Shoreseeker

by Brandon M. Lindsay

  Noises filtered into the shadow world as well—short, clipped voices; footsteps as if she heard them underwater. The images flitted by them much faster than they were walking, and Nina thought that every step here might be worth more than one step in the real world. Sometimes the images changed so suddenly that her stomach lurched. She stared at the back of Chad’s head. How could he be so comfortable in this bizarre place?

  Nina jerked to a halt. Chad turned to her. “I can hear something,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “What are they saying?”

  “It’s … quiet. I can’t really tell.”

  “There’s a fork up ahead.” They continued walking, the strange sound getting louder with every step.

  They came to the fork. Nina nodded to the right, and that’s the way they walked. She couldn’t make out what the noise was, but the louder it became, the more her stomach tightened. There was something wrong about the noise. It wasn’t words, like she’d heard in the box. There were no pauses, no changes in tone. It was just one long noise that never seemed to end.

  She stopped again. “It’s getting quieter.”

  “Take me back to where it’s loudest.”

  When they got there, Chad nodded. His face paled noticeably as he studied the image in the wall. Nina couldn’t tell what it was at all, but Chad seemed to recognize it. Perhaps he’d been here before. He glanced at Nina, opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. He turned back to the wall and rested the tips of his fingers on its surface. They sank into the stone a little. He twisted them, almost like he was turning a door handle. Blackness rippled out from his hand and then they were walking through it.

  Nina realized they were back in the normal world when the noise suddenly changed.

  It was screaming.

  Relentless screaming. Unending screaming. It was so terrifying that she wanted to crouch down and cry, or even go back into the shadow world and never leave again. Instead, she slowly walked forward, her grip tightening on Chad’s hand, deeper into the room.

  It was dark, but flickering torchlight from the adjacent room came through the open doorway, casting a rectangle of light across the stone floor and filled the room with a soft yellow glow. In the center of the room was a simple wooden table with no chairs. Shallow scrapes and gouges, surrounded by brown stains, were etched in places near the edges of the table about halfway down its length. Fingernails had made them. Nina shuddered, turning away from the table as they walked towards the other side of the long room.

  They finally came to a row of shelves bolted into the far wall. Nina covered her ears with her hands, but it did nothing to cut out the sound. Fight it, she said, taking a ragged breath. Rounded objects of different sizes sat on the shelves. Chad took one off the shelf, ran his fingers over it.

  “Stones,” he said, though his voice was quiet against the torrent of screams. The word echoed dully in her mind until it triggered a memory from the day they were brought here.

  Lora Bale’s voice echoed in her memory. Take him to the stones.

  Nina pulled her hands from her ears and snatched the stone out of Chad’s hands. She ran her hands over the contours carved into it. A nose, ears, eyes wide in terror, mouth frozen in an eternal scream … She’d seen this face before on that same day. On the face of the boy who had tried to flee and was taken to the stones.

  No. He had become one of the stones.

  “What are you doing here?” barked a low voice behind them

  Nina and Chad both spun. Standing in the doorway was a familiar form.

  Vidden stepped into the room, a large river stone clutched in one of his hands.

  Eyes burning with anger, Vidden lunged for them. Veins of unearthly red light pulsed in his palm.

  His fingers caught only air as Chad tackled Nina hard. She braced herself for the inevitable impact with the wall, but she fell right through it, collapsing onto rough but glassy stone. They were in the shadow world again. She spun to see Vidden’s arm reaching through the inky blotch on the wall. Chad staggered to his feet, stabbed his fingers into the blackness, and twisted.

  The blackness vanished. A faint roar of pain echoed through the tunnel as Vidden’s arm, severed at the elbow, fell to the ground at Nina’s feet. The red light slowly faded from Vidden’s hand.

  Chad helped her to her feet. “We can’t stay here anymore,” he said. “We have to find a way out now.”

  Chapter 32: The Path to Prophecy

  Nestled between a hedge garden and a fishpond on the western side of campus, the Academy Library was shaped like a collection of boxes stacked on each other haphazardly. Dark vines crept up the walls of red brick, obscuring nearly the whole exterior. Only the peaked windows and the tall, arched entryway were clear of the vines. Tharadis stood in front of the building, clutching his pack to his chest.

  “Do I really want to do this?” he asked himself in a whisper. A small group of students walking past him, wearing their brown robes, gave him a frown. Maybe it was because he was talking to himself. Or maybe it was how he was dressed. He wasn’t interested in the robes that most people in this city wore—how did anybody get about in those things without tripping over themselves?—but had opted for leggings to wear under his tunic, a style he noticed that no one else had adopted. The leggings had drawn their share of stares, but at least he was a bit more comfortable in the cool, damp weather.

  In his pack was First Night, Last Night. The book reminded Tharadis of Dransig, of how the Knight never really got a chance to read his own order’s history. He wondered how Dransig was doing now. Had he made it to Garoshmir yet? Had he found his daughter? A part of Tharadis hoped he hadn’t. From the look on Dransig’s face when they parted ways, it wouldn’t be a pleasant meeting. No, when Tharadis had looked in the man’s face, he had seen the eyes of a man resigned to a dark fate.

  Or so Tharadis had thought at the time. Perhaps it would simply be that: a man meeting his daughter after a long time. Either way, Tharadis doubted he’d run into the man again, and would likely never learn what happened.

  He opened his bag once more and peered in, silently asking himself again if he wanted to give up his book. After making his decision, he slung his pack over his shoulder and walked into the library.

  * * *

  “Excuse me.”

  The librarian, a red-haired woman only a year or two older than Tharadis, looked up from the heavy book she had buried her nose in as he approached. The reception desk she sat behind was a massive oak affair, trimmed with scrollwork and narrow brass plates wherever there was a corner. She pushed her wire-framed spectacles higher up her nose as she sized up Tharadis. She didn’t seem to particularly care for what she saw. “Can I help you with something?”

  Judging by the tone of her voice and her cocked eyebrow, the “something” she could help him with was finding the exit. Tharadis wondered what about him could provoke such a reaction, until he realized that her eyes had gravitated to Shoreseeker’s hilt peeking over the edge of her desk.

  “Yes. I’m looking for any books you have on prophecy.”

  “I’m sorry, but the section on prophecy is off-limits to the public.” She went back to perusing her book. She flipped a page as if he wasn’t still standing there.

  “What if—” Tharadis took a deep breath. “What if … I have experienced one myself? A prophecy, that is?” The admission wasn’t an easy one. It was difficult for him to even admit it to himself.

  Without lifting her eyes, she said in an irritated tone, “Then write it down. Maybe it will be included in the prophecy section someday.”

  “I see. What will it take to be admitted?”

  “Well,” she said, finally looking up at him. “You could always cut me down and battle your way in. Otherwise, you’re not going in. The prophecy section is very off-limits.” She leaned back. Tharadis noticed a large, almost fist-sized orb hanging in a brass fixture chained around her neck. He had never seen anything like it. He could see tiny specks
of refracted light hidden beneath its green, glassy surface. When the woman noticed where he was looking, she cleared her throat.

  Tharadis met her eyes, face reddening as he realized where she thought he might have been looking. “So,” he said, clearing his own throat, “no one can go into the prophecy section? What’s the point of even having it?”

  “I never said no one can go in. Anyone who isn’t the public can go in.”

  Tharadis hesitated, hooking his thumb under the strap of his satchel. He had hoped he wouldn’t need to use this, but he was running out of options. Still, even if it did get him admitted, it didn’t mean that he would find anything of worth. It would be an expensive gamble if he lost. “What if I were a contributor?”

  “Only contributors from the Academy or one of the temples would be considered, and then only if they had special clearance from the Council.” Again, she flicked her gaze to Shoreseeker. “And what, pray tell, could you contribute anyway? Mayhem? Destruction?”

  He smiled, willing it to not be as tight as it felt. “A book, of course. A very rare and valuable one.”

  She smirked briefly, but a hungry gleam entered her eye. She obviously couldn’t resist the idea of a rare book. “I’ll be the judge of that.” She leaned forward and waggled her fingers at him. “Let’s see it.”

  Tharadis took a deep breath. He had to remind himself that the book itself wasn’t what was important, but rather the knowledge inside. He knew this book inside and out; keeping it wouldn’t help him, but trading it for more knowledge might. He drew out First Night, Last Night and gently set the old book on the desk in front of her.

  For several moments she didn’t move, but just stared at the leather cover with a mixture of skepticism and awe. Using a flattened end of a thin brass rod to keep from touching it with her fingers, she lifted the front cover. The book creaked as its binding shifted.

  Her breath caught as she scanned the faded writing on the first page. “It could be a forgery.”

  “It’s not the original,” Tharadis said. “But Belliceos was the scribe who copied it.”

  “If that were true—” She flipped to the back cover with her brass rod and leaned further until her nose was only a couple inches from the cramped writing on the last page, frowning intently. After several long moments, she closed the book and leaned back, pulled out a linen kerchief from her breast pocket, and dabbed at her forehead. “It appears to be authentic, though it may take weeks to be absolutely certain of that.”

  Tharadis didn’t have weeks. He was about to protest when she stood and walked around the corner of the wall near her desk, leaving the book where it lay and Tharadis standing there. Was she going to take the book or not?

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out. She came back around the corner holding a sheet of white paper. Without looking at him, she sat back down in her chair and placed the piece of paper on the book’s cover. She then pulled out a small glazed ink pot and a narrow wooden brush topped with a tuft of horsehair.

  “Uh …”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “It won’t actually seep through the paper into the book.”

  She seemed to know what she was doing, but Tharadis couldn’t help but feel a bit of apprehension as she dipped the tip of the brush into the inkwell two times and made her first stroke.

  Tharadis was entranced by the easy grace with which she made the first mark. It started off thin, under the slightest pressure from her delicate wrist, and quickly developed into a wide swirl. Suddenly the line changed direction, crossing an earlier curve, then slowly curling back in on itself. Though her next motion lifted the brush from the paper, it felt as if it were a continuation of the last motion. The next figure she drew was more angular than the last, a square overlaid with a looped pattern that resembled the curve of a snail shell. Each abrupt change led to a different form from the last until the entirety of the sheet was covered in layers of strange designs, right to the very edges.

  Even so, not a drop of the pure black ink went anywhere she hadn’t intended. Whatever was in that ink pot was very thick, which was doubtless why the library assistant was certain there was no doubt of seepage. Still, Tharadis believed that the finished result had more to do with the skill of the artist than with the materials. If it had been a different ink, she would have adjusted her technique to suit it. She was a master at her craft; there was no doubt about it. What Tharadis couldn’t determine was exactly what her craft was.

  Once she was finished, she rested both hands next to the book, still holding the brush between her fingers, and stared intently at the paper.

  Tharadis didn’t know what she was looking for; he couldn’t make any sense of the designs, if there was any design to them at all. Still, he decided that she must have been looking at something, so he focused his eyes on the center of the image.

  After several long moments, it was still a jumbled mess. It didn’t represent anything in the real world, at least not any objects that he had ever seen. He blinked twice and looked away. It took him a moment for his eyes to readjust, but then he turned to look back at the design.

  Something shifted.

  He frowned, turning his head for a different perspective. He knew that the ink was drying, but it seemed as if the various markings were moving ever so slightly, bending around each other, appearing as though there were space between markings that were directly overlaid on one another, at once sinking into and bulging out of the flat sheet.

  He had heard of such things before: designs meant to trick the eye. Illusions. They were supposed to be difficult to construct, and he had never seen one himself, at least not one that actually created the desired effect. That must be what he was looking at now. It seemed as if he hadn’t given this librarian enough credit. If a librarian was all that she was.

  She leaned back and blinked, as if returning from a trance. “It’s real, all right. Matches Belliceos’s style down to the letter.”

  “How is an illusion supposed to tell you that?”

  She turned to him as if just realizing that a person was still standing near her. “Illusion? What did you see?”

  Tharadis shrugged. “Nothing, really. I’m just not sure how this,” he waved his hand at the paper, “was supposed to tell you anything.”

  “You’re not supposed to be sure,” she said, voice inflected with a hint of irritation. She snatched the paper off the book, ripped it down the middle, and held first one half, then the other, over a candle until both were ashes, which she then swept into a bin tucked beneath her desk. “All that matters is that I believe this book is authentic.” She paused. “And I think, if you really are willing to part with it, then the least we can do is show you to the prophecy section.” Gently she ran a finger along the spine. Then she looked up at him, guarded curiosity alight in her eye. “Any specific prophecy you’re interested in?”

  “I’m more interested in general theory.”

  “Hmm.” She stood. Her expression was filled with obvious skepticism. “Well. Not too many people are interested in that, truth be told.”

  She eyed him a moment as if waiting for him to comment, perhaps even divulge why he was interested in prophetic theory. Tharadis smiled politely.

  She sniffed and started walking briskly. “This way.”

  Tharadis had always thought that his set of books back in Naruvieth was rather impressive, but it was a pitiful sight compared to the Academy Library’s collection. Scores of freestanding shelves crowded the massive main room, yet even those paled in comparison to the number of books shelved along the walls of the first floor. The second floor, connected to the first by a single staircase that split the library into two halves, appeared to be mostly alcoves where people studied, though even there were more shelves. A number of mezzanines and elevated sections were interspersed through the first floor, creating a maze of short stairways and narrow passageways between shelves that had no design that Tharadis could discern. At least no sensible design.

  They
walked down an aisle between two rows of long tables, each made of a single wide plank of darkly stained wood. Spread out among the tables were a number of brown-robed students, some of whom were huddled next to small towers of books or stacks of scrolls, occasionally interrupting their reading to scratch a note or two on a sheet of parchment. Others leaned back in their chairs with ankles crossed, casually perusing a single volume, lazily flipping a page now and then. One raven-haired girl’s head rested on her folded arms without even the pretext of an open book next to her. She merely sat at the table and slept.

  As Tharadis and the librarian passed, her eyes flicked open. Frowning, she lifted her gaze and flatly studied Tharadis. A few others turned to silently regard him, and then more. Soon everyone sitting at a table was staring at him, curiosity and puzzlement in their eyes.

  The hairs on Tharadis’s arms lifted. While the library was relatively quiet, there were enough small sounds to mask his steps, muffled as they were by the long carpet running between the rows of tables. Yet that didn’t stop anyone in the library from knowing he was there.

  Even the librarian glanced wordlessly over her shoulder as he walked behind her.

  When they passed the last table, everyone went back to their studies—or their nap—as if nothing had happened. Tharadis released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

  “You sure like to make an impression, don’t you?” asked the librarian.

  Tharadis regarded the back of her head. “What do you mean?”

  She chuckled softly. “If you didn’t notice back when I was checking the authenticity of your book, I’m a minor talent when it comes to Patterning. What you did back there …” She lifted her hands and let them flop back at her sides.

  Tharadis didn’t quite know what she was talking about, but he suspected what she was implying. “You think I have some Patterning ability.”

  She dropped back a step until she was walking at his side and seemed to seriously ponder his question. “I’m no adept, but I have learned a thing or two. Perhaps ‘ability’ is not quite the right word. More like, ‘effect.’ Though maybe you do have some ability, and it’s latent and you’re using it only subconsciously.”