Mystic Quest by Tracy Hickman & Laura Hickman

Author:Tracy Hickman & Laura Hickman [HICKMAN, TRACY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC009020
ISBN: 9780446553827
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2008-12-13T16:00:00+00:00

The gates to the Trove rose above, streaked by years of rain coursing down the polished silver. They had been closed nearly four centuries before by the hands of titans, sealing within the valued symbols of lives now centuries lost. Thux stood before the closed portal in awe, reverence filling him as he looked at them and pondered the reality and deep sadness that lay just beyond the gates. Did the titans know on that last day that they were shutting the doors forever, and did they mourn what was to be lost? From what Oguk had said he thought it was unlikely; they seemed to think they would be back shortly. They left in innocence of the doom that awaited them. It was up to Thux, a little goblin whose ancestors no doubt were slaves of the titans then, to look on their wonders and ponder their loss.

The ogre guards at either side of the gate unlatched its locking mechanism—a manner of its design in itself a tempting vision to the eyes of the Boss Technomancer—and, wrapping their massive hands around the ornate handles, pulled carefully. At first, the doors made no motion at all, their hinges weathered by time and the elements. At length, however, the great gates yielded to the ogres’ strength, shrieking as though they were the waking dead. Thux could see the pain crossing the guards’ wide faces, for in all their years of service—indeed, in all the years of their ancestors’ service down the generations—they had never touched these gates. Not even the assurances of their Emperor Oguk, who had gotten dispensation directly from the ogre shamans who kept and interpreted the Two Laws, could fully assuage their anxiety. As soon as the gates had split sufficiently for Thux to pass between them, the little goblin held up his hand, allowing the relieved guards to stop.

Thux took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Don’t touch anything,” he whispered to himself before stepping through the gap between the gates into a time four centuries before his own.

He walked across a plaza just inside the portal. A wide fountain sat in the center, surrounded by what might have once been a carefully tended park, but which had long since become overgrown. Three trees, gnarled and ancient, still grew here, their roots lifting up the paving stones, crushing part of the once smooth roadway. Indeed, the paving had buckled in many places from plants that had, over the centuries, finally asserted their authority. As to the fountain itself, its central figure, a delicate carving depicting four horned griffins, stared with dull eyes toward the sky. Beneath them, a shallow pool of black, still water—remains of collected rainwater, no doubt—mirrored in its surface the rising lines of the architecture surrounding the square.

The ruins were amazingly intact. Each structure was a surprise in its design, a unique expression of a time before the memory of any goblin. Pillars were carved into fanciful expressions of plants, heavily

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