In Harmony We Trust - Ryan Matthew Harker (most popular novels of all time txt) 📗

of a perfect reality or heaven. In the middle of the ceiling the two landscapes came together swirling and mixing but with neither one gaining dominance over the other. The floor was an intricate mosaic made of differently shaded pieces of petrified wood laid out in a simple design that complimented the wood paneled walls. Scattered across the floor were broken pieces and shards of glass from the ornate lamps, desecrated and dark, dispersed down the hall and mounted on the walls. These remnants of illumination crunched under the footsteps of the explorers and disturbed the otherwise eerily perfect silence.
“I’m not liking this,” Candlelite said and drew his sword as he reached the closed doors at the end of the hall.
Doing likewise Jeshux signaled everyone else back. “Neither do I.” He put a finger to his lips and grabbed the handle of one of the large doors while Candlelite grabbed the other. “On three,” he whispered.
“One, two, three,” the two men chorused and with a heave they eased the doors open on silent hinges.
Their intrusion met no resistance. The giant antechamber was just as deserted as the rest of the country had been.
“What the fuck!” Absinthe breathed over Candlelite’s shoulder. He glanced at her as he had hardly ever heard her use profane language and her doing so was a testament of the stress she was feeling. Her face was drawn and pale and the knuckles of her hand were white where she gripped her pistol, holding it down at her side and pointed at the floor. He was feeling it also and knew that he probably looked just as bad.
“Abbie?” he whispered.
Seeing the look of sympathy and concern on his equally tense face she smiled wanly and said, “I’m fine. You?”
“I’ll be better once we’re out of here and back with the horses,” he replied truthfully. Then he flashed her, what he hoped was a reassuring smile and turned back towards Jeshux to follow the merc into the antechamber.
“This just isn’t right,” Jeshux said as the group spread out into the huge chamber. “Usually this place is swarming with people.”
The antechamber was a central area of activity in the guild hall. The carefully placed stones of the intricate mosaic that tiled the floor, although still as bright as the day they were laid, were worn smooth from the passage of countless thousands of people throughout the centuries. Students, teachers, scholars, and tourists were to be found in this room at all times, at all hours, day or night.
The small party of travelers was dwarfed by the size of the room, a sanctuary that could easily contain hundreds, maybe even thousands, and now occupied by no more than two dozen.
Once in the middle of the room Candlelite, Absinthe, and Max turned around in a couple of full circles to completely appreciate the enormity of the place.
Max whistled appreciatively. “Quite a feat of architecture,” he commented.
“You see how big the building is from the outside,” Absinthe said. “But until you’re inside of it and in a room this big…” she trailed off.
“There’s no way this can be structurally sound,” Candlelite mused. “The engineering is either impossible or very impressive. Outside anything we could’ve done back on Earth.”
“Not impossible,” Jeshux told him. “But yes, the design is beyond what the people of your world could accomplish. The mathematics that have gone into the engineering of not only this room but many other rooms- some equally or more impressive- and this entire building could only be discovered and developed with magic. In fact some of the rooms in the guild hall actually are structurally impossible, held together only by magic.”
The three non-natives managed to look suitably impressed by his revelation and Jeshux said, “We need to move on.” He motioned to two more of his men, “Go back to this side of that hallway and post up. You have the same orders as the guys outside. If you see anything or anyone and they don’t approach do not attempt contact. No matter what I want both of you here and only here. Got it?”
“Yes sir!” The two men saluted and trotted over to the open doors of the entry hall.
“So where are we headed?” Candlelite asked Jeshux as they trekked over to a staircase.
“The Archmagi’s quarters,” Jeshux replied. “If anyone had knowledge of what went on here it would’ve been her.”
“Her?” Absinthe noted, curious.
“Aye, her,” he huffed trudging up the stairs. Reaching the landing he clarified, “Her Eternal Grace the Honorable Archmagi Florencii Splendora Ambrosia. She’s an immortal and probably the most powerful sorceress on AnEerth. She’s been the Archmagi of Gontiluna almost as long as the guild has existed, about six hundred and thirty years or so.”
“Oh,” Absinthe said clearly awed.
“Her power is just one more reason that I find all of this so odd,” Jeshux said. “Some believe her power to be equal to or even greater than Harmony’s, at least before he went to Earth. Unfortunately she’s also renowned for staying well clear of anything political and despite many pleas from the royal house she adamantly refused to give her support.”
“Another reason Sefu’s commission is suspicious?” Candlelite queried.
“Precisely,” Jeshux replied.
They rounded a corner and halfway down the corridor they headed up another staircase. Presently Jeshux halted them in front of a nondescript door made of steel.
“This door leads to the Archmagi’s personal suite. Under no circumstances should you touch anything. Out of respect for a very powerful and influential lady and out of fear for your lives because you can never tell if the most innocent item may be what it seems.”
“What do you mean?” Absinthe asked.
“It’s hard to explain,” Jeshux said. “You’ll just have to trust me. Some of it though you’ll be able to see for yourself.”
Out of a sense of propriety, although he felt that it would not do any good, Jeshux knocked resoundly on the steel door. After about thirty seconds he knocked again, waited, and then opened the door.
“Archmagi Florencii? Archmagi Florencii Splendora?!” he yelled as he entered. “It’s Commander General Jeshux Jules! Is anyone here?”
There was no answer as the rest of the party joined him. The remaining two mercenaries, anticipating Jeshux order, stood outside to guard the door.
“Good men,” Max muttered. “What the hell!”
“What?” Jeshux spun to see what the matter was and then smiled as he saw what everyone was staring at. “Oh,” he said.
The steel door had transformed and grown into a large pair of ornate wooden doors luxuriously carved and decorated. While the hallway they had entered from had a standard ceiling height of around eight feet the ceiling inside the suite had magically grown to almost twenty feet.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Candlelite said.
Absinthe clapped her hands in wonderment. “Just like Alice in Wonderland,” she cried.
“What?” Jeshux asked.
“It was a story written back on Earth in the late 1800s,” Max told him. “It’s about a little girl who falls down a rabbit hole and finds herself in a strange and oftimes nonsensical world.”
“Oh,” Jeshux said and then turned back to search the suite.
‘Tell me,” Max began as he followed the other man. “How are we to find anything if we’re to touch nothing?”
“Just leave that to me,” Jeshux told him, concentrating his search to an area of the chamber that was seemingly dedicated to research, a personal library of sorts.
The Archmagi’s suite was obviously one of the chambers that were maintained more by principles of magic than by the more mundane engineering arts. It reminded Candlelite of pictures by an Earth artist named M.C. Escher which he had run across during one of the more lucid periods of his wanderings back home. From the entry door, to the unique geometry of the room, and even some staircases of Escher-esque quality that turned back on themselves and flipped upside down to lead to lofts that similarly defied gravity, everything that Absinthe and he encountered was a delight to behold and baffling to the senses. Although at times they were sorely tempted they managed to refrain from touching anything.
Just as the two of them were finishing their first round about the suite and Jeshux, with Max hovering over him anxiously, was beginning to grow frustrated with his own search, a few different things happened at once.
Jeshux swore in frustration, “Damnit! There’s nothing here!” and then turned to see Candlelite lean to inspect a painting when a female figure garbed in the robes of a Gontiluna guild apprentice suddenly burst from under a pile of cushions, rushed between him and Absinthe, knocking Candlelite over in the process, and darted for the door.
“Hey wait!” Jeshux yelled. When he saw the panicked person had no intention of stopping he shouted for the sentries outside the door, “Tanner! Hunter! Incoming, stop her!”
The two mercs responded just in time for the apprentice to flee between them and out the door.
“After her!” Jeshux shouted but the two men were already in hot pursuit.
A few minutes later there was a sickening scream, followed by a wet thump, then yells and the sounds of pistol fire with breaking glass.
“What the hell!” Jeshux pulled his own pistol and followed closely by Max and Candlelite, headed out the door.
The three men rounded the first corner in the hallway and quickly stumbled to a halt. “Jesus Christ!” Candlelite exclaimed.
The mercenary known as Tanner was busy hunched over Hunter, both hands on his neck as he tried to stem the blood that, regardless, flowed freely through his fingers. The apprentice that had flown from the suite of the Archmagi laid in a bloody heap no more than a dozen paces away.
“What in Death’s name happened here?” Jeshux demanded.
Concentrating on the task at hand Tanner ignored his commander and disgusted, Jeshux wandered over to where Max was kneeling next to the fallen apprentice. The scientist had rolled the body onto its back and the soldier was surprised to find that what he had first taken to be a woman was actually a young man perhaps seventeen years of age.
“He’s a real mess,” Max said standing up.
The corpse had had its throat completely removed, one eye was missing along with three fingers on its right hand, and the left leg was cocked at an unnatural angle at the knee.
“What in Death’s name happen here?” Jeshux repeated.
He turned back to the mercenaries. Tanner looked up at him as he closed his fallen comrades eyes with one hand. “He’s gone, sir.”
Jeshux opened his mouth to repeat his question a third time when he noticed Candlelite looking around in concern.
“Where’s Absinthe?” the young man asked with an edge of panic creeping into his voice.
“The last I seen she was by you when that young man pushed you aside,” Max told him indicating the body on the floor.
“All right, back to the suite,” Jeshux ordered. Tanner bent to pick up Hunter. “Leave him there for now,” Jeshux told him. “We’ll collect the bodies on the way out.”
They made double time back to the suite. Candlelite was the first one to burst through the door. He yelled out, “Absinthe!” but the suite was empty. He fell to his knees and let out an anguished sob.
Jeshux grabbed him under one arm and hauled him to his feet. “Get a hold of yourself!” he shouted in his face. “She’s all right. We’ll find her.”
“How can you say that? How can you know?” Candlelite demanded.
“Because of the prophecy,” Jeshux told him. He still spoke firmly but more gently now. “Damnit Candlelite, I’m a practical man. I’ve been soldiering most of my life and I’ve lived a long time. I’ve always left the hoodoo for those with a