Book 2, Chapter 75

I would have thought that my new entourage would tell me where things were in the Old Grounds. I’d expected them to know which way to go. It seemed logical to me. That was half the reason they were here, after all.

Somehow, I was still channeling three different scrying spells while I pieced together a map of the underground portion of the palace. It might not have been as ridiculously huge as the part people still lived in, but it was more than big enough to get lost in. I hadn’t yet found the edges, at least.

Another thing I hadn’t found was any trace of Echo, which wasn’t necessarily a priority, but I’d feel better if we did stumble across her. That way, I could ditch the Hierophant’s flunkies and secure the capture of a potential enemy. Clearing Echo off the board would be a solid win, especially considering how few members of the Wolf Pack were left.

Monarch, Sibilant, Keeper, Hangman, and Echo. Weaver and Haze had turned on the cabal, and everyone else was dead. With how much I’d inflated my mana reserves over the last few days, I knew I could handle any three of them at the same time. My understanding was that neither Sibilant nor Keeper were fighters, much like how Weaver had filled a support role in the cabal. They had specific duties that didn’t include blasting intruders to pieces. I’d already killed all the people who did that.

That left just three to fight, and if I could guarantee Echo was out of the picture, so much the better. Unfortunately, wherever she was at, I couldn’t find her. Maybe that was a good thing. If she’d used her prophetic magic to see me coming and decided the best way to survive was to be far, far away from this battle, that still meant I wouldn’t have to deal with her.

I’d track her down later, once Monarch was dead. I wasn’t too worried about finding her anyway, not like I was with Sibilant. Even if he wasn’t a fighter, he had exactly the kind of skill set I wanted removed from the Wolf Pack. I’d settle for just the treasure box full of trinkets Monarch was giving out to her inner circle for today, but Sibilant also needed to go sooner or later.

“It’s creepy down here,” the mage walking next to me said.

“You don’t get out of the palace too often, do you?” I asked.

“No. Why?”

“Because this place looks a lot like where we just came from, only dark and broken. It’s like a twisted mirror of the world you live in,” I said.

“Like I said: creepy.”

I might have responded, except at that moment, I spotted something interesting through one of my scrying spells. “Hold up,” I told the group. “I’ve got something.”

I’d found a door, one that was sealed closed. It looked like every other door I’d seen in the palace, except this one had a series of runes carved up its surface, runes that were infused with mana. I examined them with my scrying spell, then shook my head and laughed.

“They put a bomb on this door. It’s designed to look like a holding spell. Then the unlucky fool who tries to dispel or bypass the ward triggers the failsafe and gets blown to pieces. I wonder what’s behind it.”

Despite the rune structure’s explosive capacity, the door was actually sealed closed. A different ward, one that extended through the walls, granted privacy to whatever was on the other side. I could probably disable it from where I stood, but it would be easier to do it in person. Though, given some of the wards I’d seen, the one on the inner-city wall, for example, it was entirely possible that I wouldn’t be able to take it apart without getting a look at it from the other side.

Either way, this was worth investigating. If it came down to it, I knew how much mana was powering that invocation and I could contain the blast. Then I’d drain the ward and let it alert whoever it might be tied to. It wasn’t like Monarch could possibly have missed the fact that I was coming for her by now.

I quickly sketched out the situation to my new entourage, warned the elites to keep their draw stone shields far away from the door until I’d finished working unless they wanted to be blasted down the hallway, and set off in that direction. Various arguments rose up behind me, mostly some flavor of either ‘That’s too dangerous’ or ‘Do you know if Lady Zara is behind these wards?’ I ignored both. I wasn’t here to assist them.

Five minutes later, we’d reached the door. After waving everyone back, and noting that both mages were huddled behind the wall of elites, I started working on the wards. A few divinations gave me more information, mostly good news. Unlike the city wall wards, I could finally examine the ones in this wall. Privacy wards were finicky about people looking at them, but since I no longer cared if the Wolf Pack knew I was coming for them, I was free to be as unsubtle as I liked.

First, the explosive trap. It wasn’t that I couldn’t disarm it, more just that there was no reason to leave free mana sitting there, and I didn’t want it going off accidentally. All it would take was one idiot with a draw stone getting too close to me to disrupt the delicate structure and set the explosion off.

My mana crystal was completely full, but I had Tetrin’s storage crystal in my possession as well as the one I’d made for myself. There was plenty of room for more mana. I drained that trap dry, then got to work recycling the mana into working to pry apart the wards blocking me from scrying into the room. I wanted a good look at what was behind that door before I unsealed it and opened it.

It was entirely possible that someone had sealed it off for a reason. I’d seen plenty of times where some fell beast, too powerful to be slain, was locked behind enchantments and wards just like this one. I’d also seen plenty of nosy adventuring parties slaughtered to a man when they accidentally woke those fell beasts up. There was a small chance I’d built rooms just like that and populated them with monsters I’d subdued with my magic specifically to serve as guardians to things I didn’t want found but didn’t have the time to babysit.

Just a small chance. I wasn’t admitting to the practice, certainly not to any of my current companions. They’d never understand, anyway.

The ward thrummed under my assault, but I worked quickly to break it apart. This was made easier by the fact that it stood under its own power and nothing else. All three of the palace’s ward stones were completely separate from everything in the Old Grounds. That made a big difference, since it couldn’t draw on the ward stone’s reserves to replenish its mana once I actively started draining it.

Finally starved of mana, the ward collapsed. “Got it,” I said. “One minute while I check the other side.”

I sent new scrying spells ahead of me, ones which easily passed through the now-unprotected walls. What I found was something of a surprise, but only because I hadn’t been expecting it here. I’d already known of its existence, of course. Considering how much of a bastard Haze had been for betraying her companions, I’d really expected her information to be less than reliable. So far, everything had been accurate, though she’d only been able to relay stories of this room, having never seen it herself.

The Grand Archive waited for us on the other side of that door. At least, that was what the Wolf Pack called it. It was a collection of every tome of lost magic they’d managed to collect, relics of a past age. I’d apparently missed that one, but from what I’d been reading, it didn’t sound that great to me. Mostly, it sounded like a lot of people mucking with things they should have known better than to touch. Slaving moons to their whims, then blowing them up… Amateurs. I disappeared for one or two thousand years and they broke everything. Now I was stuck spending the next few decades of my new life cleaning up after them.

I wasn’t terribly excited to visit the Grand Archive myself, mostly because, as I understood it, the focus was on magic. I seriously doubted anything in those books would be news to me. Maybe if there was a volume titled How I, Ammun the Dumbass, Accidentally Broke the World Core, I’d be interested in that. At least then I’d know exactly how he’d done it—not that I needed to. I mostly just needed to figure out where he’d bored a hole down to the core. I could fix it myself.

“Books. Lots and lots of books. I’m going in to look around, but there’s no sign of your missing princess,” I said. “Feel free to look elsewhere if this doesn’t interest you.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” one of the elites asked.

“I’m sure it’s not,” I said. “The door was rigged to kill everyone in this room if we tried opening it before I erased the magic. I’m of the opinion that there might be more traps on the other side.”

“Maybe we should…” The elite trailed off and glanced back at the two mages.

“The Hierophant gave us our orders,” he said severely. “We’re to stick with the boy until such a time as we find Lady Zara.”

I ignored the rest of that conversation and pushed the door open slowly. I’d already scanned the other side with my magic, but nothing beat getting a look using my own eyes. At least, nothing I was willing to spend mana on to beat it. There were a few master tier divinations that put human eyes to shame.

Any hesitation I felt to enter stemmed less from the idea of running afoul of a trap and more from the fact that if we’d found the Grand Archive, that meant Keeper was somewhere nearby. I’d dismissed her as a combatant, but that didn’t mean I was eager to take her on in her own sanctum. I’d done that once already with Freak, and that had been the most difficult fight I’d had in centuries.

The only solace here was that Keeper was well known among the Wolf Pack for caring about one thing and one thing only: her books. It was probably a safe assumption that any traps scattered through the library would have contained effects to avoid collateral damage. That usually meant non-lethal, at least at the level of skill I was dealing with.

The entrance was clear. I padded in slowly, my eyes scanning the darkness for any signs of ambush. Over the next thirty seconds, all I did was stand just inside the doorway and peer off into the gloom at towering bookshelves, each easily fifteen feet tall, and at the pinpricks of mage light floating between them. They drifted back and forth in simple patterns, little lanterns on patrol in the air. Each one had an alarm spell woven into it, set to trigger should their light fall upon anything that moved.

“That’s a lot of books,” one of the two mages said softly as he came to stand next to me.

“Maybe you can come loot the place after I’m done here,” I said. “Come on if you’re coming. There’s a mage somewhere in this place I’d like to talk to.”

Almost fearfully, both mages followed me into the library. The elites who were supposed to be guarding us trailed along behind them single-file. I could probably have found Keeper if I was persistent enough in my search. There were only so many nooks and crannies a person could hide in.

I didn’t do that. Instead, I walked right over to the closest mage light heading my way and looked up at it as it shone on top of me. The light turned from soft white to a pulsing red, and I saw a line of mana arc out deeper into the library.

“Got you,” I muttered as I turned to follow it.