Chapter 13

The walk-in vault hidden by the bookshelf behind the desk had been too obvious to be a challenge, only a little more challenge than finding the broom closet. The basic mechanics of a spin dial and tumblers easily revealed that the vault was meant to keep out the normals because anyone with modicum of phyzeec could follow the play of the tumblers to tease out the four numbers in the proper order.

The space inside the vault was almost as empty as the rest of the building. Any interesting devices had been removed and all that remained were several ledger books of disappeared accounts. Still, the vault was secure enough to lock up the bejeweled sword with some sense of relief. Aden closed the door and swung the bookshelf back into place, feeling like he was putting away an anchor weight of a bygone era.

Sitting in the headmaster’s chair with his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands, Aden felt the crushing weight of the entire building upon his shoulders. What had happened here was not the death and mayhem of his practitioner’s temple, yet the results were the same: a hollow shell of random shadows accompanied by rumors of memories long dispersed. They, whoever they were, never returned. Except for the names of nine yet-to-be-confirmed students, no trace remained of who these wizards were. The office, as the rest of the main floor, was bare.

He had not gone upstairs yet; in fact, he had not moved from the first floor. The hollowness of the building, the ringing of his footsteps and the rasping of his breaths, ratcheted up his anxiety. He knew the building was empty but something about the echoes of his footfalls and the creaking of the roof in the wind unsettled his certainty; he was missing something of which he had no clue what the something might be. For instance, he had not found the cozy lounge where the masters would relax after a day of classes. This floor reflected sterner stuff.

The top pressing curiosity was the stairs leading down, either to personal labs, storage, or practice rooms; the only stairs leading down on the entire floor were through the secretary’s office. The headmaster had kept strict control over who went down and presumably, who came back up. With two backend surprises to the spells he had encountered, Aden was wary of descending the stairs alone now, especially alone.

His stomach rumbled, reminding Aden the day was advancing and he had not eaten. He stood and wandered. Sitting in a chair in the middle of the main room, looking up at the ribs of the barrel vault, he was conflicted by his own predicaments leading in two different directions. Puzzle by puzzle, he was walking away from his previous life and immersing himself in a new mystery of missing wizards and their artifices. Far too many clues were absent, almost as if they were deliberately hidden. Yet his first life had not let go either, sending assassins after him. Should he watch his back or scan the horizon?

Turning back to the mystery at hand, Aden tried another solution. Not allowing his eyes to alight in any one place, Aden tried to construct a model of what was intrinsically wrong. Although he was from half-a-world away, probably, he knew schools from pedestrian to military, and from illicit to masterly. This place did not fit any of the forms; indeed, these rooms were deliberate misfits. By ear and by eye, something was deliberately off.

Pain flashed through his belly. The needs of his body could no longer be ignored. Aden fished the key out of his pocket and walked out the front door. As he turned the key in the lock, he watched the barrier rolled back into place, affix itself to the skin of the edifice, and fade into near invisibility. “Neat trick,” he mumbled, as he buried the key in the bottom of a pocket inside his travel cloak.

Up the avenue and past several cross streets, Aden caught sight of a tavern sign waving in the slight breeze. The room was crowded but the sweet smell of fresh straw strewn across the floor muffled some of the sound and masked most of the odor of working men and women at the end of the day. The custom of a tavern as a man’s domain was not practiced in this city. No matter, the mood was bright, and the lamps were not particularly smoky.

There was one seat at the far end of the bar where the smaller tapped keg rested against the wall. The ale was flowing across the tables and down the bar top, giving Aden a clue of what to order. He drank his first ale while waiting for a bowl of mutton stew to magically appear from a doorway just behind him. Nostalgia washed over him as he recollected the many taverns where he had sat and watched the locals enjoy a quaff and a laugh. If the pattern held true, the night would not be complete until someone got slapped and a ribald song rolled across the room.

“New in town?”

Aden apprised the older man with his wiry beard and his clouded right eye. The face was a mass of wrinkles from years in the sun and his nose was veiny. His hands were shaking slightly with the tremors that traveled up and down his arms.

“Yep,” Aden said. “I picked up the wagon coming south from Crestfall.”

“Cursed northland not fit for man or beast,” the man said after he gulped a slug of his ale. “The governor could save a pretty penny if he just abandoned that wizard’s wreck.”

“It is mostly an empty land now,” Aden said with a shrug. “There is nothing to curse up there anymore. The forests and farms have long since been abandoned, except for what Crestfall needs. Good strong liquor too.”

“They say that the souls of the defeated battle wizards haunt that land, looking for their lost home. How anyone could live with the daily threat of a wizard’s ghost seizing their body and dispatching his soul is beyond me. They’re seeking the perfect vessel for their revenge on Kagan-cal.”

“I had not heard that story nor seen any possessions of souls,” Aden said, carefully sipping the dregs of his first mug. “My travel companion was not much for conversation, a bit grumpy really. What were these wizards warring over?”

The old man gave him the squint eye. “It was the reign of the last king of the Dominion, it was. Not these fancy pants ones that stick fussy governors over a few cities and call themselves royals of the realm, but a real monarch of all the lands and the seas surrounding. He brought his army up from the harbor and routed the smug bastards. None of their evil spells could touch his head. He chased them right out of the city and all the way north to Crestfall. He felled them all but was mortally wounded in the end. He gave them their just reward, he did. Did you see that island all the way out on the north side of the harbor?

Aden shook his head instead of interrupting.

“The last Dominion King is buried there. No one goes there anymore. Even graverobbers finally figured out that the tomb is sealed forever. He saved the kingdom and gave his life doing it. None of these idiots today would even get out of their chairs to look out the window. He took an entire army north himself to fight the wizard plague upon the land. He was a real royal.”