Page 80 of A Tower of Half-Truths

Forty-Nine

When the temple came into view again, it was no longer enclosed within the water-like wall Alain had seen earlier, and he suspected Mavery no longer saw the sage-hued aura.

The temple now appeared an innocuous building that had been tucked away in the forest and long forgotten.

The fog had lifted, and the sun shone directly overhead, bathing the clearing in sunlight.

The Transmutation spell had successfully destroyed the temple’s external defenses.

Alain could only hope that any magic within the temple had also been disabled.

He now carried a bone-deep ache that flared with every step he took, and he doubted he had the strength to pull off anything more complex than a protective ward.

Fortunately, the Sensing spell was still anchored to the coin in his hand.

He recalled a time during his first year at university, when he’d managed to get his hands on a Transmutation primer.

Those spells were intended for sixth-year students, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him.

He’d attempted the most basic of Transmutation spells: instantaneously turning water into vapor.

At twenty-eight runes, the incantation was longer than any he’d learned in his classes at that point.

After reciting the incantation in his head a dozen times, he’d spoken it aloud.

On his first attempt, the water in his cup had vanished. But before he could revel in his success, he’d passed out.

The next thing he’d known was awaking in the University’s infirmary three days later, with violent nausea and a personalized note from Chancellor Lythandus, informing him that his next foolish stunt would earn him academic probation.

As Alain approached the clearing, he felt a bit like his seventeen-year-old self again. Only now, there was more than his transcript at stake.

“The Sensing spell only has a radius of thirty feet,” he said. “Stay close.”

With Mavery and her Senses leading the way, just in case there was any magic the spell couldn’t detect, they trudged through the grassy clearing and toward the smaller clearing that was devoid of life.

Dotting the landscape were corpses in various stages of decay: rabbits, squirrels, and other small creatures that had wandered too close.

“Trap up ahead,” Mavery announced.

Alain approached, then pushed aside a thistle with the butt of his staff. Beneath it was a red aura anchored to an Ether-sensitive stone embedded in the dirt. Alain wondered how many more detonation wards had been buried here, how many innocents had been killed or maimed over the years.

They continued onward until the other three groaned in unison. Mavery stopped, hunching over as though she were about to be ill again.

“Oh, gods, is that what I think it is?” Ellice said, pinching her nose.

“It is, sorry to say,” Neldren groaned.

Alain turned to them. “What is it?”

“How do you not smell that?” Neldren cried, pointing at a large dark object in the grass nearby.

“Years of alchemy experiments have made me immune to most—”

He froze as he realized the object was a corpse.

Auburn hair flashed before his eyes, then he blinked.

No, this corpse had black hair. Alain’s stomach lurched at how the left leg had been blown apart at the ankle.

The foot lay several yards away. The rest of the body was stomach-side down, bloated from lying in the sun, but it was still in the early stages of decomposition—a few days, at most. Even the wildlife hadn’t yet picked it apart.

“This has to be the bloke Benard told us about,” Neldren said, shaking his head. “Poor bastard must’ve triggered one of those blasting wards.”

Detonation, Alain thought, but he lacked the capacity to do anything but stare at the corpse as Mavery’s hand slipped into his.

“It’s not him,” she whispered.

“I know,” he whispered back. “But gods…knowing now what happened, seeing it in person.” He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

She squeezed his hand but said nothing more. He doubted there was anything she could say.

Alain opened his eyes, cleared his throat. “Let’s keep moving.”

“Finally,” Neldren muttered.

They left the corpse behind and encountered no more traps as they approached the innermost clearing. They climbed the slight hill, their boots crunching on dead grass, and finally stood before the temple. The archway was nearly three feet off the ground, but there were no steps leading up to it.

Neldren, being the tallest, pulled himself through the opening first, then helped each of the women up.

Alain waited, practically trembling with anticipation as the place he’d researched for years was now merely feet away.

He all but threw himself at Neldren’s proffered hand.

Once his feet were on solid ground again, Alain pushed aside the slight strain on his arcana and conjured an orb of Ether.

He directed it toward the pitched ceiling, and the white light revealed…

Nothing.

The Innominate Temple was a plain stone room. Aside from the entrance, it had neither doors nor windows. It contained no treasures, no iconography, not even a single plaque explaining its purpose.

Alain was too shocked to say anything. So, too, were Mavery and Ellice, judging by their slackened jaws. Neldren, however, threw back his head and laughed. The sound was almost deafening as it reverberated through the small high-ceilinged chamber.

“After all this,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes, “it’s fucking empty! Looks like someone beat us to the punch and kept the treasure all to himself.”

“No,” Alain whispered, shaking his head. “Those wards, that strange magic… No one could get through that unscathed.”

“But we did. Apparently, someone else did, too. I’ll bet they got past the wards, looted the place, and reset the defenses.”

“What about the anchor?” Ellice asked. “They left all that copper to guard an empty building?”

Neldren shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

“This can’t be right,” Alain muttered.

For centuries, this place had eluded the continent’s best scholars. Until not quite an hour ago, it had been shrouded in some of the most powerful magic Alain had ever seen. All that effort for what was, effectively, a Necromancer’s storage shed that had long been cleaned out?

“No, there must be more to it than this…”

Mavery appeared to agree. She began running her hands over the walls. When that proved fruitless, she gazed upward, searching the ceiling for answers. Alain followed her gaze but could see only his orb of light against a backdrop of gray stone.

“Watch it, Mave!” Neldren cried.

Alain turned to see Mavery standing with her back to Neldren’s chest. Neldren had her by the shoulders, steadying her. She looked down at her feet, then gasped. She pulled herself out of Neldren’s clutches and got down on all fours.

“Now what are you doing?”

“It’s a fabrication!” she said, sweeping her hand in a broad arc across the floor.

Ellice leaned over and placed her hand beside Mavery’s. “She’s right. I’d know that feeling anywhere.”

Alain approached, bringing his orb of light closer.

In the dead-center of the floor was a round stone that was slightly offset from the rest. It was rimmed with a thin band of metal.

Iron, from the look of it. A faint pulsation emanated from it.

It had the rhythmic quality of a Gardemancy spell but at a more rapid tempo.

“Our Sensing spell only works on warding magic,” Alain said. “That’s why only Mavery can see it. What kind of fabrication do you think it is?”

Ellice shrugged.

“Only one way to find out,” Mavery said. She pressed her palm flat against the fabrication, furrowed her brow as she fed it a bit of arcana. The fabrication itself did not change, but the walls trembled.

“Oh, gods, it’s a trap!” Ellice cried. “The whole godsdamned building is going to collapse!”

Mavery pulled back her hand, and the trembling stopped.

“Wait a minute…” she said.

She fed the stone more arcana, and the building shook again, more forcefully this time. Ellice shrieked. The floor now vibrated as well. Alain looked out the archway.

“It’s not collapsing,” he said. “We’re ascending!”

The more arcana she fed the fabrication, the higher in the air they rose.

Alain knelt beside Mavery and placed his hands on the fabrication.

His arcana, combined with hers, sped up their ascent.

As the ground vanished, Mavery emitted a low groan and honed her attention on the fabrication.

Alain recalled that she had a fear of heights.

She’d revealed that only days ago, when they were in the High Council’s—

He gasped.

“What is it?” Mavery asked.

Before he could answer, the building jerked to a halt, then the fabricated stone rattled beneath Alain’s palms. It slid to one side, disappearing into a slit within the floor, and revealed a stone spiral staircase.

It was too dark to see how far it descended, but there was no doubt another level—likely several—below this one.

Alain took Mavery by the hands. He shook with excitement as he beamed at her.

“Have I mentioned lately how brilliant you are?”

“No, you’re the brilliant one,” she said. Despite her apparent unease, she smiled back. “You were right: the Innominate Temple isn’t a temple.”

He nodded. “It’s a wizard’s tower.”