by Ryan Tang
The pack was her only defense.
It was very heavy.
She had her tablet, the one that contained the story her parents had given her.
It held A Recent History of Plenty, and other books besides.
Emile grabbed her, and Alex realized she couldn't do it.
The thought of smashing the bag into her best friend's beautiful face was too terrible to bear.
She dropped the bag.
They hit the floor together.
She could hear her other friends thumping at her barrier, breaking it down with surgical precision.
Emile's hands were so cold that it extinguished even the warmth of the Eternium in her cloak and hair.
The fingers started at her chest, but they crept upwards, pulling themselves up against her shirt.
They'd been very warm once. Alex remembered.
"Emile! Emile! It's me!"
Emile's hands worked their way towards her throat, cold hard flesh brushing past the burning Eternium. Her friend was moving much slower than before.
Did Emile recognize her?
Her friend's eyes were cold and dead.
"Emile! Look!"
Alex reached for her bag and pulled out A Recent History of Plenty, the book Emile and her grandma had written together. The book Alex had just been reading.
There was a slow but steady tightening around her throat.
Alex forced out the words. She waved the bright red and gold cover back and forth.
"This book! Remember this book?"
Emile's grip grew tighter and tighter.
First, Alex couldn't talk.
Then she couldn't breathe.
The dying librarian flailed wildly.
The strangling fingers abruptly stopped.
Emile blinked.
They looked into each other's eyes, and Alex saw life, wonderful life.
Her friend's voice was filled with fear. It broke Alex's heart to hear brave Emile sound so scared.
"Run! Run! You need to run!"
The melodic clangs continued. There was now a deep bend in the wall.
Alex touched the shelf, and the barrier doubled.
Emile's eyes narrowed.
"How many times can you do that?"
Alex touched the wall, and the barrier reinforced itself again.
"As many times as I need to."
Emile nodded, then took A Recent History of Plenty into her hand.
"It was the book. I was trying so hard to let go of you. I was doing everything I could. But it was the voice...' Obey. Obey. Obey. Obey.' Over and over again. And then when the book touched me, it stopped. Just one touch, and then I was free."
Alex didn't understand what her friend was saying.
What voice?
Emile cursed.
"It's the contracts. It has to be. They had us sign contracts once we left the Spire. They said we had to sign otherwise we wouldn't get to keep our jobs even if you won. After we signed, something weird happened. There was a voice in my head. It kept saying the same thing. 'Obey. Obey. Obey.' We were told to put Stock's autobiography on the shelves and to erect his busts whenever there was open space. If we saw you, we should kill you. And then, we just did it. We didn't have a choice. I thought I slowed myself down a little when we were fighting, but that was it."
Her friend looked up.
"Let my grandma through. Can you do that? Just her?"
Alex closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could. She touched the shelf, and suddenly she could sort of see outside. Her vision was filtered through the Eternium, what she saw was brimming with blue. They were all lined up outside, taking turns smashing their bodies against the wall. First Laura. Then Nico. Mrs. T was third in line. When she charged forwards, Alex briefly opened the barrier.
Mrs. T went flying through the wall, straight into her granddaughter's arms.
For just a moment, she flailed.
Then Emile hugged her and pressed the book hard against her side.
The elderly lady stirred, and then she was alive again.
Emile nodded.
"It's the books. We need to find the right books. The books they dream about."
Alex concentrated and pressed her hand against the wall again. She brought Margaret and Mark in first. She knew their favorite books very well. The Eternium lashes surged through the Spire, pulling them from her co-worker's desks.
And then they were all working together, all naming the books that their guests treasured.
For Laura – Paragons and Pilots.
For Nico – the story about the nameless engineer, which was still on the podium of her reading room.
It went on and on until everyone on the other side of the wall was finally free.
Nobody could have done it better.
After all, they were Plenty's librarians.
____
Everyone had the same story.
It was the contracts. They were all promised different things if they signed.
The librarians could keep their jobs. The students could keep entering the Spire for free if they agreed not to spoil Stock's surprise for everyone. For Nico's mom and her friend, Stock swore he'd reverse their firing.
None of them knew what Stock was planning.
They'd only been working in the Library alongside all the other workers.
Some of them had broken and bleeding hands.
Nico sobbed.
"They made me dig on the second floor! It hurt! It hurt so much, but I couldn't stop!"
His mom cradled him as she told a very similar story.
She'd been commanded to mold the Eternium from the shelf into new busts. The shards had shredded two fingers to pieces.
And then, as if on cue, their tormentor began crowing in triumph.
"God! God! Today is the day I become a god! I've been working for this my whole life!"
Alex found a loose book then peered outside.
Stock capered down the hall, cradling an Eternium bust of his face like it was a baby. Once in a while, he bent down to kiss it, holding the forever red copy of his head tight to his lips.
"God! It's finally time for me to become a god!"
He was followed by two people Alex didn't recognize.
There was a shockingly graceful woman with long silver hair and a very pregnant belly.
Every once in a while, she turned and tenderly touched the big bearded mountain of a man who walked by her side. The big man's behavior was even stranger than Stock's. His tongue flickered in and out of his mouth like a snake's. He was carrying a bizarre and grisly trophy in his hands. Under one arm was a headless corpse. In his opposite hand was the swaying head of a little boy.
Alex pushed forward for a closer look.
She could have sworn the head was blinking. The lips looked like they were moving.
After all that'd happened, Alex knew better than to doubt her eyes.
Was the boy what Stock needed to become a god?
Stock kissed his bust again then turned around.
"Once I became a god, she'll know. Tell the slaves to bring a spare Paragon for her. I want my rematch. I want her to know who she trifled with!"
He was talking about her.
The tall woman smiled pleasantly.
"Of course!"
"I'm assuming my Paragon is ready?"
The big man nodded.
"I had the boy forge it two days ago."
"Yes! Yes!"
Stock began to dance. He wildly kicked his feet up and down.
"God! God! That's me! I'm god!"
The Council was quick to greet their benefactor. They sprinted down the steps like children on their birthday.
"Director-Captain! Director-Captain!"
"Captain! My Captain!"
"My god! Please allow me to worship you!"
"It's such an honor to see the greatest man in human history!"
Stock smiled indulgently.
"I'll need one of you to join me."
> He whirled his finger around, pointing to each of them in turn before stopping.
"Bret."
The tiny man squealed in delight. The others protested, but Stock waved them off.
"No. It must be Bret."
Stock smiled.
"Bret was the only one who stood by my side when that woman tried to kill me. I mean to reward him."
The squeaky little man cried out in delight.
"Yes! Yes! She'll pay for what she did to you! She'll bow at your feet for the rest of her life!"
"No, no. Not for the rest of her life. Even past that."
Stock sneered.
"Once I kill her, I intend to keep her as a trophy. She deserves nothing less."
Alex shuddered.
He meant every word he said.
Bret cackled in delight.
"Yes! Yes!"
The big man nodded.
"Follow me."
He plunged his hand through the shelf, which flashed bright orange.
The four of them entered the book-corridors.
The decapitated head turned and moaned in pain.
Alex replaced the book. She could hear their footsteps echoing through the halls.
She turned to her friends.
"Go and free the rest of the workers. I'm going to follow them."
Only she could navigate the book-corridors.
The librarian dove through the floor.
CHAPTER 28: THE SACRIFICE
There were five in their party, including Falo himself.
Peter carried him down the winding book-corridor halls, walking with the same sure-footed steps of a Truthspeaker. The big man occasionally looked down and apologized for what he'd done.
"I'm sorry. I hope you can understand."
Understand?
Peter had stolen Falo's goddess and his power, and now he was carrying him to his death.
Peter's wife stepped beside him. Judging from her steps, she was a Truthspeaker too.
The sight made Falo even angrier, but there was nothing he could do.
Not yet.
Every cell in his body was still screaming. They'd doused him in truth before taking from out of his cell. He couldn't move an inch. He was a prisoner inside his head, which dangled limply from Peter's hand, swaying back and forth by the hair.
He could speak, though. They didn't know it, but he could shout.
He could feel the strength in his throat.
They'd discover that once they reached the prison at the bottom of the Spire.
Stock brought up the rear, giggling all the while.
"God! God! I'm going to become a god! She'll pay then! Oh yes, she'll pay!"
The old man yammered endlessly about his coming power. He boasted and boasted about what he'd do to some woman who'd angered him. Save for his boundless confidence, he wasn't very different from Bret.
His hair was very unusual. The square-framed cut had been popular once upon a time, but that was only before Zann the Hangman died in disgrace. His cowardice was infamous. He'd been the first Lord killed by the Ignorants' precious Captain Ray. He'd died trying to flee, the most unforgivable sin of them all. If he'd held the line and perished bravely, reinforcements would have arrived in time. Everything would have been different. His father had told him the story innumerable times before.
Stock cradled an Eternium bust of his head, rocking it back and forth like it was a baby. Every so often, he'd kiss it on the forehead and giggle.
"Soon! Soon! Soon I'll be a God!"
Falo had dreamed of dueling Stock ever since he first heard about the man who'd imprisoned his friends in The Wastes. Here he was, right in front of him, and Falo was utterly useless.
Bret was the last to come, and unlike during their previous descent, he was the quietest of the group. He spoke only to praise his precious boss, cutting in to agree whenever Stock spoke of his coming conquest. It was role Falo had taken all those nights ago during a trip that Bret no longer remembered.
"First, we'll conquer the other colonies. All the Eternium will be ours. Then I will command an enormous fleet for our return to Earth. Yes! Yes! I will be a god!"
"Yes, sir! I can't wait for that day to come!"
It didn't take long before they found the same room where Falo had once knelt in front of his goddess.
The same room where Bret had nearly ruined everything with his gun.
The same room where he first met the Guardian of the Spire.
Peter laid him down on one of the amphitheater's carved black chairs. He and his wife clinked flasks then drank deep. This time, Falo could see the thin trickles of black.
Falo cursed himself again, but this was not the end.
Peter might have drunk the goddess's blood.
He might have created Contracts of his own.
He might've even known the rituals for low tide, dark rites that not even the Lost Lords dared to perform.
But Peter was not a Truthspeaker, and the goddess in that room was not his.
He had not drunk straight from a cut in her mottled rotting flesh.
He had not restored her to vigor by allowing her to drink his blood.
He had not fought by her side.
It was Falo who'd done all those things. The boy king waited for his moment.
As soon as the door opened, he'd scream.
He'd scream and command her to kill all the heretics around him.
Falo stared as they stepped up to the clean black door.
They weren't the ones who'd licked off the seal of blood.
They didn't understand.
They were Ignorants.
And soon they'd die for their folly.
"Here? Here? So it's just inside the door. The creature is just inside this door."
Creature?
She was a goddess!
Peter bowed his head.
"Yes."
Stock giggled and kissed the bust again.
The door opened.
Falo bolted up and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Kill them! Kill them all!"
The goddess did not kill them.
Falo shouted again, but nothing happened.
Peter's expression was sad and pained.
"She's no god Falo. She's just an animal in a cage, loyal to whoever feeds her."
Stock pointed at him and laughed.
"Who does he think he is? I'm god! I'm god! How can this thing kill me?"
And then Falo saw inside the room and realized the horrible truth.
____
Countless bodies hung from the walls, corpses with no limbs. Their faces were frozen in every expression known to man as they swung back and forth, back and forth, in the strange faint wind of the inner chamber.
There was fear and horror in all its forms.
There was Bret's gaping shriek, frozen on Greta's face. She was the woman he'd experimented on, the one who he'd freed from her Contract.
He furiously searched the other shells, and his heart shattered like splintered ice when he saw what'd became of his subjects.
He saw the one-eyed man Peter had brought into his home, who'd been the first to sign one of his Contracts. The old homeless man was trying to look brave, but the horror in his eyes was unmistakable.
A man in a gleaming white uniform had a horror-struck expression embedded forever on his face that matched Falo's own.
Falo had let this happen.
Falo had made this happen.
There was laughter and smiles of all sorts.
Full-throated cackles, mere chuckles, demure smiles, wild manic grins, even looks of love. On a young teenaged boy, Falo saw the exact expression Sarah made when she touched Peter's hand.
There were men, women, and children in every size and skin tone. One of them glinted gold as it turned this way and that, but before Falo could get a good look at what must have been a fellow Lord, they'd been obscured by another swaying corpse.
All the insides had been complet
ely hollowed out. Falo saw black entrances at the bottom where the legs had been torn off.
The goddess stepped forwards, wearing a different shell than before.
That was how Ignorance lived in the days when the Lords and their Gods obeyed no laws but their own sacred pacts. She was mankind's ultimate predator. She could pass undetected among her natural prey. She could corrupt any text and bend it to her will, obscuring her true nature from any attempt to pass it on, any attempt by an Ignorant to warn their fellows.
But in this company, the goddess didn't bother hiding her true form.
Peter pointed.
"Him first. He's a librarian, so you'll be able to go outside with him."
She fell flat onto the floor. Instead of walking, she dragged herself forwards, reaching from chair to chair with arms and legs that were far too supple to be human. Before long, she loomed over Bret. The bright red and pleasant smile never once left her face.
Peter's voice turned stiff and formal.
"The First Sacrifice – a Traitor to Knowledge, a man who looked away from the truth because he thought he stood to gain."
Bret didn't scream.
He didn't even seem scared.
The frog-like man just stared upward.
A trickle of drool trailed down his lip.
The fear and shock had already killed him. His mind had shattered after seeing the goddess's lair.
Falo gathered the last reserves of his strength. He concentrated every fiber of his being into his legs.
It was now or never.
He sprung from the table, leaping high into the air.
A Lord never fled.
Stock screamed. The old man dropped the bust to the floor and fumbled for his tablet, but it was too late.
Falo grabbed his head in one hand and drew his model Paragon with the other. It transformed in his hand, and then he was carrying his familiar kraken shield. He charged forward.
Stock finally pulled his tablet out of his bag, but Falo was ready.
He dove to the floor and angled his shield so the beam would shine at Peter instead.
The big man screamed and stumbled back.
But he did not fall.
Peter caught himself on the edge of the door to the goddess's lair.
The shells swung back and forth, and a couple even fell.
The sound of the shells shattering was the shriek of a throat filled with glass.
The dust immediately collected into strangely neat piles on the floor.
