As we descended the many flights of stairs, it became colder and colder. At the foot of the last and lengthiest stretch of steps, a lantern glowed. It was the first of many I was to see down there.
We continued through the shadowy maze of corridors. There were times when I heard groans and screams. It was not like the bright world above. We were in the dungeons and there were people condemned to suffer down here. Master Lucas did not pay much attention to the noise. I supposed that he had grown accustomed to the place after all his time in the Palace. I could not help but wonder if Xander were somewhere close by.
“May I ask your question, sir?” I said to distract myself from that uncomfortable thought.
He glanced over at me and said, “of course, lad. Of course.”
“How long have you lived here, in the Palace, I mean?”
“I came here to be Master Trent’s apprentice over fourty years ago. I spent most of my life in the service of the Duke. Which means I spent most of my life in this Palace.”
To a youth of my fifteen summers that was an inconceivable length of time. Master Lucas has been walking these corridors since before my father was born.
“Was it always like this, sir?”
“Like what, lad?”
I was embarrassed now. I had hoped he would begin to talk about the prisoners. He genuinely seemed not to know what I was talking about. “So noisy, sir?”
“You mean the people in the cells? No. There are more people in them than any time I can remember. There are those who plot against our Duke. There are those waiting sentencing for their crimes. There are those who…”
His voice trailed off and I wondered what he had been going to say before he decided to restrain his tongue.
“Who, sir?”
He considered for a moment, clucked his tongue and said. “There are those who are awaiting the question but you don’t have to worry about that.”
He paused for a moment and I wondered why. It never occurred to me then that he might simply have been trying to be tactful, given the Inquisition’s interest in myself and my mistress.
“Frater Franco told me that the false monk, Xander is being held down here,” I said.
“Did he now,” said Master Lucas. It was the first time I ever thought I detected a note of criticism of the inquisitor in his voice. “I am not sure there was any need for that, but Frater Franco knows his own business best.”
After that he fell silent and I sensed that this was not a subject he wanted to talk about. It was only much later that I found out why.
I tried to memorise the way back through the maze. It was difficult. There were many turnings and gates. I was relieved when I saw armed men standing at junctions and guarding various doors. I would be able to ask for directions if I got lost on my way out.
Eventually we came to a large locked door. It was metal bound and it had three locks. Elder signs marked it along with other runes. Magic pulsed through the wood and stone.
Master Lucas touched each of the symbols in turn and muttered a word. Power flared around him, not as strong as the aura that surrounded Mistress Iliana but nonetheless very great.
Nothing visible happened but I sensed coils of magical energy unwinding. After this was done Master Lucas took keys from his belt and unlocked the door.
Red watched with wide eyes, giving little worried bleats as the magic happened. I wondered whether he sensed something too or whether he was merely picking up on my emotional response. Perhaps Master Lucas would be answer that with his tests.
We stepped inside a massive chamber. The ceiling curved overhead. Scattered around the room were a number of workbenches. Lanterns hung from the walls. They were dull with just the faintest glitter in their core.
Master Lucas walked around, touched each lamp and spoke a Word. As he did so the lanterns lit up. There was no burning oil in them, just some form of crystal that emitted a glow like a small sun. Around each lantern a pool of light emerged until eventually they overlapped and made the whole room as bright as day.
“That’s better,” Master Lucas said. “I’ve thrown a little light on the subject.”
It took me a moment to realise that he was making another terrible joke. I tried to force out a laugh but it did not come. He shook his head ruefully.
Glass jars stood upon the workbenches. Each contained things that resembled internal organs. I had seen enough of those when I helped my father butcher beasts. These ones were larger than those that you would expect from sheep or a goat.
Master Lucas caught the direction of my gaze. “Yes. You guessed correctly. I am studying the internal organs of human beings.”
He strode over to one of the tables and pointed to what looked like a liver. It was larger than the one beside it and it looked distorted somehow.
“One of these livers belonged to a man of normal health. Aside from the fact that he is dead, of course. The other belonged to a heavy drinker. You can see the differences.”
He sounded excited by this rather than disgusted as most people would have been. I wondered if this was the sort of thing that was forbidden by the Inquisition. I thought about the security surrounding this place and the spells on the doors and the darkness that had greeted us on entry.
“These came from human bodies,” I said. I could not keep the horror out of my voice.
“Yes.” He spoke the word brightly, as if proud of himself. “I have a special dispensation from the church to investigate these matters. Our internal organs often reflect the state of our health, or the diseases that kill us. And some of these things are not natural.”
He strode across to another table and pointed to a mass of flesh in which black lumps blossomed. “These tumours were caused by blight. They continue to grow even after the flesh of its owner is dead. Interesting, is it not?”
“This is the product of blight,” I said. Once again I was horrified. After all the warnings Mistress Iliana had given me about avoiding this stuff, it seemed strange to see someone so excited by its presence.
“Yes,” Master Lucas said. He noticed the expression on my face. "Do not worry, the jar is warded by elder signs and the stoppers are plugs of wraithstone. I am thinking of introducing a distillate of it into the fluid to see if it has any effect on the tumours.
I wandered around the chamber. Huge glass jars held pickled dogs. Cats and birds floated in others alongside the remains of a dragonling. The sight caused Red to mewl piteously as if he feared he might soon join it.
Skeletons of people and other things reminded me of the ones I had seen in the Glass Wing. There were items of crystal and metal around which an aura of power hung. I suspected that for all its horror this was a place filled with objects worth a great deal of gold. Obviously the Duke’s patronage had made Master Lucas more than well-off.
I paused in front of a statue that resembled a human being except that on one side it was covered with painted skin and the other looked as if the skin had been flayed away to reveal muscle and bone and tendon beneath.
In a huge jar eyes floated. On the table next to it sat an eye that had been cut into with a scalpel. A notebook lay near at hand open at a very fine pen drawing of the dissected eye as well as notes in an alphabet which at least I recognised.
“I can see you are impressed by my collection,” Master Lucas said.
“It seems very valuable, sir,” I said. It was all I could do to keep my voice steady. I was regretting being so swift to agree to come down here. I did not want to think about the sort of tests a man capable of this sort of research might be capable of.
“That it is, young man. That it is. That is why I have those locks on the door and the wards in the walls.”
“I see, sir,” I said. Something sounded off in his explanation, as if he was not giving the real reason for all the locks but a plausible justification.
“Shall we begin?” He walked over to a distant corner of the room. A chair stood there overlooked by a complex device made of crystal lenses and brass. I sensed the magic it emitted.
“Please, be seated. Upon the stool,” Master Lucas said. “And take your familiar with you.”
I did as I was told. He walked up to the apparatus and fiddled with its metal rings. He twisted them first one way and then the other. He extended a stand so that the device became elevated. As he worked he crooned a spell to himself.
Energy filled the room. Some of it I recognised. He was drawing on the power of light. It should have reassured me. The opposite of shadow, it would burn anything tainted. Nonetheless I found myself growing more and more nervous as the old wizard continued his work.
“What are you doing, sir, if I may ask?”
“This is an aurascope, young man. As the names suggests, it will let me examine your aura, the field of life energy that surrounds living things. That will give me some idea of your potential amongst other things. It should also enable me to see the astral links between you and your pet.”
“It sounds like an interesting device, sir.” I said because I could think of nothing else.
“It is of my own devising,” he said. He stood up and smiled proudly. “I based it on some notes left by the ancient philosopher Aeralis. I combined his astral analyser with a basic tetrascope. It almost always works.”
“Almost always, sir?”
“There’s nothing to worry about. It won’t do you any harm even if it reveals nothing.”
I was not reassured. Red began to squirm. I had to hold him and feed him small titbits of the sausage I carried for just such emergencies. That calmed him for a bit. Finally Master Lucas completed his preparations and said, “Please look in my direction. And try and keep your familiar still.”
Master Lucas spoke another word of power. Energy surged around us once more. One by one the lenses of the aurascope lit up. The glow rivalled those of the lanterns but each of the lenses emitted a different colour. One was a ghastly green. One was blood red. Another was a strange shade of yellow.
As all this was going on, Master Lucas continued to make adjustments. Once he had completed those to his satisfaction, he bent on the far side of the apparatus and looked through the lenses directly at me. He was silent for a long time and then he rose, made more adjustments, muttered more words of power and returned to his position.
“Interesting,” he said.
“Interesting, sir?”
“There is definitely linkage between you and your familiar. A very strong bond I would say. I can see it glowing from here. And your aura tells me that if you study hard, you will be a very powerful sorcerer someday.”
“Powerful, sir?”
“Powerful.”
“How can you tell that, sir?”
“An experienced sorcerer can usually sense the relative strength of people once he’s had some experience of doing such things. My aurascope simply makes it easier and more precise. Your aura is very intense.”
“Intense, sir? I don’t understand what you mean.”
“It is very bright. In the cases of some mages it is feeble. A mage with an aura that is dim will never be very powerful. Unless certain very unusual circumstances occur.”
That got my attention. “And what would those be, sir?”
“Some mages develop late, young man. Some need experiences to catalyse their powers. Sometimes a mage will undergo something that transforms them, that allows them to draw on more power.”
“Like we were talking about earlier, sir? When you were discussing overdrawing my power.”
“Just so. In any case your aura is particularly intense but that’s not the most interesting part of it.”
Once again I felt flattered but I had no idea what he was talking about. “What would that be, sir?”
“Your aura is very mixed. No colour of the spectrum is dominant.”
This meant precisely nothing to me. He must have seen it written on my face because he laughed.
“Each type of magic has a colour associated with it. Your mistress for example is very strong crimson aura. This is the colour of destructive magic. My own is azure dominant.”
“And that means that you are good at healing, sir?”
“Yes, among other things. At one end of the azure spectrum it can mean that you are good at healing. At the other, it can mean that you are good at divination. The two tend to be connected.”
“Why would that be sir?”
“It probably has something to do with the fact that in order to cure a person you first have to find out what is wrong with them.”
“That makes sense, sir.”
“It’s nice of you to say so,” he said. Even I could detect the note of irony in his voice.
“So you’re saying that my aura has no colour?”
“No dominant colour. There are many colours scintillant, including azure and crimson, aurean and viridian as well. They swirl about you. I suspect that once you decide to concentrate your studies on something, one will become dominant. That is normally the case. In any case, you certainly have some interesting possibilities ahead of you.”
“Assuming that I can find someone to teach me,” I said. I could not keep the sour note out of my voice.
The old man smiled. "I don’t think that will be difficult. Your mistress is a very accomplished war mage. Had she not bonded you first, I would be inclined to offer you an apprenticeship myself.
“I doubt that I could afford it, sir. My family is very poor.” It was customary for an apprentice to pay a fee to his master in all professions.
“I’m sure that we could work something out,” Master Lucas said. “You could have worked as an assistant until your debt is paid off, for example. Anyway, it’s pointless discussing this. Things are as they are. I will let your mistress know what we have discovered here.”
It was then that I started to suspect that this had nothing whatsoever to do with uncovering the link between myself and Red and everything to do with establishing what my talents and strengths might be. That seemed to be the primary purpose of the old man’s device.
“Have your apprentices been placed in front of your aurascope, sir?” I asked.
“Of course,” Master Lucas said. “I try to use it on everybody when I get the opportunity. Most mages are not quite so accommodating as you. We work in a very suspicious profession.”
It was a nice touch that use of the word we. So far I had no practice in the profession of being a wizard whatsoever. “I’m glad that I could be of assistance to you, sir,” I said.
“Every little helps us advance the field of human knowledge,” Master Lucas said. “I thank you for sitting for me.”
He stared through the lenses again and then muttered the incantation once more one by one the glass ovals went dim, the light faded, the colour vanished. I thought about what he had said about the colours of magic and I wondered if each lens was connected with a particular colour. I put my thoughts to Master Lucas.
“An excellent observation,” said. “You grasped that very quickly.”
I nodded in acknowledgement of what he said. “It must take very complex magic to create such a device, sir.”
He placed his hands on the aurascope proudly and stood there, a man pleased to have found a willing audience before which to expound upon his creation. “It is a very complex device. It does not require power so much as time and the willingness to work subtle, intricate spells.”
“You have placed the spells on the device itself, sir?”
“I inscribed the glyphs within the crystal.”
“Within, sir?”
“That is where the magic comes in. No tool could be used to work inside crystal without breaking it.”
“So the glyphs are entirely the product of magic?”
He nodded. “Then everything has to be arranged in a pattern that harmonises. Flows of energy have to be calibrated. There also have to be runes to channel the power I feed the device, which can be a little draining.”
I could see that there were small beads of sweat on his forehead. His hands shook a little. Clearly working with his device had affected him. He looked a little ill. Even as that thought struck me, he walked over to another table and poured himself a glass of wine from a flask. I smelled alcohol and something herbal. I was reminded of the flask from which my mistress drunk. I also remembered what Master Lucas had told me earlier about the use of drugs by sorcerers. I was afraid to ask.
He took a sip of the cordial and his face regained some colour. His hand ceased to shake and he looked more relaxed. A small smile spread across his face and he walked back over to his device, still clutching his glass. "Where were we? Oh yes, the arrangement of the lenses and the runes. It took me several years to create this version. It is the last of the line I have been working on for the past twenty years or so.
I thought about that. This man had invested twenty years of his life creating this device and to what purpose? It was not a weapon as far as I could tell. “Why have you done this, sir?”
“For knowledge, young man. To advance it. I’ve always wanted to know about magic and how it works. I’ve always wanted to be able to see into its mysteries.”
Something of his excitement communicated itself to me. He was almost dancing on the spot now and I wondered whether it was from glee or the side effects of what he was drinking.
“Eventually, if we can find out what gives some people the ability to work magic and not others, we might be able to create sorcerers. If we can isolate what makes some mages strong, we could use that knowledge for the benefit of all mages, perhaps all mankind.”
I looked around the chamber again. I looked at the dissected eye. I studied the skeletons. I inspected the map of muscles and bones within the statue nearby. I wondered how far Master Lucas was prepared to go in pursuit of knowledge. All of the old stories about sorcerers I had heard when I was growing up came rushing back to me and made me profoundly nervous.
Master Lucas seemed lost in his speech. “I believe that the Old Ones once possessed this knowledge. Perhaps some of them still do. One thing is certain, they will not share it with us. Behind this knowledge, might be the secret of life itself. Once the Eldrim created new species, granted them strange powers. They changed people so that they could live and breathe underwater. They created beings who could fly. Some say that they created magicians to be the greatest of their servants.”
His voice dropped into silence at this point I could tell that he did not like that thought. He took a deep breath and continued, “Forgive me,” he said. “I get carried away. It’s not often I find someone prepared to listen as well as you. It’s a great gift. One of many that I have no doubt you possess.”
He was laying the flattery on with a trowel. I wondered what his purpose was. One day it would become clear. “You can find your way back by asking directions from the guards,” he said. “I must write up my notes. You have given me a lot to think about.”
It was quite clear I had been dismissed.