The three wizards had slipped quietly back out into the corridor while the Winterwells were exploring the practice room. They were much more interested in finding Zebulon's rooms which, they reasoned, had to be somewhere nearby and which they expected to contain several magical booby traps to catch unwelcome intruders. They had some idea what to expect, as magical traps had been covered by their University education, but the Winterwells didn't and they didn't want their friends to get hurt so soon after meeting them, so they thought it best to slip off and find it by themselves while the others were busy.

     Sure enough, they found another heavy wooden door at the far end of the corridor, identical to Rhanov's except that the plaque had a ‘Z' on it, and it had no keyhole. "Stand back," said Thomas as he approached and gave it a gentle push at full arms length. Much to his surprise it opened easily, without so much as a squeak. He was almost disappointed.

     "That's odd," said Jerry. "You'd have thought he'd have kept his door magically locked."

     "It's been several years, don't forget," said Lirenna. "The spell must have faded. They do that if they're not re-cast every so often."

     "Not that quickly," said Jerry, "Especially having been cast by Zebulon himself. Most locking spells can last for centuries, not just a few years."

     "Maybe there'll be some answers inside," said Thomas. "Let's look and see."

     Cautiously, they entered the room, glancing around nervously as they did so, keeping a vigilant eye open for traps. The room was expensively furnished, in contrast to Rhanov's room, but was similar in size and shape. A few art treasures adorned the walls, along with shelves on which stood a few books and ornaments that seemed to have been chosen for their curiosity value rather than their monetary worth. All along the north wall was a large and fairly detailed bas-relief depicting a wizard, obviously Zebulon himself, standing on a hilltop and casting a spell down into a valley below, in which an entire army was fleeing in confused panic.

     The bed in the room's far corner was similar to Rhanov's, except that the letter on the headboard was a ‘Z', highlighted in gold leaf. A few cupboards and cabinets stood around the room, all locked and probably trapped as well. There was a writing table against the far wall, one drawer of which was not locked but which contained nothing more exciting than writing implements. A short distance from it was a larger table around which three chairs were arranged and on which stood a pitcher and three mugs. Zebulon liked to have quiet meetings here with his friends, it seemed.

     The only other thing of note in the room was a chest containing a collection of clothes and rags. A quick search revealed nothing of any great interest to them. It was basically just the room in which Zebulon lived and slept. There were two doors in the far wall, though, and Thomas tried the first one, opening it slowly and carefully.

     Inside was a workroom, similar but smaller to many they had worked in as apprentices in the University. Seeing it brought back feelings of nostalgia to all three of them as they poked around the glass doored cabinets half way up the walls and examined the glass and ceramic containers inside, each one containing a different substance. Thomas opened one and discovered it to be full of dead beetles of all different kinds, while one Lirenna opened contained chunks of amber. A few bottles lay on the single table in the middle of the room, all containing a different coloured liquid. Jerry opened one and sniffed it, but immediately gagged and coughed and stoppered it again, but not before the whole room was filled with the smell of rotten eggs. They decided not to open any more, but to investigate the second door at the far end of the room.

    This led to a fully equipped laboratory, containing everything an ambitious wizard could possibly want and more. The walls were lined with shelves full of bottles, beakers and jars containing every possible material spell component. Thomas saw labels that read basilisk's blood, powdered forest dragon horn, yellow musk creeper flowers, yellow mold spores, snow shae hair, nemesis weed tubers and many more even more strange and outlandish.

     Another bottle, standing on one of the room's three ancient wooden tables, contained strange alien looking eyeballs of many different colours that gave the strangest impression of still registering everything that fell within their frame of view, as if they possessed a horrid consciousness of their own or were somehow maintaining a connection with the brain they had originally belonged to. They disturbed Thomas so much that he felt his gaze constantly drawn back to them, examining them to see if they'd shifted position in their bottle to see him more clearly. He found a potion stained rag draped across a rail next to a mixing bowl and draped it carefully over the bottle, his arms outstretched to their fullest extent so that he didn't have to get any closer than he had to. It only helped a little, though. Now that he couldn't see the eyes any longer, it was all too easy to imagine them shifting and squirming wetly in their glass prison...

     The centre of the room was mostly taken up by a large laboratory bench with cupboards in the sides, and which was covered by all kinds of equipment including mixing bowls, a mortar and pestle, a small brazier, flasks, tubes, retorts, and other assorted items of glassware. A couple of ponderous tomes sat majestically on the edge of the table, their leather covers and midnight black bindings covered by mysterious silver symbols and runes. Jerry touched one, and a blue spark of electricity burned his fingers, making him jump back. Lirenna chuckled, and he was forced to grin sheepishly.

     Thomas opened one of the cupboards in the bench and gave a gasp of surprise at what he saw inside. "What is it?" asked Jerry, running over to look. He peered into the cupboard, which he could almost have walked into without bowing his head, and gave a cry of surprise in his turn. "Potions!" he cried.

     "What?" asked Lirenna, coming over to join them.

     "Potions!" said Thomas, reaching in and taking one. "More than a dozen of them. Look!" He held up the small bottle, scarcely two inches tall, filled with a faintly yellowish liquid and sealed at the top by melting the glass shut. A label on it said ‘Strength', and had Zebulon's sign under it.

          
     "By the Gods!" cried Lirenna. "It's a treasure trove!" She rooted around among the bottles, reading the labels. "Haste, another strength, invisibility, armour, heroism, etherealness, another strength, hello, this one isn't labelled. Shield, gaseous form, Feanar! We've hit the jackpot!"

     "Funny," said Thomas. "Most wizards write scrolls. This one seems to have had a thing about potions."

     "He wrote scrolls too," said Lirenna, finding a foot long metal tube near the back of the cupboard. Removing the end, she took out a rolled up sheet of parchment on which seven spells were written. "What are they?" asked Thomas.

     "Can't tell," said Lirenna, rolling it up and putting it back in the tube. "Have to put Intellectus on it first." She stuffed it into her backpack, next to her spellbook, while Thomas and Jerry divided the potions between them and packed them in among their spare clothing for protection. They then searched all the other cupboards, but the only other thing of value they found was a real steel sword, of excellent workmanship, with a letter ‘Z' half engraved on the wrist guard. "Zebulon's just full of surprises," said Thomas admiringly. "He makes magic weapons as well. I wonder if he finished putting the enchantment on it."

     Jerry took it from him and held it loosely in his hands, as if weighing it. "I don't think it is magical," he said. "I can't tell for certain, of course, without casting reveal on it, but it just doesn't feel magical."

     "Let's take it anyway," said Lirenna. "Even with no magic on it, it's still far superior to that sword Shaun's using now. He'll be glad to see this." With that, they left the laboratory and returned, through the workroom, to the living room to try the second door from there.

     It led to a much smaller room which appeared to be a study. Hundreds of books lined the shelved walls, most of them with much more interesting titles than the ones in the living room. There were tomes on dragon lore and demonology, grimoires, histories, along with biographies of some of the most powerful wizards who had ever lived. Others books contained transcripts of interviews with spirits of the dead, while others were written in a strange language they couldn’t read or were in code. One book appeared to be totally blank, while another contained nothing but lists of numbers in rows and columns. The biggest surprise, however, was an ancient copy of the Pardatano, the fabled book of forbidden knowledge, the originals of which had been written thousands of years ago by the mad mage Valazia. Thomas took it down eagerly and opened it, but was bitterly disappointed to find that it was written in old Garonian, an extinct language now used only by scholars and which he couldn't read.

     Thomas gazed at the library in pure adoration. This was what he had dreamed of finding all his life, the library of a great sage or scholar in which he could spend months or years reading all the way through. Many of the great secrets of the world would be here, just waiting for him to find them. Here, he could at last quench his endless thirst for knowledge, for a time at least, and who knows, there might even be clues to the location of other great libraries, where he could push the bounds of his knowledge even further! Breathless with excitement, hardly able to decide where to start, he took down a book on the history of the shae race and began to read.

     "Well, he's happy, at least," said Jerry in amusement as he and Lirenna examined the other contents of the room. This consisted of a writing desk on which were piled a few more books, a stack of writing paper, a bottle of blue ink, a glass jar full of quill feathers, a few small ornaments and a box of sand. In front of the desk was a comfy looking high backed chair, and near it was a wooden iron bound chest, locked shut. The desk had two drawers in it, one of which was locked shut. The other opened easily, though, and contained several more books, each with Zebulon's sign on the front. As Lirenna picked one up, Diana, Shaun and Matthew entered.

     "Ah, here you are," said Shaun, relieved. "We were worried you might've wandered off and gotten lost."

     "Hi," said Jerry. He started to say something to Diana, but stopped at the look on her face as the sound of bottles clinking together came from his backpack. "Er, we found a few things that we thought might come in useful," he said hesitantly.

     "So I hear," said Diana, with a disappointed tone of voice. "I seem to be the only one around here with any kind of moral standards."

     "What have you found?" asked Shaun.

     They showed them the potions and the scrolls, and explained their usefulness. "With these, any common peasant can be a great wizard, until they're all used up," said Lirenna. "Unfortunately, each potion or scroll spell can only be used once, in their present form at least. However, it might be possible to learn the spells on the scroll and copy them into our own spellbooks, in which case we'll be able to use them as many times as we like."

     "Can anybody drink a potion or read a scroll?" asked Matthew.

     "Anyone can drink a potion, yes," said Lirenna. "In fact, they're specifically made to be used by non-wizards. Some scrolls can be used by non-wizards, but this one is written in magical writing and can only be used by someone who can cast an Intellectus spell, which effectively means wizards only."