“His eyes glow. He can’t possibly be against photoluminescence.”
Sighing, I walked forward, reminding myself that Willard was calling florists, ordering invitations, arranging seating charts, and essentially taking care of all the wedding minutiae that sounded like torture to me. I could check her glowing door for her.
I drew Chopper and, with the magic I’d been learning to use, formed a protective barrier around myself. Maybe it was overkill, but better safe than self-luminous.
I was three steps from the door when a female voice emanated from it.
“The Ruin Bringer carries the stolen sword of the Orehammer Clan. As a rightful descendant of the original crafter of the blade, I have come to reclaim it.”
2
“Hell.” I stared at the door, though the voice didn’t speak again.
A feeling of dread clunked into the bottom of my gut like a bowling ball. It was probably a scam—what were the odds that some Earth-born half-dwarf, or whatever that woman was, could be the descendant of the dwarven master enchanter, Dondethor, who’d made Chopper thousands of years ago? But I had claimed the sword after defeating its last owner in battle, not purchased it legitimately from some dwarf weapons dealer, so it was very possible—even likely—that my enemy had stolen it. As Zav himself had pointed out, that meant it wasn’t rightfully mine.
Captain Brisco cleared his throat diffidently. “The door also didn’t speak before.”
“No shit,” Willard said without diffidence. “Go poke it, Thorvald. See what happens.”
“The last time I poked something magical, I ended up with a cut that wouldn’t heal and a beacon on my sword that drew magical beings from a thousand miles.”
“Your report said you struck the artifact with the intent of breaking it. That’s not the same as poking it.”
“I’m positive I didn’t put that much detail in my report.”
“I know you, and I read between the lines. Am I wrong?”
“I refuse to answer that question.”
“I’m not wrong,” Willard told Brisco.
Even as I argued, I walked forward with Chopper extended, not sure what else to do. The sword should protect me rather than acting as a conduit. It had before.
When its point touched the door, the blade flared a brighter blue, but nothing else happened. I didn’t sense an increase in the amount of magic or any change from the door itself. The keypad on the wall wasn’t glowing, so I risked stepping close enough to touch my finger to it. I didn’t get zapped, but the door did radiate heat that was noticeable now that I was closer.
“What’s the code?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Only two people in this building are authorized to know it, people with the highest-level security clearances.” Brisco pointed to himself and to Willard.
I stepped aside and gestured for him to come forward and enter the code.
“3-6-3-2-9-9-8-7-2,” he said.
“Way to defend national security,” Willard told him.
“We can change it later. After we’re sure the DNA in my balls doesn’t get bent out of shape.”
“It’s magic, not radiation.” I asked him to repeat the code and punched it in.
As he’d described earlier, a thunk sounded, as if the code had been accepted, but when I used Chopper to try to open the lever, the door didn’t budge. I risked touching a finger to the metal surface. I didn’t get zapped with magical energy, but it was hot enough that I jerked my hand back.
“It’s toasty warm,” I said. “Hopefully, that’s a byproduct of the magic, not an indication that the artifacts room is on fire.”
“There’s not much in there that could burn,” Brisco said. “Aside from the artifacts and weapons, it’s all metal and cement.”
I covered my hand with my sleeve and tried pulling on the latch. Nothing. Not the slightest bit of give.
“Not the byproduct,” Willard said. “The magic must be intentionally heating the door.”
I released the latch, the heat unpleasant even through my sleeve. “Why?”
“Go get a fire extinguisher, Captain,” Willard said.
“Uh, all right. But if there was a fire inside, we would have seen flames or smoke on the camera.”
“Not to put out a fire, to cool off the door with the carbon dioxide. It’s probably not opening because it’s heated enough to have expanded against the jamb.”
“Ah, right.” Brisco jogged for the stairs.
“Nobody reads science books anymore,” Willard lamented.
“Not even your intel agents?”
“They’re all about cryptanalysis and linguistics.”
“I might be able to cool off the door. Chopper has three magical powers that I know how to access. And probably a lot more that I don’t.” I rested the flat of the blade against the door and whispered, “Keyk.”
The blade’s blue glow shifted to an icy white. It might not be as effective as spraying the whole door down, but I tried to use my magic to will the sword to radiate its chill into the metal. Whether that would work or not, I didn’t know. Magic was still new to me, and my half-sister Freysha had mostly taught me things that fell under her specialty of forest magic. Still, I’d managed to do a few other things by simply willing the magic in my blood to work. From what I’d seen, most magic was done by learning mental tricks to harness the magic in one’s blood.
Footsteps sounded as Brisco tramped back down the stairs. The metal didn’t seem to be radiating heat anymore, so I lowered Chopper and tried the lever again. This time, the door opened.
Brisco snorted and hefted a fire extinguisher the size of a SCUBA tank. “I’ll just keep this in case we need to club someone.”
“We might.” My senses crawled as I peered inside, the interior hazy with something that looked like smoke but didn’t smell like it. Fog? Mist? It didn’t have a smell, at least nothing that I could distinguish from the mingling scents of bleach and musty books. “There’s magic in there.”
“There’s a lot of magic in there,” Willard said, “unless she stole all of our artifacts.”
“It’s something in addition to them.” I could feel the cacophony of magical auras from hundreds of artifacts clashing against each other, as I always did when I walked into this room, but there was something else, something emanating from the back corner.
And had that fog grown denser since I’d opened the door? Shouldn’t it have been the other way around? Whatever it was didn’t flow out into the hallway like smoke would have.
Something about the fog or the magic made my chest tighten. I grimaced. My asthma had been better lately, since Zav irradiated the mold in our house, but it still reared its head when I got tense or emotional—or walked into a place with noxious air. My attempts to learn to meditate properly and ease my tension had not been successful.
Keeping my back to the others, I slipped my inhaler out and took a puff. Even though I hated using it in front of others—having anyone see that annoying weakness that I’d only developed in the last year—I’d learned not to put it off.
My skin tingled as I stepped into the doorway and the hazy air touched my skin. A strange feeling came over me, as if someone dangerous waited inside, and my heart rate quickened, pulse beating in my ears. It had grown so quiet that I had no trouble hearing its rapid thumps. The magic permeating the big storage room made me want to step back and close and lock the door.