“But who would have destroyed it?”
“Any number of creatures could have been responsible” Kull said. “The ore dragons, perhaps, or any other species who felt threatened by the fortress.”
“But I thought the silvergates protected the fortress. How could someone destroy a portion of the fortress with the silvergates intact?”
“Perhaps someone found a way past the spells. Do you detect any enchantments?” the princess asked me.
Stepping to the edge, I held out my hand, letting the magic speak to me. As I closed my eyes, an amber glow encircled me. Its brightness was so strong that the spell couldn’t have been old, and there was an enormous amount of power in the spell. Who could have created such an enchantment?
“It’s Earth magic,” I said, confused.
“It makes sense,” Kull said. “The only magic anyone would be able to use is Earth magic, so who used it? Does it feel like a recent enchantment?”
“Yes, it isn’t very old. It’s possible that whoever destroyed it is still here.”
I opened my eyes to find the princess staring over the ledge with a worried expression. “He has beaten us here.”
“Who?”
“Geth,” she answered.
“You think Geth is here?”
“Yes, I believe he found his way here before us.”
“But Geth doesn’t use Earth magic.”
“We know there was a goblin infiltrator aboard our ship,” Kull said. “And I am certain that we have been trailing someone, although I cannot say who it is. However, I would also wager that Geth is the one most interested in the magic of this place.”
“Perhaps,” I answered, not convinced, “but why would he have remained in hiding for so long? Why not just blow us up and the ship along with it?”
“Because I believe he wants us to restore the magic,” the princess answered.
I scrutinized her. So many things didn’t add up. “You believe he wants to restore the torture?”
“Yes.”
“But that makes no sense. He destroyed the magic. Why would he want us to restore it? And you still haven’t answered my other question. Geth doesn’t use Earth magic, so it couldn’t have been him who wrecked this place. Someone who wields Earth magic is responsible.”
“Not necessarily,” the princess answered. “Can you detect any other magic at play?”
Once again, I stretched out my hand. At first, I saw only the amber glow, but when I concentrated harder, I found a tiny spot of black at the canyon’s bottom, which indicated that someone with black magic had been there recently.
“Black magic.” I opened my eyes and pointed to the spot where I’d felt the magic. “It’s there.”
“Then it is very likely that Geth is waiting for us,” the princess said.
“But why would he wait for us? What are his intentions?”
“We won’t have our answers unless we find out more,” Kull said. “We must travel into the crater to find our answers, although unfortunately, I feel as though we are being led into a trap.”
“I agree,” I said.
“Yet we must restore the magic,” the princess said, “and there is no other way to bring the magic back except by destroying this temple.”
We stared into the crater as the wind stirred the sand. Its dry whisper sounded loud in my ears. If Geth waited for us, there was nothing any of us could do to stop him. Euralysia still had some lingering magic, but it was nothing compared to what Geth possessed. Kull’s sword could take off the man’s head, but only if Kull could get close enough. My Earth magic was the strongest defense we had, but I knew it was nothing compared to Geth’s black magic.
My only hope was that we were wrong and someone else had created the crater. Someone else who used black magic. But who? Except for the Regaymor, I knew of only one other person who possessed black magic, and my mother was millions of miles away and on another planet. At least, that’s what I believed.
Whether Geth, the Regaymor, or my mother, this situation didn’t look good.
“We should head to the dark area that Olive saw,” Kull said. “If someone tampered with the last gate, and they used magic to do it, then we need to find the last place they used it.”
“Fine,” I answered. “I’d like to know who’s down there.”
“Agreed,” the princess said.
A stone-littered path sloped in front of us. We picked our way over the broken bricks and mortar. As we did, the sun sank toward the horizon, casting the dark sand in an orange glow. The sun felt strange on my skin. Instead of warming me, it made goose bumps form.
Odd. Was I catching a fever? Or was this a side effect of the Earth magic having been released?
Focusing on the black magic, I took a path that dipped toward the crater’s center. As we descended, we avoided large, crumbling towers and massive chunks of stone. The steepness of the slope, coupled with the shifting sand, made it impossible not to slip. I held to the rocks for balance.
The wind picked up, and I tasted its grittiness on my tongue. The sun dipped lower, and soon a few stars dotted the evening sky.
Night descended as we reached the crater’s floor. Black blast marks streaked the rocks near the pit’s center. As we walked to the middle of the area, my chill grew worse and my stomach grew queasy.
We scanned the area. Kull inspected a large stone that was half-buried in the sand. The princess knelt beside a mirror that had broken into hundreds of pieces. Smashed glass vials, tubes, and broken wires were scattered around the area.
“Can you tell where the source of the magic is?” Kull asked.
I paced the area, letting my magic guide the way. The amber glow surrounded everything, brighter than I’d expected. My boots crunched over broken glass and rocks. I stopped at the foot of what had once been a massive, square-shaped tower that lay haphazardly on its side. Placing my hand on the wall, the rough, sunbaked stones warmed my skin.
