Chapter 25

The next five links were much less exciting with temporarily closed temples and locked front doors. All of them were empty. He took the time to peruse the correspondence on their desks and to check if any coins were left undeposited. One Gura did a poor job hiding love letters from his mistress and another one was addicted to an unspecified substance. He did not find a copy of the summons to the Convocation, much to his frustration.

Zuri was anxious to get to Lewa Ilu in any case. He had yet to lay eyes upon the summoning letter, but he was confident he was arriving near the requested date. Zuri sat down in the Pointing Chayre with anxiety as he contemplated his next jump. The Pointing Chayre held several links to the capitol city, and none appeared to be labeled. Each of the seven districts held the unusual device along with the cathedral at the Seminary. He did not want to pop up in the Seminary when the clutch of Gura were gathering.

He chose what felt like the oldest link; there was a quality to the linkage, as if the tether was thicker and denser. Either Zuri was becoming more comfortable with the Chayre or he was becoming more attuned to its nuances at the minimum. He tapped.

The silence was odd. The fact that he was not on a pulpit in a temple was also peculiar. He was in a cage with a big, rusted lock on the other side, surrounded by piles of discarded crap. There was light though. Without moving from the Chayre, he looked backwards to see high windows usually associated with a temple, but these were dirty and full of cobwebs. The area in front of the cage had a large wall that began about head high and ran back to the left and further down towards the right, transecting an old stone foundation wall diagonally.

“I think,” Zuri said out loud, “that I’m in the old sanctuary and there is a new sanctuary built on the bones of the old one.” He stood up and began to examine the piles. “I think they dumped all the old stuff from the original temple down here, including the Pointing Chayre. Idiots didn’t know what it was.”

Slowly his eyes adjusted to the dim light. He identified Ghura Master travel cloaks, something he had never seen outside of Ungjin. “No one has been down here years uncounted, maybe centuries,” Zuri said, kicking up dust wherever he stepped.

A pile on his left fell over, revealing a small codex, a bound book with a leather cord to keep the book closed and the pages sealed tight from the air. Zuri untied the cord and turned to a random page. “The sunrise was beautiful this morning. I walked two leagues until I came to a farm. Part of the grove was afflicted with a yellow ringed blight that was killing the mature leaves in only a few weeks. I’m not sure if it’s an insect or a disease though. I took samples.”

A Ghura Master at work. Zuri shook his head at the humdrum awe of such a basic entry and then he remembered his walk in Qirin. “I did that!” he husked. He was heartened that the old pattern was alive and well, working in its common way without fanfare or noise. He tucked the journal in his pack for later reading.

As he worked his way around the back of the Chayre, he stumbled over an unmoving object that caused him to tumble into a couple of piles. He couldn’t regain his balance and down he went. Once he wiped the dust and dirt from his face with his sleeve, Zuri felt something hard and bony poking his ribs. Fearing the worst because he had already seen human bones at a temple, he scurried to the side. Whatever it was, the object was secured in a scuffed and cracked leather pouch. The leather fell apart in his hand but a steel dagger about two fingers’ length long with a bone handle was unspoiled. Initials were carved into the back of the handle, but Zuri did not bother to look.

After tucking the knife in his pack, promising himself he would secure a new pouch, he took a closer look at where he tripped. Tossing aside the rags and scraps, he uncovered a half-finger’s length of a staff. The wood he could see had the same pristine shine as the working Pointing Chayres. Carefully, he reached out with his pinkie and lightly touched the wood. Ahsa, deep and resonating, echoed in his ears even though only his first digit touched the staff. He pulled back his hand and considered what he had found.

His staff was one of a First or Second Masters’ creations. He was comfortable with it and its abilities. He also knew that his staff had limits because it was built by someone from the Second Mastery. As a novice, he was comfortable with the limitations because the last thing he had wanted to do was hold a device greater than his control. Leniz had drilled some good lessons about the effectiveness of knowing one’s limits and the dangerous consequences of going too far too soon.

In the end, he decided he could not pass up the opportunity. He had not found such a storeroom in Ungjin, although much was still hidden there. Here was a major arcane find and he was alone, without another colleague to lend a hand or watch his back. Wrapping his hands in filthy rags, Zuri excavated the staff from the pile.

In the dim light, he admired the artifact. The staff did not look impressive, but rather plain and unmarred with runes or ornamentation. After washing his hands from his waterskin, and wiping his hands on his own cloak, he drew a deep breath. “No guts, no glory,” he muttered as he grasped the staff with both hands.

His Ahsa blossomed within his gut first before traveling through every sinew in his body. When Zuri opened his eyes to the aura, he witnessed the staff glowing painfully bright while his own body was sheathed in a golden glow that overwhelmed his own signature. His body vibrated until he retook control and dialed down his own Ahsa.

He remembered to breathe. “God is a given, but good God, what is this staff?” he said. “I cannot test potential Ghuras with this staff; it’ll kill them before I can even tell them yay or nay.”

He considered his options again, deciding at last to keep both staffs. He stood up and futilely dusted himself off one last time. Treading cautiously around the stacks still standing, Zuri made his way to the front of the storeroom. The lock was a rusted mass of metal, which made Zuri doubt the mechanism still worked.

Reaching through the bars, he brought the lock partway between the metal rods. The lock left an orange residue on his hand, but the metal was still secure. Retrieving the twine in his pack, he tied the lock against the metal rods of the door. After clearing enough space to avoid tripping again, he hoisted his original staff over his head, and smashed down on the lock. The metal cracked a little. Eight blows later, Zuri was able to twist the lock enough to break the mechanism inside.

Outside the storeroom, Zuri reconnoitered the room, confirming his original guess. He was standing in the original temple and the new one was built on top of it on the diagonal. The Senior Gura at the time of construction must have decided to build a secure storeroom for the ancient relics and promptly forgot about the locked cage. Yet, the Senior Gura had one of the great staffs in his possession. He had tossed it on the floor as if it was nothing of great import, Zuri concluded. “Blind, ignorant children,” Zuri said as he circumnavigated the small space again.

He found the door underneath the floor of the new building. Stooping low and almost on his knees, he pressed the latch on the door. Reluctantly, the door opened. Zuri stepped out into the basement hallway. There were high small windows on the other wall that allowed light into the corridor. There was no dust, leaving him to suspect that the hallway was maintained. Looking back at the doorway, he saw cut stone that served as a rail for the floor foundation above and the small hole from which he had emerged underneath. “I guess no one was curious enough to explore,” he said. “Typical Gura.”

Locating the staircase, Zuri climbed the stairs and exited the temple. He was forced to ask someone, but he learned he was in the Duvalayra District, the western neighborhoods that catered to the middling-merchant class and ranked guild members. The Great Hall where the Gura Convocation would take place was in the ring surrounding the Royal District, the Lesser Royal Ring. The Ring was filled with the public facing structures of the Royal courts, the fine hotels, and mansions of the great nobility, all of whom had a back door leading to the Royal District. Even the Royal guards patrolled the lesser ring on occasion, dressed in their ornate, shiny uniforms.

Zuri went back inside, tracing his way to the storeroom from which he emerged. Using a short leather strap, he secured the broken lock in its original position. He was confident there was more to excavate from the reliquary, but he would need hours, if not days, to sift through the debris. Sitting back in the Pointing Chayre, he realized there must be a fake Chayre upstairs in the new temple sanctuary. Why did they bother to replace the original when it looked as shiny as the day it was completed? He had already answered the question a dozen times in different formats.

Bringing up the globe and the stick, Zuri sensed two other nearby Pointing Chayres. He chose the first one and tapped. The air was fresh and filled with the scent of fragrant flowers. He was in a small, ornate room with a tile floor and polished wood walls carved with fanciful trees, bushes, and flowers. The overhead rafters were also carved with heavenly bodies, while light streamed in from all sides underneath a roof that appeared to float above the walls. Leaving his gear and old staff next to the Chayre, Zuri took his new staff and cracked open the door as quietly and slowly as he could. He saw a garden. After a moment’s pause to listen, he opened the door more and stuck his head out for a looksee. A high manor wall surrounded two sides of the garden, which was located in a corner of the property. Peering around the corner of the building, he saw a house of cut and grouted fieldstone topped with polished wood and a clay tiled roof behind well-pruned trees.

“Patriarch’s house, I’m guessing,” Zuri murmured. He was curious as to if the house had any relics on display, but he doubted the house had been left unattended. On the other side of the small garden were two benches and several chairs around a block of carved stone. The carving on the side he could see appeared to depict one of the forecourt’s glyphs in Ungjin. “Clues everywhere and they are clueless.”