Chapter 3, part 1

A Chapter by Bethany Cusick

Chapter Three

The Book

Hlao hated to admit it, but she was hopelessly lost. Once she had reached the foot of the stairs, she had found herself in a massive cavern that stretched far into the darkness overhead. Swinging her lantern around had revealed brief glimpses of numerous tunnel mouths. She had set off in the direction of the nearest one, just as her friends’ steps began to echo down the stairs. Hlao had paid them no mind and pushed on into the darkness.

And now, after taking several forks and side-tunnels, she had no idea where she was. These tunnels must stretch for miles, she reflected, passing the lantern light along the unusually smooth walls. Plainly this place had been made by human hands, but she had never seen stone polished to such a smooth finish before, not on such a scale as this. Every wall of every tunnel fairly shone in the shadows, even though the place must be centuries old.

Strangest of all were the symbols carved all along the walls. They were like nothing Hlao had ever seen. The shapes were complex, twisting, like the Greek letters she was studying. Raising the lantern high, Hlao examined a line of the strange script. And like the Greek letters, these carvings were impossible to understand.

Hlao lowered the lantern back into its position to light the way, and was momentarily struck by the way the back of her hand shimmered with tiny iridescent dots. She frowned, drawing a pair of fingerless gloves out of her pocket and slipping them on to cover the glow. She was perfectly aware that her face was glowing with the same freckles of light in a distinct swirling pattern down the bridge of her nose and across her cheeks. She positively hated these spots. She thought they made her look ghastly, like a witch or something, so she tried to cover them up as much as possible and avoided going out at night. You couldn’t see them in the daylight, but as soon as it was dark, her face and hands were lit up with tiny blue specks.

As far as she knew, her skin had always been this way, though she was certain it wasn’t normal. Her parents didn’t have any answers when she asked them about it, and told her not to worry. The spots were one more thing that made her unique, they said, along with the slightly pointed tips to her ears, and the distinct almond shape of her eyes. She cursed herself for not thinking about this before going off with the other children, and hoped she could find her way out and slip back home without running into anyone.

But after several more twists and turns, Hlao was even more lost than before. Worse than that, she had come up against a dead end. At least, that’s what she thought at first. Something about the wall of rock in front of her struck her as odd, so rather than turning back to find another route, Hlao crept warily foreword until her lantern illuminated an amazing sight.

This wasn’t a dead end at all. The smooth walls of the tunnel ended in a small stone door. Hlao would have expected cave moss to be growing like a hairy pelt all over its surface, but just like the rest of the underground architecture it was as smooth and clear as the day it was made. A single symbol dominated the surface: a spiral, bisected by three diagonal lines, with two triangles on either side. The whole design was crowned by three small circles.

Hlao just itched with curiosity to see what was inside. As she stood staring at the door, she suddenly had the feeling that she wasn’t lost anymore; indeed that she had never been lost in the first place. Rather, her steps had been guided here. She was certain she had been meant to find this place. So strong was this conviction that Hlao didn’t even bother to ask herself why.

Hlao reached out tentatively and pushed the door open; disregarding everything her father had taught her about sealed caverns and stale air. It slid back with a protesting rumble of stone on stone, yet the hinges seemed well oiled for it took very little pressure for it to swing open. She gagged as she was hit with a wave of stale air, and her sensibilities returned long enough to convince herself to wait just a few minutes for the air to clear. When she became too impatient to wait any longer, Hlao slipped eagerly inside, anxious to see what lay within.

She stopped just a few steps into the room, staring about her in wonder. It was extraordinary. Hlao had never seen anything like it, except in her daydreams.

The chamber widened out inside, the ceiling soaring up to meet at rounded peak high above Hlao’s head, rather like a cathedral’s dome. But unlike a cathedral, there were brilliant crystals set into the walls. They sparkled in the light of her lantern as she held it high above her head to get a better look at the ceiling.

The entire dome was a mosaic depicting a starry night sky, complete with constellations. An elaborate chandelier hung down, set with the same stunning crystals. Hlao found it odd that there did not appear to be any candles set into the chandelier. It was as if the crystals themselves had been the light source somehow.

But the most wondrous thing, in Hlao’s definite opinion, was the books. Rows upon rows of shelves were carved into the wall, going all the way up to the bottom of the mosaic. Every inch of shelf space was taken up by books big and small, some with leather binding, some with gold and silver filigree, all with elaborate titles in languages Hlao couldn’t begin to understand.

One book stood apart from all the others. It rested on a stand in the center of the room, which was made of some metal Hlao didn’t recognize. In fact, the book seemed to be chained to the stand, the same strange metal forming links wrapped securely around the cover.

Obviously, someone had wanted to keep people from reading whatever was in this book. Hlao couldn’t understand why; it was unremarkable as books went, just a plain green leather cover, embossed with the same symbol carved into the door.

For some reason, Hlao felt irresistibly drawn to this strange book. Walking slowly up to the stand, as if in a trance, she rested her hands lightly on the cover. It was warm! Hlao could almost swear that she had felt a faint pulse beneath her fingertips.

Hlao almost drew her hands away, but took a steadying breath and began to search for a lock on the chain. She had to see what was inside.

She carefully took the chain between her fingers.

As she touched the strange metal, a tingling sensation suddenly spread though her fingertips. It was as if a current of energy flowed through her, like lightning. There was a warm tingling throughout her body. Hlao had no idea how or what happened, but the chain rose away from her fingers of its own accord, as if repelled by a magnet… there was a sudden pulse of energy and it disintegrated in a shower of sparks. She leapt back with a startled cry, dropping the lantern which immediately went out. For a moment, Hlao crouched in darkness, the only light coming from the faint glow from her freckles. She began scrabbling in the dark, trying to find the lantern, desperately wishing for some light. As if responding to her thoughts, the crystals in the chandelier and on the walls slowly came to life, glowing with a rainbow of hues and setting the room ablaze with warm light. Hlao snatched up her lantern, staring about warily. Her tightly strung nerves made her jump when she heard a voice calling her name from the corridor.

“Hlao? Where’d ye get off to, mate? Come on, we’re heading out before it gets too dark.”

Hlao turned and was about to leave this mystical room, fully intending to sneak back on her own for a longer perusal, but her feet wouldn’t budge. She turned back to the unchained book. The symbol on the cover glowed gold in the light from the crystals and held Hlao transfixed. Not even aware of what she was doing, she snatched the book up and tucked it under the folds of her cloak. Her feet once again obeying her will, she stepped out into the corridor, pulling the stone door shut behind her. The last glimpse she had of the room was the crystals going dim once again, leaving the place in darkness once more. Before heading away from her discovery, Hlao bent and smeared some dirt across her face, hoping it would hide the glow from her freckles. No sooner had Hlao done this then a light appeared at the end of the corridor, and Carson appeared bearing another lantern. Hlao was grateful for the light; she hadn’t been able to relight her own lantern, since she had forgotten to take another match with her. She ran to catch up to Carson, who was waving at her to hurry up. “Oi, where’d you get off to? We’ve been lookin’ for ye for ages. Looks like just another dead end down here, eh?” That set Hlao back on her heels for a moment. She looked back behind her, and sure enough she could still see the outline of the door set into the rock.

“You don’t see the…Never mind,” she said, shaking her head. If no one else could see it, all the better. This was her secret find, and if she told anyone it wouldn’t be hers anymore. And she had felt a funny nudge of warning at the back of her mind that she would have said came from the book tucked under her cloak.

Pushing aside these rather strange thoughts, she followed Carson back to the entrance of the tunnel complex. Sneaking back into Fairnesse proved much easier than sneaking out had. Hlao made it back to her parents’ estate far too late for supper; only the lights in her father’s den were still lit by the time she said goodbye to Carson at the gate. Carefully stealing across the deserted lawn, Hlao climbed up a tree that grew close to the house and dropped onto the balcony outside her room.

Stealing softly downstairs, she crept into the library. But she wasn’t thinking of hiding her book in amongst all of the other books in the MacKellans’ expansive collection. No, she had her own special place where no one would ever find it. In one corner of the grand room stood a stately grandfather clock. Long ago, Hlao had found that the inside of this clock was the perfect space to hide things- especially those things she didn’t want anyone else to find. After all, no one would think to look inside of an old grandfather clock. Opening up the door, Hlao stowed her prize behind the pendulum. She let her gaze linger longingly on the green cover, but forced herself to close the clock. Now was not the right time to open the book’s pages. But soon.

Satisfied that the book was safe, Hlao went into her father’s study a few doors down. She stifled a chuckle as she heard a soft snore emanating from the chair in front of the carved desk at the other end of the study. Her father would always wait up for her when she stayed out after dark. And he was always asleep in his study when she came in. He never seemed surprised that she had snuck in; she figured he must have figured out about that tree next to her balcony. Tip toeing quietly around to the front of the chair, she knelt in front of her sleeping father, gently waking him by a shake of his hand. “You don’t have to wait up for me like this, you know.”

“Of course I do, I’m your father. Wouldn’t want some young fellow to steal away with my lovely little flower in the night,” Derek replied with a sleepy yawn.

“Papa!” Hlao laughed, slapping him good naturedly on the arm. “I hardly think that’ll happen. Now come on, off to bed.”

Handing him his glasses, Hlao ushered him up the stairs. Once they were on the landing, Derek turned and, giving his daughter a kiss on the cheek, he bid her a fond goodnight.

Stifling a yawn, Hlao turned into her room and clambered into bed. Blowing out the candle, she lay back, resting her head on the pillow. She tried to relax but her thoughts were consumed by the book.

What mysterious wisdom did its pages hold? And why had it been chained shut? Maybe it was cursed.

She tossed and turned, unable to sleep despite her weariness. Finally, after she was sure both of her parents must be asleep, she flung off the covers, lit the candle on her bedside table, and tiptoed out of her room.

She tread carefully down the hallway past Collin’s room, but the old floorboards betrayed her; a low creak sounded underneath her feet. Hlao froze for a second, heart fluttering, nervously waiting to see if anyone had heard her. But no one stirred so Hlao continued down the stairs.

Luckily none of the servants were about this late at night. Clouds had blown in over the last hour or two; no moonlight shone through the windows. Hlao shuddered, thinking that it was a night right out of a fairytale. Or a nightmare. Her nerve almost failed her, and she had to force herself to keep going and not turn back.

Laughing to herself, Hlao headed once again to the library. She was being silly; there was nothing to be afraid of.

Just then, a loud knock sounded at the door, making Hlao jump. Her hand flew to her breast, trying to quell her heart which seemed to be trying to leap up her throat. Who on earth could be calling at this hour? Taking a deep breath, she went to answer the door.

“I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll have to call back to…” Hlao went silent, the words stuck in her throat as she gazed up at the apparition outside her door.

The figure was swathed from head to toe in a light gray-blue cloak that glowed like starlight, even though all the stars were obscured by clouds. It was impossible to tell the gender because of the enveloping folds of the cloak, and its hood was up, completely hiding its face.

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