Beyond the Sapphire Gate: Epic Fantasy-Some Magic Should Remain Untouched (The Flow of Power Book 1) (2 page)

SPIRAL CURTAIN

Crystalyn removed her finger from the print scanner. The soft whir of hydraulics sounded within the stainless steel door as it retracted into the Mausoleum’s shell. Using the laser cutter she’d carried from the dock as a pointer, Crystalyn motioned her younger sister Jade to maneuver the hovercart inside, eyeing it with fresh amazement as it passed. It looked made from real wood. The cost was so extravagant, her curiosity about its contents, grew.

Settling the cart at the floor’s center, Jade turned in a slow circle, gaping at the Mausoleum’s glittering contents. “Wow! You actually get to indenture here?” Not waiting for a response, she dashed to a nearby glass shelf where a gold sundial, inlaid with diamonds and rubies glinted on a silver stand. With barely a pause, she raced to several gem-studded statues grouped beside glass jewelry stands, her lengthy, auburn hair trailing behind. “Oh—” Jade said the awe thick in her voice.

Crystalyn smiled. Her own reaction to the gold scales, jeweled bowls, gilded armor, and formal head gear—all artifacts Ruena had acquired somewhere—had been similar to her sister’s the first time she’d worked in the vault. Even now, she found the Mausoleum fascinating. Much to her delight, she would on occasion happen across artifacts that she’d never seen before—Ruena had an eye for the exquisite. Today, Crystalyn found she had a hard time enjoying the room’s objects after the swirling symbols yesterday. She’d fretted over it the night through. “I’m glad you like the Mausoleum Jade, but I brought you along for one other reason besides your physical help. I’ve struggled with telling you something that happened yesterday. You have to promise me you won’t tell Dad. I’m not sure his heart could stand this one.” Crystalyn paused to draw a long breath. “I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll blurt it out. Believe it or not, I found a book, a
real
book of symbols that swirled when—”

“Oh, I’ll believe anything now,” Jade interrupted. Folding her arms across her stomach, she leaned against the door, her green eyes round. “Something happened to me too,
is
happening right now. Please, hear me out, Crys. I’ll try to explain.”

“All right, hurry though. You’re the only one I can talk to about anything.”

“Well, I know where to start, no problem there. I was talking with Dad, about the time you’d be finishing your day of indenture yesterday, when I noticed
something
rotating around him.”

Crystalyn felt a twinge of anxiety. “What
are
you saying? What was rotating around him?”

Jade hesitated, sucking her lip in her mouth. Crystalyn opened her mouth to tell her to stop abusing her lip, but a look of resolve dulled her eyes and slackened her face. Spitting her lip from her mouth, Jade continued. “A gray fog, a mist, something like that, made up the rotation. Vague shapes spun slowly inside, they were so odd…I concentrated on seeing through the vapor. The harder I looked, the slower the rotation revolved until I could see they were…images. Dad had three, but slowing the images for viewing tugged at my mind like a storm wind ravishing Low Realm. I couldn’t hold it long. After I let it go, I had to lie down. I was so weak, I could barely breathe.”

Crystalyn’s stomach lurched, her anxiety rising faster than she could quash it, a certain sign of a panic attack. Though she didn’t want to, she may have to inject another med. Lately, she’d come to rely on them too much. “What kind of images? Can you describe them?” she was almost afraid to ask.

Jade’s face paled, her deep, green eyes widening as she stared at something beyond Crystalyn’s shoulder. Crystalyn glanced where Jade looked, but nothing new stood out with the artifacts shelved there.

Jade continued on, her voice sounding frail. “What’s worse, when I look at you yours is chaotic—how should I put it? There’s a shadowy mist rotating around you in constant flux. Images flash by as it rotates. Right now, there are three repeating. I can halt the rotation on whichever one it lands on... if I concentrate…it’s so hard, willing it to slow, but I’ll try. You’re running toward something unclear. It reset. Now you’re running, again. There’s a gray shape looming out of the mist. It reset. You’re running, the shape has broken free from the mist, it’s... oh, no! I can’t…hold it. It reset. But I’ve... I’ve, seen it.”

Crystalyn was alarmed. “What? What did you see?”

Jade hesitated, her lower lip quivering, as if she wanted to pull it inside her mouth, but thought better of it. “I don’t know what it is, only that it’s a creature. Somewhat like the dog at the Farm, yet much different, and far larger. You seemed worried, or frightened…the whole viewing frightens me. Your rotation is dark. It’s not gray, like Dad’s…” Jade trailed off, her voice becoming small at the end.

“Why is mine dark?” Crystalyn asked.

Jade shrugged. “Dad has a shining sword, an empty glass vial stoppered with a black cowl, and a beating heart rotating around him.”

Crystalyn struggled to grasp Jade’s words. What did it all mean?

Her sister’s soft voice descended to a whisper. “But yours leaves me with a foreboding, a strange creature stalks on one side, a pool of blood spreads toward a darkness pacing you on the other, a planet unknown to me spins around both. Something is happening. To you, to us, to our family, I’m not at all positive it’s a good thing.”

Crystalyn swallowed, anxiety hammering her. Perhaps, she wasn’t the only one spiraling toward madness. It
could
run in the family. Reaching for her pack with the med cylinder, she hesitated. Her ability to think would definitely be required to dot map the shipment. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but let’s finish this project. We’ll discuss it at home, okay?”

Relief flitted across her younger sister’s face. Jade had over-emphasized her wide eyes with too much makeup, something else they’d also have to discuss later. Her fine, brown eyebrows rose. “What did you want to tell me?”

“Never mind, we’ll go over it on the way home.” Kneeling, Crystalyn melted the heads from the old iron nails securing the wood lid in place, using a focused beam to avoid starting a fire with the laser cutter. Even so, the wood still charred slightly around each one. She found the smell of the burnt wood pungent but pleasant.

Removing the wooden lid released the sharp scent of tree bark, filled to the top. Again, she was in awe of the cost involved in the shipping. Someone had spared no expense. Scooping a pile of the bark onto the lid, Crystalyn exposed an unadorned, black-stained wooden chest. Lifting the chest from its fragrant bed, she flipped it open.

A small cry escaped her. Two artifacts beckoned from a layer of blue velvet. She grabbed the first one her eyes fell upon. Throughout her seasons handling Ruena’s collections, nothing compared to what she held now.

Gleaming with polished ebony, an exquisite, black crystal candle—light for its size—had white symbols etched around the base and shaft. At the candles top, a black crystal ball resided, murky and opaque. Thorn-covered vines, made from the same black crystal, snaked around the top of the orb like a spiky garland. A current of energy thrummed through her hand as if the candle drew power from somewhere inside.

“What have you got there?” Jade asked reaching inside the chest. “Oh! I love it!”

Pulling her eyes from the black candle, Crystalyn gazed at the second piece: a white crystal candle blazed with a multicolored light. Like the black candle, the white candle had many symbols covering the base with less on the main upright. Unlike the black, every symbol set in the white candle was fashioned from multifaceted jewels, possibly diamonds. Two crystal wings protruded from a clear crystal ball mounted on the upright.

Something flickered inside the ball. Crystalyn leaned closer and froze. A white mist raged throughout the wings and sphere, endlessly moving back and forth as if searching for an escape.

“What’s in there?” Jade asked lifting the candle close to her face, her green eyes hugely magnified. “Why is it moving?

“Who knows what Ruena purchases or why? Let’s get going, I don’t want to spend my one free day hanging around here.” Crystalyn stood, taking a final glance around. The allure of the room was strong. She’d spent many hours inside the Mausoleum without a thought to the passage of time. Today was shaping up to be no different, over half of it was already gone. “I’ll have to map them both separately before we can go. Let’s use Ruena’s office, something I rarely do, but I want to get it done.”

Leaving the chest—she planned to use it to store the candles in the room upon her return—Crystalyn elbowed an unobtrusive panel in the vault wall. The door whisked open.

Setting a brisk pace, she led the way into what she’d come to think of as the Path of Gloom. Created a long time ago, perhaps soon after the building was first constructed, the path led to a dreary storage area. Ruena had told her once it had its beginning as temporary storing until the Mausoleum’s completion. Thankfully, the woman hadn’t ever asked her to clean it up, for thrown against the walls, and stacked ten high in places, dozens of discarded cryocrates teetered. Thermo containers turning green took up space beside filled and empty sarcophagi, even big transport bins loomed in the way, creating a narrow walkway. As usual, Crystalyn’s nose wrinkled, assaulted by mildew clinging to artifacts. She hurried to Ruena’s office door.

As soon as she punched the code into the keypad, the smoky glass door sighed with release and fell inward.

Opulence sprang into view. Poured into the plasicrete floor and providing an impractical traction, hundreds of steel masks from dozens of different cultures showed a part of Ruena’s ostentatious way that Crystalyn disliked. She waved an arm at the expansive room cluttered with shelved artifacts and expensive furniture. “Welcome to the Big Ugly, sister.” Striding atop the masks, Crystalyn went to a massive desk supporting two side extensions. Made from the same dark glass material as the windows and door, the desk was too big and bulky.

Dropping into Ruena’s chair, she touched the smoky glass surface of the desk. The desktop powered on with holo views of the three administration buildings showing varying imagery of the monstrous structures. At the same time, three-dimensional holograms flickered into view around the room on the walls of dark windows facing away from the Mausoleum, some displaying other key warehouse areas. One wall displayed archeological sites. Current news events flicked to life on another without sound, showing the riots surrounding the palace grounds. Crystalyn felt sorry for the palace administration’s security but supposed they had it coming after they’d booted her dad. A third, fourth and fifth panel showed panoramic views of the vast mountain. Several panels showed the ever-present pollution cloud permeating the lower level, even though she could only make out dark shapes through it.

Jade shook her head with disbelief. “Oh, it hurts to look at it all. Hasn’t she ever heard of media overload?”

“You think so too? I always feel like I’m caged in some weird hi-tech cave while the whole world outside riots. I should be out there helping them, like Dad used to do.

Jade smiled. “I don’t think you’d make it as an admin security guard, you’d get too mad with all those people shouting in your face.”

Crystalyn smiled too. What would she have done these past few years without Jade?

Jade’s smile faded, her young face turning solemn. “What can I do to help? I’m ready to go home. I’m sorry Crys, but this place gives me the creeps.”

“Don’t apologize. This place has a way of doing that. We should be going anyway, before Ruena discovers I brought you with me. Let’s start with the white candle. Hold it steady at the base. I need to get a laser scan of each symbol one at a time before I can map the candle’s dimensions…hey!”

“What?”

“I’ve seen this symbol before. In the book of symbols, just before Ruena took it from me…wait, she didn’t stop at her desk. She went past it.”

“You’ve lost me,” Jade said.

Crystalyn’s eyes fell on some cubed, old-style shelves filled with small figurines near Jade. She pointed. “Hand me that dragon on the top shelf, please.”

Grabbing the dragon, Jade placed it on her palm. Manufactured from a softer metal, the red dragon seemed solid enough. Flipping it over, her thumb brushed against a fine crack on the stomach. Grasping the dragon’s head, she pulled downward. The dragon’s upper torso folded back on its tail with an audible clink. A silver key gleamed inside.

Jade patted the desk. “Nice, I suppose that will unlock this monstrosity.”

Crystalyn grinned. “It’s low-tech but definitely
her
style.” Fitting the key in the center drawer, a twist retracted a bar mechanism. A gentle pull revealed two books lay next to each other. Both had the same title:
The Tiered Tome of Symbols,
but there were notable differences. One had white lettering on a black background, while the other had black letters with a white background. The one with white lettering had Tier One gold embossed in small letters in the upper right while the black lettering had Tier Three imprinted the same way.

Jade inhaled sharply. “For love of the One, are they real?”

Crystalyn removed the white-lettered tome from the drawer. “I’ve already read this one.” Placing it on the desk, she gazed at a symbol on the cover. As before, the symbol began to churn. “Tell me you see it, do you?” she asked, pointing with her free hand.

Jade’s strangled gasp provided an answer. “Aren’t you the least bit afraid of it moving like that?”