SONG of EMBER

17

BOOK OF ECHOES

🙜

With only the glow of the stone for a guide, Ember had no means of tracking the passing hours, but he was so tired that it must have been nearly dusk when Ky pricked her ears and made a sudden sound—of alarm, surprise or something else entirely.

She dashed ahead of him, leaping a skeletal warrior which lay in the middle of the corridor. Pieces of rusted metal clattered in her wake as she clipped it with her foot, and in an instant she had disappeared from the circle of golden light.

“Ky!” Ember shouted, his voice thunderous in the cavernous hall. “Come back! Where are you off to?”

Her soft footsteps faded into nothing.

She’s going to kill me.

A thought he had squashed down deep inside himself ever since her pale face and bulbous eyes had appeared in the amber stone-light, looking like the demon in the dark from that old rhyme. But now it came rushing back, stronger than before, and Ember stopped cold in the middle of the hall.

Dead men lay at his feet. And, here and there, dead others with sharp fangs which reminded him—sickeningly—of Ky’s grinning face. Perhaps they were not sirens. Some other foul creature may have passed out of both human and siren memory. Whatever they were, it was impossible not to pass judgment on who had attacked whom.

Peace, Ember. Don’t lose your nerve now. Nowhere to go but onward.

So on he went, one step—one breath—at a time.

The hall grew steadily brighter, and upon glancing up he noticed a few pinpoints of light very far above him. Lanterns, perhaps? Tapestries hung down—moldering, moth-eaten, threadbare tapestries—each perhaps twenty times his height and nearly as wide as the great hall itself. They were too distant to make out their designs, but he decided that anything of such magnificence must have been woven with a great deal of care.

The carved walls grew smoother and more polished, and the rock itself seemed slightly luminous. Ember glanced at the stone in his hand, and then paused long enough to touch the wall.

Cold.

But a misty halo of light brushed his fingers.

He hid the stone under his shirt, and the aura of the mountain itself was just enough to see by. It grew stronger in places and weaker in others, as if veins of living, glowing, pulsing blood ran beneath the rock. The stone-light Ky had awakened from its slumber seemed almost dead by comparison.

Perhaps that’s what this is, he mused, distracted by the absurdity.

The mountain’s blood.

A flow of magic…

As Ember began to truly take notice of how sore his feet were, and how much he wished to stop and rest, he was beset by the gloomy thoughts he had attempted to shove aside; thoughts of his cabin, the quiet river, the chatter and gossip at the tavern late at night.

A shout startled him back to the present.

“Ember!”

Ky’s voice resounded in an earthy chorus, and all the aches and bruises he had accumulated in the past few days lifted from him for a brief moment. He quickened his pace.

A lithe silhouette crouched at the end of the hall.

“Come!”

As he glanced ahead, he took note of the light gathering near the end of the corridor with the most intensity—but it was not the serene amber glow of the rock surface. Rather, it was a bright pale light which made him squint after so many hours of relative darkness.

She had positioned herself near the center of a grand stone atrium, adorned with many runes and signs he could not understand. Within the atrium rested a single marble pedestal—and on that pedestal…

A book.

That central light shone down upon it, a single ray of blinding whiteness. Apprehension gripped him. It felt almost as if the room itself had been expecting someone…

Ky waited until he had stepped up beside her, and they approached the atrium. Before it lay two long corridors reaching off into semi-darkness, adorned with similar tapestries. Together, they paused at the archway, and stared.

There was no skylight in the round room, nor any flame to produce the light. The book looked as if it had lain there since the beginning of time.

It simply was.

“Maybe there’s a map,” said Ember, warily holding out a hand and waving it back and forth through the beam. “Or… something that might tell us where to go from here.”

Ky edged closer, and Ember felt a chill as she slipped a finger into the crook of his elbow. He knew, simply from that cold, firm touch, that she was frightened. He’d never seen her frightened before, or even thought it was possible for anything to frighten a siren—hadn’t she said herself that she was unafraid of magic?

“There will be no map,” she said stiffly.

“We should at least take a look,” he protested, feeling a twinge of impatience. “It seems to be a central room. Perhaps we can learn what happened here, or find a way out!”

“It is useless,” Ky insisted. “It will bring us no good. We leave at once.”

“But—”

Her clawed finger dug into the soft part of his elbow and he choked on the words.

“Magic has clouded your mind,” she hissed. “I taste it. I smell it. Nothing good here.”

There was a sharp and demanding note to her voice that only furthered Ember’s resolve. It was possible that had she not been so decisive, he might have conceded. There was a part of him that even agreed. But her obstinacy was reason enough to investigate: if she didn’t want him to enter that room, he certainly would.

“No. I’m going to have a look.”

He wrenched his arm away and marched up the steps, advancing on the book and pedestal. She let him go but did not follow. As he entered, he glanced up at the ceiling. It was round, high, and curved into a dome. When he reached the book, he was greeted by empty pages. A delicate leather scrollwork decorated the edge, which he promptly ran his finger over, but it remained inanimate.

Not one magical horror had leapt out at them since they passed through the door, something he half-expected at every moment, but he had hoped something would happen. It did not seem to have suffered any damage, despite the carnage in the hall outside and its obvious age.

Bemused, he hooked his thumb under the cover to flip it closed in search of a title.

Stuck.

He pulled harder.

It was like trying to pry a rock apart with his bare hands.

Magic, Ember thought angrily, frowning down at the yellowed parchment. Ky was not going to help—far from it, her mysterious attitudes grew more disconcerting at every turn—and he knew none of the rules of this place. Well, you’re trapped here for now, and you can’t simply wish yourself away.

He clapped his hands and was amused to see Ky jump slightly in his periphery, but nothing revealed itself besides a puff of dust. Coughing, Ember fanned the air and squinted down at the blank pages, wondering how he could use it to his advantage.

The door in the mountainside had required the Truth of them.

He spoke that truth again, stating his purpose there and adding a few lines about seeking a way out, but the only reply was a small echo. It tumbled out the doorway, creating myriad others as it went, and receded into unknown hallways and corridors.

“Hmmm.”

Leaning down, Ember blew some of the dust off the pages, and in so doing he accidentally brushed the upper corner of the left-hand page with his thumb.

Something dark appeared and vanished like a wisp of black fog.

He frowned, staring hard at the corner, and then ran his finger across it again.

Bold calligraphic runes appeared briefly, as if summoned into being by his touch. Ember yanked his hand away and scrubbed it on his trousers, disturbed by the book's reaction to his fingerprint. He liked this magic even less (if possible) than the floating lights in the woods. At least those had seemed real to him at the time. At least they had substance. They were something. Something almost tangible, something which glowed and twinkled in the night.

This new magic felt invasive, sinister: it sensed his touch. What else could the book discern from his presence there?

Yet, at length, it seemed there was nothing better to be done, and Ember reluctantly traced his finger over the top line once more. Words appeared: Speak aloud that we may know thine own heart’s true intent, for withyn our sacred halls no man may speak a lie.

Ember obliged, softly and haltingly reading the words aloud for Ky, and then moved on to the next line.

“Welcome to our sacred halls, where is honored sacred thought, and be not wearied of thy stay, for here eternity is wrought.”

He paused, blinking. It was written in rhyme. Did that mean this was some sort of riddle? And who or what was welcoming them to the mountain?

“Knowledge here was treasured—” His finger hovered over the word ‘was,’ which overlapped ‘here’ and ‘treasured’ slightly, as if it had been corrected to something else by a careless writer. But in the very next moment the letters shifted, shrinking and elongating to make room for the little word.

He widened his eyes, wondering if it was a trick of the light.

With an effort of will, Ember kept his hand in place and swallowed, his throat scratchy from the dust. Whatever magic lingered here was actively trying to communicate: something was changing the words as he read them.

With that harrowing realization firmly in his mind, Ember continued to read aloud, slower than his usual halting cadence. Runes continued to shift under his fingers, but it happened too quickly for him to discern what they had been and speak them aloud instead. He was anxious to outwit whatever force was playing with the book, but never caught more than a few letters before they were switched around or promptly replaced.

“Knowledge here was treasured once: so shall ye fynd whate’er ye seke; but be thou warned, lest ye despair, that too much Knowledge harms the weak. Our Holy Writ has told of those who dwell below in waters deep…”

Ember glanced at Ky, but she stood motionless beneath the archway, black eyes fixed on the wall behind him.

“...accurs’d and stricken by their deeds, no sacred Breath nor Light to keep. Sholde thee partake of human flesh and sup the blood of human veyns, then be persuaded of thy past, that thou hast won these mortal paynes…”

“STOP!”

Ember leapt away from the pedestal, hand flying from the page, and whirled to face Ky. She now stared wild-eyed at the book, body quaking, one clawed finger pointing rigidly.

“Stop it,” she hissed, her face white as birch bark. “Read no further!”