This post is chapter forty-six of my not-previously-published epic fantasy novel Broken Rule, which I'm serializing here on Steemit.
The story so far:
Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45
Arturo found Kubara to be a distinctly unpleasant city. He was trying to be generous and avoid making rash judgments, but it was difficult to find the Tarkannans to be anything other than simple and backward. His lunch at the inn certainly demonstrated that their food wasn't up to Torzani standards. Arturo had found it difficult to relate to any of the Tarkannans, difficult to get any useful information out of them. Luckily, Walther had taken to them like a duck to water, and seemed to make fast friends with anyone he could converse with for more than a few minutes. He had followed up myriad leads, pursued countless rumors, heard endless tales. Eventually he had discovered two men who were supposed to know a great deal about the priest whose fire magic had aroused their interest. Petro and Trapper were staying in this very inn, and were rumored to spend the afternoons in the common room. As promised, the two men came down the stairs while Arturo finished off his stew. Walther went over to their table and talked to them for a few minutes, and then beckoned to Arturo and Orso to join them.
Walther made introductions all around, and then got right to the point. “We're interested in this priest that burned the palace down, and we understand that you two were friends of his.”
“Not so loud!” Petro protested. “Learned Marek ain't so popular in these parts, and we don't want no trouble.”
“We understand,” said Walther, producing a small bag of coins and dropping it on the table in front of Petro. Where had he gotten those? “We intend to make it worth your while.”
The money soothed Petro's nerves considerably, although a hint of sadness seemed to play over his face. “Well, what do you want to know? We didn't know him that long. And how was we to know that he wasn't on the level? He seemed pretty holy to me. The bishop says he was evil, but I seen him burn that demon, and how is that evil?”
“It's the burning part that interests us. The magic. Where did he learn it?”
Petro and Trapper traded worried glances. Walther produced another bag of coins, apparently enough to loosen Petro's tongue. He lowered his voice to a whisper, though, in an abundance of caution. “There was a library. We done dug a hole down to it, and there was books inside. He learned the magic from the books.”
There it was. Not just a single book, but a whole library. Who knew what treasures could lie inside? Arturo was speaking before he even realized it. “Can you take us there?”
“We'll pay,” Walther added.
Petro and Trapper traded glances again. Finally Petro spoke. “I don't think so. I was cut in the fighting, and I can't walk so good anymore.”
Arturo and Walther looked to Orso expectantly. Orso sighed. “I am a healer. Perhaps I can do something about that.”
“I already seen a surgeon, and he says there's nothing can be done.”
Orso smiled. “I think you'll find that my capabilities are quite beyond any mere surgeon's.”
Trapper finally spoke. “What can it hurt to let him look?”
Petro relented, unwrapped his bandages, and showed Orso the stab wound in his leg. Orso used a knife to make small slices in each of his fingertips and ran them over Petro's wound. The big man grimaced in pain, but his flesh seemed agitated into action and sealed itself together. Orso washed away the blood and pus on the surface of the skin and not even a scar remained. Orso's fingertips showed no sign of being cut, either. Petro flexed his leg experimentally, showing no sign of any pain. His pleasure turned to suspicion, however, once he had a moment to think about it.
“That weren't natural.”
“No,” agreed Walther. “We're wizards.”
Petro looked to Trapper again, and simply shrugged, not knowing what to make of this development. Petro looked at each of the wizards in turn and then rendered his judgment. “I suppose it makes as much sense to take wizards to the library as anyone else." He continued, his voice taking on a bitter edge. "Learned Marek said we was supposed to keep it secret, but the bishop says we ain't supposed to listen to what Learned Marek told us, so I guess that's a wash. And you said you was willing to pay?”
Walther produced more coins. “And that much again when we get to the library.”
“It's a deal.”
Arturo and Orso stayed at the inn while Walther took care of arranging their provisions. Arturo wondered how Arturo had become so adept at dealing with merchants, but assumed that he must have learned about such things during his travels. Besides, to learn the answers he would need to converse with Walther, which was something he didn't like to do. There was something about the young wizard that always seemed to rub Arturo the wrong way. When they were ready to depart, Walther led them all to a stable. Walther used his seemingly endless supply of coins to purchase horses for each of them, no small feat in a city as chaotic as Kubara. He presented a brown mare to Arturo, claiming it was the gentlest animal available. Arturo had to wonder whether Walther was lying about that or whether he would have had an even worse time with a different beast. He longed for his more civilized home, where the only horses were safely tethered to comfortable carriages and tended by men who knew how to handle them.
Trapper led them south. The roads, while rough and uneven, seemed deserted. The march of Gavril's army must have frightened most of the people off, or perhaps just into hiding. When they arrived at the Wolf's Teeth, they found a partial fortification around the library, but were surprised to find no one there. Petro and Trapper had been certain that an entire company of soldiers would be waiting for them, but the place had been abandoned.
The library itself was magnificent. Huge shelves of ancient tomes stretched nearly to the ceiling. The books were old, but certainly readable. Arturo's hands shook with anticipation as he pulled volume after volume from the shelves and flipped through the pages, but he was too excited to actually read any of them. So much knowledge! His for the taking! Orso interrupted his reverie.
“We should figure out what happened to the people here.”
“Who cares?” offered Walther.
“If something happened to them, it might happen to us,” suggested Trapper. That was worth thinking about. With their minds refocused on more practical matters, Trapper discovered some dried blood on one of the library doors. Petro swore that it hadn't been there before.
“Can you do anything with that, Arturo?” Walther asked.
As if he wouldn't have thought of that himself! Arturo scraped some flakes of the blood into a wide, shallow bowl. Blood was usually a reliable link through the Veil of Death, so his death vision spell ought to work nicely. He dumped his canteen into the bowl and added Orso's water as well. The others gathered around to watch. He began his tapping, but no images formed in the bowl. Puzzling. “Whoever left that blood must not be dead.”
“That's good to know,” said an unfamiliar voice from behind. “And there are a great many more things for you to explain.”