“You slowed it. The Nighlan were attacking your city when we found you. It is why we went to you. I followed you, and that, knowing that it was responsible for what happened.”
“If you want to close the lock, then just go back and do it.”
“I don’t have the right key.”
“The vrandal,” he said.
“The vrandal,” she agreed. “And the one I have is meant to protect a different lock.”
He frowned. “You have a lockout here.”
“Not here, but back there.” She motioned behind her, back in the direction of the tower.
Of course, it would be a lock there.
“And the Nighlan—”
“Would happily attack, but they would first have to find it. We have done well defending the tower. We have done well hiding the lock. And we will continue to do so. Or I had thought we would.”
“I didn’t bring anybody to your tower.”
“You activated the lanterns,” she said, her voice soft underneath the steady beating of thunder. “You don’t know enough about masking your communication. That is my fault. I should not have brought you there, but I wanted you to understand what you are up against. I wanted you to understand the danger. I wanted you to understand why you have to succeed.”
“Because of the Nighlan.”
“It is about more than them.”
“They want the power that is locked inside those seals.”
“Again, it is about more than just that. They are after the person locked within those seals. And that person controls a great deal of power.” She turned to him. “He is known as Rasan Tel. A powerful man. One who has been sealed away prevented from accessing these lands, but if they were to unlock the three seals protecting, he would have access, and they would have access to him. It is why we protect the tower, protecting the lock. It is why you must learn what you can to ensure that you protect your lock and so that you can close it once again.”
Sam looked down at the vrandal. He wanted to ask why him, but he already knew the answer. He had slipped on the vrandal.
It had been chance, nothing more than that, but when he had done so, he had connected himself to the power within it. Had he not, the responsibility would have stayed with the alchemists within the Academy.
Only there were no alchemists within the Academy. Not anymore.
The Nighlan had seen to that.
“How long have they watched over those seals?”
“The seals have been there for a long time, but the better question would be how long has Rasan Tel been trapped.”
“And how long has that been?”
“Decades.”
“Why haven’t I heard of it before?” He hadn’t seen anything in the library, nothing to suggest any person like that.
“Most who know what happened are long since gone. And those who remain vigilant. As they should. Or as they should have.”
“It was the alchemists,” Sam said. “They were the ones who were responsible for keeping that sealed closed.”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t my lock. I don’t know. But look and see what the Nighlan will do if they gain power. Look and see what they will destroy, how they will destroy. And look and see what would happen, what you would know if they were to succeed.”
Sam didn’t even know what to say, how to answer. The only thing he could do was stare.
What if the Nighlan were responsible for what happened to his parents?
That thought stayed with him.
He wanted to ensure the safety of the Academy, but that was selfish because he had wanted to return and because he wanted to make sure that his sister had a safe place.
But now he might have another reason.
If they were responsible for what happened to his parents, how could he do anything other than try to get vengeance?
“What do I need to do?”
“You need to understand. You need to master it. And I’m afraid you are running low on time.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sam stood at the window on the upper level of the tower. He was in a small room, separated from the rest of the tower with the same energy all around him. He was aware of the storms raging, the thunder and lightning of the Barlands echoing in the distance, all of it carrying to him. The dark smear of clouds in the distance continued to carry the energy of thunder. Sam focused on that, his mind churning with what Lilith had told him, searching for answers, but he had none.
He had risked the seal.
That was the point she had wanted to make, a point that she had made of sharing with him, a point that she had wanted him to know—that he was the one responsible and that it was because of him that her seal was now in danger.
And he had to understand his ability so that he could lock the one in the Academy.
There was a part of him that wasn’t sure if he should believe her. He didn’t know if she was telling him the truth, even though she had done nothing to harm him—other than holding him here against his will, forcing him to stay until he completed some nebulous assignment. He had no idea what that would involve and no idea how he would succeed.
The almanac rested on the table.
Sam didn’t know if it held the answers. Lilith had claimed that it was a key to understanding himself, understanding the vrandal, and understanding what she wanted him to find. Still, as far as he knew, the almanac was primarily key to knowing the arcane arts and how they interacted. He had no idea how that would work for him.
Another peal of thunder rumbled toward him, and Sam tried not to think about what it meant, that the Nighlan were out there, possibly hunting, searching, coming for them.
And they might have been responsible for what had happened to his parents.
He didn’t know that with any certainty, and Lilith had made clear that she didn’t know, that she couldn’t know, but she had also not denied the possibility.
He took a seat back at the table.
Find answers. That was going to be how he would protect his sister.
He turned to the pages again until he found a section he hadn’t read. He used the vrandal to translate the words and read, and it didn’t take long for him to memorize them. There was a benefit in this to Tara and for her arcane arts, but not for him.
Time passed as he read so that when the door opened, and somebody brought in a tray of food, Sam barely glancing up. He grabbed the tray of food and began to pick at it, chewing the food slowly. The meat was tough and stringy but flavorful. The vegetables were soft. The fruit crisp. The water they had given him was even cold.
He had no idea where any of it came from, though.
He read a few more pages before getting to his feet.
There had been a time when he would’ve given anything to have the freedom to sit and read the almanac, trying to understand what was hidden inside, but knowing the danger that Tavran was in, the threat of the Nighlan, and the need to lock the seal once again, he couldn’t help but feel as if his time here merely served to delay.
Over by the windowsill, he found a barrier pushing against him, keeping him from leaning out too far. Sam listened to the pattern of the thunder. The sound seemed to tremble, rumbling and lightning created images within the cloud as it streaked through the sky. Every so often, he thought he saw something else beyond the clouds. Then it faded, and it was dark, and the skies seemed even angrier than before.
Sam turned to the door, testing for a moment, and found it locked as he had each time that he had gone to it. He wasn’t sure if it was to ensure that he had no interruption, or was Lilith really trying to keep him trapped here?
The protections around the tower were to defend it against the Nighlan, though he had not seen any threat of the Nighlan here. Maybe Lilith was trying to convince him that there would be a danger, but so far, he had not seen any.
He took a seat again.
As he stared at the almanac, he couldn’t help but slow his racing mind.
He wanted
to go back to Tavran and to the Academy. Lilith claimed that she would send him there, but would she? Maybe she would decide that it was better for him to stay with her, to stay here where he could be forced to learn more about this power and be forced to learn what it meant for him.
He thought about the conversation he had with Chasten before leaving. Chasten had believed that there was some power that the alchemist had that he did not, and he had believed that Sam had some potential with it. Maybe Sam really did. And if so, could he find that within him?
Lilith seemed to believe that he could.
No. It was more than that. Lilith seemed to think that he had to.
He turned to the window again. As he looked out, he saw men patrolling around the tower. When he had made his run, there had been no people out there, but that was before he had made the mistake of trying to escape, using the lanterns, and revealing that he was here.
That was before.
He pressed the vrandal up against the barrier around the window. He didn’t know if it would even make a difference. He could feel the pressure against him, but it did nothing. The power that had been placed was more than what he could withstand. It was more than what he could counter.
He started to question if perhaps there was something else that he might be able to do. Not just the pressure up against the barrier, but what if he used the vrandal and tried to activate it? He had found several different patterns that would create a burst of green energy out of the vrandal. He tried the first one, the one that he had used on Ferand, and that power exploded away from the vrandal, struck the barrier, and bounced back at him.
That wasn’t the key.
He attempted another pattern, one that he used when trying to use the vrandal for angulation. It was more straightforward, a singular source of power, and as he pushed on that, he felt a faint tingling within the vrandal, but then it faded.
That didn’t work either.
And then he pushed on it the same way that he did when he activated the almanac.
As before, nothing changed.
The vrandal continued to pulse against his palm, almost painfully, reminding him of when he had first learned to use it. He slipped it off, putting it into his pocket, the metal cool, and was reminded of just how important it had been when he had first made that connection to it. Sam remembered how he had felt when he had started to lose that connection, the panic that had started to set in. He remembered how he had felt and the fear that he had known, thinking that he might lose his hold over it.
And now, he was able to take off at will.
He had made progress with it. There was no doubt of that, but what more could he do with it?
Maybe that was the extent of it. It was a device of alchemy.
Sam stood in front of the window, watching the storm as it raged outside. The close window did nothing to separate him from the sound of thunder, the feeling of the storm, or the power that existed out there. It shook everything, including his entire being.
As he stared, he thought about his sister and what she might be experiencing back at the Academy. He thought of his parents and what it must’ve been like for them to have wandered out into the Barlands into a storm that would claim their lives. He thought of Tara.
He thought of her often.
After standing there for a little while, losing himself in his thoughts, he turned back to the desk.
He took a seat, resting the vrandal on the table. When he did, he opened the cover of the almanac and stared at the symbols.
He had spent so much time trying to interpret them that it seemed strange when he could suddenly see something about the almanac that he hadn’t recognized before. It was almost as if the pattern that was there began to make sense.
It seemed to merge in time with what he saw, what he felt, of the thunder rumbling around him. It was as if the thunder built up within him and helped him know what he was looking at.
Reading the almanac had always required the vrandal before. What had changed?
Maybe it was me?
Or maybe it was simply that he had spent so much time trying to interpret these symbols, so much time trying to work through the patterns and the shapes and everything within the almanac that he had finally broken through some puzzle that had been blocking him before. Somehow.
He smiled to himself.
What he wouldn’t give to have Tara here with him. She had always believed they would be able to work through it. She had always believed that eventually, there would be an answer.
And he had read the almanac often enough that he had every page memorized—though that was with the vrandal.
The directions on the page had changed.
That was strange.
Could the vrandal activate the symbols in a certain way, but his own mind would interpret it another?
That seemed unlikely.
Then again, this was alchemy he was dealing with.
He turned back to the first page. He recognized the introductory paragraph. It was the same one Lilith had repeated to him, and it was the same one he’d often said to Tara.
But after that introductory paragraph, the language started to change. There was some aspect of it that had shifted. Sam hesitated, hands pressed against the table, staring at it. He had spent so much time reading the almanac and what was written here that he knew that something had changed, even if he didn’t understand what it was.
He looked up. Thunder continued to rumble. Every time he felt it, it was almost as if he could sense something else within him. Something soothing. It was strange to feel its soothing nature, to be aware of how that storm called to him.
It was familiar.
He had denied that to Lilith. He had tried to deny his comfort in the Barlands, but this had been his home for so long. The storms had been his companion. He had known that thunder, that lightning, and the rain. It had always been there.
Perhaps that was what Lilith wanted him to remember. Living in Erstan, so close to the Barlands, Sam found that the thunder, the lightning, and the sense of storms were common companions he’d grown accustomed to.
He focused once again on the almanac. Each page began similarly, but beyond the introductory section, everything about it was different. He was going to have to work through each page. He was going to have to relearn everything in the almanac. If every page was different, how much could he learn from it?
More than ever, he wished for Tara’s presence.
Maybe he could tell Lilith that he needed her help. Tara would help him come to terms with everything within the book, and perhaps they would even find something new, something more that she could use.
Or better yet, now that he had seen this, maybe he could return to Tavran.
Not until he did what Lilith wanted of him, though.
Looking up at the door, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was what Lilith wanted. Perhaps not. Did she know that the language shifted based on how he read it? And if he could read it like this, was it possible there was another way? So far, he had seen two different ways of reading it: with the vrandal and without it.
What would happen if someone like Tara tried to read it?
She saw nothing but a jumble of symbols when she tried, the same as he’d always seen before without the vrandal. Then again, that had come before he’d been healed. Sam hadn’t really tried to read the almanac without the vrandal ever since then. He hadn’t needed to. He’d been able to access the power of the vrandal and use that energy to find the source of power within it.
When another burst of thunder came, Sam glanced over to the window. Why was it that the thunder seemed to be such a part of him?
Maybe because it was.
The storms were home to him—at least they had been. Now they were something else, though he didn’t really know what they were.
He had to focus. He had to turn his attention to the almanac and see if there was anything more to uncover within.
Sam sat back. He’d been re
ading the almanac for longer than he could keep track, and his mind was now a blur of words and instructions. Everything on the pages had started to blend, the same way it had when he read it with the vrandal.
Strangely, the longer he read through it, the more those images started to meld, becoming something different—almost something he could make out. He could see a shifting sort of energy within his mind, but that had to be nothing more than his imagination.
He’d read nearly thirty pages in the almanac. There were differences to the writing on each page that were distinct enough for Sam to pick up on them and tell that what was there now was not what he’d read initially with the vrandal.
He had gotten through most of the almanac with the vrandal, and now this was a matter of simply reading, not working through the instructions. The techniques were different than what he’d read for Tara. With her, the nature of the power involved reaching into the source, creating angulated lines of power—all parts of the arcane arts. Now he began to find something different.
The first part of each page was still about finding some way to dip into the source. It was no different for him without the vrandal as it was with it, suggesting that the person performing the instructions written on the page had to access a source of power either way. Which meant he had to as well.
It fit with Tara’s belief about the almanac and how whatever power he might possess was still tied to the arcane arts, regardless of what he might believe. If this source was the same, then maybe he truly did have the same arcane arts.
Sam stared at each of the pages, many of which he and Tara had worked on together. With those different patterns, he’d seen the way she could use power, and he knew what her version of the almanac could do.
Could his do the same?
Sam would have to better understand what it meant about reaching into the source. The almanac might be able to offer that instruction for him now. He remembered what Tara had said about the first part of the instructions on every page—they were too basic for her. Sam, on the other hand, needed basic. Without that, he wouldn’t be able to figure out what he needed to do. He might have learned the complicated theories of angulation and other more advanced aspects of the arcane arts, but he was still a beginner when it came to actually reaching for that power.
Alchemist Illusion (The Alchemist Book 3) Page 14