Dorull took a deep breath, “We are both being unfair, but fair has nothing to do with it. We know you are young and inexperienced, but you don’t, can’t, have the luxury of figuring this out in another five years or more, which would be the normal course of things. You must be ready to fight and fight without reservation, at a moment’s notice. And you need to learn to lead off with magic that is hard for your opponent to counter. The ability to pick up and throw your opponents is a huge advantage and no one since the zdrell masters has had this ability except for demons.
“The charzen have never had to fight a zdrell master. They were created after the last one was killed so that the demons wouldn’t have to endanger themselves again. There are now two line cutters in the world, and I fear, no matter how much I hate saying it, you may need to make more. We need more of everything, more of your power rings, more wizards who can use zdrell, more allies, and most of all we need more time, and I fear that is the one thing we will have the least of.”
No one said anything for long moments. Finally, Dorull broke the silence. “If you can manage it, Eril, I want you to get both those power rings made tomorrow. After that’s done. I have one more artifact for you to charge. You’ll probably need all of us helping, but if we can get this working, it might get us some way towards getting us more time.”
Chapter 25
Eril slept poorly that night, his feelings were still confused. Even so, he set up his tools and began to work not long after dawn. The morning was bitter cold, but stoking the forge helped to heat him up. After the forge was hot, he took two strips of gold he’d already prepared before the attack and one after another heated and then, using his zdrell, rolled them into continuous hoops with no seams.
Working quickly, he altered them as he had his first power ring so that the rings drew lines of force to them. All this manipulation was done without directly touching the rings. When he had allowed them to cool, he could tell they were nearly done. As with his first power ring, he scribed additional enhancement lines into the surface of the rings, then dipped them both into a small pot of molten silver to allow it to wick into the lines.
Having completed the main steps of building the rings, he polished them and then cast the binding spell on each to both tone down the obvious display of power that was visible to his zdrell sight and to make the effects permanent.
By the time he was finished, it was well after dark. He had neither stopped working nor eaten all day, such was his focus and drive to complete the rings. As the second binding spell was completed, he sagged with fatigue. Biruell, who had been sitting huddled under a blanket nearby watching for the last few hours asked, “Are they done?”
“Yes,” Eril sighed, “they’re done, and so am I.”
Now that the task was completed, Eril’s body let him know in no uncertain way that he had been neglecting it and its needs. He took the two rings, which were still wrapped in a polishing cloth, and handed the bundle to Biruell.
“Take these to Master Dorull. Show them to no one else. I need to pee and then I think I’m going to bed.”
Without looking for confirmation, Eril headed immediately for the privies. Once he’d relieved himself, he wanted to go straight to bed, but force of habit and training under Master Kason made him clean and properly stow his tools first. Once that was completed, he stumbled off to his room and didn’t stir again until morning.
§ § §
Eril awoke late the next morning. He stretched and found his whole body stiff and sore. He was not surprised after the way he’d worked and how he’d been tossed around the previous day. He threw on his clothes and went straight to the kitchens, knowing that it was late enough in the day that breakfast would be concluded.
He entered the kitchen just as the head cook, Mayla, the only woman in the castle, was pulling a loaf of bread from the large brick oven. The smell of fresh bread made his stomach nearly explode with hunger. Mayla initially looked like she’d scold him for trying to steal the bread from the luncheon meal, but then just shook her head and said, “Go ahead, Eril. You’ve not eaten in over a day. Not my place to stop a hungry young man from filling his belly, especially since they’ve been saying that you’re the only reason any of us are still drawing breath.”
Eril nodded in thanks and immediately started to tear the large loaf in two. He yelped and nearly tossed the loaf across the room as the bread burned his hands. Mayla tried to stifle a laugh. “Eril, ye fool. It was on the paddle because I just pulled it out of the oven. It’s too hot for hands. Get a rag and knife to cut it. I’ll get you some butter to spread on it too.”
Shamefaced, Eril got a rag and large knife and cut off a hunk. Mayla brought over a trencher with butter and knife. Eril didn’t hesitate, but quickly slathered butter on the bread and began to wolf it down.
“Slow down, you silly boy, or you’ll choke yourself to death. And how will I be explaining that to his ancientness?”
Eril couldn’t talk with his mouth full of bread but he did slow down enough to better chew and swallow. Mayla brought over a tankard of watered ale. “Best drink some too, to wash it down.”
Eril nodded happily and kept eating and then drinking from the tankard. In minutes the bread was gone, the tankard emptied and Eril felt like his stomach would allow him at least an hour before demanding more food.
“Thanks, Mayla,” he said as he wiped the crumbs off his face. “I really needed that.”
“Aye, you did. Now I just need to figure out how I’m going to replace that loaf.” Before Eril could look too guilty, she grinned to let him know it was more jest than true concern. “Now off with you. I’ve a castle to feed.”
Eril waved and walked out into the castle courtyard. Not knowing where Dorull or Zeldar were exactly, he headed for Dorull’s main workshop. As he walked in, he was hit by the heat of large fires burning in both fireplaces. Both Zeldar and Dorull were there, each hunched over different artifacts. The pile of uncharged artifacts was almost gone. Clearly, the two wizards had been busy.
Eril looked at Dorull and was again surprised by the wizard’s appearance. When Eril had arrived at the castle, the wizard had looked to be over one hundred years old. After he’d spent time with Eril’s power ring and a rejuvenation spell he’d changed to look like a man in his late fifty’s. Now Eril would have sworn he was in his thirties, the prime of life. The face that looked up at Eril was clean shaven and covered in clear youthful skin.
“Don’t just stand there with your jaw hanging, Eril,” Dorull said grinning. “I have to say that your new power rings are a success. I couldn’t resist using the rejuvenation spell again to see if the new would live up to the old, and I must say these rings feel a bit different than your original, but they do bring the power.”
Zeldar looked up from the armor he had been charging. “Eril, how did you not crow about these power rings? I’ve never felt or been able to do so much magic in such a short amount of time. Dorull even showed me a bit of that healing magic,” he said holding up his arm, where previously there had been a long scar, but now was unmarked.
“Have either of you slept?” Eril asked with concern.
“No, of course not,” Dorull replied grumpily. “I told you, we lack time more than anything else.”
“But Master Silurian warned me to never rely wholly on the power rings,” Eril began.
“I know, I know,” Dorull answered impatiently. “I am well aware of the hazards of rings like this. I am also aware that the longer we use them this way the harder it will be to ever take them off. But what you don’t seem to understand, Eril, is that if we don’t succeed in fighting the demons, we’ll all be dead in five years or less.”
§ § §
“What do we do now?” Eril said as he looked around the workshop. The pile of uncharged undamaged artifacts was gone. All usable devices had been charged and sorted according to their type and use. With the three of them working, it had only taken a couple of hours from Eril’s arrival to finish
them all.
“We eat,” Zeldar said loudly. Dorull grunted in agreement.
“Then,” Dorull said, in that youthful voice Eril still had not adjusted to, “I show you both the reason why I chose to make this castle my long-term abode.”
Before either Zeldar or Eril could ask what he meant, Dorull walked briskly towards the small hall where the wizards normally ate. During the meal, where all three ate as though breaking a three-week fast, Dorull refused to answer any questions about what he’d said earlier. Instead, he kept quizzing Zeldar on counts of the various devices they’d charged.
As they talked Eril realized they had been very busy while he’d recovered from the effort of creating the power rings. They had now several hundred recharged devices. Most were simple units like communication senders, but some were powerful devices like lightning and fire wands. There were two of the flying wands, though only one had been tested. Eril was anxious to see if it worked as well as the first one had.
When Dorull pushed away his plate and stood up, both Eril and Zeldar took it as their cue to do likewise. He belched loudly and grinned at the younger wizards’ shock.
Smiling in a conspiratorial way, Dorull said, “And now the answer to your question awaits.” He gestured expansively towards the door and set off walking rapidly. Still confused, they followed.
Dorull walked quickly across the frozen courtyard, passed the main workshop, towards the back wall of the keep, near the stables. Set in the base of one of the towers was a large pair of double doors, easily twelve feet wide and nearly as tall. The doors were heavy and made of thick beams that hung from enormous iron hinges. Eril had seen them before, but never thought to ask about them since there had always been a large beam in brackets hung horizontally across them. He assumed they went to some old unused space of the castle, as the current occupants were only using a portion of the available space as it was. Drifts of crusty dirty snow piled up against them testified to their lack of use.
Gesticulating rapidly, Dorull muttered an incantation under his breath and then pointed directly at the doors. The huge wooden beam that had been barring the doors made popping and groaning sounds and then levitated out of its brackets, leaving little pieces of it still adhering to the doors. The beam floated up and then gently settled down, leaning against an adjacent wall.
“Eril, Eril,” Dorull said, chuckling. “This is so fun! I’ve known that spell for over three hundred years and have only used it a handful of times. Lifting heavy objects with magic is impressive, but before your power ring that little stunt would have cost me a full day’s worth of magic. Now, it’s nothing.”
He twirled around on one foot, like a young child and then gestured expansively at the double doors, that creaked and groaned then swung outward. “I love it,” he exclaimed, conjured a small ball of light and strode rapidly through the doorway into the corridor beyond.
Eril and Zeldar looked at each other. Eril shrugged. Zeldar muttered, “show off,” conjured his own ball of light, not nearly as quickly, and followed. Eril just shook his head, thought for a moment and put on his power and master rings and followed. With the master ring on, he didn’t need the light.
§ § §
The corridor turned out to be just as wide as the doorway. Eril was surprised because none of the other castle corridors were half so wide. It also didn’t go where Eril expected. The corridor seemed to be angling down in a slow curve. And it just kept going.
Eril was amazed at both the length of the curving corridor and the fact that there were almost no doorways that branched off it. After what had to be nearly one hundred yards, the corridor ended in another set of double doors even larger than the ones they’d entered through. These too were barred by not one, but two large beams held in brackets. Dorull was standing looking at the doors when Zeldar and Eril arrived.
“Ok, Eril, time to start earning your keep, Mr. zdrell wizard. Move those beams,” Dorull said gesturing.
“Can’t you do it?” Eril asked.
“Of course, I can,” Dorull harrumphed, “I just want to save my power for what’s on the other side.”
This gave Eril pause. “What is on the other side?” he whispered.
“Bah. Nothing you need to be afraid of. You’ll see why the bars are on this side of the doors soon enough. Now snap to it.”
Eril focused his mind and pulled both beams up out of their brackets simultaneously. As with the previous bar, the wood groaned and left bits behind from having sat in the same place for so long. Eril heard Zeldar mutter, “Another showoff,” as Eril gently floated the bars into the brackets on the wall that were evidently put there for just that purpose.
The room beyond the doors was cavernous. Eril had expected it to be large, but the ceiling arched up over forty feet. The far wall of the room was evidently the actual mountainside that the castle butted up against.
What immediately drew Eril’s attention was a large stone archway carved directly into the rock of the mountain wall. The curious aspect of it forced him to move closer to examine it with puzzlement. The interior of the arch projected only three feet back and then appeared to simply be more of the rock wall, though it had been smoothed. The archway led seemingly nowhere.
The archway was covered in clearly incised runes. Eril, looking at them with his zdrell sight was nearly overwhelmed by their complexity and the way they tied into nearly all the force lines in the room. “Wow,” was all Eril could say as he moved forward to trace his fingers along the runes.
As soon as he touched the arch, he felt the lack of power in it. He realized that the arch was just another huge magical artifact and that it too was missing power, just as the artifacts upstairs had been.
“Ah, I see you’ve already figured it out, have you?” Dorull said, walking up behind Eril, who was still running his fingers along the runes.
“What has he figured out?” Zeldar asked with irritation. “All I see is a very large archway to nowhere.”
“You’re partly right, Zeldar. Right now, this arch leads nowhere at all, but that has not always been the case, and I hope with Eril’s and your help it will soon lead somewhere again.”
Eril meanwhile had been feeding power into the arch the entire time the other two had been talking. He only felt a small response, but that response was frightening him. He turned away and spoke to Dorull. “This thing lets people go from one place to another? Is this one of the Jorell gates from the stories?”
“That’s exactly what it is, Eril,” Dorull said, quietly.
“That isn’t possible,” Zeldar exclaimed. “Those were just made up stories to make the age of zdrell masters seem more amazing.”
Dorull just shook his head and smiled ruefully. “Zeldar, do I need to remind you that you stand in the presence of a zdrell master, or at least a journeyman? How many of those ‘fabled’ zdrell artifacts have you personally recharged in the last few days?”
“But, but the tales made it sound as if when using Jorell gates people, and not just wizards, could simply enter one and step out another gate hundreds or even thousands of miles away. You don’t actually believe that archway would make that happen?” Zeldar said this with a tone that conveyed a sense that he both couldn’t believe but also desperately wanted it to be true.
“That is exactly what I do believe, and I hope that Eril is enough of a zdrell master to get this one to work.” Dorull smiled grimly at Eril.
Eril said, “I don’t know if I can get this to work, but one thing I know already.”
“Which is?” Dorull said, raising an eyebrow.
“This thing is going to need an immense amount of power in order to even try. I’ve already been feeding power to it as fast as I could, and it is like I’m trying to fill a rain barrel with an eyedropper.”
“Hmmph,” Dorull said. “I figured as much. When I was first down here, over one hundred years ago, I was always puzzled by that,” he gestured to an immense fireplace which stood in the wall next to the door they’
d come in through, facing the archway. “Now that I know a bit about using fire to provide power for artifacts, it makes much more sense. I’m sure that is there to provide the power we’re going to need to charge this thing up. I’m guessing it will take some time and most likely all three of us working together.”
“Well, I guess getting wood down here won’t be much of a challenge,” Zeldar muttered. “We just get a wagon loaded up and drive it down here.” He paused as an idea occurred to him. “That’s why the doorways and halls here are so large, isn’t it? This arch is big enough for a wagon or man mounted to ride right through, and they are actually designed for that too, aren’t they?”
“Indeed,” Dorull said. “If the stories are to be believed, whole armies have been moved through gates such as this. And that is the answer to why the doors bar from the other side. A castle would want to have some control over when ‘visitors’ might decide to come through.”
They all stood, marveling at the arch and the fireplace. Dorull did not take long before he said, “Alright, this arch isn’t going to charge itself. Zeldar, come with me and we’ll go up and get a wagon load of wood. Eril, keep examining the arch, but don’t waste too much effort dumping power into it until we get a fire going, the air already feels colder from the heat you’ve drawn on since we got here.”
Dorull turned, and with Zeldar started out of the room heading back the way they’d come. Eril continued to search over the runes of the arch. This was far and away the most complex zdrell artifact he’d ever seen; much more complex than the artifacts they had been working on previously. He so wanted to see this work.
Chapter 26
In what seemed like no time at all to Eril, but must have been at least an hour, Eril’s contemplation was interrupted when a wagon driven by Zeldar, and pulled by two mules rolled creaking and rumbling to a stop in front of the large fireplace. It was filled to the brim with firewood. Several soldiers followed with Dorull, who quickly set them to unloading the wagon.
The Journeyman for Zdrell Page 14