He peeked around the opening, and found himself looking into a singular large chamber, a chamber that filled the entirety of the inside of the obelisk. Its floor was tiled with pure gold squares, with silver mortar holding them together. The floor was burnished and polished to a mirrored shine, reflecting the white light within. The interior walls of the obelisk were unadorned, the same glossy black rock as the outside, also reflecting the light and making the inside of the obelisk as bright as a cloudless day. There were only three objects inside that grand chamber. One was a rather plain wooden chair, its back to him. The second sat within that chair, and from his view, he could see that it was an Aeradalla that, for some reason, only had one wing. The third was the within the light itself, being generated by the Conduit that ran through the center of the chamber, hovering some six spans off the floor, just over the head of the seated Aeradalla.
It was a crown.
A large crown made of gold, beaten gold with eight tines circling its golden circumference. Inset into that gold at each tine was a gem, each a different color that he could see. And from that crown emanated the powerful magical energy he had sensed rides ago, a magic that had drawn him to it like moths to a flame. From that distance, he could see the energy flowing through it, coming from the Conduit in which it had been placed.
"Is that maimed Aeradalla dead?" Sarraya whispered. "He hasn't moved an inch since I saw him."
Tarrin didn't answer. He slid inside the archway, and then he boldly padded right into the chamber, towards the crown. There were no other scents or sounds in the chamber, which meant that it truly was as empty as it appeared to be. The Conduit seemed to shimmer and vibrate, and it became more and more pronounced as he approached it; the Conduit was reacting to him just as strands did. He doubted it would bend in, as strands did, for Conduits were much larger and more fixed in their positions than strands, so he deemed it safe to advance. He came around the chair and looked down at the Aeradalla seated there.
If he wasn't dead, he certainly looked it. It was a middle-aged Aeradalla, though his appearance looked to be one much older than he truly was, with only one wing that looked to be atrophied from lack of exercise. His eyes were closed, and his whitish-blond hair was dirty and matted from lack of grooming. He wore a simple robe made of velvet, black and tied with a silken cord. Raiment more suited for a noble than a crippled, shrivelled Aeradalla.
"He's not dead," Sarraya noted. "He may as well be, though. I guess Aeradalla wings don't grow back. Without his wings, he can't get down from here."
Tarrin turned away from the unconscious Aeradalla and stared at the crown. It was indeed the magical object he had sensed, and that close to it, he could feel its power rippling through the air around them. It was the crown that sustained the city, but how it did that was quite beyond him. Its weaves were so unbelievably vast and intricate that he could spend his entire life studying it, and only understand half of what he was seeing. The only thing of which he was certain while he stared at that unassuming crown was that no mortal had the ability to make such a thing. It had to be a product of the gods.
Such power. He had never felt anything like it. It was almost intoxicating, trying to seduce him with promises of holding high a power unrivalled in the world, filling his subconscious with images of adoration and the fulfillment of his every wish and desire. But Tarrin wasn't like others. He found the power of it to be enticing, but Tarrin's motivations were not human. Wealth and power and might meant less to him than security and contentment and well-being. He already had some of those things. He didn't need power to make himself feel any better, or give to him what he could get on his own without its help. He could see the magic of the crown, and he understood that what it offered was not power, but enslavement. And he would never be a slave to anyone or anything ever again. Not a person, not a god, not that crown. Its power had tried to reach into him, but found that it had no effect on his alien mind.
But that power had had its effect on this one. He could feel it now. He had become totally enslaved to the power of the crown, had become like an object himself, devoted to the intoxicating aura the crown emanated. He could feel it infuse the wretch, infuse and corrupt the harmony of his body with its power. Such power could not help but corrupt the weak, or those with motivations that weren't grounded in the real world. He would waste away and die sitting there being close to the object of his obsession.
"Is that crown it?" Sarraya asked.
Tarrin nodded. "It supports the city somehow. That's what it was made to do, but it's too complicated for me to figure out. In any event, we'd better go. The crown radiates a power that can entice the weak, and though I don't much care for what it offers, I'm not so certain about you."
"I'm a Druid, Tarrin," she said with a teasing grin. "If I need something, I can just make it. The crown can't offer me anything I don't already have, or can't get."
He nodded calmly. That was the exact attitude she needed to be immune from the crown's enticing allure. "This one wasn't so lucky," he said, motioning at the wasted figure.
"I almost pity him," Sarraya sighed. "Should we leave him here?"
"What else can we do?" he asked her. "If we heal him, he'll just come right back here and waste away again. The only way to cure him is to free him of the influence of the crown, and that would take Sorcery."
"Well, could you…?" Sarraya asked, wiggling her fingers.
"You know very well I can't use my power, Sarraya," he told her bluntly.
"Well, it just seems wrong to leave him here like this," she said helplessly. "As a fellow flier, I fully understand what brought him here."
"What do you mean?"
"Losing the ability to fly is like a living death, Tarrin," she said earnestly. "Those months I was landbound was a living hell. When this one lost his wing, he probably craved something to fill the void that was left in his life, and that may have led him up here, to that crown. Who knows, maybe he thought it could heal him, and he was willing to risk having this happen to him to get back the one thing in his life he couldn't live without."
Looking at it like that, he could understand her point of view. It would be like him becoming human again. There would always be something missing from inside him, a part of him that had been ripped away, and it would leave a void in him that nothing could fill. Instead of dying, instead of simply accepting it, he very well may have had them bring him up here to see if he could somehow use the crown to restore his lost wing. But he had failed, and now a slow death by starvation and dehydration loomed in his future. He almost felt sorry for the man. Almost. He was still a stranger, and the man's fate was of no concern of his.
And yet…
She was right. It was wrong to just leave him here. He should at least try to use Sorcery. If he tried and failed, then he could leave without feeling bad over not trying. At least he would have tried, and there was no dishonor in trying your hardest and not succeeding. The struggle was more important than the result.
Besides, as it had been before, Tarrin's human half simply could not turn its back on someone in pain, someone in need. As it had reacted to Sheba, so it reacted to this wasted wretch.
He blinked, shaking his head. Those damned Selani had made him soft.
Roughly, he reached out and grabbed the man by the head. It was not a gentle grip. Then he emptied his mind and opened his senses, feeling the Weave, sensing it, opening himself to the sensations it inspired inside. He could sense the crown and the Conduit, could sense the strands that spun off the Conduit. Once he fully felt them, could hear the pulsing of the magic through them, he reached out to them, seeking a contact on the Weave…