Revelation (Seeds of Humanity: The Cobalt Heresy) Read online

  I nodded. “It was cryptic enough that I didn’t understand,” I began, “but it said ‘The opening lies almost directly beneath an apparently natural sequence of the red mineral streaks which bear an eerie resemblance to the symbol of Targel The Just.’ I am unfamiliar with Targel, though,” I said hesitantly.

  Pi’Vari smiled in that constantly infuriating fashion. “Targel, you say?” he gloated. “Well, such an obscure reference to ancient theology would present something of an obstacle to any party not containing at least one,” he gestured with a single raised finger, “member of the Ancient Superstitions Society for the Historical Observation of Legends and their Etymology.”

  Even though my breath was short, I found myself snickering. “Fortunately for us, we have one of those on board,” I quipped.

  Pi’Vari beamed. “Quite so, Jezran,” he replied with an exaggerated bow.

  “So,” I prompted, wishing to waste no more time in this harsh environment, “what is the symbol of Targel?”

  Pi’Vari tapped his chin thoughtfully, and I knew he wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass him by. “Targel was, originally,” he began as though in lecture, “a member of a distant pantheon of gods. He began his deific existence as a demigod with very little in the way of real responsibility or authority.”

  I could tell this could take hours, so I interrupted, “Just skip to the part where you tell us what his symbol would look like.”

  Pi’Vari looked hurt, but after a moment of silence he nodded. “Quite right, Jezran,” he mock apologized, “I am sorry to have gone on like that. Please forgive me.”

  I rolled my eyes. Maybe it would have been better to let him ramble for a while, but I had already made my bed. “Just get to the end,” I prompted.

  Pi’Vari’s forehead wrinkled as he thought. “Targel began, as I said, with little in the way of authority, so he had no symbol. And, being one of the first of the Young Gods to be destroyed by the First Circle of Veldyrian nearly four centuries ago, I would assume that his position and duties a century or so before that point in time would be the ones with which we should concern ourselves.”

  “That would seem to track,” I agreed with a nod.

  Pi’Vari shook his head. “But that is not possible,” he said in obvious confusion, “because by that time, Targel’s name had changed to ‘Targelian The Just,’ or more simply ‘The Hammer,’ owing to victory in a long-disputed war with his brother which saw Targel’s own power almost triple. Naturally, his symbol became a rather stylized hammer.”

  I looked up at the cliff face and immediately saw a large pattern which was clearly in the form of a hammer. “Like that?” I pointed to the wall.

  Pi’Vari looked up and nodded absently. “Yes, something like that,” he agreed.

  I scanned the ground in a line perpendicular to the wall and found a large, jagged crevice. Again, I pointed, “So, is that our entry?” I asked impatiently. The cold was getting on my nerves.

  Pi’Vari looked doubtful. “I do not believe so, Jezran,” he said hesitantly.

  “Why not?” I asked wearily.

  My herald bit his lip before continuing. “Because at the time of those writings,” he gestured to the scroll tube sticking out of his own pack, which he carried because I was frankly too weak to carry anything other than myself and my master’s staff, “there was almost certainly nobody alive on this entire continent who would have referred to Targelian The Just by his first, obscure name.”

  Now it was my turn to be confused. “Surely the wizard who wrote those papers could have learned of Targelian’s history?” I argued.

  Pi’Vari shook his head. “Almost certainly not, Jezran,” he said while folding his arms across his chest.

  When he failed to explain himself, I clenched my teeth reflexively. Apparently seeing my growing frustration, Pi’Vari held up his hands in mock surrender.

  “I do not vex you intentionally,” he began, “but I must insist that it would require access to the Imperial Archives to learn the full history of the god who became Targelian The Just.” He gave me a knowing look, and this latest revelation figuratively stopped me in my tracks. Now I understood why he had been reluctant to reveal what he knew.

  “Well, now that is something,” I whispered under my breath. I thought hard before finally deciding to put to him the first issue that had popped into my mind. “My understanding is that no wizard has ever successfully escaped the Empire,” I said.

  Pi’Vari nodded slowly. “It is mine, as well,” he agreed.

  “I do not understand,” interrupted Aemir, who had been listening to us while trying to warm himself by stamping his feet and rubbing his hands. “You believe the wizard who drew the map is from your Empire. Why is that unusual?”

  The question hung in the air until I decided to answer to the best of my ability, “No wizard in the six thousand years of recorded Imperial history has successfully fled the Empire.”

  Dancer, who was almost always silent during these meetings, raised his voice. “Maybe wizard not escape,” he offered, stressing the first word for emphasis, as it was one for which his own language had no direct translation. “Maybe wizard draw map for Empire?”

  Pi’Vari shook his head. “An Imperial Wizard would have submitted these findings to the Imperial Archives,” he said with finality.

  Dancer shrugged defiantly. “Maybe,” he stressed the word again, which almost made me laugh, “he did.”

  Now it was my turn to shake my head. “If he had submitted them to the Imperial Archives, we would have recognized the flyers,” I explained, “and even if the original author of these documents was unable to ascertain the monster’s specific abilities and tolerances himself for some reason, the Archives would have commissioned a field study immediately upon receiving these papers.”

  Pi’Vari nodded in agreement. “Such studies form the backbone of many Houses’ revenue streams,” he explained. “The amount of money supplied for direct observations and samples of unrecorded specimens is quite significant.”

  “You mean like Master Antolin’s fungus?” asked Aemir.

  “Exactly,” I replied, “that stuff is some sort of tertiary filter for mythicite, and even though the collected quantities are extremely small, the Empire values knowledge above all else. Master Antolin was able to essentially undo decades of financial mismanagement with the proceeds of that ‘discovery.’”

  Everyone in my party knew that Antolin had actually engineered the fungus, and then played a high-stakes game with the Imperial Archives—and won—by concealing his own manipulations of the plant’s form well enough that they went undetected by the assaying team assigned to authenticate the ‘discovery.’ Had his ruse been uncovered it would have almost certainly resulted in sanctions against House Wiegraf which would have crushed our puny House, along with everyone tied to it.

  I turned to Pi’Vari. “But none of this helps us to identify the crevice which leads to what we came for,” I said sternly, even though the discussion had been more than a little illuminating.

  “Quite so, Jezran,” he replied. “Targel’s symbol, prior to defeating his brother and unifying their powers, was that of a chain. More specifically, it was five links of chain, each representing one of his siblings. The angle of the chain was generally with one end suspended in the upper right hand corner of whatever object held the symbol, with the other extending down to the opposite corner. Being the youngest sibling, his father thought it fitting that Targel should bear the duty of all duties: compliance to authority.”

  I was once again amazed at just how much data Pi’Vari had at his disposal. We all turned to look at the cliff, and nothing immediately jumped out at us. But after a few minutes of scanning the rock face, I saw it. “There,” I pointed to a section fifty yards away, “that’s it.”

  My companions looked where I directed, and Pi’Vari was the first to see it. “Yes,” he agreed with a raised brow, “that is a rather uncanny match.”

  Chapte
r VIII: Into the Breach

  We lowered ourselves down the crevice on Aemir’s one hundred foot long rope after Dancer had given the ‘all clear’ signal. I had activated four of the dozen light sticks we had brought, which would burn for nearly a week with a cold, magical light after being activated. Each of us held his glowing light differently: Dancer held his in his teeth, Aemir tied his to his left forearm, I actually held my own in my left hand and Pi’Vari did likewise, but he held his in a reverse grip like an experienced knife fighter holds a blade.

  It was obvious that we were in some sort of elaborate cave system. There were at least a dozen small passages leading off in various directions, and I didn’t have a clue which one to take.

  Dancer immediately got to his knees and scampered around, looking almost like a feral animal of some kind as he sprung here and there on all fours with the bearskin cloak covering his body, sniffing and looking at the dirt. We patiently waited for him to complete his appraisal, and after a few minutes he returned to us.

  “There,” he said, pointing to an opening which was just barely large enough for a person to move through without turning sideways.

  Dancer led the way, followed by Aemir, then myself and Pi’Vari bringing up the rear. We wound through the passageway for at least a half hour, which is much more uncomfortable than one might imagine. There were several spots where even turning sideways barely made passage possible, and Aemir had been forced to remove a few layers of his clothing but he wasn’t complaining. While it wasn’t much warmer down here, at least there wasn’t any wind chill.

  Finally, the natural corridor of sorts opened into a large cavern. The light from our sticks wasn’t enough to illuminate the entire chamber, but there was a faint echo to our footsteps. There was also the sound of running water, and I decided it was time to shed a little more light on the subject.

  I reached into my pocket and retrieved a small leather pouch. Inside were six small, spherical pebbles. Apparently, perfect geometry and precision craftsmanship are conducive to retaining enchantments, and these particular marble-like stones had been prepared for situations similar to this one.

  I withdrew one before closing the pouch and returning it to my pocket. Activating the small flare stones (as I had come to call them) was a simple matter, at least for me. I didn’t even need much concentration to feel the spell contained within the little sphere I held between my thumb and middle finger. Physical contact with single-use items produced under Imperial specifications brought the method of activation to the forefront of a High Wizard’s mind, making activation possible even under stressful conditions.

  With no more mental effort than that required to open a cigarette lighter, I flicked the pebble into the air and sent the activation command to it, squinting my eyes as I did so.

  The flare stone flickered momentarily, like the pre-flash of a camera, then it silently exploded into a gently pulsating, basketball-sized globe of red light which floated in the air like a gently rising balloon. The illumination it provided wasn’t ideal for visualization, but it was enough to get a rough idea of the cavern’s dimensions.

  The general shape of the chamber was hemispherical, maybe a hundred yards across. In the middle of the cavern, running left to right from our perspective, was a stream of water roughly a meter wide.

  Dancer moved ahead without prompting, and Aemir seemed to unconsciously grip the hilt of his scimitar as he stood guard over me. Pi’Vari and I waited for the little man to conduct his initial search as the flare stone floated ponderously across the cavern, better revealing the increasingly nondescript chamber.

  The flare stone would only remain lit for five minutes, but Dancer had returned in little over half that time with his verdict.

  “No path,” he said adamantly as he gestured in the direction of the water’s flow, “only water.”

  “You’re certain you saw tracks leading into this chamber?” I asked doubtfully.

  Dancer folded his arms across his chest in that comically defiant way only a small person could manage. “Tracks here,” he snorted. “Maybe,” he said with that familiar flourish which seemed to tug a smirk from my lips, “they use magic to be fish.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s possible, but unlikely,” I admitted. “Wizards almost universally adhere to Occam’s Razor,” I said absently as I looked upstream.

  “Who?” asked Pi’Vari suddenly. “I am not familiar with that reference,” he said, a puzzled expression on his face.

  I ground my teeth for a moment at yet another in a long line of dialectical faux pas. “It’s just something we used to say at the College,” I said dismissively. “It means stick to the simplest explanation whenever possible.”

  Pi’Vari nodded, but I could sense his skepticism. I really needed to be more careful about running my mouth.

  “If I had to guess,” I began, only to be interrupted by the sudden dimming of the flare stone, and after a few seconds we were once again illuminated by only our glow sticks. It was eerie being underground with so little light, but I collected myself and continued, “I would say that the obvious passage,” I gestured to the downstream end of the flowing water, “is false, just like the crevices above. I think the way we want to go is upstream.”

  We moved toward the water’s inlet point and began to conduct a thorough search of the area, with Dancer climbing some rocky shelves to, and the rest of us studied the stones earnestly.

  “Would it not be simpler to hide an entry with magic?” asked Aemir after a few minutes of fruitless searching.

  Pi’Vari answered before I had the chance. “No, my good Desert Knight,” he said graciously, as though he were at a social function of some kind, “that would make it far too obvious for competent travelers such as ourselves to detect.”

  “I agree,” I assented, “this is clearly a secretive place, and we should be prepared for traps or even bizarre puzzles to solve before gaining entry to whatever lies beyond here.”

  “Traps,” Dancer snickered, shaking his head at least ten feet above us on a rock ledge, “what you people know of traps?”

  “Maybe,” Aemir replied, mocking the little man’s own inflection when he said the word, “it was your people who set them, Dancer,” my Champion retorted.

  I chuckled in spite of myself, even after seeing Dancer’s look of disdain. “Back to searching, everyone,” I instructed.

  Nothing jumped out at me immediately, but after a few more minutes of examination, I noticed something promising.

  “Look here,” I said to Pi’Vari while pointing at a jagged section of rock around which the water was flowing.

  He obliged and studied the area closely before straightening himself. “I see nothing, Jezran,” he said finally, shrugging his shoulders. “It is where the water enters the cavern, nothing more.”

  I nodded, glad to have the upper hand for once, when it comes to a test of knowledge. “Yes Pi’Vari, it is where the water enters the cavern. But do you see how uniform the channel is in the center of the room?” I gestured toward the stream of water. “It took thousands of years to carve a cavern like this, and that means a lot of water running more or less consistently.”

  Pi’Vari nodded. “I am versed in basic geology, Jezran,” he replied with a hint of sarcasm.

  I smirked. “Then you would know that such a flow of water, over thousands of years, would have carved an equally uniform entry point into this chamber,” I retorted triumphantly, pointing toward the area from where the water was coming. “But what we have here is a set of jagged stones which the water is passing around. Thousands of years of water erosion would have at the very least smoothed the edges of those stones.”

  “So the stones are new?” asked Aemir.

  I shook my head. “The stones aren’t new; the flow of the water is new,” I replied.

  “How new?” came Dancer’s voice from above us.

  “Not long,” I mused, “probably only a few years, but I’m no expert.”

 
; “Then precisely where is the old path, Jezran?” inquired Pi’Vari.

  I looked at the direction of the canal, which led to almost exactly where we were standing. “I’m not exactly sure,” I said, more than a little puzzled. “The canal indicates that it should be right here.”

  “It appears that Dancer might have found the answer,” Aemir said grudgingly. I looked up and saw the little man scampering up the rock face at a speed which would have made a spider monkey envious. He was almost to the roof of the chamber when he stopped and studied the stone surface intently, wiping it with his finger.

  Apparently satisfied with his appraisal, he gripped his spear awkwardly in one hand and began to chisel on the stone, making an odd, wet sound as the blade met the wall.

  “Dancer, you need to be careful,” I warned, fully forty feet below him. “We don’t know what might have-“

  I was interrupted by a loud, brief, sucking sound from Dancer’s position, and I leapt to the side as a huge section of stone came crashing down toward us.

  The three of us managed to scatter away from where the boulder landed, and I turned just in time to see it impact on the hard, grey stone of the floor.

  Only it didn’t land with a crack, or a crunch, or any other noise I would have expected from a boulder of its size. Instead, it landed with a wet thunk, and the entire thing deformed on impact without throwing a single shard.

  “Not stone,” yelled Dancer confidently, “painted mud.”

  He was right; the entire thing was a large, previously sculpted chunk of mud with a layer of paint clearly intended to make it blend in with the rest of the wall.

  “A little warning is too much to ask before you send a giant mud ball down at us?” I barked up at Dancer.

  Dancer’s head popped out of the hidden passageway. “What?” he shouted.

  I shook my head, and decided it best if I let the whole thing pass. “We could probably use your rope about now, Aemir,” I observed, not particularly wanting to die by falling down this particular slick, rocky wall.