“We’ve done our part as well as anyone could expect!” Brother Sergil said. “All I’m saying is-”
“Not as well as I expected! How did you-” Chandra stepped back with a sharp intake of breath as a small fireball exploded between her and Brother Sergil. The monk staggered backward, too, stumbling on the rough red stones that paved the monastery courtyard.
They both looked at Mother Luti in surprised silence.
“That’s better,” Luti said, her fingers glowing with the lingering effect of forming and throwing that fiery projectile between them. Her glance flickered over Chandra. “Quench your hair, young woman.”
“What? Oh.” Chandra became aware of the haze of fiery heat and pulsating flames surrounding her head. It wasn’t a roaring blaze, but it was certainly a loss of control. She took a calming breath and brushed her palms over her hair, smoothing the dancing flames back into her auburn mane until Luti’s nod indicated they had disappeared altogether.
“Until you can master your power better,” Luti said, “it would be a good idea to learn to manage your temper.”
Chandra let the comment pass without protest. She didn’t like orders or reprimands, but she had come to the Keralian Monastery to learn to master her power, after all. And she had once again just demonstrated how little control over it she had.
“You have an extraordinary gift,” Luti said. “Tremendous power. But as it is with our passions, it is with the fire you wield; they are good servants, but bad masters.”
“It would help,” Chandra said, glaring at Brother Sergil, “if people wouldn’t-”
“Nothing will help,” Luti said. “Certainly not other people. Only you can change the way your power manifests. Only within yourself can you find a way to master it in a reality which will, after all, always contain annoyances, distractions, fears, and sorrows.”
“Right.” Hoping to avoid another of Luti’s lectures on the nature of life, Chandra hastened to change the subject. “Now what about the scroll?”
The pyromancers, scholars, and initiates at Keral Keep had no idea where the scroll had come from. And neither did Mother Luti, for that matter, but she alone did know where Chandra got it. Luti ran the haven for pyromancers and firemages, who came to study and practice in the monastery on Mount Kerlia, a potent source of power. She knew a lot.
There was wisdom to be learned from her, to be sure, but the great stone walls of the fortress that crowned the summit of Mount Keralia pulsed with mana as red as the rock it was built upon. This was why mages came from all over Regatha.
The most skilled fire mages on the entire plane dwelled within the stony halls of the monastery, but none of them, including Luti, were as powerful as Chandra.
Perhaps Luti would have suspected the truth about Chandra even if she hadn’t been told: Chandra was a planeswalker.
Luti was well-versed in the legend of Jaya Ballard, the bombastic fire mage whose long-ago sojourn on Regatha had inspired the founding of this monastery. Jaya was a planeswalker, too. And planeswalkers were… different.
When she witnessed, first-hand, the magnitude of Chandra’s power, Luti could only think of the celebrated pyromancy of Jaya Ballard, stories she assumed had grown like mushroom clouds with the passage of time. In any case, Chandra chose to privately reveal her nature to Luti soon after coming to Regatha, after deciding it wouldn’t make sense to seek instruction in controlling her power while concealing what she could do.
It was a choice, Luti later told her, that demonstrated Chandra was capable of reasoned decisions when she applied herself.
Luti kept Chandra’s secret mostly out of a desire that fire remain the most tangible of the visible mysteries on Regatha. She feared the acolytes at Keral Keep would look for answers in Chandra, rather than find their own path. To everyone else at the monastery, Chandra was simply an unusually powerful young mage who came from somewhere else. And since Chandra, like so many others, didn’t want to talk about her past, no one pried.
Apart from Luti, none of the Keralians knew that Chandra had traveled the Blind Eternities, bridging that chaotic interval between the planes of the Multiverse, to steal that scroll on Kephalai, a world they’d never heard of and could never visit themselves.
Chandra had heard of the scroll in her travels, and she was intrigued by its reputation. So, after some time studying and practicing at the Keep had improved her erratic control of pyromancy, Chandra decided to find and steal the scroll, which turned out to be a little better guarded than she had anticipated. That was a wild ride, to be sure. Still, she made it out with the scroll.
Since the scroll was fragile, the brothers’ first act had been to make a few working copies of it. They had laboriously replicated the ancient writing by hand on fresh parchment.
Consdiering what had happened next, it was lucky they had done so. If she ever saw that mage again, she told herself, she would be ready. He would not trick her again.
Meanwhile, she knew from Luti’s expression that she had better remain silent while Brother Sergil explained the problem the monks were having with their copies of the scroll.
“The script is archaic, a variant we have not seen before, so it’s taken us some time to interpret its meaning. We are sure, though,” Sergil said, with a dark glance at Chandra, “that we copied it correctly. The value of multiple brothers each making a copy means, of course, that we can compare all our results from the process and arrive at a consensus on the exact contents of the original. Right down to the tiniest brushstroke.”
“Uh-huh.” Chandra folded her arms and didn’t attempt to conceal her boredom.
Mother Luti, who was a full head shorter than Chandra and triple her age, gave her a quelling look.
“The language of the scroll is a variant that our scholars haven’t encountered, so our conclusions aren’t as firm as one might wish. But it seems to be describing something of immense power, much as Chandra believed.” Brother Sergil made the grudging concession to her with a little nod.
“An artifact? A spell? What?” Chandra was surprised.
“It could be either… or something else entirely.”
“I could have told you that,” said Chandra exasperated.
“You mean you could have told us that had you a memory-”
Mother Luti raised a hand to stop Brother Segril from going further, her head tilted in a gesture of contemplation. Her white hair shone brightly in the sunlight of the monastery courtyard where the three of them stood. “What kind of power?” she asked when she had their attention.
“The scroll describes either an extraordinary source of mana, or it’s the key to accessing mana with extraordinary results. Either way, according to the scroll, it is something that will confer enormous power upon whomever unleashes it.” He shrugged. “It’s not clear to us if the text of the scroll declares this as a promise or as a warning. The intention of the author, like the its origin, is a mystery, Mother.”
“And does the text strike you as fact or as fancy?” Luti asked.
“Well…” He cast a glance at Chandra. “That might be easier to answer if we still had the original.”
Chandra scowled. “If you’re blaming me because-”
“No, I just mean,” the monk interrupted, “that the text seems to be saying the scroll itself contains the key to unlocking the mystery.”
“But the location isn’t in the text you’ve got?” Luti asked.
“No.”
“And you copied the entire scroll?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re saying that part of the scroll was missing?” Chandra guessed.
“I don’t think so,” Brother Sergil said. “We’re still discussing it… but the text seems to be complete. And, physically, the scroll itself was certainly complete. It was fragile, but it wasn’t torn, or singed, or moth-eaten.”
“So what are you saying?” Chandra asked.
“The purported location of this powerful artifact seems to be concealed in an internal puzzle,” the monk said. “The answer may be in the text itself, it could be obfuscated by layers of magic, but…” He trailed off, clearly reluctant to continue.
“But?” Luti prodded.
“We’ve tried multiple ways of interpreting the text, various ways of scrambling the words and the letters, and numerous methods of translating the characters into numbers, various decryption spells…” He shook his head. “But so far, we only get gibberish. Of course, we’ll keep trying, because if whatever this is does exist-if the text has any basis in fact-then this is very important information. Whoever possesses the power it speaks of could rule worlds. However… well, it’s really starting to look as if, when the text says the key to understanding is contained in the scroll itself…”
“You think it means the physical scroll?” Luti said. “The original?”