It took a lot of convincing from Nigel over breakfast to allow the librarians to poke and prod at me to learn, research and document me. He explained that while Balim falls under the empire's rule, it's essentially a sovereign nation in itself. He said the same applies to Quimya. Balim has no direct ties to the church or imperial government. Overhearing our conversation, a librarian next to us spoke up.
"In fact, when it comes to secrets. We are the best in the world at hiding them. If something is secret, it will never leave these walls."
"Can you prove that to me, or can you only say it?"
The quiet chatter of the large cafeteria died down quickly and suddenly. I looked around and discovered all eyes were on me. Had I said something wrong? Was I about to be kicked out? One librarian, an older-looking man, stood up and turned to us.
"Rahǩãn shall judge. Please go to the east wing and wait for him there… after breakfast has concluded."
He sat back down, and the idle chatter of the room resumed all at once. It was eerie and felt practised. What worried me was how everyone went quiet all at once. Did that mean everyone was listening in on our conversation? Did all of them already know what Nigel disclosed yesterday? As I resumed eating, Nigel leaned in from across the table with a more hunched voice.
"Hey, where's Kona?"
"Still spelling. I don't think she got much sleep last night."
He sat back down with a sly, smug smile on his face without saying a word. I didn't bother explaining to him that his presumption was wrong and that what he thinks happened didn't, in fact, happen. I thought about saying that but I did want to answer his follow up question he would no dobut ask, because frankly, I didn't even want to think about or even acknowledge what happened last night. As far as I'm concerned, it was just a nightmare.
After breakfast, I took an extra helping of fresh, still-warm bread back to my room. Opening the door, Kona was still lying in bed, sleeping. As the light from the hallway crept in and hit her face, I saw it twitch and come to life as she awoke.
"lykr vel" She groaned out as she rubbed her eyes, sitting up.
I walked over and sat on the side of the bed next to her as she sat up, holding the bedsheet to cover her chest. "I brought you some fresh bread."
She reached over and grabbed it, leaning over the bed to sniff it. As she bites into it, some crumbs fall onto the floor in the same spot I threw up last night. I had cleaned it early in the morning, so thankfully, the smell and any trace of it were long gone.
"Fresh bread is soooooo gooood." She finished eating the last of it with a smile.
"I'll be down in the east wing."
She nodded as I got up and left. Heading down the grand stairs, down to the ground level and into the east wing, where Nigel was already waiting, I sat with him, and a few minutes later, Kona joined us. With little else to do, we sat around the table and discussed what we should do tomorrow when we leave. Nigel told Kona his idea about going back to her homeland, but she quickly rejected the idea, not wanting to tell him that she ran away from an arranged marriage; she simply said going back wouldn't go well. Nigel argued that she had completed her bloodletting and would be welcomed back as a warrior, and I looked at her curiously, wondering if that would be the case even if she had run away.
Before Kona could give an actual answer, a loud metallic creaking sound echoed in the room. Looking over to where the sound came from, it was the door to the basement creeping open, and Rahǩãn was standing in its threshold, waving his hand for us to follow him.
I stood up, and Nigel and Kona did as well, looking quite uncertain if they were allowed to follow as well. Rahǩãn said nothing as the three of us approached. He turned and started to walk down some old stone stairs.
"What you are to see here, you take to the grave. Understood?"
We all muttered a "yes" in response as we descend the stairs. I noticed the stairs themselves were not like the rest in the building, but more like carved stone. Natural rock that had been roughly made into the shape of stairs but still retained its natural rigidity. The stairs gave way to a natural cavern that stretched forward.
"I am going to show you a secret, so you can then trust us with yours."
The cave opened up to a larger cavern, and in its centre was a stone plinth and atop that sat a small blue orb that had a soft, illuminated glow coming from inside the sphere. As we approached, I noticed the orb had small writing around it and circles of a darker, metallic-looking material on its surface. The text on the orb itself was in a language I didn't recognise, and by the looks on Nigels' and Kona's faces, they did not either.
"What is this thing?" Nigel asked as he took a step closer.
Rahǩãn held his arm out between Nigel and the orb. "We do not know. It had always been."
"It's…magic, right? A magic item?" Kona leaned slightly closer but did not step forward, inspecting the orb closely.
"You are familiar with magic items, Godi? This is not the first you've seen." She nodded to the old man's statement. Rahǩãn then turned to me. "Marked child, I ask a favour… touch the orb."
"Touch it? Why should I?"
"It is not dangerous, I promise. Observe." Rahǩãn reached out and placed his hand over the orb, picking it up and holding it in the palm of his hand. "It lies dormant." He gently placed it back on the plinth. He turned to me and stepped aside, gesturing for me to approach the orb.
I stepped forward, glancing towards Nigel and Kona, slightly concerned as they each took a small step back, looking at me with a face that said 'you don't have to do this'. I reached out just a single finger and hesitantly made contact with the orb.
Nothing happened. I grabbed it in my hand and held it like Rahǩãn had just moments before, looking at the orb. "Weird. Do you know what language this is in?" I held it close to my face as I tried to read the small marking, wishing they were bigger.
Suddenly, the orb began to grow. It started off the size of an apple, but quickly ballooned to the size of my head and even larger still. Double, triple the size. It grew so large that I had to hold it with two hands. The orb and the text upon its surface grew larger; there was no mechanism, no logical reason it grew, it simply did. Once it stopped growing, I took my eyes off it; everyone else was in shock at what had just happened. Unsure what to do, I placed the orb back on the plinth and balanced it correctly.
"What… What did you do?" Rahǩãn stepped forward, placing his hands on the orb to make sure it wouldn't fall.
"I don't know. I was just testing to look at the text, but it was too small."
"Too small?"
"I understand." Kona stepped forward, placing her hand on the orb. "Remove your hand from it, please."
Rahǩãn reluctantly removed his hand from the orb. Kona stood, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Suddenly, the ball began to shrink. It got smaller, smaller than its original size; it became so small that Kona lifted it between her fingers and thumb.
"I've heard of something like this, our people call it a óskkúla. It's from an old legend from the early years of the first era. A magical item that responds to the user's will. Shinya wanted to read the text, but it was too small, so it grew. I wanted to put it in my pocket, so it shrank. Though I do not know the extent of its ability. In the old story, this was referred to as a lykl, or key."
"To what?"
"I don't know." Kona placed the orb back on the plinth.
Rahǩãn turned back to us, placing his hands behind his back. "Now, do you believe we can keep your secret?"
Before we left the cave, more librarians came down, some with books and pens and others with lanterns. We spent hours talking about the circumstances of my first encounter with Wrath to the best of my detail I could. As well as details about the Saltfort, my ability to heal rapidly and regrow and reattach body parts. Pseudo-imortality, they called it. I told them I could still die if my head was removed, my brain destroyed or my heart punctured with whatever pierced it, remaining lodged inside, these would lead to my death.
I explained that Wrath lives mainly in my arms, displaying the transformative abilities I hold by transforming them into pure black, clawed hands. It was because this was where Wrath resided in my body, the body parts could regrow, but other parts, like my legs, could not. The further a body part was from my arms, the weaker the power. So I could heal fatal wounds to my torso, but if I were cut open and organs removed, I would surely die.
As I rambled on about these in detail, I constantly thought to myself after the fact, 'how did I know this?' The knowledge was instinctual, not learnt or told; it simply knew these things. Even the concept of death has to be taught, a child might learn of it by seeing an animal or pet die, or by squishing bugs in the garden. But something like death still had to be learned, much like all other knowledge. So, how did I know these things?
Of course, I wasn't relying on my own memory or knowledge; I was pulling directly from Wrath's mind. He was allowing me to know these things; he was whispering the answers into my mind as I was speaking them, and I thought nothing of it. I wonder what other secrets he holds.
After recounting them with everything I could think of and allowing them to draw what my arms and hands looked like when in their transformed state, there was nothing more to say.
Rahǩãn was grateful to me personally and to Kona for helping him understand the orb and its function to some extent. He said that with these two discoveries recorded, it may definitely prove that magic once existed in this world. Though I wonder still, if this library had all books ever written, some standing back to the first era, do none of them speak of magic? They might have, but most are too worn and damaged from age to read. So my thoughts turned back further, what about before the first age?
I asked Rahǩãn about this idea that I had as we were walking back up the stairs to the east wing. He said it was an interesting theory and perhaps true, after all humans have to learn to read and write so the invention of books could have happened far after humans came into existence, contrary to the mythos of the saints. He dubbed the age before history 'the era of magic'.
I do wonder what the world was like back then, if magic was common or as rare as it was today? Thousands of years would have wiped all trace of that time. I suppose time itself holds the greatest secrets of all, those we can never know.