The Reader (6 page)

“Lon!” Erastis's voice brought him to his senses again.

The boy jumped. Under Erastis's steady stare, he read the last letter from the chalkboard:
S
“Ess.” Out of all the letters, Lon liked the
S
best. The sound fit its shape, like the rasp of scales through sand. He smiled. “This,” he said. “This. This. This.”

The Master nodded approvingly. “It took me a month of studying the alphabet before I could string a word together.”

Lon sat up eagerly. “So . . . can we do something more fun now? Rajar and the others are already so far ahead of me in Illumination.”

Book magic.
The ability to do miraculous things. He'd already begun to use the first tier of magic, Sight, when the Master Librarian found him, but with Illumination he could learn to do greater things than peering into people's histories—lift objects without touching them, create talismans that granted their bearers strength or invisibility, disappear from one place only to reappear in another.

“Rajar and the others have been here longer than you. And don't listen to Rajar.” Erastis batted the air dismissively. “Soldiers think in terms of what they can maneuver and destroy and conquer. That's why they're only Soldiers.”

“Yes, but at least they
do
things,” Lon said.

The Master Librarian scowled at him.

“Okay, so how about the vault? I still haven't seen the Book.”

Erastis glanced furtively over his shoulder. The movement was so quick Lon wasn't entirely sure he had really seen it. “We're the only division with the privilege of working directly with the Book. You'll see it when you're ready.”

The order was composed of five divisions, each with a Master and an Apprentice, and a Director to lead them all. Soldiers studied battle strategies in the sand gardens. Assassins practiced tracking in the wilderness. But only Lon would handle the Book, one day.

He looked past the chalkboards to the round metal door
set into the stone of the mountain. The vault had a five-spoke wheel that controlled the dead bolts and two keyholes on either side of the handle. The Master Librarian had one key, which he wore on a long gold chain around his neck; Director Edmon, the leader of their order, had the other. No one knew where he kept it. Once you had both keys, you needed to perform a complicated sequence of turns and rotations to open the door.

Lon was dying to see the Book, though. He'd only heard about it from Erastis, who described it in numinous terms, as if the Book were made out of light and magic instead of paper and thread. Every day, Lon begged the Master Librarian to describe it, until he could see it when he closed his eyes—especially when he closed his eyes—the thin fluttering pages, the brown leather covers, the jeweled clasps and gold filigree on the corners. He swore to the other four Apprentices that he knew the shapes of the settings and the sparkling gems, and that sometimes when he was lying in bed at night, he could even smell it: mildew, grass, acid, vanilla. But not even Rajar believed him.

“No one gets to see the Book whenever he wants, including Edmon,” Erastis admonished him. He tapped the board again. “Continue.”

Lon sighed and tried to sit up straight. “Is,” he read, skipping the spelling. “A. Book. This is a book.” He rolled his eyes. “
This
isn't a book. This is a chalkboard.”

“Is that what you think?”

Lon opened his mouth to reply, but shut it again after a moment. He tilted his head to the side, puzzled.
Could
a
chalkboard be a book? Could anything be a book, if you knew how to read it?

“Again.” Erastis raised the stick.

Sucking in another deep breath, Lon trained his attention on the letters. “Tee,” he said. “Aitch. Aye. Ess.”

• • •

I
f anything could be a book, there was no telling what you could learn, if you knew what to look for. Smooth river stones spelled out across a mossy floor. Lines drawn in the sand. Or inscribed on the side of a fallen log, half-obscured by twigs and mulch:
This is a book.

Captain Reed and the
Current of Faith

S
trictly speaking, there were several green ships in Kelanna, but anyone who knew anything could tell you that only one of them really mattered. Her figurehead was a tree that seemed to grow out of the hull itself, its branches winding up the proud spear of the bowsprit, looking as if leaves would burst from their stems in stunning helixes at any second. People said it was a magic tree from the secret grove in Everica where the trees walked, whispering to the witching woman who lived among them.

They said this ship could outrun any other in the Central Sea, her speed matched only by that of the
Black Beauty
in the southeast. But everyone knew the
Current of Faith
didn't run. She'd come face-to-face with maelstroms and sea monsters, been in more battles than ships twice her age, and survived them all.

When the ship was docked, and her crew spent their evenings in dank taverns that smelled of sweat and ale, they leaned conspiratorially over the tables to whisper things like, “The
Current
will show you the way.” Even in
the noise that swelled to the cobwebbed tavern ceilings, they spoke of her in hushed, reverent tones: “The
Current
will never steer you wrong.”

Others said it wasn't the ship that was remarkable, but its captain. Cannek Reed was the son of a stonemason with rocklike fists, and he belonged to the water the way his father—a rare creature—belonged to the earth. They said Captain Reed surrounded himself with the finest crew in Kelanna. They worked for him—they'd give their lives for him—because he looked after them, made them legends, and treated them like brothers. He was always the first into danger.

Sometimes when the
Current
was in port, he'd climb the mainmast and stand in the crow's nest while the sun sank, and as the waters turned golden and dark, he'd listen to the sea. They said the water spoke to him. He knew all the natural harbors, the swiftest currents, how to avoid a squall even when it seemed intent on destroying him. Some people even said he could look at the pattern of the waves and tell you where they'd come from, where they were going.

Everyone in Kelanna knew about Reed and his ship. That's how it was. You lived among giants and monsters. People passed stories from mouth to mouth like kisses, or plagues, until they flowed down the streets, into gutters, streams, and rivers, down to the ocean itself.

A
lthough Sefia never left Oxscini, she spent the next year roaming the Forest Kingdom, searching in vain for signs of Nin or her kidnappers, growing tough and strong in her solitude. For the most part she survived on what she could gather, trap, and hunt; and when she wasn't setting snares, weaving lobster traps, or bow hunting in the woods, she was teaching herself to read.

It had been slow at first, one line at a time, until seeing the letters and understanding the most common words had become easier and easier. Still, it could take her minutes to make out the meanings of some words, struggling through the pronunciation, testing each sound on the edge of her tongue before stringing them all together. Other passages were so full of confusing, convoluted words that she ground her teeth at her own uselessness and skipped to something simpler.

She taught herself to read perched in treetops, in caves
carved by wind, overlooking surprising waterfalls crashing through the mountains, and every time she got the book out, every time she unwrapped it from its casing, she ran her fingers over the emblem on the cover, tracing the indentations.

It helped her conjure the people she'd lost. Her mother, features fading like watercolors in the sun. Her father, stiff and cold as wax. And Nin, staring at her through the leaves.

It became a ritual for her. Two curves for her parents, a curve for Nin. The straight line for herself. The circle for what she had to do: Learn what the book was for. Rescue Nin. And if she could, punish the people responsible.

But still the book gave her no answers, and however much she read, however skilled she became with a knife and a bow, she seemed no closer to fulfilling her vow.

Then, one day a couple weeks before she turned sixteen, everything changed.

As usual, Sefia was curled up in a hammock strung between two trees, eighty feet above the forest floor, with the canopy creaking and swaying above her and the mulchy ground far below. Soft whipped clouds drifted across the blue sky.

She had just settled down to read with the book cradled in her lap, and she unwrapped it in swift, smooth motions. There was the symbol, looking back at her like some dark eye. She traced its lines with the tip of her finger.

Answers.

Redemption.

Revenge.

Then she ran her fingers along the edges of the cover and flipped it open to a spade-shaped leaf she was using as a bookmark. The pages rippled beneath her hands, and she began to read.

The sound of snapping twigs interrupted her. Light as a bird, she closed the book and peered down through the leafy branches. There were more sounds: footsteps crunching through the undergrowth, groaning, the rattling of sword scabbards and gun holsters. Sefia listened intently. Judging from the noise, there were fifteen to twenty people trekking through the forest.

A minute later they came into her line of sight: dirty, sweaty men with sloping shoulders and stooped postures. They wore heavy boots, and their footfalls made great stomping sounds on the ground. A few of the men led underfed donkeys that towed rickety carts loaded with supplies. But the last cart carried only a battered crate, padlocked shut, with airholes punched in the sides, and branded on the back—a symbol she would have recognized anywhere.

She immediately thought of books, more books than she ever could have imagined existed, stacked one on top of another, and between their covers, millions upon millions of new words, new combinations.

She stared down at the book in her lap. A year of searching for the symbol and it had appeared not among the words but in the world, solid as the crate it was branded on.

A crate with airholes.

Sefia checked herself.
Books
didn't need air. She caught one glimpse of the crate before it disappeared around the next bend.

Nin?

Her hand went to her knife, and as the footsteps faded, she dismantled the hammock and shoved her belongings back into her pack. Checking for her bow and quiver of red-fletched arrows, she scrambled down the tree trunk.

Nin.

Before following the men north into the jungle, she dug her hands into the earth and narrowed her eyes, promising herself that this time she would not fail.

• • •

B
y the time they stopped, the sun had already sunk between the tree trunks, casting slanted yellow beams and bands of shadow through the undergrowth. Sefia scurried up a nearby tree, where she could survey their whole camp. The cart with the crate sat at the edge of the trees. The men seemed to avoid it as they built a fire and cooked dinner, going out of their way to keep a good distance between it and themselves. While they ate, Sefia gnawed a few strips of dried meat, searching the men for weaknesses while the rumble of their voices drifted up through the trees.

A man paused in polishing his rifle. “I tell ya. I never get tired of it. I've never seen anyone fight like that. Kid's quick as a cat.”

Beside him, his friend lifted his eye patch and scratched the skin stretched over his empty eye socket. “Mean too.”

“Stop that.” The rifleman swatted his friend, who laughed and straightened his eye patch. “You'd fight like crazy too, if you were in his place.”

One-Eye picked his teeth with a sliver of bone. “You gotta watch his face, though. You know what I'm saying? His face when he's fighting, it's . . .” He glanced nervously at the crate and nodded again. “He's like a cat. One of them big cats, with the golden eyes.”

Sefia scanned the campsite, but couldn't see anyone who fit that description. Disappointment flooded her. It probably wasn't Nin inside that crate.

Just beyond the ring of firelight, two men sat on a rock away from the others. While the bulk of the group ate and chatted easily, these two were watchful, calculating.

“A born killer,” said one, smoothing his bristling red beard. “I think that's the third one he's done in by snapping his neck.” His voice was deep and filled with the gravel of a lifelong smoker, and there was a delight in his words that made Sefia's skin crawl.

The second man grunted and picked at a scab on his fleshy arm. “All that matters is that he won, and we got paid.” He must have been Redbeard's superior. Sefia could smell his selfsatisfaction from her perch above the clearing. She studied him more closely: watery brown eyes, sparse straw-colored hair, skin gone ruddy from a life on the road. He wasn't tall, but he had the beefy figure of a wrestler. Not a man you'd want to cross.

Sefia gripped her knife harder, its cold curves reassuring in
her palm. She glanced at the crate, still untended at the edge of the clearing. The airholes stared at her like dozens of black eyes.

Impressors.
The word trickled down Sefia's back and spread like ice to the tips of her fingers. Boys captured and forced to fight each other. Boys turned into killers. A wave of cold anger and confusion struck her. What were impressors doing with the symbol on their crate?

“And we're one step closer to the Cage,” their leader added.

“You think we'll meet Serakeen, Hatchet?” Redbeard asked. “I hear Garula met him, when his boy won in the Cage.”

The hair rose on Sefia's forearms. The Scourge of the East. Was he responsible for the kidnappings, the brandings, the killings? It fit with his brutality. But why here? Why pay impressors to turn boys into murderers when he had enough murderers in his fleet already?

Hatchet flicked the last of his scab into the dirt and squinted at the raw skin beneath. “I couldn't care less about Serakeen. It's been too long since we've even gotten that far, and I'm dying to find out just how much the Arbitrator pays.” He stood abruptly and motioned to one of his other men.

Sefia watched one of the tallest men in the crew disengage from the rest of the group and trot over to where Hatchet and Redbeard sat.

“Yeah, boss?” he asked. When he spoke, the scar across his lower lip stretched and pulled, making his face seem crooked, like that of a clown.

“Get that mess cleaned up, Pal.” Hatchet gestured to the
spit and carcass. “Bury it. Far away. I don't want scavengers to come nosing around here tonight.”

Up in the tree, Sefia set her jaw. So the impressors were Serakeen's lackeys. How many boys did he have now? How many boys had died for this?

These men didn't have Nin. She doubted they knew anything about the book either. But they were connected, the book and Serakeen's impressors, by the symbol. And she had to find out how. She checked for Nin's old lock picks in the inner pocket of her vest and settled down to wait.

You'll get more than scavengers tonight
, she thought.

• • •

O
ne by one the fires became red pulsing embers, and the men settled under their blankets. Some of them snored, but most fell into the deep soundless sleep of the exhausted.

Sefia shouldered her pack and climbed down from her tree, alighting at the base of the trunk like a shadow. Unhooking the safety catch on her knife, she crept forward. The lone sentry, a young impressor with red hair, sat on one of the carts at the edge of the clearing, leaning against the sideboard for support.

She paused beside the cart wheel, watching the back of the sentry's head. The handle of her knife grew hot in her palm. She couldn't risk him alerting the others. She had the advantage. Easy. It would be quick.

Still she didn't move. The side of his face was silhouetted in the dying firelight, which passed through the fine fuzz on his jaw, illuminating each thin strand. He was barely more than a boy himself.

The sentry's head tipped forward. He began snoring softly.

Swallowing, Sefia released her knife. She slipped the lock picks into her hand and crept to the crate, looking forlorn at the edge of the clearing.

Running her fingertips along the splintery edges, Sefia searched for the heavy iron padlock and grinned. It was a simple lock, the sort you could commission from any common blacksmith. She'd been picking locks like this since she was nine. She took a deep breath and scanned the rest of the clearing, but no one stirred.

She traced the symbol on the corner of the crate. Two lines for her parents, one for Nin. One for her, and what she had to do next. Inserting her picks into the lock, she set to work.

After a few seconds of tinkering, she released the padlock and eased the door open with one hand. With the other, she grasped her knife. Deep inside, she was still hoping to see Nin, or at least books and stacks of paper, but she wasn't surprised when a battered-looking boy emerged from the shadows. He was laced with fresh wounds—cuts and bruises on his legs and arms, across his bare back. He peered out from under the crook of his arm, but she couldn't tell if he was afraid or ready to attack.

“Shh,” she murmured, stealing a glance at the sleeping sentry. “I'm here to help you.”

The stench was awful: a mix of blood and sweat and urine. But she gritted her teeth and whispered in the kindest voice she could muster, “Come with me.” The boy cringed, but she said it again, though her hand didn't stray from her knife. “Please, come with me.”