by BJ Hanlon
The room he entered was huge, two stories with a second floor above him but open in the center like an iris. The walls were covered in shelves with books that completely surround the dark room. Edin guessed it was nearly fifty yards in diameter but couldn’t even fathom how many books were in here.
Straight ahead was an open-air balcony with a view to the night.
“My gods,” Edin gasped, his brain still trying to comprehend. There were rings of shelves too, all a quarter of a circle with openings in the cardinal directions. On them there were artifacts, weapons and others more books or papers. Edin started to circle the walls as he looked at the books. Most were in highborn and he could read a little amount of them. The Life of the Magi; The Talent and it’s Applications; Modern Herbology; Healing with the Hands; A History of the Kingdom From the Start till Three-Thousand and Forty Four.
They looked about as old as books could possibly be. Some were barely being held together by string.
“Are these books from the old kingdom?” Edin called out. Merik grunted something from deeper in the penthouse.
Edin skimmed the books for a bit then looked at artifacts. It reminded him of Arianne’s father’s chambers in Erastio’s Rise. There were animal heads, but also monster heads that were floating in some sort of viscus liquid. He saw a dematian head and a reptilian head that could’ve been an alligator but somehow seemed different.
There were weapons too, bows that looked to have been crafted with such skill as he’d never seen, except for one.
Arianne’s bow.
There was another book on display as if they were the prized possession of the Inquisitor de Demar.
The Book of Truth. Edin saw and it looked to be older than a thousand years. An original and probably with the actual words of the gods. If that was what they truly were.
“Are you looking,” Merik gasped from somewhere in the room, “or just gawking.”
Edin started to move faster. He passed things that he’d normally take at least a bit more of an interested look at. He skimmed shelves with daggers and swords and heads. He past candelabras, a crown of thorns, a tiara of gold, and another of silver.
Edin went into the first quarter circle ring and found more of the same.
He spotted the right balcony, or at least the double glass doors that opened to it. Outside, the city was burning. Edin ignored the pressing urge to go out there. To see what was happening.
He had a job to do.
Edin moved faster, skimming books and lifting up objects.
“Is there a secret entrance or vault anywhere where you keep the most valuable things?” Edin yelled.
“Can you,” Merik gasped, “not see,” he coughed and then fell into a fit.
Edin ran over toward the sound and found him sitting next to a bookshelf. A moment later, Madi came and cried out.
Merik had his eyes closed and blood was dribbling from his mouth. He was pale also and looked minutes from death.
“Heal him,” Pleaded Madi. “Please.”
Edin put his hands out over the dying man’s chest. Edin whispered the word and then felt for the injuries. Wounds had split open again, broken ribs were twisting and poking in wrong directions. One was jabbing his lungs, another, his stomach.
There was real pain on Merik’s face. Real torture.
He remembered Vistach when the man told him to end it. Edin had pulled the knife and sent it in the man’s chest.
That was the only kind thing to do now.
Merik looked up, the scar on his face was glistened with a sheen of sweat. His eyes were stolid though and strong. “Not yet,” he whispered. “I’m not dead yet.”
Edin nodded. Then he added as much healing strength as he could to his hand. The staff helped but it was a bandage, not a cure. Edin felt tired afterwards despite the staff and leaned back on his heels to look at the Inquisitor de Demar.
His eyes were closed and blood was coming from his mouth.
Madi said, “Did he die?”
“No,” said Edin.
“Not dead. Just resting,” said Merik. “There’s someone coming up the stairs.”
Edin listened and then heard it. Footsteps with an added scraping like a knife blade on stone to the feet padding. Something that set his nerves on edge.
“A dematian,” Madi said first.
“A few,” Merik nodded. “Help me to the door, I’ll guard it while you continue your search.”
“You cannot, you can barely stand!”
Merik reached up and put his hand on Madi’s face, he caressed her scar and then her jaw. Edin noticed there were discolored teeth in her mouth as it quivered. He felt the need to look away.
“I will be the last Inquisitor de Demar. No matter what happens today, whether humanity lives or dies, there will be no more Por Fen.” He coughed. “And I will go out fighting as I always intended.”
Edin heard him rustling.
“Do not!” Squawked Madi.
“You’ll be fine, you never needed me.”
“That’s not why—”
“Edin de Yaultan, help me.”
Edin let out an arm. Merik grabbed his forearm with a firmness and they stood together. Two enemies and something Edin could not imagine a month ago.
Here we are, Edin thought. At the top of the Citadel waiting for demons and searching for a stone on the word of an old man he didn’t know.
Merik gasped, “To the door.”
Edin and Madi helped him move as the feet continued their echo up. The sound made it impossible to know whether it was a few levels below or two dozen.
Near the door was a wide chair made of a dark wood. It looked heavy and had a wide back. They set Merik on it. Flowers and other flowy fauna were carved into the high back. Merik held his sword and looked to Madi. “Help him find it.”
“I’m staying with you,” she said, “there’s no two ways about it.”
“Do that,” Edin said then turned to the Inquisitor, “do you have any idea where it could be?”
“There was a rumor of a hidden chamber in here. One only known to the inquisitor and passed down over the years through word of mouth. Though Diophin died before he could tell me.”
Edin grunted.
“Does rumor say how to get in?”
Merik shook his head.
“Blast,” Edin said then wondered how Creshtilor knew about it. Maybe it wasn’t in the secret room, or maybe Creshtilor had been in there. He wished he’d have brought the old man though he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to make it all the way here.
Edin started scrambling again. He circled the room quickly hoping without real hope that there’d be something that could catch his eye.
He found nothing. Then he reached a steep stair that was nearly a ladder that led to the second floor. Edin climbed.
Up top he saw more books surrounding the room and a few chairs. There were windows as well that looked out over the city that were exactly above the balconies.
Edin ran in a circle and stopped near where he’d climbed.
“Blasted…” he whispered.
“They’re getting closer,” called Madi.
Edin’s head and heart pounded with the attackers coming up. Maybe it was Berka with was his sword scraping the stone.
Berka, Edin thought. If it wasn’t him, then what had happened to his friend?
Edin closed his eyes to wipe away the thought and then envisioned the room in his head. A large circle, an eye, with two feet thick stone walls all around.
And they seemed even. Identical.
There was no room to the outer wall. There’d be no room for the secret room unless it were less than two feet thick and even then, the walls would have to be slivers and would probably crumble and break in the windstorm.
“Not in the walls,” he muttered. Then he looked up at the cone that was above him. It looked solid and there was nothing to hide.
“They’re just below!” screeched Madi.
Edin glanc
ed down, they were across the room from him and now Merik was on his feet a sword in his hand.
“I’ve got them,” Merik grumbled though there was pain in the shout.
“There’re too many,” Madi yelled panicking. In her hand was a long knife like Dephina’s.
Then something caught his eye. There was something in the center of the room just beneath a wide desk that looked to be more than a few hundred pounds and the area rug that was beneath it.
There was a great circle surrounding the desk. No, an oval and there looked to be a diamond inside it touching each of the edges.
Edin tilted his head to the side.
He reached out toward the desk and felt the air circling in his grasp. The sound rustled pages and books at first. There was a scraping of wood.
Edin grinned and he turned the wind into a strong gale.
A roaring came to his ears as he pushed the gale into the desk.
Wood creaked and cracked. Shelves fell and glass shattered. Edin quickly opened his eyes and saw the destruction. The room looked as if a tornado had swept through the center, which in a way, it did. The books were scattered and shelves gone.
All but the desk that had cracked in half. It was as if it were bolted to the floor.
The clash of blades came next. There were dematians coming in. Three of them, then four and Merik started slashing and stabbing at them almost as if he were a healthy terrin.
He cut through all of them in a moment. Then he turned toward Madi and smiled. He took a couple steps and then stumbled into her arms.
She cried out as Edin leapt over the balcony and landed hard on the stone floor below. There was a loud chittering, chattering that came from the door. Edin could see over fallen bookshelves and broken things that three more dematians came in. The larger version of them and all of them were carrying horsehead knives.
“Merik, Madi, look out!” Edin cried.
One started to slice down at the pair but Merik turned and caught the attack with his blade and deflected it.
The Inquisitor was back on his feet and facing the three. They moved fast but the terrin was faster and then Edin felt a great suppression of the talent.
A strong one like he’d felt around the dematian king.
Merik danced and leapt and blocked attacks. He was a whirlwind that Edin could barely see though he watched fretfully.
One tried an angled slash but Merik sidestepped and brought his own weapon up. It sang in the room with a spray of dematian blood coating the underside of the balcony. The thing dropped in two.
Merik continued the attack, he cut off a leg from one of the beasts and it caused the thing to tumble into its friend. The speed at which Merik fought was Grent-esque. Maybe even faster than Grent and Edin wondered what would’ve happened if they had fought.
Merik dropped to a knee and drove his sword through one of them, then he pulled it out and took off the other one’s head. He stayed there for a moment, Edin could see his back heaving up and down, slowly and methodically like the bellows of a blacksmith. Then he put his weight on the sword and pushed himself to his feet. Slowly, Merik turned to Madi and smiled.
“See, I told you it’d be alri—”
A dark, blood stained piece of metal leapt from his stomach. It erupted like a volcano near his navel. Edin was thirty feet away and had been watching the fight like it were a show.
“Merik!” Madi yelled as the Inquisitor’s eyes went wide. Beyond, Edin saw the boney necklace and then the dark, hateful features of the dematian king. A beast he should’ve known was there before.
The king pulled it out and Merik fell.
Then the monster turned to Edin completely ignoring Madi. He, it, whatever the heck it was, started across the stone floor while twisting its sword before it. Its needle like teeth chattering and its clawed feet scraping against the floor as if they were a throng of knives.
Behind, Merik was on his knees holding his chest. Edin could’ve healed that but he knew Merik was already dead. It was just a matter of time.
Edin drew his sword and held the staff in his hand.
The dematian king continued forward, its glare intent, its teeth chattering. There was a thought that ran through Edin’s head quickly that made it seem like the beast was here to finish something. To exact vengeance or some other possibly righteous justice against Edin.
Then Edin thought of Monk and the wyrm, he thought of Berka and Melian outside. Edin spun the sword in his hand and let the mirage of Mirage twist the demon king’s vision.
He didn’t need the talent. This thing was just another dematian, another one that’d be easily dispatched by his sword.
“Come on you blotard, time to send you to the underworld!” Edin yelled though he was pretty sure the thing couldn’t understand him.
It chattered. Its eyes were flashing with hate.
Then a blade pierced the thing’s chest. Three great droplets of blood splattered the floor as the monster glared at Edin and blinked. It’s mouth with the needle like fangs chattered up and down once before it looked down at the blade that was through his chest and out of the bone breastplate necklace thing.
Then the surprise seemed to fade from the beast’s eyes, and it lifted its sword up, flipped it so it was held in an overhand grip and stabbed backward.
There was a feminine cry of pain and Edin saw Madi appearing out from behind the beast. She stumbled backward and into view. Merik groaned as the dematian king turned around with the sword still in its chest.
Edin started toward the dematian king. Then blood started coming from its mouth, it slowly turned away from Edin toward Madi.
If a dematian could look shocked, Edin thought that this one did. He looked very shocked indeed at the petite woman who was clutching her side as she stumbled away from the beast.
Edin took another step forward as the dematian king started toward her. It fell.
He looked at Madi as she reached Merik whose eyes were open and unblinking. She closed her own and pressed her lips to his bald head.
Edin saw tears running down her face as he made it to the crawling dematian.
Edin raised Mirage and waited until the beast looked up to him. “Tell Yio, he’s next.”
15
The Spirit Stone
Edin slashed down and took off the dematian king’s head. It and the body thumped to the floor, the former rolled across the ground until it stopped before Madi and Merik.
Edin quickly ran over and reached out to heal Madi’s injury. He said, “ela—” and then felt a wet finger on his lips.
“Do not waste energy on me. I have Merik to go home to. You go save the world,” she said and laid her head upon Merik’s unmoving chest.
Edin watched her breathe. There were five, six breaths then they stopped. She’d closed Merik’s eyes and now hers were closed as well.
Their embrace was something from one of the old fairy tales. The hero, Merik would’ve been considered one by certain people, and his princess dying together in a great tower as the world below burns.
Edin took a few more moments. Outside, it was nearly silent, possibly due to their great height. Edin knew he had to get back to his duties. To his destiny.
But first, he had to find out where the heck this stone was.
Edin stood, ripped the wan stone from the dematian’s necklace, and flung it out the open balcony door. He turned toward the broken desk and looked at it. He walked over, picked up a few broken pieces of the desktop and slid other bits of wood. Then there was a rolling sound and he spotted an odd-looking glass roll toward the wall.
It hit wood and then crashed. A moment later, a mist rose up into the air and dissipated.
Edin turned back to the desk and what was beneath it. Edin turned the sword over and then sliced through the rug.
He found what he’d hoped for beneath it. Or at least something beneath it which was better than nothing.
Another etching.
Only this one was the symbol of the
kingdom of Bestoria. The crown with the empty spots for where the Ballast Stones should be. In the spot where the actual Ballast Stone was, there was a rectangular slot. Edin dropped down and tried summoning an ethereal light to peer into it.
Inside were small metal or maybe even stone stoppers. A keyhole.
And he didn’t have the key. Maybe Merik did or maybe not. Edin didn’t have time to go searching. He was a mage after all and could move rock.
Edin stood and reached out to feel the stone that made up the floor. It was rough stone and he tried to take hold of it like gripping he’d done so many times.
But then he noticed something different. There was something to this stone, a slipperiness like it were covered in a film of algae from a fast-moving river. Edin tried again and gasped as he let go of it.
“Protected by magic,” he whispered. “Blasted fools,” his eyes looked around and he spotted the twinkling of the glass that was a few feet away.
Amidst that was a small copper key with bits of patina forming. Edin ran to it, the glass crunching beneath his feet.
How’d the inquisitors use the key if it was in a glass ball Edin wondered and then realized he didn’t care. Back at the hole, he slid the key into the opening and then turned. There was a click and then a thump. A moment later a panel that encompassed the keyhole and the crown began to rumble and lower. It went nearly five inches before it suddenly seemed to pivot from the upper right corner.
Before him were thin and steep stairs that led into a darkness that was difficult to penetrate with his eyes. He summoned another ethereal ball and held it up to the darkness. Below there was a thin room, no more than five by eight feet wide and long. Built-in shelves were to either side, some were covered in coin, others were with sacks and bags and cases that illuminated other fine things.
There were weapons, swords and knives, there were straps of leather, there was a cloak that looked regal. At the back, there was a scepter that was clearly gold and the length of Edin’s arm. Near it was a small golden tiara and a golden crown.
But what he was looking for sat next to the crown in a small glass case and glowing with a soft light.
Edin quickly leapt down and landed on the floor. He sheathed his sword and leaned the quarterstaff against a shelf. The light coming from it began to slowly pulse. It grew bright and then soft as Edin came closer.