The Two That Came To Ilarnek

Chapter 11

Katemperos-Tsa had again used a detection spell, and used other simple spells to counter the traps and safeguards that Xaltos had placed upon his most treasured belongings. The mage had dangerously extended himself. The casting of spells is draining upon the spellcaster, and it would be days before Katemperos-Tsa could regain his full magical-strength. Luckily, Xaltos had relied mostly upon fear and reputation to guard his things. There was still vital magical-work yet to be done.
    Now Katemperos-Tsa stood in the library of Xaltos. It was a scene of both awed curiosity and discomfiture for the mage, as his eyes set upon the myriad tomes, scrolls, and tablets that lined the library’s walls. Works detailing every sort of blasphemy and species of eldritch lore. The black wisdom of the ages was collected here. He spied works written in Aklo, and Senzar, and the Naacal tongue, and languages spoken on dead stars far beyond the rim, when man was still a naked ape swinging in the treetops.
    His tremulous fingers ran along the teak-wood shelves, in the dim amber-lit room, caressing storied volumes such as the Cylinder Seals of Khrontath, the hoary pre-human Pnakotic Manuscripts, and the Grimoire of Gath the Black. Katemperos-Tsa would have given much to pore over those tomes, but he knew time was limited, and so he tore his mind from those ancient volumes and turned his attention to the archway at the opposite end of the library.
    He passed through the open arch and down a flight of granite stairs which he knew led into the subterranean portions of Xaltos’s home. The stairs ended in a wide hallway, lit by the same glowing globes that lighted the rest of the house, relics of a long forgotten elder-science.
   At the end of the hall was a heavy iron bound wooden door, partially ajar, from which filtered an erie lambent light. The mage knew that what he sought was through that door, he sensed its presence.
    Just then, the uncanny sixth sense of a trained wizard warned Katemperos-Tsa, and at the same moment he heard the soft pad of feet and the mumbling of a spell. The mage wheeled to face a tall, lean, nearly skeletal figure swathed in a sable robe.
    “Xaltos!” hissed Katemperos-Tsa. Xaltos’s face was hard, his eyes black pools of rage honed to daggers by intense concentration. Xaltos’s upraised hand was engulfed in a fiery nimbus.
    Almost too late the mage hurled himself bodily into a diving roll, as a ball of white hot fire shot from the sorcerer's hand, and blasted the stone floor, where he stood just a moment before. Bits of burning stone flake stung Katemperos-Tsa’s skin and singed his robe.
    The mage quickly regained his composure, and faced the sorcerer, preparing for the next attack. Xaltos looked upon the mage with a sneer upon his thin, cruel lips. Again the sorcerer’s hand was engulfed in a corona of flame, which he cast at his rival with blinding speed, and again the mage dodged in a painful jarring dive. The flagstone where the fireball impacted was reduced to a shallow vitrified crater.
    “I had a premonition that it would be you I discovered here, Katemperos-Tsa. Whelp! Pet of the Magi!” accused Xaltos with a contemptuous shriek. He glared at the mage crouching before him. “Do you think to defeat me, you cowering jackal? Do you think to best me in a war of spells?” laughed Xaltos derisively,  a mirthless chortle escaping his lips, then he began intoning his next spell.
    Katemperos-Tsa’s hand made a quick, fluid movement. There was a flick of his lean wrist, as his arm shot out forcefully toward Xaltos.  Something flashed through the air with a metallic gleam. The words of Xaltos’s cantrip died with on his lips with a sputter of blood. The glow about the sorcerer’s hand guttered out as he clawed at his breast and crumpled, falling flat upon his back with a thud.
    “No, Xaltos, I did not think I could best you in a war of spells,” said Katemperos-Tsa, as he stood to his full height and walked over to the sorcerer’s prone form, “but my dagger seems to have done the trick.” With that, the mage placed his sandalled foot about the sorcerer’s chest and yanked the knife from his black heart. There was a last glimmer of frustrated fury in Xaltos’s eyes, then with a wheezing rattle, he died.
    “Perhaps your shade can now serve the black gods you aligned yourself with, in some way,” remarked the mage, and he continued upon his search.