Alexander’s lungs felt better as well. He could breathe deeply without pain but his head hurt, his tongue was thick, and his mouth felt like it was full of cotton. He got up and drank several cups of water one right after the other.
“How long have we been out?”
“A few hours,” Horace said. “Jack suggested we all try to get some rest. I just relieved Hector about an hour ago.”
“Any movement out there?” Alexander asked.
“Nothing, just the heat,” Horace said.
“Go get some more rest,” Alexander said. “I’ll stand watch.”
Horace started to protest but Alexander silenced him with a look as he pulled a chair up next to the barrel of water and sat down. He sipped at his water, periodically scratching where a bead of sweat ran down his body, and considered his next move. He was close to the blood of the earth. The stuff still frightened him, partly from the sovereigns’ warning, but mostly from the brilliantly radiant colors it gave off.
It was powerful.
Powerful in a way that transcended anything else he’d ever encountered. He worried that the sovereigns were wrong about the potion, worried that it might kill Isabel instead of helping her, worried that he might have alerted Phane to the existence of the blood of the earth by coming here in the first place. But in the end, he decided he was following the best course he could, given the challenges he faced. He reminded himself to be driven by emotion but ruled by reason.
Isabel woke as he was working a plan to separate himself from his friends for long enough to find the blood of the earth without them knowing.
He handed her a cup of water. She took it eagerly and drank deeply. He handed her another.
Once her thirst was sated, she sat down. “It’s so hot,” she said. “I’m soaked with sweat.”
“Me too,” Alexander said. “How are you feeling otherwise?”
“The burns are mostly gone, even the ones in my throat.”
“Good,” he said. “I was worried about you.”
She smiled at him. “You saved me again.”
He pulled her chair closer to his so he could put his arm around her. They sat quietly together until Jack woke and scrambled over to the barrel of water. After drinking deeply, he poured a cup over his head.
“Dear Maker, it’s hot,” he said. “I remember almost freezing to death in that mountain lake on Grafton. When I was out of the water and couldn’t seem to get warm, I imagined how good heat would feel. Now, I think I’d like to take a dip in that lake.”
“I know what you mean,” Alexander said. “We should get moving pretty soon. Hopefully it’ll cool down once we get farther from the lava flow.”
“I hope you’re right,” Jack said. “This is unbearable. I can’t imagine how you two managed to get by that river of molten rock without cooking.”
“We didn’t,” Isabel said, gingerly touching the redness around her eyes.
“Point taken,” Jack said.
Hector woke next, followed a few moments later by Horace. After they drank their fill, everyone filed out of the Wizard’s Den and Alexander closed the door. They moved cautiously through the winding natural caverns and were greatly relieved when the temperature began falling noticeably.
They spent the day navigating a confusing maze of passages. They moved slowly and deliberately. The footing was treacherous and the rock was sharp and jagged in spots. Occasionally, Alexander stopped to scout the path ahead with his clairvoyance, which was fortunate, because it allowed him to pick a course that avoided another chamber filled with a pool of molten rock.
When they reached a chamber that Alexander recognized from his clairvoyant reconnaissance, he called a halt. Everyone was tired and hungry. They’d been moving through the bowels of the mountain for at least twelve hours and the path had been treacherous and difficult. He opened the door to his Wizard’s Den so they could eat and rest before moving on.
He picked this particular chamber because it was a fork in the road. One branch led to the blood of the earth, another led to a series of passages that wound through the mountain, eventually leading to the cave where the pirates were hiding Bragador’s egg.
Alexander took the first watch so he could lay the groundwork for slipping away from his friends in the night. He adjusted the blankets and pillows in his bunk to look like a person was sleeping under the covers, darkened the room almost completely, and then stood guard through his shift.
“I need you to stay here, Little One,” he said silently.
“Where are you going, My Love?”
“After the final ingredient for the potion that will save Isabel,” he said. “No one can know what it is, or even that it exists, so I have to do this alone. Watch over everyone and let me know if they discover I’m missing.”
“I will, My Love. Be careful.”
After he woke Horace for his turn at guard duty, he went to his bunk, but instead of lying down, he grasped the hilt of Mindbender and released a vision into the sword.
Alexander vanished from view as an illusionary version of himself lay down and adjusted the covers. He held the illusion, watching Horace’s colors carefully and waiting. After several minutes, he crept past Horace into the cave beyond, all the while maintaining an illusion that obscured his presence, rendering him invisible. Once he was down the passage leading to the blood of the earth, he stopped and sent his all around sight back to see if Horace had noticed him, but he was unaware of Alexander’s ruse.
He wound deeper through the gut rock of the mountain. The volcanic passage gave way to cut stone. Alexander hadn’t examined the room very closely when he’d searched for the blood of the earth through his clairvoyance. Now that he was here, he realized the place had been made by someone long ago. It was carefully cut and ancient. He proceeded with a mixture of awe and caution.
The passage led down at a shallow angle, passing through hundreds of feet of solid stone and opening into one end of a large rectangular room, thirty feet wide, a hundred feet long, and precisely carved from the heart of the mountain.
A raised platform with a large crystal bowl occupied the far end. The colors flowing from the bowl were almost blinding. They radiated away in undulating waves of power. Alexander stood motionless for a long time, trying to work up the courage to approach a thing of such surpassing power.
Finally, need drove him forward. As he neared the center of the room, the walls transitioned from black basalt to crystal shot with gold, creating a dazzlingly beautiful web of light, the colors radiating from the blood of the earth mingling with the pure white light of his night-wisp dust.
Within a few steps of the bowl he could see the blood of the earth itself. It seemed to exist with deliberate certitude, as if the rest of the world was ephemeral and incorporeal by comparison, and it knew it. Alexander was struck by the complexity of its colors and awed by the sheer power of it.
“Please don’t do this, Alexander,” a voice said from behind him.
Alexander whirled, drawing Mindbender in one fluid motion, leveling the blade at a lone man dressed in a simple robe, standing not ten steps away. He looked young, like a man in his midtwenties … except he wasn’t young at all. Alexander could see a timeless wisdom in his eyes, but more than that, his colors were expansive and very subtly refined, as if he existed at a higher state than everyone else. Alexander wasn’t sure what to make of him.
“Who are you? How did you get here? And how do you know my name?” he asked.
“My name is Siduri,” he said. “I will not harm you.”
Alexander lowered the tip of Mindbender slightly. Siduri’s colors said he was telling the truth, but Alexander almost suspected that this man could make his colors lie.
“Are you working for the dragons?”
“No,” Siduri said. He spoke deliberately, intentionally, as if he was remembering how to speak after being silent for a very long time.
“Did Phane send you?”
“No, I represent no one … and everyone,” Siduri said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Siduri shrugged. “I am not in league with any of your enemies, Alexander.”
Alexander frowned. “Have you been following me?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Exasperation started to build in the pit of Alexander’s stomach. “I don’t have time for this,” he said. “Answer my question.”
“I have been watching you for your entire life,” Siduri said. “We are alike, you and I—one with source.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Alexander said, turning back toward the blood of the earth.
“Please, don’t do that, Alexander.”
“Why not?”
“The blood of the earth is too powerful,” Siduri said. “Leave it be. Find another way.”
“What do you know about it?”
“A great deal and very little, I’m afraid,” Siduri said.
Alexander clenched his jaw. His blind eyes started glittering.
“It is powerful beyond measure,” Siduri said. “Surely you can see this as clearly as I, yet I have never touched it, so I do not know its true nature any more than I know the true nature of death, having never experienced it.”
“I only need one drop,” Alexander said.
“One drop contains the power of all that it is,” Siduri said. “Find another way.”
“There is no other way,” Alexander said. “At least not one that I can hope to accomplish.”
“This path leads to destruction,” Siduri said. “Such power should be left alone.”
“Ordinarily, I would agree with you,” Alexander said, “but this is the only way I can save my wife.”
“It is one way,” Siduri said. “There are others.”
“What others? And how do you know anything about this? And … how did you get down here?”
“Kill the wraith queen,” Siduri said, holding up one finger. “I have been watching,” he said, holding up a second finger. “I am one with source, hence I am everywhere,” he said, holding up a third finger.
“There’s virtually no chance that I can reach the wraith queen,” Alexander said. “And even if I could, I don’t have the power to banish her. I need the blood of the earth to save Isabel. Do you intend to stop me?” he asked, raising the point of Mindbender.
Siduri smiled, as if noticing something for the first time. “Do you know the true nature and history of your sword?”
“What?” Alexander said. “You aren’t making any sense. What’s my sword got to do with this?”
“It is a unique blade, forged by one like us,” Siduri said.
Curiosity ignited within Alexander’s mind. He lowered Mindbender again and stared at Siduri, trying to formulate a question that he thought might get a straight answer.
“One like us? You mean you and I are alike? We’re the same as Benesh Reishi?”
“Yes, we are one with source,” Siduri said.
“Source? What’s that?”
“You call it the firmament,” Siduri said.
“You’re an adept?”
“Benesh Reishi used that term to describe himself,” Siduri said.
“I thought I was the only living adept,” Alexander said. “The sovereigns told me there have only been two others like me.”
“They are mistaken,” Siduri said. “I am aware of seven, though there may have been others that came before me.”
“Wait … so you’re saying you’re the first of seven,” Alexander said. “How can that be? How old are you?”
“I am many thousands of years old,” Siduri said.
“How’s that possible?” Alexander asked, reeling slightly from the implications.
Siduri shrugged.
Alexander shook his head and absentmindedly sheathed Mindbender, questions and possibilities tumbling through his mind.
“If what you’re saying is true, there’s so much you could teach me,” Alexander said. “You’ve asked me not to use the blood of the earth, but I need it to save my wife. Help me understand. Help me find another way.”
“It is not my place to interfere,” Siduri said. “Your free will is your own, use it as you will. I am simply here to warn you of the danger, to ask you to find another way.”
“All right, you’re still not helping me understand,” Alexander said. “Let’s back up and take things one at a time. Tell me about Mindbender.”
“Benesh Reishi created your sword using a process that he invented,” Siduri said. “He was hoping to replicate his link with source and impart it on the sword, but he failed. Instead, he stripped himself of his link with source and transferred it to the sword. As a result, the normal aging process resumed and claimed his life. It was tragic really, the solution was so simple and yet he never saw it.”
“What do you mean?”
“A link with source needs a place to reside,” Siduri said.
Alexander sighed in exasperation. “I don’t have time for riddles. If you aren’t going to answer my questions, then let me do what I came here to do.”
“I won’t stop you,” Siduri said, “but I beg you to reconsider. You’re tampering with a power beyond your understanding. The result could be disastrous, and not just for you and your wife but for all of the Seven Isles.”
“What will happen if I use it to help her?” Alexander asked.