The Reign of Magic (Pentamura Book 1)

by Awert, Wolf

  Nill ran to the hall. Tiriwi and Brolok raised their heads when they saw him come in. “I can’t get past the door. The seal is more than just a layering of magical barriers.”

  “No surprise there,” Brolok grumbled. “A Magon doesn’t do things half-heartedly.”

  “Tiriwi, can you tell me how to knock on a door?”

  “Hit it with your fist,” Brolok snapped.

  Tiriwi stared at Nill. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

  “I know this door that only opens when you knock. But it’s so dense or magically protected that hitting it doesn’t make a sound. Imagine chopping at it with an ax, and there’s no noise.”

  “So you’re saying you can break the seal by… knocking?” Tiriwi understood less and less.

  “No, not the door down there. It’s a different one.” Nill was growing impatient.

  “If not against the door, maybe you have to work with the door,” the Oa answered.

  Now it was Brolok’s turn not to understand.

  “Don’t act all stupid,” Tiriwi scolded the boys. “If you can’t beat them, join them – that’s the phrase. It should be the same with objects. If a door opens or is opened after knocking on it, then there’s a way of hearing the knock inside the door or in the room behind it. If it’s not your own hits that are coming through, then it has to be the sound of the door itself. Make it answer.”

  “And how are we going to do that?” Brolok said gruffly. Hit it and open it, that was his strategy. All this mysterious talk was thoroughly annoying him, but Nill seemed to have understood what Tiriwi was saying. “Can you come along and show us how to do it? Maybe you’ll meet a very interesting person.”

  “Someone hiding behind deaf doors must be a special person, even in Ringwall.” Tiriwi gave a rare laugh. “I’m coming.”

  “One moment, I need to fetch something.” Nill ran to his cave and came out with a small bundle that he put under his tunic.

  “What was that?” Brolok asked.

  “I was getting a present.”

  Nill led his friends through the corridors of Ringwall until they reached the dark wooden door that swallowed all noise.

  “Here we are,” Nill said. “See for yourself.”

  Tiriwi knocked against the door with her small fist, but as Nill had predicted, no sound came. Tiriwi seemed not to care. She did not try knocking harder, but instead took her second fist and began to drum an upbeat rhythm.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Shh, be quiet.”

  Tiriwi slowed the tempo of her beat gradually until she ended up occasionally tapping the door with long breaks in between. “It’s lovely,” she beamed. “A beautiful door. Like a living thing. Whoever made this door must have been a true master.”

  “That’s possible,” Brolok grumbled. “But maybe you haven’t noticed – the damn thing’s still shut. I suggest we craft a magical weapon. A thunder-mace or something similar. We shouldn’t have any problem knocking through it with that.”

  “You savage!” Tiriwi gasped in mock indignation.

  “Now what?” Nill’s patience was short again.

  “Nothing. You wanted to open the door, so do it.”

  “Are you making fun of me?” Nill asked, annoyed.

  “You always wanted me to show you some of the Oas’ magic. Very well, I’ll show you how to open the door. Stand in front of it.”

  Nill obeyed reluctantly, his hand curled into a fist. “Where do you want me to knock?” he asked.

  “Relax, close your eyes and listen to your heartbeat. That’s all that matters.”

  Nill did as Tiriwi said. It was easy for him to get lost in his own body nowadays. He was even somewhat surprised how quickly it happened. For the first time he began to understand what his patron Ambrosimas was actually teaching him.

  “Now bring your heartbeat from your body into the air around you. Feel the pulse of nature.” Tiriwi’s voice was monotonous and lulling. Maybe she had not spoken aloud, but in thought-speak. Nill was too busy with his heartbeat to think about such irrelevancies.

  “There.”

  When he was in unison with his surroundings for a moment, it went through his body like a strike. Nill twitched and lost his rhythm. Once more. As his pulse melded with the area around him, everything seemed to vibrate and resonate. The air, the walls, everything had its own pulse.

  Boom, boom, boom.

  Nill swayed a little like a dancer in trance, feeling the drums’ beat filling his being.

  “Do you feel the pulse of the door?”

  “No – it’s the only thing around me that doesn’t have one.” Nill’s voice was now also monotonous and slow. He was one with the breath around him and was having difficulty speaking.

  Tiriwi giggled.

  “It’s there, just very weak and very slow.”

  Nill nodded. Now that Tiriwi had mentioned it, he realized that he had felt it all the time. A tiny resonance, covered by the general pounding of the other pulses.

  “Strengthen the door’s pulse with your heartbeat.”

  Nill slowed his heart rate and felt himself getting weaker, beginning to fall asleep, when a sharp blow woke him.

  “No, silly. If you slow your heartbeat to that of a door, you’re no more alive than a piece of wood. That’s not the way you want to do it. You need to find a rhythm that can take the door in itself. Maybe emphasize every fourth or sixth heartbeat a little, and then you can embrace the door’s pulse.”

  “Don’t give him a hard time, Tiriwi,” Brolok said. “Nill’s learning faster than a demon starts to stink. I would never have got the hang of it.”

  “Yes, he is a fast learner.” Tiriwi shook her head begrudgingly. “Nill has more magic than he realizes. But he doesn’t know what he can do with it. He always has to try everything out. He’ll kill himself with that habit someday.”

  “What’s wrong with trying things out?” Brolok asked with an innocent look.

  “Oh, men!” Tiriwi’s moan was backed by the incomprehension and disdain of at least four generations of Oas. “Go ahead, try again,” she told Nill, for she had noticed that their crosstalk had cost him his concentration.

  This time it was easier. Nill closed his eyes, found his heartbeat and brought it to harmony with the slow, deep pulse of the door. It felt as though he was making music with the entire world, and everyone was dancing to it.

  The door answered. Quiet first, but louder every second until a booming gong reverberated through the corridor.

  The door opened. A head with messy hair and angry eyes popped out. “You again? I should have known. Either you’re trying to blast my door down with an earthquake or you’re bringing a parade of tooters and drummers with you. Can’t you knock like any normal person?”

  “Earthquake?” Brolok shot Nill a covert look.

  “Shh, be quiet.” Nill squirmed uncomfortably. “Forgive me, master archivist and Lord of Ringwall’s History. I still haven’t found out how to knock politely. I only came here to thank you and give you a gift.”

  “A gift? For me? What is this?” the master archivist growled.

  “And I apologize for the earthquake, but without you I would probably not have got the parchment and brush. I wanted to bring the parchment back, but now with something I painted on it.”

  “You could have got it without me. Anyone around these corridors could have shown you the chamber where we keep our stationery. Whatever, hand it over.” The master archivist seemed rather bad-tempered.

  The bundle Nill pulled out of his tunic turned out to be a scroll, delicately closed with a red ribbon. He handed it over to the master archivist with care. The archivist pulled open the ribbon and unfurled the parchment and found himself looking at a large circle that had been split into three parts. The splits looked like a large Y.

  “This is runic script, and these here are the beginnings of picture-writing. Hmm, hmm. I don’t recognize it. It looks as though you can actually write, at le
ast a little.”

  Nill shrugged. “I know that it may seem odd to write, but I hoped you might have some understanding of it.”

  “Nonsense, every sorcerer must learn to read and write sooner or later. It is… irregular that a student as young as you are would be familiar with it. Usually the young ones prefer the sword to the quill.” The master archivist kept looking at the parchment for quite a while before growling “come inside.” He stepped aside and the door was open. Nill, Tiriwi and Brolok had a slight inkling that it was indeed a special honor for the master archivist to permit their entry, taking time from his work for them.

  The door shut behind them silently, and the light from the corridor was gone. What a magnificent place! Nill had expected a dark, bare room, but it was quite the opposite. Next to the door stood a small desk and a chair. Tiny lights danced around the room, and together with the candles they lit up the room to daytime brightness. The wall opposite was covered by a shelf whose many compartments were filled with carefully stacked parchments. Some were so large that they hung out of the front of the shelf, covering the compartments below and hiding their contents from view. In the half-light of one corner there stood a lectern, an open book on it waiting to be read. The middle of the room was home to a large table. Both this and the small desk by the door were empty. If the master archivist had been working on something, he had cleaned it up. Nill, Brolok and Tiriwi stood awestruck before this trove of knowledge and stories.

  The master archivist pulled a bench out of an empty wall. “Sit down,” he said, taking the chair from the small desk and placing it opposite them. Nill could make out a large hole in the ceiling and wondered what purpose it served. In the wall opposite him there were two more holes, about the size of his head. Doubtless these were connected to other rooms, but he had no idea as to why they existed.

  “Hearkening holes,” the master archivist said, noticing Nill’s curious gaze. He did not bother to explain what he meant by it. Brolok looked confused, but Tiriwi understood what the old man was saying. Certain trees in the Woodhold could grow together and grow very old. If one put one’s ear to an owl’s nesting place in the tree, one could hear for many miles into the forest.

  The master archivist’s gaze was still on the parchment. “It is nicely crafted, but if I’m to understand the value of this gift then you’ll have to explain it to me. Meaningless sentences can ruin a good parchment, and only careful digging may uncover its original worth. Wise sentences, spells and powerful pictures, on the other hand, can turn the filthiest parchment into an unimaginable treasure.”

  Three sentences were written in the top third of the circle. The left third contained drawings of trees that grew more abstract from top to bottom, growing together into a symbol at their lowest point.

  The right third was decorated with an angled crown, a sword, the elements of Earth and Metal, and in the bottom corner was a hammer, enclosed in a circle.

  The master archivist looked at Nill. “Well?” he asked.

  Nill swallowed. He suddenly felt foolish, even arrogant, for having wanted to make a meaningful gift to the master archivist. How was he to judge what meant and what did not mean something? He had put a lot of effort into the drawings and the runes, erasing some of them multiple times until they were to his liking. And now they seemed nothing more than pathetic, pointless strokes and blots, lost on the fine parchment.

  “The mage who showed me the way to you explained what an archivist is, and why it’s so important to hold onto the history of Ringwall before it sinks in the sands of time. As we’re citizens of Ringwall too now, be it only for a few winters… if, I mean, I recorded what I thought was, was, erm…” Nill stuttered.

  The master archivist gave him an encouraging nod.

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m an orphan.” Nill screwed up his courage and his voice was more certain now. “Three people have dictated the course of my life so far. The first sentence is the first thing I can remember. ‘Roddick found me.’ He could have left me behind. He carried me all the way to the village, and only then did he put me down.

  “‘Esara cared for me’. She was my foster mother, and I owe her everything I am.

  “‘Dakh-Ozz-Han brought me here.’ More than a winter ago a druid came to our village and said he wanted to take me to Ringwall. He did, and that’s why I’m here. I haven’t seen him since.”

  At the mention of Dakh-Ozz-Han’s name Tiriwi exhaled with a sharp, hissing sound. Nill stuck a finger in his ear, twisting his head with a pained expression on his face. It took a moment before he could continue.

  “Tiriwi of the Oas comes from the forest. I can’t say much about her, and I don’t know if she’d want me to, but the forest is important to the Oas. I don’t know if there’s a forest magic, but if there is, then it must be part of a large amount of magic including animals and plants. I put it into a single point, and I chose the sign that contains the rudiments of the original tree.”

  Tiriwi, who had so far only looked at the master archivist and had only reacted to Dakh’s name, looked at Nill in disbelief. She could not take her eyes off him after what he had just said.

  “The third part is for Brolok. His family was powerful once, but the crown fell. He loves weapons, hence the sword. He wants to be a smith of powerful magical weapons, that’s why Metal and Earth are prominent there. The hammer is his tool. And Earth has another meaning for him.”

  “Go ahead, say my mother’s not an arcanist,” Brolok grumbled, although he did not seem bothered. Looking calmly at the master archivist he said: “Had she been I’d be sitting amongst the nobles right now. Alas, she was a muckling, and a part of my magical heritage is lost. But because of her I know things, things that nobles will never learn. Nill is right: the dust of the earth is very important to me.”

  The master archivist gave Nill a long, appraising look. “I don’t know whether you’re wise beyond your age, or stupid beyond all reason. My boy, giving a stranger something like this parchment is a great gift of trust. These images grant me a lot of power over you, more than you can possibly know. If you’re mistaken in me, and I don’t deserve your trust, then you’re in danger. Never forget that my loyalties lie with Ringwall and the Magon. Let us hope that your fate is headed the same as Ringwall.

  “If I understood correctly, then Esara taught you how to read and write. Hmm, hmm. Very, very irregular.”

  The master archivist racked his mind for the name Esara, but he could not find anything. He stared at the second sentence in the top third. Esara, he reasoned, might be an assumed name. If she lived among the mucklings but could read and write with enough confidence to teach another, she must have been a sorceress, or else not of the five kingdoms. The master archivist had the feeling that he might know this woman.

  “I am grateful for your gift,” he said after a long pause, throwing a last glance at the parchment, then rolling it back up and sealing it with the ribbon. “Tradition and politeness dictate that I am to grant you a present in return. Unfortunately I possess nothing I can give you. All I have is my knowledge and the knowledge of countless stories. I can tell you one, as a thank you.”

  “Are gifts always an endless chain?” Nill asked. “This was to be my gift to you as a thank you for all the things I was able to get because of you. I would hate to obligate you again.”

  Actually, I wouldn’t mind, he thought, feeling rather shabby at his canting.

  Brolok nudged Nill in the ribs and whispered: “The seal, you dunce!”

  The master archivist smiled for the first time. “Your friend seems to have a different view of things than you do. How about this: I’ll tell you a story, and you get to decide whether it was a gift or simply because I wanted to tell you a story. What seal did you mean?”

  Brolok blushed. My goodness, the old man’s got good ears, he thought.

  Nill said off-handedly: “We live down in the Hermits’ Caves. There’s a path down there that leads inside Knor-il-Ank. The path
is closed off by a mighty gateway, and the lock is protected with a seal. It seems like a very mighty seal, and we’d like to know more about the path down there.”

  “You’re not the first to have an interest in that passageway, but nobody knows what’s behind that door. All I have for you is stories.

  “Before Ringwall was built, some mages lived in the mountain we call Knor-il-Ank. They had fled there because the land was in turmoil. According to legend, those were the days when magic was a dying gift, only imparted on a select few. These people were blamed for anything that went wrong in those dire days, and everyone set aside their differences to hunt them down. Most of them fled to the Borderlands, far from villages and cities, trying to survive where others could not. A small group of sorcerers found themselves cornered and retreated to this hill, prepared for their last stand. But the fight never came. The sorcerers vanished.

  “The legend says that they found a cavernous underground landscape in the mountain. But as nobody has ever found this cave, it’s probably just that: legend. The sorcerers managed to hide or seal the entrance. It was never discovered.

  “In more quiet times the others who had fled returned from the Borderlands. They mixed with the wanderers, traveling about, always searching for the Olvejin, their hallowed artifact. Nobody but they knew what it looked like, what it meant or where it was. Some claim it was a magical staff, others said it was a torch. Whatever it is, it too remains secret.

  “All we know today is that a few of the sorcerers managed to dig a cave into Knor-il-Ank to survive in. These sorcerers were later known as the hermits. They led simple lives, devoting their time to the study of magic. Again, different legends tell different tales. They took the place of those ancient sorcerers who were lost in the Other World, some say. The Song of Morug tells that they defeated the first inhabitants of the mountain, taking their place. The Warriors of Shadow, a small group of half-mages who live in the fog-fens, swear by their version, which is that the old and the new sorcerers were as brothers, finally uniting after hundreds of years. All we know for certain is that the hermits kept enlarging their caves until they felt secure enough to claim Knor-il-Ank as their home. Apart from a few smaller caves that were used for stockpiling supplies underground, the path to the innermost mountain was shut a long time ago. What you’ve found is the old gateway. It looks exactly as it did all those years ago, when it was first built.”