—The entrance is over there! —shouted Professor Cosmo impatiently, instantly capturing my attention.

He had taken a heavy suitcase out of the carriage, which I hadn't noticed before. He awkwardly dragged it on the ground until Roben offered to carry it. The professor then swatted him away from his belongings and continued walking in a comical manner until he disappeared into the darkness of the caves. I thought about standing guard at the entrance but feared something might happen to both of them in my absence.

I walked towards the caves, listening to Professor Cosmo reflecting on the historical roots of the place while still struggling with his suitcase. He identified some tiles as originating from a dominant civilization thousands of years ago, as well as recognizing surviving art on the walls as remnants of the ancient Amani. Stone-carved faces, arms traversing corridors, and other worn-out figures could be seen in that place.

Our steps echoed, and the air was filled with particles from the rocky structure. We reached a small corridor with several doors leading to a room as large as the main hall of castles. Professor Cosmo guided us through the site until we reached a corridor that led to a small storage room. At the back, there was a wall sealed with three symbols. Professor Cosmo stepped forward to examine them, then looked at me with an expectant gesture.

—Go ahead, young lady —he said, perhaps noticing my uncertainty—. It is a Rahú configuration, typical of the Taur who inhabited this site.

Professor Cosmo seemed like any cantankerous old man, but he chose to whisper the answer to me rather than humiliate me in front of Roben for my ignorance. Perhaps it was a consequence of the matriarchal culture of the Aradel kingdom rather than an innate chivalry, but I couldn't help but feel appreciation for the man due to that small gesture he had with me.

The Rahú configuration is one of the oldest and most effective. It's a mix of Orce seals, requiring a lot of stored power to configure, and Uzze seals, requiring ingenuity to complicate the lock with intricate shyvian structures that confuse those unfamiliar with these mental procedures. This configuration consisted of three seals. The first one reinforced the wall, the second regenerated it, and the third only regenerated itself but had a link to the other seals, causing them to regenerate as well. There were more advanced configurations, such as adding more seals on top of each other for mutual protection. However, this configuration was one of the simplest and most powerful, easy to break and replenish for those who created it, but not for others. It was often used to safeguard items that needed frequent entry and exit, such as merchandise in commercial warehouses. When the Amani disappeared due to the genocide led by King Svólkus Stavenger, he replaced their civilization with the presence of the Taur —his infantry soldiers— and used that ancient palace as a transport point for his goods.

It was impossible for that seal to be a relic from the times of the great conquest, as the second King of Stavenger took care of cleaning the site. It only remained to think that years or centuries later, some group of people had used that place as a hideout for smuggling or something worse. How Professor Cosmo learned about the existence of that seal —or why he wanted to investigate it with such a modest group— was something I didn't know, but it was easy for me to imagine him buying the information in the underworld where secrets like that abound as much as bread in the market.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

I stood firm in front of that seal, a little more confident due to my previous experience with such configurations. I closed my eyes, identified its shyvian structure, and proceeded to dismantle it. I had to use my energy at key points, enough to break its vertices but not too much or too little for it to reconfigure. A minimum level of power was needed to deal with such locks, as well as some precision to apply that power effectively. I did it, sweating and with some facial tics I couldn't avoid due to mental effort. There are no words that can describe the sensations of tampering with a seal. It's like solving a intricate puzzle with your fingers but feeling every movement in the center of your head as a tremor in your entire consciousness. Some seals were so powerful and required so much mental power to break that it was common for them to numb all your muscles at once and dull your senses to the point where breathing —or even heartbeats— ceased to be an involuntary act.

I released the wall from the influence of the seal just as I felt a paralyzing cold running across my forehead. I took a bit of air that I lacked and bent down a little to rest. It hadn't been an exhausting effort, and I didn't even need Romular stones to recover. But then I felt a force on my neck as a warm hand squeezed my fingers. It didn't seem aggressive. In fact, it was so graceful and innocent that I let myself lean forward while warmly responding to the handshake.

—Are you okay? —asked a male voice—. This kind of seals tend to drain much more energy than it might seem at first. It's one of their defense mechanisms.

It was Professor Cosmo who was holding me. It wasn't necessary, nor prudent, nor did it seem very natural. I felt annoyed for a moment. I thought the old man was just creating an excuse to touch me, but I corrected that idea almost as soon as it appeared. My master wouldn't have left me next to a man like that, at least not without warning me about it. I didn't understand what was happening, but I knew it as soon as our eyes met. The drained energy had nothing to do with those kinds of seals. Professor Cosmo had very deep hazel eyes that conveyed his calmness and demanded some complicity with his dialogue. He gently squeezed my hand, continued talking about my "fatigue" while casting a few glances at me, and in a few seconds, conveyed his idea to me.

He wanted me to play along, to act as if I were weakened. I didn't know why, but I decided to trust his judgment. I fluctuated my aura, as my master had taught me, and acted as a victim of some powerful weakening, just as he had also taught me.

—Come on, Mr. Roben —said Professor Cosmo—. I need you to escort my apprentice outside. There's no danger here, in a closed room in a forgotten temple, as you can see. No need for paranoia. Please, accompany her outside so she can get some fresh air. I'll check what I came for in the meantime.

Roben kindly took me in his arms as if I were fainting. That gesture took me by surprise. Few people —let alone men— usually had physical contact with me beyond my master. I accepted my role as a damsel, despite my initial intrigue, and let myself be carried away from that room. Professor Cosmo stayed there, solemnly admiring the wall as if it were a work of art, while Roben took me out of that area.

I planned to continue with that charade until Professor Cosmo or my master gave me some other signal, but a small explosion shook us before we set foot outside that area. Its sound was soft but very sharp. Our ears were left ringing after that. Roben quickly turned around, still holding me, and both of us saw a thick gas cloud pouring out from the room where Professor Cosmo was, engulfing everything in its path as if it had a life of its own. We then heard a fierce scream followed by a series of metallic sounds that I attributed to the clash of swords. I jumped out of Roben's arms, and he looked at me suspiciously, but the urgency of the situation spared us words, and we remained expectant of what might happen. We saw the gas writhing as if something was inside it—a kind of creature that wanted to escape from the bag that confined it—until three bulges peeked above the cloudy mantle before it swallowed them completely.

—Back off! —I shouted to Roben, recognizing the strange nature of that gaseous substance—. It's aforite, a poison.

—Professor Cosmo is still in there —said Roben visibly concerned, knowing that his mission and his guild depended on the client's integrity.

Roben almost jumped into the smoke when a humanoid figure emerged wrapped in a cloudy cloak and pushed him to flee. He seemed to be running with all his might, but Roben stood his ground against his sudden attack and propelled himself enveloped in an orange aura to catch that mysterious man. The cloud then receded, and two silhouettes emerged from the other side of that corridor. I heard a distinctive buzzing, then the smoke dissipated behind a man carrying a tied adult as if it were a suitcase.