Alora: The Maladorn Scroll (Alora 3)

~13~

Finally!

Raelene almost called out loud in her excitement. Day after day she’d read through the ancient manuscripts, much of the time with Bardamen’s less-than-enthusiastic participation. She didn’t blame him for his obvious distaste of the task. Unlike her, Bardamen couldn’t call on a gifting in wisdom to ease the work. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she remembered how the young shaman had studied with more diligence whenever they were joined by Meravelle, who not only had wisdom gifting, but language gifting as well. The vivacious scribe had translated many parchments covered with strange scribblings under Bardamen’s close supervision.

All had been to no avail, until today.

While the intent of the search was to learn more about soulmates, including the possibility of breaking the bond between Kaevin and Alora without severing their lives, she’d stumbled upon a profound passage concerning an entirely different matter. The faded verse had been difficult to decipher until a dusting of pressure powder revealed the missing letters. The writing referred to forbidden dark magick that sounded much like that performed by Vindrake, and it claimed these dangerous writings were contained in an ancient parchment, the Maladorn Scroll.

But the name of the scroll was not what had Raelene ready to dance in celebration. No, it was the postscript to a descriptive warning about the scroll, which stated it revealed “the path to power, marked by evil,” but also “power’s destruction, marked by sacrifice.” Surely that meant the Maladorn Scroll also held the key to Vindrake’s ultimate defeat.

Only one small problem marred her discovery. Alleraen had once mentioned this same name when referring to a scroll in his brother’s possession. Obtaining the scroll would be difficult, at best. Yet she refused to believe it was impossible.

Meanwhile, Meravelle had agreed to lead them to Serenshire, where they might still find answers about the soulmate bond, and Graely could seek an alliance in the battle against Vindrake.

Raelene had thought Bastaeno would take them to Serenshire, but since her previous visit he had taken an oath to protect the Craedenza and could never again leave Glaenshire. Before enacting the Craedenza oath, however, he’d shown his granddaughter the way to Tenavae’s “City of Peace.”

According to their prearranged plan, Raelene expected Alora to transport the rest of the expedition group to Glaenshire in the next few days to begin the next leg of their journey. I can’t wait to tell Graely about the message on the scroll!

“Raelene!”

Meravelle’s voice. She’d probably come to the Craedenza to fetch Raelene for dinner.

“Meravelle! Come and see what I’ve found!”

“Raelene! There’s an attack!” Bursting into the room, Mera grabbed Raelene’s arm. “Bardamen says it’s Water Clan. Come quickly and bring all the scrolls you can carry. I need your help.”

Raelene ignored her pounding heart and moved with calm deliberation to scoop up an armful of scrolls and parchments and follow Meravelle—likewise burdened—through the open doorway into the back archive room where the majority of the documents were housed.

Dropping her scrolls on the floor, Mera urged Raelene to add hers to the haphazard pile, and then tugged her arm, pulling her out of the archive room and kicking the smooth door shut. Then Mera bent over, placing her hand on the bottom left corner of the door, and moved her hand up along the seam between the door and the wall, across the top, and down the right side, erasing the seam as her hand passed. When she stepped back, there was no door visible in the stone wall.

“What... what did you just do?” asked Raelene, blinking her eyes hard and squinting at the stones. Reaching out, she ran her fingers along the stones and the sandy filling between but didn’t feel the slightest indentation where the door had been.

“Here in Glaenshire, we each do what we can to preserve and enrich the knowledge stored at the Craedenza,” said Mera, with a small shrug. “I’m a gressor, so this is something I can do. If Vindrake wins the battle, he still won’t have access to the back archives until he brings a gressor here. With a bit of good fortune, he may not realize the other room exists.”

“Why not simply seal this main one?” asked Raelene, pointing toward the heavy wood door, flanked by massive stone columns.

“The Craedenza entrance is immune to gresses. Once I came into my gift we thought I might seal it each night to keep it secure from any threat, but I couldn’t. It’s perhaps the same magick that binds us when we take the oath.”

Mera opened the door and peered out, the sounds of distant drums and bugles filtering inside. A spine-chilling shriek split the air, and Mera shrank back inside.

“A wendt,” Raelene rasped from a dry throat, glad Mera had slammed the door shut so she couldn’t hear the vile creature.

“It has returned,” Mera rasped. “A moment ago, I saw it...” Her voice faded away, as she relived the horror.

“Our Stone Clan warriors are valiant. They will kill the wendt.” Raelene spoke with more conviction than she felt. “Vindrake surpasses his own evil. How could he loose such a monster on the peace-loving citizens of Glaenshire?”

If only we had already located the Maladorn Scroll and unlocked its secrets. Perhaps we would know how to send his wendts back to him.

Mera cracked open the door and inclined her head. “I don’t hear the creature now. Come quickly, Raelene. To the healing house. Soon, we will have many wounded to tend.” Her lower lip trembled, despite the calm in her voice.

“Are you a healer, as well?” asked Raelene, wondering at her amazing giftedness.

“I’m not. But I’ve read every scroll written concerning the structure and function of the body, and that will have to do.” She bit her lip, nostrils flaring as she gestured toward a tall white-haired man at the front of a crowd of people standing outside the Craedenza. “For there’s our healer, oath-bound and waiting to fight, without so much as a hammer to defend himself.”

Pre-occupied with the wendt’s chilling screech, though it was obscured from her sight by the nearby buildings, Raelene almost collided with Meravelle when she stopped in her tracks, her path obstructed by Bastaeno. The gray-bearded man with the kind face enveloped his granddaughter in his arms.

“Meravelle.” His throat convulsed, as if he were swallowing a deluge of saliva.