The Steward and the Sorcerer, James Peart [novels to read in english .txt] 📗

It was late in the evening of that day before he decided to find out.

He explored the interior of the keep before he did so, walking through the castle’s many chambers on each level, past private studies and game-rooms; rooms that were used for individual contemplation, rooms that hadn’t been used in centuries, belonging to a time when there had been many Druids involved in various projects together that occupied their time.  The keep had been much like the way it was now, the intricate network of rooms and corridors it held tunnelling beneath the earth, rising to the height of the turrets and steeples that looked out over the domain of the Magi.  He could smell crops and heather outside through the vents and windows, rich and fertile.  He performed one last survey of what lay hidden within the chambers, assessing and making note of the property he would shortly leave.

He stopped when he arrived at the East tower which looked out over the entrance to the stronghold and part of the wild land around it.  Weaving his hands in a particular pattern of movement, he summoned the green fire, fire that could draw matter into this world from another.  It could also bring into being matter that didn’t exist anywhere but in the mind of the summoner.  The bright green flame danced between his twining hands until the outline of something solid appeared, gathering mass and density as the flame burned.  When it was over he held in one hand an object that resembled a stick.  It was less than a foot long and three inches wide, thin and flat.  He stood looking at it for a time then grasped both ends, one in each hand, and swiftly brought it down against his knee, splitting it in two.  He placed the shorter end in a pocket inside his robing, then reached up to one of the windows and fastened the other end to a hook on the window shelf that overlooked the entrance to the keep.  He stood back and admired his handiwork, satisfied the object wouldn’t move.  It was called a Drey torch.  If placed anywhere it would offer you a view of whatever it was directed at, the image summoned by the half you kept on your person, no matter how far you travelled.  He would need to repeat the process for the West, North and South wings of the castle.

When he had finished he negotiated a series of corridors and passageways until he arrived at a large chamber in the deep interior of the keep.  It was a bare room, devoid of a single item of furniture, used for some purpose or other in days past which had largely been forgotten now.

Daaynan lifted both of his hands, arching each, winding and twisting them in a precise sequence known to him through his years of training.  Black fire shot from his fingers, sent everywhere at once, its smoke bursting in all directions, enveloping the space inside the chamber.  He inhaled some of the smoke, leaned forward and wretched to dispel it, keeping his mind’s eye on his task, peering through the jetting flames to spot what the magic had been called on to achieve.

There it was: a hole in the fire the size and shape of a doorway.  It had materialised suddenly and quickly; one moment not there and present the next.  The doorway was opaque, impossible to see past, though there were unusual markings seemingly carved in the air above the arch of the passage.

The Druid stepped through it without thinking, definitively glad to be free of the oven the room had become.  He walked through into something unknowable, somewhere few, if any, people had ventured before, and did not look back.  As he did so he felt an instant of deep and sharp regret, something that bordered on panic, as if he had left behind a vital part of his soundness and reasoning that would not easily be recovered.  He brushed this feeling aside, however, pushing through and out of the familiar surrounds of Fein Mor.

His first thought was that it was bright here, wherever this was.  He felt a great heat against his skin, as if he stood in the beam of a dying star.  The warmth subsided, however, yet in the after-image of that star-like heat he could not see anything but light.  Outlines slowly began to materialise, and with them solid shapes.  They were columns, countless pillars stretching everywhere for as far as he could see.  They were filled with light; alive, to his reckoning, and thrumming with whatever life sustained them.  They were arched, like the doorway he had passed through.  The nearest of them carried the same strange markings as the portal, three of them somehow carved into the light substance just within his reach.  He walked toward the pillar to better examine them.  They looked like small shields on which rune carvings were grafted though the patterns were unfamiliar and irregular.  They could be buttons, he thought, activating he did not know what.  It would be better if he left them alone.

He was inside a temple of some kind.  But this temple was the largest one he had ever seen and it seemed to have no boundaries.  He glanced up and discovered that the columns stretched upward further than his vision allowed.  Looking back down he decided it would do to explore some of this place.  He reached into an inside pocket of his cloak, producing a wand, small in length, fitting easily into the palm of his hand.  He leaned toward the column and marked it at the level of his eyes, a small stain that he could easily notice on returning to this spot.  He left a slightly different mark on an adjacent column and two others, creating a square inside which he had entered the temple.  Standing back, he examined his work, satisfied.

He walked in more or less a