What Berthal sought, what Tythonnia hunted for a week after arriving, was in the crypts, not the library. The latter was protected by too many traps and spells, but the crypts contained only corpses … supposedly. Anyone intombed there had donated his or her books and possessions to the orders and the various libraries. Thus, there was nothing of interest to crypt-robbers and little reason to protect it.
The crypts lay beneath the ground, between the principal towers of Wayreth. A winding staircase of polished stone and friezes etched in mercurial runes spiraled down into the central crypt. Tythonnia tried to breathe deliberately, to slow her pounding heart, but the deeper she descended, the faster her heart raced. Not only was she betraying her oath and her order, she was about to do so before the dead eyes of High Sorcery’s most powerful luminaries.
If there’s ever a place to be afraid of ghosts, it’s here, Tythonnia thought. Her imagination played on her fears, and she envisioned the reanimated dead masters killing her in a hundred different, terrible ways. Another fear drove her forward, however. Amma Batros was coming the next day for a visit, and Tythonnia didn’t want to be around. She couldn’t bear looking Amma in the face, knowing she was about to betray someone she cared for deeply.
Through the archways at the bottom of the stairs, she entered the central crypt.
The chamber was circular and well greater than sixty feet in diameter. Across the domed ceiling was a stylized panorama of stars and planets as they appeared in the sky above Wayreth right at that moment. It was a masterful illusion, displaying the planets and constellations in silver against a deep azure sky. Lines of gold flickered between the stars, showing the signs of the different gods. It was the sole illumination in the chamber that evening and more than enough to cast an eerie light over everything.
Around her, set into the wall, were the funeral vaults, each one dedicated to the head of the conclave or hero of the order. Past the silver-plated gates were the sarcophagi themselves, each one topped with a gold slab, their sides enameled appropriately in red, white, or black. Three corridors led from the central chamber into the catacombs for the hundreds of wizards interred there. Each corridor was dedicated to one of the three orders and fell away into the darkness, but Tythonnia was grateful she didn’t need to enter any of them. What she sought was in the room she stood in.
Skipping the ones where she saw red or white coffins and focusing on the black ones, Tythonnia checked the name above each vault. Finally, she came to the one she was looking for: Gadrella of Tarsis, the first woman and the first of her order to sit as highmage.
The gate waited for Tythonnia to open it, and she swallowed hard. She was about to defile the resting place of a highmage, a Black Robe at that. No telling what nasty little tricks protected Gadrella’s vault. A bit of necromancy was enough to animate the dead or to kill a grave robber with a withering affliction. A thousand possible deaths awaited Tythonnia if she proceeded, and yet she’d live through a thousand deaths if she lied to herself and stayed with the orders. Her heart didn’t belong to them or the three moons anymore. Hers was the most ancient of traditions, the magic fueled by passion.
“Live one day honestly,” she reminded herself and touched the bone key to the silver gate. It glided open silently and stopped just short of clanging against the wall. Tythonnia prayed Berthal was right about the key, that it would keep her safe from possible traps. She stepped into the vault, each foot forward celebrated with a pause as she waited for the hammer to drop. Nothing happened, however.
Tythonnia placed the key against the golden slab, and it, too, pivoted open. Inside the velvet-lined coffin lay the corpse of Gadrella. The enchantments had slowed her deterioration, but had not halted her decay. Her skin had grayed and was eaten through at the cheeks. Her eyelids and eyes were completely missing, as was her nose. Thin, brittle, white hair that fell across her black pillow covered her head. Gadrella’s mouth lay open in a perpetual gasp, and her desiccated hands rested across her chest.
What must come next filled Tythonnia with dread. Every time she thought about it, she stopped herself and almost backed away from the sarcophagus entirely. Finally, she took the bone key and pressed it into Gadrella’s mouth as quickly as she could. Tythonnia shuddered fiercely and silently cursed the Black Robes for their necromancy.
A sigh seemed to escape Gadrella’s shriveled lips, and the fabric of her black robes rustled. Tythonnia realized Gadrella was holding a book beneath her hands.
Berthal had told her about the legend, about a key Gadrella had fashioned to hide a book. It was meant for the Black Robes if there was ever a desperate time for their numbers. The book would return to her only when someone placed the key in her mouth. However, the tome would serve Berthal instead. It was worth far more than the three books he gave Tythonnia to regain her compatriots’ trust.
Tythonnia carefully slid the book out from beneath Gadrella’s dead fingers. It was heavy, its surface bronze and silver, and its patterns reminiscent of spiderwebs layered over one another until no light could shine through them. It reminded Tythonnia of the volume strapped to Dumas’s chest.
Etched into the steel plate, bolted into its front was its title:
She took the book and retrieved the key from Gadrella’s mouth. No sooner had she pulled it out, however, then the gold slab covering the coffin and the gate to the vault both slid closed. Tythonnia’s heart stuttered, and she struggled to breathe. No monster gripped her lungs, only her own fears choking her. She forced herself to relax, to think clearly. She was not trapped … not yet.
Then she heard footsteps echoing through the stairwell. Someone was racing down into the central crypt.
With the key tucked safely away, Tythonnia fumbled for the pouch on her belt. The footsteps grew louder, like thunder, spurring Tythonnia to move faster. But the pouch strings were tied too well. Her fingers couldn’t pull the knot apart. She tore at it but only tightened it further. The echo of footfalls was too painful to bear, like someone hammering on the door of her ears. She couldn’t be caught. Too much depended on her escape. She grunted in panic and pulled out her dagger.
“Tythonnia!”
It was Ladonna. Tythonnia went cold; she did not want witnesses to her betrayal, least of all Ladonna and Par-Salian. Better that she vanish into the night, never to see the disappointment on their faces. She pulled at the string and slit just below the knot. Ladonna raced into the chamber and spun around, trying to find her. Tythonnia ducked behind the sarcophagus. To her terror, the footsteps raced straight for Gadrella’s vault.
“Answer me!” Ladonna cried. “I know you’re in there! Tythonnia!”
Tythonnia pulled a flask from her pouch. A gold liquid filled its belly, its mouth covered with a wood stopper and sealed in wax. She couldn’t believe she was about to leave behind her life of the past ten years. Her mind reeled at the thought of her own betrayal, but she didn’t belong here anymore.
Tythonnia cringed at Ladonna’s arcane word, then she heard the gate of the funeral vault swing open. More footsteps sounded as Ladonna raced into the chamber.
“Tythonnia! No, wait!”
Tythonnia bit down on the wood stopper and pulled it free with her teeth.
“I’m sorry,” Tythonnia said. “I have to.”
“You don’t understand! The book-”
It was too late. As Ladonna rounded the sarcophagus, her hands outstretched to grab her, Tythonnia tossed the liquid back, splashing it into her mouth. She didn’t swallow it; it evaporated on her tongue, sending pricks of pain down her throat. Ladonna’s words were lost in the tremor rush of thunder that swelled in her ears.
Like a page of the world turning, everything around Tythonnia slipped out from around her. She was no longer anchored in the world. Instead, she was standing out in the green forests of Qualinesti, at the foot of the ancient and knotted trees. Another page turned, and she stood a dozen yards above the waters of the Schallsea Straits. Before she could fall even an inch, she found herself on the hills near the Garnet Mountains, on the Plains of Solamnia, high in the instantly bitter cold of the Vingaard frost, in Berthal’s tent.
She would have fallen, had a startled Berthal not caught her.
“Back so soon?” He half laughed. Tythonnia was shivering, her body frozen to the marrow by the magic that drove the potion; she couldn’t stop her teeth chattering long enough to speak. She dropped the book, but Berthal ignored it as it thudded to the ground. He lowered her and pulled the cover from his bedroll to wrap her inside it. Afterward he warmed her with soft kisses to her face until she could finally speak.
