spoke soft words that Taennen could not understand. The wizard opened his eyes and examined the door for a few moments, his smile growing wider and wider. 'If only you could see what I'm seeing, Taennen.'
Taennen remembered his father telling him that there were ways of seeing magical spells in places that normal people could not see them. He often spoke of the incredible light thrown off by waiting magic in the devices he crafted.
'The marvel of this is that it can be dismissed,' Khatib said.
'Dismissed?'
'Whoever built this door knew that not everyone who would need to use this tower would be a master of the art,' he said, turning a pedagogical eye on Taennen. 'I can lock or unlock it with the proper words. That will allow you poor souls unschooled in the Art to pass when you have need to do so.'
'Your spell revealed the words to you?'
'No, no. My spell showed me what is there. I was given the words before we left.'
'When Jhoqo received the order to secure Neversfall?' Taennen asked. Khatib nodded.
Which meant Jhoqo hadn't trusted Taennen with the passphrase. With his performance on the mission, Taennen wasn't sure he could blame his commander. He wanted to share in everything with Jhoqo, all of the responsibilities. But Jhoqo had judged him unfit in this case, and he was right.
'Unlock it, wizard,' Taennen said.
Khatib uttered a string of words in some arcane tongue. To Taennen's eyes there was no change, but Khatib stepped aside and waved an arm toward the portal, inviting Taennen to enter. Taennen trusted the wizard and reached for the handle, pushing the door inward. His heart pounded against his chest. He had no idea what to expect beyond the door, but he was unable to contain his excitement at seeing it firsthand.
As the door swung open, the brightness of the circular room shocked his eyes. Taennen blinked several times, dancing afterimages in whites and pinks filling his vision. In sharp contrast to the dim stairwell, the room atop the tower was open, airy, and filled with sunlight. Instead of solid walls, it had only corner supports, holding up the roof, leaving the space between empty. Taennen stepped toward one of the window openings and looked out. The vast expanse of land opened before him, and he could see across the top of the Aerilpar, or at least part of it, to the east.
Taennen was put in mind of his training from his youth. One of his instructors had used tiny wooden models of soldiers, siege engines, even flora and fauna the size of garnishes to demonstrate mock battles. The world below him, the real world, was little more than that from his vantage point. He moved to the west window of the tower and looked down to see his fellow soldiers moving about the courtyard. He could barely make out details, their faces blurred by the distance to the ground. He moved back to the eastern window. The treetops of the Aerilpar became an ocean of green. He felt as though he were floating, lost amidst their waves.
Behind him, Khatib gasped. Taennen turned to see the man squinting as he stared at a stone table in front of one of the windows, identical to three other tables in front of the other windows. Taennen examined the table in front of him. Crystals, evenly spaced, seemed to grow from the stone tabletop. Some crystals were clusters of a dozen or more, others stood tall by themselves in a variety of shapes.
'They glow even to my eyes,' Taennen said. 'What are they?' The crystals ranged in color from amber to red, green to chartreuse, blue to the dark of midnight.
'They control Neversfall,' Khatib said, kneeling before one of the tables. He ran his fingers along one of the crystals and giggled giddily. 'Fascinating.'
'What do you mean?' Taennen asked.
The wizard moved to the table on the southern side and studied the crystals there for a few moments before grasping two of them and tracing patterns across their surfaces with his fingers.
'Would you like to see the Curnas?' Khatib asked, pointing toward the southern window.
'How do you mean?' Taennen said, turning to face where the man had indicated.
Taennen stepped backward when an image began to form before him where the southern window had been a moment before. The northern peaks of the Curna Mountains shone before his eyes, like a reflection on water but clearer and more distinct. The rocks and trees waved in pulsing rhythm, like an image on a sheet blown by the wind. 'How?' Taennen asked.
The view changed, moving even closer to the mountains. Taennen could see a bear scratching its flabby body on the trunk of a tree.
'That's…' he said. 'That's over a hundred leagues away.'
Khatib nodded. 'What better gift to grant a watch tower?'
'You can do that in every direction?' he asked, spinning his gaze around the room. 'Yes.'
'Jhoqo will want to see this,' Taennen said.
'I'm sure he will,' Khatib said. 'He was quite interested when they told us about it.'
Taennen eyed the man. 'You knew of this too?'
Khatib shrugged but affirmed. 'Just Jhoqo and myself. They felt we needed to know about the tools that would be at our disposal.'
Taennen thanked the man and started past him toward the stairs.
'Wait,' Khatib said. 'It does so much more.'
Taennen turned to face the man. The wizard's smile was contagious. His lined face shone with the merriment usually expressed by children showing off new toys.
'Like what?' Taennen asked.
Khatib waved him over to the northern window. The wizard's hands darted among the crystals on the table, twisting some, pushing others. A low hum tickled Taennen's ears as the crystals began to glow even more brightly.
The view through the northern window shifted, drawing in close and tight on a section of ground. Taennen blinked again, surprised by the closeness of the view. He could see individual rocks and flowering plants that dotted the plains.
'There-that large, light-colored rock,' Khatib said, pointing to the image in the window.
'Yes?'
'That rock lies approximately half a league away. Please use that spyglass of yours to locate it,' Khatib said.
Taennen drew out his spyglass and stepped toward the window. Khatib waved a hand and the closeup image shrank to consume half the window. Taennen stood next to the hovering image and looked out the unhindered portion of the window. He scanned the ground until he found the rock.
'I have it,' he said.
'Excellent. You have seen me use a spell before that emits small missiles of light?' 'Yes,' Taennen said.
'Watch the stone carefully,' Khatib said.
Taennen held his gaze on the rock. Behind him, Khatib murmured arcane words for a moment. A low buzzing sound vibrated in his ears but he held his gaze on the rock. A few heartbeats later, darts of light plowed into the rock, tossing it on its side, and left a blackened hole in the ground where the rock had been. Taennen jerked back a step withdrawing the spyglass from his eye.
'By all the One,' he said.
Khatib chuckled. 'Fantastic, isn't it?'
'The tower did that?'
'Oh no. I cast the spell as you have seen me do. The tower allowed me to do it from this distance with that level of accuracy,' Khatib said.
'You could kill a man that far away,' Taennen said. 'Oh, most definitely.'
Taennen turned to face the. man. 'What else?'
Khatib pointed to a cluster of crystals on the right side of the table. 'I can open, close and lock the gate from here. And,' he said, pointing to another crystal, 'sound an alarm here.' He shifted to another set of the crystals, 'This one is how we report to command in Estagund.'
'This is amazing,' Taennen said. 'Does each table contain the same controls?'
Khatib nodded. 'It was designed so that four masters of the Art,' he said with a slight bow, 'could each defend one direction from the citadel. With these, I and three others could hold off an army trying to assault Neversfall without risking any of our soldiers in combat. Lucky me, I get it to myself for the nonce.'
