The Forbidden Library (2 page)

Turesobei reached toward his shirt and winced in pain. His left arm was broken and now fixed to a splint. His entire body ached, but the pain alone couldn’t keep him awake. His spirit was depleted. Eyes sagging from fatigue and the last of the sleeping draught, he nearly fell back asleep. 

But then he remembered Iniru and Shoma. 

His eyes shot open and he sat up. “What time is it?!”

Lu Bei eyed the brightening stone on the wall. “I’m guessing nearly dawn. The goronku are awake already.” 

The scent of cooking meats finally struck Turesobei. His stomach growled in hunger. A bowl of water sat nearby, but they hadn’t brought him any food.

He reached for his shirt again.

“I wouldn’t,” Lu Bei said. “It’s filthy and torn. Besides, it’s useless here anyway.”

It was cold in this room, far colder than it ever got inside the High Wizard’s Tower back home, even on the worst days of winter. 

“As you were falling asleep the goronku medicine woman said they’d find you appropriate clothing. Why don’t you lay back down, master. Let me go find Narbenu. He’s the one that led the scouting party that rescued us. He’s our sponsor here.”

“No, I’ve got to get to Iniru and Shoma. I’ve got to —”

“Let me get him, master. Then we can worry about all that. One step at a time. If they survived the coldest hours of the night, they’ll be fine. Motekeru and the hounds are with them. I’m sure they’re safe.”

Lu Bei flew off. Turesobei lay back down. He wanted to believe Lu Bei was right, but he remembered the look in Narbenu’s eyes when he’d told him about dropping his companions off near a village. It wasn’t just the fear of Turesobei’s companions facing the horrors that hunted this land at night and exposure to the extreme cold. There was a more specific fear that had danced through the bear-man’s eyes.

The curtain pulled back. Narbenu and Lu Bei entered.

Narbenu looked a lot like a k’chasan, except that k’chasans sort of resembled cats. Something one never dared point out in their presence. The goronku resembled bears in the same way, only with white, yellow-tinged fur. And they were a little more bearlike than k’chasans were catlike. The goronku had wide hands and feet, stunted snouts, round ears, beady black eyes, and thick frames. 

Narbenu, who had a prominent belly and a grizzled beard, wasn’t wearing his leather breastplate or carrying his hafted axe like before. He was wearing gray leather pants and a gray shirt trimmed in blue. Both the shirt and the pants were thick, so Turesobei guessed that fur lined their insides. It was so cold here that people with fur wore fur.

Narbenu nodded. “Are you feeling better, lad?”

Turesobei shrugged. “I’ve been worse. I could use a lot more sleep but …”

“Your friends. Yes. I was on my way to wake you when I ran into the little creature.”

Lu Bei bowed.

“We need to get moving if we’re going after your friends. Tell me everything you remember about the village.”

Turesobei tried, but he had been lost in the dragon form at the time. He remembered little, but Lu Bei knew more.

“It was a quaint village,” the fetch said. “Stone buildings with tiled roofs. Looked ancient. Like it had been there for centuries, but it was all still in one piece.”

“You were on the high plain northeast of here?”

“I believe so,” Lu Bei said.

Narbenu frowned and glanced away. “It is ancient. And it may look good but …” Narbenu shook his head. “We’ll get a rescue party together. Hopefully … Hopefully your companions … I’ll have someone bring you food and medicine. And clothes. You’ll want to be on your feet and after them right away.”

“You’re not going to tell me to wait here and rest while you do it?” Turesobei said with surprise.

“Why on earth would I do that?”

“Because that’s what adults do.”

“Maybe where you come from, but not here. Here you fight for your own if you can. I’d never insult your honor by making you stay behind. Nor will I insult you by giving you false hope. You’ll be lucky if they’re alive still.”

“What’s there? Looked like a decent village to me.”

“Decent? Hardly. It’s a place of the damned.”

“What exactly —”

“Think no more of it for now,” said Narbenu. “Worrying will do you no good. Rest while we get everything ready.”

“You’re going to help me find them?”

“We’ll do our best.”

Chapter 2

The light from the crystal on the wall was almost white now, with only a trace of pink, but it wasn’t much brighter than a big candle. Lu Bei claimed the darkness made him sleepy and turned back into a book. Turesobei drank the water they’d left him then dozed until an old goronku woman, wearing a spectacular cloak woven of black feathers, shuffled into the room. She locked her milky eyes on Turesobei and took a deep sniff of the room. Her ears twitched. She smiled and eased over to him.

“Hello, Chonda Turesobei. I doubt you remember me treating you last night.” He shook his head. “My name is Eira. I’m a shaman and I’m here to examine you again.” She circled her hands above him. “Your spirit has improved, but it’s still weak. Hardly stronger than that of a dying man. Except here.” She pointed to the storm sigil. “There’s tremendous spirit locked into this one part of you, as strong as a hundred souls combined. How can you contain so much?”

“Willpower,” he answered, “and that’s fading. I don’t dare tap into the mark or I’ll become the Storm Dragon, and if I did that again I’d never turn back into myself.”

“Too bad. I’d have loved to see the dragon, not that I can see much farther than my nose.” She chuckled. “You’re strong to resist so much. And you have yet another source of power.” She gestured at his kavaru. “You have a second soul.”

“That’s my kavaru. It’s a channeling stone, a gem my people can use to do magic. Well, not all of my people. You must be in a certain bloodline. The soul in the gem is that of my clan’s founder, Chonda Lu.”

She cocked her head. “It’s not your soul in the gem?”

“No. Chonda Lu was a Kaiaru. The Kaiaru were an ancient race. Very powerful and not exactly human. Their souls resided in their kavaru gems which let them be resurrected into new human bodies using rituals that are now forgotten. But eventually most the Kaiaru were destroyed or gave up on being reborn. Only one Kaiaru remains on Okoro, the island continent where I am from.”

“You are certain your soul is separate? Because the soul I sense in this kavaru … it’s no different from your own. They are the same. As if one were your left eye and the other your right.”

“Well, I
am
a direct descendant of Chonda Lu, and according to my fetch, Lu Bei, I’m special somehow … I’m Chonda Lu’s heir in a unique way I don’t understand. Sometimes I think that maybe I’m …”

He woke to the old woman’s hand on his forehead. She frowned down at him, concerned. “You need more rest.”

“That’s what happens when I think too hard about Chonda Lu and how I’m different than other wizards.”

“I have decided,” Eira said. “You and Chonda Lu … You have twin souls.”

“Twin souls … sure, maybe … but I’m not going to think about it.”

She laughed. “Probably wise. If something powerful keeps you from thinking about it, there’s a good reason.” She took his wrist, felt his pulse, and frowned. “Your spirit will return in time, though what damage you’ve done internally, I don’t know. It’s not healthy to give so much of your spirit away.”

“Didn’t have much choice. Say, how is it that I can speak your language? When I concentrate, I realize I’m speaking it, but I’ve never heard it before.”

“We have discussed that, the priestesses and I. I’m afraid the answer is that we simply don’t know. We thought you might.”

“Maybe something about passing through the gate,” he suggested with a shrug that made him wince as pain shot through is arm.

“My assistant put the splint on your arm last night. I suspect the pain medicine I gave you is wearing off. Is the pain getting worse?” 

He nodded and she pulled out a vial of dark liquid.

“I’m going after my friends,” he said. “I can’t take more. I’ll sleep all day.”

“I know. This will dull the pain without making you sleepy.”

He drank the liquid and gagged, but he managed to keep it down. Whatever it was, it tasted coppery and sweet … like blood and herbs. He wouldn’t ask.

“It will take maybe six or seven weeks for your arm to heal,” she said. “Don’t pull the splint off before then.”

“Once my spirit recovers, I can cast a healing spell.” Turesobei tapped his kavaru. “One of the benefits of being a wizard.”

“How miraculous. Your people must be incredibly long lived.”

“Magic can slow the progression of a poison or disease, but it can’t stop them. It only speeds natural recovery. And you still have to sew up a wound, put a bone back in place, all those sorts of things. And you can only apply it to an injury once.”

“Still better than what I can do.” She groaned as she stood. “Too bad it can’t fix old joints.”

“It could help them a bit, for a while.”

“Well then, you can pay me for my services once you’re in better health.” She gave him another vial of dark liquid to him. “Take sips as needed.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure. When you reach my age, you don’t expect to learn wondrously new things. I feel blessed to have encountered you.”

*****

Turesobei woke with a snap as a striking young goronku girl bustled in with a heaping bundle of clothing in her arms. She had soft, white fur, sparkling green eyes, full lips, and a golden mane tied into a braid that hung over her shoulder. She was very … curvy … and suddenly he was all too aware that he was naked under the fur covers.

She smiled broadly, and somehow that brightened the room. “I have clothes for you.”

He gathered the furs tight around him and sat up. “Thanks.”

“I’m Kurine.”

“Turesobei.”

She winked. “I know. Everyone’s talking about you.”

“I — I can’t believe you had anything that would fit me.”

“We didn’t. You’re as thin as a child but as tall as an adult. Our clothes aren’t warm enough for you anyway, what with you not having any fur. All that bare skin.” She cocked her eyebrows saucily. He clutched the furs tighter. “Had to stay up all night with my mother, sewing. She’s the head seamstress. We took your measurements from the clothes you were wearing.”

“I’m sorry you had to stay up working.”

“Oh no. Don’t be sorry.” She winked again. “I really do love a challenge.” She knelt beside him and started to sort out the bundle of clothes.

“That’s a whole lot of clothing. You didn’t make spares for me, did you?”

“Never been out in our kind of cold before, huh? Poor fellow. Poor, poor fellow. Afraid you’re going to need all of these out there. And I suspect you’ll still be miserable. There is one spare shirt here, and Mother is rigging up a basic spare coat for you. In case yours gets torn. You know how beasts are.”

The more he learned about the Ancient Cold and Deep, the less he liked it. He was starting to think he might be safer in the Shadowland.

“Don’t worry. We know what we’re doing. We make clothes like this twice each year and trade them to the bareskins.”

“Bareskins? So there are other people that look like me here?”

“Yes, but I’ve never seen one of them.” She gave him a long, hard stare. “And I think they’re coloring is different, and I’ve heard they’re hairy. Not so bare as you. We trade them for iron, and wood when it’s available.”

Kurine was pretty and the way she looked at him made him incredibly uncomfortable. Probably because he was a novelty here. He wanted to clutch the furs tighter, but they were as tight as he could get them.

Poof! Lu Bei woke up, zipped around the room once, and landed in front of Kurine. He yawned, then bowed. “I am the grand illustrious Lu Bei — diary, fetch, and fearsome guardian for Master Chonda.”

She laughed and clapped her hands. “The little demon! I was hoping I’d get to see you.”

Lu Bei frowned and shook his head. “Not a demon, madam. Not a demon. I’m a fetch.”

“We don’t have demon servants,” she said wistfully. “Oh how I wish.”

Lu Bei pouted. “Not a demon.”

“We only have one book, too. For records. And it’s not a demon either.”

“Not a demon.”

“Does everyone in your world have demons, Turesobei?”

Sparks blasted from Lu Bei’s eyes. “Not a demon!”

Kurine gasped and shuffled back.

Lu Bei threw a hand over his mouth, then he drooped his shoulders and wings. “Sorry … So sorry, madam. Got a little carried away. Just wanted to say, most demonstrably, that I’m a fetch, not a demon.”

Laughing, she reached out and pinched Lu Bei’s cheek. His eyes went wide as saucers. “And so cute!”

Turesobei laughed, too. “Lu Bei’s one of a kind. I’m the only person anywhere who has a fetch that turns into a book. Well, hardly anyone else has a fetch for that matter.”