By the time they reached the end of the chamber, Karigan felt as though she’d been on some long subterranean journey. The dark hovering on the edges of Estral’s lamp and the silence around them held such a dense quality that it was hard to believe it was daylight above and the campus was alive with the comings and goings of students.
The chamber ended at a room framed by a broad arched entryway. It contained a worktable and a couple sections of shelving that were mostly empty. The lamplight glistened against a seam of crystalline quartz that jagged through the smooth granite of the back wall like a streak of lightning. Inset into the wall was an alcove with a manuscript displayed in it.
“This was the area we discovered during renovations,” Estral said. “It was all walled off and we had no idea it was here.” She walked past the table to the alcove. “And it was here we found some old manuscripts, but only the one remained intact.”
Karigan followed Estral into the barrel-vaulted chamber and over to the alcove. She looked down on the manuscript. It was yellowed and stained. She knew what it was without Estral telling her. This was why Estral had brought her on the “tour,” to show her this one thing: the Journal of Hadriax el Fex. Her ancestor, the murderer.
Her fingers hovered just above the fragile title page. She could not read the scrawl on it, for it was written in the imperial tongue, but she knew the translation: My Voyage from Arcosia to the New Lands; the Country There and Its Resources; My Adventures Among the Heathen Inhabitants; Our Settlement of Morhavonia; and the Long War that Ensued. Journal of Hadriax el Fex, Count of Fextaigne. Then in Old Sacoridian, he had written: Hereby known as Galadheon.
“The paper must have been from Arcosia,” Estral commented, “and of a very high quality to last all these years. Our ancestors had nothing like it.”
Sacoridian ancestors, she meant. Karigan’s ancestor was of Arcosia. “I sent my father the copy you made for me,” she said. “But I don’t know if he’s bothered to read it.”
Her fingers trembled and she withdrew her hand without touching the manuscript. Though she could not read the words, words in her ancestor’s own hand, they seemed to speak to her, reach out and resonate. She turned her back on it.
Why was it that everything she had once thought to be true, like her father’s fidelity to her dead mother, had been turned upside down? It wasn’t enough that she had become a Rider instead of the merchant she had always planned to be, but even those things she had thought incontrovertible, like her heritage, had been swept out from under her feet. Everything that had been the foundation of who she was turned out to be nothing but lies. She swiped away unexpected tears.
“Karigan?” Estral’s voice held a tinge of concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything and nothing.” She strode down the aisle between shelves but did not get far before she stood in darkness. Estral had not followed. She turned and saw her friend standing at the alcove gazing at Hadriax el Fex’s journal. After a few moments, she left it behind, her lamplight pushing the dark down the aisle and revealing piles of scrolls on the shelves to either side of them.
“Is it something to do with Hadriax?” she asked.
Karigan took a shuddering breath. “My people were fishermen, or still are, I presume.” Her father had never taken her to Black Island where he grew up. There was little love between him and his father, the grandfather she’d never met. “Simple Sacoridian fishermen. They’re not supposed to be descended from imperial murderers.”
Estral cocked her head the way she did when listening very closely, or turning something over in her mind. “It was war, and atrocities were committed on both sides, by Arcosians and Sacoridians both. Karigan, you aren’t your ancestor. Hadriax el Fex is long dead and gone to dust. Besides, he was courageous enough to renounce Mornhavon in the end and aid the League. If he had not, the outcome of the war might have been far different.
“As for your family on Black Island, they are not the simple folk you think. Your grandfather holds a good deal of prestige among the islanders and owns several fishing vessels.”
“I–I didn’t know.” Karigan scrunched her eyebrows in consternation. It was not fair that Estral knew more about her family than she did. “I know only the stories my father and aunts told me. Seems my father has kept a number of things from me.”
“I’m sure he had his reasons,” Estral said. “Your family was poor when your father left the island, and though they are not exactly prosperous by some accountings, they are, for fishermen, doing well enough for themselves.”
“How do you know?”
“Our minstrels voyage out to the Night Islands from time to time, where they are eagerly received, for news is sparse and visitors rare, especially visitors gifted in music and tale telling. The minstrels watch and listen, and learn the affairs of the communities around them.”
I should have guessed, Karigan thought.
She had never been overly curious about her extended family out on Black Island. She knew they fished, and that her grandfather was a horrible enough tyrant that her father left the island to seek his destiny elsewhere. She had grown up absorbing her father’s antipathy toward the island G’ladheons. She’d had enough love and support from her father and aunts, other mainland members of the family, and even the household staff, that she never felt anything was missing. Just her mother who had died so young. Her mother’s side of the family, also from Black Island, was an even greater mystery to her. Maybe one day she’d venture to the island and see for herself what her family was all about.
“Nothing is ever what it seems anymore, and nothing is what it should be,” Karigan said.
Estral’s eyes glinted in the lamplight as she gazed at Karigan. “I’m sorry things haven’t gone the way you’ve expected, or have turned out differently than you’ve always known them to be. It does seem like you’re adjusting to Rider life, though.”
“Yes, I suppose I have. It’s an honor to serve the king.”
“And not just because you’re in love with him?”
“WHAT?” Karigan rocked backward as if struck.
“As I thought,” Estral murmured.
Karigan placed her hand on a shelf to steady herself. “Five hells! How can you—”
“Something in your face, your eyes, changes when he is mentioned, and your reaction confirms for me how you feel about him; that it goes beyond duty and respect for your monarch.”
Karigan sagged. “Do you have some time?”
“I’ve no classes today,” Estral said, “and we’d better sit. I’m tired of holding this lamp.”
They returned to the chamber with the alcove and sat on stools at the worktable. “This is not song fodder for your minstrels,” Karigan said. “It is between you and me.”
“You have my promise I’ll keep it to myself,” Estral replied.
Karigan let flow all the feelings she had kept inside, her blossoming realization of her feelings for the king; his expression of love for her one night on the castle rooftop. She told Estral how he had attempted to present to her an all-too intimate gift even as his signature was drying on the marriage contract with Clan Coutre. She railed against the divisions between nobility and common blood.
“I’m so stupid,” she said. “To even think—to even hope.”
Estral, who remained silent through the entire thing, said, “Love is not stupid. It’s just difficult when it happens this way. I think you’re doing the right thing, trying to get on with life and beyond something that can’t happen. I’ve no wisdom to offer, I’m afraid, just sympathy for my dear friend. It is hard that the matter of birth to one bloodline or another determines our path in society, but we have no say in to whom we are born, just as we have no say in who our distant ancestors are.”
Estral may claim to lack wisdom, but her words quieted the conflict inside Karigan. Estral was right: one did not have control over the matter of one’s birth, and to be angry and frustrated about it was futile. It would change nothing. Maybe
if she were more accepting of life as it was, as she now accepted being a Green Rider, it would ease her heart.
Telling someone about it all also relieved her. She had not realized the weight she had carried by keeping it all inside her, how miserable these feelings for King Zachary had made her. Telling Estral freed her as telling another Rider friend could not. The Riders were bound to the king’s service, too close to him, and revealing her secret to them would be humiliating.
“Well, Old Mother,” Karigan said, her spirits lighter, “it’s chilly down here. Shouldn’t we go into town for some tea and sweets?”
Estral slowly smiled. “My inner wisdom tells me this is a very good idea.”
And laughing, they left behind the darkness of the archives.
Before the pair headed into town, Estral needed to speak with one of the assistant curators on some business for her father. She promised she’d be quick.
Karigan waited for her in the corridor outside the curatorial office, not exactly pacing, but strolling its length with her hands clasped behind her back. Portraits lined the walls—portraits of old school masters, she assumed. Maybe patrons or administrators. In any case, persons not important enough to be exhibited in the major halls.
All of them looked out from canvases with stern and stuffy visages, all dressed in the finest fashions according to time period, including powdered wigs for more than a few of the men. Ordinarily Karigan would pay the portraits scant attention, but at the moment there was nothing else to do as she waited, so she took a closer look.
Some of the portraits were of a primitive style, as though very old. Proportions were off—sometimes a head was too big or arms too skinny. The paintings lacked depth, the shading poorly executed and the pigmentation of the colors weak, yet there was an inexplicable charm about them. Many of these older oils were crackling, attesting to their great age.
Others were more masterfully painted with rich detail and depth. The persons depicted looked ready to step out of their gilded frames. Karigan paused to gaze at a matron whose clothing and accoutrements were detailed with high realism. The intricacy of her lace collar fascinated Karigan, as did a gold pendant that looked real enough to touch. She leaned closer to see how the artist achieved the effect.
Liiibraaary… a voice wheezed behind her.
She jumped. “What?” She looked all around, but no one else shared the corridor with her. Except for the portraits.
“Must have imagined it,” she muttered.
She turned back to the portrait she’d been studying. The woman’s pendant was the shape of a lion’s head with ruby eyes. Delicate brush strokes created dimension and the metallic gleam of the gold.
Liiibraaary…
Karigan whirled. “Who said that?”
A clerk froze in an office doorway, eyes wide. “R–Rider?”
“Did you say something?” Karigan demanded.
“N–no, Rider.” The clerk smoothed her tunic. “I was just on my way to do an errand for Master Clark.”
Karigan scratched her head, and an awkward silence fell on the corridor. “I—” she began.
A screeching, scraping sound interrupted her. A painting on the opposite wall slid on its mounting till it hung askew.
The clerk sighed and strode over to the painting. “I’m always having to fix this one,” she said. “The frame is heavy and off balance, I think. Fitting, I suppose.”
Karigan joined the clerk to help her straighten it. Like all the others, the painting was displayed in a massive, ornate frame, in this case a rich mahogany carved with a leafy pattern interspersed with berries. A bunchberry flower was carved into each corner. The portrait was of a distinguished gent with long gray side whiskers and a walrus mustache. He was dressed in white robes.
“Why should it be fitting that this portrait be off balance?” Karigan asked, as she helped shift it into position. It was heavy.
“This fellow,” the clerk replied, stepping back to make sure the painting was level, “was known for being a bit peculiar. Maybe it’s because he was so brilliant. Some of our masters can be a wee bit eccentric, you know. But this fellow?” The clerk shook her head, then whispered as if afraid someone would overhear her, “He collected objects of the arcane sort, or so it’s said. He traveled far and wide to find objects of a magical nature. It is even said he tried to learn how to use magic.”
Aloud she added, “The Guardian of that time, and the trustees, did not like his activities and pretty much drummed him out of Selium.”
Shivers trailed down Karigan’s spine. “What…what was his name?”
“Erasmus Norwood Berry. Professor Erasmus Norwood Berry. He was a master of many disciplines, which is why he wore white, rather than the color of a single discipline, like the maroon of the language arts.”
Karigan knew, had known even before the clerk supplied his name, who he was. She had once met his two daughters, now elderly, living at Seven Chimneys, a fine manor house located in the northern wilds of the Green Cloak.
“When was he—?” Karigan started to ask, but the clerk was already halfway down the corridor, off to carry out her task.
Karigan turned back to the professor. Under all those whiskers, not to mention the impressively bushy eyebrows, it was difficult to see the resemblance between him and his daughters, except for his blueberry blue eyes. Those eyes pierced right into her.
“I can’t believe it,” Karigan said. Sometimes she wondered if meeting the Berry sisters those two years ago had been real, or the mist of some dream, yet here was the portrait of their father as clear as day on the wall of this Selium corridor: Professor Berry, the master of many disciplines.
The sisters had told her of his predilection for collecting arcane objects—Karigan had handled some of them in his library, including a telescope that looked into both the past and future. She had gazed into it and, sure enough, saw many disturbing images. Miss Bayberry’s words now trickled back to her like a whisper of memory: Remember, child, your future is not made of stone.
The sisters also told Karigan how their father possessed no natural talent for magic but had attempted to learn how to use it anyway. One experiment had ended badly when he’d accidentally turned all the household servants invisible. He was unable to reverse the spell.
Liiibraaary… the voice whispered near her ear. She peered around the corridor but saw no one. Were Selium’s ghosts now wanting to speak to her? Library ghosts? Made sense since this was the library building. She gazed hard at the portrait of Professor Berry, and he gazed back at her as only a picture could, unmoving and two-dimensional.
“I liked your house,” Karigan said, not sure why she did, but feeling compelled to do so. “And your daughters were wonderful. They helped me.” She remembered how homey and magical Seven Chimneys was, and how odd but sweet Miss Bay and Miss Bunch had been.
Her words elicited only silence in the corridor, silence almost as complete as that in the archives below. Nothing so much as moved.
She stepped back from the portrait and planted her hands on her hips. “Well, good. It was my imagination after all.”
“I’m ready to go,” Estral said, startling Karigan as she emerged from the curatorial office.
Karigan cleared her throat. “Yes. Good.”
“Who were you talking to?”
“Er, myself.”
“I always get the crawlies walking down this hall,” Estral said. “All those old teachers glaring at me as if I don’t measure up.” She chuckled.
They started down the corridor, and from behind her, Karigan heard the now familiar screech of a frame scraping the wall. She did not look back, but redoubled her pace so that Estral had to hurry to keep up.
Like Estral, the corridor was giving Karigan a serious case of the crawlies, and to her mind, she had already dealt with enough supernatural occurrences elsewhere that she didn’t need to add Selium’s population of ghosts to her list.
The next morning Lord Fiori hosted a farewell bre
akfast in honor of Karigan and Fergal. The great hall of the Golden Guardian’s residence brimmed with guests, several masters who had once given up on Karigan as a student during her early years at Selium among them. Now they treated her as a peer, asking her about her life as a Rider, and Karigan was startled to realize that the last vestige of master and student was gone from her life. She was now an adult among other adults.
Master Rendle attended, accompanied by Master Deleon, Karigan’s old riding instructor. Estral sat beside her father, and Karigan was glad she’d had time to spend with her friend yesterday. With all the chatter, clinking of tableware, and music, it was nearly impossible to carry on a conversation. And yes, there was music, much music, performed by minstrel students playing their best to impress their listening masters, and especially Lord Fiori. It was the liveliest breakfast Karigan ever attended.
Fergal sat quietly beside Mel, who chattered on to all those around her, whether they could hear her or not.
When the festivities came to a close and most guests filed out to teach classes or attend them, Lord Fiori handed Karigan his message for the king. It was sealed with gold wax imprinted with a harp.
“My message to the king as promised,” he said. “If we find the book, I shall send it to him directly.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Lord Fiori gave her a dazzling smile. “May your journey bring success, and no doubt we shall be seeing you in song.”
“What? What?” But he had already moved off to speak with one of the remaining masters.
Rendle came forward then with two messages of his own. “This first is to Captain Mapstone on behalf of all of Melry’s instructors.”