Evora needed something impressive to have a chance at being named. She knew she should start working right away, rather than spend her time searching for something special, but her mind kept returning to the seven words of power.
Evora’s hero was Maya Pallandor, the greatest enchantress in the history of the Academy of Enchanters. Maya was the inventor of armoursilk, and the youngest ever – man or woman – to be named High Enchantress.
Many of the principles that enchanters and enchantresses followed to this day were from Maya Pallandor’s teachings, and her unconventional exploration of new rune arrangements had led to an explosion of knowledge. A marble statue of her stood tall in the centre of the Academy’s gardens, and her famous diary was kept in a glass case in the Green Tower’s display room, overlooking the Great Court.
Evora had read everything there was to read about Maya Pallandor, although of course she’d never held Maya’s diary in her hands. If she ever became High Enchantress, she planned to take Maya’s diary out of its case and read it from cover to cover.
As Evora thought about Master Zoran’s test, she wondered if perhaps there was a place in the diary’s pages where Maya mentioned the seven words of power.
Years ago, when Evora was just a student, fumbling her way through lore classes and generally getting into trouble with the masters, she'd been searching the dusty shelves at the back of the Wrenright Library when she'd come across an old book. It was a text, written in an archaic hand, and the subject was speculation about Maya Pallandor’s most powerful creations.
The young Evora’s attention was drawn to a place where the book mentioned Maya once giving a demonstration using seven words of power. The next page was missing, but evidently Maya’s enchantment had astonished all of the masters at the Academy.
Evora wondered why she hadn’t read about the seven words of power anywhere else, but the author of the old book, an enchanter who died a hundred years ago, also mentioned in a different section that Maya sometimes hid her scrolls outside the walls of the Academy. Eccentric and paranoid, Maya hadn’t trusted the Academy’s security. She'd wanted the lore to stay secret.
Evora could understand the need. She herself had broken into restricted rooms in the various libraries more than once; a skilled enchantress could find her way through most locks.
Evora had read the old book years ago, but the story of the seven words of power had stuck with her. She had always wondered what it was that had so impressed the masters of the Academy. It must have been something powerful.
She decided it was time to finally read the diary of Maya Pallandor.
~
“Silunara-ailieri,” Evora whispered.
The silver symbols woven into Evora’s silk dress lit up, before once more becoming dark. Slowly the green fabric of the dress moved through darker shades – from emerald to forest green, then the dark green of marshland, finally moving through to black. It was one of many sequences she had enchanted her dress with; there were times when it came in handy.
Evora crept through the shadowed arches and columns that lined the Great Court. The Academy of Enchanters was deathly silent so late at night, but as a master’s apprentice, Evora knew there were wards in the most unlikely places.
She already knew the words that would open the heavy lock on the door to the Green Tower; it was a secret she’d pried from Barrick over a year ago, just in case she might need it one day.
Once inside the tower, Evora crept up the thickly-carpeted stairs, her ears pricked, listening intently. At the second floor she left the carpeted landing and walked through a doorway into a spacious gallery, the soft soles of her shoes sounding like the patter of rain on the hard floor.
The display room in the Green Tower held nothing powerful or dangerous, merely mementos accumulated over the long years of the Academy’s existence. Standing just inside the room, Evora ignored the pedestals and shelves, her eyes instead drawn to the display case taking pride of place in the centre of the room. Within the case rested the diary of Maya Pallandor.
Evora stepped slowly forward, but while still a dozen paces away, she reached into her pocket and withdrew a ring, slipping it onto her finger. It had taken her hours to create, and now, after a brief prayer to the Skylord, she put it to the test.
Evora spoke some words and activated the ring. The tiny runes she’d inscribed on the metal glowed softly against the dark of the room with colors of gold and sapphire.
Immediately Evora could see red lines where protective enchantments guarded the glass case. One crossed directly in front of her knees – a single step further and the alarms would have sounded. With her ring revealing the wards, she carefully lifted one leg, and then the other over the line. The next was diagonal, and she was able to duck under it without too much difficulty. Finally, after passing three more of the wards, Evora stood in front of the glass case.