Commandment (16 page)

Bael leaned back in his chair and frowned. “That’s the rub. I don’t know. That’s why I sought you out. Perhaps together, pooling our efforts, we can find one. Have no doubt, Lakif. Alchemists are the custodians of the door to our future kingdom.” He held up his Stone. “Only through their touch can this base rock be converted to gold, our gilded future. When we find one, we will have our power.”

Lakif mulled over the Kulthean’s words. At first, she was skeptical of the revelation. But gradually, she came to agree. She should have known that the Stones, enshrined in mystery and magic, couldn’t be destroyed by so ordinary a device as a blacksmith’s forge, no matter how potent.

“I have a notion,” Lakif added. “Tomorrow we will see if it bears fruit. How is it you enjoy this pool of knowledge? I knew of the rhyme but never would have connected it.”

“It was passed along by another.”

“Another? You mean one from Rhoan Oak?”

Bael nodded.

“So you have seen some of the others?” Lakif barked excitedly.

“I have met only one, and it was a fleeting encounter.”

“Who?” Lakif’s voice trilled.

“Vassag.”

The name resonated with Lakif.

“While I searched for you our paths crossed.” Bael reflected.

“Vassag was an Istani, no?” Lakif asked. She now concretely placed the identity of the Istani that raced by her on the avenue and shortly thereafter met his violent death. She now remembered the youth as a good-natured kid, who liked to go treasure hunting.

Bael nodded. Lakif didn’t offer further details—she couldn’t bear to divulge their childhood friend’s ugly end.

“Have you met any of the others?” she asked, hoping to erase the bloody image from her mind.

“Sadly, no. Of them, who can say what happened? I would imagine they are scattered to the four corners of the globe. Perhaps I wouldn’t even recognize them now.”

That Bael had met up with two of the scions of Rhoan Oak was a crowning achievement. Lakif herself hadn’t knowingly met up with any in the past seven years since she left the place. She wanted to pick Bael’s brain over details of the meeting with Vassag, but as the Kulthean was reticent, she allowed the matter to drop. She counted on another opportunity to discuss it in the future.

But Lakif found the Kulthean’s brief acknowledgment of Rhoan Oak soothing. It was comforting to hear him speak of their shared, secret past. She had spent her formative years there, along with the other children. She affectionately referred to them as her brothers and sisters, although there were no filial ties. The bond uniting the coterie wasn’t of blood but stone—the abbey of Rhoan Oak. The specter of her old home was always present, hovering like a thin phantasm.

She hadn’t thought of Rhoan Oak for some time, as her waking thoughts were focused on getting the icon. Only in the wee hours of dawn did she sometimes revisit its solemn halls that now only lived in her dreams. She hadn’t openly spoken of it for years, perhaps dating back to her early apprenticeship. Even voicing the name of the abbey had proved difficult. She felt that she was speaking the name of a god, a word that was meant to be revered in silence.

Early in her apprenticeship she had learned to curtail chatter about the place. All her references to it were invariably answered with blank stares. The sad truth was that no one who wasn’t personally acquainted with the abbey could hope to appreciate what happened within. To the aspiring warlock, Rhoan Oak now seemed like the castle in a childhood fairy tale.

“Bael, why did you seek me out, really?” Lakif asked in earnest. “You could have kept this information private, and in time you would have uncovered an alchemist on your own.”

“The birth of a warlock deserves a grand parade. It is too rich a spectacle to witness alone. I wanted a companion.”

“But among all of us, why
me
?” Lakif fingered her chest.

“You are my sister. There is a special link between us. The chain was fashioned by the Unseen One, and then allowed to cool over the years. I would say among all of Rhoan Oak’s scions, the bond is strongest between us. Lakif, we are on the precipice of a grand vista, viewing a country few men could ever travel to. I wanted to go there together, as it was meant to be.”

Lakif’s ears flicked at the mention of the Unseen One. She had all but forgotten about him. He was the mysterious benefactor that had gathered all the children into the hallowed halls of Rhoan Oak. Some of the children referred to him as the Unseen One of the White Hand. Others had called him simply “The One,” a far less distended title. The vague name stemmed from the fact that none of the children had ever actually seen his face. In fact, Lakif recalled that the caretakers in charge of the abbey had never explicitly referred to their patron by name. Despite this mystery, no one doubted his role as the mastermind behind Rhoan Oak.

She scrutinized the Kulthean at length during his dialogue. His beautiful form, lordly mien, and compassionate words smote the Acaanan. If the High-men collectively elected their crown prince, it would surely be Bael. By any account he was the incarnation of Apollo, the ancient god of beauty and light. But it wasn’t simply his stellar features that debased the Acaanan. His equally impeccable character was all the more cruel. Bael’s brilliant face was a mirror to an equally brilliant inner light.

Lakif probed her friend in hopes of detecting one tiny sliver of weakness, a minor peccadillo protruding from his character like a wry, offending thread from a rich garment. Try as she might, she was denied her secret desire. Lakif couldn’t help but begrudge Bael. Destiny had truly heaped garlands on him. He had gone to great measures to find the Acaanan, for completely selfless motives. She would not have done the same, and she felt not a bit ashamed of it.

She looked to the floor. It wasn’t Bael’s handsome face that shamed her. It was his marvelous blend of qualities that truly dubbed him a High-man.

“Enough of things past, Lakif.” Bael smiled and held out his goblet. “Let’s drink of absinthe in honor of this magic moment and praise our glorious future.”

Together, they raised their glasses and consecrated their fortune with a toast.

L
ONG AFTER
B
AEL LEFT
, L
AKIF MUSED ABOUT HIS APPEARANCE.
H
E HAD TURNED
out exactly how Lakif would have imagined. Considering that they hadn’t spoken in many years, the evening had rolled by effortlessly. Each regaled the other with highlights of that fateful epoch. Lakif had never established such a rapport with anyone, regardless of the time taken to cultivate a relationship. Now, she could finally claim that she had a real friend. To the Acaanan, that was as rare a treasure as any of which she now claimed ownership.

Bael’s appearance had woken Lakif up to elements of her past that had slumbered for years. The abbey of Rhoan Oak seemed like a figment from a dream. Strangely, she hadn’t cast a single thought in the direction of the other children for some time. How had each of them tackled the task of finding a Rare Earth Stone? Surely their individual odysseys were as fitful as her own.

As enthused as she was by her erstwhile friend’s sudden appearance, Lakif was equally invigorated by the fresh insight he brought to the table. But the nursery rhyme ruffled her somewhat. She had no idea how to track down an alchemist, assuming one even existed. She sighed, suspecting that this next quest could be as taxing as the one to find the Stone. She had only one possible lead to track down such a chimera as an alchemist. Should that fall through, she would be stumped.

She looked to the clock. Nine-thirteen. Today was one for the record books! Despite this, Lakif was little inclined to turn in. She needed to clear her mind of all matters concerning the Stone. That decided, she tucked the treasure safely under the bed.

The Acaanan settled into the cozy confines of the bed and settled on reading. Continuing the saga of Grimpkin’s nightly predators was not appealing. Many more devils cluttered her mind than lived in those pages. By routine, she reached over to the nightstand and picked up a tome. What tedious topic would she tackle this night?

The pages looked foreign. She wondered what it was. Then it dawned on her. It was her other less enchanting find from Ebon Myre; the tome she had snatched from the belfry. It lay on her nightstand where she had set it down while unpacking.

Seeing the tome stirred up a flurry of images concerning the harried escape from the monastery. Once again, she was reminded of Torkoth. During all the excitement around her auspicious reunion with Bael, the Acaanan hadn’t even remembered to check the Half-man’s room. She vowed that tomorrow she would hunt down the guard, or at least determine when he left. Even if he was gone, perhaps he was still in the vicinity. She owed the fellow at least that token effort. On the bright side, should Torkoth have truly disappeared, Lakif would be spared the substantial sum of three talents and would have a clean conscience to boot. In spite of this, she nevertheless hoped the Half-man would turn up. More than acquitting herself of a guilty conscience, there was a firmly practical side to her interest in locating the swordsman. In light of Bael’s revelation, she suspected that the Half-man’s prowess would be needed yet again.

Turning her attention to the book, she perused it carefully for some time. The cover depicted only the symbol that had captured her eye. What was it about? The title page dispelled any mystery with the words: Anthology of the Stars.

Lakif frowned at the tasteless title. She showed scant aptitude for the natural sciences. From the strange symbol on the cover, she had hoped for a more exotic subject. She questioned the sanity of any person inspired to study the stars. Surely, they had to be a lunatic.

She cracked the tome to the first page. Although she could read well, the writing was virtually illegible. There were obvious diagrams of stellar positions, but the symbols and specialized shorthand baffled her. For some reason she had been attracted to the tome, and the Acaanan had firm fidelity in her instincts. Determined to discover the work’s value, she carefully labored through several pages piecemeal, scouring each line for a familiar word. At the end of each page, she gingerly turned the sheet, holding her breath in the process. From the look of the yellowed, crisp pages, she feared that the slightest pressure of her breath would tear the parchment.

But confronted with each page of indecipherable hieroglyphics, she grew wearier and less interested in maintaining the tome’s condition. Before long, she started to leaf faster and faster through the text, cursorily scanning each page with an index finger. In no time at all she was literally breezing through; the pages whirled by as if driven by a gale. The aged paper crackled under the harsh treatment. Clearing the last page, she sighed. The book was impervious to interpretation.

It was then she noticed the inside back cover. It was lined with lilywhite paper, which stood in contrast to the aged leafs of the remaining text. On closer scrutiny, it seemed that the other side of the paper, flush with the back cover, had some form of writing on it.

Without thinking, the Acaanan began peeling away at the cover’s edges. Finally, she liberated a corner of the binding. She pulled ever so gently, fearing the entire sheet would shred from the glue securing it to the cover. Surprisingly, the paper smoothly peeled off in a clean, uniform sheet. She cast the useless binding aside and lay the lining on the opposite side, face-up. The paper was in remarkably sound condition as if the glue maintained its integrity.

The writing was strikingly distinct from that of the text proper and obviously didn’t consist of prose. Although clearly written, it didn’t strike the Acaanan as any language she was familiar with. It was formed entirely of miniature, intricate cuneiform symbols that defied her. Another mystery!

Suddenly tired, she placed the parchment in the nightstand drawer and climbed under the covers. The events of the day weighed heavily on her body. Within heartbeats, she was fast asleep.

“T
ORKOTH!”
A
HAND JOSTLED THE DOZING
H
ALF-MAN.
B
EFORE THE WORD
was fully voiced the fighter reflexively latched on to the offending wrist and twisted. Pythia cried out and crumpled to his knees under the leverage.

“Stay your hand!” Pythia called out.

The Half-man blinked before the subdued curator, seemingly in genuine dread. His eyes refocused in the gloom. Torkoth released his hold and stared at his scaled hand as if it was an untamed beast. The curator breathed easier and was struggling to his feet when Torkoth leaned in to lend support.

“Please forgive me,” Torkoth apologized. “I was having a terrible dream.”

“What so plagues you?” Pythia rubbed sensation back into his hand.

“Never mind.” Torkoth looked around the deserted hall.

“Perhaps you frightened the ephebe, and he whispered harsh admonitions in your ear as you slept.”

“What is the ephebe?” Torkoth looked puzzled.

Pythia stabbed a finger at the brazen statue at whose feet the Half-man had dozed off.

“The ephebe is the youth of yore.”

“A most curious statue,” Torkoth commented.

“The statue predates this hall. It was reclaimed from the ruins of the Renaissance, or so they say. The ephebes were youths bent on military training, all conscripts to General Grimpkin.”

“What is he gesturing for?”

“A lost treasure?” Pythia suggested.

“How long have I been out?” Torkoth redirected the topic back to the grave circumstances of his visit.

“We flirt with midnight.”

“How fares Sarah?”

“She passes in and out of delirium.” Pythia sighed. “I fear this malady has imperiled her life.”

“How is this possible? Is she bewitched?”

“Perhaps. She was in great pain, and so I sedated her with narcotics.”

Torkoth sank into silence under the weight of Pythia’s admonition.

“I must see her.”