Hadjar started, and Einen opened his eyes slightly in surprise. The gleam of his purple eyes indicated the islander’s utter shock.
“How do you know about it?”
Instead of answering, Karissa turned toward him sharply. For a moment, her face showed a mixture of disgust and haughtiness.
“Don’t presume that everyone around you is stupid, barbarian.” The witch advised him and then resumed her examination of the gates. “Or do you honestly believe I took your things to the barracks without examining them first? Or that the head of the Auction House wouldn’t report any anomalies to the heads of the other departments?”
Hadjar looked at Ramukhan, who smiled back at him smugly.
Damn it!
The sorcerer had known about the stone, too.
A sudden thought struck Hadjar, and he clutched at the wallet on his belt. In his blue eyes, a wisp of rage erupted and a sleeping dragon awakened.
“Don’t even think about it, barbarian.” Karissa nodded at the blue amulet on Hadjar’s arm. “I don’t think it’s a good time for you to be writhing around in pain on the sand.”
Hadjar had to breathe in and out slowly several times before he was able to calm down. He understood that Karissa had simply done her duty and that caution had made her examine the personal belongings of her future subordinates. However, deep in his heart, Hadjar hated anybody touching his friends’ wedding bracelets. Even Einen, who knew about this quirk of his, never allowed himself to touch the leather wallet when they sparred.
“I agree with Glen about one thing,” the witch said, ignoring Hadjar’s anger. “Sankesh, or someone else no less powerful than him, is close by. There’s only a couple of hours left before the comets intersect. By the Evening Stars, I’m sure we’ll get to see them as well.”
Hadjar looked up at the sky. If they’d understood the golem’s hint correctly, they hadn’t fallen through the bottom of a lake, but, on the contrary, had flown up.
Unfortunately, nothing remained of the once magnificent city. Only the sand and the guards hiding within it. In the center, looking like both a stronghold of great power and a repository of wisdom, the library towered. After all, the mages hadn’t valued power, but knowledge. This had affected Underworld City’s philosophy, so its witches and sorcerers were physically equal to ordinary mortals. Power based on wisdom and knowledge surpassed the might of the majority of cultivators and practitioners who were on the same level of the more physical cultivation path.
“Wisdom,” Hadjar muttered.
What the hell! Maybe they’d get lucky.
Hadjar put his hand on the gates and said:
“Open.”
Nothing happened. Glen, who was standing nearby and had heard the command, chuckled sarcastically:
“Of course it won’t-”
He was interrupted by a deafening creak. Everyone instinctively ducked and covered their ears with their hands. The massive hinges, driven by an unknown mechanism, retracted inside the shutters. The bolt trembled and swayed. Karissa and the others jumped back, everyone except Tilis. She was too busy watching the carvings on the surface of the monumental gates as they moved.
“Look out!” Hadjar shouted.
Blurring into the shadow of the Seven Ravens, he leapt toward the witch and managed to pull her aside at the last second. The great bolt landed only a few feet from them. Air and sand waves covered Hadjar and Tilis. When they emerged from the sand, Einen helped Hadjar up, but the witch had to climb out by herself.
“This doesn’t change anything between us,” the girl’s multicolored eyes flashed angrily, and she was the first to leap over the fallen bolt and head for the stone-hewn stairway. It, writhing like the snake the islander had recently defeated, wrapped around the entire mountain range.
“Don’t put your stone away, Northerner,” Karissa said.
Ramukhan followed the women, leaving the strangers behind. It was obvious that the witches and sorcerer were eager to get into the library.
“Gods and demons,” Glen swore, “I can’t believe that worked and I can’t believe I’m even here. First it was Underworld City, and now it’s Mage City. I’m like the hero of some fairy tale.”
“You’ll have some great stories to tell your children.” Einen clapped the Baliumian on the shoulder again, climbed over the bolt, and then headed for the stairs.
Hadjar was the last to follow, not because he was afraid or he had to guard their rear. His heart was simply beating too quickly, and something inside of him was calling out and beckoning him into the building. Despite the fact that the call was coming from the depths of his own soul, it was... alien to him. When, from the depths of the mountains, he heard a deep, feminine whisper utter ‘Darkha-a-an’, Hadjar understood it was all too real.
Putting his hand on the hilt of his sword, he boldly jumped over the huge bolt and followed after the others. The ruins of the dead civilization wouldn’t make him turn around. Nothing would ever make him slow his stride or halt his sword. Nothing in this world or any other could stop Hadjar Darkhan. On the path to his goal, he wouldn’t flinch at any danger.
Psyching himself up with such thoughts, Hadjar resolutely walked forward. In some places, the steps had collapsed or were so narrow that they had to press their backs to the wall to go farther. Einen would jump over the gaps first and then extend his staff toward the witches and the sorcerer. Their bodies weren’t strong enough to jump over 15ft abysses. Glen and Hadjar walked in the back. To them, these gaps weren’t difficult obstacles. Slowly, they climbed higher and higher.
The gates, which had once seemed enormous, had disappeared from view. Now they were just a small speck glinting in the depths of a dark, rocky chasm. They soon passed through the clouds, climbing so high up that the sorcerer and witches had to put masks with talismans on their faces once again. Their bodies couldn’t handle the pressure, the temperature difference, and the thinning air. The practitioners merely slowed down slightly. Their bodies could withstand far more than this, and their lungs could do without oxygen for at least fifteen minutes.
Their ascent, which took at least several hours, ended with them standing on a plateau. The view reminded Hadjar of the fact that this world could surprise even the most experienced traveler. Ahead of them, on the cliffs and precipices linked by stone stairways and bridges, long-abandoned pavilions and stone buildings stood. They were domed and oval as all buildings in the Sea of Sand were. The subtle grandeur and exquisite ornaments were a breathtaking contrast. The domes were made of amber, but the amber appeared blue from a distance.
Blue sparks of power danced across the spires of the library’s towers. Even after millions of years, the place was still active. Energy, twining around the ornaments and flowing over them, broke away from the domes and surged into the sky, disappearing with the discharges of blue lightning bolts.
“Now I see why the golems are still active,” Ramukhan whispered admiringly, and leapt across the yawning chasm that separated the plateau from the crumbling stone bridge without Einen’s help.
Ramukhan was soon followed by the others. Hadjar was the last to jump over the blue clouds that lay below the bridge. Before he could even think ‘just like little Serra’, the clouds beneath him swirled, rose up in a high column, and Hadjar landed not on an ancient rock, but on ... a cloud.