Ulin eyed the stone warily. It seemed sturdy enough. Using utmost caution, he sat on the brink of the opening and swung his legs through onto a wooden staircase that led down into darkness. He barely breathed while he slid his long torso through and drew his head under. Hurriedly, he crawled down the steps until his head was clear of the stone and he could stand upright.
“Come on down!” the gnome’s voice called. Light flared golden yellow some twenty feet below.
Ulin stepped down between the columns. The walls of the stairwell consisted of packed dirt and rubble braced with wooden beams. Beneath the stairs, Ulin could just make out the complex gears and cables of Notwen’s hydraulic machine. Slowly, he went down toward the light.
The bottom of the stairs ended in a narrow corridor, stone flagged and arched overhead. The corridor had been carved out of bedrock by skilled hands and led directly to a wooden door that stood open into a room blazing with light.
Ulin hesitated a moment. The rock slab opening into the earth, the working machinery, the corridor leading into a room as bright as day-this was not at all what he was expecting. In spite of his depressed mood, he found himself intrigued and more than a little curious. He hurried into the room and stopped with a sudden jolt.
The chamber was huge. A great round circle cut out of the living rock, its ceiling was domed and painted white with a mural depicting the ancient runes and symbols of the gods. Ulin stood on a railed balcony that circled the upper portion of the room and contained a row of bookcases. Looking closely at the shelves he saw every imaginable form of print on books, scrolls, vellum, parchment, paper, linen, and even tablets of clay and wax. Lamps hung on sconces from the walls, and overhead, suspended from the ceiling, hung a chandelier of glowing oil lamps set behind reflective lenses.
Ulin walked farther into the room and saw a circular stair leading down to the floor below. Tall cupboards, gilded with gold, stood upright between more shelves crowded with an incredible clutter of stuff. On the few bare spaces of wall left hung clocks of every description, size, and shape, their ticking filling the air with a steady drone. A water clock occupied the space near a large fireplace. Other instruments of time, navigation, survey, and drafting lay scattered on heavy worktables or piled on shelves. Everywhere Ulin looked, he saw tools, artifacts, colored glass bottles, crocks and jugs, knives, candles, dishes, maps, and odd things he could not begin to identify.
Notwen was nowhere to be seen, so Ulin walked down to the bottom floor. Curious, he threw open the doors of the first cupboard he came to and drew a breath of astonishment, for on its set of shelves he beheld an alchemist’s treasure: scales and weights, a mortar and pestle, stone bowls, rows of neatly-labeled bottles and boxes. He saw yellow brimstone, sulfur, saltpeter, white lead, vials of mercury, and nuggets of pure silver. There were little bottles of arsenic, viper’s poison, distilled toad, cock’s eyes, larger bottles with animal specimens neatly preserved-tangled webs of jellyfish tentacles, clippings of mermaids’ hair, and many more substances he did not recognize.
He heard a sound behind him, and he turned to see Notwen appear through another door pushing a wheeled tray bearing plates and bottles.
“How did you find all of this?” Ulin asked. He flung out his arms to include the entire chamber. “How could one person collect so much?”
The gnome pushed his tray to the fireplace and arranged two leather chairs beside it. “Come eat. I’m hungry.” He settled Ulin comfortably in a chair, filled two flagons with cold cider, fixed two plates of food, and sat down on a shorter chair to enjoy his meal. It wasn’t until his plate was empty that he leaned back against the worn leather padding and answered Ulin’s question.
“I wish I could say I collected all this, but as I said, I just found it. I’ve added my own things, of course, but the books, the Istar artifacts, and the chamber were here.”
Ulin’s interest spiked at the mention of artifacts, but he said nothing.
“I’ve studied some of the papers and manuscripts left down here,” Notwen continued, “and I believe the collection belonged to a black-robed mage who worked for Highmaster Toede for years. Toede helped him add to it, of course, probably hoping the mage would add to his treasury in return.”
“Why didn’t Malys destroy it?” Ulin asked. “Or add the artifacts to her own collection?”
“She hasn’t found it yet. I think the chamber is protected like the barracks with magical wards. When the red dragon attacked the manor, she destroyed the original entrance and filled the basement above with rubble. Fortunately, the original flooring remained and the chamber is still intact.”
Ulin pointed toward the ceiling. “Why don’t you replace that slab with a concealed door of bronze or something easier to open?”
“So it won’t be easy to open-or find.” Notwen shuddered. “Can you imagine the kender down here? And who would hesitate to plunder a gnome’s laboratory if all you had to do was open a door?”
“Point taken.” Ulin finished his cider and set the flagon aside. He felt better now that he’d eaten. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food was placed before him. “Would you show me your collection?”
Happiness glowed on Notwen’s face, and he bounced eagerly to his feet. He took Ulin by the hand and led him to the first table, made of stone and used for working with volatile substances. The surface was stained and pitted by constant use. Notwen ran his hand over a particularly large pit blasted from the table’s surface. “Knowledge is obtained by study and practice,” he said, then chuckled. “I practice a lot.”
Ulin’s thoughts went back to memories of the laboratory at the Academy of Sorcery, to the chambers of Huma’s Tomb where he met Sunrise for the first time, and to other places where he had learned and practiced the art of sorcery. The little gnome may not cast spells or know the intricacies of wielding magic, Ulin thought, but his philosophy of knowledge and his pleasure in its gathering were so similar to his own that the young mage felt drawn into the conversation.
The two soon lost all track of time in the discussions that filled the afternoon. They talked about healing remedies from Notwen’s tome, argued about metallurgical experiments, and examined every bottle and box in the laboratory.
Notwen proudly showed Ulin the clocks he had made and demonstrated each gear and weight and clock face. “Beneath the magic and superstition, there is a clockwork precision to the way the world works,” he proclaimed. “I want to find that precision and learn what makes it tick.”
Ulin found the words matched his own unspoken need. He had tried magic and that had failed him. Now he wanted to look for something deeper, something more basic and profound that would be unchangeable, irrefutable, and perhaps eternal. In his studies of magic he had never taken the time to see how ordinary things worked, or why. He had been too involved in learning spells, and for a while he had excelled at his chosen craft. Then came the failures, the terrible losses, the bitterness, and the fear … until he could no longer face the torment of the endless disappointments. All he had left was himself-his own intelligence, imagination, and strength, and slowly he was beginning to stretch out his abilities to learn the depths of capabilities he never realized were there. Notwen was right. Behind the veneer of magic was an entirely new world to be explored, tested, and studied, a world more reliable and eternal than the realm of faulty magic. His mind filled with these thoughts, Ulin studied Notwen’s clocks with new and fascinated eyes as if he had never seen a gear or pendulum before.
Time passed swiftly in the gnome’s laboratory, and in spite of all the clocks around him set to the same time, Ulin did not realize how long he had stayed until he looked at one particularly large clock on the wall and saw the small hand on the number eight. His eyebrows flew to his hairline.