They followed Rezkin, flanked by royal guards, down several flights of stairs to a set of large, wooden doors carved with runes. The guards stopped several paces from the doors and stood at attention along the walls on either side.
Rezkin motioned for Coledon to step forward. “Press the scepter against this,” he said, pointing at a rune that looked like a disembodied eye. Coledon did as he had asked, and the scepter and eye glowed red for a brief moment. Rezkin pressed his palm to the door, causing it to swing inward. He led the group into a dark cave. The floor was covered in water, a lake within the bowels of the castle. As Rezkin stepped into the cavernous room, red lights flared in two lines down the center, and they could see that a stone pathway lay just under the surface between them. As they walked down the pathway, varying colors of light began to shine from beneath its glassy surface. Colorful lights and shadows danced across the natural ceiling and walls of the cave, and specks of glowing dust began to twinkle in their midst.
Mage Threll whispered into the dark. “I would never have expected a place so wonderous in this terrifying castle.”
“This place is old,” said Rezkin, “older than the castle, older than Ferélle.”
He stepped onto a small platform in the center. It was just large enough to hold the four of them a few inches above the water. The lights along the pathway winked out, and they were left surrounded by a glowing lake. Rezkin pointed to a groove in the floor and said, “Place the scepter there.” Once the scepter was in positioned, the surface of the lake began to shimmer. There, in the water before them, appeared a map. It was not drawn or painted, but rather an exact image of the city. Rezkin turned the scepter, and the image shifted to show a different place. He brushed his fingers across the crystal at the top of the scepter, and it was as if they were standing in the town, staring down the street. They could see the people moving about. A little girl pointed to an enchanted butterfly made of cloth, a stray dog grabbed a biscuit from a merchant stall, and a woman snagged her coat on a broken cart.
Rezkin said to Coledon, “You may use this to watch over the city.” He pointed to a number of other grooves in the floor. “You will find images of other cities in those.”
“This is fascinating,” said Mage Threll. “I have never heard of anything like it. I could spend the entirety of my life studying this.”
“Mages have,” said Rezkin. “Only a few are permitted the knowledge to use it. No one knows how the lake works. They know only how to use it. They create new orbs to spread in other cities, but none have been able to reproduce the lake itself. I believe this predates man. It is a remnant of the Ahn’an.”
“How do you know so much about it?”
Rezkin furrowed his brow and stared at the water. “It is as if the ceremony awoke something in me—a memory that is not my own. I know things now that I did not before, but it is as if I have always known them.”
“Spells do not usually affect you,” said Farson.
“It was not Moldovan’s power. He only activated it. This is much older.”
Rezkin peered into the dark water that was intermittently painted with swirling light. He pulled the Dark Tidings mask from the tie at his belt and secured it over his face.
“What are you doing?” said Mage Threll. “You are not going in there. You just said that it holds ancient power that can affect you.”
Rezkin glanced her way and then stepped off the platform. His stomach met his throat as he instantly plummeted to the bottom, as if falling through air to collide with the ground. Before he struck, in what was sure to be a deadly crunch, a liquid blanket wrapped around him, slowing his descent. He breathed deeply through the mask as he slowed to a stop, and the aqueous fabric held him aloft while he searched for the bottom. His boot touched the hard rock, and the fluid grip released him. Rezkin steadied himself and looked around in the darkness. Lights swirled in the distance and sometimes closer. He could feel the water surrounding him, dampening his movements, but he trod over the rock floor as if held down by a weight. As he searched for the sword, he took care to avoid the light. In those dark waters, amongst the lights, it began to feel as if he were in a dream. It was reminiscent of the meditative trance he entered in lieu of sleep. After minutes or hours, he no longer knew, he began to hear music. As the music grew louder, more light surrounded him. He spun, looking all around, and found no way to avoid them. They closed in on him until he was immersed in light.
Rezkin began to feel calm, the same soothing tranquility that inundated him at Caellurum. His persistent hunger began to subside, and the ache of fatigue was vanquished, replaced by a clarity he had not realized had been missing. The small Caelian stone around his neck heated, but Rezkin was captivated by a figure in the water. At first, he thought it was distant, a vague outline of a person moving toward him. Then it reached out and touched his face, and he realized the being was much closer.
The watery figures began to take shape, some of them appearing feminine, while others were masculine. Nixies, he thought. They surrounded him, perhaps by the dozens. They chittered like ripples in a creek. It sounded like laughter. They stroked his face and hair and tugged at his mask. Then, they began to pull in earnest. His arms were wrenched behind him, and they swept his feet from beneath him. Tackling him to the ground, they snapped his head back and forth as they pulled at the mask. Rezkin kicked and twisted as he struggled against the insubstantial beings. The stone around his neck began to radiate heat. One of the nixies reached for it and pulled back with a shriek.
The water was suddenly filled with tiny bubbles, and the nixies backed away. They kept their distance and watched the bubbles pensively. Rezkin scrambled to his feet and stood in the center, knowing he had no strength or power to fight them. The song changed, and the bubbles began to take on a shape of their own. A woman’s figure shimmered in the water where the lights bounced off the spherical surfaces of the bubbles that composed her. She reached for Rezkin’s mask but did not touch it. She tilted her head and reached again. Then, the bubbles shifted to produce a new form, one with whom he was familiar. It was a treelike creature with feather-tipped twigs atop its head. The bubble form shifted again to resemble a sword but not the Sword of Eyre. It was Kingslayer. The form shifted again to resemble the woman.
Rezkin remembered what Bilior had told him about the other ancients. He was in the water, but this creature was made of air. He said, “Hvelia?” The sound escaped the mask in a globule of bubbles.