Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Michael and Gryth stared at each other over the campfire. “You’re sure it’s smart to tackle the tower now, master?”

“Not at all. It’ll probably set off whatever the hell alarm bells weren’t already rung to hell and back by today’s antics. But I’m sure as hell not leaving it behind us. For all we know, it’s set to blow the hell up on a timer after the old fool’s death. And Tribunal only knows what he’s got in there that could kill us all if no one monitors it. Or what state he left the spaces in, or...”

“I get it. I get it. But he said he locked me out til the day of his death,then beware. Do you think he trapped it?”

“I think if it wants you in, it won’t matter.”

“Oh.”   Michael looked around. “Maybe...maybe I can give it away.”

Gryth looked at him oddly.

“I ...have the house. And I don’t need another thing. I mean, the tower, it’s huge. I don’t need...”

“Michael. You don’t have to claim it. We just need to make it safe.”

Michael shook his head. “You’ll see.”  He got up from where he sat, dusted his hands off on his palms, and held his hand out to his master. “Come on.”  

Gryth looked at him suspiciously then took the proffered hand. He didn’t quite suppress a startled yelp as they rose effortlessly into the sky. He glared at Michael. “You could warn a body.  And how are you doing this. I thought flying like this was all tied to...the rest of it.”

“This isn’t that. Any San mage could do this. Well, I think they could. The potential is there.”

“Cub. Trust me. If San Mages can do this. They aren’t telling people. Can we land soon?”

Michael laughed. “Open your eyes. We’re almost there.”

His definition of “there” was a bit different than Gryth’s. They were hovering almost a 100 feet above the ground when Michael brought them to a stop, barely a foot from the smooth stone of the tower. Michael reached out and gently placed a hand on it. “My room is more or less here.”

“More or less?”

“It’s here when it exists. You know how he was.”

Where Michael’s hand lay on the tower, large blocks of stone glowed softly for a moment, then disappeared entirely. There was a perfect bay window, open to the sky looking in on Michael’s room, so recently updated with twin beds. Michael drifted forward and set Gryth on the ground. He lowered himself to the floor, too. “Be careful. It let us in, but...it’s angry. It’s confused because it can’t find him, and it’s shuffling things around, looking.”

“Rooms and halls, I assume?”

“For now.”

“What do you mean, for now?”

“I mean, it’s a tower that’s been invested with millennia of focus and belief. If it doesn’t calm down, moving cities looking for him probably isn’t out of the question.”

“I hate your grandfather more than you can really imagine.”

Michael nodded. He walked through the room and opened the door which faced a seamless wall. He sighed gently and looked upward. “I do need a hall, if you wouldn’t mind.” He closed the door and reopened it on a long hallway that seemed to stretch hundreds of yards directly ahead of them. He closed the door again. “One that goes somewhere useful. Look I know. But you’re going to have to let me through at some point, so why not just put the spaces back like they were last time I was here, and we’ll work it out that way, ok?”  He closed the door again, waited almost a full minute, then reopened it. It didn’t really come as any surprise to Gryth that the halls were exactly as Michael had specified. Michael took a step out into the hall, then looked at the floor suspiciously.

“Be careful. It’s not being really consistent about what it’s using for material right now.”

Gryth raised an eyebrow.

“This section of floor appears to be glass. It’s slick as hell.”

He turned down the corridor and headed for the large room where they had eaten and the Lady had spoken to them. When he got there he looked around for a moment.

“I don’t suppose you could put the cabinets back?” The responding silence was *almost* an answer.

“Cub, if this thing starts talking, I’m going to skin you.”

“I’m sure it could if it wanted, or if it could focus down that much. But it looks like this is where we do the hard part. It’s done cooperating. Stay near me, and be ready to portal us both if things get out of hand.”

Gryth gathered his energy carefully, and snatched together the beginnings of a portal, hooked on the tip of a single shining claw. Michael knelt, and began to inscribe spells into the floor of the tower. A bare second after he finished his first circle and activated the spell, the stone around them rushed forward and crashed against the circle with a boom of in-rushed air that made Gryth’s ears pop painfully. Michael cringed. “Sorry. I thought I had the air pressure accounted for.But the physics here...well, you know.”

Gryth nodded. “Just do it.”

“Can you hold the matrices as I find them?”

“Are we talking about the same level of tangled crap he had latched onto the lady?”

“No. This is all simpler, or I think it is. But it’s strong and it’s old. I can hold it all, but it’ll take days.”

“I can hold them, then. Let’s finish here.”

Michael nodded.  He stood, and began tracing his fingers through the forms on the seamless wall surrounding them. A kaleidoscope of wild fractal light blazed into being where he traced.  As he worked his way around the room, Gryth could see that it was all overlaid patterns of dozens of spells. After almost an hour of picking through the patterns, dimming some, brightening others, Michael hooked a finger into one bright amber thread of spellcraft and pulled gently. It didn’t dislodge from the wall, but it stood out slightly. Michael walked around the circle twice, studying it, then began to cast. Anyone else, stuck in that room with Michael, surrounded by all that spellcraft, would have been mystified. But Gryth was the oldest made in existence, Grandmaster several times over, by right, and archmage for a reason. There was no creature in existence with more knowledge of formal spellcraft. And even he was impressed. He told himself (quietly) that this was nothing he couldn’t do himself. Which was more or less true. For one, maybe 2 of these spells. But for the dozens here? He wasn’t sure himself. Michael had started with one of the simplest, and most of the mages at the academy would have resigned before they even tried to figure it out. Michael never even hesitated. He just worked.

It was only minutes later that Michael tugged the spell free of the wall and looked at Gryth expectantly. “I think they’ll all need solid enclosures for now. We can pick them apart later. There’s far too much ambient energy here. Let me know when you’re ready.”

Gryth let go of the portal snagged on his claw, and cast the beginnings of a containment. It wasn’t terribly unlike the one he’d used on the nightbinder in Ryan’s room, just tuned to a different spectrum of existence. He paused. “Is that a secondary etheric on the left?”

Michael looked closely and nodded. “It’s a third form structure he’s woven in for some reason.”

“It’s a trap. Hang on. I need to change the field here.”  Gryth fiddled with the containment several times, running through sections of the forms he hadn’t used in years, relying on formal spellcraft where imprecision could kill them both. Finally he nodded and Michael clasped his hands together and pushed.  The ring snapped up over their heads and collapsed inward in a rush. Michael brought his hand down and the spell came down with it until it settled neatly into Gryth’s waiting enclosure with a nasty snap of released energy. A malachite pebble no more than a half inch around lay in Gryth’s palm. He tucked it into his pocket and loosened his robe at the collar. One spell and he was already hot and tired. He looked at Michael, whose hair was already damp with sweat.

“How many more?”

“12 more little ones, and about 25 majors.”

Gryth groaned. “Then you’ll want to watch that waste heat. And speed it up. I don’t have 20 some hours to waste today.”

Michael narrowed his eyes at him. “Don’t worry. I think I’ve got the hang of it now.”

When Michael turned back to the wall this time, he didn’t pick one thread of spell craft. He picked six. Gryth’s eyes got wide. “Boy...”

“You said hurry. You want these one at a time?” He looked a challenge at Gryth.

“Sure.”

Gryth barely managed to enclose the first chain before the 2nd was dropping toward him, with the third and fourth drifting lazily on their heels. He started to say something sharp to Michael, then noticed he had pulled 5 more from the wall. Gryth sped up his casting...a lot. By the time the 6th enclosure was done, his fur was layered in sweat, his lip was pulled back in a snarl and his hands were on the edge of shaking. “Enough. I get it. You can slow down a little.”  

Michael gave him a nasty grin. “Yes, master.”

“Remind me to gut you when we’re done here.”

“Mmmmm-hmmm.”

All told, It took them 4 hours to clear the spells, and Gryth had had to sacrifice part of his robe to make a sling to hold them, each wrapped in scraps of the robe as well. 37 stones ranging from the size of a softball to a pebble smaller than Michael’s pinky nail.

“We’ll, that’s done.” He squared his shoulders.

Michael shook his head. “That’s the basic restraints and controls. The major binding is upstairs and there’s about 15 spaces that are static that we need to look through. If I can get to them.”

“Oh.”  He looked at Michael expectantly.”So...you gonna get us there?”

Michael glared at him. “Sure. No problem.” Gryth noticed Michael took a deeeeeep breath before he began to cast again. Even Michael couldn’t keep this up all night.

“Cub, if you need a break...”

Michael paused. “Not yet. Maybe after we get through some of the rooms. Hold on. This isn’t going to be smooth. It’s fighting me a little.”

Gryth nodded. When Michael started casting, the whole tower shook. Sparks flew off the ward around them, and the stone seemed to shift rapidly, like they were caught in a tide.

“It’s not moving. We are. I’m taking the ward with us where we need to go. Except for those rooms, everything in here is solid right now. The ward is creating a bubble space, and it’s easier to push it than create new spaces.”

“If you say so.”

Michael stopped for a moment, and highlighted some sections of the spell holding back the stone.

“See, it’s a control like he used for steering the portals. Same basic interface. Actually, some of the phasing is the same, too, see?”

Gryth studied it for a minute, then nodded. He gestured for Michael to get on with it. A few minutes later the ward opened on a small room full of a nasty tangle of spellcraft hovering of a shining metal disc in the floor. Gryth sighed. “What the hell is that?”

Michael studied it for a full five minutes before he answered. “It’s a preservation spell.”

“For WHAT?”

“For whom.”

“Oh. Oh god. Please tell me he doesn’t have her stored away somewhere.”

“No. It’s not finished. It never got keyed to anyone. I don’t think he finished it in time.”

“Oh. Well then. Do what you have to-”

Michael swept his hand casually through the spell and watched it shatter and crumble. Gryth hissed in a breath. “What the hell, cub?”

“It was nearly dead anyway. It was so old, and with it unfinished, and him not here to sustain it...It was easier just to let it go. I wish they would all be that easy. C’mon.” Michael grabbed their ward and began to move them through the tower again.

The contents of the tower were staggering.

In one room was a massive crystal engine, crackling with light and sound, spinning for what purpose neither of them could tell. After an hour Michael decided that one was to unsafe to take a part, and to unstable to move. They spent another hour fortifying the room with wards and traps and containments until both their eyes hurt from the glare of their own spells.

In another room, there was a creature Gryth would swear was an actual dragon. Michael shook his head sadly. “It was a horse once. He did this for vanity. He wanted to fly like a tale from legends. The poor thing can’t fly though. It’s too heavy for its wings. Best to let it sleep.” Michael placed a hand on its forehead and its eyes drooped shut. “If you can, make a portal to the lake by the house. He’ll be comfortable there, at least, and I can make sure he gets fed. He’ll live for centuries. It’s not fair to let him starve.”

One room contained a single glass of water that Michael took one look at and melted into the floor, evaporating the water to steam, then condensing the steam down to a single grain of ice so dense it dented the stone when it fell. He looped wards around it again and again, and then dropped it in the sling of containment spells without a word. Gryth took a look at Michael’s face and decided not to ask.

Another room contained a shadow that cried, and another strange machine that spoke, but not in a language either of them knew. Michael set the shadow free, and moved the strange machine to the hidden lab at the academy with a note for Master Lenin.

3 rooms were empty, and 5 held only books. Most of the books Michael sent his house to be put in the library. 2 he tucked into a fold of space inside his kilt, 4 he sent to the library itself, and 1 he burned in a conflagration of flame so sudden it singed Gryth’s fur.

“Cub!  Dammit!”

“That was how he trapped her.”

“Oh. Well done, then.”

“Only 1 space left to go, then we go upstairs.”

“I’m not gonna like this, am I?”

Michael shook his head. When the spell moved this time, it didn’t slide gracefully through the stone. It sizzled across space with an abrupt jerk and landed in the center of a space Gryth would spend decades wishing he could unsee.

On cold stone biers lining the room were dozens of bodies, and next to each a shelf with a journal. Some had been partially dissected, some sewn back together. Some appeared to be untouched, and some were connected to bizarre and awful devices. One body was covered entirely head to toe in tiny sparkling jewels. They were all children.

“Did you know...” Gryth couldn’t even finish speaking.

Michael shook his head. “Tower’s been telling me things. As we clear the spaces it’s learning to trust me. It wants all this gone. I...I don’t know know what to do here, Master.” Tears ran down his face freely.  

Gryth’s reply was gentle. “Gather the books. Put them in the library. Then we’ll make a portal to my people. They’ll...take care of them. If they have any family, they’ll see to it they’re told and cared for. They’ll be buried properly, I promise.”

“He was truly mad, then.”

“Yes. He was.”

“I wish we could kill him again.”

Gryth didn’t answer him. He just laid a hand on his shoulder and waited for Michael’s grief to pass. As with so many things Michael did, when it passed, it passed in a blaze of spellcraft. The books disappeared with a flash and a whisper, the portal opened with a crack of thunder into a shimmering arc. Michael turned his back on the portal and Gryth howled through until one of his people came. An old woman, grey muzzled and lean strode through the portal, looked around and understood. Gryth relayed what he had told Michael. “Yes, Ancient one. We will keep the young from the dark, and hold them to the light in their rest.”

“Thank you, child.”

Her eyes flashed with humor. “Only you, Ancient One. Only you.” She ran through the portal and came back with dozens of other older Hysthaal, and some young ones too. She bared her teeth. “The fighters are at the sea. But we answer.”

Gryth nodded. When the last body was clear, the portal snapped shut, twisting in the air, seeming to hold the space in tension against itself. He stepped back into the circle of spellcraft around Michael and as the left the room he heard a terrifyingly loud boom. He looked at Michael questioningly. “The room is gone. Like it never existed. It never should have.” Gryth nodded.

When they reached the top of the tower Gryth was surprised to see just a plain room. The stone was dirty with age, and against one wall leaned an old plaque, so tarnished with age it could no longer be read. Michael stood in the middle of the room and listened for a moment, then lifted the plaque with a spell and fused it to the surface of one wall. He laid a hand gently on the wall.

“Once you were a tribute to a great man, then a symbol to a people, and then you became the slave to a great man. I return you to the people. As a symbol of their enduring freedom. Freedom from nations, from tyranny, and from terrible men. Return to your purpose, and let none ever possess you again. As you symbolize freedom, so be free. Serve your purpose as you were built, and let none have you above another again.”

As he spoke, the patina of ages slipped away from the wall, now burnished to a gleaming white. The stone around them shone and strengthened in place, becoming strong and firm and new. The plaque though, was unchanged.

“It’s the heart of it really. A keepsake of a troubled time, and the honors it gave to a great man.”  Michael looked around him like he was waking. He sighed. “We’ll have to portal out. It’s pretty much impregnable now. I could force my way, but...”

“But it would be wrong.”

Michael nodded. As they walked through the portal together, back to their camp, Gryth pretended not to notice Michael’s tears. The cub had, after all, just given away his boyhood home.