Concordance

by Cameron Hayden

  Decan waved us on. “Sure can. Right this way.”

  We crawled through the underbelly of the ship, ducking under rotted beams and shimmying past overturned tables and splintered wood. The floor was a mixture of shattered pottery, caked-on cannon powder, and black slime. Rusted nails jutted up out of the floor and walls. One wrong step, or slip of the hand, could leave us with a gaping cut and a nasty infection.

  After crawling under a dragon statue, we made it into what appeared to be the captain’s private study. Since this was a military vessel, I expected a rather barren room, befitting a Shian captain, but I was pleasantly surprised.

  In fact, the long-dead captain seemed to be something of an intellectual. He had a great many books, though most were on the floor; they were little more than hard slate covers and reed paper on iron loops. Tragically, the paper on most of them had long rotted away, which was a great shame—they easily could’ve been the only copies on all of Arkos.

  The captain himself was unlike the rest of his men. He wasn’t dressed in any sort of armor; what was left of his fine orange robes were in tatters. He wore a chain of redwood and ivory religious symbols around his neck—a compass, a mast, an astrolabe. Even back then, the Shians worshiped the Old High Gods and the Great Sea.

  The more I examined the skeletal figure, the less I thought he was a captain, or a military commander.

  Tiffin had gone off to the corner of the study and was leafing through what little text remained in the books. “This is a very old dialect,” she said. “Some of these books were ancient when this boat was new.”

  “Ship,” Decan said.

  “What?” Tiffin said, glancing up.

  “It’s not a boat, it’s a ship,” Decan said, somewhat self-consciously. “My uncle was in the Republic navy, and…” He trailed off to a whisper.

  “Any clues as to who this gentleman is?” I asked Tiffin.

  Before Tiffin could speak, Decan answered me. “He’s a priest.”

  I nodded appreciatively. “Very good. I was talking to Tiffin, though.”

  “Sorry,” Decan said, his face flushing red. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “No, no, it’s quite alright,” I said, ushering him toward me. “You’re completely right. But tell me, why do you think he’s a priest?”

  Decan approached the body hesitantly, and pointed to one of the ivory baubles hanging from its necklace. It was in the shape of an ancient compass.

  “Every priest in Celosa wears one of these,” he said. “It’s a symbol of the Old Gods.”

  “Not bad,” I said. “But plenty of religious folk wear the compass as a symbol of their faith. What else do you see?”

  Decan thought for a moment. “His…his head is shaved? Every other body on the ship still has patches of hair, but not him.”

  I slapped him on the back. “Brilliant.”

  “The clothes give it away too,” Tiffin interjected. “Even to this day, monks in Shindo wear orange robes.”

  “Was this how the room was when you found it?” I asked Decan.

  “Y’sir, exactly like this. I followed the light of the crystal down in here.” He pointed to the right hand of the monk. “It was clenched in his hand, and I slipped it out.”

  “What about not disturbing bodies?” I asked.

  “It ain’t something I’m proud of,” Decan said.

  The body of the monk was in an awkward position, facedown with his right hand pulled close to his side, and his left hand obscured under his chest.

  I leaned down to get a closer look. “The bodies on this ship tell us three important things.” I pointed to Tiffin. “Let’s hear them.”

  Tiffin fumbled from being put on the spot, but she quickly recovered. “Um…that their deaths were nearly instant? Maybe caused by whatever dropped the ship in the mountains.”

  “Yes, brilliant. What else?” I asked.

  Tiffin hesitated. “That…they weren’t on any religious pilgrimage.”

  I cocked my head. “What makes you say that?”

  “Religious men mixed with military personnel. Shian monks are pacifists, and always have been. Seeing soldiers led by a monk is almost a contradiction. They must’ve been protecting him.”

  “Reasonable,” I said. “And what else? More important than that, more important than anything?”

  Tiffin shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Come on, now,” I said, raising my hands and gesturing around the room. “The ship is rocking and tumbling. People are dying. This monk’s first instinct is to grab hold of that crystal for dear life. It’s more precious to him than his own safety. But why? He can’t use it, right? This is an old wooden sailing ship. What does it tell us?”

  “That…” Tiffin began, but her words fell apart and she just stood there.

  Decan answered for her. “That there’s something here we haven’t found?”

  “Where?” I asked, palpable excitement in my voice. I wanted them to figure this out on their own.

  Decan pointed to the skeletal monk. “In his right hand, under the body. If he was trying to protect something important, he’d keep it close to him.”

  At that, I walked right up to the boy, put one hand on each side of his face, and gave him a shake. “Yes, yes, YES! My boy, have you ever had proper schooling? You have a keen mind.”

  “Yes sir, when I was younger, but I had to leave so I could work. Me mum needed the extra money. She passed away, and I never went back.”

  Tiffin knelt beside the monk and shone her magistry lantern close, trying to see what might be in its right hand, to no avail.

  “We’re going to have to move the poor guy,” she said with a cringe.

  I gave a hard sigh. “Unfortunately.”

  Decan took a step back and turned away. “I can’t watch.”

  I cracked my joints and touched my hand to the monk’s chest. Through its tattered robes, I could feel its bare ribcage and what little flesh remained on the bone. Parts of him were stuck to the slimy floor, making moving him much harder than you might expect. Strands of old flesh stuck to the ground, but I finally managed to turn him just enough to see what was in his right hand.

  There were two objects that I could see: one was a sheet of furled parchment, and the other was a small journal-like book. Unlike the other Shian books, this one was leather-bound.

  “Tiffin,” I called, nudging toward it.

  She reluctantly reached underneath the skeleton and grabbed both items and I set the body down softly.

  After that, I think we all felt a bit uneasy, and decided to inspect the documents outside. Once we shimmied and crawled out, we found that the workers had already taken the liberty of setting up some of our equipment. A cloth canopy, five feet wide by five feet long, a folding table, and two chairs.

  The workers appeared interested in what we’d found, but it might’ve just been curiosity as to when they’d be returning to work.

  The journal and parchment were in remarkably good quality. It seemed that, in the end, the monk clenching them and covering them with his body did do something to protect them from the elements.

  Still, unfolding them by hand was dangerous. I took the necessary tools from my pack—a set of plier-like tools with a rubber end, and a soft wooden stick with a rounded end. With these, I was able to unfold the sheets without any breakage.

  The book’s pages were of a different quality than the parchment. The parchment was made from reeds, which were common in Shindo. It was known as the City of Waters, as it was located alongside forty small rivers. Reeds there were more common than trees, and the result was this brittle, olive-colored paper. Unfortunately, it didn’t lend itself well to preservation.

  The book, on the other hand, had once been white paper made from wood pulp. Considering its age, there was only one culture it could possibly belong to. The oldest culture, in fact: the dragonkin.

  I opened to the first page of the journal, excited for what I might find, but coul
dn’t have been more disappointed. The first page was blank, as was the second… I leafed through further, and found they were all like that. Not weathered. Not bleached. There was nothing.

  Unfurling the reed parchment proved more interesting. Hastily scrawled on the front were a great many Shian pictographs. It seemed as though they’d been written by the monk himself. I was elated. It was one thing to guess what happened to the ship and crew, but could this man have actually written it all down before his demise?

  I handed the sheet to Tiffin, who as I’ve said was fluent in the Shian language. After a thorough examination, she was confident enough in the translation, and read it out loud in its entirety.

  The Nineteenth Year of the Serpent.

  The words of Zhuan Yimu Qigang, Seventh Sage of Shindo and the Jade Temple, High Priest of Terithoth.

  Nothing seems real anymore. Not the sky. Not the waves. Not even myself. Words cannot describe the shame I feel in my final hours. Each day, the beasts grow closer. Each day, the beast grows louder. Each day, I feel less human.

  And the tapping. Tapping, in the darkness. It never ends.

  Isaroth the Deceiver sees all. His gaze penetrates shadow and blood, mind and flesh. I hear him in my head, I hear him as clearly as I hear the cries of own men. He will never stop chasing us, so long as we possess that which he desires.

  To those who find this message, I beg you: burn my ship. Burn our bodies. Leave nothing but ash and dust. The darkness lurking beneath Vor’aj can lead only to the ruin of The Arkos. Were I strong enough, I would do so myself, but my body betrays me.

  The Old Gods have forsaken me.

  The light has left me.

  I can’t keep his whispers out much longer.

  He is coming—deathless, sleepless, orderless. Craetos have mercy.

  When Tiffin finished, there was a long, uneasy silence amongst us. My excitement faded, and was replaced with a palpable disgust.

  Decan summed up my internal thoughts quite well. “This ain’t right, Professor Rycroft. Ain’t right by half.”

  “He sounds like he went barking mad at the end,” Tiffin said. “One sheet of ramblings, and a book of nothing. What does it mean?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” I said, mostly to myself.

  It was at that moment that I knew I’d need help. This was something well beyond my expertise, possibly beyond anyone’s expertise. But I had friends in the Magisterium, or so I thought. Certainly, they would be able to help.

  If I’d been smart, I would’ve taken the monk’s advice and burned the ship then and there. To my everlasting shame, I let my drive for knowledge overwhelm the sense of dread in the pit of my soul.

  After this moment, there was no going back.

  Chapter Six

  The Hidden Map

  From that day on, there was little else on my mind but the wreckage of the Shao Zhu. Much to the chagrin of Overseer Decius, I declared the ship a priceless piece of Shian history. Simply put, this meant that its crash site could not be used for construction. The aqueduct would have to go around it, something that would increase the cost and time required significantly.

  I earned quite a few enemies that day. Not just the overseer, but a great many workers who now had to work overtime to save a “hunk of Shian driftwood.” I did make one friend, however: Decan, the worker boy who’d shown us around. I took him on as a second assistant—though, to be honest, he was really just a strong set of arms. Still, he had a rugged curiosity and fascination that reminded me of myself at his age.

  The Shao Zhu was too large and much too fragile to be moved, but over the course of the next month, Tiffin, Decan, and myself were able to bring over one hundred and seventy artifacts safely back to the Acamedria for study.

  Ornamental face masks worn by the Shian oligarchy.

  Thin, jewel-encrusted swords. Decorative only.

  Small jade and ivory statues of dragons, specifically of the dragon patriarchs Sethetrion and Sirion.

  Armor and clothing, much of it nearly perfectly preserved.

  And, of course, books by the crate-load. Many damaged, as I’ve said, but what was left provided a wealth of knowledge and insight into an era that held many secrets.

  Everything was meticulously catalogued and marked, and I’d wager I learned more of Shian culture in that one month than I’d known in my entire life. But despite these amazing finds, my attention would always fall back onto the blank journal we’d found. I’d stare at it for long stretches of time, hold it up to the light, run my fingers across its smooth surface, as if the tenth time I looked at it, the sheets would somehow change.

  It was in late hours of the night, some five weeks after we’d found the ship, that I finally made a breakthrough. To my utter surprise, it was Decan who finally unlocked the secrets of the blank pages.

  I was grading papers when Decan came into my study, hauling a heavy wooden crate. He’d carried it down the stairs from the aboveground levels, and was sweating as he searched for somewhere to set it. I motioned toward the far corner, near the fireplace.

  “What do we have here?” I said, setting my quill down.

  Decan flipped open the bronze latch on the front of the crate, and tilted the lid up, showing off the insides. “It’s the last of the books from the Shao Zhu. The ones still in one piece, anyway.”

  I stood from my chair, walked over, and picked through them. They had heavy covers, and thick engravings on the dull, green and gold spines. “Looks like me and Tiffin will have our work cut out for us tonight,” I mused. “Could you fetch her? She should be in the north-wing library with Professor Naldrem.”

  Decan tapped his fingers together in a nervous gesture. “Beggin’ your pardon, Professor, but is there any way you could be givin’ her the night off?”

  I tilted my head curiously. “Is she sick?”

  “No, sir, I, uh, I was just hoping.” He cleared his throat nervously. “Well, it’s just that there’s a play going on downtown in the Circus Achaerus, she’s been talking about it all week. When we was done down here, I was fixin’ to ask her if she wanted to see it… with me.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. I put one hand on his head and rubbed his messy dark brown hair. He was visibly blushing, and it was all I could do not to laugh.

  “All right, all right,” I said, shooing him off. “I know better than to get between two lovebirds.”

  “It’s not like that—” Decan began. “She’s too classy for me, anyway. Too smart. And she might say no.”

  “Only one way to find out.” I looked around my study, taking note of what cataloguing I had left to finish. Besides the new delivery of books, there were fourteen clay figurines, two ceremonial urns, and a brass telescope. It would be a late night, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle on my own. “Listen, Decan, I think I’ll be all right here. You go on, find Tiffin and have a great night.”

  Decan’s eyes lit up. “You mean it?”

  “Most definitely. And don’t sweat it. She likes you.”

  “Did she say something?” Decan asked, clearly trying to mask his excitement.

  “That, I can’t tell you,” I said slyly. “Why don’t you go find out?”

  Decan tapped his fingers together as if he wasn’t sure what to do next. He started toward the door, but I stopped him just before he could get too far.

  “While you’re with Professor Naldrem, could you ask him to send me back the Illdricyte? He was doing a crystalline analysis for me, but I haven’t heard back from him in days.”

  Decan put his hand to his forehead. “Oh! I almost forgot.” He went to the crate and retrieved a plain, brown envelope from inside and peeled back the fold on top. Inside was the crystal, and a few notes with Professor Naldrem’s handwriting on them.

  “Sorry,” Decan said.

  “It’s no problem. But I can tell you’ll be utterly useless to me in this state,” I said. “Go ahead, set that on the desk over there and get going.”

  Decan did so,
moving to the other side of the room and setting the crystal down with a thud. I was so busy poking through the new Shian books that I didn’t notice he’d set it down right on top of the aged dragon journal we’d found aboard the Shao Zhu. When I glanced back, and saw where it was, my heart jumped in my chest.

  “No, no, no!” I said, hurrying over to my desk and picking the crystal up. “You mustn’t do that.”

  Decan looked startled. “I’m sorry, Professor, what did I do?”

  “Illdricyte is highly corrosive,” I said reproachfully. “And even if it wasn’t, you should never, ever set something on top of a priceless artifact in any case.”

  “I didn’t mean it, Professor.”

  I sighed, wiping the top of the sheet with a soft-bristle brush. “I know, it’s all right. Don’t worry about it. Get going.”

  Each crystalline particle lit up the page like a tiny star, and as I brushed them away onto a glass dish, something wondrous happened. They seemed to fuse with the paper, almost as if they were melting into it. One by one, the bits of starlight faded away, and the faint, hazy outline of words appeared on the sheet. Barely visible to the naked eye, I wouldn’t have noticed them if my face weren’t mere inches from the cover.

  I backed away a moment, glancing at the crystal in my hands.

  “What is it, Professor?” Decan asked, seeing my reaction.

  “I don’t know,” I said quietly. Then, much to Decan’s confusion, I set the crystal directly on the cover.

  It took a moment, but soon the crystal pulsed and the light grew more pronounced. The journal seemed to draw energy away from it, and soon the ink was vibrant and so clear that it looked as though it’d been inscribed the day before.

  There were runes along the sides, pictographs, all encircling what could only be described as a map. I lifted the crystal and set it gently to the side. I was almost afraid to touch the journal, as if moving it would somehow cause the illuminated ink to scatter away.

  Decan came to stand beside me while I gushed over the cover, scanning every inch with my eyes to see what secrets it might yield.