The Blackstar Legacy - Chapter 10

Osric pushed against the massive doors, straining hard to get them to move enough to let them in. The entire thing strained against its ancient hinges. It occurred to Osric that if the baron’s men did hack at the door to get it open and passed through it into the tower, how did the door close?

It seemed unlikely they pulled it closed as they left, so what did it?

As the entrance yielded, a gust of stale air rushed past them, carrying the scent of decay and mold. A harsh, moist smell. They ignored it and continued in, their eyes taking a moment to adjust to the gloom inside the tower.

When they did, what they saw was awe-inspiring, even in its crumbling state. The vast entrance hall stretched before them, its grandeur barely diminished by neglect. Particles of dust drifted through shafts of light that pierced the gloom from gaps in the stone high above.

“Look at this place,” Talia said. “The power they must have wielded to build something like this.”

Osric couldn’t agree more. It was impressive. Walking into the room, heads swirling around, taking in the sight, he couldn’t help but notice the thick layer of dust on the floor, small puffs of which kicked up with each step. It filled the air and got in his mouth, causing him to cough to clear it.

Around them, crumbling pillars rose into darkness, their bases littered with fallen stone. A massive chunk of stone, probably one of the ones that fell off the tower and littered the ground around it, had partially crashed through the ceiling at some point, wedged at an angle half in and half out of the room, casting strange shadows across the floor.

Jasper was as awed as any of them, the reserved nature he’d had since that morning’s argument replaced by the academic in him. Specifically, the faded and chipped murals that covered every wall, illuminated by thin shafts of light coming through the ceiling.

“Talia, would you mind?” he asked.

A few gestures later, several small spheres of light jumped out of her hands and danced above them, spreading light across the room, causing more shadows to dance about them.

Jasper traced his fingers over a section where the paint had clung stubbornly to the stone. Figures, barely discernible, stood in a circle, hands raised in what looked like a ritualistic gesture.

“This must have been part of a depiction of the tower’s creation. I wish more was still intelligible, to give us some kind of idea how they managed this. Imagine the power they wielded, raising this edifice, especially considering what was housed at the top. A building capable of controlling and harnessing that kind of power... extraordinary.”

“There are tracks here,” Rowan said, kneeling off to the side and running his hand over what Osric guessed, but couldn’t tell, were footprints. “The knights came through here. Several sets of boot prints. Pretty recent ones.”

“We knew they were here,” Osric pointed out.

“Not just here. The prints are a chaotic jumble, overlapping each other. They were moving around, frantic, not just marching in a straight line. Some are also much deeper than the others, like they were carrying a heavy load.”

“That’s not the only thing left behind,” Grace said near one of the pillars.

When Osric walked over to her, she nudged something half-buried in debris, pushing a half-melted blade out from under a piece of stone, a broken gauntlet still gripped around the hilt of the weapon.

“Hand’s still in there,” Grace muttered.

Osric realized she was right. He could see the bone, and a little more, although that looked picked at by animals just like the body outside, sticking out of the bottom of the ripped metal.

“Where’s the rest of him?”

“Maybe he didn’t die. Just lost his hand and kept going?” she offered.

A gruesome thought.

A chill swept through the chamber, although if it came through the broken ceiling or still-ajar door, Osric didn’t know. Either way, it stirred up the dust, creating small eddies of choking substance before it whipped further down the hall, out of sight.

The momentary movement in the long-dead ruin sent a fresh wave of unease through them all.

Osric turned back toward the darkness ahead. The walls, the stone, the very air made the place feel like something lost to time. Very much like how he’d felt in the keep or the Calaphium temple where he found the two pieces of the document. Remnants of a world long forgotten, both because of time and on purpose.

“They kept going that way,” Rowan said, standing up and pointing down the end of the hall, where another set of doors lay.

“Then so will we,” Osric said.

They followed the boot prints through the door and deeper into the tower, past crumbling stone archways into what appeared to be ancient guard chambers.

"They just continue on through this room into the next," Rowan said, kneeling briefly to look at the footsteps. "Not one of them stepped off the straight line through to investigate anything in here."

"All knights maybe," Osric said. "They had a mission and they were going to stick to it. They weren't here to learn anything."

"Maybe," Roway said.

Neither Talia nor Jasper agreed with the Knights however, and started looking across every inch of the room, examining everything. Both were so alike in a way, drawn to the history of this place, their excitement at learning almost coming before the actual mission.

Although, if the Knights did take the piece of the Blackstar at the top of the tower, then the whole point of being here was learning, so maybe they were doing the right thing.

Osric was content to stand in the middle room and wait for them, at least until something caught his attention. Cocking his head to the side, Osric walked to a breastplate discarded on one side.

Or at least, he thought it was discarded until he nudged it and part of some bone fell out of it, which confused Osric even more. The armor had the same symbol as he had on his ring, so it wasn't from the knights. This was old armor.

Very old.

And yet, it didn't look old.

"This armor should have corroded to nothing by now. How is it still intact?"

Jasper joined him and ran his fingers along the breastplate's surface. "Many Calaphium artifacts were imbued with protective magic that preserved them against normal wear and tear. This was the same place the document was from, we think, and remember the condition that was in. The enchantments appear to have outlasted their creators."

"That's some serious staying power," Grace said, nudging a twisted sword with her boot. "Though clearly not everything got the special treatment."

"Their magic wasn't infinite," Jasper explained. "They had to choose what to preserve."

As interesting of a find as that was, it didn't impact their mission. Beyond the guard chambers, they entered a vast circular room that Osric had actually been expecting, although further in than this.

Stone circles as tall as two men lined the walls, each mounted on ornate pedestals. Every Calaphium place they'd visited had had these. The portals they used to travel about.

Although these weren't quite identical to the others. Dark, unfamiliar metal sealed many of the circles, while others lay in pieces on the floor.

Talia moved closer to study the nearest intact portal, her fingers tracing worn engravings. "These match the patterns we saw in the temple and the keep, although in a different order. Although, it looks as though someone deliberately damaged or removed many of the markings."

"Maybe to stop the magic, so that they couldn't be used," Jasper suggested.

"Why seal them instead of destroying them completely?" Grace asked, peering at the strange metal blocking one portal. "Seems like a lot of work when a sledgehammer would do the job."

"The magic binding these portals together was incredibly potent," Jasper said. "Breaking them completely may have been impossible. Whatever inspired such drastic measures must have been truly terrifying."

"Or they were keeping something in," Grace pointed out. "Making sure nothing could escape."

That hit all of them hard, causing each to look back at the portals. They had some hint, from the records and Osric's vision, of what had happened here. The man who'd sent the document through time, looking for help, had been desperate. Perhaps he had been desperate enough to keep his people here, instead of letting word of this place escape.

Osric shook himself and said, "Let's keep moving. We still need to find any sign of the Blackstar."

The followed the boot prints which, again showed no sign of stopping to look at the portal, deeper, toward the center of the complex. The next part of the passage opened a warren of smaller chambers. A quick examination of the closest room proved it to be some kind of living chamber.

"The knights' footprints skip these and keep going," Rowan said.

"We should look into them," Jasper said. "We are looking for some clue as to the power and history of the Blackstar, for when we find it. This seems like a reasonable place to do that."

Osric wasn't sure Jasper believed that or just wanted to see what was here and what he could learn. But, he also wasn't wrong.

"A quick once through and then we keep moving," Osric said.

They spread out, not exactly separating, but each looking in different rooms, seeing what was here. Some rooms had collapsed entirely, while others remained eerily pristine beneath thick layers of dust. Broken furniture and moldering tapestries filled many spaces, yet other chambers appeared untouched by time's decay.

"Osric's right. The preservation magic seems awful... selective," Rowan observed, pointing to a perfectly intact wooden table next to a pile of rotted debris.

"Their reasoning died with them," Jasper said. "We can only guess at their priorities."

Osric discovered torn papers and damaged books scattered throughout several rooms. "They didn't bother preserving their written records?"

"No," Jasper said as he examined some of the books. "These look deliberately destroyed."

"Why?"

"Again, I'm not sure we'll ever know."

For an expedition to learn more about the Blackstar, they certainly weren't learning very much.

In one of the better-preserved chambers, Jasper's eyes locked onto something half-hidden beneath fallen stonework. He carefully extracted a leather-bound book, its cover showing remarkably little wear despite the centuries.

"Wait!" Grace said. "It could be trapped."

"The Calaphium weren't prone to curse-traps or magical wards," Jasper assured her. "Their magic focused on practical applications, not malicious tricks. This appears to be a simple preserved text."

Jasper carefully opened the front cover, his fingers moving with reverence across the weathered pages.

"This is remarkable. It's written in Low Calaphium."

"The what now? There are different kinds?" Grace asked, peering over his shoulder.

"Yes. Most preserved texts that have been found, and there are not many since they're considered evil and destroyed immediately, are in High Calaphium, the formal language of nobility and ceremony. It's what the document we found was written in. Low Calaphium was rarely on preserved paper, and so hardly ever survived. It was used by soldiers, merchants, common folk. It's much more straightforward."

"Can you read it?" Talia asked, moving closer.

"Yes. The grammar structure is similar to High Calaphium, but there is a lot less of it and it's less contextual, so it's much easier to read. It appears to be a guard's journal."

"If it's so rare to find because they didn't get the magically protected paper, how does this guard have it?"

"Hard to say. This was a place of intense magic usage, so maybe they were more free with it here. Or maybe he took something he shouldn't have and kept it for himself. Not something completely unbelievable."

It made sense, Osric thought, looking over his shoulder. "What does it say?"

Jasper began to read, translating as he went: "'Another quiet watch. The abbots remain sealed in their chambers with orders to not be disturbed. Dalst fell asleep on watch again, and I think the Commander might have him strung up for real this time.'"

"Thrilling," Grace muttered.

"Looks to be a journal of some kind. Maybe …," Jasper said and fell silent as he started flipping through the pages, looking for something. "Here. 'It's all gone and everything's changed. I was on watch in the portal room two days ago when a man fell through the spire portal, bleeding and burned. He was barely comprehensible. Before he died, he warned they were under attack and the council had fallen. The abbots ordered all portals sealed immediately, although the Commander isn't sure how to really do that yet.'"

"The Spire?" Osric asked.

"I'm not sure, but I've seen that referenced in a few other works. I think it might have been the seat of their power, but it's unclear. It was important, whatever it was."

"Keep reading," Talia urged.

"'We're now surrounded by mountains. They weren't there yesterday. It's like they ripped through the very ground,'" Jasper continued. "'We were woken by screams. We thought we had the portals sealed. We were wrong. Things came through, things I can't even start to describe. It ripped through the men on guard. Dalst won't ever fall asleep on duty again. We managed to push them back, but I lost half my squad to do it. They were … I don't even know. Twisted shapes of flame. I could see through one of the portal, before the abbot did whatever he did, and burned off the runes. It didn't go to the south like it should. On the other side, it was only fire and molten stone. The Commander says we're cut off now. There are … things outside the tower and we've sealed the doors. No way to know if anyone else survived.'"

Jasper flipped past a few very short passages, although if it was because they were unimportant or he couldn't translate them.

"'It's been fourteen days. Food stores running low and the third scouting party failed to return. Creatures keep attacking the doors, but the spells are still holding. We haven't seen the abbot in five days and the men are getting restless. Some are talking about breaking in and forcing him to reopen the portal and send us home. Two others tried to sneak out. The commander caught them and had them executed. He says we need to keep protecting the tower and following our orders, but orders from whom? Is there anything left out there, and for how long? I don't want to starve.'"

"Poor bastards," Rowan said softly.

Jasper waved him off and kept reading.

"'The abbot still hasn't come down from the tower. The commander tried to get him to tell us what to do, but he wouldn't answer. We hear strange sounds at night, chanting, sometimes screaming. It's making the men more nervous. Jens says they're working on something big up there to fix this. The Blackstar is up there and we think it has the power to fix all this, but no one tells us anything.'"

"That has to be the Blackstar, right?" Talia asked.

Jasper nodded and kept reading: "'Four weeks and we're down to quarter rations. The Commander's finally agreed we need help and is organizing a special scouting party. We're going to travel light and bring only our best men to give us a chance where the other three parties failed. I've been chosen to go. I don't know if anyone's left out there, if anyone even knows we're trapped here, but we have to try. I can't take this with me, so I'm going to hide it. I hope this may be my final entry. I hope the gods have mercy on us.'"

Jasper flipped through the rest of the book, but the pages were blank. Osric tried to imagine the guard's final days, trapped in this tower as the world literally fell apart around them with no idea of what was happening outside their doors.

Terrifying.

"Your vision said the Blackstar exploded. He didn't mention an explosion," Talia said.

"Maybe it hadn't happened yet," Osric said. "Or maybe it happened but they couldn't hear it. He said they didn't know if the abbot was alive or not.

"The knights' tracks still lead that way," Rowan cut in, gesturing toward the corridor ahead. "Whatever happened here, standing around won't give us answers. We need to get to the center and find out what happened in the upper chambers."

Osric cast one last look at the journal in Jasper's hands. So many had died in this tower, Calaphium guards, whatever horrors emerged from the portals, and now Blackthorn knights.

This wasn't a place he wanted to stay in.