by J. M. Frey
In truth, I have missed my daughter very much. In Victoria, we spent hours of every day in each other’s company, and now, I must share her with others. I do not resent my family their extended time with Alis, but I regret that it comes at the loss of my own. Judging by the way she curls her fists into the placket of my traveling robe, Alis agrees with me.
“Halloo, and well come!” the man approaching us says. He stops a few paces away and bows at the waist. “I am Saetesh! Of House Kell.” When he stands straight, I can see the obvious marks of mixed elvish ancestry—the slim build, the curtain of straight white-blond hair, the high cheekbones and narrow nose. But the rest of the man is pure House Kell. He is only slightly shorter than Kintyre, with bronzed skin and cutting cheekbones. He wears a robe of Kell-azure layered over the scholar’s uniform of dark trousers and boots, a rumpled azure waistcoat with a dangling neckcloth, and a lawn shirt that he probably hasn’t changed since yesterday. For all that he is elvish in appearance, the man looks like he fell asleep atop his desk—rumpled and lined, and spotted with ink.
It is a bit like looking in a mirror. If the mirror could make me more handsome at the same time. I like him immediately.
I bow to him as much as I am able, and say, “I am Forsyth Turn, Lordling—humph. Well now.” I am lordling of nothing, I remember suddenly. I am no longer the heir-presumptive to the family seat. My title has passed to my nephew, and the only one I hold now is my scholarly one. “Apologies, that is Sir Kintyre Turn, Lord of Lysse Chipping and Turnshire, his trothed, Sir Bevel Dom, and his son, the Lordling Wyndam Turn. I am Master Forsyth Turn, and this is my wife, Madam Lucy, and our daughter, Mistress Alis Mei. And that is Miss Lanaea of Sherwilde.”
Saetesh makes a leg at each of us in turn, saving a beaming grin for Lanaea and Alis. Elves live so long and reproduce so rarely that children are sacred and wondrous to them. They would consider a lapful of babes an exuberant bounty; I have known elves to attend human parties and fall to their knees, weeping with joy when a brace of toddlers have tried to climb their hair. Saetesh of House Kell identifies himself with his human parentage, but behaves toward children as an elf, and I cannot tell therefore where he has been raised. What a delicious mystery.
But my mind is already twisted with mysteries enough, and so I regretfully set this one aside.
“And did you arrive safely?” Saetesh asks. “There is a witch on the roads, they say. A weather witch, no less, and she’s out for your treasures,” he warns. “So you must be careful when you leave here, aye?”
“Oh, aye,” Bevel agrees, looking back over his shoulder at Lanaea. He says nothing further about it, but he is clearly recalling the thunderhead that hovered above the field where Lanaea was attacked, for I am recalling the same thing.
This is the second time we’ve been warned of this wandering witch.
A third warning, and I might grow concerned enough to suggest we try to intercept her. Things that happen in threes in this world mean something.
“And have you come to tour the Lost Library?” Saetesh asks, scholarly exuberance palatable as he turns back to face me, the obvious spokesperson of our party.
Behind him, I can see Kintyre rolling his eyes and elbowing Bevel, mouthing, “bookmouse!” It is an insult he’s used frequently enough with me that I do not appreciate him teasing someone else; especially someone who may prove to help us. I send a disapproving glare at my brother, who immediately looks contrite.
“We’ve come to do research, actually,” I say to our welcome party.
“Oh!” Saetesh breathes, clearly excited. “We’ve not had any researchers in before. Please, please, be very well come. My colleagues are in the geology section today, cleaning up, so I shall have to be your guide.”
“Cleaning up what?” Pip asks.
Saetesh grins and leans toward her as if confiding a secret, but he answers loudly enough for all of us to hear: “It appears as if some of the samples were sleeping golems—they get a bit cranky when woken. They smashed the display cabinets.”
“Do you need us to slay them?” Kintyre asks, hand already on Foesmiter’s pommel.
“Slay them?” Saetesh asks, alarmed. “Writer, no! They were perfectly content with a bit of a mineral oil wash-down and a bedtime story. Went right back to sleep, the poor wee things.”
Bevel and Kintyre exchange an incredulous glance.
“You . . . convinced golems to just go back to sleep?” Bevel asks.
“They were very small,” Saetesh says, holding out a fist in demonstration. “And most of them were crystal. They yawn very adorably, for rocks. They’re very happy to remain a part of the educational display so long as they’re treated respectfully. It’s a warm, safe place to sleep where they won’t accidentally be trod on.”
“But golems get huge!” Kintyre protests.
“Yes, after several hundred centuries,” Saetesh says, smiling and wagging a finger at my brother. “And when they outgrow the cabinets, they’ll probably go sleep in the rock garden out the back of the Library.” He claps his hands and returns his attention to me: “Now, research?” His eyes stray to Kintyre behind me. “Will you . . . all be coming inside?”
“Yes,” my brother grunts.
Saetesh’s eyes drop to Kintyre’s hand on his sword. Kintyre lets it go. Saetesh’s smile gets a bit tighter. Kintyre is a great admirer of the arts, and the deep well of his affection for anything creative always raises froth and waves when something beautiful is destroyed—more so if it was vandalized, or dismantled so long ago that there’s no way to even know what the original sculpture looked like. He clearly resents Saetesh’s wordless implication that he is a know-nothing buffoon with no appreciation for the architectural wonders of the Library. Especially since, with all his travels, Kintyre has come to appreciate architecture quite profoundly.
“Very well. But please be aware that the books in this Library are very, very old, and though they’ve been under a spell of stasis for several centuries, they were old even before then.”
“You’re warning me, but you’re not worried about the baby?” Kintyre asks, offended.
Saetesh turns back to tap Alis’s nose. “Absolutely not,” he says. “I can tell a book lover when I see one.”
“‘Ook, ‘ook!” Alis agrees.
“Exactly! Well done, small one!” Saetesh says to her. For us, he adds: “Now, if you’ll all follow me, please.”
Wyndam helps Lanaea to her feet, and Bevel says, “You can stay out here, if you would prefer,” to the two young people.
“I want to see it,” Lanaea says. “My legs aren’t that bad.”
And where Lanaea goes, Wyndam is sure to follow. The lad lays a hand over the gash in his abdomen, but nods his assent. He would do much better here, resting, but he is my brother’s son in this, and so I save my breath to blow away pixies.
Capplederry bounces along beside us, and squeezes in the front door immediately after Wyndam, purring like a revving engine.
“I don’t think . . .” Saetesh begins, but then goes quiet when Capplederry bounds up the aisle that splits the main floor of the Library in half and heads straight for the massive mosaic that fills the back wall under the balcony at the far end. The main part of the Lost Library is a wide, circular dome, with two levels of shelves. Under the dome’s central skylight, upon the balcony, there is the podium where stands the Parchment that Never Fills.
“Looks good there,” Kintyre says, pointing at the podium.
“Ah, yes, it . . .” Saetesh stops, scratches the top of his head, and sheepishly asks: “Now, you’ll forgive me, but . . . did you say your name is Kintyre Turn?”
“Aye,” my brother says, his grin spreading.
“Ah,” Saetesh says. “Well. Apologies, then. I was . . . excited about visitors and wasn’t fully listening. And, yes, thank you returning the Parchment to the Library.”
“Of course,” Kintyre chuckles.
When I turn to ask Pip her opinion of the Lost Library
now that it is restored, I find her standing in a puddle of multi-colored sunlight in the middle of the aisle. The massive shelves spread out behind her, like the wings of a creature from her world. With her head tipped back and her eyes closed, arms down at her sides but fingers stretched toward the books as if she could read them all simply by touching them, yearning to do so, she looks divine.
“Look, sweeting,” I whisper to Alis. “There are more creatures in the Library than Master Kell thinks. Mama’s an angel.”
Pip, who manages to hear me, snorts and puts her hands on her hips, leveling a smirk at us. “Kinda the furthest thing from, bao bei,” she corrects, walking past us to join Capplederry in perusing the mosaic and winking saucily at me as she does.
“There are many creatures in the Library, to be sure,” Saetesh says. “The baby golems in the geology display, pixies in the rafters, spiders the size of your fist out in the reading garden— honestly. Just last week, we found a fairy nest between the pages of the Royal Peerage. And of course . . .” He gestures to Capplederry.
“But Capplederry is a part of the Library. Here,” Pip says, running her hands along the mosaic. Saetesh looks like he is about to have a fit, but he dares not correct the Madam Turn on her poor artifact-handling etiquette. “See?”
She is pointing at a curiously blank spot on the wall, shaped almost precisely as if a large lion standing rampant should be occupying it.
“The old mage who sealed this place must have pulled Capplederry from the wall to guard the Parchment that Never Fills,” I say, understanding it myself only as I’m saying it aloud. “That is why his coat matches the stone walls.”
Capplederry comes to wind around and between Saetesh and I, exactly as house cats wind between the legs of the human they prefer, scent-marking us and purring. By now, I am quite used to Capplederry’s affection and weight, but Saetesh is knocked off balance and down onto the rug. Capplederry follows, curling around him and nuzzling at his face, begging for pets.
“Amazing,” Saetesh breathes. He is hesitant at first, but when Capplederry makes no move to harm him, he digs his hands into the great cat’s ruff. “Truly incredible.”
“Indeed,” I agree.
“It’s so affectionate,” he observes.
“Capplederry was very alone for a very long time,” Pip says, reaching down to push the hair on one of the cat’s forepaws up, exposing the scar the manacle left on its flesh. “The old wizard chained him up to protect the Parchment.”
“That’s not very fair,” Lanaea says, and I am struck by the offense she seems to take at this injustice. “That’s horrible!”
“That’s why we freed him,” Pip says.
“And that’s why he followed us home,” Kintyre adds.
“I have studied in every great library in Hain,” Saetesh says, voice filled with tremulous awe. “And I have never seen anything like this. Not even in the Viceroy’s Ivory Tower.”
“Ivory Tower?” Pip blurts, surprised. “What, as in . . . ?”
“As in, the tower is the whole of his castle, which is made up of ivory,” Bevel says. “With the Viceroy defeated, we were able to purge it of the evil spells protecting it and open it up for Spell Scholars.”
“Yeah, but,” Pip says, looking slightly queasy, “an ivory tower?”
“Yes. And?” Bevel asks, head cocked to the side, his sapphire eyes squinting in hedgehoggy confusion. “It’s polished dragon teeth mostly, I think, but also the ribcages of some sea creatures and the claws of monsters.”
“So not academia,” Pip murmurs, almost to herself, and ah, yes, that is where I have heard that phrase before. She leans in closer to me and whispers into my ear with her lips shielded: “I didn’t realize Reed had such a hate-on for the academics who critiqued his work.”
“Do you suppose that was the intended metaphor?” I whisper back.
Pip blinks owlishly. “And you don’t?”
“It seems a bit obvious,” I offer. Pip looks at me, and I sigh. “Yes, of course, our creator is anything but subtle. You are right.”
We break apart, and Saetesh, who had obviously been straining to eavesdrop, does not look away. He has a thoughtful look on his face.
“Well now, Master Kell,” I hedge, deliberately changing the topic. He seems to know it, as well. Ah, scholars. They are always so quick to find an inconsistency. And, I’ve found, able to identify troublemakers around their precious books. So, in keeping confidences, Pip and I have just, I fear, branded ourselves as such. “Where would you keep the astronomy texts?”
“Astronomy?” Saetesh repeats, the color draining from his bronzed face as he does so. He pushes away Capplederry and comes to stand directly before me. “Master Turn, who are you?”
“Just an interested scholar,” I lie.
“But one who travels with a hero, a babe, and a creature so fantastic I’ve never seen its like before. What scholar needs this much protection, and yet, at the same time, what scholar would bring their family along while they seek answers?”
“One with, I hope, the other half of the puzzle pieces,” I confide in him.
“And what part of the puzzle does the Lost Library hide?” he asks, stepping close.
I raise my free hand and point up. “Hopefully, if we are lucky, the stars.”
Saetesh looks baffled.
“Surely you’ve noticed,” I say.
Saetesh looks up as if he could see them now, in broad daylight and through the dome. “I . . . I haven’t. I’ve been focused on books. But . . . you’re right. I did not see the constellation of the Rabbit-in-the-Hedge last night. I thought about it when I looked up, but then I forgot . . .”
“There’s this weird blind spot,” Pip says, gesturing at her temple. “I mean, until it’s pointed out, it’s like we’re the only ones who’re noticing.”
That is as much as she says, though I know we are both thinking that it is because we are from outside this realm.
Shoes, rings, and wizards, I think. Swords and chairs, shadows and thimbles and stars. A lad who made a Deal and cannot tell anyone what it was. A family pulled into fiction, or back home again. Bookshelves slowly going bare. A sky going black. And now a weather witch stalking Hain, stealing trinkets and treasures alike. But how does it all connect?
Silver and Soil
The next two totems, Solinde manages brusquely and efficiently. They are nearby, if she travels swiftly, and drinks deeply, and she wishes to make these attempts before facing the Turns.
Just downriver of the Salt Crystal Caverns, under a tree topped with foliage that shines white during the day and silver at night, she finds and destroys a circular totem that looks like nothing so much as a belt buckle with a stylized “M” across the center. The silver tree rustles and tinkles as she approaches, the leaves chiming musically, and shrieks while she departs.
In Carapath, under a temple in a village perched on one of the many cruel and barren mountain foothills that reach their dry fingers into North Urland, it is a crate of soil, old and crumbled with white mold.
She hopes with all that she is, with every drop of her being, that these totems are what will free her son, and rages with all the power of the storm when each proves unfruitful.
Ah, but the Turns are on the move; she feels the tug of the golden thread against her finger. She must shift her attention to the idiot boy. He is nearby, just on the other side of the Cinch. Solinde drinks her fill from a freshet spring, and then rides a thunderhead over the peaks, the fog of her determination boiling down into a grassy plain broken only with a low, grassy knoll and the occasional stone, and the naked relics of a long-felled castle, bared to the world like bone through a wound.
Solinde is powerful, and resourceful, and she is ready.
Twice, Solinde has faced the most hated enemy of her beloved Varnet.
Twice, she has failed to end him.
Kintyre Turn will not escape her wrath a third time.
Twelve
The astronomy re
ference tomes are shelved in a Gadotian-style building at the back of the main dome, complete with a watchtower and a rudimentary telescope of its own. When we make our way there, Kintyre and Bevel peel off to go explore the reading gardens, which are dotted with benches and overgrown flowers of every species imaginable, according to Saetesh.
Wyndam tags along with us, but immediately pulls Lanaea over to a display of navigational instruments. There is a case of cross backs and astrolabes, sextants and a kamal, which consists of a small board with a knotted piece of twine through the center. Wyndam holds one of the knots under his chin in demonstration, and extends the board away so that the edges make a constant angle with his eyes. Clever lad. Lanaea seems impressed.
In my arms, Alis’s attention is drawn to the ceiling. It is painted black, and is flecked with gemstones that mimic those lights that have gone missing from our sky. It seems that once, different colors of ribbon used to connect the diamond-stars into their constellations, but they have long ago fallen to tatters and rot, and are hanging in dusty strips.
“I can’t say where you ought to begin,” Saetesh says, gesturing in a helpless shrug. “This is not my area of expertise. But I can fetch Robsfarn. They should be able to help.”
“Thanks,” Pip says. When Saetesh departs, he throws one last suspicious look over his shoulder. “What do you think has him so paranoid?” she asks me, reaching up to tug at one of the ribbons. It crumbles in her hand.
“I think perhaps we have been imprudent in how openly we’ve been discussing your, ah, origins,” I suggest.
Pip frowns and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Perfect. Well, not much we can do if he’s got a bug up his nose about it. Let’s read some books.”
“This way,” I say. “If this Library is set up like the others I’ve known in Hain, then the historical records should be along that wall.”
And along “that wall” they are. The books here are thick with dust, and I Speak Words of Preservation and Repair as I skim my fingers along the leather-bound spines, taking pleasure in the way the subtle ridges of the gilt lettering can be distinguished with my fingertips. Pip’s eyes take on a glazed look as I Speak, and I realize that she can Hear Words no better now than she could the last time she was in my realm. For her, a Reader of Legend, the magic does not work. It slides off her mind like oil across the surface of water. It does not cling to her, does not seep and settle in her as it does the humans of this realm.