Ultimus Thesaurus: The last Treasure (Era of Change Book 1) (3 page)

For a good start into the day I needed nothing more than a rich breakfast and the warm words of this loving family. 

How could a person be happy to leave this place? So I took the letter and skipped the breakfast, as it would only steal precious time. The souvenir shop was not very far away and was located at the harbour. There were not many seafarers in Amnia, but Lucia never wanted to sell anything anyway. She always said that the things her father sent meant to much to her to give them away. The shop was actually much more some kind of oversized occult shrine. Even though not much thought was given regarding the hidden aspect of it.

“Good morning! Buy something! The Lugh Curiositorium has what you are looking for!” she cried at me when I walked into the store.

“It’s just me. Did you ever have a customer at such a time of day? No normal person would be getting up early to buy souvenirs,” I said and checked if the envelope was hidden deep enough in my pocket, in fear that Lucia might see it, even though she had no reason to expect it at all.

“It’s just you,” she said looking down while typing in a bored fashion on the checkout keyboard. “I had hoped that it would be the postman at least. It takes forever again.”

As always she could hardly wait for the package from her father and forgot all about what time it actually was.

“Congratulations! Before I forget it, I wish you all the best. May your dreams come true,” I replied and hugged her, but backed off as soon as I feared that she could find the envelope.

“Is everything ok? You are extremely precautious again today. You still mad at me because I threw that stone at your face, right? Are you afraid that I disfigured your face for all eternity? Perhaps it stops the circulation of blood in your face and then you will be even whiter than you already are.”

As expected she made fun of my fears, but this time I tried to absorb this atmosphere, as long as it still existed for me.

“Good morning,” it echoed loudly from outside, just before a stout little man entered the shop with a package.

“Finally! Where were you so long? This took forever again. I have been waiting for seven hours,” said Lucia and signed off the papers hastily.

“It is just eight o'clock in the morning. If you are sitting here at night waiting for your packages to arrive, I cannot help you. Have a nice day,” the man answered and left the shop, but Lucia did not even hear what he said as she was already crazily rattling the package around.

“Stop that. Give it to me; I’ll open it for you.”

I took the package and opened it carefully. In it were a small stone figure, a compass, a map, a kind of papyrus roll, an old wrinkled apple and a thick small rod.

“Congratulations, he probably sent you his old school stuff, including break time snack,” I said jokingly, but I had of course overlooked the most valuable piece of them all.

Lucia’s hand rushed at the letter that was lying under all the things and opened it as fast as she could.

My dearest daughter,

I pray that this letter reaches you in the best of health. And although I’d wish to stand here with you today, it all seems to be even more impossible than ever before. They called me a liar, a charlatan and thief, but the days that will follow are even too difficult for me to understand. You were always everything I had left. Every day I have been looking for a new treasure in the hope that it could bring back my wife and that I could finally find peace at your side. But without your help I am no longer able to claim this treasure. You know me better than I know you, but if I am not mistaken you’d be more than capable of seeing the truth within the things I send you. Please help me find this last treasure and then we can finally be together again.

In Love

Jasper Lawrence

“A treasure? And what does he mean with bringing back his wife? Doesn’t he understand that she is gone?”`, I asked, while Lucia slowly put the letter aside, and began to laugh.

“All these years I kept waiting for him to understand why I am waiting. And now he is sending me these things and expects me to follow him? How could I wait so long for this?”

“I understand that you are disappointed, but perhaps what we have here is a hidden message.”

“Yes, there is a hidden message, namely 'you alright? I need your help!'. You also believed in him, did you not? What would you do? You know the situation in the kingdom.”

I took the letter and scanned it several times, but I saw nothing that pointed to an encrypted message.

“It would be almost impossible to leave the village. The revolts against the kings get more and more severe. Maybe the kingdoms will soon be no more and who knows where that leads. It is a shame that we do not have more time.”

“It is hard to even think of leaving everything behind. I have always wanted to do it but I wanted to leave this place with him.”

She took the papyrus roll in her hand and examined it, but the words that were written on it seemed to be of an absolutely unknown language. It also seemed to be just a part of a much larger text, but the rest was missing.

“Maybe you should just stop waiting for him. It is never the last treasure. I am sorry, but I have to leave now. Just write me if you know more about this. He will write you again,” I said, and went out.

I thought about giving here the letter again and again, but with every second my fear grew.

“Wait for me; I accompany you for a while. I can use the fresh air,” Lucia shouted and gave me some more time to make my final decision.

We walked the streets as more and more people filled them and without words we thought about all the moments we shared here. On the village square, in front of the city hall, we stopped and I wanted to say goodbye. But before I had time to do it, my father rushed out of the building and joined us.

“We need to reschedule our journey unfortunately. A message just reached me that there was a revolt in the city. Several rebels were killed, including some mercenaries and a man whose name the two of you should be well acquainted with. Jasper Lawrence is dead. The king personally had him executed on the public square. He is said to have led the revolution. The death of this mendacious man logically means, that all his alleged treasure finds will now be denied. Now you will see what happens with such a man. A man who lives in shame dies in shame.”

My father knew no bounds except those he made himself and so it was no wonder that he conveyed such a message as cold and harsh as possible. He put his hand on my shoulder and wanted me to follow him, but intuitively I slapped it away. 

For the first time in my life I felt real anger, born from the deepest fear. The man whose dreams I followed and who had always been my role model was dead. But he wasn’t just any man; he was the father of Lucia, who now had no family left except her grandparents.

“Come, Lucia, I bring you home. You should rest. My departure is delayed for an indefinite period of time,” I said and ignored the emotions of my father.

Lucia did not utter even a single word, but I knew what she thought. I was sure that there’d be nothing that could stop her from fulfilling the last wish of her father. She had waited her whole life for him, but now that he had died, she could not wait any longer. It was time to act.

To dare something means risking everything despite a relevant potential of losing it all, just so you can try and realize your wishes and dreams. For me it stood for nothing more than stupidity and reflected the dimension of your own suicidal tendencies. But in the last few days this view had changed more and more. I had dared to stand against my father, to voice my own thoughts, and even if this is normal for some people, I couldn’t have been more proud of the risks I took.

“It is already late; you should go to sleep now. In the morning we’ll consider what we do from here. I can’t believe that your father really has been killed. Everything will be alright,” I said when I woke up and noticed that Lucia was still awake, looking into the box that her father had sent her.

She grabbed every single piece from it, examined it and looked through most of my old books in search for the language on the papyrus. But in the end it was clear to her that all these things were nothing more than scrap.

“Everything will be alright? I hardly think so. My desire to leave this village, it had always been the most important dream of mine. But what is out there?” she asked and looked at the map of the world that was in the box.

“I have asked myself this question so many times, believe me. I know that I haven’t overcome my fear yet, because the thought of disappearing with you from here, to look for your father only invokes dreams of death and despair in me.”

“No one can help my father now. He is dead. It took me so long to realize that my mother had died, that I don’t want to fool myself again. He has asked me to follow him and find this one last treasure with him. I don’t care what the world things of me, but he was an adventurer, he was a hero. His dreams gave you the strength to help me. We need to understand what he sent me.”

Slowly she understood that the hatred which she felt was nothing more than the fear that I also felt every day. She was ashamed for not believing in her father anymore, and I was ashamed to have done the same thing.

“You're right. Even if he was still alive, he can take care of himself. He asked you for a favour and I will help you to fulfil it. Show me the map once again.”

I took the map from her hands and analysed it thoroughly. It showed a rough outline of the old seven kingdoms and in the centre, near the extinct volcano Ignis, Jasper had marked and circled something.

“Doyle? Do you know what that means?” Lucia asked and I had an idea.

“Magnus Doyle, the alchemist, he has managed to immunize himself. He spent his whole life trying to reproduce this procedure. There are many books about him and by him,” I said and made a decision. “We need to go.”

“Right now? It is in the middle of the night, how should we travel there in the dark? It must be at least a seven days march. We should better prepare something, don’t you think?”

“You are more afraid than I am? If we look at the circumstances, this is our only chance. We take what we can carry, and leave this village behind us. I know that it is a gamble and my knees are trembling at the thought what hides there in this darkness, but if we do not hurry, my father will do everything he can to stop us.”

She looked at me and fixated the map with all of her thoughts.

“Let's do it. Let us find a treasure,” she said with a smile.

It did not take long until we had packed everything we needed. The last obstacle we had to face were Lucia's grandparents, because I was sure that we would not be able to leave unnoticed from here. 

It was absolutely necessary to take supplies with us which we did not in any way intend to steal. I was ready to take another risk, but I didn’t want to leave nothing but ruins behind me.

“What exactly are you two planning?” asked Emmerich Lugh, who got wind of our plan even faster than expected.

“We are leaving to honour the last wish of my father. I know what you think of him, but I cannot wait any longer,” Lucia responded while I grabbed the supplies and saw that Lior, Lucia's grandmother, also entered the room.

“Your father is dead; he has made his choice. His life was marked by failure and bad decisions of which he himself was ashamed. Do you want to end like him? Shouldn’t his death have shown you where such a path leads? Why do you want to give up on a better life; a life that is normal?” asked Emmerich and beat on the cabinet next to him with his walking stick.

“Let them go. It is not our decision Emmerich. Lucia has waited her whole life with the desire to see her father again, just like you want to see our daughter once again. But what good has all this waiting done? We need to separate ourselves from what lies in the past. Let them follow this way, because only then will they see what is right,” said Lior and put her hand on the shoulder of Emmerich, who calmly lowered his head.

“I just need to do this. You were always there for me and you gave me everything you had. But today it is different. No matter what you give me, as long as I do not understand what happened to him, I can no longer be happy. He always said that he loves me and that I am everything that he could have wished for, but he has never said it to me in person. My memories of him are descriptions and pages in a crate. It is no longer enough for me.”

I had stashed our food and opened the door. The temperature had already fallen sharply, and now that the winter months approached, we only had such little time to follow the tracks of Lawrence.

“Good luck,” whispered Emmerich and turned away with a lowered head, while going back to his room.

Lior went to Lucia and said her goodbye with a last embrace. Even if I couldn’t see the face of Lucia in this moment, I knew that a tear ran down her cheeks, finally releasing the anger and fear that held her prisoner.

“Thank you,” Lucia remarked and left the house without a further look back.

She had what I always wanted; a real family. And even if this treasure was important for her, she still had to give up on it for now. Sometimes we find that our happiness is not shaped by abundance. Since the house of Doyle was located far away, I had thought of a plan that would prove to my father that I was truly his son. Every night the carriage was left in the mews, but the security measures left a lot to be desired. In these villages on the edge of the continent, it was easy to make our trip just a little bit faster.

“Steal the carriage? Iago, what is the matter with you? Aren’t you afraid that they could follow us? And what if they catch us red-handed?”

I remember this time very well and I especially remember the pride that had overtaken me. This feeling as if you were invulnerable. At this time I didn’t realize that I was acting against everything I ever stood for.

“Trust me, they will not notice us.”

It did not take long for us to reach the house in which Doyle lived according to Lawrence, but it had cost Lucia and me much energy. The situation in the kingdom had aggravated even more and while we made it past the city, we felt the impact of the violent attacks on the castle. It probably wouldn’t be long before the destruction also reached the rest of the country, but the house in front of us seemed to be already severely damaged. The windows were all broken and were hardly in the frame, while coarse long cracks stretched along the whole facade of the house, and in some cases even the foundation. The garden was completely overgrown and some of the plants, which were of completely unknown type to me, concealed the label with the name of the family Doyle. I was, at first glance, unsure if any man could be living in such an environment.