Ultimus Thesaurus: The last Treasure (Era of Change Book 1) (26 page)

His knowledge of this world fascinated me, since he knew more and saw more than many who had travelled and yet he lived far away from everything and hid in a tent.

“You carry naught but fear in your heart, but my fear that I once knew has become a conviction for which I am ready to die. Many people have had to suffer because of my faults, even more will if I do not stop this prince and yet you tell me to just run away? How could a person to something like that? This journey has only one direction and even if you can see my death, I can see hope.”

He was surprised that I opposed his judgment and for the first time it seemed as if he was on my side.

“Your friend is caught in this gorge. An old curse rests on all souls that inhibit this land. Only my shadow provides protection and everything behind it is spoiled and dead. To release him, it needs more than just conviction - it needs a sacrifice. Are you ready to forfeit your own life for that of your friend? Nobody can enter the land behind the shadows alive and then leave; nobody except me.

But it is not possible for me to free him, not without your help. His spirit is now trapped in the body of a dead man and he will not be able to die until he leaves this body. I see courageous intention in the deeds of your friend and perhaps an equally courageous intent from your side.

If I transfer his spirit into your body, then he can leave the gorge, but your own mind cannot survive this process. It is an exchange and your only option. I will allow you to try it and when you are ready, to make such a sacrifice, then you will have my trust,” he told me and furled the map.

Now Isaac walked into the tent as he had followed me and heard what Mel had said to me and of course he was convinced that it was his fate to act as the spirits replacement.

“Let me go. There are already two people dwelling in my body and one more will not be the end of me. Jacob is too important for this task, because without him, my father is hardly in a position to leave this place.”

His plan, if you could call it that, was born from the intention to die before we could heal his father, but I wanted to prevent it at any cost.

“If the spirit changes over to the other body, is there ever a moment in which both exist at the same time? If so, could we exchange the spirits only for a limited time and save my own?” I asked and again proposed something for that Lucia would have hated me.

“Probably, but only very few have witnessed this process and from my own experience I can assure you that the stronger spirit will prevail. If your friend is not willing to go, then you will die in his place,” said Mel and asked Isaac to enter the tent as he was still waiting at the entrance.

“I will do it. If someone should risk the possibility of death then it’s me, because I am responsible for the things that have happened. Maybe I can still save Lucia's father, even if I must sacrifice my own spirit,” I replied and Mel began to gear up for the ritual.

Isaac was still in serious pain and the weak mental condition of Magnus would have probably led to his death and not that of Isaac or Jasper. Isaac realized this and he knew that we could not lose Magnus. So he agreed full of regret to wait while Mel and I began the search for Jasper.

It was strange to think about the fact that after all the mistakes and all the weeks there was still hope to save Lucia's father. This for me was a hope, in which I happily lost myself in.

I wondered what story was concealed behind the face of Mel, for both his skills as well as his knowledge exceeded everything that I previously had believed possible.

“Who are you? Why can you do all these things?” I asked him when we left the tent and he looked at me and just reached out his hand.

When I grabbed it, it only took a short moment and everything around us had changed. We had reached a place whose air was heavily poisoned and I could feel its lingering presence on my lungs and its perversion was only increased by the thousands of corpses that were stacked on top of each other.

“Whether king or farmer, in the end we are no more than these beings. We are thrown away, forgotten and we pass. The curse of this earth infected the air and it changes all life. This is neither magic nor divine power it is the result of experiments. Research that has been conducted since many centuries ago and in this place they failed for the first time. They called it a success and believed that the riddle of eternal life had been decrypted, but at the end they only had extended the death.

You have asked me who I am, but you know the answer to this question already. My life is long, because I was a part of these experiments. As you could see on the old map, much has changed since the day on which the world fragmented, but for me this fragmented world split up once again when my people changed. I have killed many of them and some are still walking through the gorge, trapped in their bodies.

The prince is not the only one; there were many thousand like him, but today only a few remain. Do you believe that this threat is new or that our world is only now threatened? The truth is that this conflict began when the world was born and it will not end until the world can die with it.

Unfortunately I can’t tell you more, because I am not able to. This is no longer my world, no longer my problem; it is now the world of the prince. Every crown belongs to him, every coin and every sword and if you think that you can stand against him, then I will tell you that you are mistaken.

Find your friend, save his spirit and then leave this land just like you entered it - through the shadows,” said Mel and sat down on the contaminated soils.

Only barely could I breathe under these conditions and it took a while until I could at least bear the smell around me so much as to not instantly vomit. All of these corpses wandered around us or lay before me cut into pieces and they moved their arms in an unnatural living but dead way. None of them attacked me or even truly perceived me; they just seemed lost, sad and full of fear.

To find Jasper amongst all these people was crueller than anything that had ever happened to me and yet I felt as if I deserved it. This world was cruel and even if Mel was right when he said that this condition was new for me, so it had always been this way. Nothing of what was happening here was of interest to the people who lived only a few thousand meters away, because it was not their world. They discarded these people, whether criminals or slaves, like they were waste that the society no longer needed. Here they finally died, and became a husk for their own spirit, forever trapped in endless tortures. 

At the sight of this place I rejected the question why Mel kept his people down here, because I had now found the answer. His life, howsoever long it has been, was full of knowledge such as this and he knew this world better than I ever would.

And finally I saw him. Among all these bodies was Jasper and he tried desperately to free himself. I did not take long to reach him and Mel immediately began with his ritual. A dark veil rested on Jasper and as he was swallowed up almost completely by it, it disappeared again and now covered me.

It was a strange feeling, almost as if new life awoke in me and although I felt full of energy and joy in the first moments, so it quickly led to fatigue and sadness. None of my feelings were mine and soon I forgot how to speak, to move my hands, my feet, yes my whole body. There was nothing there anymore, no idea, no image, not even a noise. I disappeared in a fog of emptiness in which nothing existed except a voice that slowly approached me and became louder and louder. It echoed through the infinity to the centre, in which I waded and it orbited me until I lost my orientation and stopped looking around.

I felt the empty no longer only around me, but also deep in me, as if everything that I was ended. This had to be the moment of that Mel had spoken and still I was not able to communicate with Jasper. The time that I had now left, was overshadowed by helplessness and fear, because no matter what I tried to do, I was not in a position to truly execute it.

I had been warned that this ritual could become too difficult to control and yet it was as if I already controlled it, even if it was not really true. Jasper’s spirit was perhaps stronger than mine, but as long as I still existed, there was a chance. My hope kept me alive and I started to move again even though there was nothing in front of me or behind me.

I simply ran straight into the empty and was looking for that which wasn’t there, but it had to be. Jasper had planned this moment, I was sure, because so much of what had already happened on this trip was done by his intention. The treasure he hid, the key and our encounter with the prince, everything was planned by him and everything started to form a connection now.

“Is this my end? Now that I have done everything that you have requested of me? Why should it be? Why can’t it all return to how it once was?” I screamed into the empty and Jasper appeared.

“No, nothing can ever return. The time knows only one direction and no one can change this. I am pleased that we meet once again, Jacob. I remember the time when you were only a small baby. Your father was so proud of you and today I am as well.

You have overcome challenges beyond what you could ever expect of your children and even if you have separated, your objectives are still the same. Do you trust me?” he asked and started to slowly approach me.

“Yes,” I said and he reached out with his hand.

He was wearing a dark blue robe and a bright scarf. He seemed peculiar just like the world in which we were. I grabbed his hand and the world shrunk up in mere seconds just to be pulled apart a moment later. Now we are once again in Amnia, my hometown.

“Why this place again and again? What is it that I do not understand?” I asked Jasper, but he only smiled and went in the direction of the city centre.

I followed him and soon noticed that no one could see us here, because neither they nor we really existed. All these were just ideas that Jasper and I shared.

“This place is my favourite. I have always wished to have a family, a house and a simple job. But the world works in a much more complex way and one can’t understand this simple fact until it is much too late. A disease that I could not control took the woman that I loved and moreover it not only took my own life but it also took my courage and hope. You know my daughter and you love her, just as I always did. But for me this place had become a nightmare, a horror that I could no longer be in, while this miserable grimace looked at me from above and froze the blood in my veins.

It is like you always hear people say and still you try to stick to the idea that it’s not. The reality exists and no dream of this world allows you to void it,” he said and with a wave of his hand the beautiful old Amnia transformed into a place of destruction and death.

Buildings burned, people shouting and everything he and I loved disappeared in the relentless wrath of the fire. He looked down to the floor and I saw the tears in his eyes, but I myself could not feel the same in this moment. It was too much for me, all of this again.

“Make it stop. Let us get away from here and finally tell me why you sent us on this journey,” I asked him and with another wave we found ourselves in a desert.

“You're right. This world is caught in an on-going conflict and the hatred which drives it apart connects it in a diabolical way. The prince, as he refers to himself, is the commander-in-chief of an army, which is greater than everything you could imagine. 

His influence is unlimited and his greed is endless. It took me a very long time until I understood what he was and what he wanted and yet I was able to find it. The book that once belonged to the legendary Sun King, but it was even more.

In it I found the secrets of this world, the puzzles that even he failed to solve and the cruel dangers that he warned us of. I underestimated them and especially him. Believe me when I tell you that this man is not afraid to perform the ritual which the king describes in his book. Even I was not able to decrypt all passages, but there was an old scientist who could.

Saving him should be your top priority and to achieve this you have to kill me. Just as your friend must die for his father,” he said and looked at the glowing sun in the sky.

“There is no other way? Why must all the people always die? No matter what you are telling me I can’t believe it,” I replied to him and he looked me in the eyes.

“It is noble to think in such a way but your opponent, who is watching you, does not value life, he destroys it in order to expand his own. The ritual in which we both are caught is the key and I have risked a lot to reach this point. Do not think that I did not know that I would die. Everything was a part of this plan. I did not even think that my own daughter could survive, but what choice did I have? She was all that stood between him and the end of the world. I had to sacrifice her, just as I had to sacrifice myself. And now end it,” he said and knelt down while a sword appeared in my hand.

I couldn’t accept killing him as my only way out, because I had already done enough to my soul to destroy it. Many of the people I killed, because I believed that I had no choice.

“No. This world explains us almost every day that it is good to just say 'yes', but actually we destroy the world a little bit more with every 'yes' we say. Today I am here and I am trying everything in order to say 'no'. 

I will not kill you, Jasper. If you believe that there is no other way, then you should find it. If we give up so easily, who is to replace us after we are gone? Who fights and sacrifices? No one would do something like that.

I will ensure that we both survive this day and then you will see your daughter again and she will thank me.”

My words made him laugh and I saw that he had abandoned all hope.

“Dreams like these are clashing with any logic. What we see is what we have left. To close our eyes and to invent things does not extend this reality. It is only a sign of mental weakness. Can’t you see that my death is the only way? If you die, there is no longer anyone left to stand against the prince. The blood he gave you, the power that I refused. There is no hope without it.”