Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [126]
The red robes of his disguise rustling about his ankles, Menju the Sorcerer stepped cautiously out of the Corridor onto the long neglected grounds of the Temple. The Thon-li who brought him here were shocked beyond measure at his traveling to this place and had earnestly tried to dissuade him. Only by stating that this was a wartime emergency had the Sorcerer been able to convince them to send him to his destination.
Their fears, however, had done nothing to bolster his confidence. His hand clasping the phaser gun kept concealed in his pocket, words of a spell for repelling the dead on his lips, Menju looked swiftly around and instantly sensed the true nature of the place. Relaxing, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Though the sun beamed from a cloudless sky, an aura of sadness and melancholy hung over the Temple like thick fog, casting an almost perceptible shadow on the broken walls and the crumbling stone. There was an eerie stillness about the place, too; an unnatural quiet, as if countless numbers of unseen people were standing about, each holding his or her breath, waiting for something to happen.
Shivering in the still, cold mountain air, the Sorcerer put his phaser away, grinning over his fears. But it was a weak grin at best and he sat down upon one of the decaying stone benches with an unintended suddenness, resulting from his knees giving way.
What had he expected, after all? he scolded himself. Legions of howling dead, leaping, shrieking, out of the darkness to protest this trespass? Skeletal hands touching his? Figures in white winding sheets and chains stalking about, bewailing the degenerate state of his mind and promising him three ghostly visitors before morning?
“Bah! Humbug!” he said aloud and was able to laugh—with only a slight shudder—at his own little joke.
Wiping the chill sweat from his brow, Menju took a moment to regain his composure and to investigate his surroundings. He had come here purposefully early to do just this. The sun was even with his left shoulder. He had over an hour until noon.
Phaser in hand, he carefully and coolly began to examine every rock and boulder around the perimeter of the Temple grounds. He checked out his surroundings with elaborate care. Despite his immediate observation that there was no one here, Menju had the strangest impression that someone was examining him. Finding nothing and no one, however, he firmly banished the thought, considering it to come from the same childish source as the clanking chains and white sheets.
Leaving the cliff’s edge, the Sorcerer walked down one of the paths through the dead Garden, desiring a closer look at the altar stone. The path he selected was the one of his own Mystery—that of Technology. Whether he chose this path out of superstition, a feeling of homesickness, or because it merely suited his humor, Menju didn’t bother to analyze.
Stalks of dead plants that had not decayed in the cold, dry air of the high mountain elevation stuck up out of the frozen dirt on either side of the path. Small, dead, ornamental saplings lay with their roots in the air, having been blown over by the winter winds. The Sorcerer glanced without in terest at the remnants of the Garden. Arriving at the altar stone, he stared at it curiously, running his fingers over the symbols of the Nine Mysteries carved into the rock. It was an unusual type of rock, he saw. Some sort of ore. Perhaps darkstone? he thought, feeling a tremor of excitement.
Examining it closely, he tried to recall legends he had heard about the altar stone. How it had been raised out of the Well of Life far below, at the base of the Font. How it had been a sort of plug in the Well and how, once the stone was removed, the magic gushed forth like magma, flowing out over the world.
That made sense, he realized suddenly. The darkstone had capped the Well! It was an exhilarating thought.
Standing at the center of the world, directly above the source of the magic, Menju could feel Life pulsing around him, surging through him. He reveled in the sensation.