Compendium (14 page)

18
The Fight

Lumin Cycle 10152

“I rather thought Cedar
was above thinking with his anatomy,” Taryn said, shaking her head at Mia’s revelation.

A few days had passed since Cedar kissed her in the Crater Grove, but Mia hadn’t had a chance to be alone with Taryn to discuss it. They weren’t really alone now, truth be told, but the din of the dining hall and the others speaking animatedly at their respective tables made it unlikely anyone was listening in.

It seemed as if the spell woven between Mia and Cedar by the great elders of the Crater Grove had dissipated after that night, and what was left was a series of awkward interactions. It would have been simpler to pretend nothing had happened and to continue on in their friendship, but Cedar had thrown down the gauntlet, so to speak, when he had made his feelings unequivocally known that night in the dim light of the Crater Grove.

Mia laughed at Taryn’s characterization, but it really wasn’t as simple as lust. “Well, I didn’t get the sense that he was interested in a fling, as it were. I think it runs deeper than anatomy. It wasn’t the sort of coarse groping in some hidden backwater that’s just for play, if you get my drift. I think he’s serious about me.”

At least she wanted to think he was serious. But could it really be anything else? He had been determined but gentle, and his touch had been firm yet soft.

“If it was base seduction, I think he would have been more persistent, and I also think there’s more tension now than there would be in that case.” Mia was rambling, but her own feelings on the matter were hardly settled.

Until that moment in the Crater Grove, she hadn’t let herself think of Cedar that way. But once he had touched her and kissed her, she couldn’t think about him any other way. It was distracting to say the least.

“It’s about time there was a bit of juicy gossip around here,” Taryn said, grinning. “I think there hasn’t been anything to grab the acolytes’ attention in this way since Flora ran off with a boy two Gatherings ago.”

Mia raised an eyebrow at the story, which clearly had happened before her time. “Yes, well, eloping together probably isn’t on the agenda.”

“Not yet.” Taryn winked.

“Ha, don’t tempt me.”

“I don’t think I’m the one tempting you at all,” Taryn said, keeping the jokes flowing. “Well, what brought on the sudden tidal wave of passion?” she asked, waving her knife in her typical dramatic fashion before spearing a piece of meat and popping it into her mouth.

“We were talking about the trees and my family and my mother’s locket, and he reached over and grabbed me.”

“A locket is an odd thing to get worked up about. You’ve never mentioned it before. Didn’t you lose your mother when you were young? Maybe it holds some clue about your past.”

“Yeah,” Mia said. “I actually tend to forget I have it. It’s so much a part of my attire that I often don’t think of it or notice it. Plus, I wear it under my robes usually, for practical reasons.” She pulled it out and over her head and handed it to Taryn to examine.

“Wow, this is fine work,” Taryn said appreciatively. “Very detailed.” She examined both sides carefully and added, “This design reminds me of some of the scrollwork found in the ancient texts. I wonder if it predates the Great Fall.”

“I don’t know.” Mia bit her lip. “Cedar made similar mention that it must be a very old piece.”

“Well, it’s brilliant,” Taryn said, handing it back to her.

Mia pulled the chain over her neck and was about to stuff the locket back down into her robes when a calloused hand clenched her wrist painfully.

“Have we added stealing to snooping?” came a gravelly voice from behind her.

A lump formed in her throat as Taryn’s eyes grew wide. Brother SainClair was standing at their table with his fist clamped around Mia’s wrist.

“I will have a look at that,” he demanded. “Remove it.”

“It’s mine. I brought with me when I arrived. It belonged to my mother, and I’ll not remove it.”

“You will,” he said, not letting go of her wrist.

She tried to wrench it free but failed.

“I will not,” she replied, iron in her voice.

“If you don’t submit to examination, I’ll have you flogged,” Brother SainClair said through gritted teeth.

“Go ahead,” Mia said softly, menace in her voice. “But you’ll have to kill me if you want this locket.” She transferred it to the hand he wasn’t gripping and dropped the gold orb back into her robes. “And I rather doubt Dominus Nikola would be overly pleased,” she warned.

It was a bluff but the only one she had. All eyes in the dining hall had fallen on them, but she was beyond caring at that point. She was sick of the constant glares, ill treatment, and odious insults she received from Brother SainClair, and she wasn’t going to bear it silently any longer.

He shook her arm violently and tried to pull her from the bench. She bent her head toward his hand and bit his wrist hard. He growled and struck her with the other hand, sending her flying to the floor.

“Such a brave man,” she said, practically spitting at his feet. “It must be so hard to brutalize someone half your size. Bully!” She was too angry to be embarrassed.

Brother Valentine, the Ledgermaster, gripped SainClair by the shoulder. “Thaddeus, what is going on here?” Brother Valentine looked from SainClair to Taryn to Mia on the floor, his face kindly and concerned.

His inquiry seemed to snap Brother SainClair out of whatever haze of rage he was functioning in.

“Nothing,” he said in a growl, shrugging out of Brother Valentine’s grasp. He looked down at Mia with malice in his eyes. “I was just informing Ms. Jayne here that her father is dead. Your father is dead, y’hear? Dead!”

Mia was overcome with rage at his words. “Liar!” she cried. “You filthy liar!” She scrambled to her feet and charged him, punching her bony shoulder into his gut and toppling him to the floor. She stood over him, panting like a dog.

He laughed at her from the floor, a brutal sound that clawed at the back of her neck.

“If you don’t believe me, go ask Dominus Nikola.” He laughed again, but he clearly was serious. He believed what he said.

Mia turned and fled the dining hall, leaving Taryn, Brother Valentine, and the rest of the diners dumbfounded. SainClair’s cruel laughter chased her down the corridor.

Mia
ran through the Compound
in a state of grief and fury. She wasn’t sure which emotion ruled her movements, but she found herself headed straight for the Archives. The barracks hardly offered privacy, and she didn’t think she could take questions from the other acolytes just then. As it was, given the spectacle in the dining hall, gossip was likely flowing freely among the ranks.

She didn’t stop running until long after she was sure no one was following her. She couldn’t seem to feel or think, only cry. When she finally reached the Archives, she collapsed, out of breath, into a large reading chair and curled into a ball. She may have put on a brave face in front of SainClair, but he had left her a wrecked mess, and that infuriated her.

His words about Father also infuriated her, and the thought that they might be true filled her with panic. The angrier she became, the harder she cried. It was a vicious circle that continued until a shuffling noise wandered in from a small side room.
Brother Cornelius must still be about
. She hastily wiped tears from her face.

“The library is closed,” his voice called from the side room before he appeared, shuffling along in his slow, determined way.

“’Tis just me, Brother,” Mia said, attempting to steady her voice. Trying to hide her tears was probably pointless. Her eyes were almost sealed shut with puffiness, although that could just be the swelling from where SainClair had struck her. She tried anyway.

“You’re here late, my child,” he said. As he approached, his eyes moved from her swollen, red eyes over her cheeks. “Whatever is the matter?” He pulled a chair close to the one where she sat and gave her a sympathetic pat on the shin.

Mia sputtered through the events of the evening, telling Brother Cornelius about her conversation with Taryn and the locket and then the altercation with SainClair, including his claim that her father was dead, and even about her kiss with Cedar. He sat and listened to it all with quiet interest and compassion in his eyes. She saw no scorn or judgment in his face, and when she finally stammered out the last line of her story and admitted that the Archives was the first place her feet had carried her, he smiled softly.

“In truth it is rather the perfect place for quiet reflection on personal matters,” he said matter-of-factly.

She smiled at him then. He always had a way of making a situation seem less dire than it had only moments earlier.

“You know, I still haven’t shown you my laboratory,” he said, instead of tackling her story head on.

“Yes, well, I’m still de-sporing this place,” Mia replied, adding, “And at the rate I’m going, I’ll have to start again at the beginning just as I finish.” Her mouth curved downward glumly.

“Well,” Brother Cornelius said, scratching his beard with a bony finger, “it’s high time you had a look. I find that, even better than here, I do my best thinking in the laboratory. We shall consider it an emergency.” With that, he stood to his full height, stretched his back, settled his walking stick into a comfortable position, and beckoned her to follow him with a crook of his finger.

They ambled along the corridors. Brother Cornelius was never one to hurry anywhere, which suited Mia just fine. He left her to her thoughts for most of the walk. They worked their way past the barracks, up an inclined corridor, then over to what appeared to be a blank wall. Like the entrance to Dominus Nikola’s quarters, it was a hidden alcove leading to a staircase that spiraled up into the darkness. Unlike the spiral staircase Dominus Nikola used, a series of gourds were embedded in the walls. It was impossible to see them until Brother Cornelius rapped his walking stick firmly against a section of the stone wall. Then they lit up one after another, leading up the staircase.

Mia’s jaw dropped. “How did you do that?” she asked in her usual tone of amazement at Brother Cornelius’s ingenuity.

“Ah, well, it’s terribly complicated. But feel free to come back and poke around. You may be able to figure it out yourself.”

She grinned at him. Cornelius obviously had grown to know her quite well in the short time she’d been his assistant. Her excitement at figuring it out herself and confirming it with him would far outweigh any explanation he could provide. He waggled his whiskery eyebrows at her and winked, and then they ascended the steps. Mia let Brother Cornelius go first. Another difference with this staircase was that it featured a groove along the wall at waist height. Brother Cornelius used it to steady himself as he made his way up the stairs.

“Eventually they’ll have to install a wooden landing with a pulley to get me up these stairs,” he said, almost to himself.

“I’m surprised such contraptions aren’t used throughout the Compound,” Mia said, thinking on it.

“Oh, they’re used extensively to get supplies down to the kitchen and the laundry, but it is felt among the clerics—and I can’t say that I disagree—that the exertion of making one’s way up and down the stairs and inclines and declines of the corridors is good for keeping the physical body mobile and flexible.”

Mia couldn’t disagree with that, even if travel throughout the Compound sometimes seemed laborious. They emerged into the small alcove landing that gave way to Brother Cornelius’s laboratory. As the old man moved into the room and Mia’s view became unobstructed, she scanned her eyes across its expanse in wonderment. Whereas the staircase had been similar to Dominus Nikola’s, the laboratory itself couldn’t be more different from the head cleric’s quarters.

The room was vast, with large portions of the ceiling open to the sky above. There was a small window on the back wall, although it didn’t offer as picturesque a view as the head cleric’s window. Still, one could lean out and get a look at the mountains and city below. Books lined every conceivable space on the walls that wasn’t open to the air. That in and of itself shocked Mia, given how persnickety Brother Cornelius was with the stacks in the Archives.

One long table, where numerous projects were laid out in various states of completion, spanned almost the whole length of the room. A series of long, deep planters were situated under the sky lamps. This gave the indoor garden light to grow and allowed the planters to catch rain when the skies brought it forth. The planters contained all sorts of gourds on vines and plants, some of which Mia recognized and some of which were totally foreign to her. Near the window, as in Dominus Nikola’s quarters, stood a hearth.

Instead of overstuffed chairs providing a cozy sitting area, a collection of roots spread out from the hearth and cascaded up onto a table, where they were fused using shunts to other odd plant life. Mia stepped over to the table and examined some of the connections. One root was fused to a vine with a gourd that gave off perpetual light. Another was fused to a very thin vine. She touched the vine, and it zapped her lightly. She let out a yelp and sucked on the end of her finger.

“So this is my laboratory,” Brother Cornelius said, chuckling, his pride obvious.