“Yes, thank you!” Rollan shouted in agreement.
“Meh!” Master Naveb waved them both off without turning around. “Such noise! A library is supposed to be a place of quiet contemplation,” he complained, but as he turned the corner, Conor caught the slightest smile on the old monk’s face.
“Come here, Conor,” Abeke urged as they all gathered around the desk where Meilin was hunched over the journal, her face close to the pages.
“The lettering is faded in some parts,” Meilin muttered. “And he writes in this ornate calligraphy-like style.”
She scanned the first pages. “This beginning part is all about Tembo’s travels … where he eats and sleeps.” She read a little further into the journal. “Oh, and here he is talking about some earlier battles and the formation of the Greencloaks.” She gasped. “He was there when Briggan and the other Four Fallen united the Greencloaks against the first Devourer! And he claims that he once rode on Uraza’s back?”
“That … doesn’t sound like Uraza,” Rollan said doubtfully.
“What does it say about Stormspeaker and the Dragon’s Eye?” Anka asked from an unseen location, the shadows of the library giving her even more camouflage than usual.
“Nothing yet … ” Meilin continued reading. “But I’m beginning to think we’ve been walking in this Tembo’s footsteps all along. According to his journal, he’s the mysterious Greencloak who hid the Wildcat’s Claw in Wilcoskov. And it says here that … ” Meilin looked up, her eyes wide. “He was the one who started the tradition of Greencloak leaders passing down the Heart of the Land. Tembo was the first leader of the Greencloaks.” She glanced down again, her finger stopping halfway on the page. “Oh, here’s something even more interesting … ”
“What?” Xanthe leaned over the desk from the opposite side.
“He’s describing his approach to the monastery. Climbing a rope ladder and being greeted by several monks. They welcomed him and gave him a place to stay.” Meilin turned the page. “It says that the monks grew suspicious of him when they discovered that he was carrying two dangerous and powerful items.”
“That was probably them!” Rollan interjected.
Meilin paused and raised a single eyebrow. “Are you going to let me finish?”
Rollan gave her a quick bow in mock deference. “By all means, my lady. Continue.”
Meilin took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Yes, it says that the two objects were the crown of Nefrini, known as Stormspeaker, and an orb called the Dragon’s Eye. That night a group of monks confronted Tembo. There was some type of argument. The monks tried to convince Tembo to give up the objects.” Meilin flipped the page. “This can’t be,” she muttered, turning back to the prior page.
“What’s wrong?” Rollan peered over her shoulder.
“It seems like Tembo took off and left behind this journal with a note for the monks.” She turned the page again and pointed to the words written in square, blocky letters. They were different from the rest of the journal. “It says, and I quote … ” Meilin read the words carefully. “I depart as you wish, but in light of what is written, the orb carries on to no one, and the key to finding Stormspeaker is nowhere to be found.”
“He’d rather destroy them than have the monks guard them?” Takoda took a step back. “Why?”
“No.” Conor shook his head. “A Greencloak wouldn’t do that with something so important. There has to be a mistake,” Conor insisted. “Read it again.” His vision had led them to this place for a reason. Even though something made him wary, he knew they were on the right track. They were close, he was sure of it.
Rollan read over Meilin’s shoulder. “That’s what it says. I don’t think it means that he destroyed it, but he probably hid it in such a way that he thought no one would ever find it.”
The bookshelves appeared to shift under the light of the oil lamp as Anka moved away from the far corner. “Well, we have to go look for the hiding place,” Anka said. “We didn’t come all this way for nothing.”
Xanthe sighed. “But where do you start? Do you have any other leads?”
Conor thought about the vision that had brought them here. Perhaps they weren’t supposed to be searching for the bond tokens in Nilo. Maybe that was what they needed to discover. That the answers were somewhere else. “Maybe we should move on to Zhong. Try to find answers there.”
“No. We can’t simply move on because this didn’t pan out,” Anka countered. “Since when do Greencloaks give up?” She paused, allowing her words to sink in. “Stormspeaker could still be here, and Kovo might have some answers. We can ask him again,” she suggested. “He probably knows about Tembo.”
“You’re right, but this time you can do the asking,” Rollan replied. “I think I may have pushed my luck with that gorilla. Maybe he’ll like that now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t trick.”
“No, Kovo is off-limits,” Takoda stated. “I won’t put him at risk. He may not look it, but he’s very fragile right now.”
Rollan opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it.
“Anka’s right, though.… We have to try other options. Why don’t we look through more records?” Meilin walked around the room. “There are different libraries in this monastery, right? So there must be other books and scrolls. Maybe we can find a clue somewhere else.”
“I’ll go find Master Naveb,” Takoda suggested, heading toward the door. “He may have an idea of where we should start. I’ll be right back.” Then he disappeared into the shadow of the hallway.
“So what do we do while we wait? Just start going through all these books?” Xanthe pulled a random book from the shelf and flipped to a page in the center. “Looking for what?”
“Anything. Something.” Abeke opened a book on ancient Niloan homes. “Maybe someone else wrote about Tembo’s visit and where he went. We can’t give up.”
“No one is quitting,” Rollan reiterated from the other side of the room. “There’s an answer here … somewhere.”
Conor meandered around the room. “I never said anything about quitting,” he muttered. “It was only a suggestion.”
Meilin held out her hand, and with a flash of light, Jhi appeared next to her. The large panda glanced around, noticed that there was no danger in the room, and plopped down on her hind legs.
“Meilin!” Abeke exclaimed in a hushed voice. “We told Takoda we wouldn’t bring out our spirit animals. Don’t you think I want Uraza with me?”
“Uraza doesn’t help you see all sides of a problem like Jhi does,” Meilin countered, stroking the side of the panda’s large neck where the white fur met the black. “Plus, we’re the only ones in here.” Meilin leaned closer and whispered something to Jhi.
Jhi nodded and closed her eyes as Meilin did the same.
Conor thought of Briggan. He wanted to run his hand over the wolf’s silver back and feel the energy that always seemed to fill him up when they were together. Briggan understood him like no one else. Sometimes it felt as if the two of them shared a more personal bond than any of the other Greencloaks did with their spirit animals. It was as if they were both cut from the same cloth. Twin souls.
But now wasn’t the time to have him there. It was time for Conor to focus on what he could for the mission. If only he had some control over his visions. He stared at Tembo’s journal, still open on the desk, willing himself into a trance. No vision came to him, but from where he stood he did notice that some of the letters in the journal seemed to be off-center.
Conor approached the desk slowly, cocked his head to the side, and squinted his eyes. He studied the words carefully. The W was definitely written differently than the other block letters. It was in the calligraphy-like style found in the rest of the journal.
“Um, everyone. I think you need to come over here.” His eyes stayed on the page, as if shifting them away might make it all disappear.
“Do we have to?” Rollan had sat down in a corner with a stack of boo
ks on either side of him. “Can’t you just tell us what you’re thinking?”
“It’s about Tembo and what he wrote.” Conor held up the book. He may not have been the strongest reader in the group, but he knew that the words he saw weren’t the same ones Meilin had read. A smile crept over Conor’s face. The poor shepherd boy had figured it out all on his own. “I think I found our next clue … and it was right here all along. Written in plain sight.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT WAS RIGHT THERE?” ROLLAN asked, slowly getting up from the floor. It was late and he didn’t want to play games. “We all saw what was in the book. Tembo said he hid it somewhere that no one could find.”
“Not quite.” Conor set the book back down on the desk and put his fingertip on one of the last words written at the bottom of the page. “Look carefully at the letters.”
Rollan and the others gathered around Conor and stared at the book. Rollan didn’t understand what was supposed to be happening. The words hadn’t changed.
the key to finding Stormspeaker is nowhere to be found.
“Conor, we’re all tired.” Rollan rubbed his right eye. “Can you just tell us what you’re thinking?”
“The w in nowhere. Look. Don’t you see it?” Conor pointed to the letter as Abeke stared at the book. “The way it’s written, it could be part of the word or there could be a little space after it.”
“So?” Xanthe tucked a lock of her white hair behind her ear as she squeezed by Jhi to get a better look. “How does that—”
“That changes everything!” Abeke exclaimed, throwing her arms around Conor in a big bear hug. “You’re a genius!”
Rollan shook his head. Maybe he was too tired after a long day of trekking through Nilo and climbing up to the monastery, but he still didn’t understand what they were talking about. Usually by this point he could rely on Meilin to say something that would bring it all into focus, but she’d become quiet and pensive. Rollan knew this was Jhi’s influence, allowing her to study a situation from different perspectives, but it was still unnerving to him. He liked Meilin’s normal take-no-prisoners attitude.
“Look.” Conor motioned for Rollan to get closer. “If you read nowhere as two separate words”—he placed his finger under the word—“it says that the key to finding Stormspeaker is now here to be found.” He let out a little sigh. “But ‘here’ is a pretty big place, and we still don’t know where to start looking.”
Meilin stood still, biting her bottom lip while staring at the journal. She had one hand buried in Jhi’s fur and the other just hung by her side.
“Meilin.” Xanthe said her name softly. “Are you okay?”
“Mm-hm,” Meilin muttered absentmindedly. Then she blinked, her mouth twitched, and the edges of her lips curled up.
Rollan could sense that the Meilin he knew was coming back. “Oh, she’s got something.” He felt the energy in the room shift. He loved that Meilin had that effect on people and situations.
“I knew it!” Takoda barged into the library. “I said not to bring out any of the Great Beasts and you did it anyway. Kovo is restless, and it’s because Jhi’s here.”
Abeke’s face hardened. “His being bothered by having such a kind and peaceful soul as Jhi in the monastery says more about Kovo and his lack of growth than anything else could.” She rolled back her shoulders. “We needed answers, and Jhi is the only Great Beast who could, or would, help.”
Meilin rubbed Jhi’s back. “Thank you, my friend,” she whispered as she held out her arm. “I’ll bring you out again soon.” Jhi glanced at Takoda and dipped her head. In a flash of light she disappeared, once again becoming a tattoo on Meilin’s hand.
“I don’t mean to be rude.… It’s just the way things have to be.” Takoda seemed embarrassed. “I couldn’t find Master Naveb and then Kovo started to—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Rollan interrupted. “Conor figured out that the clue is here, and I think Meilin knows something more.” He held back a mischievous smile. “If her highness is ready to share it with the rest of us.”
Meilin rolled her eyes. “All right … ” She walked in front of the desk, then glanced back at Rollan. “You think you can keep up?” she teased.
Rollan laughed. “Oh, I can more than keep up. Just try me!”
In the light of the broken oil lamp, Rollan could see Meilin’s cheeks turning pink with their little banter.
“So what is it?” Anka asked from somewhere in the room.
Meilin pointed to the page numbers on the bottom corner of each page. “Tembo wasn’t only clever about using the words now and here.… He also put another clue for everyone to see.” She pointed to the page number written on the last page. “This page should be 147, since the one before is 146, but it’s numbered 159.”
“So there are pages missing,” Conor reasoned. “Someone tore them out.”
Meilin shook her head. “No, nothing seems to be missing, and the five in 159 isn’t how Tembo wrote his other number fives. It actually looks more like an S.”
“One-S-nine?” Rollan was puzzled. “What does that mean?”
Meilin bit her lip. “That’s what I don’t know.”
“One-S-nine,” Takoda repeated. “One Scroll nine. That’s how we catalog all our ancient scrolls. Library One, scroll number nine!”
“Tembo could have listed the location of Stormspeaker there!” Rollan put his hands on Takoda’s shoulders and turned him around to face the door. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go find it.”
Takoda wiggled away. “Library One is our original library, where our most ancient records are kept. No one goes in there without permission from Master Naveb. No one.”
“Seriously?” Meilin put her hands on her hips. “You’re not going to help us get it?”
“I don’t think that’s what he meant.” Xanthe stepped in. “Takoda has permission to go inside. He can get it and bring it back here for us.” She glanced at Takoda and widened her eyes. “Right? Isn’t that what you meant?”
Takoda didn’t say anything, and Rollan certainly didn’t like the idea. “But what if there are other clues over there? Something Takoda might overlook. Stormspeaker itself might be hidden inside.”
“I wouldn’t miss anything,” Takoda corrected. “If it’s there, I’d see it.”
“Exactly.” Xanthe nodded. “So Takoda will take care of it. Isn’t that so, Takoda?”
“It’s not the way things are supposed to work, but … ”
Xanthe placed her hand on Takoda’s arm and he grew quiet. “Then it’s settled!” Xanthe said brightly.
Takoda looked down at Xanthe’s hand still on his arm. He smiled and nodded.
“The window!” Xanthe abruptly shouted, pointing to the far side of the room.
Everyone turned to look as Xanthe darted toward it.
“What is it?” Anka asked, already by the window.
“A pair of eyes,” Xanthe muttered, staring into the dark night. “I think it was a bird peering in, because it took off when I pointed.”
Xanthe thrust open the window and looked out. The night breeze slipped into the room, causing the flame of the oil lamp to flicker.
“At this time of night, maybe it was an owl?” Takoda suggested. “Though I’ve never seen one up here.”
A shriek in the distance echoed through the room.
Rollan knew exactly who made that noise.
Essix.
“I think I know who that was.” Rollan smiled. “My faithful companion didn’t want to come in. She’s just letting us know she’s nearby.”
“But isn’t Essix really big?” Xanthe leaned a little farther out the window, still scanning the sky. “I don’t think this bird was that large.”
“It’s really dark and you were pretty far away.… How could you tell?” Anka asked.
“Being from Sadre, where there’s no sunlight, I can usually see better at night. But maybe I was wrong.” Xanthe let out a deep sigh. “My eyesight has changed since I’ve be
en aboveground … one of the negatives of being here, I guess.”
Takoda walked over to Xanthe. “You still have the best nighttime vision of anyone I know,” he said softly. “We’ll visit Phos Astos soon, and then I’ll be the one who can’t see too well.” He leaned over the windowsill and pulled the window closed. “So let’s keep this closed, in case Essix changes her mind.” Takoda smiled and glanced over at the Greencloaks. “At least while I go to Library One and get the scroll for all of us to read.”
Rollan wasn’t sure where Library One was located, but it couldn’t have been too far, because Takoda returned within minutes, a little out of breath. In one hand he held a large rolled-up scroll, and in the other was an oil lantern.
“Here it is,” Takoda said, hanging up the lantern. “I don’t think anyone has read this in a very long time.” He blew off a large layer of dust as Rollan helped unfurl the scroll over the desk.
“It’s an academic study of the desert sands,” Xanthe said, standing on the other side of Takoda. “Different types of minerals, how they shift with the wind, what plants grow best in each sand. Does this help you at all?”
Rollan didn’t respond. He had made sure to stand next to Takoda so he wouldn’t be the last one to figure out the clue this time. He wanted to prove to everyone, especially Meilin, that he had more than just street smarts.
They spent close to an hour reading through the scroll. Rollan’s eyes felt as if they were beginning to cross, and the words were swimming around on the paper. He wasn’t any closer to finding Stormspeaker.
“I’ve lived around deserts all my life—” Abeke yawned, interrupting herself. “And I never thought someone could write this much about … sand.”
“Why not?” Rollan touched the Heart of the Land, the amber stone hanging on a chain under his shirt. He knew that sand, like dirt, could shape a continent. “It’s a powerful part of the earth.”
Abeke rolled her eyes. “You think I don’t know that?” She shook her head. “Don’t forget, I’m the one from Nilo. I’ve seen sand carried in a windstorm causing the sun to be blocked out and turning the day into night. It’s overtaken whole villages, covering everything. You probably haven’t seen anything like that in Amaya.”
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