“Blind risk is stupid, but calculated risks are worth taking.”
We move quietly down the hall, careful not to alert any other occupants to our presence. The last thing we need would be the screaming of a raving lunatic calling attention to our activities. We journey down a spiraling staircase to a hallway full of more doors. Behind the seventh door on the right is a small chamber, a cell not unlike my own, only empty. Faria walks to the center and crouches. He lifts a heavy obsidian floor tile, putting it aside to reveal a secret compartment.
“See for yourself,” he says.
I hunch beside him as he pulls a box from the compartment. Inside the box is a tablet reader. He hands it to me. I feel the wood, plastic, and metal of advanced but ancient technology. The screen comes alive in my hand, projecting liquid metal pins onto the surface. They stand out like rough little bumps on the otherwise smooth surface of the device.
“A tactile pad?” I ask.
“Yes,” Faria says. “Perfect for the blind. Illustrated in a long forgotten text called nightscript. It contains the literature of thousands of cultures, scientific achievements of races long dead. More importantly, it contains maps.”
“To where?” I ask.
“To more destinations in the Fracture than one could travel in a lifetime.” He plucks the reader from my hand and keys several of the bumps with his fingers. I hear the liquid metal morph as a new pattern is generated.
“This is the one that should concern you.”
He hands me the tablet again, and my fingers gloss over the surface. I’ve not been trained to read with touch, not yet, so I’m not sure what I am looking at. “A map of the Citadel?” I guess.
“These are the original architectural schematics,” Faria tells me. “It’s how I was able to learn to move about this place. The lunar equinox is almost upon us. The moons of Chang and Hou will circle the Nightside, and my sentence will end. You’ll be on your own. I’ll teach you to read the script, and you will explore this place alone as I once did.”
“How did you find—?”
“The second map,” he says, cutting me off, “will only be of use if you ever leave the planet. I share this with you, Edmon, for I have doubts I may ever see a different sky.”
“You’ll live a long time yet, Master,” I say reassuringly.
“You don’t know how old I am, boy. The genetic code contains a maximum number of cell divisions. Telomeres shorten. Division may be slowed; it may not be stopped. With the skills I’ve taught you, one can keep a body alive for a long time, but there are consequences. I train you so you may complete this task.”
I sit in silence.
“You’re Edric Leontes’s son,” he says. “I believe if anyone has the chance to be released from this hell, it will be you.”
I’m his means of escape, and all his tests have been to ensure that I was capable of that.
“Don’t be sullen,” he reprimands. “I’ve shared with you my secrets. Don’t forget—you’ve used me, too. You wanted to learn. I’ve taught. You wanted a friend. I’ve given. That’s what humans do.”
“Use each other.” I understand his meaning.
“Self-interest,” he agrees, “whether for power or love. I’m too greedy to teach solely for the joy of watching you grow. I don’t have much time left.”
“What’s on the map?” I ask.
“The Citadel stood long before your father changed the Wendigo to a labor camp. When I came here, there was a man, older and wiser than I will ever be. He was a spypsy imprisoned here. How he came to be on this accursed world, I do not know. Then again, my own story is sad and strange, so perhaps I should not wonder. Like many spypsies, he was a master of genetics. In fact, he was more. He could change his own biochemistry to such a degree that, chameleon-like, he could alter his entire physical structure. This was far beyond anything he taught me, and beyond what I’ve now taught you. He could become shorter or taller should the need arise. He could make the lenses of his eyes capable of perceiving in the dark. He grew fibrous hairs on his hands and feet to sense the walls with touch the way a spider can. His vocal cords shifted to reach a pitch so high, his ears were able to sense its sound reflected off the walls.”
“Echolocation?” I ask, astounded. “The porpoises of the Meridian Harbor do that.”
“He became a master of this place and showed me all he knew before he died. I learned to travel the corridors and circumvent Goth, and he showed me this hidden compartment. In this tablet, he had recorded places he had been and things that he had seen. Do you know of Miral?” he asks me.
Miral, home of the lost empire. The home of the Great Song and his rebels. A place now of myth and legend.
“It was the most advanced world of the Second Age,” I say. “Home of the Renaissance after the loss of Ancient Earth. Before it, too, fell.”
Faria nods. “Its people were scattered like dust carried on currents of dark matter.”
“The spypsies are their descendants.”
“As are the Taoans,” Faria notes. “Spypsies encourage mysteries about their origins. It’s forbidden for them to leave their clans or reveal their ways to outsiders.”
“Then why did this man share his knowledge with you?”
“Perhaps because he was a renegade? Perhaps because I, too, am an outsider?” Faria engages the reader screen again. I skim my fingertips over the bumps, feeling a great mystery unfold. “Miralian coordinates,” he says. “The empire fell, but the riches remain. If we can find the planet, we can use this map to find the greatest treasure in the universe on its surface. I share this with you, Edmon.”
“You think I’m going to leave this prison, leave this planet to go treasure hunting?”
“A dying man’s fantasy,” he says.
“You aren’t dying, Faria,” I insist again.
He waves me off. “I exact from you two promises.”
I hold still in the darkness.
“The first. If you are freed, you will free me as well. We will find this treasure and take our revenge on those who brought us our fates, together.”
Will the greatest treasure in the universe bring back my mother? Will it bring back Nadia?
He lunges for me and knocks me to the ground with surprising strength. He presses his fingers to my jugular. The blood flow to my brain is cut off. I feel myself growing light-headed. “Swear it, Edmon,” he hisses.
“I swear it.”
He taps my neck, releasing me. “Good. The second promise . . .”
A howl reverberates throughout the deep chambers of the Citadel. Goth.
“We’ve lingered too long!” Faria whispers. “Come. Quickly!”
We return the reader to the hidden floor compartment and silently run down the hallway and up the spiral staircase. Another howl shakes the tower. My whole body tingles as if a current has pulsed through it.