Akarnae

by Lynette Noni

  It was a death-trap, but according to her friends it was also the only way out of the room.

  “All right, let’s do this,” she said, causing both Jordan and Bear to whoop excitedly.

  “I’ll go first, then you follow me, Alex, exactly where I step. Bear will come behind you,” Jordan said. “And remember, only one person on a square at a time.”

  She hadn’t been told that before. “Why?”

  Jordan grimaced and said, “They’re kind of… booby-trapped.”

  “Booby-trapped,” she deadpanned.

  He looked at her innocently and shrugged as if to say it wasn’t his fault.

  “You know what?” Alex muttered. “I don’t even want to know how you know that.”

  Jordan’s smile widened when he realised she wasn’t going to yell at him. “Ready, then?”

  He took her terse nod as an affirmative and turned his attention to the square closest to him, waiting for it to change from black to a safer colour. The moment it became a wooden surface, he jumped.

  I can’t believe I’m about to do this, Alex thought, as Jordan moved to the next square over, leaving her to jump after him.

  The first jump was the hardest, but it became easier after that. She continued following Jordan around the room, only glancing back occasionally to make sure Bear was still following them. Both boys frequently asked how she was doing, but she was so focused on not tripping onto the dangerous squares that she couldn’t say much more than “fine” or “still here” or “I’m going to kill you later” without losing her concentration.

  The further they travelled across the room, the more her confidence grew. It really wasn’t so hard. In fact, she could almost understand the thrill that both Jordan and Bear seemed to get from the experience. She felt a distinct sense of accomplishment every time she narrowly avoided a dangerous square or made a particularly impressive jump onto a safe one. It was… exhilarating.

  “Still with us back there?” Jordan called, glancing over his shoulder.

  Seriously? Where else would she be? Alex looked down at the ominous black square to her left and realised that perhaps he wasn’t enquiring just to annoy her. She felt tingly all over as she looked into the empty space.

  “Yeah, I’m still—” Alex broke off when she realised that something wasn’t right, since her tingly feeling was escalating. Glancing down, she saw that the wooden square she’d been standing on had changed to blue. She hadn’t even noticed it pulsing, but now her legs were quickly turning numb.

  “Jordan, move!” she called, hurrying him along.

  “I can’t—I’m boxed in!”

  She looked ahead. Sure enough, all the squares around his safe wooden one were either black or red. He wouldn’t be moving on until they changed colour, and none of them were pulsing yet.

  “Alex,” Bear called urgently from behind her. “Move to your right.”

  “But I—”

  “NOW!” he ordered.

  Trusting Bear, Alex jumped awkwardly off her square just as it turned a dangerous red colour. Her semi-numb legs almost sent her careening right over the other side of the new floor, but she managed to balance herself just in time. Unfortunately, she’d landed on another blue square, increasing her discomfort. The space diagonally opposite her was wooden so she leapt for it, but her wobbly legs couldn’t hold the landing this time and her momentum carried her onto the next piece of carpet.

  Jordan and Bear screamed out her name as her numb body fell onto the grey surface. She was instantly airborne, clinging on for dear life and flying upwards at a devastating speed.

  Five seconds, she willed her brain to comprehend. I’ve only got five seconds before it disappears and I’ll fall.

  The realisation shocked her body to respond and her adrenaline to kick in, pumping blood to her numb extremities. She didn’t have time to think about anything but survival as she pushed herself up and threw herself over the side of the carpet, just as it disappeared beneath her.

  It was remarkable how high she’d been tossed in only a few seconds. And it was just as remarkable how quickly she fell. She couldn’t bring herself to scream as the patterned floor moved closer and closer. Irrationally, she worried about which square she would land on, before realising that it wouldn’t matter since she was about to become like a bug on a windscreen.

  She had only a moment to glimpse the horrified expressions on her friends’ faces as the floor rose to meet her.

  “ALEX!”

  “NO!”

  Alex never heard the crunch of her body slamming against the ground. Nor did she feel the accompanying agony. She was surprised, really, to learn that dying would be so quick and painless.

  But then a new kind of surprise filled her when she realised that the reason she didn’t feel any pain was because she hadn’t hit the ground. She was still falling.

  Only then did Alex scream, as she plummeted down the black square and into the darkness below.

  Sixteen

  “She wove him a hat made from a melody

  He wondered how to fix his calamity

  If she’d known how to sing

  He’d have worn it with a grin

  But instead he preferred it a parody.”

  Alex stirred into consciousness, slowly making out the quiet voice of someone singing.

  “She sewed him some socks made from a happenstance

  He wondered why they looked just like his pants

  If she’d known how to sew

  He’d have worn them with a bow

  But instead he hoped she’d ignore their absence.”

  Not yet ready to become fully awake, Alex lay listening to the soothing baritone.

  “She knitted a coat made from a memory

  He wondered about her sense of propriety

  If she’d known how to knit

  He’d have worn it in a jiff

  But instead he worried about atrophy.”

  That doesn’t even make sense, Alex thought. What a weird song.

  She waited to hear the next verse, but the voice stopped singing and asked, “Are you ready to wake up yet, my young friend?”

  “Not really,” Alex mumbled. She was warm and comfortable. She felt safe for the first time in recent memory. Why would she want to wake up?

  The voice chuckled lightly. “Come now, you’ll feel much better once you’ve had something to eat.”

  Alex’s stomach grumbled at the mention of food and she opened her eyes hesitantly, afraid of what she might see.

  “Where am I?” she asked, sitting up to look around the room. She was lying on a cushy couch in what seemed to be a study of some kind. Flaming torches illuminated overflowing bookshelves that lined the room, and there was a single wooden desk wedged in the corner. Seated behind the desk was a man facing away from her. He was writing with an old-fashioned calligraphy quill, feather and all.

  “And who are you?” she added, when the man didn’t answer her immediately.

  “Just a moment, please,” he said. A candle on the desk flickered shadows over the side of his face when he turned slightly in her direction. His short, silvery-grey hair—the only feature she could distinguish from her angle—glowed with the light of the flame.

  The man continued scribbling for another minute before he signed off with a flourish and placed his feathered pen on the desk. When he turned around, the first thing Alex noticed were his intelligent grey eyes, followed closely by his kind smile.

  “Thank you for your patience, Alexandra,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

  She opened her mouth and closed it—twice—before she settled on the truth. “Confused,” she said, before hastily adding, “sir.”

  The man laughed. It was a pleasant sound, deep and hearty. The noise filled her with warmth. “No need to call me sir, my dear. My name is Darrius.”

  She smiled at him. Maybe it was the fact that she’d awoken to hear him quietly singing, or that his calm and pleasant demeanour filled her with a se
nse of peace, but whatever the reason, she felt relaxed in his presence.

  “Confused, Darrius,” she repeated.

  His eyes lit with humour. “I’ve no doubt about that, Alexandra. You’ve had quite a knock on the head.”

  At his words, Alex realised that her head was throbbing slightly. But she didn’t remember hitting it. In fact, she couldn’t remember anything after falling through the black square.

  “How did I get here?”

  “You fell,” Darrius answered.

  She really needed to start phrasing her questions differently. Either that, or she needed to meet some people who didn’t feel the unnecessary desire to state the obvious.

  “And how did I land?” she clarified. “Without dying?”

  “As to your first question, you landed head-first, which really was unfortunate,” Darrius said. “But no matter, a little bump on the head won’t cause you discomfort for too long.”

  Lucky me, Alex thought.

  “As for your second question,” he continued, “why would you have died?”

  “Uh… maybe because of how far I fell?” Alex said. Darrius just looked at her so she added, “It was a long way! Like, flatten-into-a-pancake long way.”

  He perched his fingers together under his chin. “And yet, here you are before me in one piece.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” she said, barely refraining from rolling her eyes. “I’m just not exactly sure how I’m in one piece.”

  “The Library is full of wonders,” Darrius simply said. “No one alive knows all of its secrets.”

  “We’re still in the library?” Alex asked, gobsmacked. “How deep down are we?”

  “Come and see for yourself,” he offered, motioning for her to follow him over to a curtain.

  Alex rose unsteadily to her feet and walked across the room, reaching out to pull the curtain aside. “What the—?”

  Clouds. That was all she could see. Fluffy white clouds in a periwinkle blue sky that stretched on forever. She looked down, but there were only more clouds beneath her.

  Vertigo took a hold and Alex swayed on her feet. Before she could fall, Darrius grabbed her elbow and led her back to the couch. He walked over to the wall beside one of the bookshelves and tapped on a remote TCD. Within seconds he was pushing a bowl of soup into her hands.

  “Eat,” he said gently, patting her shaking hand. “Then we’ll talk.”

  Alex nodded, too shocked to speak, and picked up the spoon. As she slurped the soup she tried to process what she’d just seen. Aside from the obvious impossibilities, she couldn’t get past the fact that she’d entered the library at night with her friends, but from the view out the window it was clearly daytime again. She must have been unconscious for hours. Jordan and Bear were probably worried sick about her. She only hoped they hadn’t done anything stupid—like tried to follow her down the black square.

  Alex glanced around as if expecting her friends to pop out from behind a bookcase, but when they didn’t appear, she decided to presume that they had made it safely out of the hopscotch room and—hopefully—begun organising a search party for her.

  On that optimistic thought, she gulped down the last few mouthfuls of soup and scraped the sides of the bowl before laying it aside.

  “Better?” Darrius asked.

  “Much. Thank you.”

  He waved aside her gratitude and waited for her to speak.

  She gathered her thoughts and said, “So, I fell, right? And I landed on my head?” Darrius nodded. “But where did I land geographically speaking? If we’re still in the library, how come we’re, like, hundreds of storeys up in the air?”

  He smiled as if he approved of her question. “As I said, the Library has many secrets. This one, however, I believe it will allow me to share with you. Hot chocolate?”

  Alex blinked. “Err—yes, please?” she said, more a question than an answer.

  Only after Darrius had ordered their drinks from the TCD and sat back down again did he speak. “The Library was constructed before the beginning of time—or at least, time as we understand it. We don’t know how it was built, nor do we know who it was built by or even who it was built for. We don’t even know the exact date it was discovered. What we do know is that for hundreds of years, kingdoms and empires alike sought to lay claim to this marvellous archaeological structure.”

  He took a sip from his drink. “History refers to the Library as ‘The Jewel of Medora’. It rose higher than the heavens and could be seen from a great distance in any direction. Its rooms held unimaginable wealth not only in the form of knowledge and wisdom, but material riches as well. For this reason, battles waged unceasingly for its ownership until even the soil was stained by blood.

  “Those were dark and gloomy days. People fought for what they desired but could never truly attain. Ultimately, their greed was rewarded by death and destruction.

  “The Library wasn’t an object to be claimed, but a haven for all to share and use. Having witnessed so much pain and suffering, it decided that the knowledge stored within was too great for mankind to be entrusted with, since all we were capable of was seeking our own ruin. Knowledge is power, and to be human is to desire power. So the Library made a decision.

  “Battle-weary and bone-tired, the newest round of combatants were nursing their injuries and burying their dead after a hard day of conflict, when suddenly the ground started trembling. Those standing were brought to their knees as the earth shook around them. Gale-force winds stripped trees of their leaves and filled the air with debris. No one could see anything in the chaos and confusion, nor could they hear anything above the deafening roar.

  “But then, just as suddenly as it started, so too did it end. It was only when the dust cleared that they bore witness to a truly inexplicable sight. The magnificent Library was no more.”

  Alex waited impatiently while he drained the last of his drink. “Then what happened?” she prompted, sitting on the edge of her seat.

  “Well, without a Library to fight over, there was no more reason for the bloodshed,” Darrius told her. “The armies retreated and the soldiers were sent home. The loss of the Library was a cause for mourning—so much knowledge and treasure had been lost—but many secretly rejoiced over its disappearance. In fact, we now commemorate the event with an annual holiday, one which we’ll be celebrating in only a few weeks from now, called Kaldoras. Loosely translated, it means ‘peace’. Over time, most people have forgotten the true reason for the holiday, and it has become much more commercial in nature, as is the way of events such as this. Kaldoras is now hailed as an excuse for gift-giving and feasting with loved ones, but the real origin of the celebrations is because, after the Library’s disappearance, peace came to the lands for the first time in generations.”

  Darrius let her mull over that for a moment before he continued his story.

  “Now,” he said, “around the time of the Library’s disappearance, a young Meyarin by the name of Eanraka founded a school for what he referred to as the ‘gifted’. He invited those whom he believed to have special talents to come and learn in an environment that would train them to the best of their abilities. But ultimately he was just one person, even if he was a Meyarin, and he was soon overwhelmed by challenges. He thought of abandoning his school until one day the answer to his problems literally appeared before him. Eanraka was walking towards his office when he tripped down a staircase he’d never seen before and found himself in an immense underground room.”

  Darrius smiled at Alex and said, “You can see where the story is going, no doubt. The room he stumbled upon was the foyer of the great Library. From that day forward the Library was once again in a place where people could share in its knowledge. No longer the Jewel of Medora, the Library now rests unseen except by those whom it considers worthy.”

  “But… doesn’t everyone know that the library is at Akarnae?” Alex asked. “Students have come and gone for years since then.”

  “You’re quite
right that the general population understands that there is a library of quality at the academy, but very few realise it is the Library of legend. It doesn’t reveal its secrets to just anyone, you know.”

  “And that’s another thing,” Alex said. “You said the library didn’t like all the fighting and made the decision to disappear… But, Darrius, it’s a library. A building. Why do you keep talking about it as if it’s a person? I can practically hear you capitalise it. You have to know that’s weird, right?”

  “It is much more than a person,” he answered cryptically. “I can’t explain what I don’t understand, but all I know is that the Library is, for lack of a better word, alive. And it seems to like you. Very few people over the course of history have been Chosen to bear its secrets. No doubt you’re going to have some interesting times ahead of you, Alexandra.”

  Alex looked at him with wide eyes. She was already stuck in another world; she wasn’t sure if she could handle her life becoming any more interesting.

  “There’s something else I should warn you about,” Darrius continued, oblivious to her thoughts. “As you’ve likely gathered from the adventure which led you here, the Library isn’t merely a building for storing books and resources. Knowledge and wisdom come from experiences and challenges, adversity and even failure. The rooms you may encounter won’t be at all like what you’d expect to find in a normal library. But if you so desire, you’ll learn more than you could possibly imagine as you explore its secrets.”

  If the other rooms he referred to were anything like the hopscotch room, then Alex wasn’t really sure that she was up to such exploration. But at the same time, she had to admit she was a little excited about the possibilities. Jordan and Bear would love it.