TST (9 page)

“You know how to use all of this?” Delinda asked in awe, looking at all of the complex equipment.

“Yeah, most of it. I brewed a draught to help speed healing once before with my own equipment. Before I came here that is.”

“It looks quite complicated. Do you think I can really learn to use it?” she asked nervously.

“I’m sure you can and I’ll teach you. It can come in very handy. There are stronger healing potions that will heal even severe wounds almost instantly but they take a lot of distilling and concentrating. I have never made one before but I have always wanted to. We can try one of those another time if you want.”

“I would like that very much.”

Azerick’s heart nearly leapt into his throat at the way she looked up at him with her soft brown eyes.

“Ahem, ok, let’s get started then. First, we need to make sure we have all of the necessary ingredients,” he said quickly and hurried over to the shelf that contained the numerous jars of reagents.

He told her everything they would need, and then set her to crushing and mixing the different plants. He then showed her how to work the oil burner and how much water to add to the flask before setting it over the flame to boil. Once the water came to a boil, he poured in the ground herbs and turned down the flame on the burner.

“Now we just wait and let it simmer for a few hours then drink it down. It tastes terrible but it speeds up healing a lot.”

“How fast does it work?”

“It will mend my cracked ribs in a few days, five at the most,” he answered.

Delinda’s face brightened in surprise at his statement. “That’s incredible!”

“So how did you come to be here?” Azerick asked the pretty herbalist.

“Some men rode into my village and killed many of our men. They captured many of the younger women and older children and put us into cages. They took us far from our village and put us on a boat. We floated several days downriver before reaching the sea. After two days at sea, we came to an island and were unloaded at a slave market. The slave master purchased several others and me. Lord Xornan then bought me from the slave master,” Delinda morosely told Azerick her story.

“How long have you been here?”

“Four years I think. You start to lose time after a while. How did you come to be Lord Xornan’s favored pet?”

“I am nobody’s pet!” he exclaimed more vehemently than he intended. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to shout like that.”

“That’s all right. I should not have called you a pet. That is all we are to him, all of us. We are nothing more than animals to him and his kind.”

“I will change that one day. One day this pet is going to turn on his master and tear his throat out,” Azerick promised.

“No, you mustn’t say that! You must not even think that! He will punish you terribly for any thought of dissidence,” she cried, suddenly fearful.

 “Don’t worry; I don’t think he will do anything unless I actually manage to act against him, which so far seems highly unlikely.”

“So how did you come to be here?” she asked, wanting to change the subject.

“I was on a ship, a huge storm came up and blew us off course, and when it cleared we were attacked by a minotaur ship. I killed one but a psyling did something that rendered us unconscious. Then we were brought here and bought by Xornan,” Azerick recounted his story without emotion.

Azerick then told her about his parents, Jon Locke, the Academy, and the death of Travis. He didn’t know why he told her so much. Azerick was so accustomed to holding everything in and keeping others out but as he talked to Delinda, everything just poured out of him and it made him feel almost relieved to share so much.

 She laughed a pleasant light-hearted laugh at his tale of how he and the younger students beat Travis and his friends and their pranks but became somber when he told her about his part in Travis’s death. He left out the fire at the guild house, the man that attacked him in the alley, the innkeeper, and the details of how he killed his mother’s murderer. Those things were too dark for him to share and it might make her afraid of him.

“That must have been terrible for you,” she told him, laying a sympathetic hand on his arm, “but you must not blame yourself. You did what you had to do. They gave you no choice. Much of your life sounds just like the arena, just an arena of a different sort.”

He greatly appreciated her understanding. The last thing he wanted was for this young woman to think he was a monster. He turned off the oil burner to allow the potion to cool while they continued to talk about their lives. Delinda told him about the psyling city, at least what she knew, and Azerick told her all about Southport. The potion was finally cool enough to drink and he downed the bitter concoction with a grimace.

“Well, that should do it. Would you like to learn how to make a real healing potion with me some time?”

“I would like that very much. Do you think I could practice making the fast heal draught? It would be very useful.”

“Of course, how about tomorrow? I can take an inventory of all the ingredients down here to see if I need anything else for the healing potion,” he said, ecstatic at the thought of spending more time with her.

“I must tend the garden tomorrow, but perhaps when I finish?”

“That sounds fine,” Azerick replied and led her back up the stairs.

As they stepped out of the stairwell and into the main room Lord Xornan stood in the center of the room with his hands tucked into his voluminous sleeves.

“Lord Xornan, Azerick was teaching me how to brew a potion to aid in the healing of wounds,” Delinda explained nervously.

“I thought it would be prudent given her duties, master,” Azerick added.

Of course, I knew this before you made the top of the stairs. Go about your duties, Delinda. Follow me, pet.

Azerick did as he was told and followed Xornan up the winding stairs of the tower. He thought that they were going to the library or perhaps his own room for some sort of talk regarding his fight today. This notion was dispelled as they came to the floor where the library was located but continued ascending the stairs. Azerick had never been any higher in the tower than the library floor. The only rooms he knew of above the library were his master’s chambers. What could be there that required his presence?

On this floor are my private chambers. You will not enter here. Our destination lies at the top of the tower,
Lord Xornan informed his slave as they continued up the winding stairs.

They reached the top of the stairs and stopped before a thick oaken door. The psyling placed his long, delicate hand against a silver plate mounted on the wall near the door. At his touch, the door opened inward without a sound.

Place your hand upon the plate.

Azerick pressed his hand firmly against the cold, polished metal and felt a slight static-like prickling for a moment that quickly subsided.

You now have access to this room so that you may carry out the duties that I prescribe.

Xornan glided into the chamber with Azerick in tow without further explanation. Azerick could not hold back a gasp as he looked about the room. The chamber appeared to be a vault of some sort in which a vast horde of precious objects and knowledge were stored. Gleaming weapons, staves, wands, and unknown objects lay almost carelessly strewn throughout the room. Some of the objects were intentionally displayed on shelves or mounted on the walls. Others lay in seemingly haphazard piles around the chamber.

Rolled up scrolls filled several cabinets that were divided into numerous small pigeonholes and bookshelves filled with ancient tomes, some slowly disintegrating with age, lined the walls. Crystals, some as large as his own head, were lined up on a shelf sharing the same cabinet with stone and bone carvings. However, the thing that quickly drew Azerick’s eye was a large, circular, stone arch atop a short set of marble steps. Carved runes gilded in gold covered the entire structure. Perfectly cut gems adorned one section on the right-hand side of the arch. The gems were laid out in a veritable rainbow of three concentric rings with a palm-sized diamond set in the center.

Xornan’s intrusive mind speech broke Azerick’s enthrallment.
In this chamber resides my collection of lore and objects of power. It is my vault for storing those things that I collect on my travels. I travel to various worlds and planes by use of this archway. It creates a stable gateway to wherever I wish to go, but that is something in which you need not concern yourself. Your task is to research, catalog, and organize my acquisitions. You will not use or remove any object from this room nor attempt to activate the arch.

This last statement was a magically reinforced command that hit him like a punch. Azerick staggered under the mentally intrusive assault but quickly composed himself as the pressure on his brain subsided.

Azerick simply nodded in supplication as he regained his composure. It was not the first time that the psyling had forced his compliance and the experience always left him queasy and slightly disoriented.

Satisfied that his orders would be obeyed to the letter, he left his servant alone to work on his task. Azerick slowly walked about the cluttered chamber, navigated his way past several objects, picking up a few here and there that caught his eye for a closer examination. He walked over to one of the bookshelves packed from floor to ceiling with dust-covered books and selected one at random. He carried it over to an equally dust-covered table and carefully opened the leather-bound cover. The pages were yellowed and slightly brittle but perfectly readable as long as he handled it with care.

Azerick pulled out another book and flipped through a few of the pages before returning it back to the shelf. He decided that the first thing to do was to create some sort of organization for the various objects, books, and scrolls before even contemplating any kind of actual research. Several books were stacked on the floor while wooden chests held even more books, scrolls, and various items. He would definitely need more shelves. But for now he would make do with what he had.

The books on the floor were a travesty. He cleared several knick-knacks off a shelf that appeared to be little more than curiosities to make room for the tomes. Then he began scanning each book and listed its title, contents, and author in order to create a catalog and method of organization. It was extremely late at by the time fatigue convinced him to call it a night. He had managed to catalog the contents of half a bookshelf by the time he retired for the evening and was moderately pleased with his achievement.

The next day, with Lord Xornan’s permission, he had the materials for four more shelving units delivered to the vault room landing. Since he was the only one allowed in the room, he had to cart the lumber inside and construct the shelves himself. Azerick did not mind the manual labor. It actually felt good to work with his hands for once instead of simply burying his nose in a book. He made space against one wall where he stacked the boards that would eventually become bookshelves before diving back into cataloging the waiting books.

Every few hours, he would take a break from reading and organizing books to put one of the shelving units together. Once constructed, he would go back to the books for a time and repeat the process. It only took two days before he had put together all four bookshelves. He had also completely organized and cataloged one entire cabinet of books.

He was midway through his cataloging of his second rack of books when Lord Xornan glided into the room with six humans and four minotaurs in tow.

I may be gone for several days. Inform anyone that may seek an audience with me that I will see them upon my return. Handle any other business that comes up as you see fit in accordance with my previous guidance. Continue your work here but be prepared for another bout in The Games when I return.

Without waiting for a reply, Lord Xornan strode onto the dais of the arch and touched several of the colorful crystals in sequence. After a short pause, the large diamond in the center glowed with a bright white radiance. The psyling touched the illuminated gem and the golden runes on the arch flared to life with a light of their own.