Chapter 2 #3
But if he couldn’t find the doors or this supposed spiral, how would he get her out?
Or himself?
He didn’t care about dark and light. He wasn’t afraid of whatever “monsters” lurked in the shadows. If Mon couldn’t tell Jesstin how to find Elloven and the doors, then he had no use for him until he was ready to cough up the “truths” he’d dangled to lure him here.
“There are more dangers there than I could ever impart, but there are two in particular you must know about and must incontrovertibly avoid, no matter what else happens to you. The simulcra and the vigils. The simulcra are...”
Jesstin trapped a yawn, turning it into a swallow.
When had he last slept? Did people sleep in the netherworld?
Mon had said they didn’t need to eat or drink, which Jesstin could use to his advantage, assuming the laws applied to him the same way.
Even better if he could forgo rest. Time was the one thing he couldn’t squander; Daire had impressed that much.
If he could keep himself awake, he could add an additional five to six hours per day to his search for Elloven, though that was assuming Infinitum days consisted of the same hours of the days he knew, which, in consideration, seemed greatly unlikely.
“You’ll lose your light to them, and if that happens, there is nothing I or anyone else can do to help you.”
“What can you tell me about time?”
“Time?” Mon asked, brows joined. “That’s your question, after all I’ve just told you?”
“I’ve heard it runs differently. Slower? Faster?”
Mon chortled. “Both.”
“Both?”
“At times, a week passes here and a year there. Other times, a year passes here and a week there. Back, forth, ebb, flow... Like the tides, you might say. The place is cursed. Weren’t you listening? Most of us stop trying to make sense once we realize there’s none to be found.”
Jesstin scoffed. “So how do I know how much time has gone by up there?”
Mon shrugged with his stroke. “Best not to dwell on it.”
The last of the day’s light disappeared along the horizon. Jesstin lurched forward when the canoe slammed into a rocky wall that stretched twenty, thirty feet above them. He glanced back at Mon, who nodded at the wall in a gesture that said climb.
“There’s no shore?”
“The rope, Jesstin.”
Jesstin ducked to the side just in time to miss a thick, knotted cord that slammed into the hull an inch to his left.
“Did you hear a word I said about twilight? Climb!”
Jesstin gauged the stability and hoisted himself using the first knot. Mon’s anxious breath tickled his calves. Spray from the boat slamming into the wall stung his eyes. He closed them and pushed on faster, until his chin hit a ledge.
He quickly climbed over and helped Mon do the same.
They stood upon a stone battlement lined with ropes.
Facing away from the sea, a row of teeming towers greeted them, separate but connected by archways with signs on either side.
He couldn’t read them from so far back. Dense, rising fog made the towers seem as though they’d breached the world of the living itself.
“Where now?” Jesstin asked.
Mon spun a jittery glance in all directions. “We cannot be seen together. There are spies here, working with Ryquin.”
Jesstin gaped at him. Misty haze clung to every inch of him. “You’re not coming with me?”
“I’m a known irritant. As of now? You are Ryquin’s ally. If you are discovered with me? He will see to it you not only never leave but you fall to the fate I described on our way across.” Mon again did a sweep of the area, his impatience shifting him from one foot to the other.
The “fate” had been lost to Jesstin’s prioritization of his own thoughts on the Crossing, but he didn’t intend to be there long. “Where do I go then?”
The speed of Mon’s words slurred them as he pointed down the row of towers and arches. “There, through Quarta Pars.”
Jesstin squinted at the words above the arch, Quarta Pars. It wasn’t in his own language, but he understood the words as if it were. Quarter Four.
“Language is universal here. Everyone can understand everyone.” Mon gripped his shoulders and shook him.
“Now listen! You’ll find yourself on a forest path that follows another river.
Do not walk, run, and ignore anything that endeavors to slow you.
There’s a cloister not far from there. You cannot miss it.
Remember all I’ve told you. Don’t look into the varums. Resist their call.
Never will there be a safe occasion to visit Infinita Nemus, the forests.
Stay equally clear of anything calling itself Forum Obscura.
You see simulcra or a vigil, you run the other way.
Protect your flame above all.” Mon tore through the instructions like he’d already given them, and he probably had.
“Wait! You’re really not coming with me?” Jesstin shouted after him. “What about all this information you promised me?”
“Do you listen to nothing? We cannot be seen together! Now go! Under the Quarta Pars and do not stop for even a breath until you reach the cloister!”