I approached the Tomb of Xadaer an hour and a half after dawn. I was not feeling at all fresh. The ghosts howling on the night wind were soul-shuddering. The tension that had marked our crossing had abated only briefly, then become a deep and savage undercurrent that I was finding increasingly difficult to navigate. The fact that we had not been able to bathe or wash our clothes since before the transition from monsoon rains to desert sands was a source of intense physical irritation.
But in this moment, none of that mattered.
I sighed, and pulled my wizard’s chest from my bag. For possibly the first time since leaving Liddarn, I grew it to its full size. I extracted my divining tools and my investigation kit and set them by the doorway. Then, for the first time since presenting myself to Elana, I pulled out my iconic tools of my order.
My Black Mask had grown dry and stiff from the year and a half of disuse. The rune encrusted, black lacquered wood and leather were visible to the naked eye. I touched it fondly, nonetheless, remembering the months of effort that had gone into its making. Then I restored it to full life with a few carefully placed drops of my blood and a few whispered words of power. The mask rippled and flexed in my hand. The material reality of the mask vanished into a lightless void.
Before I donned the mask, I extracted and wrapped myself in the second part of the Order’s uniform. Equally iconic but often mistaken for pure drama, the red-trimmed black himation was inlayed with enchantments that protected against fire, blunt and magical force, and detection. Turning to face the Tomb, and my companions, I knew that I looked nothing like the self that I had presented for the last year. Not a deception, not really – just an emphasis of my elfness over my wizardness, now exchanged for the opposite.
“It would be best if you stayed clear,” I said before I slid the mask over my face. “The traps may be explosive, and sensitive to divination.”
===
My old master’s art and passion had always been puzzle boxes – tests of patience and ingenuity that challenged the maker and user alike. He had prided himself on combining complex enchantments with mechanical puzzles in such a way that every possible manipulation of the box produced a different result, and in doing so in ways that were aesthetically as well as intellectually pleasing. But puzzle boxes and other interactive magical art sculptures had not been how he had made his name and fortune
Maris Pello had been the greatest designer – and destroyer – of magical locks of his generation. His first unbreakable lock had, of course, been for his own order, sealing the Treasury of the Black Mask so that the vault could not be entered without the Grand Master and the Treasurer both present and under guard. He had then, famously, gone on to build a vault for the safe decommissioning of ill-considered enchanted devices. When word got out, temples and lesser wizard orders than the Black Mask came to him for similar services – an outsourcing of talent I have been assured was all but unheard-of. When Elana’s grandfather, at the end of his reign, had decided that he needed a specialized prison to contain criminal wizards too popular or politically connected to be executed or banished, he had thus turned to Maris Pello to build that prison.
My master spent ten years building the labyrinth, and advising the emperor’s wizards in its use and maintenance. A vast complex, built underground. Enchanted to restrict the use of magic, to absorb blood and power meant to perform other spells in order to fuel its own.
But the Order of the Black Mask had always been more famous for breaking things than for building them. So when, in the winter of 955 VC, a handful of Maris Pello’s puzzle boxes had exploded, killing servants and wounding scions of the Great Houses of Shii, Dradium, Loranum, and Litho, it had been taken for granted that the explosions were not accidental. My master found himself dragged down into the very labyrinth he had helped build.
To the very end, my master insisted that the explosions were tragedies, not assassinations. That they had been the result of tampering, probably by the noble scions, themselves. And the Order of Truth-Seekers, the new wizard order the emperor had founded to investigate magical crimes and fill Dorian’s Labyrinth with criminal wizards, had never been able to produce any real evidence to the contrary. But the pride of the Great Houses had needed appeasement, and Maris Pello had been exiled.
My master had hardly been the first exiled Vencari to seek refuge in Tanirinaal, though I imagine most chose more populated areas to flee to. I know that taking me as his apprentice was not at all altruistic. He could not have survived on his own. And he had hoped to learn something about the nature of blood-wizardry by teaching it to a member of a sorcerous species. Another wizard in his position might not have given me the whole of her attention, or the full benefit of her experience. But Maris had taught me everything he that he could.
My master taught me what he knew of Heavenscript, and the language of the celestial gods – and, of course, an equal amount of the demon tongue and its characters, which the Order of the Black Mask continued to study despite centuries of Imperial edicts and social censure. He had taught me what he knew of the language of the earth-gods, and the dragon tongue.
Weaving and enchanting the himation, and then carving and enchanting the mask, had each been the work of a year. There were lessons encoded in the making of each thing, secrets by which I could be recognized as a true initiate of the Black Mask, not just the thief or inheritor of the accoutrements.
I did not have his genius or passion for either locks or puzzle boxes, but I had absorbed the knowledge as readily and eagerly as I had everything else. In truth, I had not yet discovered my own great magical passion. Until the day I did, I continued my master’s work: crafting magically interactive sculptures and devices of increasing artistic, mechanical, and magical complexity and sophistication.
And making, and breaking, magical locks.
===
I began by walking three circles around the building, each more slowly than the last. I did not poke or prod, mark or meddle. I did not even break out my viewing lenses. I just looked: seeing what secrets simple careful observation would reveal. As usual, this gave me the breadth and the depth of the enchantments, some areas to scrutinize carefully, some areas to avoid entirely.
The first tool I deployed was just my wizard’s claw, dragging it along the edges of the protective wards. It was not a trick my master had taught me, but a thing I had discovered on my own. The blood-magic infused metal reacted with enchantments, making them sing out a tone that could reveal certain secrets.
There are more stories about the origin of the world than there are peoples within it. Some of them or none of them may be true. But this much is known: the world is bound together and brought to life by the words of power spoken by the gods in the first moments of creation. Magic is achieved by echoing those words, re-writing the world even as it turns.
Sorcerers are born with a resonance through which they may learn or discover certain words. Treesingers know the words to make plants live, and grow, and die, in the shape and the time of their choosing. Firedancers know the words to bring light and fire from pure air, and to make it twist and move to their whim. Sisters of Amalai know the words to soothe pain and heal wounds of the mind and body. Dwarven sorcerers have their own words and arts, to change the shape and structure of stone, to draw impurities from metals and perfect alloys, to clean the air and the water of their tightly packed mountain homes.
Wizards – humans, all, save myself – study the Immortal tongues, and compare their written forms to the shapes they see in the stars. We compare and contrast and experiment and record, and when we speak the words of power, we fuel them with the blood from our bodies. A wizard can attempt anything she can find the words for, but cannot know except from experience what the blood cost will be or the precise effect.
But all magic, whether blood wizardry or elven sorcery or the works of the gods, themselves, is language. Running my claw along the edges of the wards, watching carefully where my first inspection had suggested there might be points of particular interest or danger, I brought the language of the wards to the surface. Through the enchantments placed on the Black Mask, those characters that appeared briefly in the air – extracting gasps of awe and fascination from my watching companions – remained fixed and clear in my vision.
Even the Immortal Tongues have dialects. This was not, precisely, the Heavenscript that I knew. But where I had not had the ear to learn the songs of an elven sorceress, or the pitch to sing them, I did have a wizard’s gift for languages. By evening I was able to present my companions with some initial findings.
“The wards appear to be some sort of celestial sorcery,” I said, in between bites of dried mountain goat. “I’ve never seen the like, but it reminds me of what the Illustrian priestesses of Shiithaia described when they encountered a’Rasyr, and of what Vencari wizards have found in Rasyri ruins.”
I passed my notebook to Derrek, mostly to show off, but also for his considered opinion. The man who had rediscovered the key to Illustrian shadow-magic must have read nearly every scrap of parchment on the subject of Illustrian culture and history, which must inevitably have included a great deal about and by their Rasyri rivals. He looked over my notes carefully.
Elana didn’t wait for Derrek to finish.
“Do you think you can open it?” she asked me.
“Absolutely not,” I said. I let them have their moment of shock – backs stiffening, faces going rigid. Then I smiled. “Derrek told you at the beginning that only a hero could retrieve the sword. Rennin will open the door. I will jimmy the lock so that it doesn’t explode in his face.”
Derrek chuckled. The prince and her knights were less amused.
“How much more time do you need?” Rennin asked.
I sighed, and shrugged.
“In a more perfect world,” I told them. “I would like another day to investigate, at a minimum, and then a day to rest. But I know that our supplies dwindle.”
Elana looked to Rennin, then they both looked to Orland. All three nodded. Finally, they looked to Derrek. He pretended not to notice right away.
“Don’t look at me,” he said. “My sources never had any information on how to access the tomb beyond the need for a hero.”
He straightened his back and looked the prince in the eye.
“I spent the afternoon doing my own examination of the vault,” he said, then waved my notes at them. “But this is much more comprehensive and precise than what I could see. If Orland doesn’t mind covering my watch, I will spend the next few hours doing what divination I can to supplement these notes, but …” He shrugged. “Really, Khanaarre, this is absolutely brilliant work.”
I didn’t want his praise to mean so much to me, but after the months of testing and teasing, to have my work so publicly and explicitly lauded by our Great Wizard? It was heady stuff.
“Thank you,” I said, trying to keep my expression stately.
The three Vencari, meanwhile, were exchanging another series of significant looks.
“Orland and I will cover watches tonight,” said Elana. “We’ve seen no sign of trouble in this endless graveyard, and it will be best if the three of you are as fresh as possible tomorrow for the work at hand.”
We all nodded. It was sense.
“Rennin,” she went on, less confident. “Will you walk with me?”
“Of course,” he said, quietly, and the two drifted off to the far side of the tombs.
We all pointedly did not watch them go.
“Ah,” said Orland. “Young love.”
Neither Derrek nor I deigned to rise to that bait. Derrek, for his part, disappeared into his tent to perform his divinations. I went to my tent to sleep.
Sleep did not come easily. I had spent the day projecting confidence and expertise. Now, alone, I could not stop myself from dwelling on the possibility of failure. Never before had the quest hinged so dramatically on my personal success or failure. If I had miscalculated, or if I mishandled something tomorrow, Sir Rennin Ösh would die.
I wished that tonight, of all nights, I were not alone. I wished that I could trust Elana, Rennin, and Orland not to be scandalized if I asked Derrek to sleep beside me. I wished that I did not share their mistrust of him. We had more than half feared that the entire quest had just been a way to locate the court in exile and then assassinate the prince. That we would be set upon on our way to the Wolfwood, or that his friends among the Children of Enhyl would dispose of us for him. Or that he would abandon us in the wilderness. Perhaps, had all gone according to plan, those suspicions would have died when we crossed through the Veil. But I remembered what Songlover had whispered to me. And none of us could forget the dragon’s words, or that it was Derrek’s fault that Veralar Tann was no longer with us.
Doubts and anxieties swirled and redoubled. I wasn’t a real wizard, not by modern law. What business did I have taking the prince’s consort’s life into my hands? And what the fuck was wrong with my taste in lovers: besotted with a Sister of Amalai, like some fucking tragic heroine; pining after a human, one of the Great Wizards, who might well be a traitor?
I wept bitter, silent tears. And, eventually, I disciplined myself to sleep.
Come morning, we ate a hot breakfast courtesy of the prince. Her efforts were mostly for Rennin’s benefit, of course, but they were not quite so love-drunk as to leave the rest of the party unfed.
“Were you able to divine anything of use,” I asked Derrek, when we were done.
“Yes,” he said, “but first I have good news. Veralar and Shadow have made it back to the Black Ears Pack. They have made no progress with her memory, but she seems to enjoy being doted on by Shadow and Crescent.”
“Doted on?” Elana said in a half-mocking, absolutely suggestive tone.
Derrek chuckled. I rolled my eyes. Vencari made entirely too much out of the sex that other people were having.
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “But they are in awe of her, and they are doing everything that they can to make her feel safe and comfortable.”
Elana laughed quietly, as did Orland.
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said.
“Anything regarding the Tomb?” Rennin asked.
“A few highly technical suggestions for Khanaarre,” said Derrek. “And for you: kneel before the sun.”
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