The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer (10 page)

"But how?" Higgins asked. "And why change the drawings and the slates?"

Skyhammer shook his head, unable to answer. As he approached Murk Lake where the Retrograph Vault was located, a sense of guilt began to creep over him. He'd been gone for three years. It was his job to keep an eye on the Vault. But it wasn't my choice to be Keeper, he argued with himself. If I had stayed, maybe the same thing would've happened. I would've been unhappy anyway and maybe not paid attention as well as I could have. It's not my fault.

But was it a tiny bit his fault? He pushed the thought away. "Hey, we're only a couple hours away. Do you think there'll be anyone waiting for us at the Vault?"

Higgins didn't answer for a few moments. "Possibly," she finally replied. "When people's Retrographs started changing, they must have come out here to the Vault. It's the first place I'd look if my Retrographs were broken."

"Then they could possibly still be here." He looked back over his shoulder at Higgins.

"Oh yes. Maybe a lot of them, depending on how worked up they are." She frowned.

"If they're anything like those people in Edgeton, we need to be prepared."

"You still have to get into the lake to get into the Vault. When we get close, you go and have a look."

He felt nervous but not as much as in the Royal Circle. The humans waiting at the Retrograph Vault would not be as warrior-like as the ones who had chased them out of Edgeton. Around here, the villages were mostly full of farmers. Not the types to wield swords with any level of skill.

When he could see more light between the trees up ahead, he and Higgins dismounted. They tied the horses to tree branches. Skyhammer crept up to the edge of the forest. Hiding behind an oak, he looked out at Murk Lake. A carpet of vibrant orange moss banked the lake on all sides.

Except one. Towering above the trees yet sloped as if fearful, away from the lake, a cliff of dark yellow stone protected the west end. The lake was a truncated circle filled with gelatinous black liquid. The surface appeared to suck light into it. Murk Lake was a good place to hide the Retrograph Vault but it wasn't exactly welcoming. Skyhammer was surprised. And suspicious. Why was no one here waiting for him?

"Heard you were dead, I guess!"

He jumped at Higgins voice right behind him. "Don't sneak up on me like that!" He pushed her shoulder, relieved she wasn't a random vengeful human.

"Should such a great and successful Relic hunter be surprised that easily?" Higgins gave him a cheeky smile.

With a haughty lift of his chin, Skyhammer marched down to the orange beach. He stripped to his shorts. Higgins flopped onto the springy moss and opened her Whorl.

Skyhammer crept up beside her and put his mouth close to her ear. "Barracuda?"

"No! Who would name their child barracuda?" Her eyes remained fixed on her Retrographs. "Get going!" Then she grabbed his arm. "If the humans think we're dead, they'll be coming to try out for the Keeper position. Hurry."

He nodded. "And if their Retrographs change and they realize I'm not dead, they'll be coming here to get me." They couldn't use magic to attack him this time though. They'd have to catch him first.

Whatever material filled the lake, Skyhammer loved swimming in it. He and Spark had slipped away from the Academy and come here many times to swim. He skimmed along the surface, the black liquid far denser than water. No breeze made waves. The sun never affected the temperature; the liquid felt warm on his skin.

Upon reaching the center of the lake, he dived down. Eyes squeezed shut, he felt for the tip of a pointed rock far below the surface. The tunnel started a few feet below the rock's tip. Found it! Lungs starting to burn, he swam down the tunnel as fast as possible. His fingers hit a wall and poked into what felt like a moist cake. A strong kick sent his whole body through. His arms burst out into the cave on the other side and he remembered enough, even after three years, to let them break his fall so his whole body didn't crash painfully on the ground like the first time. First few times, he admitted to himself.

He was inside the Retrograph Vault. Would the Retrograph Sorcerer be waiting for him?

Chapter 10

Countdown to ceremony: 14 days

His shorts had disappeared. Naked as usual. They'd somehow be back on his body when he left the Vault. He wondered where his shorts were now. Nothing but a human body could pass through the dense wall. Were they stuck inside the wall? And nothing could come out, he had been told. Only now did he wonder who had tried to bring something out.

Absolute blackness and silence engulfed him. Would the Sorcerer be here? How else would the Sorcerer alter the Retrographs? This was the only place in the world to view the Retrographs. It was as impossible for the Sorcerer to be here as it was for the Sorcerer to change Retrographs. In all of human history, there had only been one Keeper at a time. As soon as the Keeper retired from old age, or death, a new Keeper was chosen. Once the Vault chose the new Keeper, the old one could no longer access the Vault. So the Sorcerer couldn't be here. And Retrographs couldn't be changed. Ha! Sighing, he rose and shuffled down the tunnel, one hand on the wall.

When his fingers and toes grazed a spiky ridge encircling the tunnel, he halted. From far below, a green light began to climb the walls to light the cavern before him.

A step in front of him, the tunnel ended. The vast cavern stretched up beyond Skyhammer's view, taller than it was wide, and despite the light, he couldn't see the bottom or the top. Glowing green tubes in vertical lines ran up the rock wall.

Floating isolated in the middle of the cavern, at the same height as the tunnel, was a circular platform. From the bottom, a spiral of rock pointed down. On top, an insect-like chair. Silence filled the space. The Sorcerer wasn't here. Of course not, he told himself. Only a Keeper can get in here. And you used to think no one could alter Retrographs either. Get on with it.

Skyhammer gazed into the yawning gulf separating him from the platform. His hands shook.

He took a deep breath and, grasping onto the ridge in the tunnel wall, peered over the edge and down. Bottomless. Shuddering, he moved back. Why did he even look when it scared him so much? Destructive and frightening but he still did it. He stood up straight and exhaled all the air from his lungs. Then he stepped out into the empty space between the platform and the tunnel.

The lights blazed when his foot came down on the transparent bridge. He kept his eyes focused on the platform, pretending to ignore the great gaping void of nothingness below.

When he reached the platform, the walls began to rotate around it, spinning into a curtain of glowing green. Silence continued. The tunnel entrance was gone. How did the Vault know when he needed the tunnel back? He said a short prayer to the gods that this time, once again, the walls would stop moving and the tunnel would be available again when he was done.

Skyhammer examined the Retrograph viewing contraption, fashioned from a mysterious black metal. A tall black ring, a foot taller than Skyhammer, perched on its edge, about five steps in front of the chair. The chair had a square seat at thigh height and a rectangular back that reached to about three quarters the height of the ring. Two thin arms curved inwards, set with purple and blue buttons. The top of the chair's back bristled with rods and cubes of varying sizes. So far, no sign that anyone else had been here. He began to relax.

All the apparatus was made of an unknown material, unknown to Skyhammer at least and to every Keeper that had been entrusted with the safety of the Vault. Skyhammer ran his fingers over the buttons. No dust, but there never was, no matter how long between visits. He stood on the seat and peered up at the cubes and rods.

A cube was missing. He stumbled back, almost falling off the chair.

"It must have fallen off," he said aloud, as though that would make it true. There were usually five small black cubes attached to a rod that came out of the back of the chair. Only four were left. He searched the whole platform. Nothing. Maybe it had fallen into the abyss. No. The invisible field that kept humans on the platform would also keep objects on it.

His heart began to pound. He grabbed the arm of the chair to steady himself. An intruder in the Vault! An intruder who had taken a piece of the Retrograph machine. He collapsed onto the chair, mind racing. "A second Keeper?" he whispered. The silence was getting to him. He'd never spent this much time inside the Vault.

Skyhammer sat up and pressed a purple button on the chair's left arm. A list of names appeared within the black ring in front of him. The missing black cube didn't seem to affect the performance of the Vault. He scrolled through the names and picked one at random. A woman who lived in Floatilla, he discovered, scrolling through her Retrographs. He turned off the image, shuddering in disgust. He hated looking at people's Retrographs. No Keeper ever revealed that they could see Retrographs. Not even Higgins knew. Only another Keeper would know. The Keeper before Skyhammer was dead. The Sorcerer must be the new one.

A thought struck him. What if even he could do more than look? Perhaps the Sorcerer was just the first one to try changing Retrographs, not the only one with the ability. The image filled the circle again. Skyhammer rose from the chair and stood close to the picture. Pointing his index finger, he moved it right next to the image and then through.

His finger felt nothing. The image didn't change. He let out his breath.

Back in the chair, image gone, he stared unseeing into the soft green light of the walls. Someone had been here within the last three years. Someone had taken a piece of the Vault out. How was that possible? Who would break the Vault on purpose, then try to smuggle a piece out? Maybe he could take one as well and get magic powers. He stood on the seat once again and tugged and pushed at each of the four cubes, then tried to break a rod. The machine was unaffected. He slumped back into the chair.

For the first time ever he wished he had listened when the previous Vault Keeper had been droning on about the Vault. It didn't help that he was drunk eighty percent of the day and sleeping the other twenty percent. The result of a coveted, yet totally useless, position. The Keepers just kept an eye on the Vault. They knew absolutely nothing about how it worked-- like every other Relic.

He groaned. Maybe if he had been around, doing his job then the Retrograph Sorcerer would've been caught soon after stealing the piece.

Maybe the Moksha had come back. He massaged his skull. They wouldn't break their own bloody Vault, would they? Who knew what the Moksha would do, though. They'd been gone millions of years.

The rod that was missing a cube didn't look damaged at all, he observed upon a second examination. In fact, it looked as though it was meant to come apart. There was a slot where some kind of hook could go into the rod. He compared it to the other black cubes: smooth all over, no sign of being able to come apart. How had the Sorcerer figured out that one was different? He would've had to spend a lot of time in here. The Sorcerer was a curious and intelligent person. And powerful.

Skyhammer walked to the edge of the spiral platform where he had come off the bridge. By the time he arrived, the walls had stopped moving and he could see the tunnel entrance across the chasm. He focused on the tunnel and stepped into empty air. When his foot hit the bridge, he whispered a quick thanks and hurried across. As he made his way back to the receiving cavern, he kept his eye on the ground. It was as clean and empty as ever.

Back out in the lake, shorts having reappeared, he floated, star-shaped, on his back. He wasn't ready to talk to Higgins just yet. Over the past two days, his world had turned upside-down. Words, ideas, events flickered through his brain. But he grasped nothing, like a fickle butterfly in a field of wildflowers.

Immutable truths. Only one Keeper? Untrue.

His thoughts landed. Orderly now, as though he was assessing a battle or planning a Relic hunt.

Relics unalterable? Untrue. Magic restrained by the Circles? True. Danger from angry humans? High. Likelihood of receiving magic powers? True. True. True!

He felt like he could soar above the lake, into the sky.

Likelihood of powerful sorcerer sabotaging the ceremony? Low, if Skyhammer had anything to do with it.

Strong strokes powered him back to the shore where Higgins was standing. As he got dressed, he told her what he had found.

"The Sorcerer and the Keeper who stole the cube is not necessarily the same person," she pointed out.

They were walking along the moss beach toward the cliff. A Byndari named Hermit lived on top of the cliff, reclusive to the point of throwing stones down on people trying to get up the cliff. Byndari at the Academy just shrugged when humans complained about Hermit. They left him alone as well, in fact. He didn't seem to have any friends at all.

"You're saying that either there are three Keepers or the Sorcerer doesn't need to go in the Vault to change Retrographs." Skyhammer's imagination almost baulked at how powerful the Sorcerer would be.

"I'm saying we shouldn't rule anything out."

As he concentrated on keeping his balance walking across the springy moss, Skyhammer recalled the day that his class had gone to Murk Lake to do the test. Students at the Relic Hunters Academy were not given a choice to try out for the Keeper position. The test was part of their second year studies - if the Keeper position was open. Most kids wanted to be Keeper if they could. Who wouldn't want money, privilege and more importantly, access to one of Relics in the world that worked? And if you were studying at the Academy, you were already crazy about Relics.

Skyhammer didn't want to differ from other humans more than he already did with his lack of magic powers; he wanted to be a Relic hunter. The Retrograph Relic chose its own Keeper who always had magic abilities. As a human without magic, he was certain he wouldn't be chosen.

But of all the kids trying that day to swim through the wall at the end of the tunnel, he was the only one who could do it. When he tumbled into the receiving cavern, he had cried at the unfairness of it all. Now he would be expected to live in the King's Circle or near the Vault so he could do his duty to the blessed damn Relic that gave humans such a powerful gift. He would never be a Relic hunter. Instead, he would grow old and fat on privilege and power. So he sobbed alone in the cavern. Then he wiped away the tears and waited the required ten minutes before heading back out to tell his classmates and teachers what they already knew.