The Duelist 3, page 29
“Ooooh, are we giving Aventoll lessons to our Allie? It’s my favorite thing, let me do it.” Jenner perked up and shoved Tovish off him, which made the koala-elder fall over again with one of those squeaky old-man farts that just eek out at inopportune moments.
“Ugh,” Tovish grunted, tried to get up, and tooted again in his struggle.
I tried not to laugh my ass off.
Was.
Not.
Successful.
At all.
And of course Horus made everything worse just with his face, but as long as I didn’t make eye-contact with the bastard, it was fine.
“Allie, huh?” I snorted at the ridiculous nickname when I got myself under control.
Jenner stumbled up a small ladder so he could take his place on a stack of books like a miniature orator.
“Ahem.” My trusty koala-butler cleared his throat, tweaked his monocle, and rocked up on the balls of his feet.
The stack of books wavered alarmingly but didn’t topple, which was a plus.
“Here we go,” I murmured to myself and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“This ought to be good,” Horus said and sat crisscross-applesauce like it was circle story time in kindergarten.
The rest of us joined him on the floor because why the hell not, and I also figured it might put me in a better position to catch the ridiculous koala-man in case he did fall.
“Take it away, Mr. Jenner!” I said and draped my arm around Amaya when she sat next to me.
“Where am I taking what?” he asked with a confused look on his gray face that brightened a moment later. “Oh, yes, yes, the lesson!”
“I was right, this is going to be great,” Horus stage-whispered and bumped his shoulder against Anwaar.
“The Engish-folk pride themselves on their eidetic memories,” Jenner began in a metered way that sounded like something out of a Gilbert and Sullivan production. “We can categorize and organize faster than the wind and the seas.”
“Har, har!” Tovish cheered with his walking stick brandished to the ceiling.
“We are bobbin-tox, and can frix, and frox, and scribe until we’re blue,” he continued like a train picking up steam. “No better keeper of the words than Engish-folk, ‘tis true.”
“Har, har!” Another yell from Tovish was accompanied by Horus this time.
“We can memorize millions of words in swift and single passes,” Jenner recited and pulled out a small flask. “And don’t forget we do this all while drinking you off your asses!”
“Har, har!” All of us chorused as Jenner took a big swig and then tossed the flask to Tovish, who surprisingly caught it as if he wasn’t three sheets to the wind.
The koala-elder paused dramatically with the flask wielded high, and when he continued, he slowed the rhythm of the verse only to ramp it up to its driving conclusion.
“But surely all that knowledge sitting lonely in one’s head, would make you saaaad. And turn you maaaaaaaaaaad… so let us sit-and-swat, and lolly-gawk, and forget with liquid bread!”
Tovish finished to a full standing ovation and threw his head back for another hearty swallow of what must have been some pretty high-octane alcohol if it could make these normally serious men break out into this weird half-song chant thing I wasn’t sure what to make of only that it was E.A.F.
Entertaining. As. Fuck.
“What’s even in there anyway?” Horus asked and eyed the shiny flask with interest. “And also: can I have some-- oof!”
The pretty ibex-woman elbowed the falcon-man in the ribs, which I thought was a good call.
“Do you understand, now?” Amaya asked me through her giggles, and I was delighted by the pretty patina of palest pink flushing her cheeks, her chin, and the tip of her nose.
“I think so,” I chuckled as we both watched Jenner do a little jig on top of his Jenga tower while Tovish improvised a beat by stamping his wooden leg and walking stick. “Archivists like Jenner and Tovish have photographic memories that allow them to memorize and record massive amounts of text, but without a ‘reset’ button-- like getting rip-roaringly drunk-- they’ll go insane from too much information.”
“That’s exact-tilly right,” Tovish slurred.
“But what happens when you sober up?” I asked. “Can you scribe everything in time before the alcohol wears off and you forget?”
“Good question, my earnest pupil!” Jenner said and then fell off his step-ladder as he was trying to get down, which caused Tovish to laugh so hard he tooted again. “Oh, quiet, you old fool! Summon that bobbin-tox of yours.”
“Roofus!” Tovish called. “Wherever the frox you are, bring me the archive stones, you wee beast!”
“Kaw?” Roofus popped out of a pile of moldy papers inked with faded bronze lettering. He cocked his head to and fro a couple of times before diving back into his makeshift “gold” hoard and hopping out with two glass marble-looking devices in his beak.
“There’s my good Roofee,” Tovish gushed, and the effect was like finding out the crotchety old next-door-neighbor had a penchant for tea-cup poodles or something. “So helpful for daddy, now gimme.”
“Roofee?” Horus hissed at me.
“I know,” I snickered. “And to think I was going to leave these guys behind.”
“Perish the thought,” he bantered back.
“I’m sure you are familiar with record stones, yes?” Tovish asked and stumbled over so he could sit next to Jenner on the floor.
“Yeah, they make a record of someone’s memories,” I said.
“Archive stones are similar,” Jenner said and took a stone from the other Archivist. “However, whereas record stones have a limit to how much and how long they are able to keep a record of something, archive stones have no limit.”
“After the Uprisings, most of the archive stones were destroyed, but I managed to stash these beauties away,” Tovish added. “Tick-iply-- erm, typically, an Archivist will read a text and then transmit what they remember through the stone. But really, really good Archivists can record one book while simultaneously reading another. That leaves us free to scribe later.”
“How genius!” Anwaar said, and Amaya nodded her agreement. “How many have you guys done so far?”
Tovish glanced around groggily at the forest of stacked books and then nudged Jenner, who had dozed off for just a second.
“Hrm, wha?” he woke with a snort.
“How many books would you say this is, Cornelius?” the koala-elder asked as he scratched his head. “Seven-hundred? Eight-hundred?”
“Nine-hundred-and-sixteen to be exact,” Jenner said and breathed on his monocle so he could clean it on the sleeve of his blue-velvet coat.
“Holy shit, we weren’t even gone for that long!” I said as the two geezers cackled at my reaction.
“This was just a warm-up, lad,” Jenner said and climbed to his feet.
“Looks like you both read your way through the entire History section,” Horus said as he eyed the titles on the spines of books scattered all around. “Most of this you could have skipped, though.”
“Won’t be a bother!” Tovish reminded us before taking another swig out of the flask.
“Now that I’m here, I can show you the section on Metallurgy,” the falcon-man said. “You’re going to want to narrow in on anything that talks about forging herald weapons. Last time I was here, I only managed to walk away with that stupid monger, Igoric.”
“What ever happened to the annoying thing, anyway?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said with a negligent shrug. “Who cares?”
“Good point.” I narrowed my eyes when I remembered how the temperamental crane-mantis bit Shay and cut her finger last time. “Let’s think of a plan of attack so we can hurry this process along. Horus, how many books do you think you’ll need references to?”
“There are two-- possibly three sections with useful books I can think of,” the falcon-man said as he tapped his chin. “Totaling maybe three-hundred?”
“Easy as cloud-cake!” Tovish bellowed.
“The hard part will be gathering up the specific ones so Jenner and Tovish won’t have to read every book they come across,” Anwaar stated with a pragmatic nod.
“I believe I might be able to help with that,” Amaya spoke up and tented her fingers together so the tips were almost-but-not-quite touching.
A pale-violet glow resonated in the spaces between her fingers, and with a mirror-flash of her eyes, she crouched down and pressed her hands into the floorboards of the library.
After a few moments, her gaze returned to normal, and she smiled brightly. “The books want to help us. The poor things have been neglected for so long, their knowledge left to collect dust. It’s so sad. Horus, I would like to help with the gathering.”
“Milady.” Horus bowed with a hand over his heart in gratitude.
“Amaya, can you do what you just did and ask the books if the other half of this one is here?” I asked and rummaged in my pack for the mysterious text Mec tasked me to find the rest of. “Shay says it’s written in runes and only an Alchemist can read runes, so Horus, I was also wondering if you might be able to tell me what it is?”
I handed the tattered book over to the falcon-man, and when he examined it, his eyebrows arched dramatically toward his hairline.
“Where did you get this?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“Not important,” I said. I had a weird prickling feeling on the back of my neck, and something told me mentioning the Asher Lord’s involvement within the walls of what used to be my enemy’s fortress would not be wise. “Can you read the runes?”
“They’re runes, that’s true, but they are definitely not Alchemical.” Horus shook his head as he slowly flipped through what was left of the pages.
“The books are not familiar with that particular tome,” Amaya said and stood up from her crouch.
“May I see it?” Anwaar asked as she chafed her hands together, and Horus held it out to her.
The ibex-woman’s palms glowed a red-orange, and she placed them flat on the cover with the weird upside-down omega symbol.
“What do you feel, Ani?” Horus asked after she laced her hands and brought them up to rest under her chin.
“This is a book, but it has a magical signature like an artifact,” she said and opened her opalescent eyes.
“If it’s here, then it would be on the far end of the library on the upper level,” Horus said. “The whole floor is where my father liked to house his artifact collection.”
“Then I guess that’s where I should start looking,” I said.
“I will give you assistance, in case there are enchantments to beware of,” the ibex-woman offered.
“Thanks,” I smiled. “Since Anwaar is coming along with me, please, everyone be aware of anything that could be enchanted. If you run across an obstacle, send Roofus to get us. Now, let’s try to get through this so we can get the frox out of here.”
Now that we were armed with our respective tasks, we all broke off to our separate corners.
Even though haste was the goal, that was proving more easier said than done given the fact the library itself was about the size of the Sacramento Public Library, and then some.
Not to mention the fact the forest of towering book stacks was seemingly endless, and it took extra time for us to wind through them, especially so Anwaar could take care and not topple any of the precarious pillars with her long horns.
It was clear Doler was obviously a crack-pot who was undeterred when he ran out of appropriate shelf-space and apparently continued to amass his collection in spite of himself.
When Anwaar and I finally made it to the spiral staircase that led up to the mezzanine-like upper floor, a good twenty minutes had probably gone by.
That, or time was distorted within the labyrinth of book towers.
The upper level of the library was no better than the lower, but instead of stacks of books, there were piles of junk and more glass cases just like the weaponry. However, these glass cases were filled with objects and curios the likes of which could have belonged in a museum.
Actually, scratch that.
This place looked more like an antique shop and a flea market had an abortion.
“Damn, Archus.” I whistled low when I observed a cracked urn filled with dead branches sitting on top of a busted and moldy chair with crates of moldering papers all around it. “Hoarders much?”
“What is a hoarders?” Anwaar asked as she stared into a dusty case filled with nothing but teeth mostly still with evidence of dried blood on their roots.
“A hoarder is a person who feels compelled to keep everything even if it’s garbage,” I explained. “They made a television show of people who do that where I’m from.”
“What is televista?” she puzzled as she moved on to examine a black lacquered armoire with beautiful inlaid mother-of-pearl-type shells assembled in the iconic image of the Bhraya Comet.
“Television,” I corrected absently as my attention was grabbed by a display case of what appeared to be miniature all bright red pyramids. “Never mind.”
“You sound so much like a Traveler,” Anwaar mused.
“So I’ve been told,” I said and came to a stop in a mostly clear area so I could take out the book again. “I think this is about as good as it’s going to get. Do you need to touch the book one more time?”
“Yes, will you hold it for me?” she asked as she rubbed her hands together.
The ibex-woman placed her palms on the cover of the tattered book once more, closed her glittering eyes, and tilted her head as if she was listening for something.
It seemed like it was hard for her because a frown started to grow on her face the longer she held that position.
“Everything alright?” I questioned when several minutes had gone by.
“It is strange,” Anwaar said and finally dropped her glowing hands. “I cannot hear anything from this artifact even though there is enchantment woven within its fibers.”
“So, it’s not here,” I concluded.
“Not necessarily,” she said. “We might not be close enough.”
“I really hope we don’t have to find it the old-fashioned way.” I glanced around at all the piled junk and felt my heart drop.
“I think it’s-- no, wait a moment.” The mage turned slowly in a circle and then stopped and pointed away from me like a compass needle. “I feel something over there.”
“Lead the way,” I offered with a gentlemanly gesture of my hand, and I followed behind the ibex-woman deeper into the piles of garbage.
The further we wound our way through the maze of artifacts, the darker and more claustrophobic things began to feel, and I was beginning to wonder if we should have tied some string somewhere like Ariadne in King Minos’ labyrinth.
Let’s just hope there wasn’t a Minotaur lurking anywhere.
Finally, when my Duelist Stone began to cast a faint glow due to how dim it was, Anwaar stopped in front of a mountain of piled stuff.
“There,” she said and pointed toward the peak of Mt. Trashmore.
“The book is somewhere up there?” I asked and looked around for something to climb on.
“I don’t think it’s the other half of the book you seek,” the ibex-woman said. “But the signature is familiar to me.”
“How so?” I queried as we approached the base of the junk pile.
“It feels like there is a part of my sister attached,” she murmured, and without further ado, she began to climb.
“Careful,” I warned, but it was obviously for naught because like her species implied, Anwaar gracefully scaled the face of the junk heap like an ibex in the mountains of Siberia.
I watched as the mage sparked up another one of those glowing forcefield bubbles, which she then used to capture a smallish object without touching the thing itself.
“Alex, do you have a cloth or a pouch we can use to wrap this in?” she requested when she managed to climb back down. She gestured with her hand, and the floating bubble came to hover above her outstretched palm.
“Here,” I said as I pulled out the cloth I usually used to wipe my blade clean and held it in my hands.
The mage then lowered the object, and when it settled in my palms, the glowing orb keeping it afloat disappeared, and I could see it was a small hand-held mirror intricately carved out of wood.
“Don’t look in the mirror’s surface,” she warned as her rainbow eyes glittered ominously. Then she wrapped the mirror up and stowed it in the inside of the small pouch she had slung over her shoulders.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but the fact I can feel it has something to do with Amaya worries me,” she explained. “Since Archus is dead, his enchantments should be fading, but this is still strong. I wonder then if this is someone else’s doing.”
“Who would want to attack Amaya?” I puzzled. The oryx-woman was actual sunshine, I was convinced.
“In the Order, my sister has made quite a name for herself even though she is not the one to boast about such things,” Anwaar said. “Her gift is one that is most rare and powerful, and because of our Traveler lineage, some feel as if she is either a danger, or her blood is too diluted to deserve such power.”
“Rude,” I commented as we began to make our way back to more open space so we could regroup.
“It seems as if she has had enemies ever since her birth,” the ibex-woman sighed. “Her gift alone is a burden in itself, and it has always set her apart. However, I have noticed her smiles are brighter when she smiles at you, so thank you.”
“Um, you’re welcome,” I said and rubbed the back of my neck. “I think she’s pretty great, too.”
“I know you do,” Anwaar deadpanned with a thin copper eyebrow arched to her hairline. “She told me about your kiss.”
“Oh… should I be worried you’ve lured me here all alone?” I joked. “Is this where I get the Shovel Talk?”
“What is a shovel talk?” she asked instead.
“It’s the obligatory ‘older sibling’ talk where you tell me to be careful with your sister’s feelings or you’ll hit me with the shovel that’ll most likely dig my grave,” I summed up.
