Four || Cadomon's Library
"Cadomon was the last notable magician to call Carona his home," Klaus said. "His work is dated back about one-hundred fifty years, give or take. Cadomon is a rather obscure name among those who research the old wizards – his actual magical contributions are very minor – but there is some indication that he was a dedicated historian."
He was walking ahead as he spoke, leading the way through the forest, trailing behind him Rue, Mint, and Mira. He had abandoned the main footpath a fair while ago and was now working his way through the thick of the trees, following a faintly-battered footpath that wound broadly through the forest. Probably not the ideal range of travel, but Klaus was certain of the direction he traveled in and Mira had raised no objections.
"What you saw yesterday, Mint, were the remains of Cadomon's primary laboratory. He–"
"Wait," Mint said. "That doesn't sound right."
"Because they're too new?" Klaus asked, looking over his shoulder. She nodded, and he nodded back. "Good eye. They're quire recent to be in such disrepair. We don't have any solid evidence one way or the other, but there were some minor indications that Cadomon was working on something important at the time, and during this work something occurred and destroyed the building. Any indication of what truly happened, or what Cadomon was working on, has been lost."
"But that wasn't his only site," Rue said.
"It was his only work site, at least that we're aware of," Klaus clarified. "But it was not the only site he controlled, no." He slowed down slightly. The trees were starting to grow more densely. "As I said, Cadomon himself is referenced more as a historian than a magician, and the reason for that– ah, here."
Klaus pushed forward, deeper into the woods, and for a moment neither Rue nor Mint could understand exactly why. He seemed to be headed for more trees, and as they looked there was no indication of anything but trunks and leaves and shadows. Just forest.
And, as Rue realized with a little start, no Klaus.
"Where is he?" he asked tentatively, and nearby Mint shot a glance around the forest.
"Huh," she said, and then stepped forward. Almost immediately she stopped short, looked up, and grinned. "Oh. Oh. Not bad."
And with that unhelpful statement, she continued forward. Within another moment she was suddenly swallowed by the shadows, the edges of her silhouette melting into the dark of the woods. Another few seconds and she had been reduced to a smudge of light pink and deep blue standing at odds with the deep browns and greens of the trees; and a moment after that, she was gone.
"Klaus probably should have mentioned that," Mira said, smiling gently as she approached from behind. "It's an illusion veil."
Rue frowned. "I've heard of these," he said. "Never seen one before."
"Most of them have long since petered out," Mira said. "Cadomon's is new enough that it's still holding. Come on."
She pressed forward, fading into the barrier, and Rue followed a few seconds after her. There was a sensation of heat prickling against his skin, a chill radiating from somewhat behind his eyes, and everything around him began to blur and fade into itself, leaving him briefly suspended in an abstract limbo of deep shades and a splash of pale blue. He pressed on, and slowly the remnants of the deep forest dissolved, replaced by the impressions of something much brighter. Then, abruptly, he stumbled out of the hazy between and found himself standing out in the open, briefly blinded by sunlight. He blinked. His eyes adjusted. He stared.
Where there had been thick forest now stood an massive clearing, ringed by the shimmering edge of the tree line and lit bright and green in the sun. It was impressive enough that this open space had been concealed, but what stood ahead of him, its entrance standing smack in the middle of the field, was a wood-and-brick building two storeys tall and significantly wider at the base. Its build reminded him of a cathedral, all sloping angels and rising points and enormous circular windows, and even bore along its edges the grimacing figures of gargoyles.
Klaus was standing about halfway between the tree line and the building, leaning on his cane, admiring the work. It was a beautiful thing; it bore the faint, weathered edges of age, but stood strong and tall, completely oblivious to how out-of-place it was in the midst of the forest.
He looked over his shoulder to see that the rest of them had passed through the veil. Mint was already closing the distance between them, and Mira was taking a casual stroll, her eyes cutting across the meadow and the treeline. Rue tried to shake off the lingering disorientation and headed toward Klaus.
"As I was saying," Klaus began, "Cadomon's laboratory was the first site found until somebody stumbled upon this– his library."
"Where he keeps the good stuff," Mint said.
"So we assume," Klaus said. "Nobody's been inside since Cadomon died."
Mint walked past him and then broke into a job, clearing the rest of the way up to the building. She ran up the steps leading to the door and came to a stop, stared at it for a moment, then backed away and stared at it again. Then, slowly, she backed her way down the steps and half-turned to face the others.
"There's gotta be something in there," she said. "You don't plant a magic-locked building in the middle of a forest and waste all your time casting veils on it for kicks and giggles."
"So we hope," Klaus said.
Rue walked past Klaus and approached the building, trying to peer through the windows as he went. It did little good; while the building was in remarkable shape for its age and its isolation, the exterior was covered in over a century of dirt and dust, and the glass in the windows had clouded, making looking inside impossible. He gave up on the idea and just headed to the door, sliding past Mint to have a look.
The building was impressive, but it was also relatively simple, other than the stonework that had constructed the gargoyles. The door leading inside was similarly simple; two large wooden double-doors, held together by an aged bronze seal. There was no indication of anything such as handles or knobs or even a slot that one could grip the door from, and when he touched it he felt a flicker of warmth and saw the wood shimmer under his hand.
Finally, Klaus approached the building, his hand fishing into the pouch at his side.
"I'm glad this seal is here," he said. "For archival purposes, I mean. Whatever Cadomon hid inside hasn't been touched by human hands since this place was sealed." He was grinning now, and it was impossible to hide the glee creeping into his voice. "We are going to be the first living things inside this building in more than a century!"
"If that's the key," Mint said darkly.
Klaus ignored her. He removed the key from the pouch and made his way up the steps, standing in front of the door. He inhaled deeply, held the thin edge of the key up to the bronze seal, and pressed.
Then there was a sound, the dull wuff of air from a closing door. The doors shimmered – the whole building gleamed – and Klaus yanked the key back and took a few steps away. As he did, slowly– gently– the doors broke apart and eased outward. Ancient, stale air tumbled out of the growing entryway, disgorging with it the scent of old paper and mildew and a gout of dislocated dust. Klaus turned away and shielded his face with his arm; behind him, Rue and Mint scrambled back from the thick of the cloud.
Then the door settled. The breeze caught the dust and threw it toward the forest. Klaus exhaled and looked up.
"We're in," he breathed. "We're in!"
He ran inside, fast as his bad leg would allow. Rue was on his tail immediately.
"Doctor, wait, there might be–"
But before he could speculate about what there might be, he stopped short.
His eyes adjusted to the light as best they could, but it was bad; the windows were clouded over and allowed only a sickly stream of sunlight into the room, further choked by the whorls of dust they had kicked up into the air. The best light source they had was the sunlight reflecting off of the wooden floor, casting a vaguely reddish light up through the rest of the building. But even in spite of the bad light, they could see just what they had.
It was certainly a library, on a grand scale; what Rue had taken to be a second storey was little more than a platform that allowed one to reach the next level of the bookshelves, which rose floor-to-ceiling on either side of them. The walls were covered in books and papers and strange artifacts the design of which he could not even begin to guess at, the contents overflowing onto the threadbare carpet. Directly ahead was a staircase, simply ornamented, leading up to that second floor, and on either side, attached loosely to the walls, were the cracked remains of wooden ladders leading to the upper shelves. And in the middle of the atrium, standing tall and large and slightly askew, was a rusting metal printing press.
Klaus made his way to the first shelf he saw, snatching a random book out of its place and thumbing through it. He slid it back and checked another one, his brow furrowed. Then a third.
"Geography," he said finally, and shoved it back into place and moving on to the shelves on the other side of the room. He flipped through a few more books. "Mathematics." He returned those to their spots.
Mint barged up the steps behind Rue and came to a stop only a few paces in front of him, holding the edge of her shirt up against her nose to filter the air. She looked around, then looked straight up, and Rue followed her gaze to the center of the ceiling, where a rather impressive chandelier hung overhead, its crystal-work faded and dusty, fine metalwork overwhelmed by cobwebs.
Her body language said everything before she even spoke again.
"What a dump."
"What were you expecting?" Rue asked.
She snorted. "A better haul than this."
"It's a library," he said. "I doubt he would have kept 'haul' here."
She waved him off and stomped off to another section of the building, opening a brief path through the dust as she went. Rue watched her for a few seconds, then sighed and turned to face the library again. He didn't like to admit it, but despite his words he agreed with her; he had been hoping for something... different. Surely out of all these books there would be something he could make use of, but there was just so much to dig through...
He looked up near the wall scanned until he saw a torch bracket sticking out between two of the long shelves. Experimentally, he twisted the knob at the base, but nothing happened. Not that he expected the spells to hold together for so long, but it would have been nice to get a little more light in the place. What little sunlight they had was simply not enough.
He heard another set of footsteps and turned toward the entrance as Mira stepped into the building.
"Look at all this," she said quietly. "This is... there must be centuries worth of works in here."
"Some very old things, yes," Klaus called, his voice echoing back through the atrium. "But it's not all unique. A lot of these books are much newer– he must have been re-creating them with the printing press. Translating them, too. He was making new editions."
Klaus returned to the open part of the atrium and looked to Mira.
"I'm going to see what I can find down here," he said. "Could you check upstairs for me? Set aside anything that looks interesting."
"Of course."
She headed up the stairway, and Klaus' attention turned to Rue.
"It looks like most of this was written a few hundred years ago," he said.
Rue clenched his teeth and looked at the nearest book shelf. "Yes," he said. "I'm... not sure of what help I can be in here."
"Perhaps not with the books. But it can't help to have as many eyes open as we can. Some of these devices, at least, might hold some significance. Or at least interest."
"Yes, sir."
"All right. I won't be going far from here if you happen on anything."
Klaus returned to studying the bookcases, and Rue frowned to himself and looked behind him. The doctor was right; Rue had never learned any of the older languages, and though he technically recognized the script looping on the spines of the books, he had no idea what to make of it. Idly, he reached for a torch bracket protruding from the wall and played with the small knob at its base, seeing if there was any magic still woven inside. Disappointingly, though not unexpectedly, nothing happened; whatever had lit the torch all those years ago had long since come undone.
Wouldn't have helped him much, but it was worth a shot.
So, while Klaus continued to peruse the books on the lower floor and Mira took the ones above, Rue wandered the library. The whole thing was effectively one massive room; the atrium was flanked by two wings, both of them stuffed with shelves and books but not divided into any individual rooms. There were a few bits of furniture here and there – ancient couches long since worn to threads and disintegrating wood, the cracked remains of chairs, individual spires of metal that had once been used as lamps – and some dust-caked and faded artwork hanging on the walls, but nothing really stood out to him. The devices that sometimes stood on the shelves ranged from old sculptures and art to astrolabes and compasses, and he knew that it all had significant historical value, but after a couple of hours digging through corners and shifting around books, he couldn't help but feel cheated.
At some point he had wandered into the other wing – same as the first one he had checked – and was in the process of staring down another piece of ancient art when movement caught his eye. He looked up and saw Mint approaching him. He set the piece down and turned to face her.
"Mint," he said.
"Yeah, me," she responded. "You find anything good?"
"Can't say I have."
She frowned. "Didn't think so." She looked around, resting her chin in her hand, and continued, quite conversationally; "This place seem kinda weird to you?"
He considered the question, then shrugged. "Not particularly. Not for a magician's home, certainly. Is something bothering you?"
"It doesn't seem right," she said. "He didn't want the library found, and he went and hid the key inside a statue to make sure nobody he didn't want finding it would find it. This isn't about books."
Rue thought for a moment. "No," he said. "No, he isn't. Klaus said he was probably re-making them–"
"I heard."
"–so he wasn't worried about people finding them. He wanted to distribute them. And this place isn't air-tight– water got in somehow. Most of the books are okay but I'll bet quite a few were damaged or destroyed."
The edge of her lips twitched into a smile. "Right. He veiled the area and sealed the building. If he wanted to protect the books, it wouldn't have taken much more to do it. He wasn't protecting books."
Rue suddenly jolted. "The printing press."
Mint blinked. "What? No, he– he better not have shut this place up for a piece of crap antique like that. You actually look at that thing? It's falling apart."
"No, I don't mean... hold on."
Something was trying to break through the cloud of uncertainty– something about that press had caught his attention. He ran back to the atrium and to the printing press and stared at it again. There was nothing out of the ordinary that he could see – the metal was rusted and the wood turned soft and porous from years of trapped humidity – but he knew there was something wrong. There was something he was missing, or something he knew but couldn't place. He walked around it, little clouds of dust swirling up from his footsteps, and then came to a stop behind it. He was facing the door now; a long shaft of sunlight passed through the opening, illuminating the machine.
He looked down at the floor.
Sunlight cast a glow on the dust particles rippling through the air. Down below, where he had just walked, the dust twirled lazily back to the ground. Slowly, he made his way to the front of the press again, his eyes raking the floor, and he realized what he had seen.
It sat askew.
And there, near the front-most corner, he saw the plume of dust. While so much of it had already settled back in place, there was a little area that continued to whorl gently upward, just an inch or two, as though the floor were exhaling.
Heavy footsteps followed behind him, and a few seconds later Mint was at his side, staring at the printing press.
"Don't do that," she said sharply. She looked at the press, then at him, then back to the press. "What's your point?"
"We need to move this."
She gave him a sidelong glance, then directed her attention once more back to the printing press. Her eyes narrowed and her gaze raked up and down the thing. As she stood next to him, her stance changed; it was subtle, a relaxation of the shoulders, a faint exhalation, but he knew that she had seen the same thing.
"All right," she said. "Let's try it."
Together, the lined up with one side of the printing press, right up near the corner, and pressed against it.
"Ready?" Mint asked.
"Ready," Rue said.
"Go!"
They shoved.
The press resisted, but after a few agonizing seconds where the machine seemed immobile it suddenly lurched slightly, and they threw everything they had against it. The machine groaned and creaked and made a terrible scraping sound as the metal edge dug a heavy furrow into the moldering carpet and the floorboards beneath, but slowly – painfully – Rue and Mint had the thing mostly turned around.
They broke away from it, both shaky and panting, and Rue took the chance to stagger a few more paces away, trying to catch his breath. He swallowed, closed his eyes, sucked in air through his teeth, and finally heard the voice.
"What's going on?"
He looked up to see Klaus rounding the stairs. Rue gathered himself and pointed down.
Beneath him, a large chunk of the carpet had been torn loosely from the floor. In the middle of that, cut into the exposed floorboards, was the clear outline of a trap door.
. .
They spent a fair while trying to get at the door. There was no handle they could grasp, or even groove that they could grip, but Mira had the foresight to bring her short sword and with a little finagling and a lot of shoving, they managed to slot the sword between the edge of the trap door and the actual floorboards and jimmy it open that way. The door was heavy, and flipping it open took a good deal of coordinated strength and leverage, but after a fair bit of pain and work they managed between the four of them to push the trap door completely open.
The door led downward, but more than that they could not say; the sunlight only reached a few feet down into the shaft, and while they could see a steel ladder providing footing for the descent even that melted into darkness only a few feet down. There was no telling how deep the hole was, let alone what was in it.
"We need a torch," Klaus said.
"Not necessarily," Mira replied. She looked over to Mint. "Can you cast illuminations?"
Mint was quiet for a few seconds, then nodded. "Yeah. Gimme a little space."
Klaus, Mira, and Rue all took a few steps back, and Mint reached for her golden rings. They sparked and flared to life when she touched them, and when she touched them together they both suddenly erupted into brilliance, glowing bright even in the sunlight. She tossed one down into the opening, and the ring landed on the ground about fifteen feet below, its wavering light showing the end of the ladder and revealing the edge of what appeared to be a room.
"I'm going first," she said. "That enchantment won't last long without me."
Nobody objected. Mint stepped onto the ladder and lowered herself down into the shaft, grabbing the ring once she reached the bottom. Without waiting for any word or indication, Rue followed right behind her, descending the ladder and landing on the solid floor shortly thereafter.
Already Mint was walking further into the room, but there wasn't much place to go. It was a small wooden chamber with an uncomfortably low ceiling and not much by way of actual standing space. The walls were lined with shelves containing yet more books, although far fewer in number, and a desk was pressed up against the far wall, a chair tossed haphazardly alongside it. The desk itself bore a scattering of books and yellowed parchment.
Mint sighed.
"Oh good," she said. "Even more paper products."
Rue plucked a book off the nearby shelf and opened it. He thumbed through the pages, glossing over what he was seeing. After a moment, however, he came to a stop, suddenly focusing on the words.
"I can read this," he said.
Mint looked over her shoulder. "Hmm?"
"This is fairly modern," he said. "I can read this."
Klaus' voice sudden rang from above. "What's down there? Do you need any help?"
Rue flipped through a few more pages. It was all notes and sketches and crudely drawn maps. The handwriting was neat and tight, but it was also all over the pages, written at odd angles or in quicker, sloppier script, made in small notes on top of doodles, crossed out or written over. He couldn't make sense of most of it, not without more context, but he knew what it was.
"We might," he called up. "But there isn't a lot of room down here, we'll need to haul it out."
"What is it?"
"Cadomon's research."
There was silence from above. Rue replaced the book on the shelf and made his way to the far table, where Mint was now looking at the loose parchment with a great deal of interest.
"Think you're right," she said, shuffling through some papers. "This's just some diary crap, but..."
She trailed off, looking closely at another sheet of paper. She smoothed it out, then nodded over her shoulder. Rue stepped forward to take a closer look.
"This look like Carona?" she asked.
It was a map, but not just of the town; Carona's walls were demarcated on one of the corners. The rest of the map spread out to show the remainder of the island, with a bevy of notes and observations, most of them clustered around a particular area. He didn't look too deeply at the observation notes, but a single note – "Atelier?" – popped out at him almost immediately.
"Yeah," he said. "I think it's the island."
A low mechanical groan sounded behind them, and Rue looked over his shoulder to see Mira hop off the ladder and approach. She leaned around them, regarding the contents of the desk, then wordlessly stepped over to one of the shelves. She looked through one book, then another.
"Not just Cadomon," she said. "He was looking into the work of another magician."
"What manner of work?" Rue asked.
She shook her head. "I can't read it. He's got some notes scribbled in the margins here, but they don't make sense out of–"
She stopped, stared hard at the book in her hand, then suddenly quick-stepped back to the ladder. She shimmied up the ladder with surprising speed, and from the top of the passage conversation – unintelligible, quickly spoken – funneled down into the room.
Then, Klaus' voice.
"Pick up everything you can," he said. "Empty the room."
"Too much stuff for one trip," Mint said.
"Then make as many as you need. Bring everything out." His voice went distant, no longer talking directly down to them, but they could still understand the words. "Will we need a cart?"
"Yes," Mira said. "I'll go back to town and see if Davis will loan me a loading palette."
"Good. Go."
There was a faint sound of footsteps, disappearing quickly. Rue felt something tighten in his chest. Klaus' tone of voice was flat, fast, businesslike. He had not heard it too often when the two had been working together back on the mainland, but he recognized it implications and could not help feel a little ripple of excitement under the skin.
"What's going on?" Rue asked.
"The reason Cadomon kept this a secret," Klaus said. "He wasn't just preserving knowledge. He was looking for a Relic."