The Book Knights Page 3

  “My parents collected books for a long time and built a secret library in our house to hold them all. But the Incendi burned everything and…took them away.”

  There was a long silence before Arti spoke again. “It’s your turn, Gal. What’s your story?”

  Gal was a closed book that couldn’t be pried open. She wouldn’t talk about her childhood, but it was clear to Arti that she’d lived a very hard life—and a lonely one. She was twelve years old—just two years Arti’s junior—but her small size and wiry build made her appear younger. Until you looked at her eyes. They didn’t belong to a child; they’d seen too much to hold on to any kind of innocence. And though they regarded Arti with curiosity and interest, there was suspicion hiding behind them, a wariness that made trust difficult. The only thing Gal was willing to share was the story of how she discovered her pride and joy, the room they were sitting in.

  It was almost two years ago while out “scrounging”—Gal’s term for finding or stealing anything she could use or sell—that she found her home in the abandoned school. She expected the building to be stripped of its valuables but was surprised to find one locked steel door that hadn’t been breached. It became her mission to find a way in, and after days of trying, she did.

  It was like entering an undiscovered tomb of some ancient king with all its contents still in place—except there wasn’t any gold or silver or jewels. For Gal, it held a treasure even more valuable: a place where she’d be safe from the outside world.

  “And when I got inside, I found the key up there.” Gal pointed at one of the shelves. “Pretty lucky, eh?” She reached for the twine necklace under her collar, pulling the key out and kissing it.

  As impressed as Arti was by Gal’s achievement, she felt sorry for her. “It must have been hard being on your own.”

  “Pfeww. Bein’ alone don’t bother me none,” said Gal, her eyes betraying those words. She knocked her empty can off the table with the back of her hand and kicked it across the floor. It clattered and bounced against the base of one of the shelves before spinning to a stop. “You’re just lucky you had parents that cared about you.”

  Cared. Arti refused to think about her mother and father in the past tense. She swore again that she would go back for them. As soon as she could. No matter what. The weight of that pledge added to her exhaustion. She slumped from the chair to the floor and reached for her blanket. “I’m really tired. I need to get some rest.” She was nearly asleep when Gal spoke again.

  “You never asked me how I got in here with the door locked.”

  “Don’t tell me,” said Arti, keeping her eyes closed. “Secrets should be kept.”

  Two matching marble pedestals stood in the middle of Morgan Fay’s expansive tower suite, facing the thick iron door, the only entrance into the circular room. One pedestal supported a massive leather-bound book while its naked twin revealed only the swirling gray veins of polished stone and the dark telltale scars of a fire long since extinguished.

  Lifting the huge book from its place, the CEO of Fay Industries cradled it in her arms, crossing to the ornate oak desk below a window on the tower’s curving outer wall. She set the book down gently and took her seat, carefully turning the tome’s broad pages until she found her place.

  For twenty-five years, Fay commanded her company from her office high atop the restored ancient castle overlooking the city of Tintagel, Main and Isle, the Avalon River to the south, and Lake Ogden to the east. She was almost sixty but had the face of a woman half that age. Her jet-black hair never grayed, her sky-blue eyes never clouded, her ivory skin never succumbed to the wrinkles of time. Those privileged enough to be allowed in her presence—the top executives in her company that did her bidding—never dared speak of her ageless appearance. Concerned only with maintaining their own wealth and position, and fearing nothing so much as Fay’s wrath, they refused to question the strange magic that kept her young. They didn’t know about the power of words.

  Fay watched intently as a tiny tendril of ink curled and twisted its way into existence. The magic of a letter’s birth never ceased to amaze her, and she was elated by the rate at which the characters were coming. It wasn’t long ago that a single word took months to form. Now ten times that many materialized in a day, the process accelerating with every book threatened by the flames of another Incendi Lighting.

  The language was Old Ferencian, and the words had no apparent relationship to those around them, isolated entries bourn of countless events occurring at once. Even so, Morgan Fay read them with religious zeal, drinking in each syllable like drops of a life-sustaining drug, knowing they would soon fill all but the last of The History’s blank pages—the one she would write.

  Her thoughts drifted back to the day it all began, the day she made her decision to choose a new path, to change the future. It started in the very room she was standing in now, in what was then the greatest library in the world.

  She was supposed to be alone. Her mentor had been called to Hynal, some thirty miles north of Tintagel, to collect ten volumes of North Verinese poetry that a farmer had discovered hidden in an attic. The Order said it would take at least a week to catalogue the substantial find, pay the farmer, and return the prize to the library. But eager to get back to the castle, he completed the transaction in just four days.

  And returned to flames.

  Fay could still see his face, the utter disbelief, the terror. “He wasn’t supposed to be here,” she whispered, but the regret in those words was quickly smothered. “Fool. He was afraid of them.”

  Another word appeared on the ancient tome’s page, completing a phrase that miraculously mirrored the inferno of her memory…

  From the flames…

  Fay gasped as she translated the emerging message. Never before had words in The History been connected. She watched in amazement as the sentence continued.

  …to the Isle of Avalon,…

  There was only one place that fit the description; she could see it from her castle tower. Fay rose from her chair and looked out through the narrow window cut into the thick blocks of stone. Except for the soft glow coming from the Docks on its far shore, the old city was asleep.

  Isle of Avalon? Her mind raced. Why has the tome named you?

  A knock at the iron door startled her. “Come,” she said, turning away from the window, angered by the interruption.

  Her Incendi captain, Mordred, entered the room. The tall young man’s movements were measured and formal. He removed his black fedora and bowed his head to Fay, looking down at the granite floor, afraid to meet her eyes.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “You wished to be informed of any important events,” he said. Mordred glanced nervously at the tome spread open on Fay’s desk. “I performed a Lighting this evening—the largest in years. Hundreds of books. They were destroyed immediately, as you requested.” He looked up at her, eager for approval. “We have two readers in custody, a husband and wife named Penderhagen. But…” he swallowed nervously, “their daughter has eluded us. We lost her at the West Bridge. She…made it to the island.”

  The Incendi captain withered under the look Fay gave him. The escape of any reader was regrettable, but the news of the fleeing girl affected the CEO in a way Mordred hadn’t witnessed before. It was the first time he’d ever seen her look truly worried.

  “Question the parents,” she said, taking a deep breath and sitting down at her desk. “But keep them alive until you’re sure they’ve told you everything they know. I want their daughter found.”

  It was then that Morgan Fay noticed the sentence that had been forming on the tome’s page was complete. A wave of panic washed over her as she read the words.

  …the Challenger has come.

  CHAPTER 4

  Arti woke with a start, throwing off her blanket and rolling to her side, searching the room for something familiar, something to quell her panic. The inky darkness amplified her fear, her heart pounded in her chest,
and she gasped for air.

  “What’s wrong?” came a voice from above her. Arti saw a form move in the blackness, then heard a click and was momentarily blinded by a flash of white light. She squinted past the lamp at Gal staring down at her from the bench where she had been the night before. Like images streaming across a vidlink screen, it all came flooding back to Arti: the raid, the chase, the rescue.

  “I forgot where I was,” said Arti. She combed her fingers through her hair and rubbed her eyes. “And I had some bad dreams.” The face of the Incendi captain still lingered in the recesses of her mind, along with the heat and the smoke and the dread. “Didn’t you sleep?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I woke up a while ago,” said Gal. “I’ve been thinkin’ about our deal.”

  Arti’s heart sank. “You haven’t changed your mind? About letting me stay, I mean.”

  Gal looked insulted. “’Course not. A deal’s a deal. I was just wonderin’ if you’d…” the words caught in her throat, “if you’d…teach me how to read.”

  Arti smiled. “Sure, Gal. I’d like that.”

  Gal pushed back her cap, beaming with delight. “Really?”

  “Yes,” laughed Arti, amused by her reaction. “But it’s not going to be easy without anything to read.”

  With a surge of excitement, Gal spun around and plunged her hand behind her pillow, retrieving a small book. “Remember I told you about findin’ the key to the door up there?” She nodded at the shelf behind Arti. “This was under it.” With a mix of trepidation and hopefulness, Gal offered the book to Arti.

  Arti recognized it immediately. “The King’s Errand, by Eldon Sears. We had this story in our library,” she said, running her fingers over the embossed crown on its mustard-yellow cover. “It’s one of my favorites.”

  “Really? What’s it about?” asked Gal, encouraged by Arti’s enthusiasm.

  “A boy who has to look after his little brother when their mother dies,” explained Arti, turning to the book’s title page. “His name is Ward Weatherington, and his brother’s called Petey. They don’t have any food, and no one will help them. They’re almost starved when Ward finds the Wizard’s Gem, a magical blue stone that makes him invisible. Ward uses it to take food and money to survive, then the king offers a huge reward to anyone who can steal a map from the evil wizard, Rancoram—he’s the one who lost the gem that Ward found. The king needs the map to find out where the wizard’s imprisoned his daughter.”

  Gal was enthralled. “Does Ward steal the map? Does he get the reward? Does the king save his daughter?”

  Arti saw an opportunity. She reached for a piece of paper from the shelf next to her bed, folding it over on itself. “You’ll have to wait and see,” she said, closing the book on the mark. “I’ll read you one chapter every night—all but the last one.”

  “Then I won’t know how the story ends,” protested Gal.

  “Yes you will,” said Arti, “because you’re going to read the final chapter on your own. I’m going to teach you how, but you have to teach me, too.”

  Gal was perplexed. “Teach you what?”

  “Everything I need to know to rescue my parents.”

  Gal threw back her head and groaned. “I told you, you’re crazy if you try. Scroungin’ on Isle’s one thing, messin’ with Flames is another. You’re gonna end up—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” Arti didn’t raise her voice, but her tone was firm. “I’ll teach you how to read, if you teach me how to survive on the streets. When I know enough, I’m going to cross back into Main and find them. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

  Gal rolled her eyes and grumbled. Finally, she thrust her arm out. “Fine. Deal.”

  As they shook hands, Arti grimaced.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Gal, afraid Arti was going to add something else to the contract.

  Arti’s face flushed with embarrassment. “Last night you said something about a washroom. I really have to go.”

  Making sure the door was locked behind them, Gal, carrying the sloshing pail of water, led Arti down a hall to another room with white tiles on its walls, many of them broken or missing. A narrow corridor divided it from the hallway, and sunlight cascaded down through a small window high on the outer wall, revealing a square-shaped pattern of rusty metal brackets on a dingy green marble floor. Centered between the metal brackets bolted to the floor, there were three round holes where toilets used to sit.

  “Use the one over there,” Gal pointed at the hole farthest from the doorway. “It drains the best.” She dropped the pail of water next to the opening, and it splashed back and forth. “Pour in some water to wash it down. You don’t need much. Bring the rest back when you’re done. And don’t spill any; it’s a long walk to the canal to get more.” She grinned mischievously. “I hope your aim’s good. Welcome to Isle.”

  Arti stared at the hole in the floor. “You’ve got to be kidding. This is disgusting!”

  “No, disgustin’ is crappin’ in a corner or behind a tree,” said Gal. “This way it don’t stink to high heaven. I’ll wait for you in the hall. Hurry up.”

  “But how do I…you know?” Arti raised her hands.

  “Oh, I forgot,” said Gal. She reached into her pocket and pulled out two pieces of crumpled paper and handed them to Arti. “That’s all you get.”

  That morning, after a breakfast of canned soup and water, Gal showed Arti around the rest of the old school—bypassing the washroom. Twenty-five years had not been kind to the building. Everything that could be salvaged or burned had been stripped from it offices, halls, and classrooms, leaving little but peeling paint to bear witness to the institution’s proud past. High on the wall of what had been the gymnasium, large faded block letters spelled out its name:

  TINTAGEL PUBLIC SCHOOL

  HOME OF THE DRAGONS

  Arti had heard the name before, and she felt stupid for not making the connection sooner. The halls, the classrooms, the gymnasium; all had been visited in her childhood imagination, brought to life through her parents’ stories. Separated by a grade, this had been their school, the last place they had been free to read, write, and learn in a world that would forever change.

  Arti told Gal what the words on the wall said, explaining that if she wanted to learn how to read, she would first have to learn all the letters and the sounds they made.

  “How many are there?” asked Gal, then cursed when Arti told her. It was a stroke of luck when, while exploring one of the classrooms, Arti noticed the alphabet painted above a shattered blackboard. That morning, Gal was given her first lesson.

  “I’ll never remember them all,” Gal complained, leading Arti out of the back door of the school after the session. “There’s too many.”

  “You will,” promised Arti. “It’ll just take time.” She remembered how mysterious the letters had seemed when she was first introduced to them and the triumph that came when she finally broke their code. It was the greatest gift her parents could have given her—outside of their love. It reminded her just how much she missed them, and the promise she made: I’m going back for them.

  They crossed the street to a row of dilapidated houses, their worn wooden facades leaning out over the buckled sidewalk overflowing with tall grass and crawling weeds.

  “Where are we going?” asked Arti.

  “For a tour,” said Gal, leading Arti down to the nearest intersection and a warped street sign with the words “Hill” and “High” crisscrossing it. The existence of the sign made Arti realize just how different this place was from home. Writing of any kind was forbidden in Main. To see words hoisted high on a street corner was unthinkable, and Arti couldn’t help but stare at the spectacle.

  “You need to learn your way around the island,” continued Gal, ignoring Arti’s fixation on the sign. “If we get split up, you gotta be able to find your way back.”

  They spent the day walking the streets of Isle, heading east on High Street past Waverly and Bay toward Park
Avenue. This part of town was quiet, and they only passed a handful of people on the way. Doubling back along Center Street, Gal explained how she made a living here.

  “I scrounge. Find, trade, or steal—whatever it takes. I figure since most people got more money than me, they can afford to give some away.” She looked down proudly at her upturned palms. “Best hands in Tintagel. Ain’t a pocket I can’t pick.” Her expression became more serious. “But you gotta be smart about your marks. Your best bet’s someone you ain’t likely to see again: sailors and traders who wander too far from the Docks or that are in their cups. Steer clear of the locals; they don’t appreciate anyone takin’ money from them or their customers.” Gal continued the lesson by assessing passersby based on dress and behavior, sharing her deductions with Arti.

  “Dockers wear overalls and hard toe boots. They ain’t rich, but they can do alright if they don’t blow it all on booze and gamblin’. It’s the shop and bar owners who make most of the coin, and they dress the part—Ferenci silk and Astengi leather. Most got places on Johnson and Center, with a few runnin’ the bigger joints down on Water Street near the Docks. Owners carry lots of clout. ‘Course, even they hafta answer to Big Billy Johnson.

  “Big Billy runs this town. Nothin’ comes ashore without his say; all the food and clothes and booze go through him. He gets a cut of everythin’, and the Corp’ration pays him to make sure supplies get across the bridges. Billy’s the boss, lets everyone know it, too. Each month he brings in fighters from all over to his warehouse on Water Street, the Cauldron. When you’re ready, I’ll take you there.”