Dragon Talker (42 page)

He could also tell there were small ducts that allowed fresh air to circulate thirty feet below the surface. Mirrors and magic allowed those ducts to bring in light. Xeron had seen his share of castles, but this one was sophisticated in a way he had not seen before. He had never liked Perante, but the more he learned of him he realized he was right to respect his ability.

“Too bad the braying ass tried to kill me,” he said out loud. “Well, this is what you get for not respecting me.”

Xeron caused another channel of dirt to run like water up and into the sewer as it made a path to the first of the seven rooms. The new path brought him right up to the wall of the second room. As he approached, he could feel a magical spell push against him. It was a confounding spell, meant to disorient anyone around it besides the caster. Xeron pushed back, and the spell broke apart against his pressure.

“What else do you have down here, Perante?” he asked. “I’m sure you have more devious spells than that protecting your little hidden treasures.”

Xeron bent down again. He could feel the green pathways under his feet, but he preferred the experience he had when he placed his hand on the floor. The contact felt stronger.

“There you are,” he said as he sensed a particularly strong path leading to the last room in the chain of rooms. More dirt flowed like water as he cleared a path towards the room along the outside wall. He could sense magical traps inside the rooms he was bypassing and smiled at the thought of Perante realizing someone had sidestepped them so easily. It wasn’t long before he reached the outside wall of the seventh room.

He clapped his hands together, saying, “Let’s see what you’re hiding.”

Chapter 58

Xeron woke up on the ground, his protective spell sparkling red and orange against an attack he never saw coming. If his protective spell would have required him to be conscious, he realized, he would be dead right now.

“First round to you, Perante,” he said as he stood up to take stock of the spell he had triggered. It only took him a minute to realize it was a death spell meant to inflict excruciating pain before killing the victim. Tracing the source, Xeron realized it was inside the walls of the room. For this level of embeddedness, the spell had to have been cast into the mortar as the wall was put together.

“You are one thorough mage,” he said, again impressed by Perante’s meticulousness.

“But I am better, now.” Using the same spell he had used to move the dirt, he turned the mortar on the wall in front of him into a water-like stream and sent it away to join the rest of the dirt he had moved out of his way. The spell was washed away with the mortar.

He braced the outer ring of stone with a spell as he pulled the now loose stones out of the wall. They piled up around his feet, leaving a large man–sized hole in the wall. After checking for any more immediate booby-traps, he stepped over the loose stones and entered the room. He left the torches on the wall alone. Those would surely be traps, and used magic to light the room. Two heatless fireballs began floating in the room, casting everything in a yellow light.

As the dust raised when he tore down the wall started to settle, Xeron saw a study take shape in front of his eyes. The room had one comfortable leather chair in a corner and a small oak desk with matching oak chair next to an altar that acted as a bookshelf for three books. He knew immediately what he had found, the
Dragon Trilogy
.

His first instinct was to touch them, to have tactile proof that they were truly real. Knowing how incredibly valuable these books would be and the lengths Perante would go to keep them to himself, Xeron was more cautious. First, he checked the room for other spells or physical traps. He found two he could ignore and a third he spent a half an hour making harmless.

Finally, the only thing left was the altar and the books. Reaching out, as he had reached out to the ground to find silver, he sensed a life intertwined in the books. He shook his head in disbelief; Perante had somehow connected his own life with the books. This connection, unlike every other connecting spell Xeron had heard of, was permanent. Temporary spells could transfer a part of a person’s protective spells, but a permanent one was an entirely new entity. These books, while not intelligent, could have the killing power of Perante, maybe even his awareness.

Xeron cast an invisibility spell over himself, in case the books were able in some way to “see.” He looked around the room, taking it in again as if it were the first time.
Living books
, he thought,
this is madness. Parchment, the dried hides of animals, infused with the life of a man.
The thought made him shudder. There was something so unnatural about it that his stomach turned for a while.

I am going to kill you
, he thought, deciding Perante was too dangerous to leave free to do whatever he wanted. The books would be the first step. Perante obviously wanted them entirely for himself, which wouldn’t happen if they weren’t valuable. Still, connected as they were, Xeron wondered if he should simply destroy them right now. He had no idea, though, how long Perante had had them. By destroying them, he could be giving Perante an advantage over himself and other mages by ensuring Perante was the only one with the knowledge the books offered.

I’m not about to do that
, he said to himself.
So
, he thought,
the book is alive
.
Then I will treat it accordingly
. The first spell he cast was designed to put a person or animal to sleep. He felt slightly stupid casting it on a set of books, but caution overruled pride, which it usually did with Xeron. After he did, he ended his own invisibility spell. It wasn’t wise to have too many spells going at once, especially when they were cast on yourself.

Xeron looked around the altar for any physical traps or signs of other protective spells. Reaching out again, he felt more than saw the connections between the books and the room. As Perante was connected to the books, the books were equally connected to the room. Not only the room, but the entire level. He had the suspicion that trying to bring the books out of this room could bring the entire length of underground rooms crashing down on him.

“Dragon’s tail,” he muttered. There was a chance he was not going to be able to take the books with him. “I might be here a while,” he muttered, checking the chair in front of the altar one more time before sitting in it.

He took Book One from the altar, laying it down in front of the other two books. He took a deep breath and exhaled before opening it. He wanted to be ready for anything. He didn’t think there were any traps left, and nothing happened as he opened it up to the first page.

“Remarkable…” There was a mage/talker, that much Xeron believed after only reading the first page. This writer obviously knew magic and there was no question, if what he read was true, that the same person had an incredible knowledge of dragons.

“Scales in their pendants…immortal by choice…the first…” Xeron couldn’t help but stop every few sentences. Some pieces simply confirmed lore, but others were shedding light on things mages had questioned for hundreds of years.
Winderall would do more than kill for these books
, he thought,
and I can’t say I would blame him
.

As soon as he got over the shock of one revelation, the next would stop him in his tracks.
If I keep reading at this rate
, he thought,
I’ll be here for a week, and I don’t have a week.
He looked around the room again, more to take a break than to find anything. He wondered how he could get them out of the room.

The first book, left open as he looked around, snapped shut. Xeron looked back warily at the book, “What are you up to?”

The book darkened in front of his eyes. As it did, it also started to shrivel around the edges. He slowly reached for the cover and tried to re-open the book. The cover crumpled at his touch. “No, no, no, don’t do this,” he begged the book, hands spread over it but held away in fear of doing more damage.

The book continued to disintegrate. Xeron’s hands hovered over the book as he tried to think of something to do. The book was down to bits and pieces in only a minute’s time, then the second book fell over. He tried a healing spell on the book, but the book started draining so much energy from Xeron that he almost passed out before he was able to break the spell.

Even as he broke the spell, he knew what the reaction meant. Perante was dying or dead. That was one more large idea smashing around in his head making it hard to concentrate. The second book’s spine broke, spreading pages around the alter. Xeron grabbed the third book and held it to his chest. He didn’t try to connect with it. That was too dangerous, but he did try to cut it off from Perante.

“You’re dead, you ass. Let go!” he commanded as he placed a protective spell around the book. He closed his eyes and concentrated downward. He reached out to the force he knew was in the ground and tapped into the same power that kept him alive the last time he was in Perante’s castle. He hoped it was enough to keep the book protected.

Standing in the middle of the small room, keeping the book inside a protective spell, he asked the walls, “Now what?”

For the first time since entering the room, Xeron noticed how quiet the room was. He could almost feel it, like a weight descending upon him.
And my little book
, he thought. For now, he could keep the protective spell around it, but how long would he have to keep it up? He had no doubt that Perante was dead, or at least mortally wounded. What would happen to the part of him that was connected to this last book? And what could be left of him in the first place?

“I don’t think the answer is in you,” he said to the book. “And I’m not going to get anywhere talking to a book. Think, Xeron, think.” Again, he looked around the room, hoping something might trigger a thought. Nothing, just the weight of silence.

The pressure he felt made him think of the power underground. It also made him think how much earth was resting above his head. He set the book down on the middle of the floor and stepped back. The spell he had cast on the book would last for hours, maybe even a day, but at some point, he would have to strengthen it or cast another. Any mix-up or gap in protection and the third book could fall apart right in front of him before he could do anything.

With Perante dead, there would be chaos in Perantium until another mage claimed the city or a dragon destroyed it. Xeron considered taking the book with him, but he wasn’t sure he had uncovered all of its protective spells. He sure didn’t expect Perante to be connected to the book, so it figured that there may be other spells he was unprepared for. He also had everything he had already read in book one running around in his head, and he didn’t want that knowledge to disappear. He needed to come to a decision quickly.

“All right, book, you stay here for now.” Xeron closed his eyes and concentrated on the ground beneath him. It didn’t take long before he found a channel of power running under the castle, the primordial power that was becoming easier and easier for him to tap into. He cast a linking spell, connecting that flow of power to the book’s protective spell. As long as that flow continued, the protective spell would have more than enough energy to keep the book safe. The power appeared linked and Xeron believed if the book didn’t move, the connection could outlast his own life.

Xeron looked around the room and the doorway behind him.
This will not do
, he thought. Now that the protective spell had its own source of power, Xeron was free to focus all his attention to the task at hand. The first thing he did is collapse the room next to him. Rocks and earth rushed in through the shattered ceiling, filling the room quickly. He did the same with the other five rooms before exiting the room the way he entered, through his own outside tunnel.

When he was back on the surface, he collapsed the hallway leading to the seven rooms. He did more than simply collapse it, though, instead churning the earth, sending the stones that made the hallway deeper into the ground. Nothing remained to even hint at what was underneath.

Looking around the castle, he thought,
I’ll be back for that book, and by that time, no one will be able to stop me
.

Chapter 59

The villagers gathered around Yuri, Samantha, and the boys. Their wagon was full of supplies from the villagers and still more baskets were being handed up to them. The boys were in back moving things around to make more space. Samantha kept an eye on the stacking from the buckboard, making sure the boys weren’t setting up anything too precarious.

The merchant clamped his hand on Yuri’s forearm as Yuri did the same. “You are a good man, Yuri. You always have a place in this village, and your dragon.”

Yuri smiled, “I’m glad I could do my part, but before I go, I have one question to ask.”

“Anything, my lad, anything.” The merchant leaned in to hear the question, still holding his arm.

“What is your name?”

The merchant let go of Yuri’s arm and laughed. “Henryk, my boy, Henryk Bujak. Forever at your service.”

Yuri smiled, “Henryk, you have a spot at my family’s table anytime you are in Mandan. I think you would get along well with my father and everyone loves my mother’s cooking.”

“I may take you up on that, Yuri, after we rebuild. In fact, there was something I’ve been meaning to ask you, but I’m not sure of the proper etiquette.”

The merchant started walking away from the crowd around the wagon. Yuri looked to Samantha who smiled and waved him away to go with Henryk. He followed and once they had a little distance from the crowd, Henryk spoke, his voice slightly lower than usual. “What I’m saying can only be between us. Can you promise me that, Yuri?”

Yuri paused before answering, “as long as it doesn’t involve my family, village or dragon, you have my word.”