“Behold,” the voice of Morganna said.
With that the slick, marble wall barring their entrance to the tunnel began to rise, disappearing into the ceiling from which it had come.
The prince suddenly felt two arms beneath his own, dragging him from the room. Wigg managed to pull Tristan a short way down the tunnel before collapsing to the floor next to the prostrate prince.
It was Tristan who finally opened his eyes first, coughing and hacking. He propped himself up weakly against the wall of the tunnel, helping the wizard do the same. “Wigg,” he asked, half coughing, half speaking, “was I dreaming, or did I hear my mother’s voice?”
Wigg took a deep breath, gratefully refilling his starved lungs with the sweet, humid air of the tunnel. “I heard it, too,” he said slowly, trying to marshal his thoughts. “But I still do not know what it means.”
“Is she still alive?” Tristan asked. He dared not believe it, but he felt compelled to ask the question, nonetheless. “Or perhaps somehow able to communicate with me from the Afterlife?”
“I simply do not know,” Wigg answered honestly, rising slowly on trembling legs. “But I also believe that there is no time for such a discussion right now. We must keep going.”
“Did you hear what she said about always taking the path marked with the heraldry?” Tristan asked, standing up. He checked his weapons, and was relieved to find they were still intact.
“Yes,” Wigg answered.
“And is that what we should do?”
“I can only answer that when we come to such a place,” Wigg said cautiously. “If we come to such a place. There were no such intersections here before—at least as far as we had previously explored. Forgive me, Tristan, but I find it hard to believe such an unlikely possibility now exists, simply because a voice from the past says so. But I suggest we get moving. Too much has already happened that I am uncomfortable with, to say the least. And there is no telling what may lie before us.”
Tristan looked down the tunnel to see that the radiance stones were continuing to illuminate its depths. “How far must we go?” he asked as they began walking down its length.
“That depends,” Wigg answered, “on whether what the voice said is true.”
They walked in silence for a long time. Apparently lost in his thoughts, the wizard took the lead. Following behind, Tristan was still consumed by the memory of the voice he had heard. Could it have possibly been my mother? he wondered over and over.
After what seemed to have been at least half a league, Wigg stopped short. From his position in the rear the prince could not easily see what was up ahead. He walked around to get a better look.
Directly in front of them, literally daring them to enter its tempting puzzle, lay a gigantic intersection. At least a dozen tunnels split off from it, each leading in a different direction, each lit with radiance stones, beckoning them to enter.
But the glowing, azure sign of the heraldry of the House of Galland was embedded into the rock of only one of them. Tristan could see that the marked tunnel led to a flight of stone steps going downward, curving around and out of sight.
“This intersection never existed before,” Wigg breathed.
“Nonetheless, here it is,” Tristan countered. “I say we take the tunnel that is marked. The voice told us to.”
“That does not necessarily mean it is a good idea,” Wigg responded.
“Her voice saved us, did it not, by raising the wall?” Tristan asked adamantly. “If the voice of my mother had wanted us dead, we would be already. To me, there seems no other choice but to follow her instructions.”
“Very well,” Wigg said slowly. “But keep your wits about you, and do as I say. Be ready to act on a moment’s notice. We cannot be sure of what awaits us, especially if the voice is correct.”
With that, the wizard and the prince tentatively entered the tunnel marked with the heraldry and cautiously began navigating the cold stone steps leading downward into the earth.
19
Faegan sat in his wooden chair on wheels, finding the silence of the room almost oppressive. His gray-green eyes bore down intensely into the ancient book that lay on the table before him, its pages so dry and fragile that he had decided to turn them using the craft, instead of his fingers. Nicodemus lay in Faegan’s lap, purring softly.
Faegan sighed, sitting back in his chair. After two days of searching through volume after volume, he still had not found what he was looking for. But he knew he would.
The master wizard looked up from his work to gaze around the room. He was in the Archives of the Redoubt, the greatest collection of books and scrolls ever assembled in one place, second only to the Tome in its importance to the craft.
The Archives occupied a vast room of Ephyran marble, one of the most beautiful of the entire Redoubt. His mouth turned up in a knowing smile. It was only fitting that the late wizards of the Directorate would have made this sanctuary one of the most sumptuous and secure of all the chambers in this amazing complex.
The square room measured at least two hundred meters on each of its four sides, and was seven stories high. Each story had a railing that overlooked the central area. Each level was lined with books from top to bottom, and a magnificent set of curved, mahogany stairs with a brass railing ran up and around to each of the floors, giving access to the thousands of works.
The floor and ceiling of the Archives were of the most delicate, dark green marble, shot through with swirling traces of gray and magenta. Several hundred finely carved desks, reading tables, and beautifully upholstered chairs were tastefully arranged on the bottom floor, and the delicate, golden light was supplied by a combination of oil chandeliers, sconces, and desklamps, all enchanted to burn eternally. The entire chamber smelled pleasantly of must, knowledge, and the thrill of discovery.
“I’m afraid this one won’t do either, Nicodemus,” Faegan said affectionately, rubbing the cat beneath the nape of his neck. “But we will keep trying, won’t we? The stakes are too high to give up.”
He narrowed his eyes at the book, and it rose into the air and floated to the fifth floor, to glide gently back into place between two equally imposing volumes.
Ever since he had witnessed the amazing connection between Shailiha and the fliers of the fields, Faegan had known that there would be only two ways to explore the incredible, unexplained phenomenon. One would be to continue to go to the aviary with the princess and see what happened through a process of trial and error with the fliers. The other was to come here, to the Archives, to discover all he could about such connections—especially with those untrained in the craft. It had consumed his mind even to the point of having stopped trying to research Joshua’s birds of prey. Something in his heart told him that the fantastic bond between Shailiha and the fliers was going to become even more important.
“Time to go searching again.” He sighed softly and wheeled his chair over to the rather odd-looking desk in the center of the floor. Wigg had shown him how to use it before leaving for the Caves with Tristan, and Faegan had found it to be a marvel of the craft. It was called the Index of the Ages, and it was the key to negotiating the complexity of the Archives. Once activated, it provided the location and document number of any book or scroll, depending on the subject matter or author.
Faegan closed his eyes, relaxing his mind. “Open,” he commanded softly.
As the familiar glow built around the desk, its marble surface slowly separated from top to bottom into equal halves, which slid to opposite sides. He opened his eyes and looked down into the seemingly limitless, azure depths that had been left behind.
“Forestallments,” he said. “Both event- and time-activated. Of and relating to endowed blood only, and the possibility of bonds that may be created with nonhuman creatures.” He waited.