The Inquisitor Ch. 29

Far below, the princess searched shelf after shelf, reading legends on spines of volumes, carefully unrolling scrolls. Histories and legends, faery tales and myths lay before her. To all these she gave passing glances, but had not the time to delve deep into their secrets.

She made her way down the long hall, her fingers stopping now and again, pulling some forgotten volume, only to return it, not finding anything of use. She knew not how long she had been searching in the library of the ancient dragon horde, but knew the moments ticked by at breakneck speed.

Her frustration grew as she searched. Somewhere among these writings, the old man at the outlanders camp had promised she would find something which might help her thwart her ruler, information to help her fulfill her oath of vengeance. With a growl, she returned another useless volume to its place.

About halfway down the hall, near the center table, she began to come across items showing a bit more promise. The books and tomes here seemed newer, fresher. The scrolls held schematics and technical drawings which seemed to her somewhat familiar. Her fingertips alighted upon a thick leather-bound volume bearing the legend "The Writings of The King." Sliding it out, she hefted it onto the stone table and sat upon its adjoining bench, tucking her leg up under her as she began to read. She thumbed through page after page until at last her eye fell upon something which caught her attention.

- - -

The sand... The sand was the key!

Many hours I listened to my companion across the way. Scrape, scrape, scrape! Stone rasping against harder stone. I questioned him many times... what are you doing? What is the meaning of this? What scratching is that? How are we to escape this infernal prison?

To all my queries, he said nothing. And still the scraping, scratching. In the weak light, I could see his back to me, his bent frame toiling at the wall behind him. At times, he would collapse in exhaustion and all I could hear from his was the rattle of his harsh breathing. After a time, he would rise again, resuming the awful scraping of the wall behind him.

At long last, he sat down with a heavy sigh, and drew before him a small mound of shiny black sand. For all the many hours of the tedious scraping at the wall, all he had gathered was this small mound of grains.

For many long minutes, he sat still and silent. So much so, I believed him to have expired from his toil, so quiet was he.

Then, his raspy voice issued across the chasm between us.

"So, my companion..." he panted. "You wish to know of our escape."

"Yes, friend." Said I. "What has this bit of dust have to do with climbing from this pit?"

In truth, I believed him mad, or at the very least addled beyond reason.

"Patience, my comrade." He cackled. "Think you that this will be easy? Men have lived lifetimes trying to master this one task alone!"

All at once, a bright blue ball of fire sprung up above his outstretched hand. It curled around itself, writhing and reforming. It hung in the air above his hand, hovered their of its own accord.

My thoughts of his madness vanished, though I still had doubts about my own sanity. Truly I had slipped from reason myself, beholding such a sight, or this prisoner across the divide was a great sorcerer indeed.

Carefully, he laid the ball of blue fire into a small depression in the rock floor next to him, where it rolled and played and crackled. Though its brightness had dissipated, it still shone bright enough to illuminate the walls of our shared prison and cast an eerie glow against his wis'ned skin.

Let me take a moment to describe him. His hair was long and grey, matted and wild. He wore a long beard, equally crazed and dirty, which hung long down to his stomach and across his crossed legs. He was tall, as so much as I could tell from his seated posture, and his shoulders had once been broad and strong, but age and severity had hunched them considerably. His most striking features, however, were his eyes. They stood out bright from sunken sockets, His face was drawn and haggard, as a man who has not seen decent food in many an age. But the eyes. Bright and shining, even so much as glowing in the darkness. I must confess that even I gave a shudder to behold them.

But let me continue with the narrative. So long spent I in the darkness of our oubliette, it is difficult to place events in their proper order. How long we spent together there I cannot say, but an age it seemed to learn the skills he professed. I have always been a quick study, language, mathematics, the arts; all of these I mastered with ease, but his teaching taxed me in a way I have never known before, of mind and of body.

Even now as I pen these histories, his voice strikes hard within me.

"Your mind," he would say. "Your hands are useless here. You must believe him into existence... with your mind!" And off he would go in another endless parade of cackles and coughs and suptters before we could continue.

From his small mound of sand, he fashioned a tiny man-shape. He spat into the sand, urinated into it, formed it into paste. Slowly, ever so slowly, he fashioned his clay man-shape. Hours we spent in the light of his strange blue fire as he worked it into being. All the while as he fashioned, he spoke to me of strange new sciences. He told me of the heavens, of strange worlds beyond our own. He spoke of the stars, proclaiming them like our own sun, but far distant in the vastness of the heavens. He told of plants with healing properties, of stones which held great power.

Magick, dear reader. He spoke of magick unknown to me, though I could best any wizard in my own realm. He told of music, explained about tricks of sight and of sound and of mind. And all the while he moulded his man-shape.

I drifted in and out. At times he would quickly extinguish his magick flame. And soon after, men would appear high above, and rain insults and refuse down upon us. From these scraps we would survive. As he worked, I fashioned a vessel for water from a broken pot-sherd. I would gather it drop by drop as it seeped from the living rock about me.

At long last, the darkness was allayed with a new ball of fire, bright and bluish green, which he laid beside him again. His eerie eyes fixed me from across the chasm.

"It is finished." said he, holding up a tiny clay figure before him for me to see. To my amazement, it was a perfect replica of himself, exact to the last detail.

"A doll!" raged I. "All this long time for a mere doll!"

From out of the darkness, a sharp stone struck me directly between the eyes.

"Silence, dolt!" he wheezed as a small trickle of my blood ran down from the strike. ""T'is no mere doll! T'is the Golem of Cyr-va'ahl!"

I mocked him not, no fool was I, nor did I relish another rock to the head. But, my gentle reader, in my thoughts, I smirked.

But only for a moment. In the gloom, he hunched over his tiny doppleganger and spoke muttered words to it. Again, I thought him quite mad, until all at once, the tiny clay figure twitched. It twitched and with a hop it sprang up and moved of its own accord!

The old man giggled and clapped with gnarled hands with glee. "Ha Ha!" he cried. 'You see?!" And he sprang to his own feet and danced a shambling jig. As I watched in shock, the tiny figure of himself danced the same disconcerting dance beneath him.

Again, I believed I might have come unhinged. Here I sat, gazing across a bottomless pit at a crazed old man and his dancing clay doll. I shook my head and blinked my eyes, but still it remained.

All at once, he sat down again, breathing hard as his little man-doll danced and whirled and jumped. The effort seemed to have drained him, and as I watched, the little figure reeled and fell over, shattering into a thousand pieces.

The old man sighed... his shoulders sank and he was very quiet for a very long time.

I do not know how long we sat in silence... it seemed to me as days. I was brimming over with questions, but I would open my mouth to ask, only to look over and see his exhausted condition. I therefore remained silent, allowing him to regain his strength.

- - -

The princess looked up from her reading. A small grey mouse scuttled across a few golden coins to her left, making a tinkling sound.

The princess wished for a timepiece, or a sands-of-hour, for she had no idea how long she'd been gone. She plunged again into the narrative, reading as fast as she could, immersed in the King's writings.

- - -

At long last, he seemed ready, and bade me find a stone or implement of any kind, and set to work gathering sand from the rocks on my side of the oubliette. I cannot say how long I labored at the rock. Hard as iron it was, and I felt my own strength gradually fade as I labored. Days of toil it seemed before I had even garnered but a small pile of black sand.

"That is sufficient." He called from across the way. "Now your training begins."

"You asked how we were to escape from this forsaken place. The answer lies before you. In truth, it lies above you, but we shall come to that later. For now, you must master yourself."

"Before you lies a pile of the same grains as I fashioned my Golem. My task was easy, for I already have the knowledge, and I could make use of my hands. For us to escape this prison, you shall have neither, and your task will be very difficult."

He bade me separate out from the pile but two grains of the black sand, and set them far apart. This task alone proved difficult, as I was forever losing one grain, or snaring more than one from the pile. At last, I was reduced to one grain at a time, and placing them very carefully, so I might find them again. It was then that he asked what seemed an impossibility.

He said I was to try and bind the two grains together, using only my thoughts. I laughed out at this, to which I received another rock to the head. I thought and thought, and the grains remained apart.

Mastering this skill took what seemed an eternity. Try as I might, I could no more make the sand move than I could fly from the pit of my own volition. I gazed at them, I frowned at them, I scowled at them, I thought with all my might, but all to no avail.

I labored to control the sand with my thoughts, and despaired. I know it must have taken a very long while to grasp the skill, for my own beard had grown quite long when I finally accomplished it.

T's not through some forgotten magick words that I achieved this, though he taught me a-plenty, and I tried them all. One morning, or what seemed like morning, I was just lying there, looking back and forth from my two shiny grains of sand; when it happened. In my heart, or my head, or somewhere, I believed they could. I believed it! And just like that, the two grains shot towards each other, striking together with such force that they appeared to fuse together.

From across the way, the old man cackled and danced with glee. "You see!" he shouted. "You see! You must believe it into existence!"

I had it! From there, he instructed me to mould my little pile of sand into any shape I wished. A ball, a cube, a tree, a mouse, all manner of solid shapes I could create by thinking it into being. But for all my shape-shifting, my figures never once moved of their own accord, or showed any sign of life.

"At long last!" the old man who shared my prison cried. "Now, my pupil. You must learn the magick that can breath life and movement into these forms!" And he cackled and danced and coughed and wheezed.

Again it seemed another age as he instructed me on various ancient words of magick. The belief and thoughts of mind my lent them strength, but the words themselves held their own power. As I progressed, he taught me to lend movement to a small mouse-shape, to make it climb about my small ledge and up the walls. He taught me to bounce a ball of sand higher and higher. Oh, how many times did I fail at that task. My thoughts would bounce it again and again, and all at once, the ball would come apart with the slightest nugge.

He would scold me for losing focus, proclaim me a dimwit, shower me with a hail of stones, but on he instructed me. At last, I mastered all of these small figures, could hold them together for as long as I wish, could mould them into whatever shape I chose with just a thought. I gloated over my progress, and would receive a shower of stones for my boastfulness.

"No more." He proclaimed one day, or it seemed like day, but I had no way of actually knowing, as no sun shone in our dank oubliette. "You must rest for three days. Take any food that is thrown down to you, drink any water you can find, and do naught but rest and gather strength." I obeyed and he was silent, indeed for three days. Thought I rested and ate and drank what I could, I must confess I counted the minutes.

After what seemed another age, he spoke again. "It is time, my son. I can sense no living soul anywhere near but you and I."

"Do you recall your lessons, my pupil?" he asked. "You must bring all your skills to bear now."

"Look upon our prison. See that it is made up of this hard black stone?"

"Yes, my master." Said I.

"Long ago, the ledges you and I inhabit were once part of a natural bridge of sorts over this chasm. There was similar on high above us at the rim of this rift." He pointed aloft and I strained to make out the dim pinnacle of the wall behind me.

"The infidels whom you fought against..." he continued. "Many seasons ago learned this rock held certain powers. When combined with other rocks and minerals, it serves as enhancer. As you already have learned from your toils at the rock, it is very hard and dense. The infidels tried without success to mine this rock, only to learn all their skills were useless against its stubbornness."

"The Magi of the Sultan discovered that when this rock is powdered, and mixed with the elements of Greek fire, it make it's all them more potent and destructive. You might remember the effect it had on your armies, do you not?"

It is with a said heart I recalled the destruction of my fine armies at the hands of my enemies and the exploding missiles of green fire their war-engines hurled upon us.

"The Sultan knew of the properties of this stone..." he continued, and he desired a store of it for his weapons. But as I said, their mining tools were impotent against this stone." He smacked the stone wall behind him soundly with his palm.

"It was decided they would take the bridges over the chasm, and for many, many seasons, hundreds of slaves worked to break narrow beams from the walls, and lift them to the rim. Many men died before they brought them up. You and I stand on either end of one of those old natural beams."

"They brought them up..." he went on. "They dragged them up and more slaves spent generations pulverizing it into powder. High above you lies a huge mound of powdered black sand. The Sultan used but a bit of it with his Greek fire and pitch, and it served his purposes with great return."

"Now do you see why I had you learn to create with your mind? Any dullard can fashion a replica with his hands, but it takes true mastery to do it by will alone." Even in the darkness, I could see him brimming with pride.

"But master, why have you not create your own Go'Lem to release you?" I asked.

"Alas." He replied. "I have not the strength any longer. You saw how badly it taxed me just to breathe life into my tiny form. You are the only one strong enough to conjure a Golem powerful enough to bring you to the surface."

"But beware, boy!" he warned. "Take care with this new power. You should never use this type of rock to conjure such a being. Rock such as this, it is difficult to control. It often overpowers the good, and turns to evil. Take care not to let a dark Golem linger too long... use pure grains if you can. In our case, it is all we have, and therefore, we must use it. But beware... it may... take on a mind of it's own."

He sat down and extinguished his fire, leaving me alone in the dark. I concentrated hard, feeling up the wall with my mind. At last, I perceived the great mound of black shiny grains.

It took far more of my will than I expected. It was as if it fought against me. At last, I prevailed, and it began to form together. First and hand, and arm, shoulder, neck, face... my face. After a time, I formed a copy of myself high above me, moulded of sand. I found that if I believed it, I could change its shape, it's color, its texture. I tried different clothes on it, different hairstyles, different boots, all made up of solid grains of sand. In my mind, I stood, just as real and solid as if it were myself, looking down the chasm at myself standing on the ledge far below.

I discovered a strange connection with the being above. A link, between my mind of flesh and tissue, and it's of sand and mineral. I found I could control it. The sand! The sand was the key!

I encouraged it to hunt for a means of extricating me from the pit. I found it did as commanded, but not without hesitation. It was as if it desired to leave me in my prison, and make its own escape. After much internal struggle, it found the very long rope which had been used to lower me down. It stood on the lip of the chasm, coiling it, looking down at me.

I commanded it! I commanded it to lower the rope, and at long last it obeyed. The long coil snaked down, and I tethered my self to it. Slowly, very so slowly, it pulled me up. Once, about halfway, I perceived it desired to drop me, and I unleashed a barrage of commands with my mind, and at last it reeled me the rest of the way.

I struggled over the lip, and rose to find myself staring... at myself. The eyes, the mouth, the face... mine. Even the curious smile it gave me as we gazed at one another. It was then that its curious smile changed. It slid into an ugly sneer, and in its eyes I saw hate.

It lunged at me, grasped at my throat, trying to throttle me. We struggled, and I was aghast at its strength, it's solidity. We fought, exchanging blow for blow, man against himself, until at last, I wrestled him over the edge and watched him fall...