influence.
There were more towns now, much larger and far more crowded. The heavily forested landscape he vaguely remembered from his earlier visits had been partially cleared for settlement. The realm still appeared very primitive. Tar’ac wrinkled his brow and continued his overview.
The air was hazy from the multitude of chimneys that towered to the sky from buildings, some the size of small castles. They burped and puked black and brown smoke into the air. He could sense the putrid smell of burnt wood and tar and could feel the acidic burn in his nose.
He came to be over a sprawling coastal city, surrounded and protected by mountains, lushly green. A single dragon crossed the sky, catching the watcher’s eye. It seemed strangely out of place here, soaring majestically as it lazily flapped its huge leathery wings. He decided that this one looked a might peculiar, an odd ruddy color. He urged the globe to close the distance.
Finally, he was close enough to make out a heavily-robed creature sitting on the dragon’s back, hood pulled up tight. The creature had extended a grotesquely disfigured four-fingered hand at the end of which a ball of energy formed that crackled and grew, being pulled from the surrounding clouds. He cast the small crackling mass down on the land. It headed down, spinning slowly and accelerated toward the earth as the dragon and rider banked hard to the right, heading
away. In a bright flash, the rider and dragon vanished in a swirl of multicolored smoke and light.
The flabbergasted watcher sat mesmerized, pondering the significance of what he saw. Tar’ac mouthed his questions out loud for the book to record, why bother attacking from such a great height? Without doubt, he knew you couldn’t hit anything from this distance. Did the beast fear reprisal? If so, from what — or whom? Why unleash such a small insignificant spell? Could it be an attempt to cause panic, perhaps? Where and how had the creature and dragon just vanished?
Many questions raced through his mind. None proved fruitful, but he did pour them into the book. Tar’ac decided to brush off investigating the observation and having made that decision, never gave the fireball a second glance as it appeared too small to inflict much damage and most assuredly, it was too small to trigger the defenses or the totems.
Without warning, El’batar flashed brilliant white, silhouetting Tar’ac against the rear Keep wall.
At first, there was only the light, no sound. Soon, the air in the vast cave cracked loudly like lightning and thunder. He felt the voices of hundreds cry out in anguish, tearing at his heart, dislodging his defenses. Desperately he tried to pull back his will and detach his other self from the orb, but it was too late. He felt the heat burning his eyes just before the searing ball of flame enveloped him. Just as it had those he was observing, he was lifted and thrown to the wall by the blast.
He would have screamed out in horror as his flesh burst into flame, his hands thrown in front of his face to shield them from the horror. However, no sound escaped his burning lips as the flesh was seared from his skull. His last thought was of his dreams. Tar’ac ceased to exist.
The loud clap of thunder caught Ja’tar by surprise as he stood on a small stool reaching for a long lost book he had finally located. He forgot he was on the stool as he stepped toward the sound and nearly fell to the ground, only his quick reaction and a spell of air saved his tumbling fall.
He was in the middle of getting off the floor as he caught a whiff of seared hair and felt a newfound sense of urgency to investigate the commotion.
He knew that only Tar’ac and he were in the library. They often worked early in the morning before the others awoke, trying to get ahead of the mountain of work that never diminished. He quickly wove his way down the tangled aisles, trying to get to Tar’ac’s table. The going was painfully slow because stacks upon stacks of books and parchments were scattered haphazardly across the floor. He had to check every step to make sure he wasn’t stepping on an irreplaceable tome.
In his haste, he knocked over one of the stacks of books and nearly injured himself when his ankle twisted out from under his weight. He had stepped on a thick book partially hidden under a parchment, which slid sideways, rolling his ankle. He winced and found himself falling over the cluttered floor. Only a desperate lunge for the bookshelves saved his fall, but wrenched his shoulder, causing him to grimace.
By the time a winded Ja’tar arrived at the entrance, all that remained were charred, shattered bones, ashes, and on the back wall, a clean silhouette of the watcher as he sat in his chair. Under the table, one pair of well-worn sandals, feet still attached, smoldered.
The rear wall was glowing blood red and was smoldering. Ja’tar could feel the heat from where he stood, and dared not approach any closer. The rocks hissed and sputtered as water that wept down the walls in the cave hit the searing rock while trying to reach the cave floor. Small puffs of steam burst from several nooks and crannies as the water vaporized. The heat forced Ja’tar to shield his face with the sleeve of his heavy robe.
Terror crept over the Keeper as he stood staring at what was left of his friend. Gone was the chair made of dragon bones. Gone! He had always assumed that dragon bones could never be burned.
Vaporized were the shield, swords and lances behind the table. Gone was the heavy armor, replaced by a pool of bright metal glowing in puddles on the rough-hewn rock floor. Disintegrated were the great maps, although thankfully no books had been lost. Vanished was his friend. Only a few charred bones, along with the foul smell of burnt hair and seared flesh, remained.
A small wisp of smoke spiraled toward the ceiling, riding on eddies that scurried about the room. Ja’tar could not sense his friend. He closed his eyes, extended a hand and reached out. He felt nothing. Tar’ac, the last watcher, was no more.
Ja’tar couldn’t comprehend what could have caused such chaos, but he knew that whatever had unleashed this devastatingly evil power had bridged through the orb, was watched by the orb, maybe… was still in the orb!
He jumped back in fear for his life as the goose skin and chills crept up his spine. He slowly inched forward, trembling and nauseous.
His whole body shook and his knees buckled from fear. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead and left wet tracks as they meandered down his face. The warm salty drops stung his eyes and he blinked rapidly trying to clear them and hastily wiped his face with the back of his clean sleeve. His heart raced, beating wildly, ready to jump from his chest, his stomach tightened, and bile rose in his throat.
Ja’tar fought to control the fear he had felt only once before, many centuries ago, when the evil that was the Warvyn had escaped its containment circle into the crowded governing chamber. He shuddered as he unconsciously traced his finger across one of the long, deep scars on his arm. He still wore the mutilations from that encounter and had considered himself lucky to have narrowly escaped with his life.
He cautiously approached the orb from the side to avoid the onslaught of whatever was sure to come. The heat of the melted rock burned through the robe and blistered his feet when he ventured too close to the wall, forcing him to push the table back, giving himself room to maneuver.
The orb was wailing a hollow, sad, empty song that penetrated into every nook and cranny of the cave. Ja’tar’s head pounded and he clenched his eyes shut as his mouth contorted. His knees buckled as he fought for self-control as the wail pierced his ears in spite of hands clenched tight over both of them.
He tried to soothe the orb, reaching out reassuringly. The moaning slowly subsided to a tolerable level, allowing Ja’tar to remove his hands from his sore ears.
He managed to draw himself along the thick table, feeling his way along the edge until he knew his hands were on either side of the orb. The still smoldering floor burnt his heavily callused feet and he hopped from foot to foot trying to cool them. He cast a cooling spell that frosted his feet and cooled the rock where he stood and cordoned off his mind. Ja’tar barely cracked open his left eye expecting the worst. When nothing happened, he forced his eyes to look into the orb, hardly expecting to survive the moment.
At first, he saw nothing but swirling smoke. Slowly, rising out of the smoke he saw a towering shape. Its size was incomprehensible. The evil cloud raced up to the heavens, tall as a mountain with lightning crackling from its sides in all directions.
The demon laughed and roared as its mass boiled and glowed with reds, purples and sickening pea greens laced with mustard yellows. Its heinous bloodshot eyes glared with pleasure at the carnage below as its giant maw roared. It extended its arms out to the sides and bellowed in victory as pure power crackled from its fingers, lighting up the clouds.
Then, as if it knew it were being observed, the demon collapsed and funneled itself down into dancing thin wisps of oily-black, sooty smoke that snaked across the burnt ground. It sank slowly back into the earth, leaving only a small circular black stain that looked like spider veins radiating from the middle of the ruin and butchery it had caused.
Far below Ja’tar’s vantage point was all that remained of what once must have been a rather large enclave. The castle, at least it might have been a castle, had been destroyed. The immense cornerstones were shattered, cracked, tossed like small, insignificant bricks in every direction. Tall stone battlement walls were blown out. The red, clay-fired roof tiles lay haphazardly about the ruins, having been blown up and ou
tward from the blast, which must have been in the inner keep.
Rubble, debris, fires, twisted structures and ash were all that Ja’tar could see for nearly a thousand paces in any direction.
The stables were gone. Flattened, charred carnage from the trapped animals poked out of the haphazard wreckage. Carts were tumbled and smashed; produce and merchandise scattered across the ground. Trees were laid down all pointing in the same direction, outward from the castle’s center. The blacksmith’s pit was gone but his anvil stood alone, melted and drooped over its stone mount.
Even the ground had been laid open; a gaping wound ran jaggedly across the outer yard and up the road to the moat, which had drained, exposing the caltrop with ancient skeletons of past glorious battles buried in the mud.
The ancient knights wrapped in rusty armor perched on skeletal horses; weapons still clutched in boney hands appeared to be grinning as if they had been finally freed from bondage. The drawbridge had been turned into kindling with only the huge metal brackets left swinging from the main supports by twisted and heat strained chains.
It seemed as if everything was burning and Ja’tar squinted trying to get a clear view. Foul smoke, thick and gray, swirled along the ground, being lazily carried away by errant breezes and eddies. Slowly, the smoke settled and dissipated, revealing the horror of the brutal attack.
He saw the mangled bodies. Bodies like those of his friend, twisted, burnt, reaching for the sky. He saw soldiers that were half hidden under impossibly-huge cornerstones that had been blown out of the castle, crushing everything as they tumbled across the grounds. Townspeople were impaled on tree limbs, snapped at the trunk and sharpened by the explosion, their heads hanging limply, eyes wide, horror written in their gaunt blistered faces.
The Legacy of the Ten: Book 01 - Eyes of the Keep Page 5