And that meant that the Emperor would certainly want the power of the Rune Corp divinium for himself. Even though the Emperor had put on a convincing show at dinner about not allowing any other dragon magic to be used in his presence, Merrick had to presume that the ambitious ruler would do anything it took to possess the secrets of the cube.
And that meant two things.
Firstly, Merrick had to assume that the Emperor might try more overt ways to get information about the cube out of him, even though, unbeknownst to the Emperor, he had none to give. There was nothing for Merrick to do about this, other than to keep his mind sharp and his senses alert—something he was having a difficult time doing on a consistent basis since arriving at the Cloud City.
Secondly, he had to guess that his fear about Rune Corp becoming a target was now more likely than ever, especially with him and Cara being gone. The Alphas and the rest of the employees would put up a good fight, but if the Emperor launched a concerted attack, he could probably take Rune Corp and steal all of its divinium and its technology. If there was any way for him to do so, he had to get a message to Cara or to Rune Corp to make sure they were as ready as possible.
The only good thing was that the Emperor’s desire for the cube meant that he would most likely keep it close by—certainly in the palace. And that meant that there was still hope that Merrick could find it.
Merrick turned his focus back to the statuette of the bonsai tree and reached out to it again.
The divinium hadn’t seen the cube, but had it felt its presence in some other way?
As he searched through the statuette’s living energy, Merrick found a memory of a surge in energy that was different from all the rest of the normal magical fabric that permeated the Cloud City and the royal palace. A spike of that nature and of that size could only result from the magic of the cube being activated.
It would make sense that the warrior would have to experiment and practice to be able to use the cube so well in such a short time. It was beyond his ken, but Merrick had to entertain the thought that the warrior had agreed to learn the cube, use it in battle, and then to commit seppuku all in the service of his Emperor.
But for what purpose?
The Emperor could have been trying to intimidate Merrick—trying to send him a message that it was too late—that he had already unlocked the power of the cube.
If that were the case, Merrick considered the Emperor’s mission accomplished and his message received.
CHAPTER 40
EVEN THOUGH TAMAMI was of royal lineage, she stood at the back of the room watching the floor as her Abbess and the Emperor spoke. Tamami dared to glance at them before lowering her head again. It was an odd sight. The Emperor was not even four feet tall and so young to be dressed in his royal garb of golds and blues. The Abbess, of unknown birth and favored by Araki, was the spiritual leader of the Wind Family and a de facto force that even the mighty Emperor had to take into consideration. Even in her plain dark blue monastic robe, her posture and demeanor was that of a queen.
“You cannot kill him,” said the Abbess. “He is the anomaly for whom we have been waiting for years. And he has done nothing against our family or against Araki. In fact, the great Araki has shown him favor in the past during his visit to Annoon. You are our Emperor, but who are you to defy our dragon’s will?”
The Emperor huffed.
“It is true that he has not done anything yet to the kingdom. But he is a political enemy who has not yet blossomed. That is the time to cut down a weed—before it has grown to maturity.”
The Abbess straightened her posture even more, now looming above the Emperor. No one else in the Cloud City and perhaps the world would dare to take such a stance with the young ruler.
“What kind of an Emperor brings an enemy into his own house as a guest, only to plot his death? If that was your intention, why didn’t you kill him back on the ground where he lives?”
“That was the plan at first, if you must know,” said the Emperor. “But he is resourceful and not without power and resources of his own. Not only did he kill three of my most loyal and skilled warriors, but he then decided to accept my invitation to visit the Cloud City. There is no other reason for him to do so other than to reclaim his precious cube and to spy on me, and so he must be dealt with before he commits his crime against us.”
“The way you have spied on him?” the Abbess said. “The way you have stolen from him?”
The Emperor slammed his fist into the open palm of his other hand.
“You overstep! Concern yourself with the spiritual health of our people, and I will worry about the physical health of the kingdom. Merrick is a very dangerous person and a threat to this family and to Araki, and to the future of all Drayoom, even if the Wind Dragon does not realize it.”
The Abbess pulled away as if distancing herself from the punishment the Emperor was about to receive by uttering such profanity.
“You are fortunate to still be standing,” she said, her eyes wide. “If he is so dangerous, then why did you invite him into our home?”
The Emperor turned away and cocked his head to the left before dropping his chin and facing the Abbess again.
“As I have said, he has done nothing to us yet. But, my scholars and generals have had enough time to review his cube and to make a preliminary assessment. Their findings suggest that the cube is a more powerful weapon than even we had thought at first.
“It is hewn from a special type of divinium that can hold the magic, we believe, of all four dragons. In addition to that, the late Ohman was clever enough to design and install an interface so that even humans can make use of divinium. Not only does our family require more of this special type of divinium, but more importantly, we cannot afford to let another family have this power, much less one composed of humans.”
“I understand and agree with your logic in this,” the Abbess said, “but that does not necessitate Merrick’s death.”
“But it does, Abbess,” the Emperor said. “I used my strongest magic on him tonight at dinner, and still he refused to divulge whether his divinium was created or naturally occurring. I do not believe that he is that strong willed. Instead, I believe that he does not know the answer himself. And without that knowledge, he is more of a threat to our future than he is a potential source of information. With Merrick gone, I can take his technology. I can take his divinium.”
The Abbess softened her voice slightly.
“But he is needed—for a higher purpose than your simple desire to gain more power for our family. Merrick must live because he holds in his veins the potential to save all the Drayoom and to establish the two of us as the rulers of this planet as we were intended to become.”
The Emperor threw up his hands.
“The die has already been cast.”
“Yes, it has,” the Abbess said. “Long ago.”
CHAPTER 41
THIS WAS NOT the first time that the great tree had found itself in a challenging position. The mighty yew was connected with every plant, tree, branch, root, and animal on the planet, and the sensations it received from all of the pieces of Terrada formed an immense network of organic sensors. As such, Oodrosil was aware of the world and of all the creatures that walked its surface in a way unlike any of Terrada’s other followers.
At the moment, Oodrosil’s network was telling it that something was wrong. There were magical energy spikes where they shouldn’t be and a mass of Wind Energy forming high above the Rune Corp building. The tree was silently thankful that even though birds were creatures of the sky, they were also children of Terrada.
The fact that the surge in Wind Magic was occurring while Cara and Merrick were both away on travel made the old tree suspicious. Oodrosil did not believe in coincidences, especially considering the fact that the Emperor had just finished visiting Rune Corp and that he had witnessed the power of the cubes.
Between the amount of divinium used to detect, process, assimilate, test
, and store the words from the different dragon lexicons, and the sheer number of dragon words captured in the Rune Corp data cubes, the building that Oodrosil called home represented one of the largest concentrations of magical energy on the planet.
And the yew was sure that the Emperor of the Wind Family was also aware of this fact.
The wards that Cara and Merrick set up to protect the building were formidable. With the addition of Ohman’s creation name, the building was more secure than ever. But the tree was not sure that the wards were strong enough to withstand a full force tornado or another equally powerful wind-based assault of nature, which the Emperor and his troops were fully capable of launching.
Oodrosil was also worried about whether or not the humans Merrick had been training would be able to withstand a full attack by the Emperor’s soldiers.
What the mighty yew did know was that most of the humans here were as honorable and dedicated as any Drayoom the tree had ever known throughout its long life. Each of them would fight to the end and give their lives to defend the building and the secrets that were kept within.
And the humans would not be alone in their fight. Oodrosil could and would fight by their sides.
Oodrosil reached out to the trees and to the stones that were located around the building. The tree even spoke to the massive sheets of bedrock and layers of clay beneath the artificial blanket of asphalt and cement that covered them.
Oodrosil knew that Ohman had always made it a top priority to keep the existence of the Drayoom and of magic a secret from the humans outside of Rune Corp, but if circumstances became dire, Oodrosil would do what it took to save its home, even if the human population saw and learned more than desired.
Briefly, Oodrosil thought back to when Merrick had asked about the source of the divinium Ohman had used to build the Rune Corp technology. The mighty yew had been caught off guard by the young man’s question, and despite its best efforts to hide the truth, Oodrosil was sure that Merrick caught a glimpse of the divinium forest in the split second before it blocked its thoughts from him.
The yew tree loved both Merrick and Cara more than it had loved anyone other than Ohman. But it could not share the secret of the stone with them.
There were not many rules that the yew tree obeyed unless it suited its desires, but it could not divulge to Cara the secret of the true divinium, because she was not a full-blooded Drayoom.
Even Ohman had known that rule when he first asked the tree for help obtaining the rumored divinium that could hold the magic of all four dragons. That was one reason why the tree suspected that Ohman had been so excited about and willing to bring Merrick into the fold.
At least Merrick was a full-blooded Drayoom—someone with whom Ohman could one day share the secret of the stone, or as much of the secret as he was able to discern.
Oodrosil knew Ohman’s intentions, and as such, it wanted to tell Merrick about the source of the true divinium. But Merrick was still young and not nearly as wise as Ohman had been at his age. Merrick had so much potential, despite being half-filled with the blood of that wretched Queen of the Earth Clan whose very smell Oodrosil could not stand.
The tree was sure that Merrick could one day be entrusted with the secret of all creation on this world, but now was not that time. The boy had come a long way in just a short amount of time, but he was still unbalanced and not fully centered inside.
Giving that much power to someone who was even a little out of balance was ill-advised and something the tree would not risk.
If Merrick somehow were able to find the forest on his own, even though Oodrosil hoped it would not come to that, the mighty yew would do what it had to in order to protect the forest and its secrets.
CHAPTER 42
MERRICK LOOKED OUT the window in his room and saw that it was night outside.
There was so much that was foreign and unearthly in the Cloud City that Merrick found himself feeling thankful to Sigela—for the regularity and the rhythm that the sun brought to the planet and to the lives of the creatures who called it home.
He was tired, and even though it would have been wonderful to fall asleep as he lay there processing the day’s events in his head, he knew that he had work to do. He had to find the cube as quickly as possible, get his group to the Earth City to meet up with Cara, and get in touch with Rune Corp to warn them before it was too late.
After he and Mona had left the Earth Room, Merrick thought of a way that he might be able to use the bonsai tree statuette to find the cube. The divinium was able to detect the cube’s energy when it was being used, so maybe if he carried it with him like a magical divining rod, it could pick up the cube’s energy signature even when it was at rest.
In order to try out his theory, first he had to make his way back to the Earth Room without being detected, and that was not going to be easy. He suspected that the room in which he was staying was guarded and that he would be immediately caught if he tried leaving out the front door.
The chances were that his room was being visually monitored as well, but it was a risk he was going to have to take.
He looked over to the window again.
The only way he could think of to go down to the level with the Earth Room without being detected was to scale down the outside wall of the palace. Even though Merrick was getting used to being this many miles above the ground, he had no idea what would happen if he fell from this height.
Would his body bounce off of the divinium-laced cloud or would it slice through the layer that made up the floor of the city?
Merrick still thought that he would be able to call the lightning in time to save him, but he did not want to find out.
Clearing his head of that scenario, Merrick stepped up to the window ledge and looked down. There were some lights at the base of the massive tower, but up top where he was, the side of the building was thankfully lit only by the half moon in the sky.
He could see enough of the wall to hopefully find a place to grip, while still being relatively covered by darkness. Anyone on the ground looking up would be blinded by the lower lights and would not be able to spot him as he climbed down the wall.
For a moment, he thought about trying to simply float down to the desired level, but he knew that the Emperor set wards throughout the palace that nullified magic to different degrees, and he didn’t want to find himself unexpectedly in a free fall with no ability to stop his descent.
Instead, he searched his memory for any words he might be able to use to help him climb down the outside wall. One Earth Dragon word came to mind—the creation name of Kern Leggath, a mighty climber who used to scale both trees and mountains that no one else would dare to try. The meaning of Kern’s creation name must have been easy to decipher, Merrick thought to himself as he let out a low chuckle.
Unfortunately, the wall was not made of any earthen materials.
Then he remembered a word in the Fire lexicon for climbing, taken from a woman named Yudelle who was as light as smoke itself, according to the stories that were told about her. But even though her name would probably work in the open air, it was best used for rising upward, not for traveling downward.
Merrick struggled to remember any Wind Dragon words that might help him. Rune Corp’s collection of Wind Dragon words wasn’t very large, but if he could use one of Araki’s words, it would have the added benefit, hopefully, of not setting off any hidden alarms that were set to detect magic from other dragons being used in the palace.
There was one name that he barely recalled. It wasn’t the Wind Word for climbing, exactly, but it might help. It was the creation name of Huang Lee, a peasant worker who began working in a field at the top of a very high mountain that touched the clouds when he was but a young boy. Huang worked that rocky field all of his life, and a long life it was. At the age of 95, Huang still awoke to the call of his farm animals and worked his field until dark, stopping only for a light lunch and a snack. Even after he was forced by his son to stop work
ing the fields and performing such taxing manual labor, Huang still had a difficult time being still. Some claim to have seen him working his field at night with the wind whipping his hair about him as he continued his labors until the day he eventually died. He was the essence of dedication and specifically, his creation name was a word in the Wind language that was closely related to perseverance.
It wasn’t much, but Merrick knew that climbing down the wall would be as much a test of his mental endurance than of anything else.
With a heavily exhaled breath, Merrick opened the window and sat on the stone sill, his legs hanging over the edge. He waited for guards to bust through his door, but none came.
In the light of the moon, Merrick saw a thin lip of stone on the wall beneath his window.
He had counted the floors earlier, and knew that he had to get down to a hallway about three levels down from the one he was on. At some point he would also have to get back up, but he wouldn’t be able to use the regular lift system in the palace to do so. Even though using Fire Magic would be risky, if he became desperate, he could always use Yudelle’s name to turn his body as light as smoke so he could float back to his bedroom window.
With only a general plan, Merrick slid out of the window and twisted his body so that he was facing the wall. He stabilized himself on the small stone ledge, and as he uttered Huang’s name, he felt his resolve immediately harden. With that, his confidence increased as well, and he began to carefully make his way across the outer wall of the building until he came to a channel cut into the stone that ran from the bottom of the wall, all the way to the top.
The groove was a depressed, squared-off section of the wall that was about three feet wide. Merrick pressed his feet against one side of the channel while pushing hard with his hands on the opposite side of the stone inset.
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