The Scrolls of Skava

Return to the Emerald Oracle - Part 4

     Eventually there was a final calamitous clap of thunder and a rush of air, and then it was all over. Silence reigned once more in the tranquil valley, and the Claimjumpers raised their heads nervously to see a cloud of sparkling motes of light dancing in the air, winking out one by one as the last of the holy power faded away. “By the Gods!” whispered Thomas in wonder.

      “What happened?” asked Shaun as they returned to the spot to see a scattering of grey ash lying on the grass. All that remained of the scroll.

     “Misfire,” said the wizard, shaking his head. “Must have been. The incantation misfired, just like wizard spells sometimes do. We were lucky to survive that! The power of all those other incantations, we could all have been turned to frogs, or worse! And yet...

     “Yet what?” asked Diana.

     The wizard hesitated uncertainly. “Well, misfires don’t usually work like that. The spell seemed to be working perfectly, right up to the moment when it burst into flames. It’s almost as if...”

     “As if what?” demanded Shaun. “Spit it out man!”

     “I think the spell was sabotaged,” said Thomas, shuffling unhappily. “I think someone reached out and deliberately spoiled the spell. Someone who didn’t want us talking to Resalintas.”

     “The enemy?” asked Diana fearfully. “A Shadowwizard?”

     Thomas thought about it. “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “Whoever did this could just as easily have killed the three of us. In fact, it would probably have been easier to just kill us, and that’s just what a Shadowwizard would have done, but instead most of the power was directed harmlessly up into the sky. No, I think this was done by someone else.”

     “Who?” asked Diana. “And why?”

     “Who, I can’t say,” replied the wizard. “As to why... Look, the Oracle could have just told us what’s written on the Scrolls, but instead it would only tell us where they were. Then we’re not allowed to tell anyone else where the Scrolls are. I think someone wants us, us and no-one else, to go to the Ruby Keep. We’re being led there, like children on a treasure trail.”

     “Or like lambs to the slaughter,” added Shaun darkly.

     “So what do we do now?” asked Diana.

     “Get a good night’s sleep,” replied Thomas. “And then tomorrow we go back to the Oracle and find the others. Then we all go together to the Ruby Keep, get the Scrolls and take them back to Belthar. That sound all right to you?”

     It did, so they ate a light supper, unrolled their sleeping blankets and settled down to a fitful, uneasy sleep.

☆☆☆

     Naomi, Dennis, Arroc and Teasel spent the night in the building at the top of the giant spiral staircase on the central plateau of the island of the Emerald Oracle. They’d found the vertical shaft containing the staircase just a few minutes after their carpet had deposited them gently at the foot of the cliffs, and they’d spent the rest of the evening labouring their way up, Dennis and Arroc taking turns to carry the nome who couldn’t manage the large stone steps carved out of the solid rock. When they’d finally reached the top it had been full night and they’d been so exhausted that they’d lain down in their sleeping blankets and gone straight to sleep.

     They were awoken by flashes of light coming in through the large, open windows, accompanied by the occasional crash of thunder. They'd thought that a storm was blowing up, but when they looked outside they saw a shower of meteors streaking across the sky, some of them coming low enough to cause sonic booms before disintegrating into a cascade of glittering fragments. The red sun was almost directly overhead, casting its blood red glow across the stone building and the surrounding forest, and in the east they saw a rosy pink glow that told them that dawn was not far away.

     They watched the meteor shower for a few minutes, oohing and aahing when an especially bright one passed overhead, and once there was an exceptionally large explosion when a meteor survived its passage through the atmosphere and plunged into the ocean, but eventually they grew bored with the spectacle and went back inside, being careful to avoid the large hole in the centre of the floor where the stairwell opened out.

     They remained in the building for another hour, waiting for the yellow sun to rise fully, and they spent the time having a light breakfast and talking over the predicament they’d found themselves in, the black girl lowering her eyes sheepishly as the others glared at her. “Look, I didn’t force you to come,” she said at last. “You all agreed to follow the others here.” They just glared at her even harder.

     The meteor shower had ended when they ventured out, but a dark bank of cloud on the horizon told them that a real thunderstorm might be on the way. Dennis unrolled the carpet, laid it out on the ground and gave it the command to fly, but it remained motionless, as it had ever since they’d landed on this island.

     “Someone doesn’t want us to leave just yet,” he said, rolling it up again and tucking it under his arm. “They want us to stay and be sociable for a while. They want us to come and say hello.”

     “Well, let’s not disappoint them,” said Arroc, hefting his scimitar and giving it a few practice swings.

     “Let’s just remember one thing before we go any further,” said Teasel however, raising her thin, squeaky voice to be heard by everyone. “Let’s remember that we are not here by invitation. We’re gate-crashers who deliberately came to a place we were told to stay away from. Whatever power rules this place has a legitimate reason to be angry with us.”

     “That’s as maybe,” replied the trog, “but the fact is that we’re now being held here against our will. I’d say that makes us even on the morality stakes, and gives us a legitimate reason ter be angry wi’ them!”

     The nome had no answer to that, and so they packed away their sleeping blankets and headed off into the forest.