Secret of the Giants' Staircase

by Amy Lynn Green

  “He’s with the other Westlunders, searching the fallen tree,” Parvel said. “Before he joined you, he managed to rescue much of the treasure on the lower level. Now, they’re finding what’s left from the rest of the tree.”

  Jesse was still focused on the first part of Parvel’s words: fallen tree. The pride of Lidia, the symbol of their wealth and destiny, had finally been brought down.

  “We fell out in the crypt,” Owen said. “Right on top of a dead body.”

  Jesse shuddered. “That would explain your screams.”

  Owen grinned sheepishly. “I was hoping you didn’t hear that.”

  Silas ducked out of the door and came back with one of Castor’s large bowls. “Here,” he said. “Eat. You need your strength back.”

  It was the porridge. Jesse made a face. “Don’t you have any fresh bread?”

  “No,” Silas said, without a trace of compassion. “Be glad it’s not cold.”

  He took a spoonful. Not bad, probably because of how hungry he was. “What next? Where do we go from here?”

  “Castor thinks they’ll let us go,” Owen said. “Now that they have the treasure, the Watchers don’t need to keep Lidia a secret from outsiders. They’ll go to Westlund with the treasure and never come back. Then we can leave too. I’m ready to get away from the swamps forever.”

  “But your two squad members,” Parvel reminded him. “They are still here somewhere, perhaps in danger. We have to find them.”

  “I already found them,” Jesse said dully. He scooped up more porridge. “I told them everything about the king and his plan to kill the Youth Guard.” He thought back to the incident in the tar pit. “Well, as much as I could, anyway. They seemed to think it was some kind of trick to pull them away from their mission.”

  “Leave it to Talia and Nero,” Rae said spitefully. “At the training camp, they thought everything from waking up in the morning to eating dinner was a competition…and in their minds, they were always the winners.”

  “That’s all we can do then,” Silas said, shrugging. “They have fair warning. If they want to believe there is no danger, we can do no more for them.”

  “No,” Parvel said. “We cannot abandon them.”

  “They want to be abandoned,” Rae countered. “Anything we say will convince them even more that we are liars.”

  “I doubt that,” Jesse said. “They have more reason to believe us now. The Guard Riders took them captive.” He explained the conversation he and Owen had overheard in the ruins.

  “I liked it better when Captain Demetri only had Patrol members on his side,” Rae grumbled. “They, at least, were only following orders, often slowly and foolishly.”

  “What was the name of the other man?” Parvel asked.

  “Ward,” Jesse said.

  Silas groaned. “I know him. He was on the Guard Council. They often came to training sessions to observe us or lectured in the teaching sessions. He was small but very shrewd. It was like, when he looked at you—”

  “When he looked at you, he could see inside of you, somehow,” Parvel finished. “Yes. I felt the same, Silas. He reserved a particular hatred for me…and Aleiah.”

  The name seemed to hang in the air for a few seconds. Jesse knew that Aleiah had been a good friend of Parvel’s back in the training camp.

  “I think he was happy when she died,” Parvel said, bowing his head. “He gave the funeral oration. Full of words about bravery and sacrifice…but there was no mourning in his eyes.”

  How could a man be happy about the death of a girl only seventeen years old? Once again, Jesse felt a sense of helplessness. What good can we do against that kind of evil?

  “Jesse!” a voice from the distance shouted, interrupting his thoughts.

  The door burst open. It was Castor, ash sticking to his sweaty skin, his arms full of books. Barnaby followed him. Jesse felt guilty for his accusatory thoughts. He was just going to get Castor.

  “You awake….” He frowned, “You are awake.”

  “And feeling better,” Jesse said, although his throbbing head told him otherwise.

  Barnaby held out a familiar object. “He found your staff,” he said.

  Jesse ran his hand along the surface. Not a scratch or a burn anywhere. He was glad now he hadn’t taken it with him up the tree.

  “And I found books,” Castor said happily, stacking them neatly on the bed beside Jesse. “Many, many books.”

  “But they’re all in Amarian,” Jesse said.

  Castor waved one of the volumes. “Primary Reader, Year One,” he said proudly. “Then Year Two, and more. Six years, I will learn Amarian.”

  “It won’t take you nearly that long,” Jesse said, laughing. “You catch on quickly.”

  Whether or not Castor understood all of the words, he knew a compliment when he heard it. “Thank you,” he said, smiling.

  “You’re welcome,” Jesse said, and Castor grinned even wider.

  “Jesse remembers manners,” he said, nodding in approval.

  “That’s what you think,” Rae said. “The rest of us know better.”

  Castor laughed along with everyone else, even though he probably didn’t understand the joke. He was filthy and looked exhausted, but he seemed happy just to be alive.

  “Oh,” he said, a look of realization on his face. He hurried through the door, his footsteps falling hard on the floor.

  As soon as Castor had set down the books, Parvel started looking at them with an expression of awe. Now, he hurried to Jesse’s side, picking up each of the books in turn. Some of them had water damage—from falling to the flooded tunnel floor, Jesse assumed.

  “These are very old books,” Parvel said. “Older than even ancient Lidia. Some of these could be the only surviving copies left in the kingdom, perhaps in the world!”

  “Now I know where you got it from,” Owen said in triumph, poking Jesse in the side. Parvel gave him a quizzical look, but Owen just grinned at Jesse.

  Jesse grinned back.

  Castor had returned with a different book in his hand. He gave it to Silas. “Yours,” he said. “Sorry that they take.” The Forbidden Book.

  “I’m sorry they took it,” Jesse corrected. “‘It’ stands in for the word ‘book.’”

  Jesse was sure he wouldn’t understand, but Castor had clearly heard them use the word ‘it’ before. He nodded. “I give it back to you now.”

  “Thank you,” Silas said, putting it in his pack. Jesse realized that the Westlunders had returned all their supplies, including their weapons. Rae, of course, wore her sword strapped to her side even though, underground, it was unlikely they would face danger.

  Next to him, Parvel gasped. Jesse jerked his head around in alarm.

  But he was only staring at one of the books in the stack. Jesse recognized the brown binding. Of course. The Holy Scriptures. Castor must have taken it from Jesse when he fell.

  “What is it?” Rae demanded.

  “Nothing important,” Owen said. “He and Jesse just love books for some reason.”

  “No,” Parvel said, his voice not entirely steady. “This is not just any book, Owen. This is—”

  “The most important book of all time,” Jesse finished for him. “God’s book.”

  “God?” Castor asked, waiting for a definition.

  “He managed to come up with one word that I can’t define,” Jesse said to Parvel, hoping for some help. “I’m not even sure I fully understand God myself.”

  Parvel laughed, and Jesse realized how much he had missed that sound. “Of course not,” he said, shaking his head. “Then you would be God, I imagine. And we certainly know that isn’t the case.”

  “Yes, we do,” Jesse agreed.

  Castor was still waiting, so Jesse tried to think of a way to explain. “The Great Watcher,” he finall
y said. “But not an evil one. One who is perfectly good and wise and loving.”

  “Love,” Castor said, smiling. Clearly, he knew that word, both the bare definition and what it meant. Jesse wondered if he had a wife and family back in Westlund. They might never know.

  Parvel opened the Scriptures, treating each page—warped by water damage, but still legible—with greatest care. “‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,’” he read. “‘He was with God in the beginning. In him was Light, and that Light was the life of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.’”

  “It’s beautiful,” Rae said. Jesse stared at her, but he didn’t see a trace of sarcasm in her face. “Like a poem or a song.”

  “Do you know what it means?” Parvel asked. She shook her head.

  “Nothing,” Silas cut in, jerking the book away from him. “It’s nothing but an ancient myth.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Jesse insisted.

  “I’ve heard it all. My father was a priest, remember? God dying for humans—it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Neither do most of the real things in life,” Parvel said.

  “Like what?” Silas challenged.

  It was Castor who answered. “Love,” he said. “Promises.”

  Jesse could only shake his head. East, south, west, north. For all of his limits in communication, Castor could speak up when it really mattered.

  “Sacrifice,” Rae added. “Loyalty.” Silas shot her an accusatory look, and she shrugged. “I’m not saying I believe in God, Silas. But I believe in these things, even though they’re not logical, because I’ve seen them.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Silas snapped. He clearly realized he was outnumbered.

  “Castor,” Jesse said, looking at him, “can we keep this book?”

  At first, Castor glanced ruefully at it, as if giving up any book was difficult for him. Then he nodded. “Yes. Please, take it.”

  “No,” Parvel said, putting the Holy Scriptures back on the stack of books. “Keep it. Learn to read it, and tell all of Westlund about the God of its pages.”

  Jesse couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But Parvel,” Jesse protested, “these people don’t want to hear about God. Look at the way they treated us!”

  “That’s not for us to judge,” Parvel said.

  He was right, and Jesse knew it. But he didn’t want to lose those words. He wanted to read them all, every page. “But you’ve been searching for this your whole life,” Jesse said.

  “No,” Parvel said, shaking his head. “I’ve been searching for truth my whole life. And I will continue to do so.” He gave Jesse a long, hard look. “They have not heard, Jesse. We cannot stay here to tell them. By taking this book away from Westlund, I would be a messenger abandoning his duty.”

  Jesse’s finger traced the cover of the book. Then he nodded and handed it to Castor, who seemed to understand the seriousness of the gift. “I will read it,” he said. “I promise.”

  “Now that we’re done with the religion lesson,” Barnaby cut in, “I believe we have some practical matters to discuss.”

  “Like not dying?” Owen suggested.

  “You will no die,” Castor said. “They will let you go. They have the treasure. Watchers will no stay here. There will no be Watchers.”

  He seemed almost sad about that. Jesse wondered if Castor had been a Watcher his entire life. He didn’t seem to know anything else.

  “It’s not the Watchers I’m worried about,” Jesse said. He tried to explain Captain Demetri to Castor. As far as he could tell, Castor only understood there were some evil men in the swamp trying to kill them. Which, after all, is a fairly good summary.

  “Watchers find them, ambush them,” he suggested.

  “One of them will be on guard at all times, night or day,” Jesse said. “And they’re brutal.”

  “Besides,” Parvel said, “I doubt all the Watchers will be as enthusiastic as you to put their lives at risk for their former prisoners.”

  “I ask them,” Castor said, hurrying out the door. “Help the Amarians who found the treasure.”

  It was a good angle to use, at least, but Jesse agreed with Parvel. As much as he wished the giants would attack and subdue Captain Demetri, he had a feeling they would be doing this alone.

  “We have no hope of rescuing the other two,” Silas said, shaking his head. “Captain Demetri knows we’re coming. You said so yourself. They will be waiting, ready to kill their two hostages if we do not surrender to them.”

  “Silas is right,” Rae said.

  Now, Jesse thought, life is back to normal. Rae and Silas against Jesse and Parvel.

  “Either we die trying to save two, or the six of us escape alive,” Silas reasoned, as if the situation were a simple mathematic equation. “We can’t save everyone, Parvel.”

  We can’t save Leisel. The thought brought a familiar ache in Jesse’s stomach. There were so many names in the Forbidden Book, so many young people they could no longer save. What if Nero and Talia are two of them?

  But Parvel was not convinced. “We have to try,” he insisted. “As long as they are alive, there is still hope. And we are that hope.”

  “We can’t do it alone,” Barnaby said. “It’s impossible.”

  “What about your family?” Parvel reminded him. “Is there not a chance they will join us?”

  “His family?” Jesse asked, confused.

  “He released Zora. She’s trained to return to the Kin, then come back to her master,” Parvel said.

  Jesse and Owen exchanged glances. “I knew that stupid bird was up to something,” Owen muttered.

  “They will not come,” Barnaby said flatly.

  “You don’t really believe that,” Parvel said.

  Jesse didn’t share in his optimism. He remembered Tomas’ words: “Maybe he did know exactly what would happen when he left. Maybe he wanted to be cut off from the Kin—from us.”

  “Why would you send Zora away if you had no hope that your family would come?” Parvel pressed.

  “Because I didn’t want her to die with us,” Barnaby practically shouted in his face.

  Parvel fell silent.

  “Don’t you understand?” Barnaby asked, fists clenched at his side. “When I joined the Guard, I left the Kin. They are not my family anymore. I am dead to them.”

  “We met your family,” Jesse said, not sure whether now was the right time to bring that up. “Some of them wanted you to come home, and—”

  “Some of them,” Barnaby said. “So you say. But none of them came with you.”

  No one had anything to say to that. Jesse felt as if their last hope had been taken away from them.

  He glanced over at Owen, who was being uncharacteristically silent. “What about you, Owen?” Jesse prompted.

  Owen looked uncomfortable as they all stared at him. “I want to leave here,” he said, “but I don’t want to leave them here.”

  “Three for, three against,” Rae said, sighing loudly. “Of course.”

  “We need to get some rest,” Silas said, giving a significant look at Parvel. “All of us. We can decide then what we will do.”

  Rest sounded good to Jesse. Perhaps when he woke up, his head would stop pounding and everything would seem simpler. Somehow, though, he doubted it.

  Barnaby was the last to leave the room. “Wait,” Jesse said.

  Barnaby stopped, still staying as far away from Jesse’s bed as possible. “Yes?”

  “I have something of yours,” Jesse said, taking the token from around his neck. “Your family gave it to me.”

  For a moment, Barnaby just looked at it. Then he put it around his neck. “The only family I have left is Zora, if she even comes back.” He started to leave again.<
br />
  Jesse took a deep breath. “I just want to say that I shouldn’t have shouted at you back in the prison. What I said…you didn’t deserve it. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Barnaby said, turning away. “You were right. I abandoned you, just like I abandoned them.”

  Somehow, Jesse knew it was as close to an apology as he would ever get from Barnaby. “I’ve already forgiven you for that,” he said, and as soon as he said it, he knew it was true.

  “They won’t forgive me,” Barnaby said bitterly. “The Kin never forgives—especially not Tomas. Everything to him was about following the rules, about being loyal to the Kin. Even when we were younger, he was the responsible one, the one everyone depended on. He’s determined to be an elder in the Kin someday.”

  Jesse could picture that: Tomas making decisions and enforcing the laws.

  “He’ll be good at it too, I suppose,” Barnaby said, shrugging. “He’s good at everything.”

  How sad, Jesse thought. Both Tomas and Barnaby were jealous of each other. He started to say, “Your brother—”

  “No,” Barnaby said, turning away. “He’s not my brother anymore.”

  Chapter 19

  When Jesse woke up, he found Owen talking to Castor in the front room, as if nothing had happened in the past two days, although he knew the opposite was true. “More Amarian lessons?” he asked dryly.

  Owen nodded. “I taught him another new word.”

  “What was it, ‘annoying?’” Jesse asked.

  “No,” Castor said. “Report.” He looked warily at Owen. “Report means I say what I do and see?”

  “Yes,” Jesse said. “For once, Owen taught you the right thing.” Owen made a face at him.

  “My report is Head Watcher said no to attack on evil men,” Castor said. “I go out anyway, watch them all last night. See their camp, count evil men.” He paused. “There are three. One is a woman.”

  Something about the woman had clearly disturbed Castor, because he shivered. “She sayed to other two men—”

  “Said,” Jesse corrected automatically.

  A glare from Castor told him that it was not the time for a grammar lesson. “She said that someone was watching.”