The Silken Key

Chapter 14

Bronze doors led out into the open air. A dark green marble walkway led to a fantastic garden on its own huge platform. The moon looked green through the swamp mist. Most of the light in the garden came from clusters of fireflies that danced around the flowers and shrubs. Beyond the garden, another walkway led to the Wazeer's personal tower.

"Tell me, Slatesworn," the Wazeer said, stopping in the middle of the garden and turning to face him. "To whom does your loyalty go?"

"My loyalty?" Detlef was surprised by the question and hesitated to reply. "My loyalty is to my god."

"Have you upset your god so much that you are condemned to herd that cantankerous little hobbit around?"

Detlef wasn't sure if that was a joke, so he did a half-hearted laugh that came out more like the whinnying of a horse. "My service is to help and protect people of faith," he explained. "Tabitha...I suppose she's the first person I found."

The Wazeer stared at him for a while. It was as though there was a book pinned to his face which she was reading with great concentration.

"You are the one who should lead this quest," she said eventually.

"Quest? You mean, the quest for the 'Silken Key'?"

"Not for the Key - the quest to stop the Necromancer Tertullian."

The name slammed into Detlef like a charging bull. It was the man who had been journeying back from Alresbay the same night Tabitha went missing.

"Tertullian...I met a wizard by that name once," Detlef gasped. "That can't be a coincidence."

"No." The Wazeer lifted her face to the sky with a smile. "You are the right man to do this because you have absolutely no clue what you are doing."

Detlef felt himself deflate slightly. "Oh...OK. Is that a good thing?"

"It is essential," the Wazeer said. "The Key is the last remnant of a struggle for power which has been taking place in Ardu al-Zalam for almost two hundred years. Although Tariq is an honourable man, he knows much of the story behind this struggle, therefore he is at risk of being tempted into it. Tabitha, as little as she knows, is connected to it by blood. She openly admits she wants the Silken Key for its power."

"I don't understand," Detlef shook his head. "What is the struggle you are talking about? What does Tabitha's family have to do with it?"

The Wazeer plucked a few sprigs of a blue herb from a thick bush with tiny yellow flowers. She laid them flat in the palm of one hand and started to roll them into a ball with the other. Detlef noted a peppery smell coming from the crushed herb.

"Necromancy," the Wazeer began in a storytelling voice. "The power of raising the dead to do one's bidding. Frowned upon by all schools of traditional magic. Most mages, wizards and warlocks have the decency to leave the dead in peace."

Detlef watched her hands closely, shivering and wondering if she was about to give some demonstration by summoning a ghost out of the air.

"Several generations ago," she continued. "There were three necromancers who joined forces to raise an army of undead large enough to conquer the entire land. They were: a human named Ingrid Soghir, an elf named Geritt Vopasvol and a halfling named Tobias Fallowfield."

Detlef nodded as he took all the information in. "Fallowfield...Tabitha's ancestor?"

"Her great-grandfather," the Wazeer confirmed. "For a time, it seemed they would be unstoppable. It was a war no army could hope to win. Each mortal killed in battle would simply be added to the ranks of the undead."

"But...someone found a way to stop them, yes?"

"Actually, no," the Wazeer said. She took away her upper hand, revealing that the herb leaves were tightly balled up. Almost immediately, several fireflies drifted towards her hand, drawn by the scent. "The three were the cause of their own undoing. They did not realise such dark power cannot be shared. Light may have many sources, but the darkness exists only as a single whole."

Detlef continued to watch in fascination as three fireflies landed in the Wazeer's hand. As soon as they came into contact with the balled-up herb, the light they emitted changed from bright yellow to an eerie blue.

"They raised armies of the dead, sure enough," the Wazeer went on. "They were able to hide their ambitions from each other. But the armies they controlled were driven by the rivalry they kept secret."

The three fireflies started to bounce and jostle until they seemed to combine into a single glowing blue ball.

"The armies fought each other. The battle was terrible and destructive. Vopasvol was the first to be defeated, torn to pieces by the ghouls of Ingrid Soghir."

Detlef leaned closer, aware of his face being lit up by the ghostly blue glow of the struggling fireflies.

"So that was a good thing," he said. "The necromancers defeated each other and the land was spared?"

"For a time, yes," the Wazeer answered. "After Vopasvol died, Soghir and Fallowfield realised they faced only destruction if they continued. So each of them consigned their armies back to the ground and returned to their own homes. But before they did, they channelled the sum of their power into a single artefact, agreeing it should be used only when one bloodline remained."

The blue glow of the fireflies grew dull and faded until it had almost disappeared. Without the light shining, they were just three rather ugly black insects clambering over each other in a drunken heap.

"That artefact," Detlef said. "It's the Silken Key, isn't it."

"It seems that way, yes," the Wazeer nodded, tossing the herbs and the fireflies into the bush. "And now it is being sought by the great-granddaughter of one of the three."

"And Tertullian," Detlef said as it all started to make sense. "Is he a descendant of one of the three?"

"No, that's the interesting thing. Neither Vopasvol nor Soghir had any children. Vopasvol is dead. Soghir has kept herself alive by magic for almost two centuries in her own tower, up by the Swamp-on-the-Sea. It takes all her power just to sustain herself. She is no threat anymore."

"So Tertullian is...who?"

"New blood," the Wazeer sighed. "A prodigy of evil. A powerful wizard who saw the failures of the past and believed he could do better. He wants the Key so that he can attempt what the 'three' were unable to accomplish so long ago. He has learned from their mistakes; he will share the power with nobody. If he succeeds in raising his army, I don't believe anyone can stop him."

The thick, misty air was strangely still and quiet. Even the other fireflies seemed to have dispersed. The only light left in the garden came from the green glow of the moon.

"If Tabitha is a descendant of one of the 'three'," Detlef said, thinking out loud. "Would it be dangerous for her to find the Key? She doesn't seem to know anything about her great-grandfather. She says she gets her power from some ancient being that kept her in a cave for twenty years."

"Maybe," the Wazeer said. "Maybe not. What is certain is that we cannot allow Tertullian to get the key. It seems whether or not the hobbit is being led by a higher power, she has something about her which can help you find it before he does. You should use that to your advantage."

"I understand," Detlef nodded. The cold air was starting to bite at his skin. All the talk of necromancers and undead armies wasn't exactly helping. "But so far, she doesn't claim to know where the Key is, except that it was somewhere in Ardu al-Zalam."

"In that case," the Wazeer wrung her hands together. "We don't need divine wisdom to know where to look. There were three necromancers, but only one artefact. If the hobbit says the Key is here in Ardu al-Zalam, then it could not have been taken back to Alresbay by Tobias. And Vopasvol was slain before the Key was created."

Detlef nodded. "So that leaves one person who could have the it."

The Wazeer smiled, turned around and started walking towards her tower. "Precisely," she said. "You may rest here tonight. In the morning, you will know where you need to go."