CHAPTER TWENTYEIGHT
Malkrin fought through the night and by the next morning they still held, all of the warriors held in reserve now manned the palisade and men slept under the timber wall. The field before them was littered with piles of dead Quarter-men. Another pile had been heaped in a corner away from the defences. The demons’ wood battering rams lay abandoned and still smouldering in burning oil which had been poured then ignited from the palisade. It was the one element that had gone the tribes’ way and this oil alone was responsible for keeping the quarter-men at bay.
The creatures had withdrawn at first light. Malkrin wondered whether they were nocturnal and could only stand a limited amount of light, or perhaps they retired to allow the sun’s rays to replenish them. He hoped he would live to test each possibility and discover the truth. With this unexpected but probably short lull in the fighting there was an important matter to attend to in the library.
The Fox was commanding his forces from the high bluff with his twenty menservants as messengers and bodyguards. Malkrin rode to him and explained his theory of the gold wall-sun and his conversation with Rachel of the Highnirvana. ‘Allow me time to check the library’s giant sun symbol and reveal its secret.’ The Council Elder looked impassive, unconvinced. ’sun symbols seemed to be the emblem of power within the Seconchane and Highnirvana societies so I am guessing the wall-art is the ancients trying to convey a message down the ages in some way.’
The Fox’s stern face softened, he was getting through to the old man.
‘If I look close enough, a code will surely be revealed. Or what if I touch it – what then, would the ancients speak to me, tell me of the hidden weapon and of their magic?’
The old man now looked directly at him and not to his beleaguered warriors below.
‘A powerful sense tells me it is vital that we follow this up.’ It took Malkrin a further valuable ten minutes to persuade The Fox to allow him six hours and a horse.
Malkrin rode the mare hard, she was willing and an hour later he left the sweating animal snorting and whinnying at the doors inside the Priests Keep. He rushed down the steps and burst through the door into the glaring light of the hidden underground library, and ran past Nardin and the two priests. They looked up startled from books and piles of notes as he flashed by. He stopped before the wall with the huge emblem.
Nardin ran up, his eyes again sharp and focused.
‘Malkrin, what is it?’
‘Has this wall ever struck you as strange?’
‘No. Why? It’s just an old mural.’
‘You have been taking Kristopher Falconfeather’s words out of context. He said, ‘if you search this library diligently, you will find what you seek.’ He meant the library itself not its books.’
Enlightenment appeared in Nardin’s eyes.
Malkrin continued searching physically and with his highsense at maximum. Then a once familiar fog returned to his mind, and internal shapes focused. He paused and concentrated. Cobweb filled cavities surrounded by metal wire reinforced concrete filled his mind.
His long lost inner eye had returned with such good timing he wondered if it were Jadde’s bidding.
‘I see a narrow space deep down, perhaps a passage similar to the one used to get into this secret library.’
Nardin looked puzzled, ‘your lost highsense has returned – thank Jadde,’ he said automatically although he no longer believed in the Goddess.
Malkrin informed him of the Highnirvana peoples’ quest for a cavern full of ancient magic. ‘We must help find the old weapons. I’m convinced a entrance is in here behind the mural.’
Malkrin stood back and sent his returned highsense into the wall. He scanned the wall structure from the hidden space and working toward him. It appeared to be surrounded by natural rock, then as he journeyed through the natural layers it changed to concrete block infill. It was a passage he was sure, and it led to the wall before them. He brought his highsense back to just within the wall. The bricked in space contained a spider’s web width black line the shape of a door and was covered with a layer of plaster. He walked to the indicated area and used his finger to trace the line. Ordinary vision showed a misalignment of painted lines in the mural.
‘Here it is,’ he shouted triumphantly and traced his finger over the door shape again for Nardin. They looked for a hidden door release, pressing all over the area. Suddenly at waist level Nardin pressed a section, and soundlessly a pad of white glowing numbers on a black pad emerged.
The shining numbers invited Malkrin to touch them so he depressed five at random. Each number reappeared magically on a small rectangular patch above the studs, a red light blinked – but nothing happened. Then the number screen became blank. He tried 2016, a date he remembered from the Morris-Tailt diary – the light blinked again and rejected the year. Malkrin tried a few more year dates – nothing; each time the irritating light blinked its denial then died.
‘More defunct machinery,’ Nardin muttered close to his ear.
Malkrin had a sudden mental connection and pressed digits 4, 7, 6, 5, the book number Falconfeather’s message had stated. The red light blinked its usual refusal. Then he noticed a button called ‘enter’ it was slightly larger than the others. He tried pressing it – nothing. He pressed 4 7 6 5 again, then immediately pressed ‘enter’ – after all he did want to enter so it seemed appropriately linked to Falconfeather’s number. Suddenly hidden catches clunked and the hair width seams widened as locks released.
A door swung open to reveal a dark so solid it looked like a barrier.
‘It’s as simple as reading when you know how,’ he joked.
After collecting two oil lamps from the scriptorium Malkrin led the way with Nardin following.
The flickering light revealed steps leading down so far they were swallowed by the dark. Five minutes later and descending all the way they approached another door. This one had a handle similar to the one in the library and opened easily.
Lights in the ceiling sizzled for a moment and went out. But it was promising – the ancients had not provided lighting for no reason. Another door; and it opened onto a soft spongy layer underfoot. In the lamplight it looked patchily red, in places faded to pink and in others eaten by rodents or just decayed with age. On either side, doors with lettered names mounted on the outer face appeared. They opened one that had belonged to a Prof. Erwin Kingston, he had other unpronounceable letters after his name. Malkrin had no time to work out their meaning. Kingston’s room appeared to be a workplace full of furniture similar to the library. They moved on past long dead dignitaries’ rooms; then stopped dead as they read a name on a partially open door.
General-commander Jadde
They looked at each other in surprise and entered the room. A single light in the ceiling lit to greet them. In the gloom Malkrin stared at footprints in the dust and noticed a disturbance in the grime on a large ornate workbench. Someone had been here recently. He examined a small painting on the desk with a faded picture behind glass. He made out an adult man with his arms around two children. All were smiling as if they had just eaten a full meal of venison. He glanced at a pile of folders in a tray marked ‘urgent’, his eyes moved to another tray as Nardin hissed.
‘Something’s happening.’
A red glow filled the open door, and then bright crimson smoke billowed into the room. Through the choking miasma a ghost appeared and stared at them.
The smoke made his eyes water and he began to cough. Nardin had backed into a corner next to a metal cupboard.
‘Malkrin, my love,’ it said in a tender voice he thought never to hear again.
The spectral figure approached, arms outstretched unearthly in the red fog. Malkrin joined Nardin in the corner. You could not fight an apparition, especially one resurrected by the ancients.
Nardin had his hands to his newly healed eyes, the red miasma affected him like an evil poison and he screamed in pain.
‘It’s all right Nardin.’ The appa
rition spoke again; ‘it is me Cabryce.’
Malkrin grabbed Nardin, forced him behind and then shrunk as far into the corner as he could.
‘For Jadde’s sake you dumb idiots – it is really me.’ The familiar scolding tongue woke him from the nightmare.
‘Cabryce?’
‘Who else do you think has my face? Speak to me. I haven’t spoken to anyone for seasons and seasons let alone the one person I really wanted to speak to – that is you, husband.’
‘Cabryce,’ he repeated and stepped forward to sweep her into his arms.
His hopes soared. Together they would find the DNA weapons, and if Jadde blessed them, use the ancient technology to stop the quarter-men from filling her heavenly domain with the extinct tribes.
This story is continued in.....
JADDE
Book Two: The Dark Tide
Now available
I hope you enjoyed reading the first Jadde novel as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it. If so, a positive review would be gratefully appreciated. Reviews really help other readers decide to buy and they go toward rewarding writers for their hundreds of hours of work.
Also by Clive Ousley
Out Side
(Released end of January 2017)
Execution Grove
(Released end of January 2017)
Fountain of Stones
The Jadde Series
Book 2
The Dark Tide
Book 3
World of Skulls
The Interstellar Reincarnation Universe
The 13 Reincarnations of Luke Arthur
Ring of Souls
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