Marriage is Murder

Angus came back on deck that afternoon, after lunch, and said, "It appears that the tanks filled sooner than I figured. Evan has done some improvements on the air condenser, and the tanks are ready again. If you're up to it, we could go back this afternoon."

"We don't have the key, whatever that is," Michael said. Khaat looked at the jar and saw a new sort of a blossom on the new morphed plant--and this blossom was starting to glow.

"No," Robert said, frowning. "I think we do have it. I think that's it. If we're going to do this, we should go soon, while this plant is in bloom. We don't know how long it will last."

"Agreed," Edward said.

"You lot go do this, and we'll stay here at the ready in case we're needed," Robert told them. The dive team suited up again--Edward, Michael, Marcus, Angus, and Khaat, and they slipped back over the side, Edward taking the plant jar with them. Robert decided to stay poised at the side of the ship, his wand at the ready, not knowing what to expect. Kate and Brian decided to join him.

Jess looked over at the jar the sound less now that she was not thinking about it anding she walked over to it but she did see the glowing new bloom that seemed to be forming standing up she walked over to it and looked down into the jar. " it looks beautiful" she said now watching as they picked it up and headed over the side again. She looked to Robert and sat back down at the chess board.

Below Jack was putting Brant through his paces once more lifts and press ups along with learning how to hand to hand with Jack. Brant knew this would make him look more toned and make him move faster.

They swam down to the dive site, and followed their way back to where they'd left off before. Khaat didn't know how she knew where they needed to go, but she did. Marcus wanted to go ahead of her, but she became anxious and frightened, and felt a strong need to push him behind her.

As she did, a large stone statue reached out to try to grab Marcus by the throat. Khaat used her one good arm to position herself to fire wandless magic at it. The statue seemed to hesitate when she stood between her and Marcus and froze. Edward merely watched and then motioned the others to move through, but to go behind her. When they were through, she followed.

She led them to a cave and then inside. The bloom in the jar lit brightly now. Khaat reached for the jar, and Edward handed it to her. She held the jar up, and Edward saw the sea silt clearly to reveal ten large glass crates that seemed to be filled with swirling thick gray smoke. Khaat pointed to the glass crates.

Boxes of smoke? Michael thought. How heavy could those be. He went to move one and found they were immensely heavy. He and Edward had to work together to cast spells to raise it to the surface.

The four men worked together, two at a time, to raise each crate one by one to the surface.

Robert saw the first crate surface. He tried to summon it with his wand and found it was heavy. Brian and Kate assisted him in lifting it to the surface. When they saw there were going to be more, Robert shouted for the others to come and help load the glass crates onto the deck.

Jack heard the commotion from above and told Brant to stop and go up he too ran up seeing the glass creates he dove in and pushed them up on deck pushing his shoulders while Brant and Steven stacked them carefully for Robert and the others to look at. Once the last one was up he climbed out and dried himself off.

"What are those things?" he asked looking at them " and how can glass boxes with smoke be so heavy." he sat down next to Jess who looked at the water waiting for the others to surface so she could relax knowing they were all safe.

"Looks like a box to me," Brian said, as they lifted one after another on deck. There were ten in all. Down below, Khaat decided they had what they needed. She motioned them to leave. As they swam out again, the landmarks that had led them to the crates all started to crumble and self destruct.

Marcus swept his arm around her waist and motioned them to hurry and get out. They surfaced quickly, and the crew helped them onboard again.

Robert began to inspect the crates. He wasn't sure he wanted to open them. He saw the swirling gray smoke, and didn't know if it was a good thing or not. He looked for a way to open them, but there appeared to be a lock on the crates. It looked like a lock without a place for a key.

"Well, Michael?" Robert asked. "What do we do with this one?"

Even Brant looked them over not seeing any way to open them. He scratched the back of his neck and sat back down letting Robert and let the others deal with it he was curios but knew better than to mess with something that was none of his business. Potions was his thing and he was happy to do that.

Jess moved her piece and looked at the now wet Jack as he board " you left your queen defenseless" he said and moved a piece to make checkmate. Jess sighed and looked at the bard again hoping to see away out of the move and save the game.

"Well, it certainly would be easier if we had the bloody key," Michael said.

"It certainly would," Robert said, trying to study it. Michael paused, looking at it. He attemped a couple of things but the enchanted locks would not give. He sighed, frustrated.

Khaat opened the jar and took out the new blossom. The enchanted blossom curled around her hand and her wrist. Marcus was ready to rip the thing off her and out of her grasp, but Edward lifted his hand to stop him. Edward merely watched. She cupped the blossom in her hand and it formed a glistening gold and jewel encrusted flower, the petals being of beautiful pink topaz stones. She walked over to the lock Michael was studying. She inserted the flower, upside down, into the lock and turned it. It fit perfectly. The lock opened.

They heard a whooshing sound like a vacuum being released. The gray smoke seeped out of the crate and disappeared. She wanted to open the crate, but Robert held onto her arm.

"Not yet," he said. "Give it a minute. Lets see what happens when the smoke clears."

When it cleared, they could see it was packed tightly, every available space with tiny, miniaturized things.

"Are those..." Michael began, frowning deeply.

"Books," Robert said, "Thousands of books." Then the words came back to him. "The Hall of Immortality. This is a library. Think about it. The only way anyone is truly immortal is by what history remembers of them. The Hall of Immortality was their library. And the books were their most precious possessions. I bet all these crates are filled with hundreds of thousands of books. If that's the case, it will take hundreds of wizards decades and decades to translate and study them all."

"This was designed for a seer to find," Edward said, "but why?"

"I don't know," Robert said, picking up one of the tiny books. "They're hundreds of years old."

"Khaat, would you mind opening the others, please?" Edward asked. She used the jeweled flower and opened the other nine glass crates to reveal they were just as packed with miniaturized books like the first crate.

Brant was curios he saw the smoke and backed away a little when he finally moved closer again he saw the books " and I thought your collection was big Robert" he said with a whistle. Jack looked over and shook his head not realizing the significance of the books.

"Do you think there okay to pick up, I mean they were under water for a long time, maybe the air will destroy them, they could even crumble if we try?" He said his own eyes sparkling at the knowledge that might be contained inside them. But he knew Robert would be best to touch them first being the most experienced out the lot of them in dealing with the unknown and there traps that seem to follow.

Cassidy just sat and wove her blanket Steven kept his arm around her waist as he watched the boxes and saw the books himself. "The question would be is why hide them down in the water" He said

"If the air were going to destroy them, it would have done so when we opened the boxes," Michael said. Without any sort of ceremony, Khaat reached in and picked up a book with a unique coral colored leather that had lilies and vines embossed on the spine. She didn't know why she chose it, other than it was pretty. She looked at the cover and saw it had some sort of beautifully written runes embossed on the cover, presumably a title of some sort.

She opened the cover and found the pages to be of an unusual tissue thin, translucent parchment. She stroked her hand across the page and found it was silky soft. As she stroked her hand across the page, the runes appeared on the page. She didn't know why, but she thought she could almost smell lilies. They were sweet and fresh and fragrant. She presumed it was something in her seers senses and wasn't something anyone else could smell. She wasn't sure, though.

"I think I'll take this one and just look through it," she said.

"Be careful with it," Robert said. "I haven't had a chance to look at any of them."

"I know," she said.

"If all you knew were being destroyed, all of your people, your city, what would you do?" Michael asked. "You'd hide your most precious posessions. And that was their history. Their books. They hid them in the safest place they knew, where they believed no one would look--at the bottom of the sea, probably hoping to come back for them when whatever siege they were involved in was over."

"But they never got a chance to come back," Kate said.

"Certainly doesn't look like it," Edward said.

" I guess they would have, usually happens with in five minuets." he says an watched as Khaat reached out and took a book from the box and walk off to study it. He looked at Robert but knew that if he felt it was okay for her to do that he would not question it.

" Okay you back down to the gym" Jack said grabbing Brant again and dragging him back down to the gym.

"Is nobody going to save poor Brant?" Cassidy spoke up but Steven and Jim both shook their heads and chuckled softly.

" he'll be okay, a work out will do him some good " Jim said and looked at the box with the books. " mind if I take one" he said taking out a leather bound one and opening it he was taken aback by how the pages t h looked like paper felt like leather.