Because he wasn’t fully acclimated to the vibrational frequency of this world, XirRoq was having difficulty maintaining a stable image. He knew it would stabilize in time, just as it had the last time he was here on Danaria. Meanwhile, he just had to keep a low profile. If anyone noticed d’Oessler shifting into something other than a Danarian, they might get suspicious. One or two people he could easily handle, however, if too many people noticed, he might lose his anonymity. He wasn’t particularly afraid, since his overview of the planet had revealed that those who had imprisoned him before no longer existed. However, his last visit to Danaria had taught him not to underestimate the Danarians. They were exceedingly tricky, and resourceful.
As his image settled once more into the visage of d’Oessler, he sifted through some of the resonance manipulator’s memories. Techniques for various resonance manipulations came to him, and he smiled as he scrolled through them. Most of them were child’s play, at least to him, and not very interesting. However, there was one—a new one, that the man had recently acquired.
Turning toward the table, he spied the pitcher of water. With a gentle tugging of the energies comprising that water, he soon had a pitcher of fire. Laughter erupted from the lips of the d’Oessler image, as he watched the flames dance inside the glazed pitcher. Pulling on the energies again, the flames disappeared, and when XirRoq looked inside the pitcher, he saw it was filled with clear, water.
He lifted the pitcher and poured part of the contents across his outstretched hand. It was cool, almost chill. Setting the pitcher back on the table, he yanked the energies until the flames erupted again. Picking up a piece of parchment, he held it to the flames, and watched, delighted, as the parchment began to burn. When the flames reached his fingers, he dropped the remaining piece of parchment into the pitcher, then he again pulled on the energies, turning the flames back into water. Amazing, he thought. It’s so simple, yet he would never have thought to attempt manipulating the energies in that manner.
Wondering what else the crazy resonance manipulator might have known, he sifted through the rest of d’Oessler’s memories. Some of the items were incomplete, as if parts of the man’s mind had been missing or damaged, while others seemed not to have made the transition from d’Oessler to XirRoq. Either way, it was frustrating. The two most tantalizing, yet incomplete memories were the ones that indicated that d’Oessler had many documents and techniques—some that weren’t even translated yet—from the time when XirRoq had first visited Danaria, a period d’Oessler had referred to as the ‘time of the Ol’Dans’. The other memory that XirRoq found both tantalizing and irritating because of its incompleteness had to do with some youth that d’Oessler had here in the castle. The memory hinted at the fact that the boy had some great power, but there was no indication as to what that power was. Nor was there a memory as to where in the castle this youth was. If the boy contained a power that impressive, XirRoq knew that eventually he would sense him. When he did, well, the boy would make a nice addition to those facades he could assume. As for the documents from the Ol’Dans, they were supposed to be in the south tower. Since they contained the resonance manipulating techniques from when he had first visited Danaria, maybe one of the documents that d’Oessler had would have some information on how to manipulate the gateway.
As XirRoq left the room to find the south tower, he pulled the resonance on the water once more, and laughed again as flames began dancing around the top of the pitcher.
*****
T’khara poked his head through the dark opening, along with the torch. What he saw was a small room, probably at the top of the south tower, he thought. There were no windows, and seemingly no doors except for the trapdoor in which he stood. Climbing the last few steps, he looked around the stuffy little room.
It appeared to hold nothing but papers and documents, some on the floor-to-ceiling shelves that covered every inch of the walls, and others scattered about the wooden floor. Holding the torch aloft, T’khara moved away from the opening in the floor. He walked over to one of the bookcases and gazed at all of the different documents. Some were loose, others were held together with string, while still others were bound up as books, with fancy leather covers. He even saw quite a few parchments wrapped around wooden spindles. Most of those were simply lying about, but some had been wrapped in satin pouches. Intrigued by a beautifully carved box, he reached over and touched the figures that adorned it. His movements caused several of the rolled parchments that were leaning against the box to tumble sideways, and little poofs of dust rose up. Pinching the bridge of his nose to stop the sneeze that wanted to come out, he stepped to his left to admire the bindings of several books. Bound pages were a rare thing to see, anyway, and these especially looked old, but well cared for.
T’khara’s fingers gently touched the spine of one of the books. As he slid his fingers along the spine and onto the words embossed there, he felt a swelling of music within himself just waiting to burst forth. Confused, he pulled his hand back and the building concerto of notes, faded away. Curious, he touched one finger to the words again, and once more, his head and soul were filled with a symphony of sound just waiting to be born. Again, he removed his finger and the music unwove itself and flowed into the ether from where it came.
His minimal reading and writing skills had never really bothered him before now. After all, he’d had few opportunities while at d’Oessler’s castle to advance what little education he had gotten while living in Sandia. He knew some basic Sandian—in fact, he’d had a small book of stories, which his parents had written for him, that he had read all the time. That is, until d’Oessler took it away from him. He also understood enough Rheandorn to get by, having learned bits and pieces over the past four years.
Now, however, he was wishing he knew more about words and language, because he would really like to know what was written on the spines of some of the books. As he circled the room, examining and touching other documents, he found that at least half of those he touched gave him the same general feeling that the book had. He’d never encountered that type of reaction to any of the other writings he had handled—like the notes he had delivered from d’Oessler to the cook, or the parchments on d’Oessler’s desk that he had touched once. Perplexed and frustrated, he looked around the room one more time. Although the puzzle as to why some of the books, or at least their titles, seemed to fill him with music intrigued him, he didn’t think he could really spare the time to figure it out.
Feeling the pressure of time running out, T’khara decided to leave. There obviously was no exit from the castle here, and that was what he needed right now—not puzzles. Turning toward the trapdoor, he was startled to hear footsteps. They sounded as if they were right behind him, and he spun around, terrified. Seeing no one, he breathed a sigh of relief. It must be his nerves, he decided. He was so tense, that he was simply hearing things.
After taking two steps toward the trapdoor, he froze as something crashed to the floor behind him. Again he spun back to look, but although he didn’t see anything, he couldn’t quite convince himself that it was his imagination. Since the sounds seemed to have come from somewhere behind him, he quietly stepped back over to that bookcase. He studied the rows and rows of documents and papers, but saw nothing unusual. As he stood there, he could hear fragments of footsteps, as if someone were pacing just the other side of the bookcase. Frightened, yet curious, he carefully began to move some of the documents and books from the shelf directly in front of him to the floor. Others he shifted to one side.
As he moved aside several scrolls and books, he uncovered a small knothole in the wood back of the bookcase. Holding the torch low, in order to keep its light from being seen, he peered through the knothole.
The first thing T’khara saw was a swirl of orange robe, and a jumble of papers and inks being swept to the floor. A moment later, d’Oessler stepped into view and T’khara jerked back. His movement caused several of the parchments rolled onto spindles to topple off the shelf, and T’khara froze. I cannot let him find me here, he thought.
It wasn’t so much the punishment that d’Oessler was sure to mete out that T’khara feared, as much as the prospect of losing his short-lived freedom, and thereby his very hope of ever escaping from d’Oessler. He didn’t want to be locked up again, not when he was so close to being free.
Cautiously, he peeked through the knothole once more, to see if his movements had been noticed. However, the person he saw now was Jens deKrea, one of d’Oessler’s lesser resonance manipulators. But that cannot be, a troubled T’khara thought, I saw d’Oessler make him disappear when we were in the crystal room. Seconds later, Jens folded and twisted, growing shorter and more compact, until he became a clawed creature with scales and a long, pointed snout filled with wicked looking teeth. T’khara shuddered, but he couldn’t step away. As he continued to watch, the clawed creature suddenly grew thinner and taller, as his body became human, and his face contorted until it also became human. T’khara didn’t recognize the person he now saw, but moments later the body and face shifted and melted, until d’Oessler once again stood by the table in the other room.
Not sure exactly what it was he had just witnessed, T’khara panicked. He knew that d’Oessler didn’t have the ability to change shapes like that. If he had, then he wouldn’t have needed to keep jumping from his body to Darkwind’s. He could have simply changed himself to look like Darkwind. Therefore, whatever—or whoever—he had just seen through the knothole, it couldn’t be d’Oessler. But whether that meant the creature was working for or with d’Oessler, T’khara didn’t know and he didn’t want to wait to find out. He had seen enough to know that he needed to be gone, and quickly—and not just from the room he was now standing in, but from the castle itself.
Turning to flee, he knocked over one of the stacks of bound documents that he had placed on the floor. Documents spilled across the floor, with some of the pages sliding out of their bindings. Slipping on the loose papers, T’khara fell to his knees, dropping the torch. Several of the papers begin to smolder as the flames from the torch tickled their edges. Afraid that his clumsiness had given him away, he swiped his hand at the smoldering papers, before flinging himself through the trapdoor.
*****
Having heard the noise, XirRoq, now back to being d’Oessler, sprang across the room to where a large built-in bookcase stood. As XirRoq tried to access d’Oessler’s memories, the smell of smoke reached his nose. Almost instantly, he remembered how to open the secret panel, so XirRoq reached up behind the books on the top shelf and pushed on one of the carved designs. The bookcase swung away from the wall, though not fast enough for XirRoq. Grabbing the edge of the bookcase, XirRoq yanked it forward, toppling it and scattering books and papers everywhere.
Roaring in anger, XirRoq stepped into the hidden room just in time to see the trapdoor slide shut. His senses were leaping, much like the flames that were consuming the papers on the floor. Whoever had just gone through the trapdoor had tremendous power—maybe even enough power to control the gate. The crackling of the fire finally made XirRoq realize that the very documents he had been searching for were now being destroyed. With a wave of his hand, he quickly pulled the resonance threads of the flames and they collapsed into a puddle of water. Although, some of the documents would be lost to the liquid, XirRoq thought it better than losing everything.
He could feel the human drawing further away, so he quickly created an energy ball, which he pitched through the trapdoor at his feet. The wood shattered and splinters few everywhere, but XirRoq ignored them. His focus was on the human who now was almost a third of the way down the stairs. With a roar, he charged through the trapdoor. However, being unused to the, what he considered, ungainly human form that he now wore, he found himself lumbering down the stairs, while the one he pursued nearly flew down the steps.
As XirRoq began to adapt to the rhythm of motion used to propel the human body, he found that he was closing the gap between himself and the human with the unusually potent power. However, by the time XirRoq reached the room at the bottom of the steps, the human was out of sight.
By focusing his senses on the potent energy carried within the human, XirRoq tried to determine in which direction the person had run. A smile slowly crept across the face that XirRoq wore as he sensed the owner of the power to his left. As he recommenced his pursuit, it occurred to him that the human must have known about the documents of the Ol’Dans. Why else would he have been up there trying to destroy them, he thought. When I catch him and consume his resonance, then I will not have to read all of the documents since I will have all of his knowledge…as well as his power. A laugh erupted from the d’Oessler look-alike and he increased his pace in pursuit of the fleeing human.
*****
T’khara heard the noise of the trapdoor splintering behind him, and knew that whatever had been in that other room was now after him. In his near-blind panic, he barely kept his footing on the steep steps. The loose stones constantly tried to trip him up, as he practically flew down the stairs. One misstep and T’khara could end up dead, but he was too intent on getting away to really notice.
The staircase seemed endless, and T’khara thought he would never reach the bottom. His breaths came in short, wheezing gasps, and he felt as if there were chains wrapped around his chest, weighing him down and keeping him from breathing easily. The pounding of his heart matched his racing footsteps, and the bouncing shadows created by the torch made it difficult to see. But T’khara didn’t care, he had only one thought—escape!
Round and round, T’khara went down the winding staircase. He raced on trying to stay ahead of the beast that pursued him. The torch sputtered and T’khara was afraid that it would go out and leave him stumbling in the dark. Just as the torch appeared to die for good, the flame leapt up again, casting monstrous shadows onto the walls.
He could no longer hear if there was any pursuit or not, because the pounding of the blood in his head was too loud. With one hand braced against the wall, he continued to follow the stairs, until he finally saw the room below him. With a leap, he cleared the last few steps. He stumbled, but retained his footing as he landed on the cold, stone floor. Sprinting toward the door, he rushed through the archway, then out into the hall. He paused only long enough to close the door. He tried jamming the latch, before he continued his headlong flight up the corridor toward his cell.
T’khara flew past the stairs to the main castle. In fact, he was nearly to the corner where he needed to turn in order to get to his cell, when he stopped. A quick look back at the stairs was followed by a similar look in the direction he had been running. Hoping he wasn’t making a mistake, he headed back to the stairs. It had just occurred to him that if the creature could track him—maybe by smell?—that he would be trapped if he returned to his cell-like room. However, if he went up into the castle, he might lose the d’Oessler look-alike by mingling with all the other people still up there.
Slipping the torch into one of the nearby wall brackets, he gave one last look down the corridor he had just come from. Although, he didn’t see anything, he thought he could hear footsteps—rapidly approaching footsteps.
He ducked back to the stairs and darted up them, sometimes two at a time. Climbing these steps didn’t take as long as coming down from the tower, but then these steps were considerably less steep than the tower steps had been. When he reached the level where the storerooms were, he dodged off the steps. He slipped through several of the storerooms until he found the wooden steps that led into the kitchens at the back of the castle. Standing at the bottom of these steps, he tried to catch his breath and calm himself. He didn’t want anyone getting suspicious about some wild-eyed youth scrambling through the kitchen.
What he hoped, was that he could stroll into the kitchens—perhaps on the pretext of delivering something from down here—then, if he were lucky, he could grab a pail of slop and go out to the courtyard. Once out there, he might be able to get to the stables. If so, he could hide out there until evening meal. When he had worked in the kitchens, he had noticed that security around the castle seemed laxest around that time, so that’s when he would try to slip out of the castle.
Feeling better now that he had a definite plan, he was just about to start up the steps to the kitchens when he heard crashing noises coming from below. No longer feeling quite so confident, he grabbed one of the sacks, from a stack near the stairs, and hurried up the steps.
At the top of the stairs, he crashed through the door into the kitchen. One of the cooks and a scullery maid spun to look at the cause of the noise, but neither seemed overly interested in the thin, raggedy youth carrying a sack of flour up from the storeroom. The maid immediately went back to scrubbing the plates, while the cook merely grunted, and said, “Oy, you…put that over there,” and he pointed at a section of counter near the brick ovens. “And mind you be careful.”
T’khara nodded, keeping his head down; then crossed the kitchen to the counter. Dropping the heavy sack of flour onto the workspace, he scooted toward the door to the rear courtyard to make his exit. Carefully, he reached for the latch, but just as his fingers closed around it, one of the guards burst through the door. T’khara jumped back, and tried to keep the panic from returning.
When the guard first slammed into the room, he had a determined scowl on his face. However, it quickly dissolved into one of bewilderment. Stopping mid-step, he looked around in confusion, “What am I doing here?”
At first no one answered him, then one of the scullery maids, the same one who had looked up when T’khara had come crashing into the kitchen, turned away from the sink and dropped the plate she had been holding. “Where am I? This isn’t my home?” Puzzled, she looked to the other half-dozen people in the kitchen, for answers.
But no one answered, because they had too many questions of their own. Soon, the room was filled with voices asking questions that no one was answering. Everyone who had been soul-enslaved was now free, and all of them were asking the same questions. One old man, who had been curled in the corner by the ovens, stared around him, then announced to no one in particular, that he was going home. Several others echoed him, while others couldn’t remember where home was. Either way, an exodus soon began and everyone was pushing through the doors and down the corridors to the front of the castle with the intention of leaving. Before he realized what was happening, T’khara was caught up in the parade. As they wandered down the hallways toward the main entryway, more and more people joined them. Soon, there were at least a hundred people swelling the halls, all heading toward the main door and freedom.
At first T’khara was frightened, and tried to break away from the group; but then he realized that with such a large group all going after the same thing, he was less likely to be noticed. So he stopped fighting the crowd, and just followed the flow. Surrounded by people, he was squeezed up to the front of the group, when they entered the narrow hallway, which led from the work areas of the castle to the front portions. Once they passed the library, the corridors widened out, and T’khara was able to slip back into the middle of the group where he hoped to remain more inconspicuous.
Just as he was about to step into the front entry, T’khara sensed something wrong. He shivered, and felt his skin prickle as if he had stepped outside in the midst of cold season. He stopped short and looked around. Several people grumbled and others knocked into him as they continued to push past him. One woman stopped and asked him if he were all right, and he merely nodded absently at her. After giving him a quizzical look, she continued out into the foyer with the others.
Moments later, an argument broke out. T’khara looked for the source of the angry voices. He soon spotted the two men who had begun shoving each other. Other arguments ensued, and T’khara watched as pockets of fighting erupted. As he turned toward the sounds of breaking glass, he saw d’Oessler, or the creature pretending to be d’Oessler, standing on the balcony overlooking the foyer. Although, d’Oessler was doing nothing more threatening than standing by the railing and smirking down at the rampant violence, T’khara was convinced that somehow the d’Oessler creature was responsible for it.
Several shrieking women crashed to the floor near his feet, and began pummeling each other. That was all the impetus that T’khara needed. Spotting a large armoire near the hallway, which led to the south wing of the castle, he danced his way through the fighting mob. As he passed two combatants, he had to duck to avoid several wild punches. Slipping into the space between the wall and armoire, he watched in shock as the orderly exodus became a riot. The people, who moments before were in a hurry to return home, now seemed intent on maiming and killing each other.
Sickened by the sights around him, T’khara momentarily closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked not at the carnage around him, but at the d’Oessler impersonator who was calmly observing the melee. As T’khara continued to watch, d’Oessler moved closer to a group of antagonists, and they actually seemed to begin fighting more fiercely. One of the men closest to d’Oessler, wrapped his hands around the throat of the woman next to him, and began to squeeze. Although, she clawed at the man’s hands, he never wavered. When she was finally still, the man released her, and she dropped to the floor with a sickening thud. At the same time, d’Oessler moved down the balcony toward another group of combatants. As he did this, the first man seemed to come to himself, and stared horrified at the body of the woman he had just killed.
During this shocking scene, the imitation d’Oessler appeared to be gloating, and T’khara found himself sickened by what was happening. Two men, who seemed intent on beating each other to death, crashed into him as he turned away from the sight. Recovering himself, T’khara tried to make the two men stop; however, they were too intent on destroying each other to pay him any heed. As he continued to try to intervene, they stumbled back out into the open room, drawing T’khara with them.
Realizing that he was no longer concealed, T’khara glanced up at the d’Oessler figure but saw that he was concentrating on creating even more chaos. Heart racing, he scurried back between the armoire and the wall, before anyone could notice him. The others were still throttling each other, and T’khara began to wonder why he remained unaffected, while everyone else had gone mad.
Unable to see the d’Oessler creature now, he decided to find a better hiding place. He slipped away from behind the armoire and ducked down the nearby corridor. Soon he was in a part of the castle that was unfamiliar. He wandered the maze of hallways and rooms for almost an hour, before stumbling upon a small, abandoned-looking room. Besides a lot of dust and weaver’s webs, the room also contained an embroidered couch, and a short table with several glass bowls on it. It appeared as if no one had been in the room for quite some time, so T’khara thought he would be safe, at least for a little while.
As the panic that had sustained him subsided, he realized just how exhausted he was. He needed some time to think, and plan, but mostly he needed some time to rest. He dropped onto the couch, causing a large cloud of dust to rise up around him. He sneezed explosively several times; then wearily he sank back into the couch. Sleep came almost immediately, pulling him into the darkness of forgetfulness.
*****
XirRoq watched the resonances of the crowd as they began to swirl together. He pushed in more reds and oranges, overriding the group’s emotional neutrality. Soon, there was a chaotic pattern of reds, yellows, and orange, and he smiled. The reds began to pulsate, and he heard the angry shoutings as the group turned into a mob.
He saw several pockets of intense red as individuals began fighting with one another, and his smile grew. He reveled in the negative energies that were being created. But then his smile faded. There, amidst the whirling madness he was creating, was a bright spot consisting of blues and greens. Why? Why was that one person not reacting to his energies the way they should? Why was there calmness in the midst of his disturbance?
He probed at that calm spot; glossing over the resonances very cautiously so as not to alert the individual. The resonance pattern was moving as the person changed locations down below. However, he managed to follow it long enough to recognize the resonance. It was the same pattern that belonged to the person he had chased out of the tower. Very curious.
Shifting his view to that of human sight, he looked for the person creating that pocket of calm. However, all he saw was death and destruction, as the humans assaulted and attacked each other. XirRoq knew that the boy was there, but it was impossible to pick him out of the bedlam.
Now XirRoq was doubly intrigued. Not only had d’Oessler sensed great power within this boy, it seemed that this power also made the boy immune to his power.
Switching his vision back so that he viewed the resonance patterns around him, he rushed down from the balcony, intent on capturing the boy. He caught a glimpse of him, but before XirRoq could get through the mob that filled the entry hall, the boy had disappeared again. XirRoq was certain that the boy was still somewhere in the castle, so he wasn’t too worried, but he was peeved. Standing in the middle of the entry hall, he kicked at one of the bodies that lay strewn across the floor. He would have that boy, and he would have that boy’s power.
Kicking at the body again, he grunted with satisfaction and resolution. Not everyone who had tried to leave was dead, not yet. Many were hurt, and some would still die, but it had been a good feeding. He extended his senses, sweeping his resonance from the hall where he stood, to the south tower. Mentally he catalogued the damage he had inflicted, and his smug smile grew.
As soon as XirRoq pulled his auric energy back, the effects of his negativity lessened greatly, and those still alive, wondered what had happened. They couldn’t recall the arguments which had led to the fighting. The last thing any of them remembered was trying to leave to return home.
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