“That makes sense. This is Hilda’s magic, to keep Samantha’s mother off the scent.”
“How do you make a golem?” I asked.
“It’s not very hard, as long as you have the right kind of clay and a piece of the subject’s DNA. Getting those things is tricky, but once you have them, it’s simple transfiguration magic.”
“Hey,” Katie said. “Can you tell where this golem thing was made?”
“Of course I can,” Frank said with a snort. “But why?”
“If we knew where it was made, then we could backtrack and find where Hilda is right now.”
“And if we find Hilda, we find Samantha.”
“I like the way you think,” Frank said. “Sure, I can put a locator spell on her origin. Just give me a couple of minutes to close up.”
Chapter 38
After closing the shop, Frank led us into the back room and pressed his hand against the back wall. When he did, the entire room lit up green, slits of light emanating from cracks in the walls. The entire room shook and then my stomach leapt into my throat as we descended rapidly into the bowels of the store.
“You have a secret lair?” Katie asked.
“Of course,” Frank replied. “The store is just the front that I show the world. What I do in the basement is for myself, and much more important.”
“Hey,” I said as the room lowered down. “Have you ever heard of the Central Branch of the Council’s library?”
Frank nodded. “Of course. I’ve been trying to get a library card for years, but they keep denying me.”
“Where is the library?” Katie asked.
“I don’t know. My dear wife did, but Hilda swore her to secrecy. Now, come on. We’re almost there.”
The room slammed to a stop and I tumbled to the ground. Katie fell, too, only she dropped through the floor and quickly popped back up, looking a little embarrassed. Frank walked to the other side of the room and opened the door.
“Follow me,” he said.
I grabbed Samantha’s golem by the collar and pushed her through the doorway which led to a set of stairs, taking us even lower. Lanterns drilled into the rock walls of the cavern lit our path with an ominous green glow. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, Frank stood before a stone door adorned with a giant flaming eye.
Frank closed his eyes and brought his hands together at his chest. “Emegtu Ligotiu Reanta.”
A small green light shone from the iris onto Frank’s face. When it disappeared, the heavy doors slid open and we walked inside.
“Imendi!” Frank shouted, and green lights flickered on in the circular room. Shelves lining the walls were filled with jars of every type and size. Each jar held some sort of disgusting creature or body part suspended in liquid. I saw a brain, a foot, and a neck as I walked into the room with Samantha, but there were hundreds of other jars, too.
“Come,” Frank said. “Place her here.” He walked up a set of black marble stairs toward a black altar. He gestured for me to bring Samantha to him.
“What are you going to do to her?” I asked, moving forward cautiously.
“She will be dissolved into her components and we can use them to locate the source of her creation.”
“You’re going to kill her?” Katie said.
“That word implies that this golem is alive, which I assure you it isn’t. It is no more sentient than a robot or a ventriloquist’s dummy.”
“What if you’re wrong?” I asked.
“First of all, it hurts my feelings that you would think that, and second of all, if I’m wrong then nothing will happen. This spell will only deconstruct living clay, not bone and flesh.”
I pushed Samantha down onto the altar. As I did, I felt carvings in the altar itself. Bones, and skulls, and monsters with a hundred eyes adorned the edifice.
“This is a pretty creepy place,” Katie said.
“Only to you,” Frank said. “To me, it is home, but I am quite comfortable in the darkness of my own soul. Now, you should both move back a little ways.”
I didn’t know why I needed to move back if the spell wouldn’t hurt us, but I wasn’t going to argue with the warlock who had brought us down to his weird magic dungeon filled with all kinds of monsters and their limbs.
Frank closed his eyes again and held his hands over Samantha’s body. “Onilgari Ventari Moldiniri.”
The room began to shake again, and the green lights shifted back into the walls so that the light snaked in circular shapes and down into the floor. The same grooves carved into the altar were carved around the whole room, making sinewy shapes along the rock and leading towards the altar. The light filled every crevice of the rocks until the altar glowed a bright, neon green.
“Frenili Bishna Ylirion!” Frank shouted, and the green light rose up from the altar into the ceiling and cascaded down all around us like a firework exploding in the air. I turned my eyes to avoid being blinded by the light, and when I opened them Frank remained, but Samantha’s golem was no longer on the table. Instead, only two jars remained, one filled with clay and the other with a dim green light.
Frank picked up the jar of clay. “I’ll keep this if you don’t mind. Golem clay is very rare and exceedingly expensive.”
“Do whatever you want with it,” Katie said. “But what do we get?”
Frank walked over and placed the clay on the shelf behind him and then walked back up to the altar. He picked up the jar carrying the pale green light and walked it over to me. “This will guide you to your friend, when you are ready to find her.”
“I’m ready now, but we have so much other work to do.”
He shook his head. “I still need time to track down the dragon’s fire. You take this and go save your friend. When you come back, I will have
