by Liv Daniels
Finally Leina forced herself down the remaining flights of ladders. Halfway down a little boy passed her, not using the ladder at all but climbing like a gecko down the sheer wall. Even with no ladder, he was climbing at least twice as fast as Leina. She tried to imagine someone as old as the Sage doing that, or even climbing the ladders for that matter, and her stomach lurched. Finally Leina made it to the bottom, and she darted inside the Sage’s doorway before she could think any more about the dizzying height that she was still at.
It didn’t appear that the Sage had moved from her place at the table the whole time Leina was gone. When she saw Leina, her eyes were recalled as if out of deep thought. Leina sat down wordlessly at the table, and soon the Sage got up and went over to the kitchen to make something to eat. It was the same kind of insect meal, of course. It really wasn’t very bad, but Leina still had a hard time forcing herself to eat it. This time it was accompanied by a steaming cup of water that seemed to be infused with some kind of earthy tinge.
It was only after she was done eating that Leina risked talking. “Why are the Yurukim here?” she asked.
“Ahh,” said the Sage. “You would be wondering that.” She took a long, slow sip of her drink and then commenced to explain: “We did not always live down here. Long ago, when all was different, the Desert was our land. It always was a harsh place, but not so much as it is now. We lived in peace. We satisfied our restlessness by moving around a lot. I imagine that you could still see our old homes if you wandered long here in the North. We were nomads, building dwellings for ourselves in the cliffs and then moving on to make new ones, always working, making each more elaborate than the last.
“Then a leader rose up among us. She was different than the rest of us. It was said that she was found wandering alone in our land many years ago, and we never knew who or what she really was. She was strong and cunning, but soon we learned that she had evil ambitions. By the time we tried to overthrow her, it was too late. She would have destroyed us, but those that survived, our ancestors, fled and journeyed in secret to the deepest and most hidden place that they knew. And so we are here, and we have forgotten the way out, and know no more of what happens above.”
“What was her name?” Leina asked.
“We called her Lady Que’ttal.”
Leina gasped. That was the name of the disturbing book about tearing down walls that she had picked up in Cavlin: The Sign of Que’ttal. It was still tucked in her cloak in the other room. She had planned on giving it to Sam in case it became useful, but decided not to at the last minute. If he was crazy enough to try to kill her, she had told herself, why help him? And anyways, she had thought, it probably wasn’t relevant. But somehow it kept coming up. “I thought Que’ttal was some kind of evil cult,” Leina said, “not a single person.”
“And it well may have been,” said the Sage.
The Sage provided no more answers, so Leina changed her vein of questions entirely. “Why are you the Sage?” she asked. She was already learning not to ask questions like that of the Sage, but it was difficult to stop herself.
“Why are you the Masked One?” The Sage responded. It wasn’t too far afield from what Leina had expected her to say. But the Sage didn’t stop there. “Be silent, young one. The Desert has stolen from us all the stillness of our hearts and minds. But only because we have let it do so. You must not fear the silence. Embrace it like you used to. Be at peace with yourself.”
“What makes you think I used to?” Leina demanded, but she received no answer.
After a long stillness, the Sage said, “You should go to bed.”
“What, after lunch?” Leina said, startled out of her thoughts.
The Sage chuckled. “This was dinner. You missed lunch because you were out.”
Leina blinked. In this sunless place, time was like the wind—felt by all, seen by none. How much sooner did each hour bring the destruction of her Agency?
Chapter 19
When Leina awoke the next morning, the Sage was gone. There was food laid out for her, and she was hungry enough to nibble at it. Then she decided to undertake the perilous journey to the library again. To her surprise, it was easier this time. She didn’t have to cling quite so hard to the railing on the bridge.
The library was empty today, except for the librarian in the front. Leina perused the collection until she found something interesting and sat down with it, but her mind invariably wandered to the subject of the mysterious Cora. Leina didn’t know why she was so struck by her. Perhaps it was simply that the self-proclaimed princess was alike to Leina and yet miles apart in difference. Leina found something in her eyes unsettling. How she never smiled or showed anything but a passing interest, yet somewhere underneath that bearing was a startling intensity. Leina had some inexplicable desire to help her. Silly. She doesn't need your help any more than anyone else.
At last, Leina put down the book in defeat and started to leave. But then she saw the note pinned on the door. It read:
Now hiring. Maid for Cora. Pays well, room and board provided.
Leina immediately consulted the librarian.
“Do you know anything about the notice on the door?”
The young woman stared at her with no large amount of interest. “What do you want to know?”
“How to apply, I suppose.”
The librarian scoffed. “If you want the job, you can have it.”
Leina hesitated. “Really?”
“Of course. No one wants that job. Disagreeable girl.”
“Hmm. I’ll take it, then. If you don’t mind that it might only be temporary. Where does she live?”
That question finally got the librarian’s attention. She gave Leina a scrutinizing eye. “Are you mad? She lives here, of course. This is her library. Open for the public benefit. Everyone knows that.”
“Oh really?” Leina said, then muttered, half to herself, “Princess of the library, is she?”
“What?” said the librarian.
Leina smiled. “Nothing. I’ll be back with my things in a few minutes, if that’s alright.”
“Whatever you say.”
***
The Sage was at home, and now Leina was faced with the uncomfortable task of explaining her sudden whim. After the long arduous journey back, Leina herself was beginning to doubt why she had done such a silly thing.
“You know,” Leina began slowly, pausing to gauge the Sage’s response.
“Go on, young one,” said the Sage with unhelpful indifference.
“Well,” said Leina, “it’s been so nice of you to take me in like this, but I can’t help but think I should be… earning my own keep, you know?”
“Ahh…” trailed the Sage.
Leina bit her lip. “So when I saw that there’s an opening to be a maid for Cora, I took the job.”
The Sage leapt up from her customary seat at the table with remarkable vivacity, and Leina jumped back in fright.
“Good,” said the Sage heartily, in what seemed like a rapid banter in comparison to her usual speed of speech. “Just what you need.”
Leina couldn’t fathom why the Sage was so pleased, but she found herself laughing in relief. “I’m supposed to start right away; I’ll just get my cloak.”
“Good. Go on.”
When Leina returned, she said, “Really, thank you for taking me in.” Then she added, “When the man from Estlebey comes… you will tell me?”
The Sage sat down and resumed her usual depth of composure. “All when the time is right, young one. Masked One.”
***
On her return to the library, Leina was promptly ushered to Cora’s room. Cora wasn’t there, so Leina spent ten minutes trying in vain to find even a speck of dust. Leina was now convinced that either Cora’s last maid or Cora herself was something outside of human.
It was a small, dark room, as most were down here, but it was the most nicely furnished place that Leina had seen in the cliff dwelling. There was a rug on the
ground, an actual bed built out of a stone slab with something like a mattress on it, a fireplace with coals still smoldering, and a stone desk in the corner shaped with more artistry than most of the blunt things around here. The marble-like walls were polished smooth, with little buttresses carven in the corners. There was a small but exquisite harp leaning against one wall. Leina couldn’t help but run her hand over the strings. A faint haunting glissando took shape under her fingers and seemed to float barely perceptible in the air for some time after.
Cora entered, and she started sharply, dropping the book she was carrying. But in an instant she had collected her stony composure. “Why are you here?” she muttered, barely opening her mouth.
“I’m your new maid,” said Leina. In response to a look on Cora’s face that might have been horror, Leina added, “Probably only for a few days. I’ll be leaving this place as soon as I can. I’m just filling in until you can find someone else.”
“No,” said Cora, “I mean, why are you here?”
Leina shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably because you confound me, and I want to understand you.” Leina chided herself inwardly for being so blunt. Oh well, can’t take it back now. Now you’ve got to follow through with it.
“I think I understand you less,” said Cora.
“Probably. I don’t know why, but I seem to be the only person who wants this job. And I really do want it. I’m not trying to spy on you or hurt you or anything like that. I’m just trying to be your friend.”
“Then you can start by sweeping. It’s a mess in here.”
Chapter 20
Leina’s new room was small and plain, like most Yurukim dwellings. But what she found there quickly elevated it to a palace in her regard. A platter of actual food was waiting for her! She devoured the salted meat and rice with a vengeance, realizing for the first time how hungry the last few days had made her. She couldn’t imagine how such things had made their way here, but she didn’t feel inclined in the least to question it.
Now that you’re saved, Leina told herself after she was done, don’t get too comfortable. Once that Expeditionary Force meeting comes, you’re going to find a way out of here no matter what they say.
***
There was already food laid out for Leina when she woke up the next morning, as if left by a phantom. After she ate, she wandered out into the long hallway that stretched into the stone wall of the fissure. Cora’s house was big, with many rooms branching out of the hall, but Leina didn’t see anyone. The house was as stony silent as Cora herself.
When Leina made her way down to Cora’s room, she found the purported princess already awake and studying something intently at her desk. As before, the room was immaculately clean. Cora sat perfectly straight, and not so much as a hair on her head was out of place. Leina wondered if it was really possible for someone to live like that. It seemed that Cora’s being was balanced precariously in an unbreakable equilibrium.
“Um, good morning,” Leina said after a long pause during which Cora didn’t seem to notice her. “I haven’t been told what I’m supposed to do, so I thought I would ask.”
“I like the fire made before I wake up,” said Cora in a cursory kind of way, not moving an inch.
“And when do you wake up?” asked Leina.
“I don’t know. The Yurukim don’t keep time. The coal is at the end of the hall on the left.”
Leina soon returned with the coal and made up a blazing fire. “You’re not one of the Yurukim, are you?” she asked as she worked.
“No,” said Cora. After a pause, she said, “’Yurukim’ means ‘Gecko People’ in their old language. I think they’re called that because they eat reptiles, when they can get them. They consider geckos a delicacy.”
Leina chuckled, trying to imagine what kind of people would name themselves after their food. “You know, anything’s possible, but I can think of at least one other reason.”
Cora blinked. “How did you know that? About me not being one of them?”
“Easy enough. You call them ‘the Yurukim.’ And you don’t talk like them. Your speech is more like those in Estlebey. And… like my own.” Leina halted suddenly as she spoke those last words. She hadn’t thought about that before.
“I talk like my father, if that’s what you mean.”
Leina considered not saying anything, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Is he here? Your father, I mean?”
Cora sniffed. “No. He died a month ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright.”
Leina raised her eyebrows. Finished with the fire, she drifted over to Cora’s desk and leaned on a nearby wall. “So, are you… alone here?”
“Haven’t you seen the cook?”
“No, I thought she was a ghost.”
Cora made a half-strangled sound that might have been a repressed laugh. Then she said in her quiet voice, “She’s the only other one. My mother died right after I was born. I don’t think anyone else would take me in, and I don’t want them to. I can take care of myself.”
Leina was silent for a long time. Then she said, “I don’t know who my parents are, or were. I don’t even know who I am, really. I think a lot of other people know something about my name, but no one has ever told me. Most of the time I’m afraid to ask.”
“Oh.”
Cora fell to silence again. Leina looked over her shoulder to see what she was working on. It was a trigonometry problem. Cora was working out a complicated solution that looked like it spanned several pages. It was a brilliant idea; Leina couldn’t fathom how Cora had thought of it. But however brilliant, it would never lead her to the answer. That was how Cora was—incredibly astute, and yet for all her remarkable observations, they almost invariably led her to false conclusions.
Leina picked up a stray pen. “That’s amazing, but you won’t get the answer that way. They just want you to do this.” She wrote out a few lines of numbers. “See?. Everyone’s favorite number.”
Cora looked up and her deep eyes met Leina’s for a moment, then they fluttered away. “Actually, I like seven thousand, six hundred and fifty-four.”
Leina chuckled. “I always liked infinity.”
“Not ?”
“Oh, no. That was a joke. Actually, though, that’s a very nice answer in trigonometry.” Leina paused. “Is this what you do all day? Study?”
Cora flipped the page in her book and began working on another problem. “Yes. I don’t know how to do much else.”
“I used to be like that. Now I can’t seem to find a book when I want one. They’re very rare in other parts of the world, you know. Where do yours come from?”
“The man from Estlebey brings them.”
“Ah. Funny thing, I used to know a man who brought books like that. Does he bring your dresses and food, too?”
“Yes.”
“The other funny thing is that Estlebey is closed. No one is supposed to go in or out. He must know about the smuggling tunnels.”
Cora did not respond. Leina went and found a broom and started sweeping in Cora’s room. Of course it was pointless amidst the shining cleanliness, but Leina didn’t know what else to do.
“You know, the rest of the house needs sweeping too,” Cora murmured.
“Oh, right,” said Leina, and off she went in search of dust. She found it in plenty in the other rooms, which looked like they hadn’t been touched in a very long time. All of the furniture was covered with sheets and the floors were thick with dust. That gave Leina plenty to do, and she spent the rest of the day in the ponderous silence of the darker corners of Cora’s abode.
Chapter 21
Cora was not very communicative for the next few days, and the silence dragged on unbroken. Leina had never known such a silence. In the woods there had always been the rustling of the wind and the singing of the birds. In darker places the insecurities of her mind had spoken to her with voices unceasing. Here there was nothing.
Nothing, that i
s, except for Cora’s harp. Cora never played when Leina was in the room, but the soft tones of her music carried through the house, seeming to come from nowhere, and yet to emulate like a dulled glow from the walls and the very fabric of the air. Cora didn’t play the kind of music that Leina expected her to—distant and haunting like her own bearing. Rather, she played songs that were impossibly sweet and heart-wrenching at the same time. That her hardened being should find its expression in such a manner made them all the more poignant. Somehow the music didn’t seem like a breach of the Silence, but an extension of it.
The Silence was calming, alluring, and perhaps dangerous. Leina felt like one could be trapped in such a silence for a thousand years without realizing that any time had passed at all. And yet the Silence brought with it a calmness and peace that Leina had long been bereft of. Surely one seeking a renewal of strength could find it in such a place as this. Leina only hoped that she would have a chance to use what strength she had found.
Days passed, or so it seemed that they did. Leina slept when she was tired, and food was left for her by the phantom cook at intervals, but Leina no longer had a clear sense of such things as days. Then one morning (or what she thought was morning), as Leina made Cora’s fire, the thought of the Expeditionary Force meeting hit her like a comet. The meeting was on Monday evening, but she had no idea when Monday evening was.
“Cora,” Leina said, regretting that she pierced the Silence with her voice, “when is Monday evening?”
Cora was studying as usual. “I don’t know.”
“It’s important,” said Leina. “The Expeditionary Force is having a meeting on Monday evening and I have to be there.”
“Then go to the Expeditionary Force and ask them what day it is,” said Cora.
Leina was gone before Cora had finished her sentence. The stillness was shattered, and she was suddenly afraid that she had missed her only chance of getting out of here.
***
“What day is it?”