Calcifer

by E. R. F. Jordan

  “How is this not a protected historic site?” July wondered aloud, massaging her leg slowly. There were certain sites––the Old Amoran Palace, the pub where the Republic was supposedly formed, and so on––that were protected by a set of policies meant to preserve history. This site, Mel agreed, seemed to fit the bill.

  “It’s quite possible that nobody knows it’s here,” She returned.

  “That’s a weird thought. In school, they pretty much told us the whole world was charted––like, everywhere has been visited and documented, and all that. But I guess not!” July sat up, brushing tiny motes of dust off her clothes and onto the curtain, which currently functioned as a blanket.

  “Sure,” Mel said, “why wouldn’t they? If they told you how much we don’t know, we’d have a generation of explorers and sailors and scholars. What they want––the Republic, I should specify––is farmers. Farms mean food; food means power. Sites like these, fascinating as they are, don’t bring power.” She plucked a volume off the shelf at her back and flipped through it, careful not to crease the binding. Most of the text was too faded to read, but there were some images that remained, ghostly but intricate. “Now, Asla is different. Their capital is called Lhord Historia for a reason; they tout their history like a medal of honor. I’ve always admired that.”

  “Oh, you’re a Bal’Lhord sympathizer?” July grinned.

  “Don’t even joke about that,” Mel said, returning her smile. A tired laugh bubbled up, and she realized how good it felt. It had been a while since she’d really laughed. Even July seemed a little more like her old self.

  But even as she thought it, July seemed to tense a little, as if she remembered she wasn’t supposed to be happy. The warmth in her smile withered until it was just a curl of her lips. She mumbled something about checking the snare, then wandered off into the dark, her footfalls heavy and uneven. Mel started to call after her, but the words died in her throat. She was already gone.

  She sighed and turned the book over, resting it by her side. She was beginning to suspect this section of the library was cleared for water damage; the books she could find were heavily faded and falling apart in places, entire pages dangling by a string or thick with clumps of fused paper. Standing, she took one of the candles from the table and pulled her jacket closer, eyes fixed on the rows of shadowy shelves. Feeling oddly like a spelunker in a long-forgotten cave, she set about the work of finding a good book.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  July was comforted by the rush of bitter wind on her face as she passed through the building’s front doors. She looked around, scanning the darkness for any sign of movement or light, and, finding none, sat on the stairs of the library. She kicked away a stray stone.

  “Julius,” She muttered. Her cheeks felt briefly warm, even through the winter air. She saw herself on the docks in Pelf, shoulders squared and stride confident. She could practically feel that day; her loose slacks tickling the skin of her legs, the tight hug of fabric bound around her flattened chest, the breeze under the prickly gradient of her hair. For a moment, even the sun felt a little warmer; but the arctic wind stole its way back into her bundled form, ruffling her jacket and tossing her nest of hair, grown by months on the road. She ran a hand through it absently, missing its shortness.

  There was a thump from the forest. Instinctively July began to rise, but she remembered the thumping bird––knacker? knucker?––and leaned back again. Somewhere in the brush, a terrified mouse probably scurried for its tiny life. She wondered if the mouse knew what it was running from, or if it just knew to associate that noise with death; whether the fear was rational or instinctive. This constant state of discomfort was foreign to her; back home, in the brush that she knew, she hardly ever felt this way. It was as if her skin were a set of clothes tailored specially for someone else; too tight in some places, too loose in others.

  She stood up, igniting a painful twinge in her sore leg, and moved for the edge of the trees. She would be better off checking the snare and heading back inside where it was warm, but the coolness was strangely soothing. The brush, distinctly devoid of mice, parted under her feet, swallowing her up, drawing her into the foliage. It took almost ten minutes to find the snare, which, to her disappointment, was empty.

  “Gone for lunch,” She mused, nudging the rope into a better position with her foot, “Will return soon.” At least, I hope, she finished internally. I want to eat too.

  That was when she noticed the pair of gleaming black eyes, peering through the shrubbery.

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  The first thing Mel discovered about the construction of the library was its perfect repetitiveness, utterly lacking in notable landmarks; the second was how, due to the arrangement of the aisles and shelves, the light from her candle dropped off extremely fast, lending her only a couple feet of sight on all sides; the third was that many of the shelves had been moved, blocking junctions and hallways to form a twisting mire of paths that spiraled in on themselves hopelessly. These facts made themselves known after her third attempt to return to their nesting place.

  “Okay,” She breathed, “One more time.” She did a full rotation, taking in the intersection around her. Her method was simple; the lightest path led to the candles. However, she refused to identify the glaring issue with that method, which involved snuffing out her own candle and submitting to the dark. She turned to her left, which seemed the least miserable path, and cautiously moved on, one hand trailing the dusty shelves––partially to brace herself, partially to soothe her nerves. The sound of her footsteps was mildly unnerving when amplified in the silent depths of the cavernous room; any other sensation to distract her frayed nerves was welcome.

  The aisles felt as if they were getting more narrow. She took a right, then another left. She recognized one shelf with a single red book, but the following junction looked entirely new. An anxious groan welled up in her throat.

  “Here we go,” She lamented. She touched her fingertips to her tongue, then closed them over the open flame. It sizzled and died, taking the light with it.

  Initially, the darkness felt hostile and clustered, with high shelves on all sides and no room to lift her arms; but as her eyes adjusted, Mel began to feel a little better about her odds. In fact, the path to her back seemed markedly brighter than those around her. She began to move quickly, abandoning caution in favor of efficiency. Back, left, right, left. Shelves started to look familiar, and her cheeks felt a little warmer. A distant piece of her worried that she had started a fire––leaving so many candles unattended in the middle of a room full of books was decidedly unwise––but her instinctive self, the self that was convinced of skittering creatures and beasts in residence, argued that a fire near the entrance was better than being lost in the dark. She had trouble denying that.

  Her other senses began to join in with comforting sensations; Mel heard the faint shriek of the wind outside, suggesting that she was near the edge of the building. She could smell the thick aroma of a spiced candle, accented by a tinge of melting wax. She felt the stress in her muscles begin to melt away, a sense of security creeping into its place. Thank goodness I thought to burn that candle. Otherwise I couldn’t be sure–

  Mel stopped abruptly. It had been a long time since aromatherapy in Amora, but even as her nose began to decline with age, her growing aromatic knowledge more than compensated. She had lit a candle of her own making; cinnamon and sandalwood. Those smells were present, but there were other smells too, ones she had a harder time picking apart––mostly floral, but with a sharp hint of vanilla. Part of her, the same part that hushed her anxieties of the library going up in flames, tried to convince her that July had come back and lit a few more candles. She had seemed anxious when she left, it offered. But she wasn’t buying it; even if July had been able to tell rosewood from redwood, she wouldn’t have had anything to burn––Mel only carried the one candle, and her medicinal stores certainly d
idn’t include vanilla.

  She turned the corner, hands instinctively raised to defend her vitals. At the end of the aisle was a wall, and in that an empty doorframe. Bright rows of candle lights danced from inside. She hadn’t found her way back at all; she had found someone else’s nest.

  There was a soft knocking noise from behind Mel, and she spun, backing up to the doorframe. A short figure stood in her path, hands raised. For a moment, they only watched each other, assessing the risks of movement. Then, the figure gestured to the room behind her.

  “If you’ve come to rob me,” It said, voice hoarse and quiet, “I only ask you leave the candles.”

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  July’s sword was unsheathed in seconds, both hands on its grip. She tried to lower herself to a better stance but her leg protested the move, sending sharp whines of pain up through her body. She focused on the eyes. By the time she found her composure, a second pair had joined the first, smaller and narrower but equally hidden in the bush.

  She stepped closer, raising the blade. The second pair retreated slightly; the first didn’t move––only stared, almost glassy. She closed the distance without incident, and as she got more of a vantage point over the tufts of shrubbery, she identified her watchers.

  The first pair of eyes belonged to the carcass of a deer, laid out on the ground. The cause of death was quite clear––the broken shaft of an arrow protruded from its chest at an awkward angle. July’s leg ached in sympathy. The second pair belonged to a dog, thin and wiry, lips pulled back and yellowed teeth exposed in a silent growl.

  Fear gripped her heart, icy as the night. Her first instinct was to lunge with the blade, aiming for the nock under the dog’s chin, but she paused. Some small part of her remembered what Mel said about pacifism the day before––a peaceful draw is better than a violent victory. Hesitantly, she lowered the tip of the blade, eyes fixed on the dog. It stayed low to the ground, putting itself between her and the deer. She could see its ribs poking out against its loose pelt; the same small part of her wondered if the dog was even able to fight back.

  She sighed and stepped back. “Go ahead,” She told the dog. It continued to watch her, eyes flicking from her to the deer. Then, unable to help itself any longer, it turned its back to her, lunging at the carcass. It gnawed ineffectually at the frozen hide, its teeth unable to find purchase in the thick skin. She felt an inkling of pity for the dog, and her earlier panic dissolved.

  “Hey,” She called gently. The dog paused, head turned in a silent, weary scowl. She stepped towards the deer, once, then twice. It made no move. She stepped within touching distance. The dog seemingly gave up, returning to the frozen deer. She pushed the tip of her blade into the deer’s hide, making sure it was nowhere near the stray. The hide was practically leather at this point––it was no wonder the dog was having trouble. She leaned on her good leg and shoved until she heard the slick sound of metal on meat. Then she sawed at the hide until she had made an opening wide enough for the dog’s head to reach the deer’s insides. The dog stalked until she retreated again, still wary, then plunged into the beast with the renewed vigor of starvation at its back. It wagged its tail in a tiny arc.

  July used her sword as a crutch to lower herself down into the snow, where she sat, watching the dog eat with a kind of absent fascination. The moon crested the horizon, peeking out at them through the holes in the forest’s bare roof. When that anxious, tense heat returned to her, she breathed in the boreal air. She felt the two forces, heat and cold, peace and anxiety, mingling in her stomach, then spreading to her veins. For a moment that stretched into an hour, she felt like herself. She wasn’t sure how to maintain this balance, this dance on the pin’s head, but for the time being, she enjoyed it.

  Her reverie ended with a sudden crack. She looked up, almost in perfect unison with the wild dog. The depths of the forest were untouched by the moonlight, and in them, there was an uncanny stillness, betrayed only by the distant thumping of that bird––the knackeral, she remembered. She struggled to a standing position, senses acute. Then she moved back on the path she came from, slowly at first, then more quickly as her injured leg adjusted. She’d had enough of mysterious figures and woodland creatures for one day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  UNEXPECTED COMPANY. DECIDEDLY DIFFERENT.

  Unlike Mel, whose sense of direction was often muddled, July had no trouble navigating the labyrinthine library. She had a knack for bearings; she suspected it was one of the reasons that sailing appealed to her so much. The thought of the ocean filled her with sweet nostalgia, and she held it as she traced her path backwards to the nest.

  As she got closer, however, she slowed. It could’ve been a trick of the chamber, reflecting and echoing sounds, but she could swear she heard two voices. They seemed friendly, to say the least; one, which she suspected was Mel’s, even laughed once or twice, a curt, harsh sound that July found surprisingly pleasant when it decided to make itself known. The other voice, she couldn’t place. It was soft but throaty, a sound she associated with tobacco use––something she was quite familiar with after her father’s many secretive years of growing the bitter plant.

  Still, she refused to concede the element of surprise, her thoughts fixed on memories of the church in Zelan, and Father Pacifica. She peered through the cracks of the bookshelf into the nest.

  “–do you grow anything this far north?” Mel was saying, gesturing to the candles in the small clearing. There seemed to be more than when she left, July noted. Mel’s face was lit from below by a small metal box that sat in the floor’s center. It resembled a lantern, but its flame was directed through a small tower to a flat platform at its tip, on which a kettle rested. She assumed it was some kind of tea-making apparatus she wasn’t familiar with. “The climate’s hardly suitable for anything more delicate than grass, or marrow-rot.” Mel took a sip from a small teacup July also wasn’t familiar with.

  The other figure, a silhouetted back from July’s perspective, held up a tea cup of his own. “I have learned an abundance of things from this library,” He said, his tone somehow grandfatherly, “many of which have to do with the farming techniques of the distant past. You are familiar with the theory of Angelish society?” Mel nodded. July noticed her cheeks were a much deeper red than usual, and wondered if there was something alcoholic in that tea. The man continued, “They were a great proponent of doing things in places they shouldn’t be done––look at this grand library, constructed in the middle of nowhere. They built great rooms of glass, through which they funneled sunlight to trap heat and grow things where they otherwise couldn’t! Startling but wonderful things. It was a society full of paradoxes.” He took a deep drink from his cup, then turned to the bookcase, behind which July was currently peeping.

  She yanked her face away, dropping to a kneel, which summoned a hearty throb from her already aching leg. She bit down on her lip to stifle a grunt. This is getting silly, she thought. He seems friendly enough. Just go in there. The man continued to speak at some length about something he called ‘climate control’, throughout which she heard books being pulled from the shelves. She awkwardly lifted herself to her feet and entered the nest.

  Mel’s reaction was immediate. “July! I was beginning to worry the rabbits were having you for dinner.” She smiled, which looked both radiant and foreign on her solemn face. “We have company; this is Aspen.” The man bowed slightly, raising his cup of tea in her direction. From this angle, July saw his cherry-like face, wreathed in a thick but clean beard that reached past his collarbones. The rest of him was very much in line with his face; short, round in places, but obviously well-kempt, including his tunic, an Aslatan-style garment of a faded red-orange. His expression was jolly; whether that was an effect of the company or the tea, she didn’t know.

  “It is nice to meet you, young sir,” He beamed. Heat flooded her core, but it was strangely agreeable this time. She didn’t correct him. “Please, sit!
It is so rare to find good hearts with which to share a warm drink.” His way of speaking struck her as antiquated, but he seemed genuine enough. She put her suspicions to rest and sat next to Mel, who was poring over a thick green book.

  He held out a tea cup, on which a red fox was painted in flowing strokes. His own cup was adorned with a rabbit; Mel’s bore a doe. She took the cup. The tea inside was a deep brown, and a cautious sip revealed a smooth vanilla taste, with something vigorously warm underneath. It planted in her stomach and raced through her veins like fire through the dry fields outside Little Rock. She considered her suspicions of alcohol confirmed. Her heart continued to nag––Pacifica! Pacifica!––but she shoved the thoughts aside. The man got one chance; he deserved at least that much.

  “You live here?” July posed.

  Aspen nodded. “I do. I moved here perhaps a decade ago. I grew up in the Republic, although it was called the Kingdom of Amora back then.” He sighed a long wisp of a breath, but it was a content sound, full of nostalgia.

  “You moved to the Boreal,” She repeated, disbelieving.

  “Yes!” He said. “I know. Believe me, this is an improvement over my last situation.” He took a deep drink of tea, leaving the statement open. “In your absence we discussed the Boreal––specifically the Monastery, which I assume is the reason our paths have crossed.” July looked to Mel.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” She said, reading July’s glance, “and I divulged that information before drinking the tea. If he knows the way, it’s more valuable to us than wandering around for another month.” July frowned, but she knew Mel had the right of it; another month in the cold could be lethal.