Wigg finally stopped before a heavy wooden door decorated with brass trim. The old wizard narrowed his eyes, and Tristan could hear the insides of the door lock turn over once, then twice more. Wigg opened the door and walked through, beckoning Tristan to follow him into what appeared to be a large oak-paneled library, complete with many book-lined shelves and writing desks. Each of the desks held an oil lamp and was surrounded by comfortable-looking chairs. It occurred to the prince that he had never seen this room before, but then again there were many in the huge palace he had not seen. He shrugged. To him, it was just one more that he could cross off his list of unknowns. The old wizard shut the door and once again narrowed his eyes as the prince heard the lock secure itself. Somehow the knowledge came to Tristan that probably only a wizard could ever open that door.
Wigg crossed the stone floor to one of the many decorative oak panels that lined the right-hand wall. He reached up and placed the first two fingers of each hand upon four knots that Tristan had taken to be part of the decorative woodwork. The old one closed his eyes, then almost immediately opened them again and stepped back from the wall. To Tristan’s amazement the entire paneled section began to revolve slowly and silently on a pivot that apparently ran vertically through its left side, revealing a dimly lit entranceway.
“Don’t just stand there with your mouth open, or you’ll catch dragonflies,” the wizard said in a castigating tone. “Follow me.” Wigg walked into the entranceway to the right of the pivot and was gone.
Tristan crossed the library and looked into the entranceway. There he saw Wigg impatiently waiting for him in yet another oak-paneled room. Lit by a single wall sconce containing an oil lamp, the room was only about the size of a scullery maid’s broom closet. After testily beckoning Tristan forward, Wigg reached to his right and pulled a tasseled velvet cord that hung through a hole in the corner of the ceiling. The revolving door dutifully swung shut.
Almost immediately the prince felt his knees buckle slightly. He had the distinct feeling that he was falling, although looking down he could see that he was still standing firmly upon the floor of the little room. But despite the fact that neither he nor anything else in the room seemed to be moving, he was still sure he somehow detected the presence of motion. He smirked at Wigg. “More magic, Lead Wizard?” he asked.
Wigg could not help but let a small smile escape past his prickly demeanor. “Actually, no,” he said. “Rather, this is a new invention, courtesy of the Directorate. It works on hydraulics. Water power, not magic. One of Wizard Maaddar’s hobbies. He likes to call it the gravitating chamber.” His smile faded as he gave Tristan a more controlled look. “As I might have thought you would have learned today, magic isn’t the answer to everything. True, we are moving. Downward. Several stories below the level of the palace.” He paused. “You are sworn to secrecy about anything and everything you may see or hear from this point forward, including the presence of this moving room.” He turned his attention once again forward to the paneled door before them.
“But there is nothing below the first floor in this section of the palace,” Tristan said. “All of the subterranean floors such as the kitchen, the sculleries, and the servants’ quarters are elsewhere, far from here.” He was sure of it. He had, after all, lived here all of his life.
Just after he finished speaking, the strange sensation of moving without going anywhere suddenly stopped, and the oak-paneled door began to pivot open again.
As it opened wider, the old wizard gestured toward the opening and blandly said, “Nothing below this section of the palace, eh? Really? Why don’t you try telling them that?”
Tristan found himself staring through the open door into a world he had never known existed. He was dumbfounded. He looked back at the wizard in disbelief, but the old one simply walked out through the door ahead of him, motioning for the prince to follow.
They were standing in some sort of circular underground courtyard. It was constructed of the most beautiful light-blue Ilendium marble he had ever seen. It appeared to be some sort of central crossroads for at least a dozen or more seemingly endless hallways that led off it at regular intervals like spokes from the hub of a wagon wheel. It was amazing. And the place was full of wizards. There were young ones, old ones, thin ones, and fat ones, but he noticed that although they were all dressed in the customary plain gray wizard’s robes, none of them had the wizard’s tail of braided hair that usually fell down the back of the neck.
He of course was familiar with all of the wizards of the Directorate, just as everyone in the kingdom was, even if only by name. But other than Wigg he saw none of them in this room. He could only reason that since he had never seen any of these other men before and because they had no wizard’s tails, they therefore must be the lesser rural wizards from around the realm that Wigg had mentioned. But he had no idea that there had ever been so many of them, and had no clue what they were all doing here. Each seemed to be quietly going about his own business, some in hushed conversation, and some simply passing through on the way down to another hall. None took any particular notice of the visitors except for the occasional bow of respect to Wigg.
“Wigg, where are we?” Tristan asked, his voice barely audible. He stood transfixed. Never in his life had he experienced such an amazing day as this. He wasn’t sure that he ever wanted to again.
“We are now standing in the crossroads of the Redoubt of the Directorate. It is a secret place of learning and respect for the craft, and for the past. I suggest you behave accordingly.” Wigg motioned for Tristan to walk with him down one of the great hallways, and continued to speak as they went.
“This place was constructed at the end of the Sorceresses’ War, and its purpose is the furtherance of the craft via the teachings of the Vigors.” He turned his hawklike gaze upon Tristan. “You do remember the Vigors?” he asked unnecessarily.
“At the end of the war, the nation was in shreds,” he went on. “Famine, pestilence, and crime were rampant. The legions of the Royal Guard had been virtually decimated, as had the population of wizards. At that time there was much more that needed to be done than the newly formed Directorate could accomplish on its own. The Redoubt was established by the Directorate in order to train and dispatch wizards to help bring peace and order once again to the countryside and the cities in a compassionate, rather than martial, manner. And this practice of sending forth wizards has continued ever since.” He pushed the errant braided tail of gray hair back over a shoulder as he walked.
“The wizards you see here have all been trained in the craft and taken the vows of the Vigors in this center of learning. When a male of endowed blood wishes to learn the craft he must always do so here, under our tutelage, so that we may make sure he is taught the Vigors only, and with the proper amount of self-control and respect for the past.” The infamous eyebrow rose again. “Two things that you seem to have a distinct lack of lately.” His gaze shifted back to the long hallway as they walked along.
“Once they have accepted the vows and the death enchantments, they are trained in the craft. Anyone refusing to take the vows is summarily rejected. Those who do go through training are sent back into the countryside dressed as peasants. They are empowered to perform as many good deeds as they deem appropriate for the benefit of the populace at large—all within reason, of course. They must go about the rest of their lives without alerting the citizens to the fact that they are wizards. A benevolent secret society, if you will. They have nowhere near the power of a wizard of the Directorate, and it is purposely planned to be this way.”