As they moved down the corridor, the light from Sam’s staff revealed walls displaying some sort of decoration, flat rectangular objects that seemed to be just hanging there. When he touched one, it disintegrated in his hand, the crumbling pieces falling to the floor.
In the globe of illumination, a door on the right side of the hall became visible. It was made of metal and had one of the rounded handles like the one they had just come through. Sam looked back at the others for a moment and then opened the door. It squealed, but not so loudly as the first.
It was not a large room, appearing to be a work area. A desk sat off to one side, made of the same type of metal as the door. Rindu knocked on it and it made a higher pitched sound than he was expecting. Pushing the desk, he found that it was much lighter than it should have been.
“It’s some type of aluminum alloy, I think,” Sam told him. “Do you know this metal? Do they use it on Gythe in the current time?”
Rindu shook his head. “I have not seen its like.”
“I can understand that. It’s really no good for making sharp weapons, doesn’t hold an edge.”
Rindu picked up a small cube resting on the desk. He turned it over in his hands. It was made of a material he had never seen. It was not quite metal, but not stone either, and definitely not made of wood. It was perhaps twice as large as his outstretched hand and had a hole in it as big around as his middle finger. He put his finger into the hole, but could feel nothing but the cold, smooth surface, the same as the outside. He set it back on the desk.
Another part of the surface of the table top projected upward, facing the chair in front of the desk. “Is that glass, Sam?” he asked.
Sam ran his finger along the flat surface of the square projection. “Yes, I think it is. It looks like a computer monitor. It’s kind of like a book with pictures that can change. Instead of turning a page, a new one replaces it on the screen. This must have been sitting here since before the Great War.”
“Computer monitor,” Rindu repeated, trying the strange words out. “You must tell me of these things at another time. For now, though, we must continue our search for Iboghan.”
“I know,” Sam said. “Just give me a few more minutes.” He picked up the cube and put it in his backpack. “I want to bring this back to Dr. Walt. Maybe he can figure out how to use it. I don’t see a plug, so I don’t know where it gets its power.”
They continued down the hallway, checking each door they came to. At least, they opened those that were not covered with rubble from collapsed portions of the ceiling. Most of them led to offices like the first one, but there were a few chambers that appeared to be storage rooms and one that seemed to be a recreation room or dining hall. It was difficult to determine because other than those items made of metal or that other strange material, when any of the party touched anything, it crumbled to dust.
They finally came to the last door at the very end of the hallway. It was unlike any of the others, though made of the same metal. It was twice as large, almost as wide as Rindu’s outstretched arms, and high enough that he could not touch the top. It had no handle.
Rindu closed his eyes and sent out his senses. “Sam, the vibrations we felt above are coming from this door, or from beyond it.”
“Yeah, I can feel it,” Sam said. “I wonder how we can open it.”
“Perhaps,” the Zouy said, “the question is not how but if we should open it.”
Sam did not seem to hear him. He was looking at the door intently. Rindu’s gaze followed where Sam’s searched all around the portal. It seemed that it did not open on hinges as with the others. Instead, it appeared that it somehow slid into the wall itself. There was no doorframe to speak of, only the cold wall made of that strange rock.
He saw Sam’s eyes focus on a small square to the right of the door, almost at shoulder height. The young man put his face very close to it, looking for something.
“This looks like some kind of glass,” Sam said. “It almost looks like—” Sam snapped his fingers and pulled his head back. He took a deep breath and slowly moved his hand to the plate, fingers splayed. Inch by inch, he neared it. Rindu saw Sam’s rohw swirl, concentrating on Sam’s palm, but he did not think Sam was doing it on purpose. He opened his mouth to tell Sam to stop when his palm slapped onto the plate and there was a sharp burst of rohw in Rindu’s vision. At exactly the same time, Rindu felt the harmful vibrations he had sensed earlier disappear.
The door silently slid into the wall. There was a hiss of air escaping—or rushing in—and Sam pulled his hand away quickly and slumped against the wall. “It…it felt like it sucked energy from me. I’m so tired all of a sudden.”
Rindu put his arm around Sam to support him, using his rohw to probe him for injury or blockage in his energy pathways. There was no damage he could detect. “I believe it used your energy, your rohw, to activate the device operating the door. I can sense no damage in you, however.”
Sam straightened and shook his head. “I’m starting to feel better. It was just a shock, that’s all. I wasn’t expecting it. Let me try something.” He put his hand on the plate again, more gently this time, and Rindu saw the energy swirl as before. Sam furrowed his brow in concentration and the door slid closed again. Prepared for it this time, Sam did not slump but he did take in a sharp breath.
“That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever felt,” he said as Nalia came and put her arm around him to help support him. He did not appear to need it this time, though.
Rindu was intrigued. Nudging Sam out of the way with an “excuse me, please” he put his own palm on the plate. It felt cold to his touch, but nothing else. He softened his gaze, but did not see any energy whorls as he had seen with Sam. He tried his other hand, but nothing happened.
“Nalia, if you would?” he said to his daughter.
He watched intently as Nalia put her hand to the square, but nothing happened. “That is strange,” Rindu said.
Sam had been watching. He looked confused and Rindu did not blame him. He himself was confused. It may be a question of raw power, but he did not think so.
“Maybe it’s dead now,” Sam said. He put his palm back on the plate and the door hissed open. “…or not. Well, that’s a mystery for another time. Let’s see what we’ve found.”
As Sam entered the room, the walls and ceiling glowed a blue-tinged light. The walls to each side and the back were barely visible, even in the illumination. While there were a few tables or desks scattered about, what caught Rindu’s attention were the shelves.
There were two types. One held row upon row of small cylinders, looking like they were made of the same material as the box they had found in the first office. There were more of the boxes and the “computer monitors” on the desks in the room. The other shelves, however, made the breath catch in Rindu’s throat. They were full of books. What looked like thousands of books.
The tomes arranged neatly on the shelves were not books as he was accustomed to seeing. They were tidy and obviously of good quality. The bindings appeared tight and there did not seem to be any wear on them. His mind swirled with the possibilities. They looked new.
“Oh my God,” Sam whispered, the sound seeming a shout in the dead still air. “It’s a library. One that probably hasn’t been opened in hundreds of years. That hiss when the door first opened. I think the room was sealed with a vacuum. Look, there isn’t any dust anywhere.”
The others had already started moving about the room. Emerius picked up one of the cylinders and was tapping it against a shelf. Ix had pulled a book down and was flipping through the pages. Nalia was reverently caressing the spine of another.
“It’s Old Kasmali,” Ix said. “but a strange dialect. I can only make out every other or every third word.”
Sam went over to the assassin and looked over her shoulder. His eyes traveled down the page for a moment before he spoke.
“No, not a strange dialect,” he said. “It’s technical. The words you don’t
know, those are trade words. This must have been a reference library for whatever scientists or scholars worked here.” He whistled. “These books may hold the secrets to the technology of Gythe before the Great War. We have to bring these back to Whitehall. There might be something that can help us in all these references.”
“Look, Sam,” Nalia said from the other side of the room. She was pointing to a painting hanging on the wall. The man in it had long, pale yellow hair hanging loose past his shoulders. He wore a strange tunic—looking to be made of a metallic fabric—which almost appeared to be shimmering in the picture. Beneath the picture, there was a name: Magry Andronis.
“He looks important,” Ix said. “Maybe he was the leader here. I bet some of these books tell who he was.”
Sam’s excitement was evident. Rindu smiled inwardly. He understood having a thirst for knowledge. As pleased as Sam was with the find, Dr. Walt would be even more so.
“Sam, we must continue on,” Rindu said. “We can come back when we are finished with our task and retrieve some of these books. For now, though, we must remember what is important.”
“I know. We’ll leave in just a—oh!” He had moved to the opposite side of the room, on the other side of many of the shelves, so Rindu could not see him. When he walked there, he saw Sam looking at another wall hanging. It was a map.
“I know where we are, now,” Sam said, looking at the Zouy. “We’re in Roswell.”
Chapter 55
“I do not recognize that name,” Rindu said.
“Oh,” Sam said absently as he was looking over the map, “that’s just what it’s called in Telani. Here, it was called Kawkibon, according to this map. “Star Rock” in Old Kasmali. The important thing is that we have overshot Iboghan. We’re here,” he pointed to a spot on the map signified by a large green circle, “and we need to be here.” He pointed again, this time to the south and east of where they were. “We’ll need to head there.”
Ix and the others had come over to look at the map. The assassin studied it. “That will be helpful. We can get started right away.”
“Ummm,” Sam started. “there’s one thing I want to do first before we get started. It’ll only take a few minutes. I want to learn this place and then I want to transport the entire contents of this room to Whitehall.”
Rindu looked around at all the others. Even Skitter had stopped and they were all looking at Sam as if he had lost his mind.
“What?” Sam said.
Rindu thought quickly about how he could phrase what he wanted to say. “Sam, these books are important, but we do not have time to move them all. They will be fine while we continue on our quest. We must leave them for now. You can close the door and no one will be able to get to them.”
“No. It is important that we continue on, but I think it’s important to get these books to Dr. Walt as soon as possible, too. He may be able to find something that will end our conflict. It won’t take long. Give me one hour. I’ll learn this location, teleport back to Whitehall, find a suitable location to deposit all these books, and then move them all in one shot.”
“That’s impossible,” Ix said. “No one has enough power to move this many things. You’d probably kill yourself trying.”
“I won’t,” Sam said. “My teleportation ability doesn’t work like yours, remember? I can do it; I know I can. One hour, that’s all I ask.”
The others looked doubtful, but they nodded their agreement. Sam gave his thanks and then sat down to enter the khulim and learn the room’s location. After several minutes, he told them he would be right back and disappeared. He reappeared a quarter hour later.
Within a few more minutes, forty from when he had first started, Sam was ready to move the library. “I think everyone should wait out in the hall, or back up on the surface.” He winked. “Unless you want to go along for the ride.” Only Nalia and Rindu decided to go along with Sam. They went inside the room and Sam closed the door from the inside, using an identical plate as the one on the outside.
“Before I start, I just want to let you know that I’m actually going to try something…uh…different. I’m going to try to move the entire room. Walls, doors, and whatever mechanism exists to make the door work. Hopefully. There is some sort of indoor arena Doctor Walt showed me when I went to Whitehall just now. It’s more than large enough for the entire room—I paced it out. I’ll put it there. I’ve never tried to move a part of something this large into a space inside of something else, though.”
Sam sat down in his cross-legged position and within minutes he opened his eyes again. “It is done.” Rindu had felt the familiar shift of the teleportation, but it seemed less powerful, as if being in the midst of the room somehow buffered the experience. It was, he thought, the same as being in a boat on the sea: a larger boat seemed to move less with the waves than a smaller one.
The younger man used the plate to open the door and, when it opened, he let out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad it still works,” he said.
When they went out the door of the library, Rindu saw the door to the arena in which they had placed the entire room. Sam opened it and Dr. Walt’s face appeared. “Is it done?” he asked excitedly.
“It is,” Sam answered. The old scholar rushed toward the library with a speed that belied his age.
“It’s all yours,” he said. “We have to get back to looking for Iboghan. We’ll see you later tonight.”
The older man didn’t seem to hear Sam. He was busy looking through the shelves, emitting oohs and ahhs as he perused the books.
Sam teleported the three of them back to where the doorway of the library was. Some rocks had fallen into the void he created when taking the room, but there didn’t seem to be a danger of total collapse. They made their way up the stairs to the others and soon they were on their way.
Emerius was in a funk. The discovery of the library made him think of his sister. She had always loved books and would have been excited to see so many in one place, especially ones that were technical in nature. Even seeing that door and the way it moved on its own would have had her giddy. His mouth tried to force its way to a smile, but he did not allow it. He missed her. He missed her terribly.
The hunterstill wasn’t sure about going with Sam and the others. The only thing in his life he seemed to have control over was his choice of going after Tingai. Or not going after him. He could see that, logically, going with them may actually increase the chance of success in not only catching Tingai, but in surviving it. He wasn’t sure if that was a positive or a negative.
His old self would have gone with the others so he could play the hero, do something that would win him acclaim, if not just for the sake of helping others. With the deaths of everyone important to him, all but Oro, he just wasn’t sure he cared anymore. He was so tired. If he thought he could get to Tingai and kill him alone, he would accept it as a one-way mission. Emerius Dinn sighed. He would help the others for now, in exchange for them helping him. Baron Tingai would die for what he had done. When that was complete, he would decide what to do next. If he was still alive.
Sam, the Zouy, and the Sapsyr had just come up the stairs, so it was time to go. He looked toward the assassin and the hapaki, who were getting to their feet, and did likewise. It would be good to get moving again, even better to be able to think about something other than the poor tale his life had become.
“So,” he said to Ix, “how did we get so far away from where we were supposed to be? I thought you knew all about this teleporting stuff.”
The assassin eyed him coolly. “It’s not that easy. All I had to go on was a general direction and a vague description. With no specific landmarks to look for, we’re lucky we’re not further off than we are. How likely would you be to hit something with one of those arrows of yours if you had to do it by someone else’s directions but couldn’t see it yourself?”
“Okay, okay, I get it. Will we be able to find it now?”
“It should be easier,” Ix sa
id. “According to the map, we’re almost directly north of where it should be. We can use the sun and judge where we’re going. I will take small jumps so we don’t overshoot it. I don’t think it’ll take more than a day or two.”
The others arranged themselves around Ix so that she could touch them all. Emerius felt that strange feeling again, the one that accompanied teleportation. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to it. He opened his eyes—he had developed the habit of closing them when they jumped—and saw that they had gone maybe ten or fifteen miles, judging from the proximity of the hills he had been staring at earlier. He immediately set out, spiraling from the others to search the area.
The day progressed, Ix moving them a handful of miles each time and each of them searching their new locations. By mid-afternoon, the assassin could hardly stand on her own feet. She rested on a flat rock as the others returned from scouting the area.
“We’ll have to call it a day,” Sam said. “You’re exhausted, Ix.”
“I can do one more jump.”
“No,” Rindu said. “One jump will make no difference for today, but it could cause you harm. We will start again tomorrow.”
It was telling that the woman didn’t object again. She was very tired, Emerius could see that.
Sam took some time to learn the area and they went back to Whitehall. Emerius mentally ticked off one more day Tingai lived, and became more despondent.
After eating dinner, the party split up. Emerius saw Sam head off with Dr. Walt, obviously toward the books they had found earlier that day, and the others went in their own directions. The hunter himself went to check on Oro, spending a little time just sitting silently with the big bear. With a final pat on Oro’s massive head, Emerius went to his room and wrestled with consciousness until he drifted into an uneasy sleep.
Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set Page 94