Balancer (Advent Mage Cycle) Read online

  I felt like going to the nearest brick wall and banging my head against it. All this time, running around like frantic chickens with our heads cut off, trying to solve all these problems and obscure riddles, and the answer was riding along inside Raile’s head. That tore it! Before another obscure problem could crop up, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t do one thing until I sat Raile down and had a long chat with him about it first.

  “Raile, listen to me carefully. I definitely want to hunt up that cache under the capitol’s library—I think it has information we need—but the reason why I called you is I need to know something. A young Star Order initiate boasted that there’s an ancient pre-war weapon that the Star Order will use to destroy us. Do you know anything about that?”

  “No, can’t say that I do. But I can tell you this—if it exists, the information about it will be in that library cache.”

  I made a snap decision. “I’m coming to get you right now so that you can lead me to it.”

  “Sounds more fun than what I had planned.”

  “I’ll tell Xiaolang what you’re doing and why,” Chatta volunteered. “You go get Raile.”

  “Good plan,” I approved, kissing her lightly on the temple. “Don’t get into trouble.”

  “Without you?” she gave a saucy wink. “Never. That would be no fun at all.”

  I chuckled as she walked away, unable to refute the axiom that it normally was my fault Chatta got caught up in “interesting situations.”

  “So.” There was no mistaking the distinct amusement that I heard in Raile’s voice. “Finally realized you loved her, eh? About time!”

  “Don’t start with me,” I grumbled. “I’ve already been teased enough for a lifetime over this.”

  He laughed, the sound raspy but still pleasant to the ears.

  “I’ll be there shortly, Raile.”

  “I’ll meet you at the main gates.”

  Before I disappeared, there was one more person I needed to check in with. Night? Go or stay?

  “I think I’ll help Chatta,” he answered. “I don’t think I’d be much help digging up an ancient treasure trove. I’d probably destroy more than I dug up.”

  Good point. See you later, then.

  ~*~

  I didn’t have to reconstruct my bridge as Raile simply waved off the glamour for the existing bridge. Raile had said that the cache was located right underneath the Capitol Library’s foundation, so I took us straight there. The library, as I understood it, had stood since the Palace itself was erected. It was a massive structure, made out of granite, and so it registered on my senses like a lodestone beacon. I had no problem finding the place.

  I brought us up in an “empty-feeling” place, without the slightest clue of where exactly it might be, except this was in the right general area. When my head rose above ground, I realized to my chagrin that I had actually brought us up in some poor elderly man’s office. He had frozen with fear, hand still holding a dripping quill, eyes nearly ready to pop out of his head. Judging from the decidedly formal clothing he was wearing, he had to be part of the senior staff here at the library.

  “I’m very sorry for startling you,” I apologized contritely. “I didn’t intend to barge into your office, it just registered as an empty area to me.”

  “Q—” He paused, drew in a deeper breath, and took hold of himself with visible effort. “Quite alright. From your appearance, I assume that you are the young Earth Mage, Rhebengarthen?”

  I was a little surprised that even an elderly librarian from Chahir had heard of me. “That’s correct.”

  He put the quill down with a deliberate motion. “I am Shahraman, Head Curator of the Alvacon Library. I have been expecting you for some time.”

  I blinked at him, trying to restart my brain that’d gone perfectly blank. How could this man be expecting me, when not two hours before, I had had no idea I would be here? “I’m sorry?”

  “Well, perhaps not you precisely, but a powerful magician, most certainly,” he amended. “Before the war ended, something very dangerous, and intensely magical, was locked deep within the basement area of this building. We couldn’t destroy it; we couldn’t even approach it without putting our lives on the line. I come from a long line of librarians who have watched over it all of these years. I knew, once King Vonlorisen changed his position on magic, that at some point a magician from Hain would come here to reclaim that magical relic. That is why you are here, is it not?”

  One relic. He thought there was only one magical relic here? “Well, er, yes.” I turned to Raile, hoping he could unravel my puzzlement.

  “I am Raile Blackover, Wizard of Coven Ordan,” Raile introduced himself, with a formal bow showing respect to our unexpected guest, but with a slight twinkle in his eye. “And we would be very interested in seeing what’s in your basement, Shahraman.”

  ~*~

  We were dispatched to the lower bowels of this ages old library basement, accompanied by a conscripted quivering young guide by the name of Robles. Apparently, the basement level was a veritable mole’s warren, and only the most experienced guides, possessing uncommon luck, could navigate it without getting lost. I thought about telling them that with my Mage senses, I could not only find the right room, but get out again without a problem. Then I thought about my embarrassing talent for getting lost, and decided to keep my mouth shut.

  Raile accepted our young guide without a qualm, and let him lead the way through an obscure side door and down a long narrow flight of stairs. We each were given a lantern before our descent, as apparently the lighting on the lower unused levels was chancy at best.

  The smell of must permeated the lower level, and while not particularly unpleasant, it was present in every inhale I took. The walls on either side were smooth stone, closely fit together so smoothly that my hand could barely feel the difference between one brick and another. We passed several doors and other hallways as we descended, and we changed staircases several times until we reached the fifth level. Then we just went down the same spirally stairs. As we descended the winding staircase I kept an eye on Raile, ready to catch him at a moment’s notice. His every step took a conscious effort with a pronounced caution on his part. It was clear that the trip down was not easy on him.

  At first I thought that our guide was being solicitous of Raile’s age as well. He went very slowly, glancing back over his shoulder frequently. But the more we descended into the cloying darkness, the slower he went. Even Raile had to slow his pace, and he finally looked up with a slight frown.

  “Is something wrong, young man?”

  “Sir, I strongly suggest we don’t go down there,” Robles’ voice broke with an unmistakable catch of nervousness in it. “That was locked down there, many years ago, long before I was born.”

  The emphasis he put on the word was unmistakable. “That?” I repeated, more curious than alarmed.

  He half-turned, the white of his eyes wide in the lantern’s light. His voice fell to a hushed conspiratorial tone, as if he feared it might hear him. “Right after the war, there was a large weapon of unspeakable magical power brought here in the dead of night, and sealed away for all time. Good Masters, it is not wise to—”

  Raile stopped dead in his tracks, his frame shaking slightly. I became alarmed for a split second until I realized that the low, rusty sound emanating from him was laughter. In fact, he was laughing so hard that he was quite out of breath, and had to prop himself up against the wall to keep from toppling over. “Is that what you think it is?” he finally demanded, trying to regain some of his breath. “They buried some sort of secret, powerful weapon here?”

  Wait, that was the all-powerful weapon the Star Order planned to release on us? It seemed to fit all of the criteria: pre-war, hidden, weapon of massive destruction. I had no way of knowing if this was the exact one the boy meant, but I was willing to bet on it. He’d probably heard the story from someone who worked here, made some assumptions, as they obviously had, and though
t that only the Star Order could create something powerful like this, so obviously they’d use it when the time was right.

  It was a relief to my mind that while the bluff had an element of truth to it, it apparently remained a bluff.

  Still…a weapon? I smiled at the sheer absurdity of it; what does a magician need with a weapon? His mind and his training are his weapons. “It does rather make sense,” I noted to Raile, my head full of the mental picture that my imagination was churning out at top speed. “I’ll bet you that some half-awake young librarian saw strange people lugging in large objects, or lots of small objects, under the cover of night—”

  The startled jerk, and surprised expression on Robles’s face, was confirmation enough that I had hit the mark pretty close.

  “—and put some massive seal on it to keep it from being disturbed by anyone. When he didn’t hear anything about it again, even a hushed whisper, he assumed it was something dangerous, perhaps a secret weapon,” I finished dryly. “Over the years, his wild assumption transformed itself into a legend that has taken on a life of its own, growing with each passing generation.”

  Raile shook his head in exasperation. “I suppose it’s just as well. In their ignorance they might have cracked the seal and destroyed everything inside otherwise.” He pointed an authoritative finger at Robles, with an unmistakable command in his voice. “Keep moving.”

  Robles nodded reluctantly, turned to face his doom, and resumed our downward journey.

  “Was he that far off?” I said aloud, a little rhetorically, as I trudged along in Raile’s wake. “Knowledge is power, after all. Considering how much information is in there, in the wrong hands it could have been a very lethal weapon. Just look at the triangle devices that the Star Order Priests stumbled across to locate emerging magicians. Think about the untold misery and death that one piece of magically enhanced hardware was responsible for!”

  Raile nodded sadly in agreement. “But it takes application,” Raile pointed out with conviction. “No ignorant slob from the Star Order can just waltz in and flip a switch to unleash mass destruction.”

  Fortune had favored us in that small mercy. “No ignorant slob could even get past the seal, for that matter,” I drawled. “I’m not entirely sure if I can get past the seal.”

  “You’re a Mage, Garth.” Raile observed calmly. “I fully expected you to be lousy at seals. That’s why I came along for the ride; I am a savant when it comes to picking seals! When I was young, the best way to attract my attention was to put a seal on something. If something was sealed, it was a foregone conclusion that I would eventually be trying to open it. The more challenging the seal, the better I liked it.” Raile grinned with dreamy eyes.

  Oh. Well at least there was a plan, and he had been thinking ahead. I didn’t have to worry about the seal? Excellent! After all, the last time I had tried to crack an ancient seal, I was completely stymied. Eventually I’d just let Night do all the work, shattering the edges of the seal with his Breaker abilities until it’d lost cohesion with the surrounding cave walls and collapsed. Without Raile here, if I had failed to break the seal, I’d have had to go all the way back to Coven Ordan and get Night. Considering the winding, twisting nature of these stairs, and the dark spooky passageways, Raile was the clear choice to successfully deal with the ancient seal.

  We finally reached the lowest basement level. It resembled every other level we’d passed previously in that it had smooth grey stone, with modest dimensions for the hallway and doors. Even the doors looked unremarkable—just plain wood that wouldn’t be out of place for a storeroom. If someone had asked me to pick out any particular door as the one leading to a fabulous treasure, I wouldn’t have been able to point to one with any confidence. Robles pointed ahead fearfully, while unconsciously edging back up the staircase. “It’s the fourth door on the left.”

  I gave him a sad knowing look. Apparently the young man was still convinced that a dangerous weapon of monstrous proportions was locked up down here, no matter what we said to the contrary. Well, it didn’t matter. I didn’t stop him as he scurried back up the stairs, with a swiftness that any seasoned distance runner would envy. Raile moved ahead of me into the enveloping darkness, pulling a wand from an inside pocket in his coat. I couldn’t clearly hear the words of the spell he was muttering, but I could certainly feel the effects. The seal around the door was definitely unraveling, slowly dropping in orderly bands on the dusty floor. And then I felt it shiver and freeze in place. Raile smirked in challenge and began muttering faster, wand waving sharply through the air. Twice more the seal did this, each time Raile rising to the occasion until he gave a final sharp command and the seal shuddered, completely dissipating and disappearing. Raile lowered his wand, breathing a little harder than normal.

  “Are you alright?” Working magic was…well, just that, work. It took physical effort. For someone of his amazing age, even simple magic could require some concentrated sustained effort. Undoing and removing that ancient seal of unknown origin, a seal that had withstood the test of time, was far from simple.

  “Fine. It was a mite tougher than I had counted on. Still, it feels good to have a challenge, from time to time.” He put his wand away with a flourish, and opened the door.

  The hinges of the door complained loudly at being pressed into service after so long, in this dark dusty realm. I followed right on his heels, taking in the sights over his shoulder. I had expected it to be similar to the library trove hidden in the cave. It wasn’t. The room was the size of an enormous warehouse, and filled to the rafters, with no clear space to walk inside anywhere. It made the cave look like an assortment of leftovers and afterthoughts, in a small storage bin.

  “Raile,” I had to clear my throat before I could continue, not daring to ask the next question. “Is there an enlarging spell on this room?”

  “Yes,” he confirmed, eyes glued on the sight before him. “Can’t you tell?”

  “Too many magical items crammed in here next to each other,” I said absently. “It’s skewing my senses and throwing me for a loop.”

  For a long moment, we just looked all around us in awed and profound silence.

  “How did they get it all in here?” Raile wondered aloud.

  “I have no idea. They probably just kept expanding the spell, and stacking stuff up. At some point they finally ran out of stuff, and they backed their way out of the door and sealed it,” I speculated. “My main concern is how are we supposed to get everything out?”

  Raile gave me a very patient, all knowing, and long suffering look. “There’s earth under our feet, isn’t there? The size shouldn’t make any difference to you, just wrap it up and take it down!”

  Apparently it was to be my high honor to transport this staggering quantity of magical artifacts. So many of the relics deposited here were unfamiliar, and extremely dissimilar. I couldn’t even hazard a guess at the function of a fraction of them. “Wait, I know!” I paused in mock realization. “That’s why you brought me along, you’re the brains and I am the brawn!”

  “You’re quick, you are really, really quick,” Raile approved with a gamine grin.

  “Where do you want me to take it?” I intoned, in total resignation to my fate.

  Raile positively glowed with that evil little smile of his. He must have honed it to its highest form of expression, over his long years. “We simply don’t have enough room at Coven Ordan for investigating anything near this size or complexity. The next best choice would be the Sojavel Ra Institute in Hain. I understand that you have a close contact there, who partnered with you on your early missions. It would be a perfect project to present your good friend, a Wizard Kartal, I believe.”

  I started drawing on the unthinkable quantity of power I would require to wrap up this seemingly infinite load. I had a grin on my own face that couldn’t have been erased. I just kept imagining surfacing with this massive collection of puzzles rolled into enigmas near the Sojavel Ra Institute grounds. I was certai
n when the enlarging spell released the contents would dwarf the entire Institute itself.

  Chapter Twelve: Sigils

  When I emerged out of the earth on the open plain east of the Institute, Kartal was waiting with baited breath. I had cued him up to my imminent arrival, contacting him on my mirror broach. Kartal was practically drooling down the front of his immaculate black robes; he couldn’t decide which area to attack first. I handed it all over with a twinkle in my eye, keeping my private joke about this particular acquisition close to my chest. “Here’s a part of what you asked me for, but it comes with a price. There is something in this cache I want, and I expect you to find it for me. Quickly!”

  Tearing his gaze away from the mind numbing collection of pre-war magical artifacts, he arched a sardonic eyebrow at me. “Indeed.”

  “According to Raile, there was once a contract made between certain humans and the Gardeners—” I had a flash of petty amusement when Kartal’s jaw dropped in amazement “—which gave them the ability to sense everything around them. They were called Legends, supposedly because they were like a living map, and aware of all of the features in any given area. Somewhere, buried in that mountain of crystals and books, is the instructions on how a contract was created, and what was required to become a Legend. I want those instructions, Kartal, and I want them yesterday.”

  “To help resolve the issue with the renegade Star Order Priests?” he asked hoarsely, eyes spinning a little out of focus with what I was telling him.

  “That and to help find the emerging magicians that are still appearing in Chahir. If Legends can become a reality again, they can take over our insane workload. That will free me up for other assignments, perhaps closer to home.” That would be really nice. I was definitely saddle sore and tired of riding all over creation and back again. Our mission had been so vitally important, and time sensitive, that slowing the pace a little had a definite appeal to me. Besides, with my upcoming marriage to Chatta looming on the not-so-distant horizon, I’d like to actually be home once in a while and spend some quality time with my new bride.