Chapter 7: That'll Wake the Neighbors
…
Link was willing to put up with a little more exploring (and bickering with Line) before ultimately deciding to return to the Island Symphony. The shop they had been looking at went unopened because Link wanted to wait until their options were exhausted before physically breaking into someone's business. Besides that, he found himself a little intimidated by Irleen's reaction to whatever was inside.
By the time they returned to the ship, the sun hung high in the air, casting an abundant amount of light over the island. It did not do much for the dreary feel of the island, but at least there was a little more warmth to the general air. Link, Layna, Line, and Cale ate an early lunch, joined at Link's request by Leynne, Flower, Lwamm, Dubbl, and Biluf. Then he had Biluf gather her supplies for a very special assignment.
K-BOOOOOOOOM!
Needless to say, her assignment was over very fast: the time it took to walk back to the tunnel in addition to the few minutes she needed to set down explosives, light the fuse, and run for her life.
The explosion threw a cloud of dust and rocks up into the air and out through the hole in the street while Link, Line, Biluf, and Irleen watched near the edge of the hole. Link and Line turned their heads away with an arm covering their faces while Irleen ducked behind Link. Biluf was not as concerned, having put on a pair of safety goggles Leynne had made for her and tied a mask over her nose and mouth. If not for the mask, the boys might have had a clear look at the maniacal grin on her face.
"Wow!" Line hollered as he uncovered his head to watch the dust cloud, higher than any nearby building, slowly settle back to the ground.
"Nice boom, Biluf," Link said with awe in his voice.
"Sankyu, Kyabtin," Biluf replied.
Kr. KaRAAAAAAAGH!
Link and Line's delight turned to horror as they watched a four-story building near the explosion collapse with an angry roar almost on top of its foundation. Another plume of dust billowed outward, blocking out its neighboring structures for a moment.
Link grimaced. "Uh oh."
"Holy crap!" Line said through his hand, trying his best to not allow his utter glee to show.
"In hindsight," Irleen said as she peered over Link's shoulder, "maybe having Biluf blow up that wall was… a little excessive."
"A little excessive," Line commented, removing his hands to show a big grin. "But a lot of fun to watch!"
"Sankyu," Biluf said, hooking her thumbs to the straps of her overalls with an air of pride in her stance.
"You're welcome."
"I just hope she didn't bury the tunnel under that building," Irleen said.
"There's one way to find out," Link said. Then he turned and signaled with a hand. "Dubbl, Leynne."
Leynne, wearing a regular shirt and work trousers for once, stepped out of hiding with Dubbl close behind him. "It's nice to see Biluf's proclivity foh pyrotechnics be put to use foh good once moh," he commented as he finished watching the final dust cloud disappear from the landscape.
"Sankyu," Biluf told him.
"Leynne, go ahead and start looking around," Link said. "We'll check out this tunnel. If you get into trouble, send up smoke."
"You do the same," Leynne said. He waved Biluf along as he turned around. "Let's move," he hollered at the airmen around the side as he, Biluf, and Dubbl disappeared around the building.
Link took two steps forward and dropped down into the hole, followed closely by Irleen. Line followed by sitting on the edge of the hole and then pushing himself off. With the noon sun overhead and a new hole in the ground, the tunnel appeared a little more inviting as they entered. Layna followed them in half a minute later, remaining unnoticed as she walked behind Line. The new hole in the ground was a little larger than the first hole, and the amount of dirt and rock that had been blown into the air left the tunnel wider. Roots and broken bricks littered the ground.
"Y'know," Link spoke up as they now had to trudge over the debris left over from the collapsed building, "I'm beginning to wonder if it's a good idea for her to leave her chemical supplies in the boat deck. One good jerk, and my cabin just might go with the rear half of the ship."
"Well, you're sure as hell aren't letting her keep it in her berth," Line argued. "Make her leave them in the orlop."
"What's more dangerous to you?" Irleen asked as she hovered over the boys. "Blowing Link up, or letting Sello get a hold of Biluf's stock?"
Line gave pause at the top of the pile as he tried to decide the consequences of blowing up his commander versus allowing volatile chemicals to get into the hands of their very drunk and even crazier chief engineer. While he did this, Link turned and looked up to object, "Why do I get to blow up!?"
"You can either go by yourself, or you can kill your whole crew and still go down," Line pointed out.
"Right," Link said with a sarcastic tone. "Because… there's no way that blowing me up in my cabin won't take out the ballast or the engine."
"Guys," Irleen called out.
"I thought your crew came first," Line argued with a smug look on his face.
"I'm just pointing out th—" Link began.
"Boys!" Irleen snapped. Link and Line looked around until they found her hovering near an opening to the tunnel not covered by debris from the nearby building. She started circling her position.
"There's life down there."
Link and Line shared a surprised look. "Layna," Link called out as they started down the debris pile at a brisker pace. "We're going inside."
Line slipped on a loose brick and immediately dropped onto his left thigh. "Agh!" he cried out as jagged brick jabbed into his leg. Link paused near the entrance, but Line quickly returned to his feet. "I'm okay, I'm okay."
"You sure?" Link asked.
"C'mon, guys!" Irleen hollered from inside the tunnel.
"Yeah," Line said as he braced himself on the tunnel wall. But, after Link dropped down into the tunnel, he found his way blocked by Layna jumping down from out of nowhere. He flailed backward in surprise, and Layna quickly spun and caught the front of his shirt. Line remained leaning backward as he looked around. "Wow. Thanks for the save. Here I was beginning to think you—"
Layna released him, and he fell backwards onto the pile. He writhed in silence for a moment while the pain caused by a dozen brick corners stabbed into his back, and then he sat up and watched Layna descend into the tunnel without a further word. As he hauled himself to his feet, he finished his sentence with, "Hate me."
Meanwhile, Link's pace was quick as he chased Irleen down the tunnel. Part of this was because he did not want Irleen to get too far away from him. The other part was the presence of light further down the tunnel, a yellowish flicker that gradually became larger as he continued. His heart was beating hard with anticipation. Was their venture about to pay off?
Then Link slid to a stop at the mouth of the tunnel. Before him stretched a vast room filled with bookshelves arranged in parallel to the edge of an oval opening in at least five floors' worth of subterranean library. The light that filled the room traveled along the intricate designs on the railings around the atrium as yellow marbles. Their illumination was aided by spirals of light in the ceiling above the many tables on each level. Still more glyphs on the walls and even along some of the shelves glowed so that many of the darker corners were still well-lit. Probably the most satisfying thing to Link's eyes was the fact that nothing appeared to have been built. The railing literally grew out of the floor and entwined together to form a single piece on each level. Every table looked like it had bloomed from the bare wood beneath it, and the benches had branched out from underneath the table's structure. The shelves seamlessly blended into each other and the floor, yet the interior spaces that held books and scrolls alike was so perfectly square that a carpenter would be jealous.
Link, caught wordless in his moment of awe, slowly made his way to the edge of the atrium with his eyes cast to the ceiling. Beyond the floor above, Link saw what must have kept the library around them alive for so many years: a piece of technoworks. Generating a swirl of orange and yellow light, the hemisphere hanging at the middle of the ceiling was unlike anything Link had seen before, even considering how much experience he had had with the technoworks. This one bore a set of four arms which arranged themselves as if on a clock, the end of each arm corresponding with a ring of symbols carved in the ceiling. The shortest hand shifted the most, but staring at it allowed Link to see movement in the other three hands during the next few minutes. Below, Link counted seven levels before seeing a solid floor.
"Link, isn't this incredible!?" Irleen cried out as she fluttered about the atrium. "This is definitely it! We found the Lost Library!"
"This is incredible," Link agreed as he followed the railing, his voice echoing throughout the library. "And so different. This doesn't look a thing like the library on Forelight Island."
"Of course it doesn't, Link!" Irleen replied. "This place has been sealed from time. Over a hundred years. The one on my home island was modern. Just look at all this. No offices, no observation counters. Just books and tables."
Link ran his hand along the railing and examined his fingertips in the nearby light. "It's been cleaned lately," he observed.
"It's been untouched," Irleen corrected while Line and Layna, having walked in behind Link, similarly awed at the atrium. "The inside of a tree doesn't create dust, Link."
"We're inside a tree?" Line asked.
"Obviously," Irleen replied. "This might be why the landscape closer to the center is so uneven. After the tree above the library was cut down, the stump and the library were buried underneath it. I think the reason the tree is still alive is because it's been feeding off the technoworks. There must be access to the technoworks somewhere nearby."
"Wouldn't that be convenient," Link uttered. "We'd be able to leave any time we wanted. But the question: Were the Sorians ever here? Did they come through or not?"
"Considering that this library was still sealed up, probably not," Irleen told him. Then she returned to Link's level and hovered above the railing nearest to him. "Link. I know this doesn't bring us any closer to the Sorians, not in any obvious way. But. There's still something we can do while we're here."
"There is?" Link asked.
"This is a repository of some of the oldest texts known to the Sorians. This includes Sorian magic, something that hasn't changed in over two hundred years."
Link nodded his understanding. "You wanna figure out how to get your old body back," he concluded.
"You got it. I know we probably don't wanna be here for long, but if you'll lend me Cale, I bet we can find a spell that'll return me to normal."
"That's gonna be a loooooootta books to go through," Line commented as he looked down the atrium.
"Please, Link?" Irleen asked.
Link nodded. "Of course. Remember: Meilont still wants to see what you really look like."
Irleen's tone came out sardonic as she replied, "Nice to know my future as a Sorian depends on you impressing your girlfriend."
"She's not my girlfriend," Link replied as his cheeks tinged red. "I-I mean, uh… we, uh…"
"Okay, your not-girlfriend," Irleen replied.
"Can I have her, then?" Line asked as he hurried toward Link. "Is she pretty?"
"Shut up, Line," Irleen and Link said at the same time, both turning in his direction to glare (for all the expression Irleen could show, at any rate).
Line stopped, surprised by their reaction. He tried looking to his right for a distraction. His eyes found Layna perched on a table, giving him one of her blank stares. "What, you, too?" he asked her. Layna's response was a slow, calculated nod.
"Layna disapproves," Irleen said. "No Meilont for you."
"I hate you, Link," Line said.
Layna slowly stepped off the table and approached Link. Link first thought that this was unusual; she maintained her emotionless stare, which was a signal that Layna was still in what the crew affectionately called "Kill Mode". The fact that she was visible at all indicated one of two things: either she could not find a spot in the library to hide, or she had something to tell Link. "Something wrong?" Link asked her.
She stepped up to the rail and pointed over the side toward the bottom of the atrium. "Zabiyc," she said.
"What's that mean?" Irleen asked while Link peered over the side.
Link immediately found the source of Layna's concern. While the other floors beneath them were lit the same way as their current floor, Link saw that there was a large spot of black on the very bottom level. He frowned in confusion as he replied, "'Darkness'."