During the day, sunshine streamed in through the lensed windows of the towering stone buildings to illuminate the document rooms. During the night she read by the warm yellow light of candles or oil lamps. Nicci turned pages, studied the cryptic ancient languages, and dismissed ten more volumes by morning.
Absorbed in his own research, Nathan could skim and grasp the contents with ease, and he had always been more studious than Nicci. She was a woman of action, trying to save the world. She had in fact saved the world by helping Richard Rahl, and saving the world from the Lifedrinker’s debilitating spell was exactly what she needed to do next.
Her eyes burned, and her neck and shoulders ached. Needing to clear her head and breathe the open air, Nicci left the archive rooms and emerged from the highest stone tower in the sheltered cave grotto. She looked across the narrow inner canyon, thinking of the people who had lived there undisturbed for centuries. Although it was midmorning, the sun had not yet risen high enough to remove the dark cloak of shadows in the narrow canyons.
She saw sheep grazing near the central stream flanked by blossoming trees in the nut orchards. Nicci inhaled, enjoyed the cool bite of the morning air. A faint breeze blew stray wisps of blond hair around her face.
Nathan stepped out into the open to join her. “Out for a breath of fresh air, Sorceress? Ah, when you look out at the sheltered settlement here, you can almost forget the Scar and the Lifedrinker on the other side of the plateau.”
“I can’t forget.” She glanced over at him. “I need to consider what we should do. I found many tangential spells, but nothing good enough. This morning I’ve been studying how one might kill a succubus, on the off chance it might prove useful.”
Nathan stroked his hands over his white hair. “How does a succubus relate to the Lifedrinker?”
“Both of them drain life. A succubus is a kind of witch woman who has the power to absorb vitality through sex. Men find her irresistible, and she tempts them with physical pleasure, trapping them as she drains them to nothing more than a husk.” Nicci added with skeptical sarcasm, “The men supposedly die with smiles on their lips, even as their faces shrivel away.”
Nathan laughed uneasily. “It would not be wise for a woman as beautiful as yourself to have such magic, Sorceress.”
Nicci lifted her chin. “I already have more powerful magic than that. It is all a matter of control—and I do have control. The Lifedrinker, however, does not. He drains the vitality of his victim, and in this case his victim is the whole world. In that sense, he is like a succubus.”
“Quite extraordinary. And how is a succubus killed, then? What did the old document say?”
“The succubus is responsible for her own demise … in a way,” Nicci said. “In each of the countless times she lies with a man, there is a very small chance she will get pregnant. If that happens, the succubus is doomed. The child itself, always a daughter, is a powerful entity that gestates and grows, until it absorbs the life from its own succubus mother—doing the same thing to her as she does to men, draining the mother dry until she is nothing but a husk. Then the baby claws its way out of her womb … to become the next deadly succubus.”
Nathan pursed his lips. “That does not sound like a practical method of killing a succubus if we were to encounter one. There is no other way?”
“According to the legend, the newborn succubus is weak. If one times an attack properly, the baby can be killed, thus terminating the line of succubi.”
Nathan looked across the quiet, narrow canyon at a shepherd guiding his small flock to a flower-strewn patch of grass. “Although that tale is delightful and fascinating, I fail to see how it can be useful in our situation.”
“I don’t see how it can help either.” She sighed.
Victoria emerged from the tower library with a determined look on her face. Seeing them, she hurried forward. “In our communal discussions, my memmers recalled something important.” She focused on Nathan. For the past two days, since Nicci had refused to let her take Thistle as a new acolyte, the matronly woman had given her a cold shoulder. “Because each of us remembers different books, the memmers compared notes, made suggestions.”
“And you have remembered something useful?” Nicci asked. “That would be a welcome change.”
Victoria’s eyes flashed with annoyance, and the wizard quickly broke in, “What is it? The original Lifedrinker’s spell?”
Victoria rocked back, lifting her chin. “It is a story about the original primeval forest that once covered the Old World, the pristine wilderness that thrived in perfect harmony with nature. The Eldertree was the first tree in the first forest—a towering and titanic oak that was the most powerful living thing in the entire world. It is a story of creation.”
Nicci did not try to hide her disappointment. “How does an ancient myth about a tree help us against the Lifedrinker? He is a present threat, not an old fable.”
Victoria’s expression darkened. “Because all strands of life are connected, Sorceress. When the primeval forest covered the land, the world had great power and great magic.” She addressed her story to Nathan, finding him a more receptive audience. “Even before the wizard wars three thousand years ago, devastating armies swept across the Old World, cutting down trees, razing the last remnants of the original forests. Those evil men cut down the original Eldertree, a task so difficult that it required a hundred powerful wizards and even more laborers. And when the great tree fell, a vital part of the world died.
“But one acorn was saved, one last seed from the Eldertree. As the armies cut down the sweeping forests, they drove all the energy of life back into the Eldertree until at last it was condensed into this single acorn, the final spark of the primeval forest. All the energy of the Eldertree and all its offspring concentrated into that single acorn, stored there, where it could someday be released in an explosion of incomprehensibly powerful life itself.”
Nathan sucked in a quick breath of air. “And you think that might be powerful enough to kill the Lifedrinker?”
“It must be,” Victoria insisted. “But the more powerful he becomes, the more difficult the task will be. Soon it will be too late. At the moment, I believe that Roland, or what is left of Roland, will be no match for the last spark of the Eldertree.”
“Again, how does this help us?” Nicci said. “Do you believe the acorn truly exists? If so, where can we find it? I have read many books and found no mention of the legend or the seed itself.”
Nathan also shook his head. “Nothing in my studies either.”
“But I remember,” Victoria said. “It is in one of my memorized books. The acorn of the Eldertree was locked away here in Cliffwall, deep in a vault … somewhere over there.” She indicated the misshapen tower that was partially melted into a glassy lump at the side of the alcove. “It is still here.”
CHAPTER 50
Under Simon’s guidance, workers from the other canyon settlements brought their tools to Cliffwall and set to work trying to reach the lower levels of the damaged tower, hoping to find where the Eldertree acorn had been stored. In the cool, dusty underground, some of the access passages had slumped, the stone melting like wax to clog shut the openings, but the determined laborers used hammers and chisels to penetrate the hard slickrock.
A solid wall of vitreous rock had flowed over the opening, sealing off an entire basement level. Laborers were already hard at work, hammering a
nd hauling away the rubble of broken rock. A grime-streaked stonecutter groaned and turned to Simon. “It’ll take many days to carve even a small hole through that, sir.”
After they followed the workers down into the deep underground passages, ducking and crawling into the damaged vaults, Nathan looked at Nicci. “Sorceress, surely a barricade of solid stone is not too great a challenge for you?”
“No, it is not. Allow me—we are in a hurry.” The workers backed away, curious, and Nicci reached out to touch the smooth wall of melted rock. When she released her magic, the stone that had flowed once, now flowed again. She did not need to resort to Subtractive Magic, but was able to work the material like clay, not destroying the rock but simply moving it. She lifted handfuls of fluid stone like a ditch digger slogging through mud. Although she expended a great effort, Nicci succeeded in carving out a tunnel, widening it, lifting the ceiling, and burrowing farther ahead.
After using her magic to move aside ten feet of stone blockage, Nicci began to doubt there truly was another chamber on the other side of the rock. What if the clumsy and untrained wizard had solidified the entire archive with his disastrous accident? Soon, though, she felt the stone grow thin in front of her, then break like an eggshell, and she pushed her way into a dark, claustrophobic vault, exactly where the plans suggested they look. Inside, the air was thick and stale, sealed away for years.
Cupping her hand, Nicci ignited a light spell so she could see the walls dotted with cubbyholes carved into the slickrock. She shone the diffuse glow around the chamber, seeing shadows dance around reverent display shelves that were filled with valuable, mysterious objects, artifacts, sculptures, amulets, all of them covered with dust.
Nathan pushed in behind her, and he straightened, fastidiously brushing stone dust from his borrowed scholar robes. “Dear spirits, this is exactly what we were looking for. Is the Eldertree acorn here?”