by Frank Morin
"I've never been to the lower levels," Jean said in a hushed voice when they paused at the top. "They always felt wrong, somehow."
Evander nodded. "Truth, though an ugly beast, appears most tame when spoken by the simple beauty of youth."
"He's quite a charmer, isn't he?" Hamish muttered.
Hamish activated another limestone light to illuminate the long stair better, and Connor took another and willed it to life. It was one of the few power stones that worked in very similar ways for both Builders and Petralists, and he loved the fact that he and Verena could share a talent.
His stone sputtered and emitted a pulsing light that confused more than helped. Connor shook it and whispered, "Work with me here."
Hamish chuckled. "I guess Blood of the Tallan operates best in the shadows."
"Spit rocks," Connor said out of habit as he focused on the stone, abundantly aware that Verena and Evander were both watching him. After another moment, he finally managed a bright, even glow and grinned in victory.
"Good thing no one's life depended on you lighting that quickly," Aifric said with a smile.
He shrugged. "Some talents are too subtle for most people to appreciate."
As soon as they began their descent, Connor understood what Jean had been talking about. The air was cold and felt unsettled. When he tapped quartzite and tried to get a sense of it, the air seemed to scatter away, like insects fleeing unexpected light.
That mental image set his skin crawling.
Jean was right to sense that things were not safe. If Evander spent a lot of time down there, no wonder he seemed a bit odd.
The lower levels were a chaotic mass of corridors that made the undercity they had just left behind seem downright boring. They walked broken hallways shored with spare timbers. Others were twisted and pitching at odd angles, as if the ground under the buildings had shifted and fallen, dragging them into the depths.
Silently, they followed Evander through shattered halls, mostly filled with rubble and earth. Enough hints of the buildings' previous majesty remained to suggest they must have once rivaled the finest palaces in the Carraig. Bits of color from ancient murals clung to broken sections of fallen ceiling, while occasional limbs of alabaster statues poked from the rubble, as if still trying to pull free of the disaster that had claimed them.
Many times, the corridors they followed were blocked by barriers of solid rock that split the halls apart. The rock was in turn cut by rounded passageways that bored through to other battered corridors and collapsed palaces. It was as if a colony of ground squirrels snorting porphyry had gone wild underground for a thousand years.
After a few minutes, Verena shifted close to Connor and said, "We could get hopelessly lost down here if Evander chose to leave us."
He would have preferred she just punch him a few times. Now that she mentioned the scary thought, he couldn't help thinking about it. Even tapping slate, enough solid rock blocked his earth senses that he couldn't get a solid mental map of the area.
They spent another quarter hour creeping through ancient ruins, moving ever deeper into the earth. Eventually they stepped out of yet another passage carved out of solid rock and Connor paused to stare.
They had entered an opulent study, perfectly preserved, as if Evander had transported one from Lord Dail's palace and stuck it down in the ruin. Rich cherry wood sheathed the walls. Intricate paintings covered the ceiling, the colors as vibrant as the day they'd been mixed.
One in particular drew Connor's gaze. He recognized the towering peak of Mt. Murdo, but the spectacular city depicted at its base made the modern Carraig look like a hamlet. The shadows of grandeur that remained in the ruins had suggested a magnificent city, but if the towering spires and graceful castles were real, that city had been the jewel of the world.
Its destruction was that much more tragic.
"Was this your home?" Verena asked as the rest of the team clustered around Connor to stare.
Evander nodded, but did not speak.
"This place is amazing," Hamish breathed as he paced around the study, examining several mahogany chairs with complex carvings on the backs. They stood beside an enormous desk made of wood that looked remarkably similar to blue patterned marble.
In that room, they could almost forget they were standing deep under the surface, within a chaotic jumble of ruins. Connor hoped there was a point to the field trip.
He said, "Kilian suggested you've been searching for secrets down here ever since the Tallan Wars. Have you found anything that might help us figure out how to stop Dougal?"
"The hunter with a single arrow could loose it against the nuall savaging his flocks, or against the pedra swooping high overhead."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Hamish asked.
"Is the gravest danger the one present, or the one still waiting to strike?" Evander asked softly.
Hamish shrugged. "The pastry eaten fresh out of the oven is always better than the one found in a sock under the bed."
"Sometimes I wonder about you," Verena said with a slow shake of her head.
Jean touched Evander's arm again. "There's risk in any path we choose, but you wouldn't have brought us down here if you didn't plan to help."
Unless he planned to bury them alive. Or leave them to wander lost until they died of thirst and hunger. Or . . . Connor shook his head to dispel the litany of dark possibilities. They weren't helping.
"Truth is often but a reflection in murky waters. Come, fair one, and we shall see if the vision becomes clear."
He left the room, leading them into a wide hallway that looked perfectly normal, except for the steep slant to the floor leading even farther down. An odd, keening wind began blowing past, although Connor had no idea where it might be coming from.
Hamish shivered, his head cocked to one side as he listened to the soft, wailing cries contained in the wind. "It's like the lingering voices of people who got lost down here."
Jean grimaced. "How can you say such a thing?"
He shrugged. "It's what it sounds like."
"It sort of does," Connor agreed.
Verena sighed. "Leave it to you two to find a way to make it even creepier."
"We want you to enjoy the full experience," Connor said, sharing a grin with Hamish. That moment felt like old times.
Evander led them down the sloping corridor, his bulk seeming to fill the hallway. Connor still marveled that he could squeeze through all the tight spaces.
They clambered into an intersecting corridor that jutted into their hallway, its floor nearly four feet above theirs. That one twisted and turned, like a noodle bent at crazy angles across a plate.
Strangely, it didn't look broken. The domed ceiling, over twelve feet high, retained its gilded paint and complex crown molding. The wooden flooring shone, as if recently polished.
"This is beautiful," Jean breathed.
Evander nodded. "A single petal of the rose, though ripped asunder by the torrent, hints at the beauty of the flower thus destroyed."
"This area seems better preserved," Connor commented.
"The goose flies hundreds of miles for the winter migration, but it returns to the same nest it once abandoned."
"You lived here, in this part of the city?" Verena asked.
Evander did not reply, but led the way down the hallway to a thick wooden door, covered with carvings of trees and animals. It looked ancient, but Connor noted the lock looked new. The huge Sentry pushed the door open and led them through.
Another hallway. Growing up in that palace must have been really confusing.
The hallway ended in a wide set of double doors. Evander threw them open and led the way into a low-ceilinged room, barely twenty feet across, which extended beyond the bright glow of their lightstones. The entire room tilted down at a thirty degree angle and canted to the left. Both walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and the floor was tiled in a rough, black ceramic that offered excellent traction.
> Hamish thew out his hands and chuckled. "I should have known. An inner under double secret hidden library."
Chapter Seventy-Five
"The studious mind grasps every moment of learning, when the fool thinks of naught beyond terror."
~Connor
As they followed Evander into the sloping library, Connor wondered how many libraries the man had secreted around and under the Carraig. If Hamish had been the one hunting for secrets for centuries underground, they probably would have run across a dozen stashes of stale sweetbreads by now.
Evander approached a plain, wooden table bolted to the sloping floor. Jean led the rest of the team after him, gazing eagerly at the long rows of books.
She whispered, "We don't have nearly enough time."
Connor grimaced at the bookshelves. "I hope there's a summary page somewhere. We need to understand the secrets Dougal has uncovered, and fast. Controlling elfonnel is becoming the key to this war."
"No," Evander boomed, swinging around to face him, his expression furious. "Elfonnel destroyed my family and my nation. My uncle and I have stood guard against the return of these secrets for over three centuries."
It must be incredibly frustrating for him to realize that Dougal had somehow penetrated the secrets anyway. Connor chose his words carefully. If Evander was riled up enough to speak plainly, he could easily entomb them all down there if they pushed him too far.
"Then help us figure out what Dougal is planning. We'll guard the information carefully, but we can't stop him if we don't understand."
Evander paced away and made a flicking gesture with his hand. Lanterns mounted on the wall every five paces suddenly lit with bright limestone illumination. The library was longer than Connor had thought. It extended down and down, almost beyond the limit of his unenhanced vision.
"So many books," Jean breathed, her hands clenching slowly as she viewed the treasure trove.
Evander gestured at the long, narrow room. "Thus the fruit of long toil is gathered in."
"Have you read them all?" Connor asked.
"Wisdom is gained like the drip from the tip of the stalagmite, but the earth reveals no secrets to one who has never touched a shovel."
Connor sighed. "There once was a phrase so cloudy, that Blood of the Tallan grew pouty. He stood on one leg, and started to beg, and said please don't treat me so foully."
"I didn't get that one either," Hamish whispered.
"Don't be daft, you two," Jean said, hands on her hips, sounding annoyed. "Of course he was saying that he's read all those books. They wouldn't be of any use if he hadn't."
Aifric whistled softly. "I can't imagine reading so many books. Eystri would love it though."
"Who is Eystri?" Connor asked.
Aifric tapped her head. "Another shadow of me. She's an Althin. Loves the archives in Dagmanson."
"I'm looking forward to meeting her," Jean said.
Evander did not look happy at the thought of another one of Aifric's personalities appearing, eager to read his treasures.
"Is this the information from your grandmother's secret stashes?" Connor asked.
"As many as I have found. Our home was severely damaged, caught in the turmoil of elements. It has been the toil of lifetimes to find as much as I have."
It was usually a toil of lifetimes to understand him, but he seemed more menacing when he spoke clearly.
"Do you know how Dougal plans to raise an ancient elfonnel?" Jean asked.
Evander hesitated, a frown again creasing his face. "The mosaic once broken and scattered yields but piles of suggestive fragments. The artist only with the vision and skill can reassemble the original to its former glory."
Verena frowned. "So you found a bunch of hints, but nothing concrete. Dougal somehow got his hands on those pieces, and he figured out how to put it all together."
"Why can't the evil mastermind of the war be an idiot?" Hamish grumbled.
"A servant can have but one true master. All other oaths are rendered meaningless beneath that highest loyalty. Betrayal of one is but service rendered to another."
Connor guessed,"Gregor. He was your student, wasn't he?"
Evander nodded.
"So he probably got his hands on the bits and pieces you learned, and Dougal, that crafty son of a pedra, figured it out," Aifric said.
Jean said, "Maybe if we see those bits and pieces too we can figure it out."
Evander headed deeper into the long, narrow library, passing hundreds of tomes, any of which could contain vital secrets. The rest of them followed silently, although Jean trailed a little behind, her eyes glued to all the books they didn't have time to crack open.
Hamish took her hand. "Just focus on the fact that you're going to read a better one. It's like skipping the salad so you can go straight to dessert."
Jean smiled. "I actually like salad."
Evander stopped in front of a bookshelf that looked no different than any other. Instead of reaching for one of the tomes, he pulled on the lantern attached to the wall. With a click, it slid out on a concealed arm, revealing a hidden nook that held a tiny notebook. He withdrew the little book, which looked ridiculous in his huge hand, and passed it to Jean.
She took it with reverent excitement. It creaked from disuse as she cracked open the cover. Connor leaned over her shoulder to see. The small pages were yellowed with age and cracked along the edges. They were covered in a clean, flowing script very similar to Jean's. She scanned it in an instant and flipped to the second page.
"What does it say?" Hamish asked.
He did not even bother trying to look, and Connor quickly gave up too. They could never hope to match Jean in a reading contest.
There were only about thirty pages in the notebook, and Jean scanned them in just a few minutes, then returned to the beginning. Only then did she look up with a frown.
"These notes discuss many of the elfonnel attacks over the last three centuries. I've read another account of those, but this one includes a reference to an elfonnel attack from prior to the Tallan Wars."
"Does it tell you how they were raised?" Connor asked.
Of course she shook her head. If the answer was that simple, Evander would have figured it out.
"It does have some details I haven't seen before. For example, it lists the names of the Petralists who raised the elfonnel. In almost every case, they were like Dougal's wife and Camonica's husband, recently ascended Petralists experimenting with powers they didn't understand."
Evander nodded, but Connor frowned. "Almost all?"
"There are two with no names."
She looked to Evander who said, "Steps in the darkness can find hidden treasures, but mighty ships may pass in the fog without ever knowing another soul is near."
Jean nodded, as if she understood that cryptic answer. She really had been spending too much time around Evander.
"What if you couldn't figure out who was responsible because those two weren't young Petralists who had won sculpted stones? What if those were ancient elfonnel somehow awakened after all these years?"
Evander's huge head tilted a bit as he considered the idea. "I hadn't thought of that. Uncle Kilian stopped one of them, but I faced the other. It was unusually potent, like the one we faced here at the Carraig. Feet walk the path best remembered unless the mind is focused."
Jean gave him a dazzling smile. "Sometimes you need a fresh perspective on a stubborn problem."
"So where did those two rise from? Is there anything similar?" Connor asked.
Jean thumbed back through the little book, and the others drew a little closer. Connor sensed maybe they'd made an important breakthrough, but could they really figure out something that Evander had missed for so long? He had recorded the information, but what if he hadn't studied his own notes closely? It was information he already knew, after all.
Jean looked up and tapped the book. "This is interesting. In both of those cases, the attacks came near quarry communities."
Connor said, "That fire-bound elfonnel was raised at Emmerich quarry."
She nodded. "Wolfram commented on how strange it was that Dougal raised it so far from the battlefield. Maybe our assumption that Dougal was trying to block discovery of an anti-obsidian stone was wrong."
Aifric snapped her fingers, her expression excited. "You know how I said I had sensed some of Dougal's thoughts when he was controlling my mind? Something about unsettled elements. There's some connection with quarry, but I can't quite remember it."
Verena paced up the sloping floor, then turned, her expression thoughtful. "So where does that leave us? We know Dougal might be trying to raise a hibernating elfonnel, but usually they're impossible to sense. We have two possible instances of ancient elfonnel arising from their sleep, and in both cases they appeared near quarries, but we don't know why."
"Maybe they need power stone to feed on like that one at the Carraig did," Hamish suggested.
"That would explain why they'd hit quarries once they formed," Jean said thoughtfully.
Verena said, "You know, we don't actually have confirmation that Dougal used a sculpted stone to raise that fire-bound at Emmerich. What if he actually raised a hibernating elfonnel?"
"We did find one extra stone in that box," Hamish said.
Connor leaned against one of the bookshelves, but Evander frowned at him, so he quickly stood straight again. There had to be more to it than that.
"So why Emmerich? What would have tipped off Dougal that he could find an elfonnel there, if that's what happened?"
They all looked to Verena, who held out her hands apologetically. "I don't know much about that quarry."
Jean said, "Kilian mentioned something about it when we were first discussing the weakening powder, didn't he?"
Hamish nodded slowly, his brows furrowed as he thought back. "Something about unusual earthquakes."
Connor turned to Aifric. "What if that term restless elements meant earthquakes?"
Jean said excitedly, "Dougal overheard the discussion about the anti-obsidian stone through you, Aifric, so he knew about the earthquakes. What if they're actually caused by an ancient elfonnel stirring?"