Chapter 9 #2
I almost laugh. We don’t study—we survive. But historians did exist, once. I know, because Stellan had a book that he kept in his room, with a dusty cover and yellowed pages. About a year after he found me, I snuck in and started to read it, hoping it would be entertaining.
It wasn’t. I promptly slammed it closed and never opened it again. Maybe I should have.
The thought of Stellan makes my throat tight.
“No,” I say simply.
“Then my work is even more important,” he says, almost to himself. “I’m Pelas. Level Five.”
“Level Five?” Kira asks.
“At the Tower of Knowledge.”
He offers his hand to each of us, his expression a mixture of disgust and curiosity as he considers having to touch us.
Even after washing in the pool, red is soaked into our clothes. Our hair is dripping wet.
Kira shakes his hand first and recoils. When it’s my turn, I realize why. His skin is freezing and too smooth, like touching stone.
“Warm,” he says excitedly, taking a notebook and a quill from his robes. He looks at us as he writes while walking. “Warm everywhere?”
He reaches out as if to touch us more, and Zane snarls at him.
The immortal simply laughs before writing something else. “Territorial about warm skin. Fascinating.”
“Are you all not territorial over your skin?” Kira demands.
He blinks. “For knowledge, I’m not territorial over anything,” he says. “We are not. How old are you?”
“Twenty-two,” Kira says warily.
The immortal chokes on an excited laugh. “How short. How insignificant! I’ve been training to be Level Five for fifty years. You will be dead before I reach Level Ten.”
Kira is glaring at him.
“What happens at Level Ten?” Zane asks, and I don’t miss how his hand is scratching the back of his neck every few seconds in a ruse to be closer to his weapon, should he need it. And we might.
Pelas is an immortal. As lanky as he looks, he could likely turn around and kill us at any moment.
“Level Ten gets access to the peak of knowledge,” he says, eyes wide, as if entranced. “The forbidden floor. Enlightenment you couldn’t imagine.”
The light from his sparkling eyes dims as he turns to look at us. “Fewer questions from you. More from me.”
By the time the trees part, he’s already asked dozens of questions, and Zane looks close to burying his ax into his back.
I wonder what would happen. How hard is their skin? How are immortals killed? I want to ask my own questions, but I stay silent.
Then a great cone-shaped tower comes into view, the size of a mountain. It’s the tallest building I’ve ever seen.
“This … is your castle?” Kira asks.
“Oh, no. This is the Tower of Knowledge.”
“You live … in the Tower of Knowledge?” I ask.
He gives me a withering look. “Not in it. Next to it. All scholars do. At least the ones not on expeditions,” the immortal says, scribbling something that looks like not very intelligent in his notebook.
He thinks we’re idiots. Good.
A plan begins to form.
“Are we going into the Tower of Knowledge?” Kira asks, staring up at the structure in amazement.
Pelas spins to face her, and for the first time, he looks almost violent. “Of course not,” he spits. “Only scholars are allowed inside.”
Instead, he takes us to a building at the base of the tower. Before we reach the entrance, the door swings open, and a tall immortal walks through. He’s wearing similar robes as Pelas, though his are almost silver.
“I thought that color wasn’t allowed here,” Zane says.
Pelas sucks in a sharp breath. He almost looks like he’s going to hit Zane. “How dare you question—”
The tall man places a hand on his shoulder. His voice is deep and resonant, as if he’s speaking inside a well. “Pelas. Remember. Sometimes we learn more from the questions asked than the answers given.”
He turns to Zane. “You are correct. Silver is the color of the gods. Only those of us who are given permission from them are permitted to wear anything that approaches it.”
The color isn’t silver, really. More like a very light gray.
“You—you speak to the gods?” I ask, trying my best to sound casual.
The immortal looks at me as if I’m a foolish child. “Of course not. The texts are the closest we get. But the first scholar. He … he was a friend of the gods. Level Ten wear robes from his own collection.”
Pelas looks at the other immortal’s robes with something like longing.
“I’m Ellis.” The tall immortal moves to the side and motions us forward. “We’re always pleased to have guests pass through. Shall we prepare food? Drink?”
“You … eat?” Kira asks.
Behind her, Pelas shakes his head and angrily scribbles IDIOTS in his notebook.
“Not often,” Ellis says. “For pleasure, mostly. How often do you eat, mortals?”
I frown. “You don’t know?”
His smile is almost pitying. “Our study is typically reserved for … our own kind.” A gentle way of saying that our short, mortal lives don’t matter. Not to them. “And your knowledge was taken to your own land during the Great Divide.”
The Great Divide. Is that what they call the period when the gates were erected?
Our side might have books, but there are hardly any people who can dedicate their lives to reading them.
Knowledge has been kept within certain families.
And all information about Starside faded away—literally—a long time ago.
Ellis leads us down plain stone hallways with just a few cressets holding flames for light, and into a dining room, with a long oak table, and simply carved seats. A small group of immortals with darker robes scurry to meet him, their heads tilted in reverence. “Get our guests food,” he commands.
They bow, then run back into another room with hardly a glance in our direction.
Ellis positions himself at the head of the table. Pelas sits five seats to his right. He roughly motions for us to sit at the other end.
We do, even though we’re still dripping wet. Word of our presence must have spread, because a few more men in robes walk in and take their seats.
They all look expectantly at us. Then the questions begin in earnest.
“What does the other side look like nowadays?”
“Barren, mostly. There are hardly any fertile patches left,” I offer.
Desperate scribbling.
“What do you eat?”
We turn to one another. “It varies based on where we live,” Kira says. “My side, to the west … we eat mainly fish. We’re by the coast.”
“I’m from the mountains,” Zane says slowly, studying them, hand not far from his ax. “We eat pheasants. And roots that grow up high.”
“Fascinating. And you? Where are you from?” Ellis is looking right at me.
I swallow past the knot in my throat. “I’m from a place that doesn’t exist anymore. But—we used to eat mostly grain. And there was a single, giant fruit tree. It would feed our whole village, during infrequent blooms.”
I grip the side of my chair as an image flashes through my mind of that fruit tree on fire.
“I … moved to another village as a child. There, I ate scraps. Pieces that were handed out at the town square.” Or that I stole. “I foraged too. Mushrooms and such.”
None of their expressions change.
“Do people die of hunger on that side?”
All the time, I want to say. Because all the magic is here. Because you all are in a fancy tower, studying books and looking down your noses at us while we are dying.
“Yes” is all I say.
“What does hunger feel like?” one of the other scholars asks, his voice devoid of any emotion.
“It feels like desperation,” I say, a bite in my tone.
There were seasons when no one was buying anything from the forge. When Stellan would go without food for weeks so that I would get both rations of scraps.
Even that wasn’t enough.
Hunger is a knife, twisting, carving.
These immortals … they’ve never been hungry. They are disgusted by us and our lives. They eat for pleasure, mostly.
My hands grip the chair harder, and Zane gives me a warning look.
Before I can say anything else, the doors burst open, and steaming bowls of broth are brought out. They are placed roughly in front of us, liquid sloshing onto the table.
Mysterious pieces float inside. Kira sniffs the bowl and nearly retches.
“Eat,” Ellis says, before taking a spoonful of his own soup.
It could be poisoned. Though the other scholars continue asking questions. We aren’t much use to them dead.
I take a sip and fight not to twist my face. The soup is bitter and acidic. The pieces are hard.
Still, it’s food. And I don’t doubt I will know hunger on many days during this journey to the gods.
The questions keep coming. About our climate, about our limitations, about our birth rates.
Finally, I fix a big smile on my face, and say, “We would love to know about you. Are you truly immortal? Can you not be killed?”
The table suddenly goes silent. Pelas is glaring at me.
Ellis humors me. “We can be killed, of course. We don’t die of old age, however.” He looks closely at me. “Our bodies are more durable than yours. We don’t have disease here. Only high metals can wound us.”
He doesn’t even glance at our swords, as if not considering for a moment we could be carrying strong ones.
“Do you bleed?”
Pelas’s look is nothing short of withering. “Of course we bleed,” he says, and there’s a legend that has proven to be false. He continues with a string of mumbled insults I only partially make out.
“If your people rarely die … are there many of you?” Kira asks.
“Far less than there are mortals, I assume. Recently … more have perished,” Ellis says simply, and I don’t miss how the other scholars seem to hunch forward with serious expressions. “Births are rare.”
“Why recently?” Zane asks.
Silence.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the pure fear I saw on Pelas’s face as he glanced at the moon and the incoming night.
Night is a dangerous time, even for immortals.