I watched carefully as he braced himself and began pulling with his right arm, while pushing down against the floor with his left. His face turned red and veins stood out against the side of his head, but the granite didn’t move. “You’re going to hurt yourself,” I warned. “Let me do that. You probably shouldn’t be overusing the earth power anyway,” I said, remembering what I had seen happen to him after our battle with Karenth and Doron. I still didn’t understand what had occurred. In the past, physical changes such as he had undergone were permanent, without immediate removal of the earth bond… and timely intervention of an archmage to help the afflicted warrior recover his humanity. Assuming the process hadn’t gone too far.
“No… I can do this,” he said stubbornly. Setting himself, he drew a deep breath and began again. This time his face turned red as he exhaled through clenched teeth, but he didn’t give up. Groaning, he kept pulling until I began to wonder if he might burst a blood vessel… and then I saw it happen. The tips of his ears changed color, going from red to grey. The color spread slowly across his skin and even his hair changed, from deep black to a dusty white.
Alarmed, I shouted for him to stop, but it was too late. Straightening his legs, he ripped the massive stone slab up from its framework, tearing loose the iron bars that held it in position with a horrific shriek of stressed metal and popping stone. As chance would have it, it actually did hinge along the side he had suggested, and he pushed it back to rest against the floor on that side. Huffing from his exertion, he looked at me with an exultant expression. “See! I told you I could do it,” he said in a gravelly voice. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he saw the look on my face.
“We’ve got to release your bond!” I shouted at him, “Now!” All I could see was my friend turning into a golem right in front of me. I didn’t want him to wind up like Magnus, but I feared it might already be too late.
“What’s wrong with you?” he replied, showing me his hands. The skin on them was still pink and healthy, if a bit callused. Looking up from them, I saw the color returning to his face, even as his hair resumed its glossy black sheen. “I’m fine.”
“What the hell?”
“Now you sound like Rose,” he said with a chuckle.
I had some trouble imagining her speaking so uncouthly, but then again, she was probably much different in their private life. I was more astonished by the changes in my large friend, even his voice had returned to normal. If I hadn’t seen what had occurred, I might not have believed it. If he hadn’t taken off his helmet, I might never have known, I realized.
“You changed… and then you changed back,” I told him. “Did you feel anything?”
“Changed how?” asked Dorian.
I described what I had seen to him before adding, “I thought I might have imagined it last time.”
“You saw this before?”
I nodded, “After the battle with the gods… your skin looked different then, and your teeth were granite-like. Things were confusing, and I collapsed afterward so when you seemed normal later I assumed that perhaps I was mistaken. Did you feel different just now?”
“Just the strength of the earth, pounding in my ears like a heartbeat, but it always does that when I exert myself a lot. I didn’t think it was unusual. The other knights have described it in a similar manner,” he replied.
“But they don’t revert to normal after they start showing physical signs… and you were definitely showing signs,” I reiterated.
Dorian opened his mouth wide to show his teeth and then pinched his cheek. “Well I’m still flesh and blood.”
I thought for a moment before responding, “I wonder if it’s because you’re a stoic. You must have some innate resistance.” As I pondered on it for a moment, I heard a voice in my mind, the voice of a teacher in the distant past, ‘When an archmage chooses to make someone a targoth cherek, they must remember that stoics cannot accept the bond, their immutability makes them unable to form bonds with external agencies, elements, or even people.’
The sudden memory was unexpected, but for once not unwelcome. It surprised me and before I could focus on it, it slipped away. If that was true, then how did I manage to create a bond between Dorian and the earth? I wondered.
Dorian shrugged, “Are we going to worry about this all day or stick to business?”
I had been lost in thought for several minutes, and his remark served to bring me back to the present. “Sorry,” I answered, “You’re right. Let’s see what we’ve found.”
Gazing downward, the place the stone door had guarded now revealed a stone staircase, descending into the dark. With the concealing enchantment damaged I could now sense the areas it led to. “This stair goes down for more than fifty feet before stopping in some sort of antechamber filled with chairs and furnishings… and a considerable amount of magic,” I said aloud, for Dorian’s benefit.
“Anything along the way?” he asked in return.
“Nothing of note,” I replied, lighting the head of my staff to give him enough light to see the steps as we descended.
Dorian responded with a grunt and readied his sword. It was a signature grunt that told me immediately that, while he respected my ability to sense things ahead of us, he fully intended to remain alert anyway, which was precisely why Penny had insisted that he come with me.
Leading the way carefully, Dorian tested each step before placing his weight fully upon it; a procedure that I found taxed my patience. My magesight had revealed no hidden traps or pressure plates, and while I knew from experience that it could be fooled, I still disliked spending half a minute for every foot we went down. I knew better than to voice my opinion though, Dorian took his work seriously, and he was almost as stubborn as my wife when he put his heart into something.
After an hour of mind-numbing boredom, we finally reached the antechamber my senses had been exploring the entire time. It made no better sense once I put my physical eyes upon it. In form and appearance it seemed to be nothing more unusual than a sitting room or waiting chamber. The walls were decorated with ancient tapestries which had faded beyond the point of recognition and a collection of book cases covered one wall. There were no books to be seen though, just piles of dust and a few odd metal bookends. A modestly sized table stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by six chairs. Another, smaller table with two chairs sat near one corner, and a plain door exited the other side of the room.
Oh… and every item in the room, from the bookcases, to the tables, and even the chairs, radiated intense magic. Perhaps I should have mentioned that to begin with.
Two lamps suspended by iron chains from the ceiling lit automatically as we entered the room, suffusing the area with a warm natural glow. “Don’t move,” I cautioned my stalwart friend. “Every item in this room is enchanted.”
“For what purpose?” asked Dorian.
It was a sensible question, which irritated me for some unknown reason. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be saying, ‘don’t move’… now would I?!” I shot back harshly.
“No need to make an ass of yourself,” retorted my friend.
I took a moment to breathe before answering, “I’m sorry. I’m just tense. Give me a moment to see if I can figure out what these enchantments do.”
I spent close to an hour closely studying the chairs and tables, careful to avoid touching, or even approaching them. Magesight can be handy sometimes. By focusing my perception precisely, I could peer at the individual runes making up the enchantments on each object from almost any angle, though what I saw made little sense and only increased my frustration. My only satisfaction was that I knew that standing still for an hour with nothing to do, and no idea what I was doing, must have driven Dorian to distraction. It was a fair repayment for the laborious descent he had forced me to endure on the stairs.