Chương 7: Ten Minutes To Live (4)

The stairway ended in a small chamber made from stone, which looked to be of a different kind than the research hall above. A narrow flat skylight sat high in the wall, with dust clouding the glass. In the center of the chamber, there was a flat black pedestal built of the same kind of stone as the walls. A metal plate had been set into its top, shaped to receive a human hand. Rings of unfamiliar symbols had been etched around it. Edras placed the lamp with the glowing crystal on a wall bracket.

Teren studied the black pedestal.

"What is that?"

"This is called a lineage resonator."

"Lineage...? That sounds far more specific than the last two testing devices." Edras opened a locked case beside the pedestal and removed a large, clear crystal held within a silver frame. He inserted it into a narrow space beneath the handplate.

"This device was made to identify old magical bloodlines by the signature carried in a person's mana."

"Wait, what?" Teren looked at the mage.

"You think I'm descended from one of those families?"

"I need to confirm first. The intake assay produced a reaction I have only seen described in restricted records."

"What records?" Edras pointed at the pedestal.

"Hand on the plate." Teren did not move.

"I'm not touching that until you explain what you're testing for. How do I know it's not going to kill me or something?"

"There's nothing to worry about." Edras exhaled through his nose.

"If this device reacts dangerously, I can stop it."

"You didn't say it was safe."

"No magical test can be said to be entirely safe." Teren looked at the pedestal again. He had already died three times today. Or four times, if he counted his life on Earth before the wagon, though he still had no memory of how that life had ended. Now an eccentric old mage wanted him to put his hand on another magical device that might do something just as dangerous. Every sensible part of him wanted to refuse, but he knew that refusal wasn't going to help him understand the loop or get out of it.

He took a deep breath, bracing himself for anything that might happen, and placed his palm on the metal plate. It was colder than the brass grip.

"Find the mana again," Edras said.

"Move it into the plate." Teren closed his eyes. The current was easier to locate by now. He drew it toward his hand. The plate did not react.

"Put more mana into it," Edras said. Teren opened his eyes.

"You just told me I have no control to try something like that."

"There is no other way. The resonator requires far more mana than the earlier tests did."

"That sounds like a trap to me..." Teren stared at the mage.

"You sure it needs more mana?"

"You..." Edras looked exasperated.

"Are you always so wary of everything?" Teren just shrugged. He wasn't a worrywart, but burning to death three times in a row would teach anyone to be cautious of strange testing devices kept locked in ancient chambers. Edras wasn't the one who had to feel his lungs on fire and his skin melting off his bones again and again.

"It's a safeguard against accidental activation," the mage explained.

"This way a stolen mana residue, a contaminated tool, or a child's stray discharge cannot activate it. Only a living source with enough aligned mana can." Teren did not like the sound of that either. But he forced more mana into it anyway. The power rushed into the plate. Soon, the symbols around his hand lit purple. Edras inhaled sharply.

"Give it more." Before Teren could follow the instruction, the device began pulling mana by itself now, much faster than before. Teren got a bad feeling and tried to slow the current. It did not stop. He could not end the flow no matter what he tried. More and more mana poured out of him and into the pedestal. The purple light spread across the surface, not in random lines but through grooves carved so finely that Teren had not noticed them before. The crystal beneath the handplate began to glow.

Then the light rose. It literally started to rise up. Teren stared. Thin strands of purple mana lifted from the pedestal into the air. They hung above the device like lines made from light, turning and crossing over one another in a complicated pattern without anything holding them up. It looked almost like a hologram in movies. Except even Earth did not have a technology that could do this in real life.

Slowly, the strands began to fold into what looked like a translucent, purple-colored noble crest floating above the pedestal. The crest was nearly two feet across, its purple lines bright enough to throw faint light across the chamber walls. Its upper edge resembled a crown, while the thick shape coiled behind it looked almost like a dragon when looking at it closely. Teren could not identify it. Edras certainly did. The color drained from the mage's face.

"The... The—" His voice failed. He took one step away from the device. Seeing the mage's reaction, Teren's heart started beating rapidly in fear. He tried to remove his hand from the device. It didn't work. Panic began to rise in Teren.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Am I going to wake in the wagon again?

"I thought..." Edras drew a slow breath.

"I suspected this might be what we would find. But I told myself I had to be wrong. That the purple glow in the earlier test had to be an error. It is not..." Teren looked from him to the glowing crest.

"What is this thing?"

"The crest of the Corvadryn line," he said quietly.

"I never thought I would live to see this device give a positive result. I read the old records so many times, but seeing this crest rise by itself with just pure mana is..." The device stopped drawing mana so suddenly that Teren swayed. He tore his palm away. The crest remained floating above the pedestal for a few more seconds before slowly fading into nothingness. No one spoke. Teren looked between Edras and the dark pedestal.

"What the heck is the Corvadryn line?" Edras did not answer immediately. He removed the crystal from beneath the plate with both hands. Purple light still moved faintly inside it.

"We'll repeat the test." Teren stared at him.

"You told me not to use magic without control and now you want to try that again?" The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"I need confirmation for this."

"You looked fairly convinced to me."

"One result can be an error, contamination, or sabotage." Edras took another crystal from the case.

"Twice is proof." Teren's head had begun to feel light.

"That thing took a lot out of me." Edras paused his work.

"I know. Sit if you need to. The second test will draw mana again, but it should not be enough to endanger you."

"That was not a warning you thought I needed before the first test?"

"I needed the first reading to be clean," the mage replied.

"If you had tried to hold back or force the mana, the result might have been useless." Teren stared at him. Edras did not apologize. He replaced the crystal and gestured to the handplate. Teren took a deep breath and placed his palm on it again. Knowing what to expect did little to make the sensation more pleasant. The lineage resonator drew from him like a drain opening beneath his skin. Purple symbols lit around his hand. The crystal shone. Threads of light rose into the air and folded into the same crest.

Edras closed his eyes.

"The imperial bloodline was believed to be gone," he said quietly. Teren pulled his hand away as soon as the device released him. For a moment, he felt light-headed and had to steady himself against the pedestal.

"Gone?" he asked.

"The Corvadryn line ended more than a century ago," Edras said, his voice quieter now.

"At least, it was supposed to. No one else in recorded history has ever produced purple mana—apart from mages of that dynasty." Teren looked back at the fading crest.

"Who were they?" Edras frowned.

"You haven't even heard their name before?"

"I told you I don't remember anything from before today. So what's the Corvadryn line?"

"The imperial house," Edras replied as he removed the second crystal.

"The Corvadryn dynasty founded an empire a long time ago. The old records describe their magic as legendary, even among the great bloodlines. With purple flames and bonded dragons, they conquered rival kingdoms and built a continent-spanning empire that lasted over a thousand years." Edras exhaled.

"Then, a little over a century ago, members of the imperial bloodline began dying one by one. Some succumbed to illness. Others died in accidents, in battle, or simply of old age. Each death had its own explanation, but within a decade, not a single member of the bloodline remained alive. I have sometimes wondered whether all those explanations were as innocent as they appeared, but..." The mage stopped and shook his head.

"I shouldn't speculate without evidence." He continued, "When the imperial line was finally declared extinct, the throne passed to a loyal vassal family, which has ruled ever since. The empire slowly fractured in the past hundred years, and today the capital controls only a moderately powerful kingdom." Teren went still. What the hell have I just been dragged into? A continent-spanning empire? An extinct imperial bloodline? Edras put the crystal back into the case.

"The histories say the Corvadryn line ended without heirs, legal or otherwise. And no one capable of producing purple mana has been seen in more than a century. I have spent decades studying them and the unique magic they carried, but it was only supposed to be an old scholar's obsession. I never expected to meet one of them in the flesh. Until... you." His gaze returned to Teren, then moved briefly over his hair.

"The old accounts describe two marks of the Corvadryn. Purple mana, and hair of the same color. You have the first, but not the second. Somewhere in your ancestry, the imperial blood must have passed into common life. Without the unique hair, no one would have known what to look for, not if your parents and grandparents were commoners unable to use mana." Teren didn't know what to say to that. Edras looked at him for a few moments.

"You aren't merely Teren Marr anymore," he said.

"By the old imperial forms, your name would be Teren Marr von Corvadryn." Teren glanced at his unfamiliar hand. Apparently waking in another body and dying three times had not been enough. He had also inherited an imperial bloodline that had supposedly vanished a century ago. Teren Marr had already felt like the name of a stranger, something written on a slave tag and repeated by men who saw him as their property. Now Edras had attached another surname to it—a dead imperial surname.

"Of course he did," he muttered. Edras frowned.

"What?"

"Nothing. What do we do now?"

"This matter is far more sensitive than I ever expected to deal with. Before we do anything else, we have to make sure what we saw here does not leave this chamber," Edras said.

"We cannot allow even a rumor of it to spread." Teren's stomach tightened as he remembered the men in the intake yard, the scarred yard-master, the old clerk, and everyone else who had surely noticed the unusual result at the intake assay.

"The men at the compound already saw the purple light. Will they know what it means?"

"Don't worry. I will take care of them." Teren looked at him, wondering whether protecting this secret meant silencing everyone who had seen it.

"Will you kill them?" Edras's face hardened.

"Just who do you think I am?"

"I hardly know you. I only met you a few hours ago."

"Don't worry. There are other ways to make people forget what they should not remember." Teren wasn't sure that was any better. Edras locked both crystals inside the case.

"We have to handle this situation very delicately. Your existence could become a crisis for the kingdom itself," he said.

"Possibly worse." Teren thought of the white fire.

"It already is worse..." Edras looked at him sharply.

"What do you know?" Teren hesitated. Someone had been watching the test. Someone had massacred everyone in the yard to prevent a brief purple flicker from being examined. Even if Teren told Edras he had already died three times, he had no idea what it would lead to. Maybe the old mage would believe him. Maybe he would think the resonator had damaged Teren's mind. Maybe whatever entity had trapped Teren in this time loop would punish him for saying too much. He could not take that risk.

He had no intention of dying again anytime soon.

"I have a... feeling," Teren finally said.

"What feeling? Tell me if you know something!" Teren decided to take a gamble and disclose just the bare minimum to see if he could get more information from the mage without revealing himself completely.

"I feel that... white fire is coming to kill me."" White fire?" Edras frowned.

"What do you mean it's coming to kill you?" Teren's mouth went dry remembering himself burning to death.

"I... remember it."

"From where? How can you remember something that hasn't happened yet?" Teren looked at the fading glow of the pedestal.

"I don't really know." It was close enough to the truth. Edras watched him for a long moment.

"We are going to Duke Ordaan."

"What? Why the duke?"

"Because he is the only person in Karthane I would trust with something like this," the mage replied.

"We need help, Teren. Neither of us has the power or resources to handle something of this scale." Edras lifted the case containing the two crystals and put it on a nearby shelf.

"Did the Corvadryns always use purple magic?" Teren asked as he watched the mage. Edras paused.

"Purple was the mana-resonance associated with their bloodline. Their mana flame was said to burn the same color."

"They could create purple fire?"

"When properly trained, yes."

"Can I do that too?"

"Possibly..." Edras looked at him.

"Probably." For the first time since awakening in the slave wagon outside the city walls, Teren heard something that made him feel excited about the future. The possibility that he might wield the legendary magic of the Corvadryn dynasty stirred a surge of hope in him. Perhaps, I can even defend myself against the white-fire attacker the next time. Edras's next words made sure the excitement didn't last long.

"If you try without proper instruction," the mage continued, "you may kill yourself." Teren gave a quiet laugh. He had been dying just fine without even trying to use purple magic. Edras frowned.

"What is amusing?"

"You would not believe me."

"Given what I just saw, you should not rely on that assumption." Teren shrugged. Edras didn't pursue it any further. He placed one hand on the black pedestal and made a short sequence of movements with the other. Any remaining purple light in the symbols vanished.

"Come," he said.

"We have to leave for the palace right now." Teren stepped back from the pedestal. The movement made his head spin again. Edras noticed and caught his arm before he stumbled.

"You used far more mana today than you can safely control." Teren glared at him.

"You were the one who told me to!"

"Yes. Because I needed the reading." Edras did not release his arm until Teren found his balance.

"Breathe slowly. Do not try to use your mana again for today." Teren nodded once he was certain he could remain standing. They climbed the stairs. Near the top, Edras opened the iron door a crack and looked into the smaller testing room beyond. No one was there. He pushed the door wider, but did not step through. For a moment, he stood at the threshold with one hand on the iron door, scanning the room beyond as if searching for threats. Teren stopped a few steps below him.

The air coming from the upper room felt warmer after the cold in the basement chamber. The old mage finally seemed satisfied and gave him a nod, before shifting his weight forward to enter the upper room. The moment his foot crossed the threshold, a thin red line flashed across it, as if... something had activated. Edras stopped instantly, looking startled. Within a moment, the line flared along all four edges of the doorway, then pulled inward at once, forming a circle of red symbols suspended in the open doorway.

What is that? A barrier?

"Back!" Edras spun and shoved Teren backward with one hand. Teren's foot slipped from the step beneath him. He struck the stair wall hard and caught himself with one hand before he could pitch backward down the stairs. What the...? Blue light burst from Edras's other palm at the same moment he pushed Teren back. A translucent, curved barrier began to form between them and the doorway.

For a fraction of a second, the world seemed to slow, and Teren saw every detail: the defensive blue barrier expanding, Edras twisting to place himself between Teren and the doorway, the red symbols darkening as the circle tightened in the air, and the old mage's eyes widening as he realized the barrier would not be enough. Then the world exploded. There was no flame, no burning air. Only a red glare, a crushing wave of force, and a sound so violent that Teren felt it inside his bones.

Edras's barrier shattered and the fragments vanished before they could fall. Then the blast reached Teren. His last thought was not a word. It was the memory of the old man's voice in the wagon. Then even that was gone.