CHAPTER FIVE
Xerak returned that evening. Vereez dropped by the hotel the next morning to announce that she should be able to get away by midafternoon, after lunch with her parents.
“By the way,” she said, “when I went through our library, the only mentions I could find of the Library of the Sapphire Wind were in general references. I found one or two drawings, but nothing that would be any help. What’s weird is that I’m pretty sure my parents have both been out to that part of the world. You’d think there would be something!”
“Not necessarily,” Meg said. “Often people don’t bother with owning references for places they feel they know. Xerak, did you have any luck?”
Xerak shook his head. “None. Not at the house. Not in the antique shop. Maybe there was a run on material about the subject. That sort of thing happens. All it takes is one enthusiast coming through, and every shop in the city will be stripped. I started to ask, then I had a better thought. My master has a friend—an older scholar with an interest in cartography. In his younger years, Kuvekt-lial traveled a great deal. These days, he’s much more sedentary—I think there was an accident, but no one talks about it. He now devotes himself to writing about various areas of interest. He also draws maps.”
“Sounds perfect,” Teg agreed. “A historian and cartographer. You say this Kuvekt-lial is a friend of your master. Is he a friend of yours as well?”
Xerak shrugged. “He considers me obsessive, but that hasn’t stopped him from selling me some of his travel guides. I can’t see why he’d stop now.”
“Is where this Kuvekt lives too far out of our way?” Grunwold asked. “Not to sound pathetic or anything, but my dad isn’t getting any better.”
For answer, Xerak went over to his satchel and pulled out a worn atlas, doubtless one he’d used repeatedly during his year-long search for his missing master.
“If the weather cooperates, we won’t need to go much out of our way.” When everyone had crowded around, Xerak opened the atlas to a previously marked page. “We’re here.” He drew a claw tip in a line a little west of north. “If we were on foot, the detour would be considerable because of the need to find a river crossing, but since we have Slicewind, it’s hardly a diversion at all.”
“I’m for it,” Teg said. “Researching a site before you start digging saves a lot of time.”
There was some further discussion, but everyone agreed. The topic shifted to supplies purchased, to be purchased, and who would do what. The inquisitors rapidly found themselves eager to let their mentors help with the shopping.
Vereez ran a claw tip down one edge of the list. “I’ll take care of this part from my family’s stores. It won’t be missed. Xerak, how about you take Teg to get the stuff for digging? Grunwold, you can take Peg and Meg to get the rest. Just pretend they’re elderly aunts from the country bossing you around.”
“I won’t have to pretend the last bit,” Grunwold grumbled, but he held his ears wide, which Teg took to mean he was teasing.
“I’ll be back by late afternoon,” Vereez promised. “Have fun!”
Teg did, actually. Xerak’s travels hadn’t included archeology, of course, but he knew the right sort of stores. Vereez had supplied them with access to a credit line, and Xerak clearly had fun taking advantage of it.
“My family,” he explained, “isn’t poor, but we aren’t as rich as either Vereez’s or Grunwold’s. Lately, my folks have been tight with my spending money, saying that they’d signed me over to an apprentice master, so he should be paying my expenses. I’ve promised that either Master will reimburse them, when I find him, or I will when I have been formally inducted. They’ve taken me at my word.”
But it’s good not to feel you’re running up the debt, Teg thought. I get that. I’ve never had a grant that seemed large enough for everything I wanted to buy.
When they returned with shovels and picks, various smaller tools, and an assortment of belts, carry bags, and buckets, they found Meg, Peg, and Grunwold aboard Slicewind, stocking the galley and putting excess supplies in the hold.
Vereez returned somewhat later in the afternoon than promised, accompanied by a porter who wheeled in a heavy trolley burdened with a large enough heap of parcels and bundles to make it a good thing that Slicewind had ample storage space. They set up a relay, Grunwold and Xerak doing the heavy hauling, Teg—lynx mask in place—operating the winch, while Peg, Meg, and Vereez stowed items in lockers, hold, or cabins.
Loading the ship provided the mentors with their first good look at the exterior of the craft that had already come to seem a home away from home. The hull was a light golden wood, glazed with a translucent blue that Grunwold explained was enchanted so that, if given the right command, the ship would blend into the surrounding skies. A pair of large eyes were painted near the bow. Slicewind lacked a figurehead, but did have a sort of curving projection that looked like a bird’s beak. Combined, eyes and beak created the impression that Slicewind was some sort of natural flying creature, as well as being a person, not a thing.
They’d already observed that the mast could bend so as not to completely dump the wind when the ship changed elevation, and that, if necessary, extra sails could be run up, using lines.
“It’s even possible to set up a second mast,” Grunwold said, “but most of the time we don’t bother. It makes the deck too crowded. Slicewind is meant to be sailed by a minimal crew, which is why I thought of her. I can even handle her alone, if I must.”
“I’ve been wanting to ask about the crow’s nest,” Meg said, “especially since I’ve volunteered to be lookout. Is the mast really strong enough?”
“Plenty strong,” Grunwold assured her, patting the ship’s side as if it were a cat or dog. “The ship’s eyes do help with avoiding obstacles, but it’s always good to have someone able to see what’s going on above. If we’re climbing at a sharp angle, you’ll need to hang on, but the same is true for those on deck.”
Meg nodded and looked thoughtful, but when the time to depart arrived, she donned an extra sweater and her mask and took her post.
They lifted off after nightfall, Grunwold at the wheel, the remainder taking advantage of the clear night weather to enjoy being on deck. Teg—who felt she’d earned an extra cigarette after all that shopping, fetching, and carrying—checked the wind and moved to where her smoke would be carried away. She was mildly surprised when Xerak came to join her, thrusting toward her a box a little smaller than a shoebox.
“I got this for you today,” he said. “Figured you might like it, and it might help if you ran out of those ‘cigarettes.’” He said the final word carefully, as one does a foreign word learned by sound alone.
Teg opening the box and held it near one of the running lights, so she could see the contents. This proved to be a fat, round pipe bowl carved from a warm red stone into the shape of a flower that reminded her of a peony. The box also held several spare stems, and all the paraphernalia for cleaning and packing that delight a pipe-user’s heart. To one side was a bag that held what, at a quick sniff, smelled almost like tobacco—although without the rank “upper nose” odor that is so distasteful to the nonsmoker.
“I thought you people didn’t smoke,” she said, astonished. “This is beautiful!”
“Smoking has fallen out of fashion,” Xerak admitted, shuffling his feet shyly, “but a few hundred years ago, there was a fad. That herb was the closest in scent I could find to what yours smells like, so it likely has some of the same properties. The herbalist thought it might, based on the sample I brought her.”
“You swiped one of my cigarettes!” Teg said with mock rage.
“Your leavings often have a little unburnt material in them, so I collected some of the butts from the trash and pulled the scraps out.”
“Clever!” Teg said. “Gracious, and generous. Thank you. Now I need to see if I remember how to smoke a pipe. It’s been a while. I bet Peg can give me tips if I can’t get the hang of it.”
Ears perked in obvious pleasure at her reaction to his gift, Xerak moved to where he’d be upwind of her smoke, leaned on the rail, and pulled out a wine flask.
The bonding of two substance abusers, Teg thought, wishing she felt more amused. Xerak definitely had an addiction to drink, but so far it wasn’t affecting his ability to function. I’ll keep an eye on him, though I don’t much like the idea of taking a flask from a lion of any sort at all.
During the day and a half it took for them to reach the home of Kuvekt the Cartographer, Peg and Meg both took the opportunity to return home and check in. It was decided that they should do so whenever the group was in transit, to reduce chances of anyone at home worrying.
“But the seven-to-one time difference does help,” Peg said. “I need to start keeping some sort of journal so I don’t call the same kid what for me is a few days apart, but for them is only a few hours! That would create worrying of a different sort!”
Although he drank a fair amount during the voyage, Xerak was sober when Grunwold brought Slicewind down on the grounds of a prosperous estate on the edge of a town larger than that near Grunwold’s family farm, but much smaller than Rivers Meet. Not only was the young wizard sober, but he had spent a portion of the morning getting ready. As Slicewind settled to a berth on a grassy field, he emerged from the cabin he shared with Grunwold well groomed and attired in a magnificent outfit that looked vaguely Egyptian, depending as it did on a stiff kilt below and a wide, metal collar above. The collar covered Xerak’s shoulders while leaving his chest (lightly furred in golden brown) bare. He’d donned bracers that went from his wrists nearly to his elbows, ornamented with a motif that was echoed in the patterns embossed on his calf-high boots.
“Yum!” said Peg, pausing in her knitting to patter applause. “Whatever else, I like the fashions here. If I were twenty years younger . . . ”
Xerak couldn’t blush, but he could pin his ears back, and he did so now—but only for a moment.
“You’d still be cradle robbing, Peg,” Teg said dryly.
“How do you know I was talking about the handsome young man and not stealing his clothes?” Peg asked with unconvinging innocence.
Teg rolled her eyes and made shooing gestures at the young wizard. “Good luck, Xerak. Don’t worry. We’ll stay aboard Slicewind and not scandalize the locals.”
“I do hope you can acquire some documents for us,” Meg said. There was something distinctly wistful about her posture as she stood, badger mask in hand, clad in her “good clothes,” obviously hoping for an invitation to meet the scholar and cartographer.
After they had stolen Slicewind, the three humans had either worn the clothing they had brought from home or, if there was any chance of being seen, some sailors slop’s Grunwold had found in a locker. In Rivers Meet, Vereez had purchased them more daily wear—the local equivalent of jeans and tee shirts—so Meg’s donning of her finery was definitely a statement.
Perhaps Xerak took the hint. Perhaps there was something in his tale that piqued the cartographer’s curiosity, but after about an hour, a self-effacing servant (incongruously with the fierce head of a bald eagle), came to invite them to join her master and Xerak.
They did, and discovered that their host was a round-bodied man with the head and bushy tail of a raccoon. He leaned heavily on a staff when he rose to greet them, shaking hands with each as Xerak offered names.
“I am Kuvekt,” he said. “Welcome to my home. Will you have some refreshments?”
The eagle-head servant handed around plates holding a variety of canapes, and offered a choice of drinks. Then, in response to a subtle signal from her master, she departed.
When the door clicked firmly behind her, Kuvekt said, “Meg, Peg, and Teg, if you wish, you may remove your masks and gloves. Young Xerak here gave away a little more than he intended, and I wormed the rest out of him. I promise you that I will say nothing about your very interesting origin, but I have travelled widely and I would like to check if I have seen people like yourselves anywhere in my journeys. It is possible that what is alien to these three inquisitors and to Hawtoor-va in his secluded aerie will not be as strange to me.”
However, when the three humans hesitantly removed their masks, Kuvekt only shook his head in astonishment. “No. Never have I seen people like yourselves.”
Teg pulled out her notebook. In anticipation of further discussion with the inquisitors, she had drawn pictures of Earth primates, choosing from both Old World and New World variations.
“How about these?” she asked. “Have you seen any creatures like these—or any people with heads like these?”
Kuvekt carefully studied the drawings but, once again, his reply was to shake his head. There was wonder as well as negation in the gesture. “There are creatures with bodies like these”—he indicated some of the long-limbed, long-tailed monkeys—“but they lack the flatter faces, the side-positioned ears. The features tend to be sharper, like my own or Vereez’s.”
Teg drew a rough sketch of a ring-tailed lemur. “Like this?”
“Smoother tail,” Kuvekt said, “larger paws, but not unlike. I could show you some pictures.”
He half rose as if to get a book, but Grunwold thumped down his drinking bowl—he’d been drinking a sweet-smelling beer—and said, “Please, Scholar-lial. I realize that these three humans offer a fascinating puzzle. I’ll admit, the more I learn, the more intricate that puzzle becomes. However, if Xerak let slip the nature of our mentors, then perhaps he also mentioned the questions we seek to answer. Xerak and Vereez might not feel any time pressure, but my father has only recently taken a turn for the worse. Time may be of the essence.”
Despite the formality of his language, Grunwold’s intensity came through as well.
“I understand your anxiety,” Kuvekt replied, “although at my age I have learned that rushing is rarely as useful as it might seem. I thought you might have learned that lesson at Hettua Shrine.”
Vereez softened her ears and widened her eyes, looking very childlike and appealing. “We may have learned, but whatever illness Grunwold’s father has might not have received the same briefing. Please, can you help us?”
Whether her words or her manner convinced him, Kuvekt allowed himself to be swayed from his curiosity about the humans.
“Xerak said that you planned to go to the Library of the Sapphire Wind. Something about a verse?”
Teg nodded. She began to recite:
Curing one ill who is not sick
Finding the victim of a cruel trick
Easing an ache that cuts to the quick
All of this and more you will find
After you pass through the doorways
Of the Library of the Sapphire Wind
“‘Through the doorways of the Library of the Sapphire Wind,’” Kuvekt repeated. “You said this without knowing anything about the Library, even that it existed or had existed?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you know that when the Library of the Sapphire Wind was destroyed, it was reported that the largest part that remained intact were the enormous main doors?”
“You’re kidding!”
“I am not. I have a reliable report—a journal written by one of those who fled the area soon after the disaster.”
“That bit about the doorways is creepy,” Peg said, “but heartening, too.”
“Indeed,” Kuvekt said, but his tone was absent, as if his thoughts were far away. “Once upon a time, several young people came to me asking for information about the Library of the Sapphire Wind. Ah, but perhaps I should not say more, lest my words somehow influence your search. I may have said too much already. Let us simply say that I am old and wise enough to see Fate’s workings. Very well.”
“You’ll help us?” Xerak asked eagerly.
“I’ll help you on one condition. I would very much like updated maps of the area. I have often doubted the veracity of some of the reports I have received, and none of the maps I have provide the view from above.”
“The Library is isolated and in dangerous territory,” Grunwold said dubiously. “We may not have the leisure to make complicated maps.”
“True,” Kuvekt agreed, “but any map, no matter how rough, would be a prized addition to my collection, especially since in your case I would have no reason to believe I was being given the creation of someone’s imagination.”
Teg cut in. “I’m a fair map maker. I’ll do what I can, but it will take time. Is that all right with you?”
“As long as I am not kept waiting years,” Kuvekt agreed. “I don’t need works of art as much as accuracy.”
“Good.” Teg chuckled. “I can promise to be as accurate as the situation permits, but I can’t promise fine art.”
“Then it is settled,” Kuvekt said. “Maps of the area surrounding the ruins of the Library of the Sapphire Wind, as well as of the ruins, if at all possible. In return, I will give you free run of my archives, and permission to make copies of any documents, if I don’t already have duplicates.”
Peg, who had left her knitting behind in honor of the formality of the occasion, asked, “Kuvekt-lial, do you need us to swear or something?”
“Your word should be enough,” Kuvekt said, eyes twinkling from within their dark mask. “After all, your word is all that keeps you here.”
Kuvekt not only supplied maps, most of which they had to copy, but an old brochure from the days when the Library of the Sapphire Wind accepted applications from scholars who wished to apply to use the facility. While Meg was browsing through Kuvekt’s shelves of books, they learned of a limitation to the translation spell. As long as a text was relatively modern and written in one of the more modern scripts, the three humans had no trouble reading it. However, if the text was highly stylized or archaic, they had more difficulty reading it. In some cases, they couldn’t read it at all.
However, since the Library of the Sapphire Wind was a more or less modern concern, most of the materials were easily understood. Only a few of the brochures, which had used elaborate scripts for artistic effect, were beyond the mentors.
Most of the maps had to be copied, but Xerak and Teg were both good at drafting. Meg and Peg both proved to be admirable proofreaders. Nonetheless, nearly two full days went by before they had completed their work. When they had done so, they possessed several maps, both predating and postdating the Library’s destruction.
Kuvekt cautioned them about relying overmuch on any of the maps. “I paid well for those maps, true enough. However, there are rumors that the area around the Library has changed considerably since the disaster. Some of the journals claim that the land has continued to change since. That is why no attempt to excavate or explore has ever been successful.”
He turned to Meg, holding up a cloth-wrapped bundle that had been knotted at the top to create a handle. “I can tell you are a scholar, so I would like to loan some books to you. They are journals describing the surroundings of the Library of the Sapphire Wind, as well as some of the hazards that may be encountered there. I will not vouch for their accuracy, but they make for fascinating reading.”
Meg eagerly reached for the bundle, then pulled her hands back.
“Kuvekt-lial, these must be incredibly valuable, even if they are mere works of fiction. Why would you loan them to me?”
“Oh, I have ulterior motives,” Kuvekt replied, cheerfully. “Of your company, you are the one I believe would be likely to write an account of what you find. I am merely attempting to entice you to do so, and to perhaps, someday, offer me a copy of your own book.”
Meg still looked uncertain. “Teg takes more notes than I do.”
Kuvekt snorted. “I am sure she does and, like her maps, they will be accurate, precise, and almost certainly incredibly dry. You, I think, will strive to include the spirit of adventure and discovery, as well as mere facts.”
He pushed the bundle toward her again, and this time Meg accepted it with a deep bow.
“All I can promise,” she said, “is that I will return these in as good condition as I can.” She paused, then relented, “And, if I do write an account, I will share it with you.”
Since they were well supplied, and Grunwold had topped off their drinking water while they had done their research, there was no further delay. Once again, Slicewind leapt into the skies, caught the breeze, and raced toward their destination.
“Thanks to Slicewind we can fly above what looks like some very broken terrain rather than having to hike in,” Teg said, reviewing her and Xerak’s map with pride. The group was gathered above deck, enjoying the pleasant weather. “The wizard—Dmen Qeres, I think you said his name was—certainly chose a nasty area for his estate.”
“They say,” Xerak reminded her, “that when the Library was destroyed, there were not only earthquakes and flooding, but also rampaging hordes of creatures freed from magical bondage.”
“Charming. Thanks for reminding me. I think I’d been trying to forget.”
“How common are these flying ships?” Meg asked.
“Not common,” Grunwold replied. “They’re expensive, so not usually in private hands. My parents use ours both for work around the estate, and for transport.”
Meg nodded. “I was wondering, because we glimpsed a few in Rivers Meet.”
“Likely owned by transportation companies,” Grunwold said. “Or by the very wealthy.”
“Like airplanes in our world,” Teg put in.
“So treasure hunters wouldn’t have been likely to have access to a flying ship?” Meg continued. “I’ve been reading these journals, and they either seem to come in by land or over that enormous lake.”
“Not likely,” Grunwold said. “At least not the sort of people who wrote those journals you’ve been reading bits from to us. A major concern, or a university might have such a ship or charter one, but for some reason no one has.”
Xerak laughed as he helped Teg roll up the map. “Too smart to take on the risks. Maybe in another twenty-five years, when some of the magical upheaval has settled, but not now. Even if some of the accounts Meg has been reading us are more than half made up, the other half would be enough to give the liability geeks nightmares.”
“Found any good new bits, Meg?” Vereez asked. She’d been practicing swordplay with Peg on the foredeck, using wooden swords, rather than the coppery bladed weapons she’d been holding when they’d first met at Hettua Shrine.
When Peg had first seen Vereez and Grunwold at weapons practice she admitted, almost sheepishly, to having been both an apt fencer in her younger days (“Lord of the Rings, you know?”), and then having taken the sport up again some years ago when one of her grandchildren, “Samantha’s Bobbi,” had joined her school team.
“Fencing is fun,” she’d explained cheerfully. “Lower impact exercise, like ballroom dancing, perfectly doable as long as your knees aren’t shot. When I moved to Taima, I found a class and have kept up with it. It’s a whole lot more inspiring than aerobics.”
Peg put the wooden sword Grunwold had loaned her in its case, then started stretching.
“I’m up for more tales of horror and woe,” she said. “It’ll keep me from thinking about my aches. Vereez works me a lot harder than my instructor did.”
“All right, then.” Meg, who was seated on one of the stern benches, pulled one of Kuvekt’s journals from the pocket of her jacket. “I have been saving a part. It’s from an account written by a member of a group who chose to sail in on the lake. Let me see, where was that bit? Ah, here.”
She cleared her throat and began to read.
“The land breezes were freshening. Astern of the good ship Prospector, the mainland dwindled. Stretching before us was the green tangle that had sprung up with suspicious alacrity where once there had been the manicured environs of the Library of the Sapphire Wind.
“Shock and terror have swept from my mind the memory of which member of our crew first realized that, although the sails belled out no less full, the shore was growing no closer. However, I shall never forget the shriek from belowdecks that foreshadowed our expedition’s doom.
“‘We’ve been breached!’” came the voice of Docan, the quartermaster. “‘The claws! The claws!’”
“Docan’s words were followed by a scream cut off, as it were, in midbreath. With its cessation, I could hear the sound of wooden planks splintering and felt Prospector begin to settle lower in the frigid waters of the lake. Several of our number scrabbled toward where the lifeboat hung to stern. I would have joined them but, at that moment, there thrust up from belowdecks a claw not unlike that of many crustaceans, although larger than a person, and colored a bilious yellow. In its grip dangled the body of the unfortunate Docan.
“I leapt back, and in my panic misjudged, a misjudgment that may well have saved my life, for I hit the side rail and spilled from Prospector into the lake. Nearby floated one of the crates in which we had intended to stow the treasures we felt so certain we would find. Now I used it to preserve what I suddenly realized was a greater treasure than any other: my life. Using the crate as a float, for I was not—still am not—much of a swimmer, I kicked myself away from the foundering ship. Glancing back, in dread of pursuit, in hope that one of my comrades might also have escaped, I saw nothing but swirling waters, the foam of which was tinged with blood, and fragments of planks and spars. Of Prospector and her bold crew, nothing else remained.”
Meg looked up, cheeks a little pink. Teg guessed this wasn’t quite like doing a reading for a school group.
“After that,” Meg went on, “there’s a lot about how the writer barely made it to shore, and from shore back to civilization.”
“I’m glad we aren’t sailing on water,” Vereez said. “I just hope there aren’t similar threats up in the air.”
“Slicewind should carry us there safely enough,” Grunwold assured her. “However, once we arrive, it would be best if we berthed Slicewind at ground level.”
Peg chuckled. “Oh, absolutely! Otherwise we’re going to look like one of those used car lots that anchors a blimp right over the parking lot, as if you could miss acres of shiny cars and trucks!”
Either the translation spell did a remarkable job or—as Teg suspected—the young inquisitors didn’t want to ask, yet again, for an explanation.
Grunwold simply rubbed one of his antler tines and said, “We certainly don’t want to advertise our presence, but my reason is more practical. A flying ship is too vulnerable to damage if kept aloft. That’s why my father stowed Slicewind in a boathouse. Even city docks, such as we used in Rivers Meet, are considered temporary berths. Had we been there longer, I would have arranged for a hangar.”
Peg reached up and patted his shoulder. “I was teasing you, dear boy. I’m just as glad not to need to climb up and down a wobbling rope ladder to get to our cabins each night.”
They sailed both night and day, navigating by the stars, which seemed extraordinarily clear and bright, even to Teg, who had done much work in isolated areas where there was little or no ambient light to wash out the celestial panorama. The course Grunwold had charted took them over forests or fields or even along—if high above—the course of rivers.
“There’s nothing illegal about what we’re doing,” he explained when Meg questioned the need for such care to avoid attracting attention, “but as Kuvekt-lial indicated, periodically, treasure hunters do try their luck at the Library’s ruins. I’d rather be as little noticed as possible.”
Although the maps had prepared Teg intellectually for the ravaged condition of the region surrounding the Library, she was still startled when, sharing a night watch with Vereez, she looked down and glimpsed a network of red and orange cracks making a crazed pattern of the land far beneath their keel.
“Volcanos?” she asked, taking a final drag on her cigarette, barely resisting the urge to drop the butt down into the fires below.
“Maybe,” Vereez said, checking their heading against the rough map. “I doubt it, though. I think Kuvekt would have told us if there were reports of active volcanos. It’s just the earth bleeding from the damage done to her. When I was studying magic, they warned us of the damage a single spell gone wrong could do.”
She set the wheel on autopilot, then padded over to join Teg. The two of them leaned over the rail, staring down.
“It’s incredible, though. Do you think anything of use will have survived?”
“I think so,” Teg said. “I can’t think why else that verse would have sent us here. Whether what we want will be easy to find, that’s another matter completely.”
“And no matter what we find here,” Vereez went on, her voice so quiet that if Teg had not grown accustomed to how sharp the therianthropes’ hearing was, she would have thought the girl spoke to herself, “that’s just the start. I mean, I’m not going to find my . . . sister here, nor is Xerak likely to find his master. I suppose Grunwold might find a cure for his father’s illness. But my search will just be beginning.”
Teg didn’t normally think of herself as an insightful person. Any intuition she had was reserved for archeological sites, and that was more the result of hundreds of hours of experience rather than anything else. But this time she spoke her thought aloud, knowing she was right.
“Your daughter,” she said. “You’re looking for your daughter, not your sister. Am I right?”
Vereez wheeled on her, lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl, ears flat to her skull. Over the days they’d traveled together, Teg had grown accustomed enough to the three inquisitors’ odd hybridization of human and animal qualities that the relatively greater mobility of Meg and Peg’s human features could look unsettling by contrast.
Now, however, there was nothing usual about Vereez’s fox face. She looked canine, ferocious, and wild. Her words were underscored with a rumbling growl.
“How did you know? Have you been reading my diary? I thought someone had been in my pack but, when I asked, only Peg admitted to anything and she said she’d just been looking for dirty laundry.”
Fleetingly, Teg wondered if Peg had been speaking metaphorically, taking advantage of the translation spell to tell the truth with a twist, but what Peg might or might not have been doing was of scant interest when faced with the furious young woman who now looked as if she might—quite literally—bite her.
“No. I haven’t. I wouldn’t. But we’ve stood a few watches together now and, well, there’s a focus, an intensity about you when you speak about your missing ‘sister’ that . . . ”
Teg let herself trail off because, in truth, she really didn’t know where her thought had come from. When Vereez still didn’t speak, Teg said softly, “You want to talk about it? I promise, I won’t tell anyone
“I . . . I would like to tell someone. But I’m not ready for . . . ” Her pause was long enough that Teg wondered if she was thinking of someone in particular. Grunwold maybe? “I’m not ready for the boys to know. It’s uncomfortable.”
“I promise I won’t tell anyone,” Teg repeated. “If you want, I’ll even go further and play dumb if someone asks me directly if I have any suspicions.”
“I’d like to tell someone—you,” Vereez repeated.
“Then let’s go over by the wheel,” Teg suggested. “That way we won’t forget that we have a course change coming up.”
Vereez nodded. Her ears, Teg was relieved to see, had resumed their normal upright position, though there was still a hint of a snarl in the curve of her mouth.
“It was nearly five years ago,” Vereez began. “I was just a kid, though I thought myself pretty much grown up. There was a guy . . . He was three years older than I am. Funny. I never thought about it, but that’s younger than I am now. Anyhow, Kaj’s mother came to the city on business. I’ll admit, I didn’t pay much attention to what business, though I did have the impression that Kaj’s mom had known my parents really well when they were all younger, and that she was hoping to play off that to ask my parents for a loan.”
“Your parents are bankers?” Teg asked, more to show that she was listening than for any other reason.
Vereez nodded again. “Investments, rather than just money exchanging. Anyhow, for whatever reason, we saw a lot of them and that’s how I met Kaj. I fell for him hard. Really hard. He was handsome, sure, but even more than that, he was everything I’d never encountered before. There was an aura of danger about him. From the stories he told, I gathered he’d travelled a lot, seen some amazing places. I didn’t think he’d even notice me. I mean, I told you I thought of myself as pretty much grown up but, at the same time, he made me feel what a kid I was, how protected I’d been, how limited my contact with people outside my parents’ social circle had been.”
“But he did notice you,” Teg said.
“He did . . . ” Vereez sighed. “Oh, he did. He made me feel so important. I’d never had a boyfriend, not even a serious flirtation. My parents wanted to introduce me to society in a big way when I turned fifteen. I went to an all-girls school.”
And then James Dean, bad boy supreme, shows up. Where were her parents?
Teg pinched her lip so she wouldn’t say anything. Vereez misinterpreted the gesture and said, almost shyly, “If you want to light up that pipe Xerak gave you, that would be okay. It doesn’t smell as horrible as the cigarettes.”
Teg fumbled for the pipe and busied herself with the ritual of packing it, then getting it to draw. Meantime, Vereez, her voice dreamy, kept talking.
“I didn’t know Kaj was trouble. I didn’t know he was probably simply bored, stuck in a city with a lot of stuffy people. Maybe he was just in hunting mode. I don’t know. But he seduced me—or maybe I did him. I was so incredibly crazy for him, I lost all common sense. This was it, LOVE, capital letters, Forever And Ever, Fate, Destiny. Never mind that our worlds were so different, that his mother wanted a loan . . . We were forever.”
Vereez threw back her head and for a moment Teg wondered if she would howl. Did foxes howl? Then the beautiful head drooped, the ears folded in dejection.
“Except it wasn’t. We had a glorious month. Maybe it was glorious only for me. Maybe he was humping every girl in sight, and I was just a frilly little sweetshop treat added to the mix. I don’t even know if Kaj’s mom got her loan. I think she did. Between one day and the next it was ‘good-bye.’ He didn’t even write. And then . . . ”
“You found out you were pregnant.”
Vereez’s ears and tail drooped. “When my parents figured it out, I was sent away to ‘study abroad.’ When the baby came they took it away from me before I ever saw it. I only know it was a girl because someone said ‘she’ in my hearing, otherwise I might have just gone to a weight-loss spa for all anyone acknowledged what I’d been through. Before the next school year, I was sent home and back to my former academy. The only thing that changed was that I didn’t get that fancy coming-out party, and I had acquired a chaperone.”
Teg tried a smoke ring, failed, and asked, “Chaperone?”
“Until I finished school. After that, my parents really couldn’t continue making me have one without raising questions, and questions . . . They never, ever want questions. Questions aren’t proper.”
“When did you start looking for the child?” Teg asked.
“Not right away.” Vereez sounded ashamed. “I should have, but I was overwhelmed. About a year ago, when graduation was coming up, I realized that there were only two things I cared about—finding out what happened to my baby, and learning what happened to Kaj. My parents wouldn’t even talk to me about it. I wasn’t lying when I said they acted as if it never happened. A few times I thought I had leads, but those always petered out.”
“And so you decided to consult Hettua Shrine.”
“Yeah. Xerak got me thinking about it, actually. There was a lot of gossip about him. Everyone knew he’d gone completely nuts since his master vanished, but I thought what Xerak was doing was great. I sought him out when I heard he was in Rivers Meet. He told me he’d been thinking about going to this obscure shrine, seeking mystic guidance. Grunwold’s family estate was on the way, so we wrote him, told him we’d be coming through, did he want to meet us for dinner or something. Instead, he insisted on coming along.”
Teg couldn’t hold back any longer. “And your parents—they didn’t try to stop you? Even after what you’d been through, they let you go off with two boys? Young men?”
Vereez laughed, but a hard, ironical note underlay the humor. “Oh, they said things, but by making my choice to consult the oracle . . . Remember what we said about how there’s no one ‘age of majority’? Anyhow, I was making a responsible choice, trying to find a goal in life. If my choice of companions was a bit strange, well, Xerak and Grunwold were also boys I’d known since I was little, the closest thing I had to brothers.”
“I bet . . . ” Teg studied Vereez thoughtfully, sensing that she was still holding back part of the truth. “You threatened your parents, didn’t you? You told them that if they made a fuss, you’d tell about the baby.”
Vereez looked over, startled again. “You are incredible! How did you guess?”
Teg shrugged. “Something about how you kept mentioning that they hated questions, how careful they were of their social status. I realized you could use that against them.”
“That’s it. I was surprised how well it worked. I thought that they’d at least insist one of my girl cousins come along or something. But no. I think they were more afraid I might confide in someone, then my scandalous past would get to the wrong ears.”
“Maybe that’s it,” Teg agreed. She had a gut feeling there was more to Vereez’s parents’ peculiar behavior than that, but she didn’t think Vereez was being coy. The young woman looked visibly relieved to be talking.
“Have you ever told anyone any of this before?”
“No one. First I was too embarrassed, not so much about the baby—that somehow doesn’t seem embarrassing at all—but that I’d been used and dumped. When I got older, saw other girls flinging themselves at guys, and realized how my behavior seemed from the outside, I knew what a fool I’d been. My tail drooped at the thought of how I must have looked, frisking around Kaj all big eyes and romantic dreams.”
Vereez shuddered dramatically. “Even when I decided to find my daughter, I didn’t want to tell the story except to people who could help me.”
“Like me?”
“That’s it. Like you. But I don’t think I would have said anything unless you’d guessed, not for a while, at least.”
“I won’t say anything,” Teg promised, “but I should warn you, Peg and Meg may figure what’s going on even if I don’t drop any hints. They both have a lot of experience with people—more than me, I think.”
Vereez shrugged. “I’ll deal with that as it happens. Right now, we find our way into the Library. For the first time since I started looking, I feel as if I have a chance. That’s enough . . . for now.”
By the time the sun had risen, Slicewind had sailed beyond the lava field and was racing over what must be the ruins of the library complex and the associated town—an area roughly a couple of miles both wide and deep, although not a neat square by anyone’s estimation.
Teg stood in the bow, leaning over the side, scanning the area below for a landmark that would correspond with something—anything—on their maps. All she was finding was a tangle of green, interrupted by heaps of masonry. Where buildings could be seen, the devastation was horrible. Teg had seen pictures of cities after aerial bombing raids but, although there were similarities—hardly an intact wall, evidence of fire damage—this was different. There was something about the damage that reminded Teg of what she’d seen in post-earthquake photos—as if the breaking force had come from beneath, not above. But even that wasn’t quite right.
“Anything?” Grunwold called from the wheel. He’d been meticulously sailing Slicewind in an unbelievably precise search pattern, first around the perimeter, then patiently back and forth in a grid. The first thing they’d confirmed was that the lava field didn’t encircle the entire area. Instead, a large lake commanded one side, a jagged, up-thrust mountain range cut off another.
According to the journals Meg had been reading, the earliest explorers of the ruins had chosen to sail in over the lake. This had proven to be a mistake, for what had been a placid body of water in the glory days of the Library of the Sapphire Wind, barely justifying the term lake, had more than tripled in size, and become much deeper, hosting some curious creatures beneath its surface. However, the lava field had been judged impossible to cross on foot, leaving either the mountains or a sterile strip where lava met lake and created a plain of glass. Slicewind’s ability to sail over these obstacles definitely gave their own group an advantage.
“Nothing yet,” Teg replied. “I was hoping to spot something distinctive . . . Maybe that colonnade that’s shown in so many of the pictures, or a chunk of the big dome, but so far, nada. Also, there are plants that prefer disturbed areas or need less soil. These will grow over areas where buildings have fallen. Trees need greater soil depth, but benefit from how buried structures trap and hold moisture, so saplings will grow up around foundations.”
“Huh.” There was a long pause, then Grunwold said, “Actually, I get that. I should, given all the lectures I’ve had in my agriculture courses about growing conditions for different plants, but I never would have thought of plants as a clue to finding ruins.”
“If we don’t see anything at this elevation,” Teg went on, not pausing in the steady sweep of her binoculars over the ground, “we may need to go up higher and look from there.”
“Higher?” Grunwold’s tone made clear that he thought he’d misheard.
“Higher,” Teg repeated. “Sometimes you can pick out shapes from a higher perspective that you can’t from ground level. Up close, you can’t pick out the differences, but from a higher elevation, you see the patterns.”
“Do you want me to take us up now?”
“Let’s finish our grid first,” Teg said. “I haven’t given up hope we’ll find something significant.”
She didn’t say that she was also scouting for evidence of the many dangers they’d been warned about. So far she’d seen many flying creatures, both large and small. She was pretty certain what she’d seen had all been birds, although some of the flyers had seemed to fit the “winged-dinosaur classification, like Heru. Anyhow, their presence made sense, since none of the geographic barriers would offer creatures with wings any more of a challenge than they had Slicewind. She’d also seen an assortment of rabbit-to-deer-sized creatures, but so far none of the monstrous creatures the journals had warned about.
Not seeing worried her. Did these creatures only come out at night? Were they even real? Maybe they were just something the journal writers realized would make their accounts more exciting—and explain their utter failure to find any of the treasures they sought.
Teg wished she believed that. They finished their first series of passes over the library grounds without managing to make a definitive match with anything on their map, so Grunwold took Slicewind higher. Only when they reached a height where the terrain seemed more like a model than a real place did they find possible matches.
“Despite the lack of buildings,” Meg said, lowering her own binoculars, “that hill could be where the main library building was. See? If you trace down the slope that direction”—she pointed—“there are remnants of walls that could represent the remains of what the brochure calls the Central Facility and Repository.”
“The hill doesn’t seem central enough,” Xerak protested. “It’s too close to the lake.”
“We know the lake waters have risen,” Meg reminded him. “Your protest reinforces, rather than disproves, my theory. Water does not flow uphill . . . ”
“At least not where we come from,” Peg quipped.
“. . . and so the rise of the land would have been an impediment to the water’s spread,” Meg continued placidly. “This would also explain why the hill seems lopsided, rather than relatively symmetrical, as it is in the various artistic renderings we have.”
“If Meg is right,” Vereez said, “then that meadow is probably what remains of the cultivated lands and pasture. The village would be where that tangle is.”
Grunwold said, “I’ve been considering anchoring Slicewind in that meadow for the simple reason it’s the largest open area I’ve seen—unless we want to anchor in the lake.”
“No!” came simultaneously from five throats, causing a general round of uneasy laughter, as everyone remembered Meg’s dramatic reading.
“The meadow it is then,” Grunwold said, adjusting the elevation shift. “Help me find a place without too many saplings.”
“Or too many monsters,” Peg added in a sepulchral tone, then laughed.