The Master's Chair (The Chronicles of Terah) (67 page)

“That’s quite all right with me,” Chris answered with a slight shudder.

“Myron, you’ll have to stop the water long enough for everyone to climb up the steps behind the falls. Is that going to be a problem?”

“I don’t think so. Here, let’s try it now,” Kevin said as he stopped the water and let the steps dry for a minute. Then he moved the boulder out of the way and held it beside the cave entrance. “Why don’t you go on up and I’ll join you after you get inside.”

Laryn climbed the steps and disappeared into the cave. Kevin turned to Chris and said, “Keep a good eye out. I don’t see anyone near here right now, but I don’t know if another sorcerer might be able to block my eye. That’s another one of those pesky details I forgot to ask Glendymere about.”

Chris nodded and began to walk around the gardens while Kevin floated up to the ledge to join Laryn in the burial chamber.

There were quite a few heavy iron coffins lying on rock platforms along the sides of the cave, mostly in pairs. Laryn walked towards one pair of coffins near the back of the cave. “These are my parents, your grandparents,” she said quietly. On the next platform there was only one coffin. “And this is Yvonne, your mother. Badec will lie beside her. We need to make sure that the platform is level and that the sides haven’t eroded.” Laryn ran her hand over the platform and looked along the sides to see if she saw any signs of weakness. “I don’t see any problems, do you?”

“No, but then, I’m not all that sure what I’m looking for.”

“Just look for loose rocks, cracks in the foundation, things like that. We don’t want the coffin to fall off the platform. Wouldn’t be very dignified.” Then Laryn grinned and added, “Although Badec would probably get a kick out of it.”

“Let me put a little pressure on it and make sure it’s okay.” Kevin concentrated on the air above the platform. He increased the pressure on the platform to several times the weight of a coffin just to be on the safe side. “Seems sturdy to me.”

“When we get here, you’ll be responsible for floating the coffin back here to its place beside Yvonne. Then, after he’s settled, the rest of the family will leave. You’ll be the last one out, and once you’re back on the ground, move the boulder back into place and let the waterfall start up again. Just be careful when you release the water. Remember, there are going to be a lot of very good sorcerers in the crowd, including all of the seated sorcerers. You won’t notice them, but they’ll all be watching you. First impressions are always the strongest ones. You don’t want to mess this up.”

“I understand. I’ll be careful,” Kevin said. Then he looked around the cave at all of the coffins. “Sometime we need to come back so that you can tell me about all of these people. I really would like to know something about them.”

“I’ll be glad to,” Laryn said with a nod. “But for now, let’s get out of here and head back. We’ve got work to do.”

After Laryn had joined Chris in the glade, Kevin floated down from the ledge, rolled the boulder back into position, and slowly released his hold on the waterfall. His release was so natural that neither Chris nor Laryn noticed that he’d let it start up again until he asked them if they were ready to go.

“We have one more thing to do. The local brownies tend to these gardens and make sure that the glade is kept up year round. I try to come out at least once a month and leave them a little something for their efforts. Over the last year though, I’ve had to depend on the pages to do it.” Laryn retrieved the bags that had been tied to the saddle on Kevin’s horse, walked over to what looked like a large tree trunk, and tipped it backwards. Under the tree trunk was a good size hole, lined with rocks. “Brownies leave holes at all their little gardens in the forest. People who visit are expected to contribute something to the colony of brownies that lives nearby. It doesn’t have to be much, just a little gift to recognize the work that they do.”

Laryn placed her gifts of breads, fruits, vegetables, and a few trinkets in the hole and replaced the tree trunk. Then the three of them quietly left the glade.

~ ~ ~ ~

By the time they returned to the castle, it was lunchtime. After they ate, Laryn, Kevin, and Chris secluded themselves in Kevin’s office to begin going over the particulars about the different provinces and the seated sorcerer for each one. By dinnertime, they had only covered four of the twelve provinces.

Chris made careful notes while Laryn and Kevin talked, and after dinner he and Kevin went upstairs to Kevin’s room to review them. They outlined the information for each province on one sheet of paper and information about the sorcerer on another.

After they had that day’s information organized, Chris said “If you don’t need me right now, I’m going outside for a while. I need to stretch my legs.”

Kevin nodded. “I’m going to go over these sheets one more time. See you later.”

After Chris left, Kevin sat down in one of the large armchairs with all four sets of outlines and started going through the first set. As he read through the notes on Jardin, the province that covered the lower third of what was known as South American on Earth, he fervently wished he’d paid more attention to Mr. Craven, his high school geography teacher. If he’d had any idea that one day he was going to need to know the location of mountain ranges, deserts, flood plains, volcanoes, and other geographical features, he’d have learned them then. As it was, all he’d ever done was memorize the information the night before the test and forget it by the time he left school the next day.

Kevin studied the outline for each of the provinces that they’d covered that day and then went back to the beginning to review them again to make sure he had it all straight in his head. At some point he became aware that his head was aching and his eyes were burning, but he kept on going. Later that night, sometime after midnight, he woke up, still holding the papers in his hand.

~ ~ ~ ~

For the next couple of days, Kevin rose early, ran through his practice routine, spent the day in his office listening to Laryn while Chris took notes, outlined the new material after dinner, and then studied the sheets until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer.

Late Wednesday afternoon, right before dinner, Laryn finished going over the last province. She said that they’d spend Thursday and Friday going over the district sorcerers who lived close enough to attend the funeral.

“I have a question that I’ve wanted to ask you for a couple of days, but I didn’t want to interrupt you to ask it,” Kevin said.

“Go ahead,” Laryn answered, raising her eyebrows.

“You talk about these far away provinces as if you’ve been there. Have you actually visited all of them?”

“Sure, most of them several times.”

“How? Some of them are on the other side of Terah.”

“With the key.”

“The key?”

“Oh, that’s right. You wouldn’t know anything about the keys,” Laryn said as she fingered a chain that she wore around her neck under her tunic. When she pulled it out, Kevin saw two keys that looked like old-fashioned door keys, one dark, the other silver. They were about four inches long, had a loop at one end, and teeth at the other.

“This one is the key to Terah,” Laryn said as she fingered the dark key. “And this one is the key to the Gate Between the Worlds. They belong to you now.” Laryn took the chain off of her neck and handed it to Kevin. “All you have to do is think of where you want to go on Terah, hold the key out as if you were going to unlock a door, turn it, and within a blink, you’re there.”

“What if I’ve never been to the place that I need to go?”

“Find it on a map and concentrate on its location. If you’re not familiar with the place, the key won’t take you to the center of town, or put you on someone’s doorstep, but it’ll take you to a clear area nearby, usually within a mile.” Kevin nodded, so Laryn continued. “The key to the Gate works pretty much the same way. Just think of the place you want to go on Earth, turn the key, and you’re there. Just be careful. Remember, no one on Earth knows about these keys.”

“I don’t understand how they work,” Kevin said as he studied the keys in his hand. “Nothing Glendymere taught me would explain them. They’re more in line with the tales of potions and spells on Earth.”

“Actually, the basic idea is relatively simple. There’s an energy flow around Terah, another around Earth, and one that flows between the two worlds. The keys let you into the flow. The trick was finding a way for the keys to open the door at the right time to let you back out where you wanted to go,” Laryn explained. “A long time ago, a group of dragons, elves, dwarves, and sorcerers worked together to make four keys to the Gate, and each group kept one of them. Pallor has the elves’ key, Palladin has the dwarves’ key, Glendymere has the dragons’ key, and the Master Sorcerer has the humans’ key. Then, years later, the Federation used a similar method to make keys to Terah for all of their members and for the sorcerers on the council.”

“So, if I wanted to, I could hold this key in front of me, concentrate on Willow Canyon, and go there?” Kevin asked.

Laryn nodded.

“Does Glendymere have a key to Terah?”

“Sure. He’s the dragon’s representative to the Federation.”

“Then why did we spend hours flying to different places? We could have gotten there a lot faster with the key.”

“True, but I doubt if you were really in that much of a hurry. It was better for you to get used to the idea of flying and to see a bit of Terah.”

“Okay. I’ve got another question. I’ll use the key to get to the council meeting, right?”

Laryn nodded.

“And Chris goes with me?”

She nodded again.

“Then doesn’t he need a key, too?”

“No, you’ll both use yours. You can take someone with you as long as they have physical contact with you.”

“We need to try this out before we use it to go to the council meeting,” Kevin said, glancing over towards Chris, who was nodding vigorously.

“We’ll have time for you to experiment between the funeral and the meeting,” Laryn said. “Now, let’s go to dinner.”

~ ~ ~ ~

During the day Wednesday, Badec’s other brothers and sisters and their families had arrived at the castle, as well as some of Badec’s close personal friends. Although some of them were staying with friends in Milhaven, they had all been invited to have dinner at the castle, so the evening meal took on a more formal atmosphere and Kevin wasn’t able to slip away afterwards. He had to stay and play host.

Chris took the notes upstairs, outlined the information, and left it all on Kevin’s desk in the bedroom. Kevin didn’t get upstairs until close to midnight and by the time he skimmed through all of the notes, he felt like his eyelids were made of sandpaper. He covered his glowstones, and was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

While he slept, he saw a young girl off in the distance standing near the edge of an empty field. As he drew closer he saw that she was older than he had first thought, probably in her late twenties. She had bright red hair that hung to her waist and eyes that flashed with hot anger.

Then Kevin noticed an older man standing on the other side of the field. He had red hair too, but it was darker than hers, almost auburn, and his eyes were as cold as those of a corpse. His features were harsh, like they had been carved out of stone. He was not handsome, but he had a powerful aura. His face was contorted with hate, and it was all leveled at the woman.

As Kevin watched, the two began to fight, and the magical energy was so intense that Kevin couldn’t see what was happening. He awoke with a start before he could see which one survived.

Kevin sat straight up in bed, dripping wet with sweat. His head ached, his heart was pounding, and adrenaline was pulsing through his veins. He knew that sleep would be impossible, so he got up, dressed, left his room, and walked around in the back garden, waiting for dawn. He couldn’t shake the image of the woman standing alone against such a man.

After Kevin channeled his pent-up energy into several vigorous magical workouts, he managed to convince himself that what he’d seen had just been a particularly vivid nightmare.

His day began as soon as he stepped into his office on his way to breakfast and remained hectic all day long as he played host to a lot of people who had known his father but who were perfect strangers to him. By dinnertime, all thoughts of the dream had faded. That evening he didn’t manage to get to his room until well after midnight, and by that time he was so exhausted that he slept without any dreams at all.

~ ~ ~ ~

Kevin, Chris, and Laryn were working in Kevin’s office shortly after lunch on Friday when Ariel knocked on the door to tell him that he had visitors, and to ask if he wanted to receive them in his office, in the entrance hall, or in the dining room. Before Kevin could answer, he heard Kalen’s booming voice in the outer office.

Kevin and Chris jumped up from their desks to go greet the dwarf, but as soon as they stepped into the reception area, they both stopped dead in their tracks. Duane was standing in the reception area, too, with an older elf on one side of him, and one of the most beautiful women either of them had ever seen on the other.

Laryn stepped out of Kevin’s office behind them and grinned at the stunned reaction they had to Duane’s wife. Duane was the first person to speak. He stepped forward to introduce first his father, Hayden, and then his wife, Shelandra. Chris spoke to Duane and Kalen, and then told both Hayden and Shelandra that he was pleased to meet them, all without taking his eyes off Shelandra.