War of Power (The Trouble with Magic Book 3) (13 page)

The body was sitting upright, knees drawn up, booted feet wedged against a large rectangular block. Reluctant to touch the corpse of one who had remained undisturbed for so long, Karryl softly sang a complex series of ascending notes. A Light of Perimus bloomed and drifted, gradually dispelling the oppressive gloom. Moving it to hover steadily near the tunnel roof, Karryl could now see more clearly whether time had dealt kindly with the first Mage-Prime.

A dark fur-lined cloak wrapped around the arms and shoulders had, at some time, fallen open. The disintegrating remains of its embroidered border now lay scattered like dry fallen winter leaves on the floor beside the body. Karryl edged closer. His hand trembling, he reached out and reverently touched the stiffened and desiccated fingers which had once wielded so much power. As if he had simply settled down for a short nap, Keril’s hands were clasped together against his midriff, his chin resting on his chest. A deep hood had fallen forward, obscuring the head. Tentatively, Karryl pushed back the hood. Turned coarse and brittle with time, the woollen fabric cracked and crumbled onto the hunched shoulders, and Karryl looked on a face no-one had set eyes on for almost a thousand years. Sitting back on his heels, the second Mage-Prime rested his hands on his knees and gazed in awe at his predecessor.

The dark hair was very short, as if the head had been shaved a couple of weeks before. Leathery vestiges of drooped eyelids hung over empty eye sockets. Shrunken, yellowed parchment skin lay taut over finely sculpted facial bones, the blackened lips drawn thinly back to reveal a mocking grin of perfect teeth. Chest tight with emotion, Karryl fought to clear his throat. Head bowed, he softly intoned the hymn to D’ta for the dead. Time seemed to pause in its never-ending journey as the sacred words rose unhindered into the shadowed silence. Karryl blinked back welling tears as the last long lingering note faded.

His duty done he drew in a deep breath and steeled himself once more. Something had caught his eye. Reaching over the skeletal arms, he gently lifted a brittle fold in the front of the cream coloured robe. As if eager to give up the last remaining secrets, the robe cracked and disintegrated under his fingers, releasing the dark object nestled within its ancient folds. Now dislodged, a short heavy cylinder slipped and tilted, breaking through a discoloured linen undershirt to lie against the starkly outlined ribs. Almost as though the weight of the object had acted as a counter-balance, the mummified corpse slowly keeled over on its side to face the far end of the tunnel. Karryl gasped as the cylinder toppled out of reach, finally lodging in a shallow bed of dust and aged fabric scraps.

Moonstone sidled up to the narrow space between the wall and the rectangular block.
“I can retrieve that if you wish. I doubt you’ll be able to get to it without doing some damage.”

Appalled by the undignified position in which Keril’s corpse had settled, Karryl nodded. “Somehow I think your light tread would be better suited to the task. But be as quick as you can.”

Unable to grasp the heavy cylinder between his teeth, Moonstone was reduced to pawing it little by little into a clear space. From there he nudged it along until Karryl could reach out and pick it up. Only then did the reason for its weight become clear. It was made of thick leather, the side seam secured with strong thread and waxed. Set with age-tarnished metal discs, the end caps appeared to be bronze. Tucking what was obviously a message tube into the pocket of his jerkin, Karryl looked once more at the disturbed body.

He winced with embarrassment and dismay. “I can’t leave him like that, Moonstone. I have to get past, and the only way is to move him.”

Moonstone flicked an ear
. “Can’t you just …well…send him somewhere else, you know, temporarily?”

Karryl shuffled round and leaned his back against the tunnel wall, stretching out his cramped legs while he thought. “You mean selective transference, like Miqhal did with bowman Buller?

The big tortoiseshell gave a little sniff and looked at the floor.
“As I wasn’t there I don’t know, but if you say so.”

Karryl agreed that it was certainly a solution. As he had to move only the corpse without touching it, and not move himself as well, it would not be a task of the magnitude that Miqhal had had to deal with.

Back in a kneeling position, Karryl picked up the cat and placed him safely between himself and the tunnel wall. Using a simple levitation spell he carefully lifted Keril’s remains a few inches above the floor. He then returned him to his original upright position, before gently lowering him back to the floor. He briefly considered levitating him as high as possible and crawling underneath, but that struck him as somehow disrespectful and he abandoned the idea almost as soon as he thought it. Carefully visualising the place in the tunnel where he had left the stubs of hour-candle, Karryl cast the transference spell. The mummified corpse of the ancient Mage-Prime shimmered and vanished. The dark rectangular block against which his feet had rested, still remained.

With a deep sigh of relief Karryl leaned back against the wall and removed the leather cylinder from his pocket. Over the years in which it had lain within the folds of Keril’s robe, the cap had hardened and tightened. Many minutes and two broken fingernails later Karryl was able to loosen it a little. Even so, its reluctance to be removed matched Karryl’s reluctance to use an ‘open’ spell. Eventually, after much twisting, grunting and grimacing, the metal topped cap slid free, and he was able to peer into the tube. Packed closely inside was a tightly wound scroll, and Karryl’s first thought was that he would never be able to remove it. Just eluding the tips of his thumb and forefinger, the finial of a slim spindle protruded from the end of the scroll. Had he been able to grip it, the job would have been a whole lot easier. Tapping and thumping the bottom of the cylinder had no noticeable effect. After gazing ruefully at it for a long moment, Karryl resigned himself to the fact that, not only was he going to have to use magic, he was first going to have to weave a specialised spell. Enjoying the prospect of weaving a spell rather than using a ready-made one, he sat, eyes closed, tapping his ankle with the leather cylinder as he considered the make-up of the spell.

“Oh. That was clever. I’m impressed.”

Karryl’s eyes flipped open. Moonstone was sitting beside him looking at the floor beside his foot. Lying against the side of his boot, and still tightly rolled, was the scroll. Feeling slightly cheated, Karryl picked it up.

Tucking the empty cylinder and its end cap back in his pocket he shrugged. “I must have loosened it the last time I thumped it. Nothing magical about that I’m afraid.”

Moonstone closed one eye and regarded him steadily
. “It doesn’t matter. You should still have taken the credit. It all helps your image. Only you would have known there was no magic involved.”

Karryl shook his head and grinned. “How long do you think will it take me to become as devious as you?”

The big tortoiseshell closed his other eye and looked smug
. “A lifetime probably, but being a cat, I couldn’t say exactly which lifetime.”

Chuckling, Karryl turned his attention to the tight, stubby scroll. Very slowly and carefully he began to ease it open.

“Why don’t you take it with you and read it later?”

Karryl had just set eyes on the top of the first line of writing. “Because there may be something in here to do with the removal of the artefact.”

“Have you looked at it yet?”

Karryl frowned. “Give me time. I’ve only just started to unroll it.”

Moonstone turned away and sprang lightly onto the rectangular block.
“Not that; the artefact.”

The young Mage-Prime looked up from easing the curling parchment away from itself, and shook his head. “No. I haven’t even set eyes on it yet.”

Moonstone gazed up at the Light of Perimus
. “Well, if you move that floating light back a bit, you’ll see it. Well, not exactly. It’s covered up with something, but it’s there. Why don’t you take a quick look? You might save some time.”

Conceding that the cat had a point, Karryl slid the scroll gently into his other pocket, gave the light a mental prod, and began to crawl gingerly through the dry dusty layer of ancient debris which had once been Keril’s cloak. Placing his hand on the rectangular block to help himself through, he immediately snatched it away again. The dark grey surface of the block felt strange against his skin. It was not stone as he had first thought, but instead felt slick, smooth, and slightly greasy. Torn between investigating the mysteries of the block, and reaching the tantalising shape which made a darker shadow among shadows, Karryl pushed forward. Moonstone could well be right. He might save some time. In the distance of three paces the tunnel ended, narrowing suddenly to little more than an alcove cut into the rock. A shallow impression had been hollowed out of the floor. In this sat the reason for all his efforts. A truncated cone about three feet high, and two feet in diameter at the base, the object had, like the block, a slick dark grey surface. Karryl leaned forward and ran the tips of his fingers cautiously down the object from top to bottom. The surface rippled slightly, remaining where the light pressure of his fingers had pushed it.

“It has strange skin.”
Moonstone observed.

“Yes it does, although I don’t think it is a skin. I think it’s wrapped in some kind of rare paper.”

Shuffling quickly backwards, Karryl stopped by the rectangular block and pushed at its dark grey covering. It also rippled and held an impression of his fingers. He beckoned to Moonstone and pointed at the block. “Can you get your claws into that and pull?”

The big tortoiseshell leapt onto the top. As if he was sharpening his claws he extended them and sank them into the dark grey skin. He succeeded in making a number of ragged tears before sitting down and surveying the damage.
“It is very tough. Will that do?”

Karryl nodded. “Thanks. Now, let’s see what we have.”

The covering was tough, stretching and wrinkling as it resisted his efforts. The best he could do was to pull a large, uneven hole in it. As he slipped his hand through, he felt the cold bite of metal.

His fingers touched something which felt like a handle. “It’s a metal chest. I wonder what’s in it. Perhaps there are five artefacts, not four.”

Moonstone stretched his neck and sniffed curiously round the edges of the hole Karryl had made.
“Perhaps it is part of the same thing, and they go together later.”

Karryl sat back on his heels. “Well, it seems the only way to find out is to get them out, and I don’t think I ought to try that without reading the scroll first.”

He retrieved the tightly rolled parchment from his pocket, looked at it for a moment while he devised a spell, then placed the dumpy scroll on the floor. Slowly it began to loosen, the width gradually expanding as it separated from itself. Holding the top edge of the ancient parchment between finger and thumb, Karryl grasped the finial and carefully pulled the scroll open. As he scanned the close neat writing, his heart sank. The words were in a language with which he was totally unfamiliar. Searching for even one word that was recognisable, he had almost reached the end before he found what he had hoped for; a short, separate paragraph clearly written in Altic. To his surprise and relief it proved to be no less than a counter-spell to the one Keril had used to move the artefacts into their present position. With the spell committed to memory, Karryl re-rolled the scroll, slid it back into his pocket, and shuffled backwards to the junction with the main tunnel.

Moonstone bounded out and stood expectantly beside him
. “Aren’t you going to remove them?”

Karryl grinned, nodded and moved the Light of Perimus forward. “Yes. Just watch. I’m pretty certain this is a clever variation of a levitation spell.”

The cat sat down against the tunnel wall.
“If you say so.”

Deciding to intone the spell as an added precaution, Karryl began. The metal chest moved first. Rising slowly, it hovered briefly a hand-span above the floor before starting to glide smoothly towards him. Karryl pressed against the wall as, showing no sign of stopping, the chest sailed serenely past him and on down the tunnel towards the entrance. Sending the light to follow, he watched until he was satisfied that the levitated chest was under control. He then brought back the light and turned, intending to give his attention to the artefact which Slanvir and Miqhal had called the Navigator. The speed of his reactions was the only thing which served to avoid a collision. Slamming his legs hard against the tunnel wall, he stared in astonishment as the Navigator careered past, narrowly missing his feet.

Astonishment converted swiftly to horror as his eyes followed the speeding artefact. “The bones! They’ll crash into the bones!”

His heart pounding furiously, Karryl struggled to turn round.

Moonstone streaked off down the tunnel in pursuit.
“It’s all right. They’ve flown straight over the top. They went up and then came down again! I’ll follow them, just in case.”

With a huge sigh of relief Karryl agreed and pushed himself upright, wiping perspiration from his forehead with the sleeve of his tunic. All that remained now was to honour Keril’s final request and return his remains to their resting place with a warding over them. He judged that by the time he had done that and crawled back along the tunnel, the artefacts should be safely in the hands of Miqhal or Bardeen.