The Immortal Mystic (Book 5) (25 page)

Erik looked down to Jaleal, but the gnome just shrugged.

“I look for a way to destroy Nagar’s Secret, as well as a few other answers.”

“Let him enter,” a voice rang out through the air. “I have been waiting for him for a long time.”

Erik startled and his hand instinctively went toward his sword, but he stopped himself. Jaleal whispered something, but Erik didn’t hear it. There, in the center of the village appeared a great spire or marble and glass. It shone in the sunlight like a grand spear of mithril, in fact, it shone
more
brightly that Jaleal’s spear. A golden door at the base opened and out walked two women in white robes. Each had long, brown hair braided with golden bands hanging over their right shoulder. They motioned for Erik to follow them.

“You will find what you are looking for in there,” Fischer said.

Erik nodded and he walked toward the tower. Jaleal was quick to keep pace with him. They approached the two women and stopped in front of them.

“I am Delfin, and this is Adori,” the one on the left said as she motioned to the woman beside her. “We are twins, and we are the guardians of this village.”

“Guardians?” Jaleal asked under his breath.

“You are sorceresses then?” Erik asked.

Delfin smiled and shook her head. Her lips curled up into a tight smile that pointed toward her prominent cheek bones. “We are Sahale.” At once they both turned and folded their ears to allow Erik to see the mark.

“We are like you,” Adori put in as she motioned with her angular chin to Erik. “You may rest now. Go inside and up the stairs to the upper chamber. We will keep watch as always, and no enemies shall find you here.”

“You know of my enemies?” Erik asked.

The twins smiled, but instead of answering they stepped out of the way and motioned toward the door. Erik felt no evil emanating from them, so he did as they asked. He and Jaleal walked inside the tower and stopped to look at a bizarre, pink and white crystal spinning in the air before them. It hung freely in the center of the tower, easily the size of a large oak tree, twirling slowly and humming low. An inviting, comforting warmth radiated out from the crystal.

“Up the stairs to your right,” Delfin said from behind. The door closed then, with the twins still outside. Erik moved to the stairs that jutted out from the wall and spiraled up the tower. Each step was made of highly polished white marble, and the bannister was constructed of gold.

“Come up,” a voice coaxed from above.

Erik looked up to see that the stairs spiraled up for a dizzyingly long stretch. Still, he moved to the first step and began his ascent. As he circled around the crystal in the center of the tower he watched it spin. As he did so he almost became entranced by it. That is, until he caught himself nearly leaning over the bannister to get closer to it. Then he shook it off and continued up the stairs, doubling his pace and hurrying to the top.

Once at the top landing the stairs emptied into a narrow hallway of marble stone. The walls were plain, yet they were brilliant and smooth, reflecting the ambient light from the chamber below as clearly as if sconces hung upon the walls. A simple door of natural, unstained wood closed the hallway from the chamber beyond. Erik moved forward and grabbed the wooden knob. He turned it and gently pressed the door open.

Intense, hot light blinded him and forced him to turn his eyes away. Even Jaleal had to shield his face. After a moment Erik’s eyes adjusted and he stepped into the room. A chandelier of crystal hung from a golden chain in the middle of the chamber. Each crystal glowed bright, and hummed like the large crystal below, but at a higher frequency than the large one. In the room stood a series of bookshelves carved of stone. Each shelf was filled with books of different colors and sizes. Many small tables of beautiful cherry wood stood situated next to some of the shelves. In the center of the room was a large chair behind a desk of pink granite. Small flecks of crystal sparkled within the granite and lent a regal touch to the entire chamber.

“Hello?” Erik said as he looked around the room. He saw no person, nor did he see any additional doors.

“Above you, young one,” answered the voice.

Erik looked up, and only now realized that the bookshelves rose several stories up into the tower. A man in a white robe descended, floating gracefully upon a blue circular stone. In his hands was a large book, the pages fluttering as he came down to stand before Erik.

The man wore a long, gray beard that came over his stomach. A pair of sparkling blue eyes sat behind a thin-rimmed pair of glasses. His hair was as long as his beard, but neatly groomed. He narrowed his eyes on Erik and the thick, white brows pinched in close together.

“So you are the Champion of Truth then?” the man asked. He eyed Erik from head to toe and then arched a suspicious brow.

Erik nodded, not even questioning how the mystic had known to expect him.

The man closed the book in his hands and stepped off from the blue stone. He held out the book at shoulder level and the blue stone rose up to take it from his hand and carry it to a table nearby. The man wrinkled his nose and then peered around Erik to look at Jaleal.

“I was not expecting you,” the mystic said bluntly.

“He is my friend, and one of my truest companions,” Erik put in before Jaleal could say anything.

The mystic pursed his lips and his eyebrows went up momentarily before the mystic shrugged and pointed to the space near them. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.” As the words finished, a great white couch appeared in the space he had pointed to.

Erik and Jaleal moved to sit and watched as the mystic conjured forth a high-backed chair for himself opposite the couch. A moment later a small table appeared between them all, filled with bread and fruit.

“Eat if you like,” the mystic said.

Jaleal leaned forward and took a peach from the table, but Erik didn’t move. Instead he watched the mystic as the man tore a loaf of bread in half and then broke it down into smaller pieces before eating as well. After a moment the mystic noticed Erik’s stare and set his bread down. He finished chewing and then conjured a goblet. What was inside it, there was no way for Erik to know, but the mystic drank deeply from it and then leaned back in his chair and gazed back at Erik.

“I sense there is urgency in you,” he said pointedly. “Ask me your questions, and I will give you the answers you seek.”

Could it be that simple? After all he had gone through was this really to be a history lesson with a bearded sage in a grand tower?
Erik had many questions, each swirling through his mind simultaneously. The one that finally emerged from his lips was not the one he expected it would be in the many times he had envisioned his meeting with the Immortal Mystic.

“Why did you abandon the Middle Kingdom?” he asked.

The mystic’s eyes narrowed on Erik and he took a deep breath in. Jaleal nearly choked on his bite and he set the fruit down.

“Erik, what are you doing?” Jaleal asked as he nudged Erik in the side.

Erik brushed Jaleal off. “All this time I imagined that you were blind, like the priests at Valtuu Temple, or that you were so old you couldn’t leave the confines of your magical shrine that somehow kept you alive. Yet, here you are, hiding in a library while food and drink come to you at will and you have a pair of Sahale guards to keep you comfortable. How can you sit here and justify yourself? Why didn’t you come to find me?”

The mystic leaned forward. He looked from Erik to Jaleal and then back to Erik. “This is a conversation for us to have in private.” He snapped his fingers and Jaleal disappeared.

Erik jumped off the couch and went for his sword instinctively. “Where is he?”

The sword was next to disappear.

Erik looked to his hands and patted his body as if to find the blade resting with him again.

“Perhaps you are not ready,” the mystic said. “Your emotions run too hot in your blood. Perhaps we can talk again next year.”

Erik’s heart skipped and anger rose up in him. “No,” he said flatly. “I came for answers, and I will have them.”

The mystic rose to his feet. “You threaten me?”

Erik shook his head. “It isn’t a threat. It is a promise. Kick me out of your tower if you like, but I will bang on the door until I break your whole tower down if I have to. I want to know why you are hiding here.”

“I AM NOT HIDING!” the mystic shouted. His voice was so forceful that actual thunder shook the inside of the chamber and Erik fell back to his seat on the couch. The mystic smoothed out his robe and took in a breath to compose himself. He blinked, holding his eyes closed as he exhaled and then he opened his eyes. He narrowed the icy blue orbs on Erik. “I have no power beyond my village,” he said in a harsh, yet quieter tone. “Nagar’s Secret has damaged me too much. If I were to cross back into the Middle Kingdom, I would lose my soul. Even now, I fight with the taint that festers inside.”

Erik let the words sink in for a moment.
What did he mean by ‘cross back,’ had the mystic been there before?

“I was there,” the mystic went on. “I fought the dark magic that poisons our plane. I am not hiding, I am here holding the darkness at bay. I am gathering the magic to fight it again, but I will need a champion to do the fighting for me this time.”

Erik shook his head. “There are no mentions of you fighting against Nagar and Tu’luh,” he said.

The mystic scoffed. “You are daft,” he said. “Who do you think I am?”

Erik shrugged. “No one told me your name, not even Tatev. They only call you the Immortal Mystic.”

“Bollocks!” the mystic threw his hands up in the air and mumbled something to himself. “Fools, the lot of you!” he chided. “Maybe you
aren’t him. He
wouldn’t be so dense and slow.”

It was then that Erik noticed something, or thought he did anyway, behind the mystic’s ear. “Who are you?” he asked as he tried to crane around to get a better look.

The mystic turned back to him, cutting off Erik’s line of sight. “I am he who devised the magic that counters Nagar’s. I am Allun Rha.”

Erik’s mouth went open and he shook his head. “Tatev was right,” Erik said. “You did survive.”

“Of course I survived,” Allun Rha said. “Whoever said I didn’t?”

Erik’s brows shot up and he shook his head. “A lot of the annals say you died in the battle of Hamath Valley.”

“Bah!” Allun Rha dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand. “Nonsense.”

Erik then scrunched his brow and leaned forward into his waiting hands and sighed. “Tatev had a theory that you went east to look for the Immortal Mystic. Did you find him?”

Allun Rha sniggered and dropped down into his chair again. “The Mystics died off a long time ago,” he said. “I survived this long only thanks to the dragon blood that runs so deep in my veins. Even still, I had to construct the crystal you saw in the chamber below to keep Nagar’s poison from devouring my soul.”

“So, there is no Immortal Mystic?” Erik pressed.

“Why is this of such importance to you?” Allun Rha shot back. “I already told you that I have the magic you need to defeat Nagar’s Secret. Is that not enough?”

Erik leaned back onto the couch and sighed. “It’s a long story. Would it mean anything to you if I said I had found the Infinium?”

Allun Rha arched an eyebrow and folded his arms. “I know of it, any wizard worth his salt knows of it, but what does that have to do with Nagar’s magic?”

Erik sighed again and dropped his head over the back of the couch. His hopes for finding the answers seemed crushed. If Allun Rha didn’t even know the connection, then how was he to have any idea how to defeat the four fireballs Erik had seen?

“Or is it a danger beyond the present one that has you so worried?”

Erik picked his head up and looked back at Allun Rha. A sly smirk appeared under the man’s beard and soon it turned into a full-fledged smile.

“So you do know about them?” Allun Rha asked.

Erik cocked his head to the side, trying to make sense of the circles their conversation was going in. “Are we thinking of the same thing?” Erik asked.

“Four fireballs falling from the sky, otherwise referred to as the horsemen, am I right?” Allun Rha said with that wry smile still on his face.

Erik nodded. “Tu’luh showed me a vision of the future, and claimed that without Nagar’s Secret, we were doomed.”

Allun Rha nodded. “He showed me the same thing before Hamath Valley. He was trying to get me to side with him.”

Erik leaned forward now, very intrigued by the conversation. “That is what he wanted from me.”

“Good, then you have already passed the first test,” Allun Rha said. “I am sorry for testing you like that, but I wanted to see which version of the champion you were most like.”

“Which version?” Erik repeated with a puzzled look on his face.

Allun Rha nodded. “I have spent years, centuries, studying the books of prophecy left to us by the mystics. I actually met one of them on my quest to find their temple. He gave me all the knowledge he could, and helped me understand the prophecies. However, they are not easy, nor are they to be trifled with lightly. There are many false prophecies and mistakes. Eventually, I narrowed down the right ones, but even then there was a problem. There were three prophecies about the champion coming to meet me. In each of them, the champion came seeking the power to destroy Nagar’s Secret, but every scenario was slightly different. In one version the champion came to me with Nagar’s Secret in hand. We were able to vanquish the magic, but it caused a terrible catastrophe.” Allun Rha paused then and took in a deep breath. Erik noticed that the man’s hands were shaking. Allun Rha wrung out his fingers and steadied his nerves before continuing. “I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say that I was relieved that you did not bring the book here.”