by Jade Alters
I focus on the invisible membrane of energy that separates the human Realm and the Blue Plane and push my hands right through it. Once they materialize, independent of the rest of my Astral form, I flatten them on the outside of the crystal pillar. I give it a few solid shoves. Nothing. I try grasping the outsides of it and tugging instead. If something can give less of a reaction than nothing, that’s exactly what I get from the pillar. I let my hands fade back into the Blue Plane with the rest of my Astral form, close my eyes, and focus on my physical one. When I see again, the blue tinge has faded from the world. Rock and River kneel before me, patiently awaiting my report. It takes me a second to readjust before I can deliver it.
“There’s… a sort of plug at the bottom of the pool. It’s a crystal pillar. The only one standing straight up,” I describe for the two who might actually be able to do something about it. Two whose muscle mass isn’t limited by the constraint of humanity. “It was way too heavy for me.” Rock and River share a quick glance.
“Let’s pull it… right?” River poses. She turns around to face the water. “Then we can go deeper.” She takes a step closer to the edge, only to be stopped by the stern hand of her future Chief on her shoulder.
“I’ll pull it. Stay with Hoster,” Rock tells her. The only thing stronger than Rock’s grip on her shoulder is River’s hard shove. She flings his hand away.
“You’re not Chief yet, pal. Why the hell wouldn’t we pull it together?” River challenges. Rock growls to himself, fingers bunching up in a fist. I see something like regret on his face before he even says it. The very thought of what’s brewing in him seems to make him sick. Still, Rock chooses honesty.
“I don’t exactly… have reason to trust in your ability,” Rock tells her. I can almost see the steam rising off of River’s forehead.
“You’re going to bring that up now?” she bites. I wasn’t there, but the two could only be talking about one thing. Everyone at the Academy has heard by now how horrendously wrong this past Ahwahneechee Thanksgiving Dinner went. Many see it, in fact, as the tipping point that sent some of the Academy’s most powerful students over to the other side.
“I’d rather bring it up now than at the bottom of the pool if something goes wrong,” Rock tells her. The genuine tone of concern in his voice seems only to fan her rage. Still, he turns to go without her. “Stay with Hoster.” Rock turns and dives.
River follows him right to the edge of our platform, but it seems his words have instilled an ounce of doubt. She hesitates. She stares down into the teal pool, watching Rock’s frame fade beneath the ripples. Just before it vanishes, shadowy tendrils shoot out from all over his body. I count four before I realize what they are, and consequently, what form Rock has chosen. Tentacles. Octopus-Rock lurches down, deeper into the water than we can see.
I kick some dust by the side of the pool, twiddling my thumbs while I wait to see if River will dive after him. She stands with the tips of her shoes poking over the water. She leans forward, eyes swimming with desire and the shimmering light of the pool. I can only watch her be consumed, with hate, with hesitation, for so long.
“Hey…” I say after a while, to distract her. Her face doesn’t move from the pool. “There’s nothing wrong wi-”
“Do us both a favor and shove it up your ass,” River cuts me short. Alright. Encouragement: not working. I sigh while I draft up another plan.
“I’ll try, but… I’ve gotta save room for your foot, right?” I try instead. River twitches upright, eyes wide with surprise. Surprise both at what I said, and the reaction it stirs in her, whether or not she lets it. A little bark of laughter jumps up her throat. Her shoes scuff back an inch. Her eyes turn halfway towards me, curiosity poking its pin-head through her rage. Good - maybe she’ll hear me this time. “Rock’s just… like that. He’s been raised to be a Chief, but he hasn’t learned how to lean on others yet. He thinks he has to do everything on his own. He doesn’t realize that he’s still a part of the group he has to lead.”
“So… you think I should get down there with him?” River deciphers. Truthfully, I didn’t even know what I was saying until I said it. Any wisdom from it was purely coincidental. But now that it’s out…
“I think he’s been down there a while without any results… it’s at least worth it to check on him,” I suggest. I pair the words with a tap of my forehead, so she knows exactly what I mean. River glances back at the pool, then to me. She gives me a subtle nod with those sea-green eyes of hers. I struggle not to glance up her feathered skirt as I skin to the ground. Her muscular thighs call my eyes, but I fight it off to clench them shut. “Watch my body?” I ask her to distract myself.
“Only to return the favor,” River’s voice teases in the black. I gulp, unsure how to redeem myself. I figure getting the scoop on Rock is a good way to start, and I depart from my physical form. I’m more than a bit surprised at the fondness with which River gazes down on my body once it slumps over, and the tenderness she touches my shoulder with to hold me up. I pry myself away to dive back into the pool.
With a much better idea of what to expect on this decent, I fly down fast. I zip straight through the fallen chunks of stairs to the bottom. There lies the crystal pillar, unmoved. So where’s Rock? I give a frantic glance around for an answer, but find none in the immediate area. I consider zipping back into my body, until I see a dark blur of movement above me, towards the side of the pool. I float closer, and my Astral mouth shoots open.
Rock’s muscular mass of tentacles is flat against the wall for a better defense against a small swarm of fish. They look something like piranhas, though with teeth closer to the fangs of a Vampire. Their skin is dark but shimmers with bright blue veins the same color as the pool. Rock does his best to flick them away, but the fish seem to be of one, magical mind. They coordinate their strikes around the movement of Rock’s tentacles in deviously perfect harmony. A mist of blood in the water around him only frenzies them even more. I close my eyes and ride the link back to my physical body, to puppeteer my lips.
“He’s in trouble,” I tell River. Her wide eyes shoot down to me at the sound of my voice. “A school of vicious fish. Like piranhas.” That’s all the information she needs. I hear the crash of River entering the water high above me when I return to my Astral form.
I take a single breath, preparing to do the only thing I can. Rock doesn’t have time for me to hesitate. Not even with the thousands of screaming voices in my head. What if it’s just like possessing the Fiend? Can I really control an animal mind? Is this going to mess with my head? I shake it all off and shoot forward into the fish’s body nearest me.
I zip from razor-toothed fish to another. At the time of my arrival, each of them shares but one line of thought. Bite. Eat. Stop. But, having another entity zip through them seems to stun them, just for a second. It disrupts the school’s perfectly synchronized offense just long enough for Rock to bash them away with his long, muscular tentacles. The fish shake off the strikes quickly and lunge for him again. But, by that time, River arrives.
Her great white shark jaw opens wide to suck in several of the fish whole. Most of those who flee her are skewered by the clench of her razor-sharp jaw. In one pass, she mauls a hole in the school of fish big enough for Rock to swim through. Despite his wounds, he heads straight for the crystal pillar. The mystic piranhas give chase around the scarlet ribbons trailing behind him, only to be sucked up by River as she shoots around the pool like a gray lightning strike.
I float behind Rock all the way to the pillar. I watch him coil his tentacles around it. I watch his suckers vacuum seal onto every part of it. I watch his muscles clench and twitch as he fights to dislodge it. The occasional fish latches onto his flesh and tears a hunk off, but he keeps his hold. He pushes and pulls. The pillar rocks an inch forward while River deals with the straggling piranhas. It’s no good. Rock isn’t strong enough to rattle the pillar loose. More fish rise from the glow of the pool every second, magically birt
hed by the Forbidden Shelves themselves. If only I could help… if Rock and River weren’t stuck with someone so utterly powerless, maybe they could both live.
“You’ve got more spirit than anyone.”
Where did that come from? Grandma… I haven’t heard her voice in ten years. She died while I was away with a friend, long before I ever came to the Broken Academy. Crazy old Grandma. Of course, now I know her spirit walking madness, as mom and dad called it must have been the manifestation of Astral abilities that skipped a generation, to me. But these words… I’d forgotten them. Now I hear them booming through my ears as I watch Rock being torn into. As I watch River struggle to save him. As I do nothing.
“You’ve got more spirit than anyone,” Grandma said to me when I was about six. Could… could she have known? Could she have seen? God, she’d be disappointed if she saw me now. “Hoster!” Her voice calls out. I look up and around for her, but she’s nowhere to be found. Still, her voice resounds through the Blue Plane. “So you do hear me! You’ve got all that spirit - now what are you going to do with it? Watch your friends be ripped apart?”
“Grandma?” I whimper. “But… what can I-
“Use it, boy! Use your gift!” Grandma thunders over me. The tone of her voice doesn’t imply choice. And what choice would I have, anyway? I can’t let Rock die! I can’t let the Mystic Core and any hope of defeating the Fiends slip away! Without any idea of what to actually do, I faze forward into Rock’s body. I feel the tissues of his octopus body shudder at my presence.
“I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I can’t move this damn thing!” Rock’s thoughts scroll around his brain on repeat.
“Maybe we can,” I tell him.
“Hoster?” Rock’s thoughts echo out. My answer is a surge of strength, through every fiber, every blood vessel. Rock’s octopus body shines a bright blue as I disperse the energy of my Astral form all throughout him. Within each tentacle, I channel a long, Astral arm. With the might of two people, and sixteen arms, the crystal pillar jerks forward. I flatten my spiritual palms against it, as Rock does his tentacles. We throw ourselves into the hardest shove we can. The pillar topples. The plug is pulled.
The vacuum of water is immediate. Rock’s weakened body shifts back to his human form as the vortex takes him under. River glances up, to my physical form. She kicks her tailfin a few times in an attempt to get to me, but the whirlpool is too strong. She spirals down towards the gaping mouth in the gemstone floor, along with Rock and the piranhas.
I phase out of Rock’s body. I shoot back up towards the platform around the pool. My eyes open, back in the head of my physical body. I stumble forward to the edge of the wooden platform to gaze down at what’s become of the pool. The remaining water spins like a typhoon. The impenetrable black eye in the center of it gazes back at me with twice my intensity. But soon there will be too much for me to jump safely. I heave myself over the side.
I’m swept away the second I hit the water. The vortex spins me around and sucks me down after my companions. To even the deeper depths of the Forbidden Shelves.
Broken Bridges
Darius,
The Forbidden Shelves, Canyon of Bridges
I take a knee the second things start falling apart. I brace to get a better foothold, to leap to the others, but it’s already too late. I reach out for Emery, who’d only just been a couple of feet in front of me. By the time my hand is up, I can barely see her. The chunk of stairs beneath her, and Emery, drift backwards, swallowed by the darkness of the Forbidden Shelves below. I glance above, and behind, but Hoster, Rock, and River are gone too. All that’s left of my world is the tiny hunk of stairs still left beneath me, the other two on it with me, and the blurry walls of bookshelves screeching upwards. I share my fate with Helena and Bart.
The wind alone threatens to rip us from our rocky vehicle. When we collide with other plummeting wreckage, Helena skitters sideways, almost straight off our stairs. She happens to pass me on her way. My hand shoots out to snag her collar, driven by pure instinct. I tighten up as our stair bounces from the wall of bookshelves to another hunk of debris. Miraculously, no books topple over with us, only stone. My arm flaps wildly around with Helena’s body as she slams into the stair several times. I’m not even sure exactly why I fight so hard to hold onto her, but I can’t seem to let go.
Then a second hand seizes her shoulder. Bart. This gives Helena the chance she needs to slip her fingers into cracks in the stairs for a better grip. I put a hand on Bart. We stabilize one another in a tight triangle as the bookshelf walls open up even wider. Our stair drifts close to the edge, wobbling in its war against air resistance. It’s just enough time for the brief thought to cross my mind: why am I helping Bart? Why don’t I leave him to his own devices? Hell, why don’t I throw him off myself? What makes him worthy to be here in these forbidden halls, or inside the Academy at all, free of chains? He sold Academy secrets to the Kyrie. He lost the Blood Farm. He played double agent and screwed both sides.
I pull my hand back from his shoulder. Bart shoots me an instant, suspicious look. But, before anything can come of it, our stair hits something, hard. The impact shatters our stony platform into fifty pieces. I lose my grip on Helena, and all three of us tumble off in different directions. Bart somehow skids onto his heels, a few feet out on the narrow bridge we hit. Helena flattens on her back on the stony floor of it. I stumble backwards until my own back hits the wall.
I feel the ridges and gaps of individual books behind me, yet none of them move. Not from the impact of our fallen stairs. Not even from me slamming into the bookshelf. I look up to find the shelves climb infinitely into the black, where our staircase had just been. Now there are only the books. The opening to the Grand Library is long gone. I look down to Helena, peeling herself off the ground, and Bart, strolling along the edge of a narrow, rocky bridge. He ignores the lingering debris raining down on it from the rest of the spiral staircase. I walk out from the wall to do the same and observe, when I’m surprised by a hand shooting up at me. I helped her once, and now the girl thinks I’m her personal Liftmaster. In spite of myself, I reach down to help Helena up on her feet.
“Thanks,” she sighs. Two hands on her lower back, Helena stretches as she stares up into the rain of stone from above. “The hell are the others?”
“In their own manner of trial, I’d assume,” Bart marvels from the middle of our narrow bridge.
“Trial?” Helena wonders aloud.
“Knowledge about the Fiends is so scarce that even I thought they were just a legend… specific details on creatures such as them, things from the Age of Legends… are likely to be behind guarded doors. It’s as Chief Botan said. The Shelves already divided us. Now it’s trying to defend itself from us. Doing whatever it can to separate us from the Mystic Core, and the forbidden knowledge it holds,” Bart drones on. What I’m wondering is why. Why hide knowledge of these things so deep, even from the leaders of the Academy, the descendants of the ones who had to deal with the Fiends? “Look down,” Bart urges. I almost don’t, out of spite, but curiosity takes over.
“What…” Helena murmurs, a hand over her finely glossed lips. I can’t say the voice in my head is far off from her own level of wonder and confusion.
Below us are five more bridges, exactly like the one we’re on. Beneath the fifth one is only shadow. Each one is lower than the last. Each one connects to very different spots on the bookshelf walls around us. Some are perpendicular to one another, some are offset on a diagonal. The odd thing is, for all those bridges, there isn’t a single door. None of them appear to actually go anywhere. They simply connect one wall of the Forbidden Shelves to another. My eyes inevitably wander to the far side of the bridge we’re on. I felt with my own back that there was no door at the side we’re on. But the other side is too far away to see in the dim, ambient light around us.
“Be right back,” Bart says. I see the same sense of curiosity in his eyes that I feel. He zips off into the dark a
t the far side of our bridge. He reappears seconds later, disappointment set in the lines of his face. “No door on the far side of this bridge.”
“Or any of the ones below us,” Helena notes before I can say a thing. “So… what’s the trial?”
“There are only limited things we can do-”
Bart cuts himself short at the raucous rumble of the bridge beneath us. It rattles us through our shoes, and bones, right up to the ones inside my fingers, which are still fighting with the book I tried to pull from its shelf. It seems able to hold itself halfway in, somehow. I let it go only when I notice the bookshelf actually eating away at the bridge at my feet. The entire shaft of bookshelves closes in, threatening to eventually crush us, rather than release a single tome of its knowledge to us.
“Darius, what the hell?” Helena grunts when she finally steadies herself on her feet.
“There are only limited things we can do,” I quote Bart with a shrug and no shortage of disdain. “I don’t think picking the right book is one of them,” I point out.
“Nor do I,” Bart agrees. Even when he’s being amicable, the sound of his almost musically neutral voice grates on my nerves. His sentences string together like one, long, never-ending hum.
“Alright…” Helena tries to scrape together the spilled basket of her thoughts. “So there are no doors. We can’t touch the books. There’s no way for us to get back up, but…” Her eyes wander to the inevitable, the only real option left to explore. Down.