The Five Elements (32 page)

"Erlek was never a druid. He'd never tasted their power. But to see it, ah, just to have witnessed it must have been a wonder unto itself. It is not hard to fathom why Erlek wants the power of the Four Elements for himself. It is puzzling, however, why a fifth Element was never mentioned." Ansanom hove into view again and fixed Aaron with a stare. "Perhaps I shall ask Erlek when he arrives."

"Erlek is coming
here
?" That could mean only one thing. "You've made a deal with him, haven't you? You've been working with him all along."

"Yes, of course. In exchange for the Element of Water, which I just showed you, Erlek brings with him a horde of druid knowledge that is really quite useless to me because I already have much of it. He, however, does not know that."

"What is your plan, then? To kill him and keep the Element for yourself?"

"Why, yes! That is exactly my plan. With Erlek out of the way, recovering the other Elements from his boy—a distant cousin of yours, I imagine—should be a trivial task. You see, by the time Erlek arrives here, he will have already recovered the other three Elements. In short, all of the Elements will be mine."

"Then why do you need me?"

"Because you, Aaron, are possessed of a very special gift."

"What 'gift'? Everyone seems to think I'm something special." Aaron slumped against the table. "I'm not." Staring at the dark of the ceiling, he was suddenly weary beyond measure. "You're going to turn me over to Erlek, aren't you? You're going to let him kill me."

"No. Certainly not. Erlek will never even know you are here. You, Aaron, are far too important to give up. I'd been trying to get you here for some time, but always Elsanar stood in the way. Claimed you were too valuable to spare, even for a single sennight. Ultimately, with time running out, I had to press my point with greater emphasis."

Aaron thought a moment. Some of the pieces were finally falling into place. "
You
sent the assassins! But they weren't really assassins at all, were they? They weren't going to kill me. They were just supposed to scare me."

"More or less. They were to have frightened Elsanar mostly, so that he would release his grip on you and send you away to where your protection could be guaranteed. It is to my fortune that you were not slain in the attack launched by Erlek and that you are now here in my company after all."

Ansanom said nothing else as he stood and moved around the table, gathering four small bowls set beneath Aaron's arms and legs where the sorcerer had cut him. Each contained a small amount of blood mixed with whatever unguent the wizard had smeared there. Though the sorcerer then moved off beyond the aura of light provided by the candelabras, more lights flared to life, and so Aaron followed Ansanom's path to another table, this one piled high with instruments and vessels and books where he busied himself mixing first one and then another of the small bowls of Aaron's blood with some unknown substance. Finished, he turned to face Aaron. "It is as I feared. Your blood does not react with the alchemical solution. Not as I expected, to be sure. But not completely unanticipated." The wizard crossed his arms across his chest and leaned against the table's edge.

"Then it must prove I'm not whoever you think I am," Aaron said, a glimmer of hope forming.

Ansanom looked up. "I'm afraid not. It only means I need to dig deeper, to extract other… substances."

Aaron did not like the sound of that. "Why do you need anything from me at all?"

"Because you, Aaron, possess a very special attunement to the Elements. As you very well know, attunement, like any magic, is both a function of the mind and of the body. There are certain chemical processes within us that dictate its potential as well as its degree. Duplicating attunement, while difficult, is not impossible. It is my intention to not only measure your attunement to the Elements, but, more importantly, to duplicate it."

Aaron opened his mouth to argue that point, to tell Ansanom once more that he was not who he thought he was, but he only sighed in resignation.

"It is an alchemical process when one gets right down to it. Through careful measurement and monitoring, I will first learn the frequency to which your attunement is calibrated. Then, through the extraction of certain fluids and organs, I will reveal the specific alchemical quantities needed to duplicate that attunement. The extraction process, I'm afraid, is quite exacting. You will not survive the experience."

Ansanom moved to a deeper part of the laboratory where he almost faded into the darkness. But once again, lights flared to life ahead of him until the room was lit all the way to a bare, earthy wall. The space between was clogged with some great metallic contraption, with gears and vats and tubules filled with some darkish fluid. Aaron had never seen the like. Not sure if he should be fascinated or horrified at the sight of it, his thoughts were jarred from either possibility when the table beneath him trembled and shook and then pulled free of its legs. The table did not collapse, but instead drifted—with Aaron still secured to it—across the room towards the master sorcerer and the great machine. Knowing it did him no good, Aaron strained against his bonds anyway. While he did so, the tabletop slid into place at one side of the machine so that he was now near vertical, with the great bulk of the thing at his back and the leather straps biting into his wrists and ankles all the more. Aaron felt the tooth Ursool had given him resting against his chest now. The sorcerer had either not recognized its worth or thought it had none, for he'd not removed it.

Aaron heard a lever squeak. Above him, a metal assembly consisting of a drum with a thin arm at either end lowered, stopping just above his head. The hinged arms swung lower, so that one was at either side of his temples. By shifting his eyes side to side, Aaron saw that each was tipped with a crystalline quill.

"The machine behind you is a device of my own making," Ansanom said as he walked into view. "I call it my 'extraction engine'. You see, a magical means of duplicating the chemical attunement eluded me for so long I finally came to the conclusion that, even with your bodily material to study, sorcery simply was not the answer. So, I turned to a hybrid approach, melding techniques of sorcery with science. The device works in such a way that—Oh, well, perhaps a demonstration would best illustrate its function. Here, let me show you."

Ansanom lifted a hand and, with the movement of a single finger, brought the extraction engine to life. The whole contraption shuddered as gears lurched into motion and metal grated on metal. Every jolt, every vibration rattled the table beneath Aaron. He felt heat, though he smelled no smoke. Then the crystalline quills to either side of his head moved closer. His movement already limited, Aaron had nowhere to go. There was a stillness in the air around him for one moment, then the world blazed into a hell of sorcerous energy. Aaron opened his mouth to scream. Whatever sound came forth was drowned out by the thrum and sizzle lancing through his flesh and into his bones. It lasted only a moment, then it was over. Aaron saw only white brilliance as he slumped against his restraints. It took some time for cognizance to return. When it did, he saw Ansanom, staring at him and mumbling. A look of puzzlement lined his face.

"Something is not right, something… the energy stream… is this… could this be Elsanar's doing?" He shook his head while scratching at his beard. "Did my dear friend anticipate my actions after all? What could he have done?" Ansanom paced one way and then the other. "It is not inconceivable that he might have altered your—"

"I told you…" Aaron forced the words out through a throat gone raw. "I'm not who you think I am."

Ansanom flashed Aaron a look of annoyance, as if he might strike him for his stubborn insistence. Instead, he started to pace again, but then stopped almost immediately. He walked to one of his work tables where he consulted a tome lying there. Flipping through a number of pages, he stopped at several to read more thoroughly. When he was finished, he flipped the cover closed and approached the extraction engine and Aaron.

"It seems my calculations may have been a bit off. It is not completely unexpected, for I am, after all, charting new territory."

"Does that mean you're done with your experiment?" Aaron tried to moisten his lips, but his mouth had gone completely dry.

"On the contrary, it means I must raise the dosage my extraction engine is administering."

Aaron mouthed a feeble plea for him to stop, but it was lost in the growing din of the engine as it was brought to life again. As the quills lit up at either side of his head, the pain began anew. Aaron struggled against it, clenching his teeth until he felt they might shatter. It was worse this time, the pain silencing thought and blinding his senses. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. Behind him, over the low drone of the engine, Aaron thought he heard the old wizard muttering something about the continued lack of response. Aaron didn't bother trying to talk to him. He knew his overtures would fall on deaf ears. He was given a few minutes of recourse before the noise from the engine intensified again. Once more, the crystalline quills glowed brightly, forming a circuit with Aaron's brain as the connecting medium. Again, agony ripped through him. This time, it didn't stop, but went on and on.

* * *

The sound of whirring gears occupied the room as the twin suits of armor creaked and clanged across the wood floor. Their movements were imprecise and heavy, as if an unsure puppeteer pulled their strings, yet such inexactitude did not extend to their swords which gauntleted hands held steady, the cutting edges ready to strike. The armor itself, lined with barbs and spikes, need only graze flesh to inflict harm.

Knowing a dagger through an eye slit or a sword thrust through a chink were useless gestures, Ensel Rhe nevertheless let them come closer. But not too close. Before they could pen him in, he selected one of them and charged. The suddenness of his attack elicited little response except that the suit started to adjust the angle of its outstretched blade. The movement of vambraces and gauntlets was slow. Ensel Rhe easily knocked its blade aside with his khatesh right before he launched a single booted foot between spikes on the automaton's corselet. The blow sent the armor staggering. Metallic sabatons rang out across the floor as it back-pedaled in an attempt to remain upright. It was just steadying itself when Ensel Rhe finished the job with another kick. Its impact on the floor left the suit intact but for its helmet, which came loose and rolled away.

Ensel Rhe did not press his advantage. He wasn't sure he really had one, anyway. He backed away, careful to keep distance between himself and the still upright armor even as the gears of the fallen suit whirred with new intensity as it worked at righting itself. It took it only a few moments. Headless now, it again advanced on the eslar.

Moving to one corner, where a hefty bookcase lined with dusty tomes sat against the wall, Ensel Rhe sheathed his sword and dagger and tried moving it. He let out a satisfied grunt as it rocked forward before settling to its original position. There couldn't be a more obvious indication as to what he planned, yet both suits moved closer without regard. The moment they were both squarely beneath the bookcase, Ensel Rhe put all of his strength into toppling it. The bookcase rocked, swayed, then, with one final effort, crashed forward onto the advancing suits. The metallic automatons disappeared beneath a shower of books, wooden shelving, and a vaporous cloud of dust.

Ensel Rhe headed straight away for the portcullis, wrapping both fists around its bars, crouching, then lifting. Just like before, it did not budge. He glanced over one shoulder. The one suit that had taken the brunt of the bookshelf remained buried. But the other was already clear of the debris and scrambling to regain its feet. Ensel Rhe heaved against the gate again. Still, nothing. He looked over his shoulder to gauge the armor's progress. It was almost risen. When his focus returned to the gate, he let it go and almost took a step away, for he was not alone.

Ansanom's apprentice, Serena, stood before him. There was no sign of her master.

"I've come to release you," she said. Ensel Rhe saw that her eyes were moist, the rims of them red. "But only if—what happened to your face?"

More than just his face, Ensel Rhe's arms, legs, and torso burned with lines of pain. He'd felt the blood, drawn by the slithering vines, oozing down his skin and drying so that his clothing stuck to it, but he'd hereto ignored the damage. He continued to do so now, waiting for the girl to continue.

"But only if you promise to… kill my master."

Ensel Rhe narrowed his gaze. "You need no such promise from me to see that deed done, especially if he has harmed Aaron. But, if it satisfies you, I promise."

That satisfied her, for she disappeared from view and, seconds later, the gate rose. The moment there was enough clearance, Ensel Rhe ducked beneath it. It slammed shut behind him.

Serena was there on the balcony, just releasing her hand from a lever hidden in the wall.

Ensel Rhe drew his khatesh. "Where is Aaron?"

"There's a hidden stair in the dining room, beneath the fireplace. Master Ansanom has him there in his laboratory." She glanced at the portcullis where the animated suits of armor, still intent on slaying Ensel Rhe, clanged against the iron bars. "His
real
laboratory."

"Hidden?" Ensel Rhe asked. "How do I reveal it?"

Serena started for the stairs. "Come! I will show you."

"No." Ensel Rhe grabbed her shoulder to stop her. "Ansanom does not know you have helped me. If he sees us together… . Better you tell me, then remain here. It will be safer for you if I fail."

Serena thought for a moment, then she nodded and told him what he needed to know.

The moment she was finished, Ensel Rhe released his grip on her, placed one hand on the balcony's railing, and, without any warning, jumped over it. He left the third floor of Wildemoore Manor behind, sailed past its second where the door to Aaron's room remained smashed open, and landed in a crouch on the exact spot where he and Aaron had fallen when they'd first tumbled into Wildemoore.