Starside

Chapter 9 #3

Ellis stands from the head of the table. “We’ve kept you long enough. It seems like you have survived … a great ordeal. Perhaps you would like to retire for the night. We can continue our questions in the morning.” He nods at the other scholars, and they begin to stand one by one.

Pelas blinks too many times. He looks from his notes to us. “But I—I had more—”

“I’ll stay with you,” I offer. “While they rest. I can answer your questions.”

Zane and Kira look at me as if I’ve lost my fucking mind. Maybe I have. I only smile tightly at them and hope they trust I know what I’m doing. Or, at least, I think I do.

“Very well,” Ellis says. “Level Ones will escort you two to your rooms.” The dark gray–robed men scuttle out again, leading Kira and Zane away.

I turn back toward Pelas. “What is it you want to know?”

Two hours later, Pelas has asked me an endless stream of questions. The latest was about how he compares to a mortal man.

“You’re … fine,” I say, careful with my words. “Most mortals have more muscle, if they aren’t starving. But … your face is … not revolting?”

SUFFERS FROM VISION PROBLEMS, he writes.

I fight to mask a laugh, and his eyes dart up to my face. His demeanor completely changes. “Were you reading my notes?” he demands.

Fuck.

I blink quickly, then divert my gaze to the floor. I hunch my shoulders and will red to stain my cheeks. “Oh, no—I … I can’t. I was just marveling at how quickly you make the shapes.”

He reaches a finger out to touch my cheek. His touch is clinical as he studies the rush of color in pure fascination. I wonder if immortals’ durable skin means a blush looks different on them.

He tilts his head. “Mortals do not read?”

I smile weakly. “We have no use for such things.”

His aggression melts away, replaced by something worse: conceit. “Of course not.” He shakes his head. “Of course you have no use for such things, simple creature.”

I smother the urge to bury my sword in his skull. “Where do the words live?” I ask innocently.

He blinks. “The books, you mean?”

I nod quickly, eyes as wide as I can make them.

He sighs. “You simple, simple creature,” he says, stroking my cheek, and I have to stop myself from recoiling. “Stand. I will show you.”

And I wonder who the simple creature is.

It’s the middle of the night, and the corridors are quiet.

Pelas looks around before lighting a candle.

I watch as he takes a quill with a sparkling metal point out of his pocket.

Starside steel. Though here, I’m guessing it’s called something else.

The quill has a jagged edge. It almost looks like a key.

Pelas slips it through a crack in the wall and turns it. A door punches out of the stone, then we’re in the tower.

He frowns at my dirty clothes. “You’re not worthy of being in here, mortal. Be grateful I have charitable instincts.”

Charitable. I know men like him. Men who are treated as if they are lesser, then take the first opportunity to do it to others.

I nod deeply, almost bowing. “You have my gratitude.”

I’m not a threat to him. He thinks I’m too stupid to lie. He’s too eager to feel important.

My boots click over a mosaic that makes up the entire bottom of the tower.

Its pieces form a ring, with a much smaller silver circle at its center, filled like an orb.

I stop right atop it, frowning, studying the two thin lines of silver erupting from the middle to the outer ring, shooting from opposite directions.

Before I can ask what it is, Pelas turns, motioning around him.

“This. This is half a century of work,” he says.

“Being able to walk in here whenever I wish.” His pride is a drug.

He looks up and points at the levels overhead, floors and floors of shelves all visible from the center of the hollow cone-shaped tower.

“Half the library. I can access half of it. You wouldn’t understand. You have no idea how rare this is.”

I do. And it’s getting hard to mask my excitement. I force my voice to be casual as I say, “Do … do any of these books include accounts from those who have completed the Questral?”

I swallow, waiting, hoping he answers.

Pelas only frowns. “I haven’t encountered one yet. But it wouldn’t be from a mortal. It would be an immortal’s account, of course.”

I blink. “Immortals used to make the quest?”

He scowls. “Of course. Before it became a death sentence.” He laughs, then stops himself.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

He sighs. “Immortals used to journey to the gods to ask for favors. Or to win a cup of magic. Some even drank it.” His lip curls in a sneer.

“Most turned into beasts, of course. Cursed by their greed. The gods have only deepened their cruelty, as is their right. Only the truly desperate would ever try to visit them now.”

He looks over at me with unfiltered disdain and perhaps a bit of amusement. I want to ask more, but his eyes begin to narrow.

“Come. You’ve sullied this place long enough.” He drags me back through the door. His grip is punishing, his nails digging into my shoulder. He’s so close, he spits the words, raising his voice as he says, “You are not going to tell anyone you were in here.”

I nod slowly.

Only then does he release me. I’m led back to the dining room and Pelas relishes commanding a Level 1 to show me to my quarters. I follow, head bent.

When the hallway is quiet again, I sneak back toward the tower. And slip the quill I stole from Pelas between my fingers.

The scholars don’t visit at night. The structure is windowless, save for a large skylight that takes up the entire pointed ceiling. Daylight is clearly preferable for reading. I have nothing but the light of a candle I took from the hall.

The shelves are positioned in rings, with the stairs going around and around. Each level up is smaller than the last, leading to the peak—Level 10. Just a small circle of books.

I don’t waste a moment. I run up the spiral stairs to Level 1 and begin with the first book. As I go to pull it off the shelf, it pulls back.

Shit. The books are chained to their shelves, making it impossible to steal them—and hard to open at all. I can only view them if I’m hunched over at an awkward angle. Each chain is locked.

I try Pelas’s quill, and it works. The book is freed.

There’s nothing inside but half-empty pages. Something about plants, with detailed drawings of leaves.

I move on.

I open book after book, flipping through each quickly, looking for anything that might help me complete the quest.

I reach toward another text, but I stop just short of it. There’s an energy … a thrumming inside.

Something is contained in that book. I’m not sure what it is, but I move past it. A few others have that same strange feeling. I finally pick one up and read its cover. It has to do with magic.

Useless to me right now. I just need any information that can help me get to the gods—and kill them.

Level 1 doesn’t have anything relevant. I go to Level 2. The books here are about history. War. Great Houses rising and falling.

Level 3. Creatures. Endless books about beasts and beings, most of which I’ve never heard of. It could be useful, but I don’t have time. I need to find something that can specifically help me on this quest.

The darkness begins to fade.

I look up. The first rays of light are gleaming through the peak.

Shit.

Pelas said he had never encountered an account from someone who had completed the Questral. It must be because it’s on a higher level.

I skip Level 4 and Level 5 and go straight to Level 6.

Here, most of the books are thrumming with that strange energy. It makes it easy to pass those. Only a few don’t have it, and I hurriedly turn their pages.

Orange rays spill down from the ceiling, slowly illuminating the mosaic below. As soon as the sun hits that silver circle at the center of the ring … it glows, producing its own column of light that shoots right up through the center of the tower.

Beautiful. But it means my time is almost up. Scholars should be walking inside any moment now. I look around, frantically, knowing I don’t have time to go through each book. This level has hundreds.

That’s when I see it, across the way. A book that looks more worn than the others, as if it wasn’t written in a place like this.

I walk around the ring of shelves until I’m standing right in front of it. It’s absent that thrumming energy. I pull it from its shelf, and the chain pulls it back.

A Quest of Life and Death.

I sink to my knees, not bothering with the lock this time, knowing Pelas’s key won’t work. I flip through it as light completely fills the tower, sun pouring in through the skylight like wine entering a goblet.

Some of the pages have been torn out. Some of the ink has smudged, as if the pages got wet.

My quest starts at the Beast Tree. Some of my group hits the ground. Others are luckier. They say you won’t survive without a creature. Most don’t survive the tree at all.

I will report back.

My quest did not end there, I am happy to say. I survived the tree. Many did not. My beast is stubborn, but strong. With him, I feel confident that—

Voices sound below me. My hands tense around the worn cover, the book’s chain rattling.

Pelas. He’s with a group, which is why, I assume, he hasn’t noticed his quill is missing. His voice is full of excitement. It echoes up the tower.

“They’re sleeping now,” he says.

A voice I don’t recognize says, “Good. And the poison you’re making will keep them alive?”

“Yes, yes. I’d rather study their insides while their blood is still flowing. We’ll keep them alive for as long as possible while we conduct our tests.”

I go still.

He’s going to slice us open and study us … while we’re still alive.

Of fucking course he is.

I flip through the pages faster. I had hoped I could read the entire text and commit it to memory, but there’s no time now. My fingers pause at one of the last pages.

The author … he drew a map.

Unlike Zane’s, it’s complete, and strikingly detailed, showing all the way from where we are now to the other edge of Starside, where the gods live. Every town. Every mountain range. Everything he encountered.

This is invaluable.

Pelas is only Level 5, but still, desperately, I try the lock, just in case. The quill gets stuck then drops against the wood.

The voices go quiet.

Then—“Who’s here?”

I remain very still.

“Scholar?”

I take a slow breath. Another.

The stairs groan as they begin climbing.

They’re going to find me. The tower is hollow. There’s nowhere to hide. I don’t even try. They spot me immediately, from several levels down.

“Mortal!” one yells.

Pelas starts running, his gray robes furling around him.

No use being quiet. I pull the chain, clumsily unsheathe my sword—drop it—then begin slamming my blade down against the metal with all my might. The chain is sparkling Starside steel. But so is my sword.

I start banging and banging at it, watching the metal slowly chip away. Too slowly. Fuck, this sword is heavy. I’m already panting. My arms burn.

The scholars are on Level 3. Then they’re on Level 4.

They’re yelling for help. I bang my blade over and over and over, but then they’re on my level.

There’s no time. I rip the map out of the book, stick it in my pocket, and run.

Pelas is right behind me. The rest of the scholars block the stairs. I feel the magic all around, humming, thrashing.

Pelas might not be muscular, but he’s fast. He’s on my heels in a moment. I turn around and raise my blade high.

His eyes widen in fear.

Not for his own life, apparently. “Put that away, you simpleton,” he cries out. “You’ll harm the books. Some of them are fragile. Some are filled with things you won’t want to unleash.”

I should kill him for what he planned to do to us.

Instead, I slice my blade along the spines of books closest to us, the ones boiling with magic.

And the world explodes.

I get thrown back and nearly fall over the railing as black, sparkling smoke erupts, each text bursting apart in quick succession. My ears ring. A metal taste coats my tongue. My knees nearly buckle as I stand, then I’m off again, using both arms to slice my sword across another row of texts.

Some books break off their chains, some howl like beasts, others burst into flames. I hear screaming somewhere.

Then Pelas’s voice: “Stop! Stop!” I do no such thing.

The tower is filled with different colors of smoke, and I use its cover to run down the stairs, past coughing scholars who have spent their lives holed up in this place.

Chaos meets me in the hallway, but the yelling immortals press themselves to the walls when they see my weapon. I turn a corner, and someone grips my wrist—I lift my blade.

Kira and Zane.

“What did you do?” Kira asks, eyes wide.

I wince. “Far too much.”

We race down the steps toward the front door. There, in front of the towering oak stands Ellis, wielding a thin sparkling sword of metal slightly different from my own. It has an intricately carved hilt and a pearl in its pommel.

I lift my blade, ready to fight. Kira and Zane raise their weapons too.

The immortal glances at my metal and pales. “Where did you get that?”

My chest is burning, lungs filled with the mysterious smoke from the tower and constricting from all the running. “I think we’ve had enough questions, don’t you agree?”

I wait for him to advance. I plant my feet, readying myself, blinking quickly so as not to miss any sharp movement.

But he only lowers his sword. “I underestimated you, human,” he says. Then he steps away from the door.

It doesn’t make sense. There’s no time to question it. The sounds of yells and running surge behind us. The scholars might have scurried away at the first sign of a weapon, but all together, who knows what they’re capable of?

Zane inches toward the door, eyes fixed on the immortal, and opens it. “It’s clear,” he yells back at us.

He steps through. So does Kira.

The immortal pays them no mind. No. He’s staring at me—at my hand. I lower my gaze, and my chest goes cold. While I was flipping the pages, I folded my sleeve up and never lowered it.

Just the smallest bit of silver is showing, but those immortal eyes miss nothing.

Slowly, his gaze meets mine again. I keep my grip on my weapon, waiting for him to strike me, or yell out his discovery—

But he doesn’t say a word. And as I back away and flee into the morning, I realize his silence wasn’t the most surprising part.

It was that he didn’t look surprised at all.