Chapter One - The Hall of Riddles

dh'uralom. Bullshit, utter bullshit.

I stood there on the glittering stone floor, before the ancient wall carving, the closing words of Genesis echoing in my memory, and felt the bitter sting of irony. Knowledge? Prowess? Serenity? When has anything mattered to them in all these years but blind obedience, gruelling work and sleep deprivation? Where is their precious order when I stand here, fighting off nightmares that should never have come upon our world - that they brought? Where is their serenity when they chase me through vertiginous mazes, running from the searing flames that fly on the wind? Where?

Forachid, they called it. A test for mind and body. A way for apprentices to prove their learning and experience, to show their worth to society. You do not fail the forachid. Or, at least, you do not live to know your failure. The test itself takes care of that.

Stop for a while, to ponder how that reflects on our civilization. We have been dwelling here for many thousand years, raised empires, built vast towers of white marble and citadels of black basalt, temples of gold and cities of crystal, we have learned how to sleep in crystal coffins and thus last through thousands of years, and even how to become crystal ourselves and thus defeat death forever. But the exams our people puts its apprentices through are still the same, as crude, dangerous and deadly as they were when we were a wild race hunting beasts in the woods with our bare hands. And if they have adapted to our advances in civilization, it is only in the more refined technology that is now employed to kill those who fail.

I did not fare so badly for one so ill prepared, actually. I was more than half-way done already, the terrible beasts of the first part of the test left behind. I will be honest, I am a disaster with a wave blade, and not a disaster for my enemies. I am left-handed, a trait even the existence of which our masters at the academy are apparently incapable of admitting. The swords we get are hard to handle with the left hand, and they are heavy let me tell you. I could barely lift mine when I started my second year and received it, and I'm not even the weakest in my year. Poor Ihvren; I fear he will not return when he enters the test I am now taking. Unless he can run fast. That is what saved me: that and a well-placed throw with that dumb "razor" disk they issued. You couldn't even shave yourself with that stump of a thing, which probably caused the stupid insect rather blunt force trauma than an actual wound. Yes, you heard right; I only got one of those; now it is lodged in the scales of one of these chittering chitin-covered creepy critters, and Zaratis help me if I need another one.

Magic? They didn't even teach us any spells for the first three years. It is supposed to be a mage academy, but for some reason they put all the apprentices through the warrior program, to "make them tough". Only two in three survive this toughing process, so it is obviously very efficient.

At least they issued us a few spell crystals, and - to my chagrin - a set of carving tools. Do they expect us to craft gemstones in this hellhole? The crystals have proven their value several times, and were it not for the two barrier spells and the piercing crystal I got, I would at this moment be a pile of slowly cooling ash on the floor of the second level. They make us run away from stal'ra, how can you still doubt they are utterly insane? The mazes were, as I might have said before, a nightmare: Shifting walls and illusions make you stray from your path, and tunnels - underground and overhead - enable the speeding flames to outrun you, suddenly shooting out of some hole to engulf you from above or below. It was utter luck, and a hint from my friend who did this a few years ago, that allowed me to find the right path in time, and even then it was only the barrier spell that saved me: Without the time it won me, the fire would surely have overtaken me and reduced me to a powder.

And now that I had passed through the portal, which fortunately dropped me here in the next level (Olidra told me there were several fake portals in the second level, which dropped one in random locations within the maze or even in the midst of the fire), I stood here and at last beheld the knowledge part of our test. No more running away and beating growling things with steel: This would take intelligence to solve. My strength - or rather the least of my weaknesses, as far as this test goes. But nonetheless still a weakness, for I found myself completely unable to solve the riddle I was currently facing.

The first few were easy: Animated statues asked simple questions in rhyme form. Even though they had changed their riddles since Olidra had passed through (as he had warned me they would), the questions took no genius to answer.

It was obvious that the designers of the test had spent the most time designing the third cave, even if the other two were far more gruelling. The questions - even the easy ones - were chosen with care and formulated in a way that combined logic with style, reasoning with well-structured language. They tested our learning of history as much as our knowledge of nature and geography, our abstract reasoning as much as mathematics. One of the easier questions had taken the form of an entire story:

---

"Listen to the tale of the Riddle masters of Xoroc, who did not see the forest for the trees.

"Since the great thinker Canayere had founded the Academy of Mysteries, their life had been one of riddling. They pondered and pondered, seeking to unravel the answer to the final question. The question itself had appeared to the great prophet in a vision that he later recounted thusly:

"Closing my eyes, my mind opened to a field of cerulean light. I felt no ground beneath me, no sky above me, and yet I could walk. Oh, the great bliss of striding over the mists! Around me was an azure heaven, yet no sun stood in it to light the world. I walked on. Soon I came to a small hut that stood there in the field. The door opened at my touch, and I entered. But within the hut there was a small cottage, and within the cottage a house, and within the house a mansion, and as each of the doors opened, at last I came into a gigantic palace of golden light. But there, within the hall, lay a large chest. And within the chest there was a barrel, and within the barrel a crate, and within the crate a box, and within the box a package, and within the package a small locket. And I opened the locket, and a tall figure stepped out, looked down and saw me, and uttered these words:

"To the dawn's end thou hast come, and where the twilight ends, thus day must shred the veil of grey mist and the last riddles are laid open. Thou wert asleep, but art now awake. The stars have cycled. I feel the tremors as the forgotten ways are renewed. One last question thou shalt take with thee ere thou departest again.

"Then she paused.

"Myriad are the high places of your world, and there are those deep spaces beneath the roots where no man shall ever tread. Four and four and four again are the millennia since last one descended there and lived, five and five and five again are the millennia until one shall again. Six and six and six again the days she shall stay, seven and seven and seven again the decades she shall wander, eight and eight and eight again the tears she shall shed, nine and nine and nine again the wounds she shall feel, but it is not the end.

"I see the future as clearly as the past, but one last riddle remaineth to me. Nine times the sun riseth, and six times the cock croweth on his hill each day, but still she did not answer. She did not hear. But the cock will not cry again, he is dead, and nevermore might she answer then. Still she abideth, though her time groweth short. How often doth the rooster sing before she returneth?

"And I awoke.

"The culture of Xoroc was drenched in symbolism, and its language in metaphors. Ten and ten and ten again were the centuries through which they pondered, but they did not see the solution.

"The Xorocians were great riddlers, but lousy mathematicians. Their minds were built for unravelling hidden meanings, not crunch numbers. That they had six fingers on the right hand, four on the left and three on the middle did not help either."

---

"pil'tah!" I replied, and the statue nodded, and drifted sideways. Turning to point its arm into one of the six passages that opened behind it, it stood still and waited for me to pass. Go figure.

Naturally, there was additional security built in to foil cheaters. Someone with a quick blade or powerful spell might have been able to destroy the construct without answering the question, thus hoping to pass unhindered. Great his dismay would have been when he discovered that not one, but six corridors led off into the darkness behind the statue. Without the statue's arm to direct him to the correct passage, he would inevitably (odds of five against one) have taken the wrong passage. The wrong passages, Olidra had assured me, ended in various monstrosities - a stal'ra trap, a bottomless abyss, a pit with skewering spikes, and other such things designed to make the cheating student think twice before trying this in his next life.

In the question just posed, of course, it was as much a part of the puzzle to understand the question as it was to calculate the answer. They liked to taunt us with elaborate stories and extraneous information, wrapping the core problem in a whole mess of trivialities. You got used to that, though: Picking up the essential information from the superfluous rest. They called this "realistic". Let me stop for a moment there to ask: Exactly when in my later life, realistically spoken, will I happen to enter a cave where animated statues ask me riddles that I must answer to pass through? Anyway. Whoever was in charge of making up the questions appeared to be waxing poetic, because the next question was equally formed.

---

Now the first of the races of Kerran were born of Stone, and they were the Lúk. What came before them, nobody knows, for they were the ones who first took hammer and chisel to carve their knowledge into stone and preserve it forever. They tell us of the First that passed long before them, of the great battles of the Winds, and of the ancient first beings of Light that they name Khae'rah or Gods. The Gods first taught the Lúk to mine the stone, to hunt the beasts, to build, to write and to battle. And the Lúk carved from the bedrock of Kerran vast cavernous cities, infinite galleries and mineshafts that stretched to the roots of time itself. They hunted for food when they were above ground, and in honour of the Gods that had taught them, they first constructed huge stone halls of worship, secondly golden temple domes and finally towering citadels.

But they battled amongst themselves, and fell to their own weakness - their second error. Of their works, not even their golden cities or their stone writings remain. They themselves are destroyed; they are no more.

---

"What?!" I cried out to the statue, but the statue did not move nor speak. It had said what it was going to say, and was waiting for my response.

"But there was not even a question in all of that!" There was an astonishing degree of descriptions however. And repetitions. How often did it say le - "first"? By stepping backwards just out of the room, and then in again, I was able to trigger the statue to repeat the riddle.

It said "first" six times, and "stone" five times. Vague style aside, there was quite possibly a code. I just needed some time to dwell on it.

First... stone... first... stone... first... Wind! The sequence had changed! Then first... light... first... stone... first... stone... The sequence stopped. No more "first".

Second! ... gold... second... gold..

le Mehd, le mehd, le ieb, le ka, le mehd, le mehd. Savihv tah, savihv tah.

If the task was to complete the pattern, then was the answer "stone" again? Stone always occurred twice in a row... but the text said: "They are no more." No more stone. Six times first, two times second. Four parts stone to one part wind to one part light. Two parts gold. I was getting nowhere.

Their own weakness… their second error. It made no mention of a first error! Or did it? What came before them, nobody knows… they tell us of the First, who passed long before them.

A contradiction! What was more, a direct contradiction in the next sentence! Taught to mine, to hunt, to build and to battle. They battled amongst themselves, and fell to their own weakness. The first error had been the gods themselves, for they were what came before that nobody knew of. The second error had been what the gods had done – namely to teach the Lúk to battle, thus causing their downfall.

And suddenly, I realized the third error in the tale: The stone writings. If their writings are the only thing that supposedly told of them, then how did anyone know their history in the first place?

But then what was the answer? I said “mehdav!" – “stone writing!" but the statue did not move. “Third error!", but there was no reaction to that either. But wait… if we did not know what came before the Lúk… and all knowledge about the Lúk themselves had been destroyed as well – then what remained in the tale?

"Tam!"

And the statue stepped aside and pointed the way. That must be the most utterly moronic, senseless riddle that ever got that name undeserved. I muttered a brief oath as I went.

---

The questions continued in this way for some time, until I grew aware of a sudden change in décor. It was not so much a decline or an improvement, just a noticeable difference in style that seemed to suggest one thing to me: They'd hired a new guy for the design.

The change in the riddles was just as abrupt. I had just solved a letter puzzle resulting in the answer "I want to leave this bloody hellhole right now!" (at least that designer had a sense of humor, albeit a very nasty one), and entered the passage the statue indicated. The cave I stepped into was a single cubical cell, and had no doors nor windows; it was lit by a soft glow coming from the floor. When the doors clanged shut behind me and I realized I was trapped, there was a terrible moment for which I wildly thought I had entered the wrong passage.

Had I misread the statue's arm, which pointed more to the right? Had my solution been wrong, so that it had pointed me into a wrong direction? They were not supposed to react to incorrect replies. Was I about to suffer some terrible fate in this tiny cell?

That was when the ceiling began to lower.

I didn't notice at first. Our reflexes are trained to watch for sudden movements, not inexorably lowering ceilings about to turn us into doormats. But then I realized there was definitely a hair-thin gap between the ceiling and the walls, and the ceiling seemed to be closer than it had been seconds earlier.

About to make peace with the world, I spotted an odd-looking crystal set into the stone in the far wall. It was glowing green, and practically begging me to fiddle with it. Given that I had not many options left, I walked over to touch it. Whereupon it sank into the wall, to be replaced by a widening crack. The door slid open halfway, then closed again.

Another crystal was set into the opposite wall, and it was colored a fiery red. I pressed it, and another door slid open halfway, and closed again. The ceiling was by now so low that I had to crouch.

However, the pressing of this crystal had the effect that two more gemstones appeared in the remaining two walls: One of them a sapphire, the other a clear diamond. As I took in the new situation, it dawned upon me that I was not facing a deathtrap for a wrong reply, but the next riddle.

And as soon as that revelation came, I also knew the solution. Separately, the stones carried little meaning; they were not usually used to hold spells, because they were far too rare, although some spells required them as a focussing reagent. Together, however, they symbolized the four elements - an outdated system that magic was nonetheless still categorized by. The elements had a distinct order: Wind before Earth, the cardinal elements. Then Fire before Water, the transitional elements, that inspired movement and change. I pressed the stones in turn, and knew I had hit the right answer when a clicking mechanism whirred to life beneath me. Four doors opened at once, and the floor darkened except for an irregular area I did not recognize at once. Turning my head, however, I read the runic symbol for ieb. Wind. I turned to face the wall where the sapphire had been and crawled out to avoid the ceiling, which was even now mere feet above the ground. Rehlko help the slow of wit in that chamber - I had made it out with luck alone.

And as my heartbeat slowly calmed down again, leaving only a sick feeling in my stomach, I reflected on the nature of this puzzle. It wasn't that it was a particularly hard puzzle. It was the pure, undiluted evil of combining it with a deathtrap like this. Locking a student in a chamber until he calculates arithmetic in Base 13 is one thing. Having a student remember the correct sequence of the four elements with the alternative of being forcefully projected onto the second dimension was an entirely different one. It reflected a certain mindset.

And, as I considered a bit more, I wasn't sure I was happy with the idea of someone with this mindset orchestrating my exam. Wait, actually you should make that: I was very, very sure I wasn't.

There was little enough to be done about it however, and the riddles continued in this vein. At one point, the idea was to calculate the period and phase of several huge axes swinging from the ceiling to find a safe time to cross. At another, it was to redirect beams of coherent light that would cut right through you if you moved the mirrors the wrong way. Olidra had never told me about any of this, and nor had anyone else: Had this "special" maze been installed only in recent years?

After what must have been dozens of these riddles / death traps - with the occasional stal'ra' trigger to keep me on my toes and hurry me along to the next room, I had arrived here - that is, at the place of the mysterious wall carving I was now standing in front of.

The door to the vast hall had been marked with the runes "to'ot" and true enough: As I walked through glittering hall, an invisible shade began to recite the story of our Creation in a whispering voice that nonetheless filled the room. The Silence, the arrival of motion, then the first fall of Order in the battle of the Principles. Then the night of stagnation and entropy, then the dawn of Olm and the dispute between Rehlko, Dahrnai and Zaratis. The conflict of simplicity and complexity. The Inception of the People. The shade had recited in a monotonous voice, and when it was done (the whispering tone prevented me from distinguishing the gender of the speaker), it was silent.

The long monologue alone was surprising, because that much explanation was out of character for the test. True, there had been long and elaborate riddles before, filled with information I would need or not need, and additional tracks to distract the student. But the designer of this particular part of the maze appeared to adhere to a different philosophy: Confuse not with words, but with silence. Not only was it difficult to realize what the riddle actually was, but the intention of the designer had been frequently unclear as well. In these situations it was a little hard to decide whether he was in fact asking you to solve a problem, or just trying to bump you off in a horrible way. Take the first of these things for instance.

All the more strange, then, for this mysterious riddle master to decide that in order to solve the riddle, the student would need to hear or remember an entire chapter from the vah'llomon, our holy book. What was in that text anyway? A whole lot of vague symbolism, garbled metaphors, and that ridiculous self aggrandizement that our people seems to be so fond of. But I was hesitant to dismiss the clue out of hand. That ridiculous story about the race of Stone had taught me that a text could have not one, but dozens of meanings.

The wall carving, too, must be significant. It was too bad I could for the life of me not figure out what it was. Highly abstract, to be sure, more a symbol than a picture, but far too complex to be one of the many runes I had not yet learned to read.

There was something familiar about a part of the carving, however – I had seen it before, although I did not remember at once where it had been.

At that point, I grew aware of the glittering light below my feet. There were several lamps shining down from above, and when I walked, I could see a thousand pinpoints of reflected rainbow light shifting on the floor. I knelt down to touch the stone floor. Dust! Dust of crystal and rare gemstones and diamond, strewn all over the hall, was what caused the iridescent glitter! And as I looked again at the desks that looked rather like workbenches, I realized I was standing in a Hall of Crafting, a room for carving the ever-present crystals our people used for magic, for building and jewellery. The meaning of the carving at once fell into place. I had seen others quite like this back at the academy, in the rooms dedicated to crystal shaping.

The task was clear – they had given me the tools for carving, they had led me into a shaping hall, and now they expected me to cut gemstones.

What a pity there were none.

I’d swear that lever hadn’t been there before, but it was more likely that after the nearly eighteen hours I had spent in this horrid cave, my attention span and vision were going to hell. But it was there in the wall, and practically inviting me to pull it. Figuring that I had left behind the riddles whose designer seemed to be testing only one thing, namely the unwitting subject’s level of paranoia, it was probably safe to pull, too.

So I pulled it.

With a soft chime like that of a silver bell, a hole in the wall opened and a rather hefty crystal dropped out, one that with some effort I could hold in one hand. At the same time, a claw-like appendage extended from the wall like an expectant tongue. This was probably where the finished crystal went. And as I felt the sharp edges and the rough surfaces waiting to be smoothed, as I walked away from the wall toward one of the many workbenches, I suddenly got hit by a cold feeling. I had no idea what I was doing.

When it came to carving, I was in far over my head, and in ice-cold water. It was true; I was in my fifth year at the Academy of Orithan, and as such should have been as adept at crafting as at magic, but my curiosity was my downfall. The story the shade just recited mentioned my People’s inbred curiosity in passing, but that is really an understatement where I am concerned. I cannot see a library without feeling a burning desire to read all its contents before I leave again, and though it took me a thousand years. I cannot see a cave entrance without at least wishing to enter it to see how far it goes (well, usually – as I said before, I am a disaster waiting to happen when it comes to combat.) It allowed me to get to the top of the class in all the magical courses.

The problem is that crystal carving is a lot less interesting than it looks. It has less to do with actual theoretical knowledge than with tons and tons of practice and experience. You need calm, dextrous fingers and a near infinite supply of crystal to gain this practice, and it is a very introverted exercise. You have to calm your own breathing, reach a state of utter inner balance and face your inner self if you want to craft truly fine stones. Meditating in such a way is a novel perspective and a unique experience, but in fact it becomes a rather boring state of mind once you have done it a few times. I was and am more interested in learning than in meditating, and I do not doubt that this has caused me to stay rather behind when it came to the skill of crafting. I knew the theory, and I knew what cuts to make, but I am far too unskilled to actually make them with surety.

And the fact of the matter was, of course, I had no idea what to actually make from the crystal. There are not just two or three, but dozens, even hundreds, of ways to cut even a single kind. To do something at random and then assume it is what was asked was not just foolish, but dangerous as far as this test was concerned. I cast my gaze around, and it landed once again on the far wall, where the ominous symbol remained.

Those practicing the high art of shaping use their own runes and symbols and terminology: To distinguish different materials, molecular structure, colour, shape, ways of cutting, magical properties, elemental alignments, even the tools used for carving. These sign commonly interlocked when used together. Forming elaborate, complex structures that could be mistaken for a single symbol. This was one such symbol, or rather a combination of several symbols. I just needed to remember what its components meant. The ignoble thing about this challenge was that it was not my lack of skill that impeded me, but rather my lack of theoretical knowledge. I, of all, should have memorized these symbols long before I learned to produce what they specified. Instead I sat here and had to rummage through my memory to remember where I had seen the symbol before and what it meant.

One part of it meant "fire". That was the bit I recognized - it was emblazoned on the robes of Master Rabon-Ka, whose name meant "the patient flame", and I have never seen a name so inapt to a person. He was our teacher in shaping, and among the most impatient - even dreaded - teachers that ever graced Orithan. To disappoint him was to court trouble, to cross him to invite disaster. He wore red robes that accentuated his pale grey skin, and a chain with a deep red ruby pendant that pulsed as with an inner life. We sometimes made a joke of scaring the first-years by telling them that Rabon-Ka absorbed the souls of disorderly and slow students and imprisoned them in the crystal on his neck, there to remain for eternity. It was meant as a joke, but it was a joke you only laughed about until you turned around and saw him behind you: His face staring with an unreadable expression, his deep black eyes piercing you to the very bone and reading your mind as if he knew exactly who you had just laughed about. One look at that face and no amount of reassurance could convince you that the bit about the absorbed souls was just made up.

Another part was "barrier". I remember that well because it was always used together with "breaking/piercing" in the inscription on the pouches that piercing crystals - kaf'tark - were placed in. We went through quite a lot of those, not least because a number of the more dangerous laboratories were closed off with magical barriers that resealed themselves in regular intervals. Apparently it is easier to make all the students carry a number of piercing crystals than have manual mechanisms in place to deactivate the barriers, although why this should be so I cannot say.

So we had two symbols, fire and barrier, but what the third one was I had absolutely no idea. It consisted of a single line looping in upon itself, to form a symmetrical shape. I had never seen it inside the academy, nor anywhere else. Unless…

Yes, there was a somewhat similar sign that I knew from elsewhere. A symbol usually depicted above temple doors… signifying what? It had to be Order in the context, nothing else would have made sense. But this symbol was very obviously different, and it was usually folly to assume that a slight similarity in appearance implied any relation in the meaning.

The Genesis story had to provide some kind of clue, here. I went through it in my head again: whisper in the void… the spirit of creation… Rehlko's diamond and Dahrnai's worm… Zaratis' living crystal that sparkled and glittered like the night sky was--- I looked upon the floor again.

What had the three gods argued about? Was it truly Order that had been their highest goal? Had it not rather been a balance between change and stability, between chaos and stagnation? Balance… that word was extremely similar to that of order. Bit was order, jel was Chaos, bel was Balance. Folly, I reminded myself. But what if my instinct was right, against the odds? My finger traced the mysterious third symbol in the carving, stopping in all of the four loops in turn. A perfectly symmetrical symbol. An endless cycle. bit and jel make bel… I decided to take the chance.

Easier said than done.

---

Shaping a crystal - done correctly - resembles a ritual more than a craft. It begins with the ordering of the tools. The tiny chisels were spread out in neat order to my left, the blades to my right: first the folded steel knives in increasing order, then the mithral saws with their diamond teeth too fine to see with the naked eye. More than one hammer is used in the process - a larger, flat-headed one for the basic structure, then a very heavy but tiny one for the finer edges, finally one that is lighter than the chisel itself, used with no more force than a light tap to smooth the edges. The saw is used only in the beginning; later on it would ruin the fine surfaces and possibly even shatter the material.

The polishing, finally, is the process that takes the most delicate work - first, because if this step goes wrong, the entire work has been wasted, second because it is during this process that the crystal is also imbued with the magic it will later store. A tiny deviation, and the magical forces in the crystal matrix are unbalanced and fragile. A smaller magical effect might fizzle and disappear, or last much shorter than it should; a more powerful enchantment might cause a dangerous release of energy, possibly even an explosion.

Fortunately, it was no superhuman project I was attempting. Just a simple fire barrier stabilizer - a crystal designed to attune to the arcane field of a barrier spell, and reinforce it, thus making the effect last longer and be more resistant against attempts to dispel it. The crystal itself would hold little energy and enchantment; its structure was more important than the imbuing process. If the structure did not match the field of the barrier, it would be unable to balance it, or worse, might even disrupt it entirely just by its presence.

---

The crystal was lying before me, already shining in spite of being as yet unpolished. It was beginning to take shape under my hands, a perfect representation of my intentions, my ambitions; my very spirit felt like it was entering the crystal and watching the carving process from within. One sharp corner was jutting out like a needle, my fingertips clearly felt its sting moving over it. A cut with the tiny knife… there was an itching sensation at the back of my neck, and I shuddered involuntarily. The knife slipped, and there was a musical tinkling sound, almost pleasant to the ear. I sighed, swept the ruined shards off the workbench and went back to the wall to get another crystal. It was not the first time.

---

It felt like an eternity had passed when I finally rose from the wooden seat and felt circulation return to my lower limbs. The crystal was sitting there on the work bench, shimmering innocently in the light, as if it had not in fact just cost me several hours and years of my life to fashion it. What enchantment there was upon it was barely detectably by my senses - but they were admittedly dulled by the long work and the strain of concentration, even compared to their normally weak state.

What remained was the testing. I could cast a barrier spell without much trouble, so I raised a circular wall above one of the other workbenches and approached it with the crystal in my hand. It took some time to find the optimal spot, but it was obvious once I was approaching it: The crystal started vibrating and humming in a low tone as it resonated with the field, and the field itself seemed to grow more substantial as the crystal stabilized it.

If the crystal worked, it would now resist a weak dispelling attempt - one that would normally obliterate my barrier. I raised my hand to dispel it, taking care to use as little force as I could: I did not entirely trust my own craftsmanship, truth be told. The spell failed to even touch the barrier, but was instead reflected off. I gradually increased the power, but the stabilizer held up even against my full strength - not much with this spell. I decided against using the piercing crystal I had left; too much force could shatter the stabilizer along with the barrier.

Instead I went back to the wall and inserted the crystal into the claw that was still waiting. It reacted to the pressure and retracted, my crystal vanishing inside the wall as the machine evidently moved it off to do its own tests on them.

---

For a single moment, a sick feeling rose to my stomach. What if there was an instability that became apparent at higher power? Or the crystal was incompatible with fire barriers other than my own - field structures often varied between mages? Or - horror - I had read the symbols wrongly, and it was not a fire barrier stabilizer that the machine had wanted? Would it test my stone for stopping stal'ra? Would it attempt to pierce a barrier with it? Or use it as a soul crystal? The taste of fear, having grown stale after leaving the riddle mazes, was back in my mouth again.

Then there was a grinding sound as of heavy machinery gearing into motion, and a set of imposing double doors of steel swung outward, opening the view to a twilit forest glade. I could not tell at once if it was dawn or dusk, but my sense of direction did not abandon me for long. The light was a bit brighter in the East, a little darker than it had when I had entered this place, preparing to light a new day. I had been in these caves for just under twenty-four hours.

With that realization, and suppressing the overpowering urge to yawn, I stepped out into the forest, letting the cold grey wind blow over my face. It would be a long way back home.

 6247 words.