Chapter 15 - Hontila Tower

Chapter 15 - Hontila Tower

Sologea

It was any other night for the people of the Hontila Village. The night sky was cloudless and the center structure of their village, the Hontila Tower, glistened under the beam of the full moon.

The tower stood there serene, nestled alone in the center of a small town, only separated by a wide moat, while the small wooden houses and establishment ended in just a span of a mile and ended into a wide stretch of forest in all directions, seemingly endless in that wide plain of jungle. From above, the town, with the conspicuous 200 meter tall tower, looked like a humble haven that had sprouted in the middle of nowhere.

In the farthest corner of the town, a man cloaked in black robe emerged from the trees and entered the meager village’s wall, entering the village silently.

He traversed the maze of houses and buildings in that town, walking with neither a slow or fast face towards the direction of the tower.

He passed through the lawns and makeshift wooden fences, not following the roads but instead entering through the private lawns and hut’s eaves as if taking the roads.

Like a ghost, no one noticed his passing. Most of the residents were already in their beds and only the sound of crickets and other insects gave life and presence to the silent village.

There were no lights to be seen and only the moonlight beaming on the town was the man’s only guide.

He passed the last row of houses and was greeted by the moat that encircled the tower. It was wide, around 100 meters across, nad full of various river creatures, dancing below the moon-lighted surface of the moat.

The moonlight reflected on his face making him stop, staring grimly at the water’s surface as if in trance.

A distant memory flashed through his mind.

He stood there, reliving the emotions of that memory for a few moments, and with a flick of his head, the memory was gone again.

He crossed the only working bridge of the moat, and pondered about its unguarded state, completely opposite of what it used to be hundreds of years ago.

He had read books before of the tower past glory and its current state gave him a conflicting feeling.

Just like everything else, as the times passed, the glorious tower had now become a free land where only wanderers and homeless had now lived in its vicinity. There used to be a religion that supported it but got weaker through the times until only the random residents living in the free land took over in cleaning of the decrepit tower.

A huge untended wide space of area sprawled before the tower walls. Trees dotted the premises and the various foliage thrive vigorously with no one to tend to them. Only a clear trail amongst the impassable trees and undergrowth led towards the open doorway of the tower.

Everyone in the village was past asleep to know that someone just entered the grounds of the tower they were supposed to worship and guard. Even if they were aware. they probably wouldn't care. After all, they internally knew that the tower they guarded was just a fake tower, not the one said in the legend, the one that was said to be a key to endless treasures.

Even though the tower had stood through tough times of calamities and different disasters, no one had proven the legitimacy of the tower’s grandeur mystery.

Countless conquests of various kings across the lands and ages had already perused and checked the whole tower. They never found what they seeked. Even when it was opened for the public, anyone curious and greedy for treasures had tried to check every nook and cranny of the tower. From the bottom to the top of the spiral stone staircase, only old stones worn by time could be seen.

To everyone who had been there, it was simply an old tower. Sturdy enough to stand through times but was bound to topple someday. Not the tower that the legends claimed.

Even those citizens whose houses circled the tower, and whose generations of families have lived in the area had deemed that this tower was just an old, well-built tower representing their sturdy belief in the god they worship. But to the man that was currently walking in front of it, it was not just a simple tower. Because he had witnessed it before, the real secrets of this tower.

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He did not stop in front of the doorway of the tower and instead went past it, circling towards back of the tower.

He stopped unhesitatingly on one random area behind the tower and face its wall as if there was something in front of him. Just like everywhere else, the random wall was surrounded and almost covered with bushes and old trees. The wall though, upon closer inspection, was absent of anything, whether moss or wall growing plants, other than the smooth but jagged surface of stone blocks that composed the whole tower.

The man rummaged through a satchel beneath his hood and fished out a circular object, a medallion made of quartz with an intricate symbol of a tower etched on it.

He pressed it on the surface of the wall and muttered some words. Not a second later, the walls opened up to reveal a new set of stairs leading below, inside the tower.

The hooded man descended the steps with familiarity as if he had walked the stairs countless times before.

Without him knowing, the silent beings that lived in the tower for thousands of years, opened their eyes when they suddenly felt a presence opening a passage to their home.

Their senses focused intensely on the hooded man trying to figure out who he was. They scrutinized every detail of man as he descended towards the dark eerie stairs without any hesitation. Even with the hood on, it did not hamper their vision to see through the man's visage.

They did not recognize him, they confirmed with each other, and they were sure it was the first time for them to see the man. Someone checked the records and they could not find the image of the man ever entering the real tower until now.

The hooded man did not use any light and continued walking down the steps. After some time, he finally descended into a landing. Despite how he couldn’t see anything, he still continued walking forward without a pause.

He could feel the gaze directed at him but he still continued walking forward as if he knew there was something ahead of him. Ten minutes passed and he was still walking in complete darkness, with no end in sight. Another hour later, the guardians of the tower gave in and a light in the distance appeared.

“Finally,” the man whispered to himself, “took them long enough.”

He continued walking toward the direction of the light at a brisk pace.

He reached a waiting space with a doorway directly in front of him leading to a room. The doorway has no doors and was covered by a transparent mesh of curtain only letting the light out weirdly. If someone tried to look further, they would not see any silhouette of what could be inside the room.

The hooded man turned his head and looked towards the dark pathway that he just walked, and there stood the stairs that he just descended more than an hour ago, only a few meters from the doorway.

It did not ruffle him. His experience today was comparably better than the first time he walked this passage. That time, it took him more than a day.

He turned back towards the doorway, took a quick short breath and entered the room.

What welcomed him was a cavernous room the same size of a King’s hall. The room was well lit. Various lamps affixed to the walls and ornately designed candlesticks scattered around the tables and drawers, bringing light on any nooks and cranny of the room. Despite the red glow of the fires on these light source, the room was surprisingly lit in the color of bright bluish white light coming from the huge fountain located in the center of the room where the waters in it shimmered with moonlight glow.

Dozens of small water channels were connected to the central fountain spanning towards the different sides of the room and vanishing through the walls.

Water flowed on them as if they were mini rivers branching from the main river. Which was partly correct, as the water that flowed in it came from the moat that surrounds the tower above.

The water channels intersected in a pattern similar to a spider web—but more intricate and random—and in between these water channels were elevated platforms where tables and drawers were placed.

Within these tables were a cluttered mess of books, manuscripts and trinkets of materials unfamiliar to the common people.

The shelves lining the perimeter of the room contained various devices, ingredients and mechanical equipment that no one in the outside world had seen for hundreds or thousands of years.

Anyone would feel greed lurked within them if they saw these materials and stuff. These were not just some rare materials that anyone from the outside world could have access to, they were magical materials that has the ability to change someone’s life.

But the hooded man just passed them as if they had no value to him.

With determined and heavy steps, he navigated the whole area of chairs and tables, passing from one water channel to another, hopping from one platform to another and passed the beautiful fountain in the middle of the room and headed towards the far end of the room.

The more steps he made the more the gazes staring at him intensified, but he ignored all of them and continued on his way.

In one corner of the end side of the room, stood an unassuming table with various colors and sizes of books haphazardly filed over it. Some of them were open on pages with letters of languages even the guardians of this tower did not understand.

The hooded man reached the table and he rummaged through the mess of books, making the plumes and foreign looking pens around it rolled to the floor.

He fished out a metal gilded book under the pile. He checked it once and after confirming that it was the book he was looking for, he suddenly turned around and sprinted towards the direction of where he came from.

One second he was on the other side of the room and then the next he was jumping all over the tables and chairs, never caring about the mess of overturned chairs and falling materials that was caused by him. He couldn’t care as he was running from time itself.