The Cold Amulet

While Elisa checked the last wall, Reagan set about clearing sections of the ground. He ignored where Dietfried’s spell had obliterated the wood floors and focused on the few areas that remained intact. Wood shards, dirt, ashes, and scraps of paper and cardboard carpeted the floor, and Reagan kicked the debris into a pile in the center of the room, where Alan moved the larger pieces closer to Dietfried.

Elisa joined Reagan shortly, starting from the opposite wall and moving inward. The pair worked in silence until Reagan shifted a board away from a deep seam in the wooden floor. It would have been hidden beneath one of the empty shelves before the room exploded.

“I think I found something,” he said, kneeling down. With Elisa’s help, he cleared away a section of the floor that was half a meter squared and had a small notch in the center of the bottom edge.

The trapdoor opened onto an iron ladder, but the space below the first two rungs was pitch black. Elisa handed Reagan her oil lamp, and he lay on his stomach and lowered the lamp as far down into the hole as he could.

The ladder descended about three meters below them, reaching a dirt floor. Tall wooden shelves spanned the edges of the small room, and each was packed with over a hundred leather-bound books. Some looked recent and well-kept while others were falling apart at the seams.

“I think we found the real archives,” Reagan said. The weight in the pit of his stomach grew heavier. An hour too late.

Elisa was undeterred. She sat up, swung her legs over the edge, and started down the ladder. “Now we just need to find the right spell,” she said. Not once did she look back up at Reagan as she descended and held her hand up for the lamp. Her raised hand trembled.

Reagan joined her on the ground, and the pair started their search as Alan’s footsteps thumped softly above their heads.

The room was larger than Reagan had expected. It expanded far beyond the small opening, almost matching the size of the room above, and every shelf overflowed with books. As he walked further from the entrance, he noted that the books grew older and more frayed. Remembering the failed spell from Baktry, Reagan returned to the ladder and started with the most recent-looking section, full of compendiums. Elisa took the shelf beside his, and both perused in silence.

Reagan found what he was looking for in the tenth book he pulled from the shelf. It was thicker than his head and bound in stiff brown leather, with a weathered spine and frayed corners. He had to pull the sleeves of his coat over his hands as he held the book because of the strong heat it emanated.

He flipped it open, thumbing through the pages faster than he could read. He stopped on a page titled: “Necromantia Ad Vitam.”

Along with a list of herbs to combine into a paste and a diagram to be drawn with the mixture, the book read:

“To restore one’s physical form, the spell must be performed within one day and night of the soul’s departure from the mortal realm, with the soul present in the center of the circle. A caution to the caster: the spell can only be performed once, as the caster and the subject of the spell will then be bound for the remainder of a shared lifetime.”

“It’s hopeless,” Reagan said as the tiny spark of hope in his chest extinguished. A weight plummeted into the pit of his stomach, and the floor threatened to tilt away from him. He leaned against the bookshelf to his right, willing the nausea and numbness away. “Liam’s been dead for over ten years.”

Elisa, reading over his shoulder, shook her head. “It says within a day of the soul’s departure.” She pointed to the words with a shaking finger. “His soul was attached to you until an hour ago.” She pulled her black ring out of a pocket in her coat. “We just need to find something of his, so I can bring him back.” The determination shining in her eyes left Reagan no room for argument.

Reagan thought of the toy soldiers lined up along the mantel of the fireplace in Liam’s cottage, but there was no way to return home in less than a day.

“The amulet,” he said aloud. “If we can find the one made from Liam’s blood, would that work?”

“I think so,” Elisa said, hesitantly at first, then she nodded. “It’ll work.” Uncertainty still played in her downturned lips, but her voice was full of conviction.

“Dietfried said he kept mine on him all these years…” Reagan said, trailing off as he looked up the ladder. Nodding to Elisa, he tucked the book under one arm and climbed the ladder, reaching down at the top to retrieve the oil lamp from her.

“Did you find the spell you were searching for?” Alan asked as Reagan closed the hatch behind Elisa. The green-haired mage stood at the opposite end of the room, beside the pile of debris he’d gathered around Dietfried.

Reagan nodded. “For the spell to possibly work, we’ll need the amulet that was mistakenly made from Liam’s blood. We think Dietfried might have it on him, since it wasn’t in the storage room, and he said he kept mine on him all these years…” Reagan trailed off, unsure of how much more to say.

Alan moved aside. “It’s no secret Dietfried carries multiple amulets, but nobody knows how many he uses. One more or less won’t be noticed.”

Dietfried’s corpse hadn’t moved, still sprawled on the ground to the right of the doors. Some of the blood had soaked into the dirt, while the rest had started to congeal on top of it. His uniform, once white, was turning brown around the wound.

Reagan knelt down and reached below the collar of Dietfried’s uniform. His skin was still warm.

Around Dietfried’s neck, Reagan found three chains tangled together. He pulled them out to reveal three identical amulets.

“I never understood why it stayed cold.”

Reagan held each of the amulets in the palm of his hand as he recalled Dietfried’s words. While two had a subtle warmth to them, one was ice cold. This one must be Liam’s…

Reluctant to hold it any longer, he pocketed Liam’s amulet and refused to think about who was sacrificed for the other two as he replaced them beneath Dietfried’s uniform and stood.

“I’ll be staying here to finish this. Can you two escape the way you came in?” Alan asked again, looking toward the closed door.

Reagan glanced down at the invisibility cloak. “That won’t work anymore…” he said, trailing off as he flipped through the spellbook until he found an invisibility spell. “This is meant for fabric, but I don’t think our clothes will suffice to cover us.” He grimaced.

“What about that disguise spell you used in Apolde?” Elisa asked. “The effects won’t be as dire over a short period, right?”

Reagan shook his head. “If I disguise us as guardsmen, and we run into the real ones, or if I use the ones we’ve met and they have no reason to be here, it’ll make things worse.”

Elisa’s shoulders slumped. She looked around the room for another solution but, finding none, pointed at the book and asked, “What if you use that spell directly on us? What would happen?”

“I don’t know. It could be ineffective and harmless, or it could have horrible consequences…” We’re running out of time to look for another solution… “It’s worth trying.”

Reagan reopened the spell book, reading the spell silently to himself a few times to make sure he knew the cadence and pronunciation for each syllable before closing the book and taking a deep breath. Concentrating, he felt the heat of his magic gather in his palms and chanted the spell over himself. A light tingling sensation crawled over his skin, and he tensed, but nothing more happened.

“It worked!” Elisa said, delighted. She held out a hand toward Reagan and said, “I’ll lead the way once we leave. You’ll get us lost.”

Although she couldn’t see him, Reagan nodded as he took her hand and chanted the spell over her, too, watching her disappear.

Moving to stand beside the door, Alan said, “I’d caution you against performing the spell in town -- the detection spell for the town and this building are set separately -- however the south exit, where the forest is sparser, has the least monster interference.” He eased the door open, adding, “Be careful out there.”

Reagan whispered a “Thank you,” to the mage as they passed, and turned to look behind him as Alan shut the door again. Elisa led them silently back to the secret passageway.