Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept (37 page)

“Malachi says the trap on the compartment will kill me if I try to open it. Any suggestions?”

“Perhaps action at a distance is called for,” Cassandra said.

“And adequate shielding,” Magda added.

“I’m willing to try, if you are,” Alexander said.

“I
f we withdraw to the central path, that should provide enough distance to protect us.”

Once there, Magda cast a number of spells in preparation, the first creating a wall of magical force that lined the opposite shelf, the second erecting a bubble of magical energy surrounding them all
, and the third creating a bubble around the section of wall in question.

“I’m ready,” she said, offering her hand to Cassandra.

Cassandra took it, casting a spell that would link their power, allowing her spell to penetrate Magda’s shields. Her next spell took a bit longer to cast. With a gesture, the book pressed in against the control.

A section of the bookshelf
along the back wall swung outward into the path between it and the next row of shelves. A moment later, the wall behind it vanished in a three-foot-by-three-foot section, opening into a cubbyhole containing an ornately made bottle.

A moment after that
, a gout of blackness erupted from within the cubbyhole, jetting outward and splattering into the shield wall opposite it, spraying in every direction like water, before quickly coalescing into a ball of black liquid. It hesitated for a just a second, then launched toward them in a stream of inky darkness.

Alexander focused his will on Luminessence and released a burst of light so bright and so pure that the darkness evaporated with a shriek that made Alexander’s skin crawl, the last traces of it nearly reaching them before vanishing into the aether.

Jataan was standing beside him, just outside of Magda’s shield, when he let his light fade.

“Yeah, that would’
ve probably killed me,” Alexander said. “Malachi’s almost more trouble than he’s worth.”

“And yet, he may have provided you
with the means to free Isabel,” Magda said, dispelling her shields with a gesture.

Abigail and Jack came running up.

“What happened?” Jack asked.

“We just triggered a trap,”
Alexander said, heading toward the hidden compartment. He stopped before it, examining the space and the bottle with all of his sight, searching for any hint that he’d missed some other defense left by Malachi.

“Do you really think that will defeat Azugorath?” Abigail asked.

“I can hope,” Alexander said, cautiously touching it with a single finger. Satisfied that the defenses had been expended, he lifted the bottle from its resting place. It had an expansive aura with a hint of darkness swirling in its potent colors. “It certainly looks powerful.”

“One more weapon can’t hurt,” Jataan said.

Alexander nodded. “Let’s go have a look at that book.”

Chapter
29

It was nearly complete, only a few dozen pages remaining to be duplicated. He turned back to the map table, laying his hand on the panel and thinking of the door to the library. The entry hall just outside was filled with nine of the creatures, all standing stock-still as if they were listening for intruders. More filled the staircase and the single corridor leading into the darkness through the wall opposite the stairway entrance.

“
I have to get into that room,” Alexander said, pointing to the sealed archway directly across from the library door.

“Then what?” Abigail asked. “It looks like suicide out there.”

“Once I have control over the Keep, I’ll be able to restrict their movement,” he said, “maybe seal up the staircase and give us a fighting chance to get out of here.”

“I’m all for that,” she said
.

When the book had been completely duplicated, both books closed with their back covers facing up. Alexander handed the copy to Magda and returned the original to the shelf.

“In time, I hope to duplicate this entire library,” he said, “but for right now, this will have to do.”

Magda and Cassandra both nodded their agreement.

Anja’s voice filtered out of the Wizard’s Den. “Where are we?”

“In the
library,” Alexander said. “How’re you feeling?”

“My leg hurts. Where are those creatures? I want another stab at them.”

“Just outside the door, but I’m afraid you’ll have to sit this one out,” Alexander said. “I’m going to slip past them quietly, if I can.”

“Is that wise, Lord Reishi?” Jataan asked.

“Beats trying to fight them. Magda, I need you to spell me with silence for a few minutes.”

“Of course.”

“All right, everyone inside,” he said, motioning to the Wizard’s Den.

Magda cast her spell from just inside the door. It was a strange sensation—sudden absolute silence. He
clapped his hands, but there was nothing except the feeling of his hands coming together. He nodded to her before closing the door and stepping through the magical membrane that served as the library’s door into a room filled with horror.

The creatures
closest to him twitched, seeming to react to the sudden absence of sound surrounding Alexander. He stepped to the side slowly, cautiously avoiding contact, threading his way past Malachi’s unnatural creations on his way to the door on the opposite wall of the room. It was a nerve-wracking, painstaking few minutes. Each step placed cautiously, each movement calculated to avoid contact. When he got near one of the creatures, it would react to the sudden absence of sound by cocking its head, distress flaring in its colors, as if it had gone suddenly blind.

He reached the door, placing his hand on the smooth surface and pushing through into a small room overlooking a much larger toroid
-shaped space with a silvery sphere occupying the exact center. A low wall like the railing of a balcony marked the opposite side of the small room with a simple pedestal topped by a large black stone positioned in the exact center. Alexander placed his hand on the stone. A moment passed, then another, then the stasis field vanished like a soap bubble popping. The large, narrow diamond-shaped power crystal was there in center of the toroid, spinning as if it had never stopped.

Alexander
felt like something inside him was awakening, slowly coming back to life. Focusing on that feeling caused an image of the Reishi Keep to spring into his mind, fully formed and perfect in every detail. His attention was drawn to the damaged observation platform and tower. It looked like it was healing, slowly regenerating stone to replace the portions that had been blasted away by Phane.

He smiled to himself, shifting his focus to the staircase that ran through the core of the lower levels. Each archway leading to each level could be sealed with a foot of magical stone with a thought. He closed the
m all, save for the seventh level, before looking into the fourth level where they’d first encountered the insect creatures.

The blockage in the corridor created by Magda’s spell
had been breached. The first several feet had been reduced to gravel, but the last few feet were eaten through by acid.

He tested the silence surrounding him
, and finding that the spell was still in place, he pushed through the door into the entry hall and carefully made his way into the stairwell, sealing off the seventh level with a thought. Then he opened the door of his Wizard’s Den and quickly stepped inside.

Magda dismissed her
silence spell with a word and a gesture.

“The Keep is alive and under my control,” he said. “I’ve sealed the lower levels
, so we just have the creatures in the stairwell to deal with … and the demon.”

“It got out?” Jack said.

“Looks that way. I’ll know more after I get a chance to look around.”

“So how many of those things are out there?” Anja asked.

“A lot,” Alexander said with a shrug. “The staircase is filled with them.”

“So, do we sneak through or do we fight?” Abigail said.

“I think we fight,” Alexander said. “I don’t want to run into that demon with a bunch of these creatures behind us.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “What’s your plan?”

“I thought I’d stand in the doorway and cut them to pieces,” Alexander said, drawing just the look he was expecting from Abigail.

“Perhaps fire,” Cassandra said. “It seemed to work before.”

“I’d rather not use another arrow, if I can help it,” Abigail said.

“
And you needn’t,” Cassandra said. “We can throw fire.”

Magda nodded agreement.

They spent a few moments organizing their attack. Once everyone was in place, Alexander to the left of the door with the Thinblade in hand, Jataan to the right of the door, Cassandra and Magda at the door, side by side, Alexander willed it open.

Creatures tumbled through. Alexander and Jataan sliced into them quickly, scattering black carnage onto the
floor of the Wizard’s Den. Magda released her spell, blasting the creatures back into the stairwell with a burst of magical energy that opened a space before the door.

Cassandra fired a gout of liquid fire into that space. It splattered on impact, rebounding against the creatures closest to
the door, spraying orange-hot, sticky flame in every direction. The jet of fiery liquid streamed forth, unrelenting, filling the world just outside their door with hot death, then stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

Alexander closed the door.

“It might be a few minutes,” Magda said.

A
lexander picked up part of a dead creature that had fallen into the Wizard’s Den and carried the carnage to the balcony where he casually tossed it over into the endless fog. Within a few minutes, he and his friends had cast the remnants of all the dead creatures away.

He
waited for about ten minutes before opening the door. The stench and heat hit him first. What lay beyond was haunting and horrific. Hundreds of the creatures had been killed by fire and the superheated smoke that it created. They walked cautiously, picking their way past charred husks that looked as unnatural in death as they had in life.

It wasn’t until they reached level four that they encountered the first living creature, though it was injured severely enough that it was an effortless kill. Alexander felt a pang of guilt as he flicked the tip of the Thinblade through
its head.

He stopped, leaning on Luminessence and sending his sight up
ward, winding around and around the spiral staircase toward the bedchamber hundreds of feet above. His reconnaissance complete, he returned to his body.

“There’re a few dozen of
them still alive and active between here and the surface. The demon is back in the bedchamber and it looks like it’s killed twenty or thirty more.”

Jataan took point,
short spear in hand. He worked systematically, deliberately identifying his next target, calculating the most efficient way to kill it and then attacking with such detached, calm precision that Alexander began to wonder what it would take to rattle the man.

He
followed closely, offering a warning when one was coming around the ever-present corner. Jataan dispatched them all, cleanly, and with a thoroughness that left no doubt.

It took a while, but they finally reached the bedchamber, Alexander taking point and bounding into the room, Luminessence held high. The tentacle demon was attached to the ceiling, as if lying in wait.

Alexander poured his will into Luminessence, bringing forth its most brilliant light—so perfectly white and pure that it could wash evil from the world of time and substance.

Brilliance flooded into the room. The demon shrieked in pain and rage, its skin
igniting under the life-affirming light. Its flesh bubbled and boiled, sputtered and hissed, burning away into a dark smoke that drifted to the ground and coated the floor in splotches of black.

It launched itself at him, m
oving with frightening speed, sailing through the air, tentacles trailing behind. Alexander’s battle sight warned him a moment before the attack, giving him the time he needed to dive out of the way, narrowly avoiding the demon’s wide-open mouth.

The monster
hit the ground and tumbled across the room, hitting hard against the wall. A second later, it was up on its tentacles.

Alexander rolled onto his back
. He held Luminessence with both hands, bringing the light back up as he staggered to his feet, willing it to shine with all possible brilliance. It drew on his strength, sapping his energy, but still he gave his will to the staff.

The renewed light hit the demon from a different
angle, searing the flesh from several tentacles, causing the monster to falter and topple to the ground. A tentacle darted forward, but Alexander dodged it and cut it with the Thinblade. His light continued to pour forth. He began to feel as though Luminessence was demanding all that he had, every last bit of his life and energy.

All at once the demon seemed to deflate
slightly and go still.

Alexander
released his light, plunging the room into the shadows of normal illumination. The tentacle demon gave one last thrash, struggling to attack with tentacles that had already been burned away, before completely deflating and slumping to the stone floor.

Alexander sat down, all energy drained from him save for the momentary exhilaration of a meaningful victory.

***

Dawn had just broken in the hazy distance
, low clouds diminishing the sun to a grey-orange splotch on the horizon. A flight of wyverns nearly a hundred strong soared in formation with a dragon floating effortlessly well above and ahead of them.

Alexander looked
over the side of Ratagan’s wyvern and saw at least two thousand men marching along a freshly cut road through the rugged forest several thousand feet below. More of Zuhl’s soldiers heading for the Nether Gate. He made note of their position.

The
journey went quickly, the wyverns flapping wings in unison to lift the entire formation, then locking their wings to coast. By late afternoon, they came in for a landing on one of Bianca’s flight decks. Handlers took Ratagan’s wyvern by the reins as Alexander dismounted and opened the door to the Wizard’s Den.

“Master Colton is
certainly right about this means of travel,” Magda said, smiling at Bianca as the Flight Commander approached. Then she turned to Alexander and said, “During our journey, I devised a modified spell, entirely due to the book you lent me, Lord Reishi, that I believe will give me the ability to bring Taharial back from his present state.”

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Honestly, not really,” she said. “I’ve only had one day of study. Usually, I take many weeks to think on a spell before attempting it, but today is not a usual day. With the help of my sisters, I believe that I can save my steed.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Alexander said.

“Lord Reishi,” Bianca said, stopping before him and bowing slightly. She was flanked by her command staff, all of her Wing Commanders’ colors shining with magic.

“
Are your forces ready to fly?” he asked.

“Within the hour if need be,”
she said.

“Good, have them prepare to attack Zuhl’s fortress island just befor
e dawn. Ratagan and Horst will need to leave with me in time to get there two hours earlier.”

“I’ll see to the preparations,” Bianca said.

“We also need a place for Zora to land and rest,” Abigail said. “I’m sure a side of beef wouldn’t go amiss either.”

“Will
a place on the surface do?”

“I
don’t see why not,” Abigail said.

Bianca nodded to one of her
Wing Commanders. The woman hurried off to attend to the dragon.