CHAPTER X #5
I clear the words from my mind and let the raging fire warm me up until I’m ready to begin again.
I quickly make my way up to the fifth height and grab a new stack of books, settling in as I nibble on a few cranberries from lunch.
Once the table becomes too uncomfortable to sit in any longer, I move along my previous dance and find new places and areas to read.
“Dinner,” Morose holds a plate out with narrowed eyes.
She’s standing above me, both her and Golem watching as I lay stretched out on my back with a book.
“Thank you,” I nod, unmoving from my comfortable position on the rug, “if you can just leave it on the table I’ll eat it later.”
I watch as Golem turns to Morose and then Morose looks at me. “You barely touched your lunch.”
“No?” I could have sworn the turkey was delicious.
Golem shakes his head as I push myself up from the ground. The plate is still waiting on the corner of the table, sans all the cranberries.
I grab the book I was reading and bring it with me to the table and sit down, pulling the lunch plate towards me to finish off the food. I lose myself in the next book, barely noticing Morose’s wrinkled fingers dropping the second plate next to the first as a new canteen lands at its side as well.
It’s well after dinner when I wake up slumped in my chair, my body putting itself to sleep all on its own. I startle, not even remembering when I started to doze off, and peer across the table.
Fuck me, there’s still so many books.
I drop my head on my arm with a loud groan.
“Golem?” I mumble, “Morose?”
I hear my magical friend at my back. He’s standing against the catalogue in the wall and sifting through the cards, his clay fingers surprisingly not damaging the paper.
“Did Morose take off for the night?” I ask, rubbing my eyes.
He turns with a nod and continues his search in the drawers.
I reach for the canteen Morose left and take a hefty gulp, smiling at the coffee that’s waiting inside.
It only takes my body one full book of reading before it’s buzzing with determination, the rest of the books on the table not looking so daunting after all.
My heart is pounding when I make haste through the stacks and add one more to the keep pile.
I lose track of how long I sit at the table and sift through the texts, or how many times I move from chair to rug to staircase to fire, roaming the heights with a book in hand.
But what I do know is that the coffee keeps me awake and spirited throughout the whole night, and that the stacks on the table keeps getting smaller and smaller.
I wake again, this time curled up next to the large fire on the ground floor.
I reach for the book near my head and begin climbing up, the table on the fifth height now neatly organized.
All of my discarded books lay on the floor next to the table, while the four books I want to keep are stacked in the corner.
There’s still another small stack left to read, so I set to the task and move through them as quickly as possible before we start the new morning.
“Have you slept, girl?” Morose walks up to the table with Golem standing beside her.
“Yes, of course. I took two naps.”
Morose grimaces, her cat-like eyes darting across my face in small concern. I give her a smile and point to the last two books in front of me with a nod.
“I’m almost done. Then I want to share with you two what I’ve found.”
The old woman huffs and takes a seat at the table across from me as Golem stands behind her. I move along in my reading and finally close the second book, pushing both towards the discard pile with a sigh.
“Those won’t do...”
I reach for the four books I saved and spread them across the table, angling the titles towards Morose and Golem so they can flip through the pages.
“But these four are close. This is the direction we need to pursue. Two of these books reference the Ancient of Death and Exploration, Hirovale, and his ability to turn anything he touches to ash…”
Golem nods as Morose leans in on the books.
“Both books write heavily about the fall of the Kingdom of Aireal, and while the Ancient Hirovale was not a participant in the deal made between the Aireals and the two Ancients, his ability to turn things to ash is always referenced throughout at the same time of the deal.”
“That’s because he claimed their souls,” Morose looks up at me, pupils slanting.
“I’m sorry?”
“Hiro,” she gives me a hard look, “he claimed the souls of Damen, the Ancient of Power and Vigor, and Windsor, the Ancient of Tranquility and Peace.”
“What do you mean claim?” I ask as Golem shifts quietly.
“When Hirovale touches a living being, magical or not, and turns it to ash, he is claiming their soul. The soul is his to do with as he pleases.”
“That’s …” My eyes go wide.
“Magnificent? Astounding? Powerful?” she nods, “more like all of those. The Ancient is heavily revered by our Kingdom and is the most beloved of the Ten. His bringing of ash symbolizes the power of the Tarragons whose breath of fire is so fierce that even the greatest of cities burn to ash under it.”
She frowns and looks at the two books on the table, “we were dismayed to hear the rumors that the Ancient chose to sleep in the Kingdom of Disce, but I still hold out hope that he’s decided to rest here.”
I could care less where an Ancient decided to rest, but what I do care about is her statement before that.
“So Damen and Windsor, the Ancients who made the deal with the Aireals, were claimed, not slaughtered?” I clarify.
“Oh, their bodies were slaughtered by the Elder Father and Mother, alright,” Morose lifts her eyes to mine, looking like a cat about to pounce, “but their souls were claimed by Hiro.”
I don’t know what to do with this new information and also don’t have the time to process it. I decide to push it to the back of my mind for another day and move along.
“Let’s keep a heavy eye on history books relating to the Ancient Hirovale and the deal made between the two Ancients and the Aireals. Look for any references of him turning something to ash.”
Both Golem and Morose nod in agreement.
“This next book is a catalogue of magical creatures,” I push it forward, “bird of ash is not specifically mentioned, but the text does have references to common birds still found today. It talks a lot about the firehawks in your mountains as well as the older creatures of the Old World such as the lost griffins of Aireal. I want to focus on these types of books that describe the Old World’s past creatures.
Hopefully they’ll lead to a reference of a bird of ash. ”
“This is really starting to annoy me,” Morose frowns.
“What is?”
The old woman shakes her head, “I swear I know the term bird of ash. It’s ancient information, from the beginning of our Old World…”
“It’ll come,” I sigh as I push the fourth book forward, “this last book hosts an abundant of knowledge on summoning and how to practice it between all four elements. There are many references in here to magic being used for healing purposes, with the acts symbolizing a sort of rebirth. For example, it speaks of Leviathans using minimal water to sustain and bring to life a dying tree or large swaths of land… Aireals once calling upon healing properties to breath the air of life back into small beings. I don’t know where this search will lead, but it’s the closest I’ve came to the term reborn. ”
“All of these texts are so different from the other,” Morose notes with a scowl.
“They are,” I agree, grabbing all four books and my travel bag, “and perhaps they’ll only aid in narrowing the search even more. Or perhaps we’ll get lucky and find a book with a little bit of each in it.”
Our small group moves up to the fifteenth height as we settle in and make it our new meeting area for the day.
I lay all four books on the northern table and crack their spines for Morose and Golem to use as reference, no longer fearing their demise as I’ve already touched and opened them thoroughly.
As was the same yesterday, I take the first two heights and help with the search before coming back to the table to begin my reading.
There’s fewer books brought to me this time around but they are getting increasingly larger and more dense in their texts.
I spend a good portion of my late morning reading through three massive leather-bound books with print so tiny that I get an aching head just from the first.
Morose interrupts my tedious reading and places some food on the table, quickly announcing a lunch that I can’t even comprehend.
Time moves differently in this library, sometimes quick and sometimes slow, and without any windows or the sun above to provide any guidance, I get lost in my reading without any sense of the day.
I sigh at the food and look at the large pile of books on the table. I’m not even close to getting through the texts and still haven’t added anything new to the keep pile. Food seems so trivial when there’s so much reading left to do.
“Eat, Alexis,” Morose commands.
I nod quickly to the old woman and pick up a small roll before taking a bite. She seems satisfied enough and leaves to resume her search of the heights above, while I grab another book from the stacks and head for the settee.
Books pass through my hands one after the other as the stacks slowly begin to dwindle on the table. I start to make a pretty decent headway, and although the piles are getting smaller with each discarded book, I find myself becoming increasingly more frustrated.