“Gee, thanks,” Mira said tartly, glaring up at him. She could feel her patience starting to run out. “How exactly am I supposed to arrange all that? We need the artifact to bargain our way out of here.”
“You’ve always been industrious,” he said, his beard wrinkling in a quasi-smile once more. “I trust you to find a way. But if I should hear that the Lost Knights have the Chance Generator and are actively using it to increase their Points, I will be … most disappointed.” The stare he fixed Mira with almost instantly made her cringe, and it was infuriating.
The old man tapped the same artifact again, and this time all the lights on it went out. When they did, both Zoey and Holt exhaled deeply as they fell to the floor. Max whined as the same thing happened to him. He just squirmed on the ground with the others, feeling the painful sensations of motor control returning.
“What … the … hell,” Holt managed to say in between gasps of air, and the anger in his voice was apparent. He looked up at the Librarian with red eyes. “I am going … to stomp this guy.”
Before Mira could warn him, Holt pushed himself shakily to his feet. The old man, however, simply rotated a ring of dimes around a different artifact, one near his waist, until a specific coin clicked in place. When it did, the combination hummed loudly and glowed in muted red light. “That decision would be … ill advised,” he said calmly.
Holt eyed the glowing artifact, and didn’t make another move. He wasn’t a fool, Mira knew; he’d survived this long on his own by being able to read a situation in spite of his emotions, and his instincts were probably telling him the old man was a lot more capable than his feeble, disheveled exterior implied. If he wasn’t, the Librarian wouldn’t be so unintimidated. And for good reason, she knew. The Librarian was the one person in all Midnight City that even Lenore feared.
“Now that that’s resolved…,” the old man said as he moved toward the nearby work area. It was filled with rows of tables and seats in front of shelves that contained all manner of minor artifacts for combinations. It had been a school for Mira, a hallmark of what little “youth” she’d had, and the place always stirred emotions in her when she saw it. Here, sitting at these desks, she and dozens of others had been taught the cursory skills they needed to become Freebooters.
The basics of artifact creation: coins, Focusers, Essences. How to combine them into more powerful entities. The properties of hundreds of minor artifacts for creating their own. And the Strange Lands and its obstacles and its different rings. They learned about antimatter storms and dark energy tornadoes, discovered the mysteries of the core and the Severed Tower, and dreamed of seeing Polestar, the famous Freebooter outpost that stood in the middle of the third ring in defiance of the chaos that surrounded it.
Mira’s head, like those of all the other students, had been filled with the Librarian’s teachings, but he’d warned it was only theoretical knowledge. The only true way to learn to survive in that place was through experience. The Strange Lands were a harsh teacher … but so was the old man. Mira could still feel the shocks on her wrists and back when she got the polarity of a coin set wrong or chose the wrong Essence for a combination. The Librarian’s methods had seemed unnecessarily severe at the time, but the truth was, he was preparing them for the reality to come, Mira knew. The Strange Lands were unforgiving, and the punishment for failure there was far worse than the sting of an electrical charge.
Though his demeanor was cold, there was more to the Librarian than his harsh teaching style. He had spent his life since the invasion preparing countless children to become Freebooters, and had watched his teachings consistently not be enough to keep them alive. Mira knew he drove his students hard out of an interest to protect them—because, deep down, he really did care.
The Librarian stepped to a large, ornate pedestal holding a huge, hardcover bound book. He grabbed the mismatched pair of eyeglasses that hung from his neck and slipped them onto his nose. The book was as wide as he was, and he flipped the tome open and scanned its pages one at a time with a discerning eye, running his finger down the length of each, looking for something specific. Eventually, he found it.
“The Chance Generator,” he said in disdain, peering up at them over the rim of his glasses. “Are you ready for the key?”
Mira nodded. “Yes, old man.”
“Six of clubs,” he began, spouting out the list of settings that would program the lift. “Purple eight, and three-twenty-five. You and the Outsider can go—the little one and the dog can remain with me. I always have plenty of chores to be done, as you well know.”
Zoey looked up at Mira and Holt curiously, neither frightened nor eager.
“I’m not a fan of leaving her with Merlin here,” Holt said, fixing his gaze on the Librarian. The old man just stared back silently.
“He can be … difficult, I know, but he won’t hurt her,” Mira said, pulling Holt’s attention away from the Librarian. “I promise, it’s the last thing he would do.”
Mira could tell Holt didn’t like it, but her word seemed to be enough for him. He nodded, and Mira kneeled down to Zoey, ran her fingers gently through the little girl’s hair. “We’ll be right back, okay. Zoey?” Mira said. “Do what the old man says. There’s no reason to be scared.”
“I’m not scared, Mira,” Zoey said, matter-of-fact.
“Of course you’re not,” Mira replied. Then she stood up and moved for the large, heavy wooden platform that extended out over the breach of the pit, and the two wooden lifts that sat there. “Come on,” she said to Holt, and he followed after.
“Mira,” the old man called out gently behind her, and she stopped and looked at him. There was a different feel to his eyes now. “It is not … unpleasant to see you alive.”
Mira smiled. It was as close as you got to tenderness from the Librarian. “You too, old man.” She turned and kept walking with Holt toward the lifts.
Along each side of the platform were small, open shacks full of chains, ropes, pulleys, cranks, and wheels, and Mira stopped in front of one.
She reached for a long, antique brass crank attached to huge spoked metal gears. Interestingly, each gear was marked at certain points with old, faded playing cards—clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds—and the gear threaded through a series of giant rusted chains. Mira turned the crank handle, and the gear spun with it, pulling up lengths of chain and winding them through pulleys and slots up above the shed. Outside on the platform, one of the lifts shook slightly as the tension of the chains rippled down to it.
As Mira turned the crank, the cards began to rotate on the surface of the gears. She kept cranking, loading more and more chain, until she finally saw the card she wanted: the six of clubs. She kept cranking until it was pointed straight up, above all the others, and then locked the wheel in place.
The first axis was set, but there were two more to go. And using the formula the Librarian had given her, she set the remaining ones. She pulled a long stretch of thick rope downward, lined with numbers in different colored paint, until a purple 8 appeared. More tension shook the lift outside. For the last axis, she moved over to where additional chain hung, and an assortment of metallic weights hung with it.
“Help me,” she said to Holt. “We need three hundred and twenty-five pounds.” Holt was clearly confused at what they were doing, but he helped anyway. They added weights in different increments—ten pounds, twenty pounds, fifty—linking them into hooks on the chains’ surface, until it was the right amount. The chains didn’t move; they were locked over the breach with all the added weight, waiting to descend.
Mira and Holt stepped out of the shed and moved to the closest lift. It was not a quickly cobbled-together box of scrap wood; its pieces had been chosen from strong sources, blended together and rounded into soft curves, and polished and lacquered to a brilliant sheen. Mira opened the door to the closest one and stepped inside, feeling it tilt as her and Holt’s combined weight shifted it.
Inside was a small wooden panel w
ith two large metallic handles. One was marked LOWER and the other RAISE. Mira looked at Holt as he shut the door behind them. “This can be a pretty wild ride,” she said.
Holt studied her soberly. “Yeah, that was my guess.”
Mira smiled and yanked the lever labeled LOWER down and back.
Outside the lift, the huge chains and weights they had just configured in the shed raced through their pulleys as the tension released. The lift lurched and they were flung off the platform and up into the air.
Mira felt gravity catch them as they moved not just upward, but also sideways. Looking up through the small window shaped into the ceiling of the lift, she and Holt saw the ropes and chains that suspended them from the grid-work on the ceiling shift through various metallic rails and tracks as the tension pulled them to a specific spot.
When they reached it, the lift swung to a halt, swaying precariously over the hundreds of feet of empty air between them and the rock floor below.
Holt pushed back against the wall, probably in an attempt to feel something solid and not think about the sheer drop underneath them. Mira held his gaze, finding his discomfort pretty cute, if she were to be honest about it.
“Going down,” she said with another smile …
… and then the lift plummeted at breakneck speed toward the dark of the Vault below them.
42. VAULT
MAX WATCHED, chin on his paws, as Zoey rummaged through a collection of items on a desk and placed them one at a time back on the study area’s cabinets. They were all things she assumed were from the Strange Lands—pens, circuit boards, coins in plastic sleeves, springs, candles, spoons, doorknobs—and she watched as they all seemed to writhe and push away from one another, ever so slightly. Or was it a trick of the eye? Zoey couldn’t tell.
“You were supposed to organize them by color,” a stern, gravelly voice said behind her. Zoey turned and saw the Librarian watching her inquisitively, standing near the bottom of the teaching area, where the steps began.
She couldn’t read the old man as easily as she could other people. His emotions were weaker than everyone else’s, but not because he was without feeling. There were feelings there, but she guessed he was so in control of them, they never stood out. There had been only two times when she felt something from him, and both had been mixtures of sadness and apprehension, but so brief, she barely felt them at all. Zoey wasn’t sure if the mastery came from the old man’s age or from some facet of his personality. Either way, that restraint wasn’t something she experienced often.
“I was lining them up by how strong they felt,” Zoey replied, holding the old man’s gaze. She watched as his eyes thinned, and there, right then, she felt something from him: a stir of emotion, surprise mainly, but it fell away almost as quickly as it came.
“And how do you know which are ‘stronger,’ little one?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I just … feel it, sort of.”
The Librarian studied her even more closely now, and she felt the weight of his scrutiny on her. It wasn’t pleasant—she felt like one of his artifacts, like something to be analyzed and cataloged.
“Your name, girl,” the Librarian said bluntly after a moment. “Tell it to me.”
“Zoey,” she answered simply.
“Zoey,” he said in a slow, musing tone, as if deciding whether it truly fit her. “There is an air about you. A vibration almost, like a static charge. It’s something I encounter frequently, but never in people.”
Zoey had no idea what he was talking about, but it was interesting. “Where do you notice it, sir?”
He held her gaze pointedly. “Only in artifacts from the Strange Lands.” There seemed to be some implication in the statement, some musing, but she had no idea what it was. But before she could ask, he spoke again. “Where are you from?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Where did you grow up, I mean,” he pressed.
“I don’t know,” she said again in a lower voice, reaching for more of the artifacts. This subject wasn’t something she liked talking about. “I don’t have many memories.”
The Librarian contemplated her even more intently. There was a long pause before he finally spoke again. “You sensed the artifacts’ power as you touched them. I’d bet you can sense other things, too, can’t you, Zoey?” he asked.
Zoey went still at the question, hands holding the artifacts she was about to stack, and Max’s ears perked up curiously. No one had ever guessed her ability, not from simple observation, and she was suddenly uneasy about the old man. If he was that perceptive, who knew what else he might be able to deduce.
“Emotions, thoughts, memories?” the Librarian kept on. “Which is it?”
Zoey said nothing, just stared at the old man at the bottom of the steps.
“You can tell me, girl. There’s no danger in it,” he told her. “You can tell me if anyone, I assure you.”
Zoey wasn’t convinced. Should she tell him? He already seemed to know the truth, but was it smart to confirm it? What would Mira or Holt say? Mira trusted the old man—Zoey could sense that much—and there was even some affection there, but she was also cautious around him.
Suddenly, she felt a stirring in the back of her mind. The feelings blossoming and coming to life, the ones that had guided her before. When she noticed them this time, the first thing she felt was anger. Why now? Why hadn’t they appeared earlier, when she could have saved Mira from the Tone?
The feelings washed over her, and she absorbed them, discerning their meaning, and it was almost instantly clear: She should trust the old man. There was no hint as to why; she sensed only that it was important she do so. They wanted her to tell him everything.
The feelings were unpredictable, it was true, but they had never steered her wrong, as far as Zoey could tell. In fact, in spite of the frustrations she sometimes had, she’d come to trust them, almost as much as she trusted Holt and Mira. So she followed their lead yet again.…
“Feelings,” she said. “Other people’s feelings.”
The Librarian nodded, as if he’d expected that answer. “You can sense them,” he said.
“It’s more than that. It’s like I’m the one feeling them,” she answered. “Sometimes it’s scary.”
“I can imagine, Zoey,” the old man said with sincerity. “But there’s more, isn’t there? A lot more.”
Zoey told him the rest. Told him about the feelings, how they came and went, how they guided her. She told him how they had helped her cure two survivors of the Tone, how she had wiped it away by just touching them and willing it to happen. And how she couldn’t make it happen when she tried to heal Mira, how it never seemed to be her doing it at all.
Through it all, the Librarian remained quiet, listening and absorbing her words. When Zoey was done, he stood in silence, thinking. “Keep stocking the shelves,” he said absently. “It’s work that needs doing.”
Zoey started stacking the artifacts again, moving them around so that they were grouped in matching colors, as the old man wanted. As she did so, she noticed the Librarian was no longer watching her. He was too deep in thought.
“Why are you here, Zoey?” he finally asked. “In Midnight City. You came here for a reason, not just to help Mira. Am I right?”
“The feelings pushed me to come,” she said. “But I don’t know why. I just know there’s something here for me.”
The Librarian was silent a moment more; then he looked at Zoey. “It’s possible that your inability to use your powers is tied to your memory loss. Memories are what make us who we are. It’s also possible the memories were taken from you. Maybe to repress your abilities. If that’s the case, these … feelings of yours may have brought you here for the Oracle.”
The name itself meant nothing to Zoey, and it was so vague, she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel about it.
“It makes sense,” the old man continued, thinking out loud, “that they would send you here for that, bu
t how did they know? Could they be more prescient than I thought? Or…” His eyes refocused, locking back on to Zoey. He seemed to be considering things, important things, but she couldn’t sense any of it, and that frustrated her.
“Do you see the curtain hanging over the wall at the back of the study area?” he asked.
Zoey looked past the desks and chairs, past the cabinets lined with glowing artifacts, to the wall in the far back. Hanging there was a curtain, red and blue, with a diamond pattern. It was probably an old rug the Librarian had repurposed, but it added a splash of color to the black walls that dominated everything. “I see it,” Zoey said.
“On the other side lies what you seek,” he declared.
“The ‘orkle’?” Zoey asked.
The Librarian’s beard crinkled around his cheeks, signaling a smile, but it lasted only a second. “Yes, Zoey,” he told her. “The Oracle. All my students visit it once. Mira herself did so, but she was much older than you. In fact, when you speak to it, you will be the youngest ever to have done so.”
“What does it do?” Zoey asked, looking at the curtain on the wall, wondering what was on the other side.
“It’s a powerful artifact,” he said, “maybe the most powerful ever to be brought out. I found it many years ago, when I still had the strength for such things.” He paused a moment, considering his next words. “The Oracle reveals to you your three greatest truths, Zoey. Who you were, who you are … who you will be. The revelations are not always … pleasant. Nor are they always clear. Some of them you will have to decipher for yourself, but they should be enough to tell us what you are meant to do.”
Midnight City: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) Page 31
