“You built this place?” Laedron asked once he’d gotten his senses about him.
The man shook his head. “My people merely put the bridge over it and smoothed the walls.”
“Your people? The Uxidin?”
The man looked surprised. “Indeed.” Gesturing at the rope bridge to his left, the man proceeded across, and Laedron followed, afraid to speak a word lest the utterance snap a rope or a plank. Don’t look down. Look anywhere but down. It was like being on the ancient bridge over the vale they’d crossed days before, but he didn’t know if he was glad or more frightened that he couldn’t see the bottom.
Once on the other side, the man picked up his pace, but finally stopped at the end of another stone hallway. “Be respectful within this place.” The door opened at his touch, and light poured through the opening.
Inside the room, thirty people were huddled in small groups, and the place stank of unwashed bodies. All of them wore clothes too big for their frames, and Laedron noticed that their skin had drawn tight over their faces, ribs, and hands. Children had apparently painted murals on the walls with whatever they could find. From the wide strokes making up the images, he figured that the drawing implements had most likely been fingers dipped in mud or soot. He couldn’t quite tell what the pictures represented, but it somehow made the people seem kinder, gentler than how they appeared.
So many of them, Laedron mused, glancing at their faces as they walked. They seem terrified by us. All of their faces bore dirt and scars, and most of the people were elderly and infirmed. “Are we safe enough to share names?”
The man stopped halfway into the room. “Tavingras. You may call me Tavin. From what I know of mortals, you would prefer not to waste your time with long names.”
“Very well, Tavin. I’m Laedron Telpist.” Glancing at the people in the dim light, Laedron felt as though he had entered an asylum for the destitute. “Why do you hide yourselves in this manner?”
“If the Trappers weren’t roaming the forest, we would have no reason to hide.”
His eye twitched. “Trappers?”
“You haven’t seen them? Horrible creations, part crystal and part essence pulled from the living. Soul-suckers. Upon finding anything still alive, they make no small effort to deprive that body of its life essence.” Just as quick as Tavin produced a sack from his robes, a little child, one of only a handful in the room, ran up, snatched the bag, then disappeared again. “Eat them slowly and enjoy them, for it took quite a while to find those,” Tavin called to the girl. He turned back to Laedron. “This wolf’s body should be a good meal compared to what we’ve been eating.”
“You can’t reason with them? These Trappers, as you call them?”
“No. Our enemy prefers his slaves to be willing, able, silent, and uncompromising. They do not speak, and we have no evidence that they’ll listen to anything we have to say. Cold killers set to a singular task.”
Marac raised an eyebrow. “Your enemy?”
“I’ll explain that later, for to hear the name is hurtful to my people.”
“What was in the bag?” Laedron asked, trying to see the child behind the adults.
“I went out to find nuts and berries earlier. The pickings are slim of late.” Tavin motioned at a side door, and Laedron and his friends followed. Laedron assumed that the room was Tavin’s private quarters because furniture for every purpose had been arranged about the space, and clothes similar in size and style to the ones Tavin wore hung on the racks near a row of bookshelves along the back wall. In the center of the room sat a table with a few chairs beside a desk littered with books and scraps of paper. Laedron felt a little constricted near the entrance, for the room had clearly not been designed for five people to occupy it at one time. If all this furniture wasn’t in here, I doubt it would feel so cramped.
When he closed the door behind them, Tavin continued, “The Trappers have killed most of the animals, everything not quick enough to escape, and the gathering trips yield less and less each time I go.”
Brice leaned against the wall beside the door. “How long have you been down here?”
“Too long have we rotted in this prison,” Tavin replied, a coarseness underlining his disdain for those walls. “Far too long. To be honest, it’s difficult to say, for I don’t go out into the woods every day.”
Laedron noticed the spines of books shelved in the bookcases bearing titles written in Zyvdredi. “What is this place?”
“The remnants of the wells. Long ago, the pit we passed was filled with fresh water, and the water rose in a vast network of pipes to the city above. Due to a lack of maintenance, the great cisterns have cracked and leaked, leaving huge, empty pits.” Tavin shrugged, then chuckled. “It’s ironic that this place, a place where none of us now living ventured before the fall, is all that’s left of our empire.”
“And those Zyvdredi books?”
“Zyvdredi?” Tavin glanced at the tomes. “That’s Nyreth. The Zyvdredi are a group of people, not a language, young man. The people from the noble house of Zyvdred, a sect of the ancient Nyrethine empire, to be specific.”
“What did you do? Before ‘the fall,’ I mean.”
“Caretaker of the Hall of Tomes, but titles matter little in these times. Now, I am merely a steward of a dying people, all of us living each day while wondering if any given hour will be our last.” Taking a deep breath, Tavin stared at the ceiling. “Kareth has gotten his revenge, it would seem, if that was indeed his purpose.”
“Kareth? Who, pray tell, is that?”
“In the ruins above lives a vile being known as Kareth. He was once one of us, an Uxidin, but for his crimes, he was expelled from our city.”
“His crimes? Killing your people?” Brice asked.
“In a way, but-”
“But that wasn’t his original offense.” Laedron leaned forward. “The novel is decades old.”
“Novel?” Tavin seemed puzzled.
“A book read for entertainment. Stories, tales, and fables. You don’t have them?”
“What need does it fulfill?”
The man’s never heard of reading for pleasure? Laedron gave his friends a curious look, then returned his gaze to Tavin. “It’s not important. Go on with what you were saying.”
“Many years ago, Kareth killed our elder-priest and stole an artifact, our dearest and most prized possession. If you’ve heard of it in your society, you would know it as The Bloodmyr Tome.”
“I’ve heard this Bloodmyr Tome discussed at length, but no one seems to know what it really is. Perhaps you can tell us more of it?”
“It is the physical manifestation of all Uxidin magical knowledge, the key to reality itself. Within its pages, magic is intermingled with a written history of our people. Do you know what magic truly is, Sorcerer?”
“Conjuring-”
Tavin shook his head, then sat on the edge of his desk. “It is to command reality, to issue a set of instructions to the real world to do as you say. Thus, anything is possible.”
“So, The Bloodmyr Tome is a spellbook of sorts?” Valyrie asked.
“To be simple about it, yes, but it’s much more than that. And if Callista sent you here, you must be willing to retrieve it in exchange for something that you desire.”
Marac clasped his hands. “I can understand why you would want it back, but given that it contains, according to you, all knowledge of magic, why would anyone want you to have it back?”
With a confused expression, Tavin asked, “What do you mean?”
Brice stroked his chin. “I think what he means to say is that the world hasn’t ended since you lost it. Who’s to say that returning it to you would be a good idea?”