Serenity shook his head. “I’d rather you described it.”

Acolyte Tinar sounded disappointed. “Fine. The Tower of Broken Swords holds the Book of Karit. It sits on a simple pedestal under a glass dome to protect it. The Book was once the symbol of the royalty of Karit; it was said to contain the name of every person who owed loyalty to Karit. It is also the paper that was used for the Surrender of Karit, of course; turning the symbol of resistance into a symbol of faith!”

If that was all that was in there, the Book of Karit was probably the source of the feeling of death that seeped out of the tower. That was probably not a good thing for anyone descended from the nation of Karit, but it wasn’t enough to make Serenity head into the Tower.

He wished he had a drone, something disposable that he could send in to take pictures and maybe sense magic, if he ever figured out how to do that remotely. That was something he was definitely going to need to add to Aide’s shopping list the next time he was on Earth.

Aide, you wouldn’t happen to be able to make a drone, would you?

Hahaha. No, no more than you can. If anything, you’d do better than I; can’t you split into more forms?

I can, but I’m not sure what will trigger the trap in that tower. It may not be safe to send a piece of myself in without knowing what the trap is. I’m also not sure I want to show that ability off in front of the acolytes.

Why are you so convinced the tower is a trap? I can sense nothing that tells me about a trap, even using your senses. Simply the fact that it feels like death does not scream about a trap. This is far less intense than the Dead Swamp, much less Tzintkra’s surface.

Serenity couldn’t put his finger on it; something had tripped his paranoia into high gear but he didn’t know what. Aide was correct that death alone didn’t mean a trap, but Serenity thought it was still what had gotten his attention. He walked up to the entrance but stopped about a foot away.

Acolyte Tinar stepped further into the tower and grinned. “Decided to come see the Book of Karit? It’s right over there, in the middle of the room.”

Serenity shook his head but didn’t say anything. He wanted to get a better feel for the Death energy and take a look at what he could see of the magic on the Tower of Broken Swords without triggering it, so he flicked his Magesight to its active variant.

The death-attuned mana and essence inside the tower was intense, far more intense than the amount leaking out of the doorway indicated. More than that, it felt trapped, almost like it was asking for help to leave. Serenity took in the scene, then concentrated on a single sword. He felt a Skill try to activate, but it was unsuccessful.

The Skill that failed was his Down to the River Skill. It seemed odd that it was triggered until he looked at another broken sword, then another. Each one he looked at tugged lightly on the Skill.

There was only one reason Serenity could think of for the Skill to be acting up in that manner: there were lost souls here, probably tied to the now-broken swords. This wasn’t nearly as simple as Acolyte Tirnar had made it sound, and signing a contract on the very Book that made a nation didn’t sound all that simple to begin with.

This was almost certainly the reason Serenity was so certain this was a trap: it had trapped the dead and they told him. It would have been nice if they were clearer, but knowing at all was helpful. More than that, it told him something about the nature of the trap.

The question was if the trap affected living people or only the dead; Serenity didn’t want to enter the tower then be unable to leave. Tinar didn’t seem affected, but it really wasn’t that hard to build a trap that excluded people as long as you could identify them, and all of the acolytes and priests wore Lykandeon’s symbol. There were better methods that were harder to fool, but they all had their own downsides.

Serenity had to look past the death-attuned mana to see that the swords in the tower were arranged in a giant spell array. It looked like each one had been separately enchanted then the enchanted swords were used to make a ritual spell of some sort; Serenity wondered if the ritual had assembled the tower or if the tower was assembled before the ritual was cast; welding enchanted blades couldn’t be simple, especially not if you were trying not to damage the enchantments. It was certainly possible if they were enchanted as ritual implements instead of weapons, but it still would require extreme care.

Serenity looked carefully, but he didn’t see any sign that the swords were placed in such a way that they would do anything other than roughly form the edges of whatever ritual this was. That indicated that his first guess was probably correct; in fact, it was entirely possible that it was the ritual spell holding the swords together and not mundane welding. He was relieved by that conclusion; a spell that was spending some of its power to maintain a boundary construct, especially a physical one, was much weaker than one that was constructed with a true well-created ritual circle of items that enhanced the spell.

It was easier to make a long-lasting spell like this, but it was also easier to break if you knew what you were doing, and Serenity did know what he was doing.

Some of the spellwork was hard to pick out under the death-attuned mana; Serenity was so attuned to Death himself that it was hard to look past it. Fortunately, it didn’t look like there was any deliberate attempt to hide the spellwork. In fact, it looked very much like one of the example rituals Serenity remembered from Blackthorn Academy. It had clearly been adapted to use the swords and the Book, but if Serenity remembered correctly that was within the parameters of the ritual spell.

It was a ritual spell of Binding and Empowering. There were two major variants; the primary variation bound something and used the power of those limits to empower that which was bound. This was clearly the other variant. Many people thought it was a power-stealing ritual; indeed, it was often taught as an example of power stealing being possible, though difficult.

Serenity had done the math on the power balances. The spell actually cost more than the boost it provided was worth. Sure, it cost less than both the binding and the boost, but that was only if you executed it perfectly. Serenity could already tell that this ritual was not executed all that well.

He could break it. It would take some time, but he could. He could even break it if it trapped him, but now that he had a good look at it, he was fairly confident that he wasn’t a valid target for binding. It looked like the caster had kept the original requirement: helpless or willing.

Serenity was sure that the spirit-inhabited blades counted as helpless, while the Book probably counted as willing because of the surrender Tinar mentioned being signed on its pages. In fact, that was probably why the surrender was there; that sort of thing was very powerful for some ritual spells.

“Acolyte Tinar, did you say that that’s the Book of Karit, which holds the names of everyone who belongs to Karit, and that the servants on Aeon are the descendants of the people of Karit?” Serenity was pretty confident that was exactly what the acolyte said, but when he put it together with the ritual spell in front of him it added up to something very nasty.

Something almost as nasty and what he was beginning to believe about his kidnapped citizens or Lyka’s World Core. It was clear that Lykandeon was interested only in his own power and not in treating others fairly. At least, not unless it was the fairness of “you can have what you can defend”. Serenity was all too familiar with that sort of fairness, where only the strong were given a fair deal.

Acolyte Tinar didn’t seem to get Serenity’s implication. “That’s right! The Eternal One saved those who had once been his enemies and brought them to the Divine Land, showing his kindness and forgiveness to everyone!”

Serenity wasn’t certain how to reply to that. It was so obviously false and yet Acolyte Tinar was so very earnest about it. Serenity knew he could show that it wasn’t kindness, but at the same time he also knew that deliberately breaking the faith of an acolyte in a god’s home territory could be unwise. Lykandeon probably wasn’t powerful enough for it to matter, but Serenity really wasn’t that familiar with gods and what they could do, so he wasn’t certain.

Serenity shook his head and concentrated on what he did know how to handle instead: the ritual spell in front of him. He needed to decode the targeting parameters. It didn’t take long; when he was done, he knew the tower was safe to enter for him, because the spell wouldn’t let it fall and it wasn’t aimed at anyone who was physically present. It was only aimed at dead souls and anyone with a link to the Book of Karit.

That was enough for him to walk into the tower. A closer examination of the spell would make it easier to break quickly and cleanly; if he did it right, he might even be able to free the souls in the swords. He’d only do that if there was a reason, but no matter what he wanted to be able to do it.

An hour later, Serenity was leafing through the Book of Karit when Acolyte Tinar interrupted. “Sir? Are you getting close to ready to leave? I wasn’t expecting the Tower of Broken Swords to be a long visit.

“Not yet. This is an interesting variant on the ritual; the Book isn’t nearly as simple as it sounds and it’s been incorporated as a keystone.” What Serenity didn’t say was that he was trying to figure out a way to quickly destroy the ritual that didn’t also destroy the Book of Karit.

Destroying the book would be easy; it didn’t have anything other than basic protections against water and time. It didn’t even have a fire or heat protection at all. It would also definitely unbalance and crash the spell, probably bringing the Tower down. Serenity didn’t think it would free the souls from the swords, but he’d have to dig into their enchantments to be certain.

The thing was, he didn’t want to destroy the book. There was a sense of vitality to it even though it radiated some of the strongest Death affinity he’d seen in a long time at the same time. It was far too interesting to simply destroy if he could avoid it.

On top of that, Serenity wondered if the Book of Karit could be used against Lykandeon either directly as a magical artifact or politically; if nothing else, freeing the servants on Aeon should be very useful. That wasn’t the main reason, but it would be a nice bonus if it worked out.

The main reason was probably pride. He knew the spell wasn’t that well constructed, so he felt like there ought to be a second weak point. Surely he could find it?

“He gets like this sometimes. Just let him look at the spell and leave him alone, he’ll come out when he’s done.” Serenity smiled at Rissa’s voice. She knew him so well.