The Worlds of the Sheaf

The Confrontation - Part 5

     The eyes were open but the eyeballs were sunken and dried out, leaving gaping sockets, but they were still the most human looking part of the face. The wide, lipless mouth that reached halfway around the head was partly open, revealing flat, even teeth, suggesting a vegetarian diet, but Thomas reminded himself that bulls were also vegetarian and he wouldn't have wanted to be standing in a field with one. The creature had no nose, merely two nostril slits in the flat expanse between mouth and eyes, and it didn't seem to have any ears either. Not even the openings in the sides of its bald, liver spotted head. The head of an old man.

     Lun Wasker froze in terror, staring at the huge corpse. He seemed to be literally paralysed with fear, but at the same time his hands were changing, becoming the claws of a great cat, and his teeth were lengthening, the jaws becoming weapons capable of tearing a man's throat out. His eyes became vicious yellow slits and hair grew across his face. He wasn't a full metamorph. He lacked the ability to fully assume the form of a cat, but the changes he was capable of were enough to make Matthew and Thomas back nervously away from him.

     "It's dead," said the soldier reassuringly. "Long dead. It can't hurt you."

     "Is it a Master?" asked Thomas, feeling the question to be completely unnecessary.

     The felisian nodded his confirmation. "The ssscourge of my race," he hissed, his voice cold with hatred. "The rapisssts of my world! The Commander mussst know of this!" He fled from the room, and the Tharians heard the hiss of his passage through the undergrowth as he sped across the landing field.

     "So that's what they look like," said Matthew, moving closer to the giant corpse. "You wouldn't want to meet one of them on a dark night."

     "They said their hides were almost impervious to their weapons," said Thomas in open admiration. "Even in their giant cat forms, their teeth and claws couldn't even scratch them. I wonder whether a sword could penetrate that hide of theirs?" Something else was demanding his attention, however. The thing that had brought them here in the first place. He reluctantly moved away from the corpse to try to track it down.

     He found a glass cabinet on the other side of the room, the glass so dusty and covered with layer upon layer of thick cobwebs that it hid the contents like a curtain. When he'd rubbed a patch clean with his sleeve he saw that the shelves were filled with ancient looking items that seemed to come from several different cultures, each with a little plaque above it bearing a few words of alien text. A display cabinet, or perhaps a trophy cabinet. Thomas spotted a human child's toy almost identical to one he'd found in the ruined Veglian city as well as a couple of items he'd seen a few weeks before in the ring above. The private collection of the commander of this station, Thomas guessed. Trophies collected from two dozen worlds, all probably places he'd visited during the course of his career.

     One item in particular caught his attention, though. A small object on the second shelf down. A gold bracelet shaped like a girdle of autumn leaves, each vein shaped with exquisite care and skill. It was radiating magic. Very faintly after all these centuries. Most of its magical charge had long since faded so that it was unlikely it still did whatever it had been designed to do, but the residual charge was unmistakable. Could it be something from Tharia? Had the Masters visited his own world? There was something about its magical charge, though. Different from every other magical item he'd ever come across while at the same time familiar. He'd sensed magic like this before. Just once...

     Trembling with excitement, he searched the cabinet for a way to open it and found a small catch on the side. The glass door creaked open and the wizard reached inside with shaking hands, picking up the bracelet and holding it up to his eye to examine it better. Yes, now that he had it in his hands the feeling was unmistakable.

     "Mat!" he gasped, turning to face the soldier. "Mat! We've found it! We've found it at last!"

     "Found what?" demanded Saturn, striding in with Tager Yee and Drenn Pietar. "What's that?"

     Thomas handed it over, grinning all over his face. The elder wizard scowled at his younger colleague's delight, then looked at the object he'd handed him. "Pretty," he admitted, "but I don't see..."

     "It's magical!" cried Thomas, almost dancing with excitement. "Very faint, but it's there. This was made by a wizard!"

     "I sense no magical charge," said Saturn in annoyance, but then his single eye widened.

     Thomas nodded excitedly. "Rossemian magic!" he cried. "There's no mistake. This object was made by the Shipbuilders!"

     Saturn stared at him, then looked down again at the bracelet in his hands, his face brightening in a quite uncharacteristic jubilation and excitement.