The Books of Knowledge

  The world inside Airyel’s walls couldn’t have been more different than the one outside. Huge estates rose up on the sides of the valley, pouring opulence down onto the streets below over wrought-iron railings stuffed to bursting with flowers. Bramblebees of every color danced around the flowers, some bright yellow, others as red as taspberries, still others orange, or green. Marble statuary lined every property and stood in every park square, of which there seemed to be hundreds, dotted all across the town in honor of everyone and anyone the Airyellians could think to pay tribute. Stretched across the wide, redbrick streets, high above the bustling crowds, were garlands of pine and jundaroses.

  One of the most remarkable things about North Airyel was that Pilotte was not the only exotic creature. Slate noted many others as well, from walecats, giant felines with bright blue bands of fur around their eyes, to stubranges, squat animals with fat legs and wide bodies. Slate asked the apparent owner of one of these stubranges if she knew the location of Guh Hsing’s bookshop, and was pleased to find it was only a few blocks away. Slate was eager to complete his deliver and then start asking where his father might be.

  When he and Pilotte reached Guh’s shop, Slate left the snarlingwulf outside and went in.

  “Hello? Guh Hsing?” Slate called into the darkened interior.

  "Who's that?" a voice called from the back.

  "I’m looking for someone named Guh Hsing,” Slate answered.

  An elderly man shuffled out from the back of the store. “Who is it looking?” he asked.

  “My name is Slate Ahn. I have a package for Guh Hsing, from Aislin.”

  “What sort of package?” the man asked.

  “I’m not sure… It’s from Naan Falls,” Slate answered.

  “Naan Falls?” the man asked, his eyes popping with excitement.

  “Yes,” Slate said hesitantly. “Do you know where Guh is?”

  The old man darted to the front window and scanned the street outside. “That’s… that’s a snarlingwulf out there!” he exclaimed, grabbing his scalp. “How did you… Is that creature yours?”

  “No, but he follows me. He has ever since we met,” Slate answered.

  “My goodness,” the man whispered. “You know, it’s a rare person who gets the devotion of a snarlingwulf.”

  “He’s a great traveling partner, anyways,” said Slate. “So, do you know Guh? I was told this was his shop.

  It’s me!” the man said in a whisper.

  “Who?” Slate asked.

  “Guh Hsing!”

  Slate scoffed disbelievingly. “You’re Guh Hsing?”

  “Yes, he’s me!” the man said.

  “So this is your bookshop?” Slate asked.

  “Yes, yes it is,” said Guh. “Please, wait here. Right here. I’ll be right back.”

  “Can Pilotte come in?” Slate called to Guh, who had disappeared again into the back of the store.

  “Yes, that’s fine!” came Guh’s response.

  Slate let Pilotte in and then strolled about the small shop. The afternoon sun poured in through yellowed curtains, bathing the interior in soft light. The big picture window at the front of the store nestled a seating area padded with overstuffed beige pillows upon which slept two plump, orange cats, until Pilotte entered, at which point the cats fled. The store’s aisles were delineated by three bookshelves, which ran back to a heavy wooden counter. The place was smaller than the library at the Falls residence, but its texts were more ornate, decorated with jeweled and etchleath covers. Bazzeb webs and dust showed that many of the books hadn’t been disturbed for years. It was only the New Release section that showed any sign of recent visitation.

  “You don’t have much business here, do you, Mr. Hsing?” Slate asked when Guh returned.

  “How would you know that?” Guh asked defensively. “What would make you think that?

  Well, this place looks like a tomb,” Slate answered.

  “And you look like a foolish young man,” Guh said. “Perhaps we are both mistaken?

  Well, I’m not as foolish as I look,” Slate said.

  “And I have very good business. Let’s not go by first impressions, shall we?” said Guh. “I print here. Do you know printing?”

  “No?”

  “Can you read?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where do you think the words in books come from?”

  “Someone writes them there?”

  “Ah, I see. I suppose you are from the west... No, see, we don’t have to write things by hand anymore. See,” he explained, as he showed Slate a machine resembling a wine press that sat on the back counter. Guh cranked up the top of the press with a hand pedal and then unscrewed from it a plate. There were words on the plate, though Slate couldn’t read them easily because they were mirrored. “I arrange the letters onto this plate, and then we can ink them and print many copies, very quickly,” Guh explained.

  Slate watched Guh demonstrate: He took the letters from a cabinet hanging on the wall, arranged them on a plate, and then screwed the plate back up into the press. He put a clean sheet of paper into a well below the plate, brought the press down a bit, and then wiped the letters with an oily cloth. He lowered the press all the way to the paper, wound it back, and handed the result to Slate, the whole action taking no more than three minutes.

  “Well that’s pretty neat!” Slate marveled at the resultant printing. It depicted on it Slate’s name, three flower forms, and a little dog figure. “It’s so fast.”

  “You see now how it is,” Guh said. “That’s how I have good business. I print up menus, pamphlets. There are only two other presses in town, so we stay busy.”

  “Who’s we?” Slate asked.

  “Well, me and the cats. And now, you. I could use your help. Strong young man like you.”

  “I can’t stay here," Slate said. "I’m just here to give you the package. The real reason I’m travelling is to find my father.”

  “Oh? We’ll see, we’ll see,” Guh mused. “First, let’s get something to eat.”

  “I suppose I can wait long enough to eat. I’m starving,” Slate said. “I actually have some blue crabs in my sack, if you’ve got a way to cook them.”

  “Blue crabs? Delicious. Oh, things just keep getting better, don’t they, Slate?” laughed Guh.

  The two cooked up the crab in a tiny, back-room kitchen along with some rice and a vegetable Slate had never had before, something Guh called mea. As they ate over the sink, their faces close to their steaming bowls, Guh asked Slate a litany of questions. Slate answered them half-heartedly, wondering why Guh should be so invasive, but focusing on the tasty snap crunch of the mea.

  “What about school, have you completed your schooling?” asked Guh.

  “No, I haven’t,” said Slate. “Not formally. No schools in Alleste. But I did some studying in Aislin.”

  “The Falls have one of the largest ancient libraries on Alm, did you know that?”

  “No. But I…”

  “And your family, what about your family?”

  “Why do you have so many questions anyways?” Slate asked.

  “Because the answers are very important,” answered Guh.

  “Why?” Slate asked.

  “Slate, I don’t know how much the Falls have explained to you, but you have stepped into something vast. Something incredible. Something that will affect the entire course of Alm’s future.”

  Slate choked on a bit of crab, turning red as he struggled to take it down. He finally cleared his throat and gasped, “Care to elaborate?”

  Guh Hsing put down his bowl and shuffled to the kitchen door to close and lock it. Slate wondered if he should be worried for his safety. He looked to the window over the sink, and wondered if he might be able to fit through it if he had to escape.

  “What would you say,” Guh asked, “If I told you that I know who burned down the Great Hall?”

  Slate wasn’t expecting Guh to ask any such thing. “What should I say?”
he asked incredulously.

  “Yes, Slate,” Guh said, “There are very strange things happening these days. Searches. Mysteries.”

  “I’m not searching for any mysteries, Guh,” Slate said. “Anyways, dinner was excellent. But now, Pilotte and I should really try and figure out where my father is.”

  “Do you have any idea at all?” Guh asked.

  “Only that he’s in town,” answered Slate.

  “Tell you what, Slate. I know a lot of people in town. I could ask around for you. It would be a lot easier than trying to find him yourself.”

  “I’d really appreciate that, Guh,” said Slate.

  “Well, you did bring me my package, anyhow,” said Guh. “I’d be happy to do that for you. I’ll ask about first thing tomorrow. For tonight, you can sleep in the room above the shop. I’ll find you some pillows.”

  “Thank you, very much,” Slate said.

  He made sure to call Pilotte to join him upstairs in the shop, as something about Guh Hsing seemed the slightest bit off. Even if it was only the cider making him paranoid, Slate felt safer with his travelling partner and loyal friend beside him in the dusty, cramped storage space above the printing shop that Guh gave them for a bedroom. Dingy as the space was, it was warm, the pillows Guh found for Slate were soft, and the room stayed nice and dark and quiet and allowed Slate deep sleep.

  The next morning shook Slate to his feet with a series of loud bangs and a clamor of voices from the shop below. He moved closer to the stairs, to try to make out what the arguing was over. He heard a low, raspy voice that he could not understand, followed by another, then Guh’s, which he could hear more clearly.

  “You can’t come in here,” Guh insisted. “I told you you’re not allowed!”

  There was more growling from the other voices.

  “It’s private property,” Guh said. “Get out! Get out!”

  The unfamiliar voices lowered their tones, then Slate heard stomping across the floor. After the front door bell rang with the visitors’ departure, Slate made his way down the stairs to ask Guh what all the commotion had been about.

  “Good morning, Guh,” Slate yawned as he stretched.

  “Good?” Guh snapped.

  “I’m sorry,” Slate said. “What were those men here about?”

  “Nothing,” Guh sighed. “I’m sorry, it was nothing.”

  “Looks like the printing trade is a dangerous business.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Guh said. “Listen, I’m going to head out, to take care of some errands and see if I can’t find out where your father is at. Would you mind helping me with some deliveries?”

  “Oh,” Slate said, surprised, “Sure I will. I’ve got nothing else to do. Of course.

  Excellent. I have another strange favor to ask. Do you think you could leave your wulf here while you’re out? To keep an eye on things?” asked Guh.

  “I guess…” Slate said. “Are you in trouble, Guh?”

  “I really have to be going. The deliveries and addresses are there on the counter. Expect word about your father later,” Guh said, before dashing out the back door in a hurry.

  “What a strange man,” Slate said to Pilotte, who was trying to make his way down the circular staircase from the second floor.

  Slate took the load of parcels wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine from the counter, along with a piece of paper that listed the addresses they were to be delivered to.

  “I hope you don’t mind hanging out here for a little bit, Pilotte,” Slate said. “I’m going to be right back after these deliveries, and I’ll bring you a treat, okay?”

  The wulf seemed happy to lie back down and return to sleep, and so Slate left for his errands.

  The first delivery was just across the street: one large, flat parcel and two smaller and thicker ones for J. Wellington of Wellington’s Haberdashery. A great number of the foolish hats that North Airyellians donned around town sat in the window of this museum of bad taste, and Slate was trying to imagine why Mr. Wellington would even think to construct a specifically awful one of the hats, a nest-like affair replete with eggs and chicks, when someone wearing the very design walked directly in between Slate and the display.

  He withheld his laughter as long as he could, breaking down two blocks later on the same street outside Carters and Sons, a hardware store that was closed. It was a sturdy and imposing brick building, like most of the others in town, executed in simple curves and hard edges. Slate slid their one heavy parcel through the mail slot, and then cut down two more stone-paved blocks south and three east, to Babacelli’s Wine. Babacelli greeted Slate with a giant, “Hey!” which startled Slate as he fumbled through his stack for Babacelli’s three medium-sized parcels. “My menus! Hey!” bellowed Babacelli, stuffing a fat tip into Slate’s shirt pocket. Slate hadn’t considered the possibility of being tipped for his errands, and now felt more eager to finish the rest of his route and see if anyone else was feeling as generous as old Babacelli.

  The rest of the deliveries were all in an older part of town. On Graypyre Street were Johnson’s and The Black Keys, where two and five more parcels were unloaded, respectively. That left two parcels, both addressed to one K. P. of Bartlett’s Fruits, which sat across from a sprawling graveyard. Slate cut through the graveyard, passing the headstones of countless lost friends. He passed one that gave him pause, as the deceased had the same birth date as his own. The poor soul had died before making it to ten years of age.

  Slate pushed his last two parcels through the mail slot at Bartlett’s Fruits. As he was doing so, the door swung open into the store.

  “Hey, what’re…?” barked the frazzled man in the doorway. “Oh, menus,” he said, taking and then throwing them back into the store haphazardly. "Here, this’s for you,” the man said as he handed a roll of goldquartz to Slate.

  “Thank you,” Slate said quickly. He stole away from the testy fruit salesman and turned quickly down the first alley he came to.

  There, amidst the sawdust and trash, he sat on a rusty old barrel frame and counted his tips, a total of thirty-seven goldquartz from just the two customers who had actually been present for their deliveries. Slate was amazed at his fortune, and decided to stop at a mercantile, to purchase a giant bone for Pilotte and a new hat for himself.

  He returned to Guh’s shop two hours after he had left, finding Pilotte still sleeping and Guh now busy at work on the press.

  “All done, Guh,” Slate said happily as he slapped down the remainder of the tips on the counter.

  “What’s that?” Guh asked.

  “The tips I made, said Slate. “Or, what’s left. I got a new hat and a bone for Pilotte.”

  “Those are for you to keep,” said Guh.

  “Oh wow, really?” Slate asked. “Thanks!”

  “No, thank you,” Guh said. “I’m sorry I was short with you this morning.”

  “It’s okay,” said Slate. “People get angry sometimes.”

  “You’re a good person, Slate,” said Guh.

  “Ahhh,” Slate said, waving away the praise. “What’re you up to?”

  Guh stopped his work and came to the other side of the counter where Slate was standing.

  “Slate…” he began, “I have some bad news.”

  “What is it?” Slate asked.

  “It’s about your father. Now… I don’t know how to give it to you.”

  “What is it? Is he in trouble? Is he hurt?”

  “I don’t know how to do this the right way,” Guh said, moving to where his coat was slumped over a stool. He took a small package from under the coat and brought it to Slate at the counter. “I got this from my friend,” he said. “He knew your father… Take this, and go ahead and go out back and open it up.”

  “Okay?” Slate said, taking the package.

  He exited the back door and sat on a busted bench with the small package. Swallowing down his pounding heart, he opened it with trembling hands. It contained his father
’s knife. He noticed that the package also contained a letter. Before he unfolded the letter, he looked to the sky in prayer that its message wouldn’t be too painful. It read:

  My dear Slate,

  It won’t be long for me now. The doctor tells me I have maybe three days left, tops. It’s a hell of a thing to hear someone tell you that. But we all have to go. I never dreamed I was any exception. I wish only that I had enough time to see you once more, to hold you, to tell you in person how much I love you. I’m sorry you have to find me like this, meaning not find me at all. I’m sorry I ever left, that I thought we needed more than we had in Alleste. Know that I only left to help you. And that I died trying to do the right thing, trying to help a stranger. Like I always taught you and your brother, others are all we really have in this life, all that matters. The money I was going to send to you I leave to you now, with my knife. Carry it always, as I have you in my heart. And know that I’m watching over you. I love you, son. Tell your brother the same. You’ll both be great men, I know it. I’ve always known.

  I love you, Slate.

  Dad

  Slate could hardly read the words due to the tears in his eyes. His chest hurt so much, the kind of hurt only love can cause, one so much deeper than any other kind of pain. He took the knife from the box, the knife he had seen his father reach for so many times. Its handle had been decorated by his mother. Holding the knife seemed to cut something loose inside Slate. Tears began to flow like rain. Through the distortion of his tears, Slate saw his father’s strong, thick-skinned hands holding the knife instead of his own. They were a father’s, a farmer’s. The strongest person Slate had even known. For almost a half an hour all Slate could do was weep, as layers of sadness peeled off his heavy heart and were taken by the wind.

  When Slate came back to his senses, he realized Pilotte was lying at his feet. Slate reached for the wulf, who jumped up and nuzzled his huge face into Slate’s chest. Slate leaned on his friend and cried some more, until he didn’t want to feel such deep hurt any longer. He rose from his bench and went back into Guh’s shop.

  “He’s dead, Guh,” Slate said.

  “I know. I’m sorry, Slate,” Guh said. “He died trying to protect a stranger from being robbed.”

  “What am I supposed to do now?” Slate asked.

  “You don’t have to think about that right now,” Guh said. “Are you hungry?”

  “No,” said Slate.

  “Do you want to sleep?

  Yes.”

  “You go ahead and sleep, okay? And if you’re hungry or you need anything at all, you just let me know, okay?”

  Slate headed for the stairs without answering.

  “I’m sorry, Slate,” Guh said. “I know it doesn’t ease your pain, but I lost my father a few years ago. I know how it hurts.”

  Slate nodded and walked up the stairs, then fell into the bed Guh had prepared for him and pulled the covers over his head.

  He stayed in bed for days, sometimes sleeping but mostly not, thinking about his father and how he’d never see him again and how lost he felt now. He had only left home to find the man, and now he was gone, and so it seemed was Slate’s purpose and direction in life.

  After nearly a week, Guh’s insistence that Slate eat finally reached him, and Slate stumbled back down the stairs into the bookshop, then out the back door, to join Guh and Pilotte for dinner.

  “Go ahead, eat all you want,” Guh said.

  Slate stabbed at some food with his fork, but couldn’t bring himself to eat anything.

  “So what are you going to do now, Slate?” Guh asked.

  “I don’t know,” Slate answered.

  “Well you can’t sleep forever,” Guh said.

  “I know that.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’d want to do?” Guh asked.

  “No,” Slate answered. “Maybe go back to Aislin.”

  “Well, that’s something,” Guh said. “Before that, would you like something to take your mind off your father?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I know that when my father died, I had to leave town, to get away from my memories and myself, before I could start feeling alive again.”

  “Did you?”

  “Would you like to do the same?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I have all the sympathy in the world for you, Slate, but I also don’t want to see you wallow in your sadness. One has to try to lift themselves up when they’re in a place like you are.”

  “Do they?”

  “They do. Now, I’m going to be leaving soon.”

  “You are?”

  “I have to. Things are getting dangerous for me around here.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I have to be leaving soon, but before I do, I need a favor.”

  “You need some more books delivered?”

  “In a way, yes,” Guh said. “Now, I don’t want to push you, but I need to leave soon and so I need to know if you want to do me this favor, and if you want the opportunity to get outside your head.”

  Slate looked up from playing with his food to stare at Guh blankly.

  “Well?” Guh asked.

  Slate looked over to Pilotte, who smiled back at his friend.

  “What are we talking about, Guh?”

  “I’ll take that as interested. Listen closely,” Guh said gravely, as he leaned in toward Slate across the dingy table in the back alley behind. “The Falls from Aislin are descendants of AlriFal. One of the seven great sages who wrote the Book of Knowledge.”

  “The what?” Slate asked.

  “The Book of Knowledge. When the seven sages from Aurora Falls, where humanity rode out the Fall and compiled the Book full of all the knowledge of the Gods grew old, they moved away from the world,” Guh continued, “To retire to lives of solitary contemplation.”

  “You don't say?” Slate said. He had no idea what Guh was talking about.

  “They each agreed to each create a repository where they settled, so that the knowledge of the Gods, of the time before the Fall, could be retained. AlriFal took his own collection of the knowledge to Aislin, as one of the first settlers of Aelioanei. The Falls own house was built upon the exact same location that their ancestor chose, on the foundations of his library.”

  “Guh Hsing,” Slate interrupted, “I’m sorry, I’m really tired. I don’t understand.”

  Guh didn’t stop. “And that library contained one of the seven volumes of the Book of Knowledge."

  “Really?” Slate asked.

  “It was this that Mrs. Falls had you bring to me,” answered Guh.

  The old man now produced the package Slate had delivered. It was free of its wrappings, and so Slate could see its crystalline jacket. Guh handed the sealed book to Slate. He fumbled with it, unsure of how to react.

  “…I think it’s locked,” he said.

  "Indeed,” Guh murmured.

  “Well... what’s the book about?” Slate asked.

  “So it is said, that in the times before the heavens fell and Alm swallowed itself, a race of people lived who were so incredibly advanced, so perfect in their relationship to nature, that they could even fly into outer space if they so desired.”

  “Isn’t that the beginning to the Legend?” asked Slate.

  “It’s also history,” Guh said. “The book you are holding now was produced by those people who lived before the Fall. Our Legend is their mythologized history.

  Right. But it’s sealed shut,” Slate said. “How do you know what it says inside?”

  “Pieces of the knowledge have been passed down from generation to generation, though most of it has been lost.”

  “The Falls didn't say anything about that. Why haven’t I heard of any of this before?” Slate asked, furrowing his brow. “Oh, wait, I guess Mrs. Falls did say she couldn’t tell me why I had to carry the book…”

  “There aren’t many alive who know these truths, Slate. The secrets ar
e whispered, but the legacy of the Gods remains. Think, how is it that all of Alm’s languages are derived from proto-Protersian? How scientific measurements are uniform for all peoples, across all continents? Why do all folk histories include the story of the Fall? Because it's all true, it all came from the ancients. From this book. Well, not this one. The one you are holding is written in archaic Protersian, it's basically unreadable. But a translation key exists, somewhere.”

  “Why are they being assembled now?” asked Slate.

  “Because the city of Opal Pools, on the eastern coast of Proterse, has translated a set,” Guh said. “And they are building a weapon of terrible, terrible destruction with what they have learned.”

  "Why?" Slate asked. “And why do you have part of it?”

  "I am a member of the Protectorate. We who have overseen the protection of the Gods' books since the Fall," Guh answered.

  “So, you are in the protectorment?” Slate asked, still trying to wrap his head around all he was hearing.

  “The Protectorate, yes,” Guh said. “Like my father before me. Like Naan Falls.”

  Slate rubbed his eyes and frowned.

  “Slate, you must realize the importance of what I’m telling you.”

  “Oh, I believe you. Sorry, Guh,” Slate said. “I’m just tired. Really tired.”

  “Come with me,” said Guh.

  He got up from his seat and called for Slate to follow him into a hallway leading to the shop’s office. There, he led wary Slate through an opening revealed in the back of a fireplace. The opening went into a tiny passage that ended at a circular staircase, which wound down into the bedrock. Staring down the staircase into the pitch black below, Slate wondered what he was doing.

  Guh lit a number of candles at the bottom of the staircase and then Slate could see around him. The space appeared to be another library, one even more ancient and untouched than the bookshop upstairs contained.

  Guh took from a shelf an ornate key, cut from quartz in a talon shape, with three ridges of incisions around its circumference. At the top of the talon was an asthern’s head, sculpted perfectly from the grain of the quartz. Black clane inlets for the asthern’s eyes completed the design, which even in the dim light of the cave was one of the most beautiful pieces of art Slate had ever seen.

  “I’ve been waiting until you’re ready,” Guh said.

  “For what?” Slate asked.

  “To open the book. This’ll be our moment of truth, then,” Guh said. “Here, hold it tight so I can insert the key.”

  Slate held the book from Mrs. Falls tightly as Guh carefully inserted the point of the talon key into the lock. When it reached the first ridge of inscriptions, the key stopped, and so Guh tried twisting it, which released one layer of diamondcrest bindings. This exposed a second key hole, on the underside of the case, which released another set of bindings when the key was inserted into it up to the second ridge of inscriptions. When Guh tried to twist the key back out, the bottom of the key detached, leaving a flat bottom on the asthern-head. This fit perfectly into the wider rim around the hole on the top of the binding. A last twist of the key to the left popped the rest of the diamondcrest casing off completely, leaving the pieces of the key irretrievable from their keyholes.

  “So now what? I almost expected an explosion or something,” said Slate.

  “Well, we had to get the cover off.”

  “So we did that. What does it mean?”

  “Open it, Slate.”

  The illustrated pages were full of things that Slate had never seen before. Machines, animals, plants, places, people, thousands of fantastic things that Slate couldn’t begin to understand. And accompanying it all was a strange text that Slate could not read.

  “It’s great,” Slate said with a yawn. “I guess. Just... what does it mean?”

  “It’s proof of what I was telling you," Guh said. "About how important you bringing the book here was. I can tell that you struggle to believe.”

  “What do you expect? You tell me that crazy story. You can’t even read the words on these pages, Guh. It doesn’t even look like real writing,” Slate said.

  “Like I said, they are written in an early Protersian script. But a translation code exists!”

  “What about the knowledge that’s been passed down? Wasn't that all the good stuff anyways?”

  “So much was thought lost in the Fall, Slate. But these books contain it all! I was not really lost! I know it seems nonsensical, but I try to understand. Like... this picture, here, with the arrows and the bizarre little creatures, I think it’s a medical text. I think the whole volume is medical. My friend Voutre has begun to experiment with an optical instrument that can magnify living particles to an incredible degree with lenses, making them visible to our eyes. What he’s seeing in the minutest examinations of the human body very strongly resembles the pictures in this book.”

  “But if any of the stuff was at all relevant or applicable, wouldn’t we know about it, now? Couldn’t we write about it in modern Protersian?”

  “Certainly every age of man thinks it’s the brightest one, Slate. But perhaps what is in these ancient books is beyond our capabilities, yet. Perhaps fantastic machines and wonders are just around the corner, waiting for re-invention. I’ve done some research on my own, and if you compare it with the books…” continued Guh, as he flipped through a second book to a section containing pictures of plants alongside human forms, “See, here, this picture looks just like a graybane flower, and it points to the head. And we all know that graybane calms headaches, right? So I tried another one, this one here that looks like a dead ringer for yiuyiu, correlated to the eyes. Tell you what; it made me half-blind. So there’s no positive or negative association with the correlations, just that they are linked. Also, there are plenty of plants that aren’t represented in the books, and there are some plants in there that I’ve never seen or heard of.”

  “I’ve seen lots of books on plants far more extensive and relevant than this nonsense here, ones that have been produced within the last few years,” said Slate.

  “But you see, Slate, it’s the combination of information from the entire set of the Books of Knowledge that holds the true power. It is the summary of all of the knowledge together that grants the possessor the powers of the Gods. It is this power that Opal Pools has used to create their horrible new weapon.”

  Slate stared at a page in one of the books, trying hard to take the drawings seriously, but he couldn’t. “I don’t mean to be rude,” he said, “But to an Allestian, it all just seems like a lot of nonsense."

  “What you think is nonsense may spell the end of freedom for many people on Alm,” said Guh.

  “Well what can be done about it? Why are you telling me?”

  “Because I need you to take the three volumes of the Book that I have here and transport them to Aurora Falls for me. For a meeting of the Protectorate, where the seven volumes will be reassembled and we will decide what to do with them,” said Guh. “I cannot do it myself. There are already too many people looking for them. Who know I’m associated with them, and suspect I have them already. You would not attract such suspicion.”

  “Where do you want me to take them?”

  “To Aurora Falls. Across the ocean. To Proterse.”

  “All the way to Proterse?”

  “You would be paid handsomely, and remembered forever. This is a very exciting opportunity.”

  “Then why aren’t I excited? I don’t really care to be paid handsomely or remembered forever.”

  “And that is why you are the right person for the task. I know you are sad, and I understand. But doing this for me, for us, will shake you out of your sadness, and help a huge number of people. It will affect the entire course of the history of Alm.”

  Slate sighed. “I’ll ask you the same thing I asked Mrs. Falls: What if I lose them? What if I mess up?”

  “They are safer with you than with me,” Guh said. “If they stay with me
, someone would surely take them. At least they have a chance with you to make it to Aurora Falls.”

  “And there’s no one else you could ask?”

  “Not that I could trust.”

  “Why should you trust me?”

  “Because Pilotte does. Because I’ve seen your character. I know you’re a good person, Slate.”

  Slate shook his head. “When would I have to leave?”

  “As soon as possible,” Guh answered.

  Slate stared at the ground and then answered, “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll take your books across the ocean,” Slate said. “I don’t have any money…”

  “We’ll pay for everything,” Guh said.

  “Alright,” said Slate. “Can we finish dinner now?”

  “I’m happy to hear your appetite is back,” said Guh.

  “Yeah,” said Slate, feeling a little better. “I guess life has to go on at some point, right?”

  “That’s right,” Guh said. “We’ll eat well; you have a long trip ahead of you.”

  The next morning, Guh prepared a huge breakfast for Slate and Pilotte, which Slate still didn’t have much of an appetite for, but Pilotte was happy to finish.

  “Well, the cats were off with my friend Canaya this morning. I suppose there’s no reason for either of us to stay here any longer. I’ll be waiting for you in Aurora Falls when you get there, alright?” Guh said as he handed Slate a bag full of supplies.

  “Right,” said Slate. “I sure hope I can make it. What is going to happen to your bookshop?”

  “Whatever must,” Guh answered. “All they can find now is the basement, which may confuse the new owners but no longer holds any secrets. Those go with you now.”

  “Are you sad, to leave the place you’ve lived your whole life?” Slate asked.

  “Only for the memories I have here. But I’ll take those with me,” answered Guh. “Remember, seek out the ship named Sefose in South Airyel. That will take you to Proterse. I’ve got leave now. Enjoy your journey, Slate Ahn. I’ll see you soon.”

  The old man flipped the sign in the window from open to closed, then stepped out front door. He waved through the window and then was gone, leaving Slate and Pilotte alone in the shop.

  “You ready, Pilotte?” Slate asked the wulf.

  Pilotte wagged his tail, knocking a whole shelf of books onto the floor.

  Slate smiled. “Then here we go.”

  Slate thought of happy memories of his father as he hiked the small distance between North and South Airyel. Some were sad, only because Slate would never be able to recall them with his father, but Guh was right; the memories would always exist, and so, in that way, Slate could never really lose his father, despite the fact that he was no longer living.

  Towering chimneys of industry blew columns of smoke and steam up into the sky as Slate and Pilotte approached South Airyel. The Florian Ocean knocked at the city’s break walls, bejeweled with the lights of the harbor and the fires of innumerable ships. Even at the city’s edge, the air was thick and congested with the pollution from the waterfront factories, the crumbling streets strewn with garbage. Crouching beneath broken edifices and sagging pillars were sets of hungry eyes leering from the shadows.

  “Keep close,” Slate said to Pilotte. “We won’t have to be here long.”

  Slate was walking cautiously along, watching a fight develop on the opposite side of the street, when he mistakenly bumped into a young man, one who looked to be somewhere around his own age.

  “I’m sorry,” Slate apologized.

  “Watch where you’re going,” the stranger said.

  “I said I’m sorry,” Slate repeated.

  The stranger stared at Slate for a moment, but said nothing more before disappearing into an alley. By this point, the fight across the street had attracted the attention of the police and their compliance clubs. The officers were showing no favorites, pummeling both sides of the argument equally. When a crowd started to develop around the fight, placing bets and cheering, Slate decided he wanted to leave South Airyel as soon as possible.

  Because the city sloped down to the ocean, Slate could see the harbor from nearly anywhere in town, which saved him the anxiety of having to ask any of the mean-faced citizenry for directions. He proceeded down through crumbling infrastructure, eventually finding his way to a park near the waterfront where he sat down on a graffiti-covered bench to eat some lunch, thinking how cold and uncomfortable the bench was compared to the mossy floor of the forest.

  After Slate's hurried meal, a grizzled old sailor told him where he could find the Sefose, the ship on which Guh had secured him board. Slate and Pilotte followed the sailor’s directions to pier seventeen, which was deserted, save for some junk fishermen who worked in heavy clothing to protect themselves from the waste choking the docks. Slate watched them for a moment before noticing a bill hanging from one of the pier’s posts. It read:

  Sailing To-Morrow:

  The Merchant Ship Sefose

  Captain Alistair Slocum and Crew of Twelve

  Available: ONE rooms quarters for

  Transportation to Proterse via the Passage Islands

  Docking in Jaidour

  Those present at ten hour will be interviewed for consideration.

  Slate was confused as to whether or not he already had a room on the Sefose or if he would have to be interviewed yet. As there was no one around to ask, he and Pilotte headed back into town to find a room for the night. The manager at the inn they found seemed reluctant to house the wulf, but a bribe erased his concern.

  The room was warm and the bed just the right amount of broken-in. Slate washed his clothes and himself in the small, communal bathroom down the hall, then set his clothes out to dry before climbing into bed and falling fast asleep.

  Slate awoke hungry, and so roused Pilotte from a deep sleep for help in scrounging up breakfast. The two stopped briefly at the front desk to settle their bill and ask directions toward something to eat before stepping out into the morning hustle.

  After eating, Slate and Pilotte found the Sefose docked at pier seventeen when they returned there. Slate expected a crowd, or at least a few others looking to rent the bed available on board, but there was no one but the shipmaster around.

  “So you’re the lucky lottery winner, eh?” the shipmaster asked drolly as he handed Slate a ticket.

  “I...guess? I was sent here by a man named Guh Hsing. Do you know who that is?” Slate asked.

  “No idea, son,” the shipmaster said.

  “He said he secured me passage on this ship.”

  “I didn’t hear anything about that.”

  “But there’s a room available?”

  “That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

  “Yes… is there anything else I have to do, or is that it?”

  “That's it. Just get onboard, that’s all. And make it snappy, we’re all ready now.”

  "I'm sorry if I'm late," Slate said.

  "It's fine. Come on," the shipmaster said.

  “And my wulf can come with me, right?” asked Slate.

  “Yes, it can,” answered the shipmaster. “Now, let’s go. We’ve got a lot of ocean to cover. Ocean teeming with pirates.”

  “Pirates?” Slate whispered to Pilotte as the two made their way up the gangplank.

  The Sefose was tugged from the pier not long after. Slate stood beside Pilotte on the deck and stared back at his island, his whole life up until that point, as the ship drifted away from it. He wondered about Arianna and the other Falls, about his brother. He wondered if the island might be different when he returned, or if he would. It wasn’t until Aelioanei disappeared behind the swelling fog that Slate's thoughts turned to Proterse and what might lie ahead.

  Chapter 10