Guardian Spirit

Chapter 15

Cheid looked around dismayed at the former quarters of his masters. The roof was gone, so were much of the walls and furniture. Charred pages from burned books fluttered around in the unconstrained wind that blew to the now open top of the tower. In some places the intensity of the magical fire had melted even the stone. It was hard to imagine anything would have survived it – the charred skeleton of someone who Cheid hoped was no one of importance was evidence of that – but Skander had along with one of the creatures he had fought.

It was difficult to tell where everything had been, but after a bit of searching and thinking, Cheid found the place where Skander's desk had been. There was nothing but a large pile of ash left and a few bits of charred wood. Cheid shifted through the ashes. He hoped for the best. If the creature had taken the sword then matters were much, much worse than they seemed to be now.

It took him a while to shift through most of the ash. He was beginning to lose hope, but then his hand happened upon what felt like the hilt of a sword. He grabbed it and pulled it out. He recognized the sun shaped pommel and a wave of relief rushed through him, but that was a short lived joy. As more of the sword was revealed from under the ash his heart sank. Much of the blade itself had melted away or been distorted. The Sun Blade was ruined.

Cheid cursed. What would this mean for the seal around Deremoth? Was it broken already? Was it only slowly weakening because they key had been broken? He hoped Skander would come to. He was one of the few who could answer the questions swirling around the young man's mind.

He rescued the remains of the sword from the ash pile. Maybe it could somehow be repaired and the spell binding Deremoth mended. Cheid had to admit it was a slim hope, but what else could he tell himself? That all was lost? That was the sort of talk that would certainly lead to things going from bad to worse quickly.

He sighed, wrapped the remains of the sword in a piece of leather skin he had brought with him and started towards the opening for the transport disc. He dreaded having to tell Nala that the sword was ruined. She would not take it well and he doubted the other elves would either. To them it would be as if someone had opened the gates to their worst nightmares. The fact that each one of them was still hurting from last evening would do little to dampen the blow.

It was a small miracle the shaft for the transport discs had escaped the destruction with little to no damage. The disc floated up just as it used to. Despite there being no roof the elemental spirit tied to the disc was unlikely to escape.

Cheid stepped onto the disc and instructed it to take him to the dormitory level where his quarters were located. The entire tower was still abuzz over the events of the previous night. The fact the master of the tower seemed ready to croak at any time was enough to have started some wild rumours, but add the blown out top of the tower to that and some of the rumours were wild indeed.

The disc came to a halt and Cheid stepped off of it and started towards his quarters. It was a short walk down the corridor. A group of students were huddled near his door, whispering amongst themselves. Cheid spotted even one professor there. He did his best to ignore the group. They fell silent and watched as he passed by. In his mind Cheid was happy he didn't have to face questions from them. There had been plenty of those already with many being of a nature he did not feel comfortable answering.

Cheid let out a sigh of relief as he closed the door to his quarters behind him. It wasn't much of an room and it seemed cramped with all the people already there. There was room for a bed and a desk, but not much else. Now there were several priests in there working on Skander.

Nala was standing by the bed. She looked tired and Cheid couldn't really fault her for that. She had exerted herself quite a bit yesterday. Though compared to Ahnilr, Nala looked positively energetic. The priestess had had very little rest during the night, but still she continued working on Skander along with the other priests. Gareth stood next to Nala and looked grim. He alone would have made the room seem small, but now he just ensured the cramped feeling turned into one of being squashed.