Ultimus Thesaurus: The last Treasure (Era of Change Book 1) (8 page)

“Thief! Thief! You have infiltrated my fortress to steal the food. My only weakness was revealed! Patrick, do something! He will leave me starving,” the king grouchily replied and tried to strike on the table, but his body made it impossible for him.

Now his servants tried to stop Magnus, but he jumped on the table and ran around in wild circles, while the king showed his frustration by eating even more. I took advantage of the confusion and sneaked away from the scene with Lucia.

“We must reach block 4 before they realize that we are gone. Perhaps we should first trace back the way we came. 

I believe that I may have discovered a location plan on one of the walls,” I said, but Lucia already had other plans.

“I will find my father. He has to be somewhere around here and I cannot allow that they throw him into this gorge. Danton has said that he hung on the wall for a long time. This is why it could be that his body is still somewhere here. We meet at the drawbridge.”

Clever as she was, she gave me no chance to reply to her request. Instead she ran off, precisely in the direction that I didn’t want to go. Even though I hated her for leaving me alone, I still could understand why she did it. So I ran back and found the plan. Block 4 was a high security zone, but since this was a prison, most of the king’s security was trying to keep people from escaping rather than getting into the cells. There were no guards, and the doors were not locked. 

Only as I arrived at the cellblock itself I understood the dimensions of this complex. Tens of thousands of prisoners had to be here, but only one was the one Jasper wanted me to liberate - prisoner 4747. The cell door was heavy and behind it I found nothing except impenetrable darkness.

I noticed a switch on the wall, and as I touched it, I felt that I had closed an electrical circuit, which flooded the room with light. In the middle of the cell there was a man. His body was covered with faint blue glowing runes, and he was anchored to an apparatus, that connected his body to the electrical grid. He seemed to have felt this incredible pain for such a long time, that he didn’t even react to it anymore, but it still amazed me how he could survive this process. His face was not recognizable, because he wore an iron mask with a cavity, resembling the coin that Jasper had sent Lucia. I took a step closer to the man and the more I approached him, the stronger the coin began to vibrate. After some time, I was no longer able to keep it in my hand, as the magnetic force wrested it from me. It flew through the air with such an incredible speed, that I could hardly see it, before it vanished in the mask of the man.

Suddenly the light went out, leaving me inside the now dark cell, while the man woke up and began to move. Every time he breathed, the runes on his body began to flash. His former weakened appearance got ever so pumped with every breath that he took until it finally made the runes emit such a strong light, that it flooded the room anew.

“Where is he? Where is the Sun King? He will pay for what he has done to me,” he said with a dark voice and fanned the fear in my heart.

“The Sun King? You mean the legendary king of Atlantis? I did not even know that he was real. You have been here for a while it seems. The king must have died a long time ago. But I need your help,” I said, but the man seemed not to care for me and walked past me.

“Wait! Jasper Lawrence sent me, but that probably tells you nothing. We need to go to Singasteinn, can you help me?” I called after him, whereupon he stopped.

“Singasteinn? What do you want in the country of the titans? The Sun King has not spared them.”

“And why are you still alive? He has spared you.”

He came back and stood before me, while the runes on his body increasingly charged up.

“Human, do not forget who you are. He locked me away because he wanted to steal my knowledge. No one except me can activate the island. But if the king is dead, then someone must have thwarted his plan. This world would no longer exist if the knowledge had been decrypted. I must immediately return to the Iron City. My brothers must have secured the knowledge there.”

“You can’t be so sure. The man who sent me to free you, he has found a part of it. We must make sure that no one else will find it. But I believe that someone may already be searching for it.”

The titan looked down at me and began to laugh. He knocked me so strongly on the shoulder that I almost fell forward and said: “You remind me of the Sun King. He also was a man who didn’t know his place. Let us travel to Singasteinn. But if it turns out that you have lied to me, to steal the knowledge, than I will kill you.”

With every further step I wondered what life Jasper had led. Slowly I understood why he could never return. He was the reason why this world existed. And now that he was dead, we had to take his place, even if this was not always easy.

I followed the titan, who despite his name wasn't as big as I would’ve imagined him. He resembled a human so much that at first he wouldn’t even seem that different, were it not for the glowing blue runes on his skin. We ran up to a guard control point, but it was unmanned and the titan stopped. He touched a stone, mounted on a metal plate and closed his eyes.

“Here it is. With these stones they control the cells. I will now show you why the Sun King feared me,” he said and the runes on his body darkened.

He sent out a strong pulse, which I felt but could not see. It took only a few seconds, until he opened his eyes again and let go of the stone.

“This world is old. Many of which I knew are no longer, but how could all this happen? I can still not believe that a human should have managed to open the chambers of Singasteinn. And you human, you I seem to have underestimated. Behind all that fear that you bear, I can see a deep and strong anger. Your plan to sacrifice the people, who helped you infiltrate this place, and your betrayal of the woman you love. You don’t want to save the knowledge, you want to destroy it.”

I wasn’t sure how he did it, but he had managed to read my mind like an open book. He must have used the energy from the prison network to use this ability.

“I am fighting for what I believe is right. Initially I wanted to save this book and I wanted to believe that with the knowledge death and disease could be beaten. We humans have a place in this world, and from this place life and death aren’t determined. I had a choice. My life could have been very different from what it is today and still I am standing here with you. It is therefore impossible for me to now look the other way, especially when I think about the fact that the entire world must be in search of this knowledge. 

What could a monster with such power do?”

The titan touched the stone again and his runes began to flash. He turned it around and a loud noise travelled through the entire prison block. His actions were not bound by his feelings of pity or anger; he was looking for understanding in the thoughts of others. He wanted me to show him what to do because he alone, wasn’t able to act.

“We need to go to human. The men that I freed, among them there is someone with the name Lloyd ‘Greybeard’ Dylan. He is a famous pirate of your time and he will travel to Amnia with high probability. He owns a vessel anchored in the harbour of your hometown, which can only be controlled by him personally. We will follow him, and when the time comes, he will accompany us to Singasteinn,” said the titan and was already moving forward.

“Who are you? Could all titans do these things? Read the thoughts and wishes of people, and of so many at the same time?”

He turned around and looked down at me with his emotion-free face.

“Call me Aton. My people once received the gift to gather, store and conserve the knowledge of the world so we could secure it for all eternity, but one day the Sun King came and ended our lives. It was the will of the Ettins and thus it was fair. It is not in my power to do something about it. Your questions will have to wait as the prisoners will soon leave this prison,” he said and ran down the corridor.

As he had seemingly gathered all of the thoughts of every being in this fortress it seemed to be a good idea to follow him for the time being, at least until I understood what exactly was going on here. Jasper Lawrence had always amazed me, but as a little boy I thought only about the adventures of which he told me. The treasures that he found, the creatures he saw and the people he protected. Today I saw it for what it really was, namely the life of a lonely man who had to die so that the world could know him. 

The titan guided me back to the hall just before the throne room of the king. I wanted to talk to him, but he just nodded and showed in the direction in which he afterwards disappeared. It was as though it had become unnecessary to even speak with him. But he seemed to have forgotten that I was not as gifted as he was.

My goal was to take Magnus back to then finally leave this fortress. As I arrived in the throne room I was greeted by a very disturbing sight, because the king and Magnus were sitting side by side talking like friends and sharing the food.

“The life of a king is wonderful, I get all I want, the food of a king is wonderful, and I will never break this bond!!! The life of a king is bitter sweet as all that’s on the table, all these decked out tables, the life of a king is bitter sweet, it’s like a genuine fable!,” they both sang and ate, while I cautiously approached them.

“My king, I think that it is time for the mage to begin his spell,” I said and the two stopped.

The king looked at me and laughed while Magnus studied every single move he made and while he tried to copy them.

“True! Give it your all, Magnus!”

Magnus stood up and came running to me. His in grease and food covered clothes had become so sticky, that they seemed to entwine him like a rope, while he still held a chicken wing in his hand. I handed him a sip of the elixir, which he immediately took into his hand dancing and jumping through the room.

“We ate and we drank, so I give my thanks! And even when we fought you told me what you thought. But now it is too late, no longer can I wait, so start the drums and dance with me and sing aloud with hope and glee!”

Like a magic trick he threw the bottle in the air and caught it with his mouth. He emptied it with a sip and fell over like a dead man. 

The throne room was suddenly silent, but after a short time Isaac jumped up from the ground and even the king couldn’t believe what he saw.

“Wonderful! Remarkable! A true magician! Have you seen this, Patrick? Is this not incredible?” cried the king to his servant, who had entered the room with disturbing messages.

“My king, the prisoners broke free from their cells. At first it was only block 4, but now all of them have been opened. If we do not bring the situation under control soon they will all escape.”

The king looked around and considered his actions, but then replied: “So be it! They can flee all they want. Let them shatter this resistance. Once the dust settles, we will take new prisoners. Just close of the royal palace. I do not want this scum to bother me while I eat.”

“Very well, my king.”

Our time was beginning to run out but together with Isaac I ran through the heavy iron door before they could close it off. The king had no other choice than to let us go and so we followed the path of the titan. He had marked the direction in which he had gone. And as we reached the end of his trail, we found the room in which the corpses were stashed and later discarded. Lucia just stood there and looked at the body of her father, while the titan looked into the seemingly endless abyss of Jik'Zur.

“Our time is running short. You still want to escape this place, right?” I asked and the noise and the violence behind us became ever so loudly.

“He did not deserve this end, Iago. We only ever waited, only because we never really believed in what he did. And now here we are, leaning over the corpse of a man who wanted to save the world and who is now rotting inside a prison. I hadn’t seen him for a very long time. I barely knew what he looked like. I cannot leave him here,” she said and began to weep.

Her sorrow was understandable, but our time was short. All this time it had been me standing around weeping. She helped me and was always so strong and independent. And right now, right here, I had to be like that. Much had changed in such a short time.

“We cannot save him. No one can. But if we want to do what he couldn’t, then we must leave this place now. That is all that remains for us. We have unleashed the darkness from the Fortress of Shadows, we ran away from our home but now we have to go back and face the spirits upon which we called. Your father only ever had one dream. He wanted to return home, but neither of us ever will. The knowledge in this book is more dangerous than anyone can imagine, and we must ensure that it is destroyed.”

Aton gasped at my words and Isaac turned his gaze. My proposal to destroy the sacred knowledge of the gods was certainly not popular, but nevertheless it was the only way to save the world we knew.

“We can help him, Isaac can. If we find the book, then he can save my father. Magnus has said it himself. We therefore need to take him with us,” begged Lucia and looked me in the eyes.

Aton still looked down into the abyss. My thoughts developed faster then I wanted them to, but he could read and understand them before I was aware of them at all.

“Are you sure, human? This decision will change your life,” Aton asked me and I knew that my decision had already been made.

“It is no longer just our life, Lucia. We are fighting for the life of everyone out there. I am sorry,” I said. While I spoke, Aton grabbed the corpse of Lawrence and threw it down into the Gate of Hell.

Lucia cried out flailing her arms around in sorrow and madness. Each of her tears was like a needle in my heart, but when I looked into this abyss, I knew that there was not only fear in my soul. There was a darkness that was so deep, that none could ever dare to fight it. I needed to be cold so I could save this world.