The Stair Of Time (Book 2) (3 page)

The Tower

Andaris was about to put down the page entitled ‘The Keeper’ when a message appeared in the lower left hand corner, each character burned into the parchment like a brand. 

Come to my study as quickly as possible.  I have news that will interest you.  I do believe your days of digging through the archives like some pathetic mole are at an end.  When you arrive, my servant, Abolecious, will bring you to my tower.  He may look strange to your eyes, but do not be frightened. He is harmless. 

Ashel
Tevellin,

First W
izard of the Civilized Kingdoms.

Andaris felt a shiver down his spine.  “The devil tickling the ivories,” his grandmother used to say.  Ashel should have come in person, or at the very least sent one of his lackeys.  This whole message suddenly appearing on the corner of the page thing was disrespectful, especially considering its condescending tone.  More than disrespectful.  It was intrusive, arrogant, and even a little disquieting.

Damn
and blast the man!
he thought, getting to his feet. 

Obviously,
his resentment for the “First Wizard of the Civilized Kingdoms” had grown stronger than he’d realized.  He
should
be relieved. Regardless of the way he’d been told, if his days of digging like some pathetic mole were truly at an end, he
should
be ecstatic, singing Ashel’s praises from every rooftop.  And yet here he stood, scarcely able to keep from crumpling the page into a ball and stuffing it down Ashel’s throat.  The thought brought a tremulous smile to his lips.

Now t
hat would be satisfying.  Right up until he blasted me to Kadra, that is.

Andaris
read the message over again, this time feeling more disquieted than angry.  He knew he shouldn’t let the man get to him.  After all, if one chooses to befriend a rattlesnake, one must develop an immunity to its venom.

No,
rattlesnake isn’t quite right.  More like weasel or…rat.  Ok, so if one chooses to befriend a rat, one must develop an immunity to its incessant scurrying, scratching, and squeaking.
He pictured
Ashel with whiskers and a twitching nose.  V
ery fitting,
he decided.

Of course,
rattlesnakes and rats were utterly beside the point. Little more than mental fodder to distract his beleaguered mind from what it did not want to see.  Regardless of what sort of creature Ashel did or did not remind him of, the thing that had him so disquieted was not the message itself, but what lay behind the message.  Indeed, it was almost as though his subconscious had read something he had not.

What are you up to
this time?
Andaris wondered.

He felt like an insect being drawn into a web of horribly
capricious design.  Or worse, a pawn on a chessboard awaiting the next move, enduring the scrutiny of opponents possessed of frightful, earth-rending intelligence.

Just my imagination,
he told himself.
Getting me into trouble again.

Two hours later, after much procrastination, Andaris stood tentatively before the wizard’s door.  One of the first things Ashel had done upon taking office was to replace the ordinary planked door with one more befitting his station, a lancet style arch fashioned from a solid piece of ash the color and texture of bone, hewn from the very heart of the mightiest tree in Ardenvale Forest.

I
ts beauty was undeniable, a masterpiece of form and function, a triumph of architecture and art.  Adorned with exquisite carvings of woodland scenes, it seemed the very embodiment of purity, a thing to gaze upon but not to touch, more at home in one of Sokerra’s many museums than in a mere castle hall.

Andaris
raised his hand to knock, sure that he’d mar its perfection with his all too ordinary knuckles.  Before his fist made contact, however, the glowing sigil in the center of the door changed from red to blue.  There was the sound of ocean surf accompanied by the high, melodic ringing of wind chimes.  A gentle breeze caressed his skin, carrying with it the succulent aroma of braised pheasant in mushroom gravy—his favorite.

Oh,
c
ome on,
he thought, stoically refusing to relax.
This is ridiculous.  Even for you, Ashel.

As the door swung wide,
the chimes ceased their infernal ringing, the surf ceased its infernal crashing, and the aroma of braised pheasant was replaced by the more “study appropriate” combination of old leather and wood polish.  Lingering just beneath the surface of this masculine bouquet was the stale vestiges of pipe smoke, a remnant from the good old days, from back when Elkar had been high wizard. 

Andaris smiled. 
Now this was how a study was supposed to smell.

B
ut pretty much everything else about the place had changed, and not for the better.  In fastidious contrast to how Elkar had kept things, the interior was neat and clean, meticulously organized—obsessively, compulsively organized, a place for everything and everything in its place.

Standing in the
center of the room, surly and bowlegged, was possibly the most disagreeable creature Andaris had ever seen.  Which, at this point, was saying a lot.  From the bottom of its webbed feet to the top of its spiky head, it was no more than three feet tall.

The thing bowed to him, spittle spooling from the corner of its mouth to the floor.  When it straightened, it graced him with a hideous grin
full of jagged green teeth and with a sharp hiss said, “Me Abolecious.  Master say wait for you, so I wait.  Always loyal is Abolecious.  Always ready to serve.”

At this, the thing
’s slitted eyes flashed, becoming large and round, midnight pools that one must not wade in for too long, lest one be drawn beneath to the murky depths, to a place where dark things slither and swim.

Feeling disoriented, Andaris broke eye contact, a feat
which proved surprisingly difficult. 
Harmless indeed,
he thought.

Looking mildly disappointed, Abolecious said, “You come with me.  I take you to Master.  He wait in tower.  Tower Abolecious home.  You come to home.”

Andaris just stood there, all but gaping, not sure what he would do until he opened his mouth and with a cringe replied, “Okay, take me to your…Master—the ridiculously pompous peacock that he has become.  But I’m warning you, if I hear wind chimes or catch even the slightest whiff of pheasant, I’m out of here.”

Abolecious bowed to him again, not seeming to understand anything beyond his acquiescence, turned, and began walking toward the full-length mirror in the corner of the room, leaving a trail of slime on the
flagstones as he went.

Andaris took a deep breath, wishing
even more fervently than usual that Gaven were here, making one of those snide comments he was so good at: “
Why, any slimier and this fella would be on a plate next to a side of rice!”

W
ithout looking back, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Abolecious walked into the mirror,
through
the mirror, the unrippled surface of which did not reflect him or the room, but rather showed
another
place, a place as grand as Ashel’s study was modest, a circular room lined from top to bottom with books—leather-bound tomes with gilded pages and cryptic symbols on their spines.

A
cathedral ceiling supported by massive wooden rafters added to the general sense of grandiosity.  Scores of bats hung from these rafters in winged cocoons, and yet the floor remained curiously guano free.  In the exact center of the room, situated between the gaping maws of twin hearths, stood a walnut desk with enough surface area on which to tap dance, the toes of its clawed feet splayed wide.

All but swallowed by
a wing-backed chair, looking for all the world like a petulant child, sat Ashel Tevellin.  He beckoned for Andaris to step through, gesturing with the first two fingers of his right hand, a smug expression on his narrow face.

Fingers made for the piano,
Andaris thought.

A moment later,
trying to ignore the discordant dervish playing up and down his spine, he managed to do the wizard’s bidding.  It was like stepping into a cold pool of water, only it was more gelatinous and seemed to be aware of him somehow.  Cool, gelatinous,
and
sentient.  It felt like hundreds of fingers coursing up, down, and all around his body, probing, searching, questioning.  The space between the study and this
other
place began to stretch.  Andaris had the sense that he was stretching too, becoming thin as taffy, winding around and around himself.

Just when he thought sure he would snap, he fattened back out
and stepped into what he would one day refer to as “The Church of Ashel,” a sanctuary for those terminally afflicted by delusions of grandeur and self-worship.  The temperature and lighting seemed specifically designed to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere, perfect for putting naive visitors at their ease.  Andaris felt a headache coming on.  And, of course, he heard not only wind chimes, but also ocean surf.  And smelled not only braised pheasant, but also custard tarts. 

Andaris’ mouth watered involuntarily.  “So…why all the theatrics, Ashel?  I mean, who are you trying to impress?  Abolecious?”

Following
a calculated delay, one made more aggravating by the soothing strains of harpsichord music, Ashel answered, his disembodied voice surrounding Andaris, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.  “I do not feel the need to explain myself to the likes of you.  I doubt your pedantic mind could even begin to grasp the answer, so what’s the point?”

“See, that
’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about.  Why, when you’re sitting no more than five feet from me, do you feel the need to magnify your voice?  You could move your lips, at least.  I mean, it’s just me and…I’m right here.  What ’d ya expect me to do?  Say oooh, ahhhh, look everyone—oh I mean just Abolecious—it’s the great and powerful Ashel, the mightiest ventriloquist the world has ever known?”

“
You’ve been Gaven’s protégé too long, Andaris.  It’s clearly beginning to rot your mind, what little you had, that is, filling the subsequent void with irreverence.  Ever the last refuge of the idiot.”

Andaris stepped to the edge of the desk
, hands and teeth clenched, anger making him reckless.  “You’re worse than before!” he shouted.  “And even then you were insufferably arrogant at times.  I thought you had gained some wisdom after your death, but I guess you were just
temporarily
humbled.  And now that you have all this power and influence, you’re turning into a monster!”

Andaris knew that Ashel
could crush him with a thought, but also knew that this had to be said.  And if those closest to him wouldn’t do it, “closest” being a relative term, then who would?  His heart hammered against his ribs as he awaited a response, a staccato beat that suggested it might leap from his chest at any moment in search of more hospitable environs.

O
nce again the wizard was silent, unmoving, sitting there as if in idle contemplation, expression infuriatingly unruffled by his friend’s tirade—a mannequin with bulging white eyes and flowing black robes.

S
eething with something akin to righteous indignation, Andaris reached out and grabbed Ashel’s right arm.  Instead of flesh and bone, however, his hand made contact with…nothing.  In fact, it passed straight through.  There was a shimmer, and then the image appeared solid again, its look of idle contemplation unchanged.  Andaris recoiled, and from all around heard low, satisfied laughter, low and bordering on sinister.

“In case yo
u haven’t pieced it together, my brash young friend, I am not here.  What you see before you is merely a cleverly devised representation.  In actuality, I am in a place that I doubt you could even begin to fathom.  Indeed, you’re not even where you think you are.”

Andaris certainly didn’t like the sound of
that.  “What do you mean, I’m not where I think I am?” he demanded.

“This
tower is much more than your senses tell you.  It has many levels, each housing wonders beyond your wildest imaginings.  One day, perhaps one day soon, I’ll show you and Gaven around.  No mere description, regardless how eloquent, can do it justice.  Suffice it to say, it is far more than the sum of its parts.”

“And what exactly
does
that
mean, Your Worship?”

“I forgive you your ignorance, for though you have eyes, you cannot see.  In partial a
nswer to your question, Andaris, this tower is the center link in a great, unbroken chain—a fulcrum in space-time.  There are countless other links in this chain, countless other towers, reaching out before and behind, all the same, all different, each existing in a slightly to radically altered reality from our own, each a version of the same
master
reality.”