Compendium

by Alia Luria

  Brother Cornelius gave her an uncharacteristically dark look at that dig, pausing momentarily, as if deciding something. Maybe she had gone too far.

  “Well, perhaps this will give you some ideas,” he said finally. He leaned forward in his chair and pulled a small volume from his sash.

  Mia’s heartbeat quickened. It was Compendium.

  29 The Locket

  Lumin Cycle 10152

  Mia's mind was still reeling from her conversation with Brother Cornelius. Compendium was safely tucked between the mattress and the wall of the cell. There it would stay until she could reason through everything he had revealed. She lay on her pallet, trying to make sense of it all in her head.

  She’d barely mourned Father. She was too numb from the shock of recent blows to weep for him now. Her own identity was in a shambles. She was not a Jayne. She was not an acolyte. Father was the family of her heart, but who was the family of her blood? And if they were truly all gone, save an uncle, was she substituting one loneliness for another? Father said the Order was her family now. She could brook no argument that there weren’t some here that she felt immense affection for, especially Brother Cornelius. And her feelings for Cedar still remained, even though he had chosen his calling over their friendship. Even as she let the thoughts of those she cared for in the Order fill her, she remembered her home in Hackberry, her forest, and her Hamish.

  Hamish! She panicked then. Father hadn’t mentioned Hamish, and she hadn’t thought to ask after him. Oh, he must be safe. He must be. A thrum ran through Mia’s chest at the thought of poor, furry Hamish waiting patiently for them to come, waiting and waiting for something that never would happen. She couldn’t bear the thought of him starving to death, waiting. Father wouldn’t let anything bad come to him. He probably left Hamish with Old Parniff. I’m sure he’s happily chasing lizards and glow bugs through the forest this very moment. She closed her eyes and pictured Hamish tailing along after Old Parniff as she hiked through the forest. His tail wagged as he stopped here and there to sniff a particularly pungent fungus or bit of detritus. Old Parniff shouted at him to keep up, and he bolted after her and nipped at her walking stick. The images calmed Mia, and her thoughts turned once again to her conversations with Father and Brother Cornelius.

  Brother Cornelius said Compendium was her birthright. That hardly explained much at all, however, and he had provided no additional details. Even still, to Brother Cornelius, it was more important to consider the Shillelagh and how to retrieve it from the Druids. I have to make that my priority as well. I can’t sit here endlessly brooding. Both Brother Cornelius and Father were right. She had to make amends; she had to find a way to apologize. She had been so selfish. She had fancied herself a prisoner here, a victim. And now that she really was a prisoner—and rightly, based on her actions—how could she think that before? She had made a series of choices, and those choices had led her here, to this dungeon. It was no one’s fault but her own. She couldn’t blame Father for sending her here; she in fact had chosen to come. She couldn’t blame Dominus Nikola for her choice; it was hers. She couldn’t blame Brother SainClair for his rage; she had chosen to be here but hadn’t accepted it fully. He had every right to be a little upset with her. Granted, he was much more than a little upset. She couldn’t blame Taryn. Mia was the one who had chosen to steal the Shillelagh. She couldn’t blame Cedar. She had chosen to involve him in her plotting. She stared up at the ceiling, her head swimming. Thought after thought tumbled around her mind in a jumble.

  Her own actions had led her here. Her excuse was that she needed to know whether Father was really dead. But she was lying to herself. I did it for me. I did it because I was afraid I was losing my identity here, and in the process of running from my fear, I destroyed my identity. No one took my honor from me but me. She cleared her throat, although there was no one to talk to, and rolled onto her side facing the wall. She had trusted Taryn and Cedar, but she had trusted them for the wrong reasons, for selfish reasons. And by doing so, she had betrayed the trust placed in her by Father, Brother Cornelius, and others of the Order. The longer she thought, the more discouraged she became. Her actions and her motives for those actions stood in stark relief to the reality that had built itself up in her mind. Each decision played out over and over, and she was forced to acknowledge that she deserved everything that had come to her and more.

  Mia remained lost in her thoughts until footsteps sounded on the stone floor outside her cell. For a pariah, I sure have a lot of visitors all of a sudden. This time she didn’t bother trying to pretend that she was asleep. The door opened, and the familiar wooden chair was placed inside the cell. She sat up on the pallet and swung her back toward the cell wall, knees up. A tall, thin figure entered through the doorway and shut the door behind him. The bolt slid into place.

  The muscles in her neck and shoulders tensed—it was Cedar. She cleared her throat and sat looking at him. He bypassed the wooden chair and walked back and forth a bit. His eyes wandered here and there. He looked nervous. Perhaps they had sent him to inform her that Brother Cornelius had been sanctioned for giving her Compendium and spilling secrets of the Order and that she was to be exiled or something. His pacing wasn’t at all calming, and she found herself growing even tenser by the moment.

  “Well, out with it,” Mia finally said, the exasperation in her voice harsh. Her outburst was out of place, but she realized just then that she was still angry at Cedar. Her logical mind knew she had no right to be angry. Cedar had just been acting in the way he believed was right. And objectively he had been right. But she still couldn’t help feeling hurt and betrayed. Whether or not it had been a good idea, she had trusted Cedar with her secrets, and now she felt angry and embarrassed.

  He stopped and turned to face her. She looked into the dark eyes made darker by the dim light of the cell. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said.

  Shock coursed through Mia’s body like an electric jolt. Her anger deflated as quickly as a punctured waterskin. She sighed softly and patted the lumpy spot next to her on the pallet, inviting him to sit. After a flicker of hesitation crossed his face, he approached and settled himself next to her, his cleric’s robes bunching around him. Where his tin pin used to sit was a shiny gold one.

  “I see they’ve made you a full cleric,” Mia said carefully. “They must have valued your information.”

  “It’s not like that,” Cedar said, his eyes clouding. “Listen, I had to say something. The artifacts in safekeeping of the Order are special and rare and are to be guarded and protected.”

  “Did you think I was a Druid?” Mia asked, looking at him closely. His expression remained stoic as he slowly shook his head.

  “No. Honestly I didn’t believe either of you were Druids,” he said, pursing his lips as he considered that statement. “But when I saw that rose pin on Taryn’s cloak, I panicked. It was a rose, but it wasn’t—”

  “This?” Mia asked, and held out the stone.

  He took it from her and turned it over, his mouth tensing. “Yes, this.” His eyes blazed. “Like I said, I had to say something. It was too much of a coincidence.”

  “Did you know who I am then? That my father wasn’t my father? That I have an uncle here?”

  Cedar shook his head again. “The clerics never discussed any of that with me. They wanted me to keep an eye on you, but they never said why or what they were looking for. All I know about your family is what you’ve told me.”

  Mia sighed and yawned and leaned farther back against the rough stone of the wall. “I don’t suppose they’ve decided what they’re going to do with me,” she said, her question awkward to her own ears. She didn’t mention that Brother Cornelius had returned Compendium to her. Perhaps she didn’t entirely trust Cedar again, even though he had apologized.

  “It’s been a subject of some argument. There isn’t yet a consensus among the clerics.”

  “Brother Cornelius told me I’ll have to retrieve the Shillelagh,”
Mia replied.

  “Aye, there are those who want to send you on that mission, and others say you’ll just run away if we give you the opportunity. There’s been a breach of trust within our ranks. Many of those previously on your side have reconsidered their positions.” He looked at her pointedly.

  Mia bit the inside of her lip and wrinkled her nose. She had no one to blame for such feelings but herself. She had been on the giving end of betrayal as well as the receiving end.

  “I’m not sure how I can apologize and earn back the clerics’ trust,” Mia said. “Perhaps we can call it even since they kept my father here while he wasted away and didn’t bother to tell me.” Anger flashed in her eyes.

  Cedar ignored her sarcasm. “Just do what I did,” he said. “Say you’re sorry.”

  “I am sorry. I was callous and thoughtless.”

  “Well, tell that to the clerics then.”

  She turned her body toward him. “I’m telling that to you,” she replied. “I’m apologizing to you. I put you in an untenable position for months while I plotted to betray the Order. For that, I’m truly sorry. My selfish desire to find my father convinced me that it was acceptable to betray everyone here and make you complicit in such betrayal.” When she reached out and placed a hand over his, it flinched slightly. Cedar’s eyes stared deeply into hers, and she blushed. She tried to pull her hand back, but he turned his hand palm up and grasped hers as it attempted to snake away.

  “When we said good-bye before, I told you I hoped you’d find what you were looking for.”

  “I recall that,” Mia said. “I guess I thought I was looking for a way home and to the security of my old life, but now it turns out my family wasn’t my family—not really anyway—and I wouldn’t have had safety or security or even my father if I’d gone back. And now that he’s dead, all I have is an uncle I don’t even know.”

  “Perhaps,” Cedar said gently, placing an object in her hand, “this will give you some answers.”

  She looked down. In her hand was her mother’s locket.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked.

  “You were unconscious for a number of days.”

  Mia nodded.

  “Well, given your deep state of coma, you originally were being looked after in the medical center, and I visited you there as soon as I heard the situation. You still had the locket at the time, so I snuck it off your neck before the clerics could confiscate it with the rest of your belongings.”

  “But why?” she asked.

  “Take another look.”

  Mia examined the locket. It looked like it always did until she got to the tip of the egg at the bottom, where the clasp was. The familiar thin line of fused metal was gone.

  “You fixed it?” she asked, looking over at him. Cedar was still staring at her face, his eyes and mouth serious. Then he smiled and excitedly told her about his experiments.

  “Yes, Brother Cornelius has been developing a new gourd. This gourd, instead of warming, cools. He’s been aiming to use the gourd to chill foods and other items—such as water—just enough to be enjoyed, but by luck, he had a batch that produced exceptionally cold temperatures. I used the cold temperatures of his rogue gourds to freeze off the fused metal!”

  “Thank you. That’s amazing,” Mia said, examining the end. “So how does it open?”

  “I figured out that too,” he said.

  His hands brushed against hers as he fumbled to position the locket so she could see. He turned the ornamental panel at the top that connected it to its chain. Mia always had thought it merely served as a connector for the chain and to give the design a little flair, but it functioned like the knob of a door. Turning the head caused the egg to split open. What looked like a smooth egg on the outside with discreet etchings opened up to look like leaves on the inside. Nestled inside the leaves was a three-dimensional depiction of a lotus flower, and emerging from the lotus flower was a large horned owl.

  “It’s the same sigil that’s on Compendium,” Mia said, peering carefully at the owl from every direction. “It’s gorgeous.”

  “Indeed,” Cedar said, “the work is quite detailed. I have no idea how old it is, but I still hold to my original opinion that it looks to be from before the Great Fall.”

  “Well, that makes sense, since Compendium is pre-Great Fall as well. I guess the real question is how my mother came by it and why it was fused closed in the first place.”

  “Well, I suspect you have family ties to whoever created both the locket and Compendium,” Cedar said. “I noticed something else. If you look inside, you’ll see the words Clavis Aurea inscribed around the base of the flower. That’s usually used to indicate that an object has some ability to translate text or solve some sort of mystery. Although I really have no idea what’s intended by that phrase here.” His dark eyes sparkled as he continued. “Also, there’s one more thing I noted. The metal of your locket doesn’t seem to tarnish, but the metal used to fuse it did, and it looks like it was only maybe twenty or so cycles old, so it was fused fairly recently.”

  “That’s so odd,” Mia said, almost speaking to herself. “Perhaps Father fused it before he gave it to me to keep me from opening it. He did hide me from my true family.” Her heart beat quickly, and she couldn’t catch her breath. Father, why didn’t you tell me sooner? I would have loved you anyway. Her mouth turned downward in a frown. “He passed before I could get any information from him about my blood family. All I know is that I have an uncle here in the Order.”

  “Do you have any idea who it could be?” Cedar asked.

  “None. If Brother Cornelius weren’t so advanced in age, I’d say perhaps him, but I know he can’t be my uncle.”

  “If you still had Compendium, you could ask it perhaps,” he said, shrugging a shoulder.

  Mia still wasn’t ready to reveal that Brother Cornelius had returned the book to her. “Perhaps,” she said, “although there are limits on what I can ask it. Certain information is access restricted.”

  She turned the locket around in her hand. The owl shimmered in the dim light of the cell. It was so detailed in craftsmanship that it almost looked as if it could flap its unfurling wings and take flight around the dank room like a small golden insect. The outside of the locket held a little forest at the open edges that had been parted when the locket opened. The jaggy ruffled edges of what made up the open leaves contained a very discreet pattern on the outside. Mia turned the knob at the top, and the leaves slid quickly back into place, forming a perfect, solid egg.

  “Ouch,” she yelped. She had caught the index finger of her right hand in the closing edge of the locket. The precise edges sliced her finger, and a droplet of blood formed on the tip. “It bit me,” she said, wincing with pain.

  “Let me see,” Cedar said, his face darkened and eyes concerned. He took hold of her hand and turned it over. He pulled a scrap of cloth from his robes and blotted the blood away. “That’s a pretty nice slice. Your clumsiness never ceases to amaze me.” He grinned at her and peered closer at the wound. “Well, you got yourself good, so it may take a bit for it to stop bleeding, but I don’t think it needs to be sewn.”

  “Well, that’s a relief, Doctor,” Mia said, rolling her eyes.

  Cedar laughed and wrapped the piece of cloth around her finger, securing it with a knot.

  “Just be careful, all right?” he said. He threaded his fingers into hers and pulled her toward him to gently kiss her lips. Her stomach churned slowly, as if a swarm of butterflies or glow bugs were trying to wiggle out, but she smiled against his lips.

  After Cedar left, Mia paced a bit around her cell to work off the nervous energy threatening to consume her. Between Brother Cornelius’s visit and Cedar’s, she had much to consider. She waited until after her next meal was served before pulling out Compendium. She rubbed her fingers over the pebbled leather cover before opening the book. She flipped to the title page, which read the familiar title, An Exhaustive Genealogy of the Families of the
Realm.

  “Compendium,” she said, “how come you never tell me about yourself?”

  The ink shifted in a familiar fashion.

  What would you like to know? Compendium typed.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

  You have identified yourself to me as Mia Jayne.

  “What is the symbol on your cover?”

  It is an owl emerging from a lotus flower, Compendium typed.

  “I know that,” she said, exasperated.

  Then why did you ask?

  “Snarky book,” she muttered, slamming it closed. “Blast it!”

  The edge of a page of Compendium slid under the makeshift bandage that wrapped the finger of her right hand. The book fell open in her lap, momentarily forgotten. Mia’s eyes watered as her finger stung bitterly. She pulled the loosened fabric away, and a single drop of blood oozed out of the slice in her finger and fell onto Compendium. It landed in a bright scarlet dollop on the aged ivory of the open page. She hastily blotted at it with the bit of cloth, but the cloth was already bloody and exacerbated the mess. She scavenged for another piece of cloth, but by the time she turned back, the blood spot had vanished.

  “What the—” she started to say.

  Beta Level activation coding complete.

  Of course. She originally had activated Compendium by sneezing on it. Brother Cornelius had said it was her birthright, but she didn’t think he had meant it so literally.

  “Compendium,” she asked. “Are there any other levels?”

  Affirmative, wrote Compendium.

  “What could you possibly want from me next, a tooth?”

  A tooth will not activate Zeta Level, scrawled Compendium.

  “Good to know,” said Mia sarcastically. “What’s the difference between Alpha Level and Beta Level activation?”

  “Direct link established,” said a calm voice directly in her ear. She yelled in surprise and dropped the book.