Read Online Forsaken House by Richard Baker - Free Book Online Page A

stone?” Ilsevele asked.
    “I am not exactly sure … a tower, a pale hand … three stones like this one, and a larger stone with a purple star in its heart. I do not understand it.”
    Araevin took a deep breath, and carefully called to mind the bright symbols he’d seen.
    Spells, he realized. The telkiira holds the formulae for a number of spells.
    Like a great book, the gemstone recorded page after page of arcane words, lists of reagents, and the directions for casting each of the spells it contained. The spells themselves had not been impressed into his mind. Araevin would have to study the words and gather the reagents in order to make use of any of them, just as he did any time he studied his own spellbook and prepared his spells. But he had unlocked the description of the telkiira’s contents, and he could access anything within the lorestone.
    He turned his attention to the spells first. The stone held seven of them, he saw. Several he knew already—or, to be more precise, were recorded in the spellbooks he carried in his well-protected rucksack. The spells of teleportation, lightning, the terrible prismatic blast … all were quite common among reasonably skillful wizards, so Araevin was not at all surprised to find that the telkiira held their formulae. Whomever had created the lorestone long ago had naturally recorded useful spells.
    He called to mind the remaining symbols he’d seen in his flash of insight, and recognized two more spells that he knew of but had not yet mastered: a spell that could be used to conjure up powerful, and often dangerous creatures from other planes of existence, and another that could cripple one’s enemies with nothing more than a single deadly word of power. But the last two spells in the stone he had never even heard of before. One seemed to be a spell that would turn an enemy’s own spell shields and protective mantles against him—a very useful spell for a wizards’ duel, to say the least. The last spell was incomplete. Araevin frowned and directed his attention at it again, confirming his initial impression. The telkiira recorded only a portion of the spell. The rest of the spell was not there.
    “What is it, Araevin?” Seiveril asked. “What have you learned?”
    “The telkiira records six spells, and part of a seventh,” Araevin answered. “That is not unusual. I’ve heard of elf wizards using telkiira as spellbooks.” He glanced down at the lorestone in his hand. The lambent light in its heart seemed to flicker a little brighter. “But there is something else here, too. This stone is part of a set. There are two more just like it, and there is a fourth stone as well, larger and more perilous than the others. I think it might be a selukiird.”
    “A high loregem?” Seiveril said. The older elf tapped a finger on his chin. “That would be a prize, would it not? Now I think I see why Philaerin might have chosen to hide this telkiira.”
    “What is a selukiira?” Ilsevele asked.
    “It is like a telkiira, but more powerful,” Araevin explained. “A telkiira is really not much more than a book. It stores whatever information its creators care to place in it—spells, memories, secrets, anything. When someone accesses the telkiira, they can ‘read’ that information quite quickly and accurately, but their comprehension is limited by their own skill and knowledge.
    “But a selukiira, a high loregem, is something different. It is a living thing, and it can teach those who view it. It is said that a selukiira can make an apprentice into a high mage in the blink of an eye, if it so chooses. Or it might destroy the one foolish enough to use it, in order to protect the secrets it holds.”
    “Do you think Philaerin owned the selukiira you saw in the telkiira?” Ilsevele asked.
    Araevin shook his head and replied, “If he did, he would not have told me. He wouldn’t have shared that secret with many people at all. But … I don’t think the selukiira was in