by Alia Luria
He shook her arm violently and tried to pull her from the bench. She bent her head toward his hand and bit his wrist hard. He growled and struck her with the other hand, sending her flying to the floor.
“Such a brave man,” she said, practically spitting at his feet. “It must be so hard to brutalize someone half your size. Bully!” She was too angry to be embarrassed.
Brother Valentine, the Ledgermaster, gripped SainClair by the shoulder. “Thaddeus, what is going on here?” Brother Valentine looked from SainClair to Taryn to Mia on the floor, his face kindly and concerned.
His inquiry seemed to snap Brother SainClair out of whatever haze of rage he was functioning in.
“Nothing,” he said in a growl, shrugging out of Brother Valentine’s grasp. He looked down at Mia with malice in his eyes. “I was just informing Ms. Jayne here that her father is dead. Your father is dead, y’hear? Dead!”
Mia was overcome with rage at his words. “Liar!” she cried. “You filthy liar!” She scrambled to her feet and charged him, punching her bony shoulder into his gut and toppling him to the floor. She stood over him, panting like a dog.
He laughed at her from the floor, a brutal sound that clawed at the back of her neck.
“If you don’t believe me, go ask Dominus Nikola.” He laughed again, but he clearly was serious. He believed what he said.
Mia turned and fled the dining hall, leaving Taryn, Brother Valentine, and the rest of the diners dumbfounded. SainClair’s cruel laughter chased her down the corridor.
Mia ran through the Compound in a state of grief and fury. She wasn’t sure which emotion ruled her movements, but she found herself headed straight for the Archives. The barracks hardly offered privacy, and she didn’t think she could take questions from the other acolytes just then. As it was, given the spectacle in the dining hall, gossip was likely flowing freely among the ranks.
She didn’t stop running until long after she was sure no one was following her. She couldn’t seem to feel or think, only cry. When she finally reached the Archives, she collapsed, out of breath, into a large reading chair and curled into a ball. She may have put on a brave face in front of SainClair, but he had left her a wrecked mess, and that infuriated her.
His words about Father also infuriated her, and the thought that they might be true filled her with panic. The angrier she became, the harder she cried. It was a vicious circle that continued until a shuffling noise wandered in from a small side room. Brother Cornelius must still be about. She hastily wiped tears from her face.
“The library is closed,” his voice called from the side room before he appeared, shuffling along in his slow, determined way.
“’Tis just me, Brother,” Mia said, attempting to steady her voice. Trying to hide her tears was probably pointless. Her eyes were almost sealed shut with puffiness, although that could just be the swelling from where SainClair had struck her. She tried anyway.
“You’re here late, my child,” he said. As he approached, his eyes moved from her swollen, red eyes over her cheeks. “Whatever is the matter?” He pulled a chair close to the one where she sat and gave her a sympathetic pat on the shin.
Mia sputtered through the events of the evening, telling Brother Cornelius about her conversation with Taryn and the locket and then the altercation with SainClair, including his claim that her father was dead, and even about her kiss with Cedar. He sat and listened to it all with quiet interest and compassion in his eyes. She saw no scorn or judgment in his face, and when she finally stammered out the last line of her story and admitted that the Archives was the first place her feet had carried her, he smiled softly.
“In truth it is rather the perfect place for quiet reflection on personal matters,” he said matter-of-factly.
She smiled at him then. He always had a way of making a situation seem less dire than it had only moments earlier.
“You know, I still haven’t shown you my laboratory,” he said, instead of tackling her story head on.
“Yes, well, I’m still de-sporing this place,” Mia replied, adding, “And at the rate I’m going, I’ll have to start again at the beginning just as I finish.” Her mouth curved downward glumly.
“Well,” Brother Cornelius said, scratching his beard with a bony finger, “it’s high time you had a look. I find that, even better than here, I do my best thinking in the laboratory. We shall consider it an emergency.” With that, he stood to his full height, stretched his back, settled his walking stick into a comfortable position, and beckoned her to follow him with a crook of his finger.
They ambled along the corridors. Brother Cornelius was never one to hurry anywhere, which suited Mia just fine. He left her to her thoughts for most of the walk. They worked their way past the barracks, up an inclined corridor, then over to what appeared to be a blank wall. Like the entrance to Dominus Nikola’s quarters, it was a hidden alcove leading to a staircase that spiraled up into the darkness. Unlike the spiral staircase Dominus Nikola used, a series of gourds were embedded in the walls. It was impossible to see them until Brother Cornelius rapped his walking stick firmly against a section of the stone wall. Then they lit up one after another, leading up the staircase.
Mia’s jaw dropped. “How did you do that?” she asked in her usual tone of amazement at Brother Cornelius’s ingenuity.
“Ah, well, it’s terribly complicated. But feel free to come back and poke around. You may be able to figure it out yourself.”
She grinned at him. Cornelius obviously had grown to know her quite well in the short time she’d been his assistant. Her excitement at figuring it out herself and confirming it with him would far outweigh any explanation he could provide. He waggled his whiskery eyebrows at her and winked, and then they ascended the steps. Mia let Brother Cornelius go first. Another difference with this staircase was that it featured a groove along the wall at waist height. Brother Cornelius used it to steady himself as he made his way up the stairs.
“Eventually they’ll have to install a wooden landing with a pulley to get me up these stairs,” he said, almost to himself.
“I’m surprised such contraptions aren’t used throughout the Compound,” Mia said, thinking on it.
“Oh, they’re used extensively to get supplies down to the kitchen and the laundry, but it is felt among the clerics—and I can’t say that I disagree—that the exertion of making one’s way up and down the stairs and inclines and declines of the corridors is good for keeping the physical body mobile and flexible.”
Mia couldn’t disagree with that, even if travel throughout the Compound sometimes seemed laborious. They emerged into the small alcove landing that gave way to Brother Cornelius’s laboratory. As the old man moved into the room and Mia’s view became unobstructed, she scanned her eyes across its expanse in wonderment. Whereas the staircase had been similar to Dominus Nikola’s, the laboratory itself couldn’t be more different from the head cleric’s quarters.
The room was vast, with large portions of the ceiling open to the sky above. There was a small window on the back wall, although it didn’t offer as picturesque a view as the head cleric’s window. Still, one could lean out and get a look at the mountains and city below. Books lined every conceivable space on the walls that wasn’t open to the air. That in and of itself shocked Mia, given how persnickety Brother Cornelius was with the stacks in the Archives.
One long table, where numerous projects were laid out in various states of completion, spanned almost the whole length of the room. A series of long, deep planters were situated under the sky lamps. This gave the indoor garden light to grow and allowed the planters to catch rain when the skies brought it forth. The planters contained all sorts of gourds on vines and plants, some of which Mia recognized and some of which were totally foreign to her. Near the window, as in Dominus Nikola’s quarters, stood a hearth.
Instead of overstuffed chairs providing a cozy sitting area, a collection of roots spread out from the hearth and cascaded up onto a table, where th
ey were fused using shunts to other odd plant life. Mia stepped over to the table and examined some of the connections. One root was fused to a vine with a gourd that gave off perpetual light. Another was fused to a very thin vine. She touched the vine, and it zapped her lightly. She let out a yelp and sucked on the end of her finger.
“So this is my laboratory,” Brother Cornelius said, chuckling, his pride obvious.
“It’s fantastic,” Mia told him, awe in her voice. She walked over to the planter boxes to more closely examine the various gourds. “Are all these gourds your own inventions?”
“Indeed they are.” Brother Cornelius followed her to the planters, where he pointed to a dark-purple gourd on a pale vine. “This one produces the most beautiful purple ink. You don’t even have to grind it. You just slice the top off and dip a quill in.”
Mia looked up into the sky and sucked in her breath. As Brother Cornelius had promised, the night lights shone through the open ceiling. She hadn’t seen them since she was on the ship, making her way to the Order. That felt like forever ago.
“So rain is captured by the planter boxes?” she asked.
“Yes, it works out quite well that way, unless there’s extreme wind of course.” He chuckled softly. “One cycle we had such a rainy season that I came to the base of my laboratory stairs and found water rolling down the steps. I was most distressed. I lost most of my planter contents to waterlog that cycle. Very sad indeed.” He lowered his body onto one of the stools in front of his project table and set his walking stick to the side. “Whenever I feel glum, my child, I come here to my sanctuary, and tending the vines and roots and gourds refreshes my heart and mind.”
“I’m so grateful that you felt you could share it with me,” she responded, settling herself on a stool across the table from him.
Before them lay a root that was in the process of being dissected. Pins held open the flexible inner parts of the plant’s structure. It was all she could do to keep her focus on Brother Cornelius and not touch and examine every little curiosity her eyes settled on.
“How do you keep the books from molding with so much open air?” she asked.
“Ah, I have dehumidifier gourds set on each shelf, as well as shutters if the weather gets particularly violent. I do so adore the elements, so I risk it, I suppose. None of these tomes are delicate archival books in any case. They’re all duplicates of common references that are kept in the Archives as well. I just like to have my favorite references on hand when I’m conducting experiments.”
Mia didn’t question Brother Cornelius as to why he needed hundreds if not thousands of references on hand. She imagined she’d be just the same in his situation, so she could hardly question his methods.
“Do you think my father is really dead?” she asked, her thoughts drawn back to her present situation.
“Who is to say, my child?” he said, resting his temple against a fist, his elbow propped on his project table. “SainClair isn’t usually one to present fabrications, but he’s been acting most peculiar since you arrived at our threshold. It’s most unlike him to lose his temper in such a public fashion.”
“He demanded my locket. Why do you think that is? I mean, what would make him think I had stolen it, apart from his general dislike of me?” Mia pulled the locket from inside her robes and handed the globe to Cornelius to examine.
He pushed his spectacles up on his nose and peered intently at the locket, turning it over in his fingers carefully. “This is a very ancient object,” he said, “and the clasp appears to be fused.”
“Yes, it came to me that way. Father said it was my mother’s. It’s been with me since I was a small child. I’ve never tried to force it open for fear of breaking it. I’ve always been a little curious about it, though, since I know so little about her.”
“That’s to be expected, I should think. Life is full of these little mysteries.” As he scrutinized the locket further, a small frown of concentration crossed his face. Eventually he pointed toward the scrollwork patterns crisscrossing their way across the outside of the small golden globe. “These markings here remind me of the illuminations on some of the ancient scripts we have. This locket could have been created before the Great Fall, or it could have been designed to mimic antiquities. It’s hard to say without a more detailed analysis of the symbology on the outside and without viewing the interior.”
Mia sighed. “I have a feeling this incident with Brother SainClair isn’t over.” She swallowed a growing lump in her throat. “I’m afraid the Dominus will tire of this feud, and I suspect I’ll be the one to bear the brunt of the blame.”
“Ah, well, as to that, there’s no saying really,” Brother Cornelius continued, hemming and hawing. Still, Mia saw worry in his eyes.
“I couldn’t bear it if Father were dead,” she said, choking up again. The brother’s kindness reminded her how tenuous her grasp on family was. “He’s all I have.”
“Now, now, child,” he consoled her, patting her hand with his. “You aren’t nearly as alone in this world as you believe you are.”
She buried her face in her hands, the wonders of the laboratory fading into the background as dark shadows of her fear crept forward to encompass her. “If Brother SainClair is right, I have no family now.”
Later that night, as Mia lay in her bunk, restless from the stress and the deep, throbbing ache that settled on her head like a vice squeezing at her temples, she thought about Brother Cornelius and Taryn and Cedar. Taryn had asked after her worriedly when she’d finally returned to the barracks. Her friend—for that is truly how she thought of Taryn—consoled her, assuring her Brother SainClair was an oafish brute and everyone in the dining hall had borne witness to his deplorable behavior. Cedar had approached Mia with alarm, having heard about the exchange. He had hovered over her, clearly afraid to touch her and skittish about appearing too concerned. It had made Mia anxious to look at him just then. The slap to her face had blossomed into a fine red welt, which she was certain she’d have to parade around the Order for a few days until it faded, a lovely remembrance of Brother SainClair’s hatred and disdain.
“I assure you I’m fine,” she had said to her friends, shooing them away. “What I need is a good night’s sleep.”
Once settled into her bed, despite a fresh cake at her feet and Compendium nestled warmly against her side, she sighed. A good night’s sleep wasn’t to be had. Thoughts boiled in her mind, a stew of unpleasant odors and flavors wafting into the air. Each pungent breath and burning sip reminded her of everything she’d lost since arriving there. She had gained some friends and a mentor and, most important, Compendium, but she had lost her home and possibly—no, likely—her father and even her beloved Hamish.
If that were the case, then what was she still doing here? She had made this vow for Father’s sake. She meant to honor it as long as it would benefit him. If he truly were dead, her vow no longer was of any consequence.
Her lips tightened as her thoughts turned to Brother SainClair. He would be glad to see her go, no doubt, but she didn’t think the others, particularly Dominus Nikola, would take kindly to her departure. Alas, she hadn’t the heart to confront him either. He was a kindly old man, if somewhat detached from his surroundings. She had little doubt Brother SainClair fed him a steady stream of lies about her.
It would be best to leave without a trace, with no way for them to track her, to disappear and start over in a new hammock somewhere. She made the decision then that she would leave. She would find the Shillelagh, and she would use it to leave this place, to confirm her father’s situation, and then disappear to where the Order couldn’t find her if what Brother SainClair had claimed was true. She didn’t yet know where she would go if that were the case, but with the Shillelagh and Compendium, she would be free like a breeze rustling through the canopy of the Crater Grove.
The throbbing in her head subsided, and she finally relaxed, her body growing leaden against the lumpy mattress. She tightened one hand ar
ound the locket still strung around her neck and the other around Compendium and fell into a fitful sleep.
19 Thaddeus
Lumin Cycle 10152
“Thaddeus, you’re acting like a madman,” Nikola told Brother SainClair. “The others are becoming concerned.” He and Cornelius sat at the hearth in his chambers while Thaddeus paced by the window, his eyes wild and bulging.
“I’m telling you, it doesn’t matter what that letter said. She’s a pretender!” He raked his hands roughly through his gray hair and continued to pace. “She could have forged it herself. On top of that, I think she’s a thief.”
Nikola exchanged a glance with Cornelius. The older cleric frowned as he scratched his whiskers. The unexpected appearance of Mia Jayne at the Compound had taken them all by surprise, but the more time that passed, the more Nikola saw that Thaddeus’s paranoia was affecting him.
“What makes you say that?” Nikola asked, avoiding the real question on his mind.
“She has this necklace. It looks so familiar. I know I’ve seen it before.” Thaddeus slammed his hands on the windowsill and drew a large breath into his lungs, like a bear preparing to roar.
“So you assaulted an acolyte because she was wearing a piece of jewelry you think looks familiar?”
Thaddeus’s eyes darkened, and he turned away from Nikola and Cornelius. “I know what it sounds like. I can hear myself saying the words too,” he said finally. “But you must understand how this is for me.”
“We do, my son,” said Cornelius, “but this situation requires the utmost patience. If you continue down this path with her, we’ll all suffer.”
Nikola shook his head at Cornelius, but Thaddeus was too distraught to notice.
“Thaddeus,” said Nikola, “we have to let this situation run its course naturally. Mia’s loyalties will make themselves known in due time. Interfering will only muddy the waters.”
Thaddeus turned and leaned against the windowsill, his arms crossed. “I understand,” he said, “but I can’t sit idly by as my family is mocked.”