by C. C. York
She felt the same heart-pounding anxiety now, waiting for something ancient and much bigger than she to overtake her as she listened to the fire crackle in her study.
She couldn't name her fear, but she knew without a doubt that forces beyond her control were set in motion. She sank deeper into the worn leather chair and crossed her legs, now clad in loose gossamer pants that pooled around her comfortingly.
Damari rushed in without knocking. "What happened, Alik? One of the guardswomen said you passed out at the gate, and when you didn’t meet up with my Eye, I thought something happened to you too.”
He wore soft, dark linen pants, his hair mussed, and she felt a pang of guilt for waking him when she knew he needed sleep. Alik asked, "Is she still gone?"
He didn’t ask who. "Yea, she slipped out sometime yesterday and hasn't been seen since. If this trek is anything like the others, she'll be gone another day."
Alik nodded. "Good. Can you get me in her study without being seen?"
Damari stilled. "That is a death wish, Alik. What are you looking for?"
She watched her little brother standing before the fire, debating on how much to tell him. He is the most vulnerable if someone catches us, but he’s the only one apart from Taavi I trust with this. And Taavi would never help me sneak into Firtina’s study alone.
"Mother keeps a series of journals under lock and key in a hidden panel under her desk. I stumbled across them once when we were little. I was hiding from Shauna, and I crawled under her desk while she was in the Atrium. The panel was open."
That was the first time Firtina struck Alik. She could still hear her mother's footsteps around the desk, her incredulous face at the chubby kid hovering at her feet with bent knees. Alik didn't know that what she did was wrong, and she cried out when her mother yanked her out with an Airwerk and suspended her high in the study. Firtina slapped her hard across the face just as her father came into the room. Alik brushed off the memory of his arms around her and focused on the task at hand.
She continued. "I think she knows where the girls are, Damari."
Damari had a face with no tells. If he were surprised or emboldened by her admission, she would never know. He nodded once, marked something on a paper at Alik's desk, and walked out the door. "We have to go now if we’re to go at all. Follow me."
He handed the note to a beautiful woman polishing the opal floor outside Alik's study. She slipped off without a word, and he hastened Alik down an empty servant's hall to the right. Damari stopped outside an unremarkable portrait, an Iktidar branch long forgotten, and poked a gold key into the man's mouth after a glance around. A click, a creak, and they slipped into another hall with no light. She held onto his hand and, after a few moments, felt him push against the wall.
Alik looked for a flame to push into the empty glass orbs to light the dark study they stepped into, but her head still pounded from whatever occurred earlier. She swore as she stumbled over a chair.
"Alik..." Damari rarely rushed her. He knew how atrocious she was at wielding elements even under the best circumstances, but they didn’t need to discuss how quick this needed to be.
"Well, do you see a flame anywhere? I don't have my rings," she hissed.
A rock cracked before a sputtering spark flared to life in Damari's hands. He simply said, "Torch."
Alik groaned again at the ridiculousness of her situation. I’m expected to wield all elements, so I can’t even carry the simplest of devices to help me lest another Pillar see me. She waved the flame to the glass orbs lining the wall. "They'll have to stay there. I don't have the energy for air."
She strode to the wide table at the back wall and pushed against the panel under her mother's desk. Damari fiddled with the lock with a set of blunt tools pulled from another pocket, and Alik held her breath as the panel swung open. Nothing.
"Bokki," Alik swore. "She moved them."
Damari nodded, "Split up, hands against the wall. Tell me if you feel any drafts."
Alik ran her hands along the wall, frustration feeding her anxiety. Voices brushed beyond the study door, and she froze just as she felt a small trickle of air under her palm. The voices moved on, so she ran her palms along her find.
She found the hair-thin gap in between the stone wall and the hearth of Ates. Damari looked up at the click echoing through the room. Alik pushed open a trick door hidden behind the cold fireplace and entered a small antechamber, dark beyond the flicker of the orb above her head. Damari met her in an instant, torch lit, and together they scanned the walls.
Alik's steps faltered at what they found. What in the Ates is this?
Papers, maps, and rudimentary drawings meticulously lined the walls in neat rows despite the cobwebs dangling between corners. Firtina’s handwriting scratched over notes pinned on top of the papers, and multiple stacks of books lined the floor. A huge world map of Sakalid lined the back wall with red flags dotting its landscape. Damari traced the curve of Efendian land and walked to the far side where the wastelands of Bakilar began.
He read aloud as his finger traced the map marked by flags. "What is a 'Ley Line'?'"
Alik shook her head. She was reading a note beside one of the many renderings of the Edicisi. None of this makes any sense.
Her mother abhorred local superstitions and blamed a lack of education for why the poorest sometimes worshiped the Edicisi. Yet, the entire room appeared to be dedicated to a study of the Edicisi and his Handmaidens. The idea of her tall, imposing mother huddled in here pouring over fantastical stories was disconcerting.
Damari held the torch high, and its firelight danced over a row of slim books lined in red leather partially hidden by the molding at the top of the ceiling. Alik pulled the farthest volume to the right with the meager Airwerk the Goddesses blessed her with, the journal falling more than floating to her outstretched hand.
"We can't stay in here, Alik, but I think I know where this leads. Bring it with us." Damari heaved against the back wall. It swung open on oiled hinges to reveal a rocky corridor darker than even the room they were in now.
Mischief danced in his amber eyes in the firelight. "How long has it been since you've seen Elder Spider?"
Alik laughed despite the headache and the trouble she was bathing in. "The library catacombs?" She nodded at his smile. "Lead on then."
The head elderman was ancient even when they were kids. Her skin prickled with goosebumps at the memory of his bones and joints popping behind her while she studied. The library, accessible only to the Elite families of Efendi with explicit permission, was the ultimate punishment for royal children. Alik suffered a few hours there throughout her studies, but Damari spent the better half of his childhood cooped up in the belly of the mountain.
Darkness shrouded them despite the flame Damari held over the steps beyond them. Alik lightly brushed the cold stone walls that wound down as they walked the spiraling stairs. Her fingers paused over a decompression in the wall before her mind caught up. She grabbed Damari's hand and held the torch over the carving of "HB and FI" entwined above the symbol of forever. The dark maw from her dream flashed in her mind.
Damari made a noncommittal grunt and proceeded on, leaving Alik no choice but to follow. Why would anyone carve their initials here of all places? They kept moving, and the stairs soon leveled out.
Alik whispered, "I don't know how you can stand being here. It still creeps me out."
"It wasn't so bad once I realized the catacombs touched nearly everywhere in Efendi. And once I grew to not fear the dark." Damari winked at her just as he extinguished the torch before a doorway.
Alik yelped despite her age and attached herself to Damari as her eyes adjusted to the half-light beyond the threshold. The catacombs spiraling through the mountain were dedicated space to dead Efendian Elite as well as books. The lack of light and frigid air helped preserve both equally well. Their doorway led them to a sarcophagus of a long-dead consort, his coffin eerily lit
by the blue half-light the Yinka bug produced. The faint blue light snaked through the walls like blue veins, light enough to see a few feet ahead but dark enough to still be terrified of what lay beyond.
Her Dua flared with her panic, doubling the pain in her head, but it helped quiet the 'what if's' waltzing through her mind. Damari was such a scrawny boy until he hit puberty. The idea of him exploring down here alone, without Dua, is terrifying. Alik prayed again to Ates that she'd only have girls.
A shuffle, then a curse. Someone muttered to themselves just out of eyesight. Alik's heart rammed against her chest as she shoved the red leather journal in her pocket.
Damari's shout shook a few years off Alik's life. "Ho, Josef! Looking good!"
Papers flew in the air before an old man shuffled into their light. "Ruzgar bless! Where did you come from, child? You scared the life from me." He peered behind Damari as if this was a regular exchange. "How many times have I told you, this is not a place to bring your---"
The man's voice gave a comically high squeak, "Ah! My Pillar. I'm so sorry. I did not recognize you. Usually, it's only Damari and his particular friends that come down here."
Alik glanced at her brother but gave no indication that this was news to her. "No need for an apology Elderman..."
"Josef," Damari supplied.
"Elderman Josef. It's lovely to meet you. Damari and I were just---" Alik was wretched at subterfuge, so she just let her thoughts trail off, knowing that her brother would run with whatever lie he'd already concocted.
He never let Alik down. "We're snooping for stories to share with the Dvarian embassy about Hasateen. Do you have anything on the Edicisi and his Handmaidens that's not made for children? Something rather ghoulish would be ideal so they never want to come back." Damari grinned in a way that could either be sincere or a joke.
More Rifters, brother? Alik hadn’t had a chance to tell Damari about the men that chased her. Men, not crones sipping cups of blood. The second cup of blood in the Trades came back to her mind, but the Elderman’s response distracted her.
"Huh. That's a new one. Do you remember the summer we spent looking over Magaran texts?"
At Damari’s nod, Alik asked herself, What else do I not know about my brother?
The elderman grinned. "There's an author that spent most of his life living in the mountains that wrote such a book on the Edicisi's Handmaidens. Let's go hunting!"
The old man lumbered ahead of them at a surprising pace. Damari called after him, "How is it a Magaran would know so much about an Efendian tale?"
Josef paused and glanced between the two of them. His pale skin practically glowed blue when he stood still between two coffins. Damari rolled his eyes, "Trust me; she's with us. You've no fear of recourse for simply telling us facts."
"Forgive me, My Pillar. It's just that your mother once frequented these halls. It wasn't until... later... that we realized why she wanted so much information on the kingdoms surrounding Efendi."
For her campaigns. Alik’s mother stood out in a bloodline of powerful Duawielders even at a young age. But she made her name by conquering the lands closest to Efendi on behalf of Alik’s grandmother. For their protection. Alik once swallowed those lessons without question. But ever since Agnian’s tirade, she began to question much in her life.
Alik stalled for a little time on how to respond. "Does she ever come down still?"
"No. Not in several years. We bring her any texts she requests."
Alik noticed the slight lilt in his speech and guessed that he came from one of the lesser islands surrounding Efendi; Islands likely razed from her mother and grandmother's invasions. "We're only looking for stories, not information for another siege."
The bearded elderman nodded and rubbed a hand over his substantial belly protruding beneath a beige cloth robe. "Some believe that when the first Rifter Hunt began, several women gifted with the Rift fled for protection beyond the Perimeter Wall. Some fled for the islands, a few braved the Batiwood knowing that our Horde would not follow, and yet at least two fled to the Magaran mountain range and lands beyond. The author of Magaran Folkore gives the most detailed account of Rifters we've seen, which leads me to conclude that he had firsthand accounts."
"I thought the Magaran tribe despised any form of Dua? Why would they allow Rifters in?" Alik asked. She thought back to the images of bloody battles between their winged fighters and the Efendian army from her studies. The Magaran people proved to be the only significant neighbor Efendi could not overtake, so an uneasy truce between the mountain tribe and her kingdom formed before Alik was born. They were supposed to patrol the skies of land beyond Efendian walls, and in return, the Duawielding army would leave them alone. However, the Horde hadn't heard from their scouts in weeks.
Agnian’s words came to mind, “What would make the Magarans stop their patrols of your skies?”
Josef responded to Alik, "Well, the Magarans certainly hate most Duawielders, but what is the primary principle of Dua?"
Alik responded automatically, "Dua is a temporary gift from nature meant to be borrowed with humility, not taken with greed."
Josef nodded and continued, "Rifters do not take from nature, according to this author. They do not rely on the elements surrounding them, and as such, are believed to be blessed by Ruzgar. From his accounts, we believe there was at least one woman with the ability to Rift among them."
"And I suppose the Edicsi is waltzing through the Magarans as well, according to this author?" Alik jested.
Josef winced slightly, looking almost apologetic. "Something like that. The author includes a tale of the Edicisi more vulgar in nature. It describes him as the offspring of a demon and a Goddess coupling. Some of the images are rather graphic."
"That should do the trick wonderfully!" Damari exclaimed happily.
The trio passed through several halls of books broken up with altars to dead Efendians and then crossed what felt like a mausoleum interspersed with a few stacks of books. Shadows flicked beneath the blue-veined light along the edges. Alik swore she saw another stick figure of the Edicisi in a corner, but she was afraid to be left alone if she stopped. The only living person they passed was a Waterwerker pulling water droplets from the walls. Finally, they came to the center of the mountain where the library's main entrance and catacomb resided.
The narrow walls opened to a cavernous dome littered with stairs and offshoots that eventually led to more dead and more books. Alik swallowed her dread at the sight of the long tables and orb lights under the massive statue of the four Goddesses.
The Goddesses stood two stories tall, their outstretched palms and arms held up the eight primary staircases that led to each of the levels above. Few patrons visited the library of dead and books at any time, let alone during Hasateen festivities, so the only movement came from the handful of workers and elderman moving sure-footed throughout. No one is sure which came first---the books or the dead---but it felt every bit the tomb to Alik.
"The text is beyond the next stairwell. I'll have an acolyte with younger legs bring it down for you. Is there anything else you wish, My Pillar?" Josef bowed to Alik but smiled genuinely at Damari.
"Are property ownership records held here?" Alik asked.
Josef replied, "Yes. Ruzgar's left stairwell and to the right. Is there something you're looking for in particular? I could help you pull records."
Alik worried a cuticle before answering. "Hvard Canavar's assets. Or assets held under his Canavar Company."
Damari looked questioningly at her but turned to Josef. "Thank you, Elderman. I'll walk with you."
They walked together, speaking low, up the main staircase that wound up several stories. Alik confirmed no one was around her before opening her mother's slim volume in her lap. She pulled an orb closer to her and the familiar scrawl danced under the flickering light. Sketches crammed the pages, and questions and reference notes lined the margins. Alik's fingers danced over
the notes, reading but not understanding the half-thoughts and maps scrawled on its pages.
Trio of power- Edicisi, Rifter and ???? Who is the third?
Gatekeeper, door. Watchers?
How did the Ley Lines form?
She jumped at the thump of a dusty tomb landing on the stone table. The acolyte mumbled an apology, and Alik waved her off while stashing the notebook away. I'll have to read it later when I'm alone.
She slipped her mother's journal into her pocket and flipped through the ancient tomb in case anyone watched her. The book started with fables of winged Magarans fighting creatures beyond their mountain range and interactions with the Goddesses. It later picked up stories of Rifters, but the women were not bent over and haggard as every other text depicted.
She flushed at a detailed drawing of a Goddess and a Demon entangled on an altar. The next page depicted a chiseled, shirtless man with demon horns and the black cloak of the Edicisi. Any image of the Edicisi she had seen before showed him cloaked, so she never saw his face. But this depiction gave the reader the impression that the demon spawn was beautiful. Any other time, she would want to dive into any story about him, but her mind drifted elsewhere as her fingers skimmed the tiny text.
Over the last seven years, she learned painfully and slowly to trust her instincts when reading other people's auras. She once tried to categorize the colors and feelings she read in order to study auras, but they kept adjusting or changing. Now Alik thought less about what each color meant and more about what each felt like to her. She assumed the soothsaying aspect of her Dua would eventually click as well, but she felt as confused about her recurring dream as she did the first plume of an aura at 12.
In every dream, I finally find someone I’ve searched for, but I still run out of time. That could mean Shauna, but why not show me her in my dream instead of someone else? So who is the girl I am running after? Is she to be kidnapped? And who grabs me? I can’t tell if it’s a warning to find the girl before time runs out or if the dream is warning me away from finding her in the first place. She assumed Shauna's disappearance made her jumpy, but now that she thought about it, she felt watched the whole dream. And perhaps that bleeds over into my waking hours, but I felt watched before I saw the cloaked man on First Night, and again in the Trades before those men chased me. Perhaps I’m being watched because I am closer to finding out who, or what, is responsible for the girls? And the men that chased me said, “he will kill us if he finds out we let her go when she was right there.” Who is “he”?
