Lost Roads

Chapter 16 — Lost Roads

Eticus stopped speaking when Vegon drew the fourth symbol.

Not paused.

Stopped.

The old wizard leaned across the table, one hand planted between a stack of books and the rough map Vegon had been reconstructing from memory.

“Again.”

Vegon looked up. “The entire sequence?”

“The last four.”

Vegon dipped the pen.

The Citadel had grown quiet around them. Morning light came through the high windows of Eticus’s workroom, illuminating dust, shelves, scroll cases, and enough books to make the loss of Tavalon’s library painful all over again.

Deacon stood near the door with his arms folded.

Zook had taken a chair backward and was sitting with his arms across its back.

Xil stood beside one of the windows.

Jandar had discovered a bowl of dried fruit and appeared to consider that his primary responsibility.

Vegon drew the symbols again.

Season.

Moon.

The two smaller markings he did not understand.

Then he added the final symbol.

Eticus watched the page.

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

“Certain in the way you are usually certain, or actually certain?”

Jandar looked up from the fruit.

“I like him.”

Vegon ignored him. “I used that sequence twice.”

Eticus pointed at the page. “And this one?”

“Volcano.”

His finger moved.

“This?”

“Underwater.”

“Deep?”

“Very.”

Jandar swallowed whatever he was chewing.

“We were at the bottom.”

Eticus looked toward him.

Jandar continued. “Not near the bottom. Not swimming above the bottom. On it.”

“You could see the seabed?”

“Briefly.”

“He was occupied,” Deacon said.

“With not drowning.”

“That would occupy most people.”

Eticus turned back to Vegon.

“And this sequence?”

“The sealed chamber underground.”

“No passage?”

“None that Zook could find.”

Zook shook his head. “Roots overhead. Dirt and rock on all sides. If there had ever been a door, there wasn’t one anymore.”

Eticus lowered himself into his chair.

For several seconds he simply looked at the page.

Vegon had expected questions when they returned from Tavalon.

He had expected excitement.

What he had not expected was recognition.

“You know what it is,” Vegon said.

Eticus glanced up.

“Yes.”

Jandar dropped another piece of dried fruit into his mouth.

“Excellent. Does knowing what it is make the ocean less wet?”

Eticus ignored him.

Vegon moved closer.

“What is it?”

“A Travel Stone.”

The words meant nothing.

Which irritated Vegon.

He had read enough history to recognize most names attached to pre-Sundering magic. He knew the surviving references to gates, circles, permanent portals, and methods of magical transit no one could reproduce.

He had never seen those two words together.

“A Travel Stone,” Vegon repeated.

“That is what they were called.”

“They?”

Eticus leaned back.

“There was more than one.”

Vegon felt something in his thoughts shift.

The sealed chamber.

The volcano.

The ocean.

Tavalon.

He looked at the page again.

“How many?”

“Thirteen.”

Nobody spoke.

Even Jandar stopped eating.

Eticus reached behind him and pulled a wooden case from a shelf. He opened it and removed a rolled sheet of parchment protected by layers of cloth.

He cleared a space on the table.

The map he unfolded was old.

Not four hundred years old. Vegon could tell that immediately. The parchment was too intact, the ink too fresh.

But the map itself had been copied from something much older.

Coastlines curved where no coastlines existed now.

Mountain ranges appeared in unfamiliar places.

Rivers ran through regions Vegon knew to be dry.

Names marked cities that had been gone since the Sundering.

Eticus tapped one of them.

“Tavalon.”

Vegon leaned over the map.

Eticus moved his finger.

Then again.

And again.

“Before the Sundering, the major cities were connected. Thirteen cities. Thirteen stones.”

Jandar came to the table.

“You’re telling me people used to walk onto one of those things and appear in another city?”

“If the accounts are accurate.”

Jandar looked at Vegon.

“You drowned us with public transportation.”

Vegon closed his eyes.

Zook laughed.

Eticus’s mouth twitched.

Vegon pointed to the ancient map. “The symbols are destinations.”

“Most likely.”

“Then why did Tavalon send us to a volcano?”

Eticus looked down at the map.

“Because Tavalon is no longer where Tavalon used to be.”

Vegon frowned.

Eticus placed a second map beside the first.

This one showed Istram as it existed now.

The difference was impossible to miss.

The Sundering had not merely destroyed cities.

It had moved the world.

Coasts had collapsed or risen.

Mountains had split.

Whole regions had drowned while others had been lifted from the sea.

Eticus aligned the two maps as closely as he could.

“They were not built to understand a changed world,” he said.

Vegon stared.

The answer was so simple that it took him several seconds to accept it.

“The stones still work.”

“Yes.”

“But the destinations are fixed.”

“That would be my assumption.”

Vegon looked again at the old map.

“The location is not.”

Eticus nodded.

“So a stone that once delivered travelers to a city—”

“May now deliver them to whatever occupies that same position after four centuries of geological ruin.”

Jandar stared at the old coast.

“So the ocean—”

“May once have been land.”

“The volcano?”

Eticus shrugged. “A city. A plain. A forest. I have no way to know.”

Zook leaned farther over the maps.

“And the buried room?”

“Possibly another stone.”

Vegon looked at him sharply.

Eticus nodded toward Vegon’s notes.

“You said the markings were identical.”

“Yes.”

“You appeared directly on the platform.”

“Yes.”

“Then I would begin with the assumption that the chamber contained another Travel Stone.”

Vegon felt the old excitement return.

Not because Eticus had solved the mystery.

Because he had made it larger.

“There could still be others.”

“There could.”

“All thirteen?”

Eticus’s expression changed.

“Do not confuse possible with likely.”

“But possible.”

Eticus studied him.

“Vegon.”

“Yes?”

“You nearly drowned.”

“I remember.”

“You stood on a volcano.”

“I remember that as well.”

“You have already discovered that a working device and a safe device are not the same thing.”

Jandar pointed toward Eticus.

“Finally.”

Vegon looked at him.

“Do not encourage him.”

“I have been saying this since the volcano.”

Eticus rolled the old map halfway closed.

“We know one stone survived at Tavalon. Perhaps another survived beneath the earth. Perhaps all thirteen survived. Perhaps only two.”

Vegon looked at the markings he had copied.

“And if we learn the destinations?”

“Then you may eventually learn where some of the old cities once stood.”

That thought caught him harder than any warning.

Lost cities.

Not ruins discovered by accident.

Not fragments.

A network.

A map built into the stones themselves.

Eticus saw his expression.

“No.”

Vegon looked up.

“I said nothing.”

“You were about to.”

“I was thinking.”

“That is often when the trouble begins.”

Jandar nodded solemnly. “You really are wise.”

Vegon turned away from both of them.

The blue crystal was worse.

Vegon knew that before Eticus admitted it.

He described the courtyard.

The glow.

The way the crystal emerged from the floor.

The gnolls appearing beside it.

The attempts to uncover its base.

The fact that they could not move it.

Eticus asked him to repeat the description.

Then he asked Xil.

Then Deacon.

By the time Zook had finished explaining what they had dug away from the base, Vegon understood what Eticus was doing.

He was hoping one of them would say something that made the crystal recognizable.

None did.

Eticus stood at his table with both hands resting against the wood.

“What school of magic?” Vegon asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Conjuration?”

“I don’t know.”

“Some variation on the Travel Stone?”

“I don’t know.”

Vegon went silent.

Eticus looked at him.

That was the answer Vegon had been waiting for.

Not because he wanted it.

Because Eticus almost never said those words three times.

He might say that records were incomplete.

He might describe competing theories.

He might explain why a surviving text could not be trusted.

But I don’t know was different.

It meant the question had reached the edge of his knowledge without finding anything to hold on to.

Vegon lowered his voice.

“You’ve never seen one.”

“No.”

“Read about one?”

“No.”

“Nothing similar?”

“Vegon.”

He stopped.

Eticus walked to the window.

“The Travel Stone concerns me because I know what it is.”

He looked out over Windmarch.

“The crystal concerns me because I do not.”

Nobody made a joke.

Eticus turned back.

“You are certain the gnolls appeared through it?”

“Yes,” Deacon said.

“We watched them appear,” Zook added.

Xil said, “There was no passage. No concealed entrance.”

Eticus’s gaze shifted to him.

“And the crystal reacted first?”

Vegon answered. “The light changed immediately before each arrival.”

Eticus nodded slowly.

“Then we treat it as a means of transport until we prove otherwise.”

Jandar leaned against the table.

“Can we destroy it?”

Vegon looked at him.

Eticus did not.

“That would be one of the questions I would prefer answered before someone attempts it.”

“So no.”

“So not yet.”

Deacon’s expression hardened. “If it can bring gnolls into Tavalon, leaving it there gives them a way back.”

“I agree.”

Eticus gathered Vegon’s sketches.

“I’ll send a team.”

Vegon frowned. “We can return.”

“You have already returned.”

“To Windmarch.”

“Exactly.”

Vegon realized what Eticus meant.

“We’re done?”

“With Tavalon, for now.”

Vegon looked at the maps.

The answer should have disappointed him.

Instead he felt the familiar sense that something else had already begun moving.

Before he could ask, someone knocked.

The door opened almost immediately.

A young scribe entered carrying another rolled map and several folded sheets.

“Master Eticus.”

Eticus glanced at the papers.

“What is it?”

“We may have found the temple.”

Something in his tone changed the room.

Eticus straightened.

“What temple?”

The scribe hesitated, suddenly aware of everyone else.

“Orozon.”

Vegon knew the name.

Everyone did.

Not well.

Not personally.

But some names survived history because people wanted to remember them.

Others survived because people were afraid to forget.

Orozon belonged to the second kind.

Eticus held out his hand.

“Show me.”

The map covered most of the table.

The Great Swamp lay north of Ilbus, a broad region of waterways, marsh, drowned forest, and land that shifted enough to make reliable maps difficult.

The scribe pointed near its southern edge.

“The report came in this morning. Old markers. Stonework where there shouldn’t be any. Symbols matching descriptions from the archive.”

Eticus read the attached notes.

“How confident?”

“Enough that they sent a second message.”

Eticus’s eyes moved down the page.

Vegon stood beside him.

“Orozon was one of Fyros’s generals.”

Eticus nodded.

“A warlock. One of the Scourge Lords.”

Jandar leaned over Vegon’s shoulder.

“Alive?”

“No.”

“That sounded less certain than I wanted.”

Eticus looked at him. “He lived four centuries ago.”

“So did the Travel Stone.”

“That is not a man.”

“We have had a very strange week.”

Deacon stepped toward the map.

“How far?”

“Roughly twelve days north,” the scribe said. “Depending on the roads.”

“Ilbus first?”

“Yes.”

Eticus read the report one more time.

“Thoklar needs this.”

The scribe nodded.

“He already knows. He asked that you come to headquarters.”

Eticus rolled the report.

Then his eyes went to the sketches of the blue crystal.

“We appear to have accumulated problems.”

Jandar picked up the bowl of dried fruit.

“I’ve noticed they travel in groups.”

The four strangers at Silver Crown headquarters were impossible to miss.

One of them was impossible to ignore.

Vegon stopped just inside the meeting room.

He had seen drawings.

Old illustrations.

Poor copies of better copies, usually surrounded by notes written by scholars who had never seen the subject themselves.

None had prepared him for Aladon.

The dragonborn sat near the far end of the table.

Scales covered his face and arms. His features carried the unmistakable shape of something draconic without being those of a dragon: heavy brow, long jaw, ridged skull.

Not a dragon.

Vegon knew that.

Any educated child knew that.

Dragonborn were a people of their own.

But knowledge did nothing to stop the first association.

Dragon.

For four hundred years, that word had belonged to history.

The great dragons had vanished after the Sundering.

Some accounts said they had died.

Others said they had fled.

Others claimed they had simply withdrawn from mortal lands and would return when they chose.

Vegon had always considered the last theory particularly weak.

Now a dragonborn sat ten paces away.

Aladon noticed the staring.

“So,” he said, “which one of you is going to ask first?”

Jandar answered immediately.

“Does everyone stare at you?”

Aladon regarded him for a moment.

“Yes.”

“Good. I was worried we were being rude.”

Deacon muttered something under his breath.

Aladon laughed.

The sound broke the tension more effectively than anything Vegon might have said.

Thoklar stood at the head of the table with Vistra beside him. Eticus moved to join them.

The other travelers rose.

A dwarf.

A human.

An elf.

And Aladon.

Four.

Vegon noticed the empty place among their gear before anyone mentioned it.

Thoklar made the introductions.

“They’re Silver Crown. Out of Kult.”

“Kult?” Zook asked.

“North coast,” Deacon said.

The human from the other group nodded.

“We came south three weeks ago.”

Vistra gestured toward the chairs.

“Sit.”

They did.

Vegon found himself opposite Aladon.

It made not staring considerably more difficult.

Aladon noticed again.

“Have you never seen a dragonborn?”

“No.”

“At least you’re honest.”

“I have read about your people.”

Aladon smiled slightly.

“That usually means no.”

Jandar covered a laugh with a cough.

Vegon ignored him.

Thoklar placed both hands on the table.

“Tell them what you told us.”

Aladon’s expression changed.

The amusement disappeared.

“We have been seeing gnolls.”

Deacon’s attention sharpened immediately.

“How many?”

“Enough.”

“That isn’t a number.”

“No,” Aladon said. “It isn’t.”

He leaned forward.

“More packs. Larger packs. Better organized. Roads that were safe last year aren’t safe now.”

The dwarf beside him added, “They’re moving farther from the places we expect to find them.”

Deacon asked, “Scouts?”

“Some.”

“Raiding?”

“Yes.”

“Settlements?”

“Smaller ones.”

Deacon’s questions came faster.

“Same packs returning?”

“Not always.”

“Leaders?”

“We saw several.”

“Standard weapons?”

Aladon watched him.

“You’ve fought them.”

“Yes.”

“So have we.”

A brief silence followed.

Vegon glanced again at the empty place among their equipment.

Aladon saw that too.

“There were five of us when we left Kult.”

Nobody asked the obvious question.

“We lost one on the road.”

“To the gnolls?” Deacon said.

Aladon nodded.

Something closed in Deacon’s face.

Only for an instant.

Then it was gone.

Aladon continued.

“The gnolls are not the only reason we came.”

He looked toward Thoklar.

Thoklar nodded for him to continue.

“There is a tower in the Plains of Ruin.”

Jandar leaned back.

“A tower.”

“A black one.”

“That helps.”

“Obsidian,” Aladon said.

Vegon stopped smiling.

“Constructed?”

“We assume so.”

“You assume?”

The elf answered this time.

“It appeared.”

Vegon looked at her.

“What do you mean, appeared?”

“It was not there. Then it was.”

“How long between observations?”

“Long enough that we cannot claim we watched it happen.”

Aladon continued. “But traders, patrols, anyone who crossed that region knew the land. Then suddenly there was a black tower standing in the plain.”

“How tall?” Vegon asked.

“Tall enough.”

“That is not useful.”

Jandar looked between them.

“Apparently everyone from Kult measures things this way.”

Aladon gave him a brief grin.

“We explored the outside. We found no way in.”

Vegon’s thoughts went immediately to the Travel Stone.

Ancient structures.

Impossible appearances.

Lost magic.

“Did it have markings?”

“Some.”

“Copies?”

The elf slid a folded page across the table.

Vegon took it.

The sketches were crude.

Not Travel Stone markings.

At least not any he recognized.

He felt both relief and disappointment.

Aladon continued.

“We also heard reports from the Misty Isles.”

At that, Vistra spoke.

“Reports of what?”

“That is the problem,” Aladon said. “We couldn’t get anyone to take us there.”

“Why?” Zook asked.

“The sailors were afraid.”

Jandar raised an eyebrow.

“Sailors are afraid of many things.”

“Not like this.”

Aladon’s gaze moved around the table.

“Boats have gone missing. Others returned with crews unwilling to say what they saw. Some refuse to sail near the islands at all.”

Jandar’s expression changed slightly.

Vegon noticed.

The ocean interested Jandar in a way most land did not.

Whatever joke had been coming never arrived.

Aladon sat back.

“Gnolls. The tower. The islands.”

He looked toward Eticus.

“Our elders have been talking about an old prophecy since before I was born.”

Vegon saw Eticus stiffen.

Only slightly.

But he saw it.

Aladon continued.

“Most of us treated it as a story.”

“Most prophecies are stories,” Vegon said.

Aladon looked at him.

“Until they aren’t.”

Vegon disliked that answer.

Mostly because it sounded like something Eticus would say.

“What prophecy?” Xil asked.

The room quieted.

Aladon looked down at his hands.

“When the greatest hour of need comes, the Hand will rise to face the Great Scourge.”

Xil’s expression did not change.

Vegon felt something colder than curiosity move through him.

Aladon continued.

“That which is corrupted will be cleansed.”

Vegon thought immediately of magic.

The resistance.

The failures.

The invisible contamination that every spellcaster had learned to live with.

He looked toward Eticus.

The older wizard was watching Aladon.

“And,” Aladon said, “the dragons will return.”

Nobody moved.

Jandar broke the silence.

“The dragons.”

Aladon nodded.

“The prophecy says their return will be welcome.”

He paused.

“But it will also be the final key.”

Vegon looked at him.

“Key to what?”

Aladon gave him a tired smile.

“If the prophecy explained itself clearly, we would have saved ourselves a great deal of trouble.”

Jandar pointed across the table.

“I definitely like him.”

Vegon barely heard.

The Hand.

The Great Scourge.

Corruption cleansed.

Dragons returning.

It was exactly the sort of ancient prophecy Vegon normally distrusted.

Too broad.

Too adaptable.

Words vague enough to become meaningful whenever someone wanted them to.

But Aladon was sitting in front of him.

Gnolls were moving across Istram in numbers no one could explain.

A black tower had appeared in the Plains of Ruin.

A blue crystal beneath Tavalon could pull soldiers through empty space.

And that morning Vegon had learned that the dead world still possessed roads.

Coincidence was beginning to require more faith than prophecy.

Zook looked at Aladon.

“You said dragons will return.”

“That is what the old words say.”

“But you’re dragonborn.”

“Yes.”

Zook hesitated.

“So does that count?”

Aladon smiled.

“No.”

The answer came quickly.

“My people are not dragons.”

Zook nodded.

“I know.”

“I know you know. But people see scales and start making prophecies fit.”

His eyes moved briefly toward Vegon.

Vegon chose not to react.

Aladon continued.

“If dragons return, I expect we will all know the difference.”

That silenced the room again.

The Temple of Orozon settled the question of what happened next.

Thoklar moved the swamp map into the center of the table.

“We cannot pursue every report with one group.”

Vistra pointed toward the Tavalon route.

“Aladon and his companions will go west. They’ll inspect the crystal and the buried city.”

Vegon frowned.

Aladon noticed.

“You object?”

“No.”

Jandar answered for him.

“He does.”

Vegon glared at him.

Aladon smiled.

“I’ll try not to break your mysterious glowing rock.”

“It is not mine.”

“Excellent. Then if I break it, you cannot complain.”

Eticus spoke before Vegon could answer.

“Do not break it.”

Aladon looked toward him.

Eticus’s expression remained completely serious.

“Understood.”

Thoklar pointed north.

“You five go to Ilbus.”

Jandar looked around.

“Our five?”

Deacon sighed.

Thoklar ignored both of them.

“From there, you continue to the Great Swamp. If the location is genuine, find the Temple of Orozon.”

“And then?” Xil asked.

Vistra answered.

“Learn what you can.”

Jandar nodded.

“Much better than ‘touch everything.’ We’ve tried that.”

Vegon said, “Once.”

“Once was sufficient.”

Thoklar continued.

“If the temple belonged to a Scourge Lord, assume it is dangerous.”

Deacon gave him a flat look.

“We were going to.”

“Assume it is more dangerous than that.”

“That is less useful.”

“I know.”

Vegon studied the map.

Orozon.

A warlock who had served Fyros.

One of the commanders of the armies that had helped break the world.

If the temple was real, anything inside might predate the Sundering.

Texts.

Artifacts.

Records.

Magic untouched for four centuries.

He became aware of Eticus watching him.

Vegon looked up.

“No.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You were about to.”

Jandar laughed.

Vegon decided he hated that this had become a recognizable pattern.

The meeting ended slowly.

Plans became supplies.

Supplies became routes.

Routes became arguments over horses, roads, weather, and how many days of food five people actually needed when one of them was Zook.

Vegon escaped back to the Citadel before Jandar could involve him.

The two maps remained on Eticus’s table.

Old Istram.

New Istram.

Vegon stood alone over them.

The copied pre-Sundering map fascinated him more now than it had that morning.

Thirteen points had been marked.

Thirteen cities.

He traced the distance between Tavalon and the next.

Then the next.

Those people had not thought of the world the way Vegon did.

To him, a city twelve days away was twelve days away.

Mountains mattered.

Rivers mattered.

Weather mattered.

To the builders of the Travel Stones, distance had been something else.

A sequence.

An address.

A few symbols under a traveler’s hand.

Then the Sundering had come.

The roads had remained.

The world had moved around them.

Vegon looked at the present-day map.

A city might now be beneath an ocean.

Another under a mountain.

Another buried beneath a forest whose trees had not existed when the stone was built.

Perhaps one stood at the bottom of a canyon.

Perhaps another waited beneath a city whose inhabitants had no idea what lay under their streets.

Perhaps some still worked.

Perhaps someone else already knew.

That thought brought the blue crystal back to him.

The gnolls had not wandered into Tavalon.

They had arrived.

Someone, somewhere, had built a different kind of road.

Or found one.

Vegon took a fresh sheet of parchment.

He copied the thirteen positions from the old map.

Beside Tavalon, he wrote the sequences he knew.

Volcano.

Ocean.

Buried chamber.

Then he stopped.

He stared at the scattered marks across a world that no longer matched them.

For years, everyone had treated the Sundering as the end of something.

Magic broken.

Dragons gone.

Cities lost.

Knowledge buried.

But perhaps lost was the wrong word.

A thing could be lost and still exist.

A road could vanish from every map and still lead somewhere.

An ancient temple could wait beneath a swamp.

A tower could appear in a dead plain.

A crystal could shine under a ruined city until someone came close enough to see it.

Vegon looked at the thirteen points again.

Tavalon had not been an isolated discovery.

It had been a junction.

One surviving piece of something that had once crossed the world.

Outside, Windmarch went on as it always had.

Carts moved through the streets.

Bells marked the hour.

People argued, worked, traded, ate, and lived inside a world they believed they understood.

Vegon rolled the old map closed.

Tomorrow they would travel north in search of a dead warlock’s temple.

Aladon would travel west toward a crystal no one could explain.

Farther away, a black tower stood where no tower had stood before.

And beneath all of it, scattered across Istram, the old roads were still waiting.