Ultimus Thesaurus: The last Treasure (Era of Change Book 1) (30 page)

What fascinated him so much were no books and there is not a single letter written in them. These are control panels, artefacts which were formerly used by archmages to control the mind of the creatures of this world. They must be destroyed before someone uses them. With time, knowledge is lost and new people will find other ways to control us. People like me who know how the world works have only one choice to make; fame or death. I choose death,” he said and burned the books before his feet.

“Help me to end it. With your help, I can do for the world, what you wished for all these many years ago. Your research must not be destroyed and it does not need to remain a secret. Jasper told me that you could lead me. Without your help I am lost, we all are. But together we can liberate this world.”

“I will accompany you. I had intended to do so from the beginning. Just how could I be sure that you really are who you said? This is a dark place and each shadow conceals a mystery.”

“And why did you run away? Was it all just a test?” I asked him and he pointed at the darkness within the shades behind me.

“You've chosen the wrong friends, my dear chap. No one exists here undetected and nothing is outside the control of this monster. They helped you to heal me, but now they exact their toll. Can you see the vortex that devours all this darkness? There he gathers his forces and as soon as he is ready, he will bring us to his master. 

We are trapped and no one can help us now. Maybe I don’t believe in the words you said, but I will try everything to protect this world from the knowledge.”

I saw the vortex of energy, which was growing in strength, and the darkness began to disappear. Out came a man whose aged and decayed body hardly had any skin left on his bones. He dragged himself through the vortex with the last of his strength and he breathed heavily as he fell aground. Magnus approached him and examined his condition. For him it was clear what was happening here, but I had been deceived as always.

“Is this Mel? What exactly is he?” I asked Magnus, full of disgust as I looked down at the weak man.

“It doesn’t matter what name you call him, he is just a spirit. Beings like him have existed for a very long time. They are the guardians of prisons like this. His tribe, that he so vehemently protected, was once also human. Everything that you can see here sways away from reality and he uses the dead bodies of his people to empower his own connection to our world. But regardless of what he tries, he is no longer a part of us.”

Mel rose from the ground and the shadows gathered around him and were compressed to a coat that closely embraced his body and granted him new strength.

“I'm sorry. This was never your own journey. I can only take you to the place where it ends. Everything is outside my control,” said Mel and the shadow swallowed up Magnus.

“Why? What is it that enslaves you all to his power? Together we can stand against him and together we can win,” I tried to convince Mel, but as he raised his hand against me, the shadow also gathered around me.

“There was a time when everything was different. I have made my choice and now I serve a tyrant. If I stand against him now, then I die and so will my people.”

I fought against the darkness that surrounded me and tried everything to not be engulfed.

“I can help you!” I screamed, but the fog got so close that I could not see anything that happened around me.

But then I heard the voice of Mel that quietly travelled through the darkness towards me and whispered: “I wish you could.”

The western world was a place of chaos, but also a place of upheaval. Since many generations people tried to gain a foothold on this part of the world, but they always fell victim to the extreme weather or the dangerous beings that lived there. Here lies the Dragonhoard, a gigantic burned plane whose erosions sank deep into the skin of the earth, down to the planet’s core. Often I had read stories of the castle Jikzalmoor, inside of which the last prince of the dragons had lived and died. These were stories for children, telling them of the brave knights who banished even the last of the terrors from our realm and brought freedom to the western world.

But in a world like ours, where only a few people had lived and explored the seemingly endless land mass that surrounded us, we had only realized a few hundred years ago that humanity posed the greatest threat for themselves in times of peace. More and more kingdoms disappeared more and more borders broke away, until at the end no one would follow another human being and chaos dominated the whole world. The prince Marko was an ominous creature, but apparently he also was the constant that held this world together. For me the question now became if we needed destruction to heal.

If you face the deep abyss and look into the face of evil while no way leads back anymore, then it is no longer clear whether fate exists or whether you are simply too weak to accept it. I felt no grief at that moment, much more my doubts about everything that had preceded it grew. Did no sense remain? My goals, my dreams, everything I had sacrificed for others, but I now understood that there were no other people. All of them were caught up in a plan that knew nothing but its own end. Now it would become clear whether I really was an adventurer and whether the prince was truly invincible.

“We have arrived,” said Mel and released us from the shadows.

We saw a devastated and desolate landscape and the black-red sand under our feet felt as if it was alive. This was the Dragonhoard, of which I had read, but the sky that we saw was not the sky of our world. I saw four moons of probably the same size at different distances. But our world knew only one moon and one sun.

“Where are we? Is this the world behind the shadows?,” I asked Mel and saw how Magnus stood up from the sandy ground and again knew more about this place than I.

“No. You have seen my world, how can you compare it with this horrendous place? This is Jikzalmoor, or in your language 'the heart'. Only few can reach it, because the magic of this place is of the highest power. Do you see the moons in the sky? Look more closely at their surface and you will know what they really are.”

I did what Mel said and I saw that they were the same crystals that I had previously seen beyond the window, but their size was enormous. They had to be as large as whole kingdoms and their radiation was enough to illuminate the dark.

“This is the planet’s core. As a child I often dreamed about reaching the central point of the planet, but now that I see it, I think differently. Let us finish all of this,” said Magnus and walked into the distance, where I could already see a castle, whose magnificence was unrivalled.

High up on a plateau, stood the fortress and we saw how the red sand slowly ran down the cliffs and thus, seen from afar, created an illusion, which could make you think that there was a waterfall formed from pure blood. And even though we were already in the core of the planet, there were still gorges reaching deep into the earth and just one misstep would mean certain death. But apparently Magnus knew no fear and so he ran unerringly along the thin edges of the ridge and continued his way to the glorious fortress.

Giant dragon statues adorned the castle walls and the complex itself was modelled after a dragon. I understood now that the dragons truly must have been masters of many crafts and also how the prince had survived all this time. A place like this was impregnable. The square in front of the huge fortress must have been once a well-decorated garden, as beautiful water installations and magnificent plants graced this place, but they had fallen victim to time. The poisonous depraved water flowed along our feet and slowly drove apart the floor tiles, only to eventually reach the dead plants that decorated the square like a spoiled and gaping wound and left them to die a gradual and gruesome death. This place was an open testimony to all the horrible deeds of past generations.

Now we entered the building and I saw paintings of the finest art, statues and busts and collections of old writings, as they could otherwise only be found in a museum. This was not only the residence of the prince; it was the legacy of a whole species. Even if the atmosphere was depressing, as the light was weakened due to hardly breaking through the dusty large mosaic windows, casting a shadow over our heads, while we slowly walked like prisoners to our execution, we were still here willingly and so we appreciated it more as a memorial to our instincts, than being truly shaken by it. Mel had brought us to the place which we sought to reach and now we would only need to find the book to bring everything to a conclusion.

But this proofed to be more difficult than I thought it would, because this fortress was as big as a whole village and there were too many rooms to search them all. Mel followed our every step and we never escaped his eyes. I discerned by his stance that it tormented him to be in this place and that his powers were being suppressed, as the pain he still suffered from, due to the after-effects of the ritual, felt even worse here than before.

“What is the reward for a traitor to his people? You hold them like slaves in a world that is not their own, and why? Is it your own pride that keeps you in this world? Or is it just your envy that lets you forget what you really are?” I asked him and he coughed heavily, as he tried to meet me with laughter.

“You don't understand how this world works. At that time I was the same and at that time I signed a pact that haunts me now. It challenges my existence, that of my people, even yours. We are all connected. The prince plans from here what happens in the world, yes, his word is command and his dreams and thoughts are reality. The madness that drove me into the hands of this tyrant follows me now in my sleep and my troubled soul will never find rest again.”

“A true leader fights for his people; he does not sell himself out to survive. No matter how powerful this enemy is, you have abandoned your people and you know that,” I said, but Mel had no more interest in my words.

We reached a large door crafted from the finest wood and on it we saw a carving of a battle. It showed the struggles of the gods against the first dragons and under it the words 'Superbia Draconum'. I knew that my life could end behind this door and so I thought of the time from which I once was born.

I felt almost nostalgic until Mel touched my shoulder and said: “If he gives you a choice that you are unable to make then do not oppose him. Obey his orders, as I once did, because the pain that otherwise follows will break you.”

“In your eyes I see no peace and no satisfaction. Leave me the same freedom of choice that you once had. I will decide what the right thing to do is,” I said and forced away the hand of Mel.

He opened the door and showed us a beautiful room, in which at least five hundred chairs were placed in front of empty tables, obscured by the dust over them. At the end of the hall there was a throne facing us and a well-known face sat on top of it, overlooking it all. Lucia sat there in a snow-white dress and her arms and legs were bound to the throne with heavy chains. I saw the wounds inflicted on her body and it told me that the prince had broken his word already. But as soon as I entered the room the dark veil around us all disappeared and hundreds of candles ignited all by themselves, while a single strong gust of wind cleaned the tables and the room.

Lucia was gone and I was sure that this was just the beginning of the games that the prince was playing.

“You will wait here. Forgive me the shame that I am bearing,” said Mel and disappeared in the shadows.

Only Magnus and I remained in the room and so we sat down on the empty chairs and waited for our host.

“What will we do, when he just enters the room? Should we simply try to fight him? I have seen his powers and I doubt that we could win in an open battle,” I asked Magnus, but he had apparently better things to do.

He looked at the ring on my finger and even though he did not tell me the truth about it, so I was sure that he knew it.

“This book is more than you believe it to be. I have not told you everything, but I knew what had happened, even right after I woke up from my sleep. I remember the man who showed me the many artefacts that he had found on his travels. He was also the one who asked me to translate something for him. When I read the words, I knew that he would not survive and that I would follow him on this path.

He had found a way to destroy the dragons, but he also had realized who the dragons were. Do you see the mosaics in the windows? All of them were high lords of the dragon order and in this place they gathered their force. This book is more than a safe full of knowledge; it is also the key for the re-emergence of the dragons. I was not able to translate everything and yet I know more than I would like,” said Magnus and walked through the large hall.

I looked at the pictures and saw simple people on them. For me dragons had always been these great lizards, the fire-breathing monsters that soar through the air. Maybe I had to get used to the fact that they were only simple people behind all these shadows.

“How have they survived for such a long time? How could the prince escape death, while all the others died?”

“You are looking at the world from the wrong angle, my dear chap. The better question would be: how could the prince slay all the other dragons? Do you really think that he resisted his own death? I think that he has used his people, just like the spirit that brought us here. Sometimes we are ready to sink deep into the shadows to achieve what we are looking for. Even I would have given everything just for a result. But when I saw this result, I knew that it would have been wrong. Our decisions may be quick, but their consequences never are.”

Magnus considered the throne, whose fine wooden case seemed to be from a recent time. But maybe it was just the magic of this place that made me doubt its origin.

“Is all of this just magic? Can we really not explain against what we are fighting? Not so long ago I had believed in science and the control of progress in the field of research. But what are all of these things that we saw? It seems as if no one could control them,” I said with a sigh and sat down on one of the tables.