Compendium (17 page)

“You should have seen your faces,” he gasped between chuckles. “I mean, Mia is already an electric-white beacon in the night, but if she’d gotten any paler, she might have been translucent!”

Mia frowned. “Well, that would be a handy skill to have, wouldn’t it?” She picked her knife up from the ground and stowed it in her belt. She then vaulted to her feet, not bothering to dust herself off, and stalked past Cedar and Taryn, continuing toward the Compound.

“Hey, now,” he said, looking somewhat remorseful. “It was just a joke, ya know?”

Mia turned around, but her eyes looked through his and out the back of his head. She was too livid to speak, so she just kept walking.

“
Where
are we going to store this?”
Taryn asked, fingering the rough outer layer of the conduit. Mia had already removed the vines, which were piled on a table in the Archives waiting for Brother Cornelius.

“Do you have a trunk under your bunk? I don’t have one,” Mia said.

Taryn nodded. “Yes, it should fit in there, although I’ll have to move some belongings around.”

“Now the pressure is on. We only have a limited time before this root dries out so much that its conductivity will be permanently impacted.”

“But the Shillelagh must be dried out already,” Taryn said, a look of worry shadowing her face.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s quite dry, “ Mia replied, focusing her concentration. “Compendium is dry too, yet it has a power source, even if we’d be damned to know what that source is. The same is true for the Shillelagh. It’s dry, but its conductivity comes from something else. Our replacement root isn’t an artifact. Compendium and the Shillelagh can conduct energy even though they’re dead. This shunt doesn’t have that power. We’ll have to coat it with a paste and keep it moist so the cells don’t die while we figure out what to do about the doors.”

Cedar had been looking into the door security for weeks. Mia thought back to their last discussion on the topic.

“Do you think that could be it?” she’d asked him. “Could the clerics have some tone they play to open the door?”

“There’s no way to know,” he’d said.

The mounting frustration increased the already burgeoning tension between them. Their once easy conversation was now stymied by lapses into uncomfortable silence.

“If there’s no way to know from the books,” Mia said carefully, “then I’ll need to watch and listen to the clerics entering the Catacombs to see what actually happens. It’s all academic currently, and there’s no further progress to be made using study alone.”

“That’s too dangerous,” Cedar replied, shaking his head. “All it takes is one cleric seeing you, and this entire enterprise will unwind. It wouldn’t even have to be SainClair.”

Cedar was right. It was a standard warning that the Catacombs were off limits. A sign posted above the corridor that led into the bowels of the mountain read,
restricted. no entry past this point
. If anyone ever caught her walking down there, she could expect punishment.

“Is one of the punishments expulsion?” Mia asked Cedar hopefully.

“Alas, not for you,” he said, his face stony. They were sitting in Brother Cornelius’s laboratory with the night lights shining above. A large storm cloud was rolling in, and inclement weather would soon follow. Cedar stared at Mia’s face intently, the usual warmth in his dark eyes shrouded in clouds, opaque. It was as if he mirrored the night sky.

“Given your relatively unusual arrival here and Brother SainClair’s existing suspicions, I think it’s more likely they’ll lock you up down below while they try to figure out if you’re working for someone else.” He blinked then, and the hairs on Mia’s arms rose as his stare grew long. It wasn’t a pleasant stare, though; it was filled with scrutiny. Perhaps Cedar himself thought she was a spy. The idea was preposterous.

“I don’t know who they think I could possibly be working with,” she said sullenly, resting her palm on the side of her head. She turned her head to look up into the night sky at the gathering clouds. The air was becoming heavy and pregnant with moisture. It wouldn’t be long now.

“The Druids probably,” Cedar said, his eyes boring into her. He likely hoped for some reaction to that statement, but Mia had none for him.

“Everyone here speaks about the Druids as if they’re some menacing threat,” Mia told him. “Frankly I always thought they would be a benign collective of nature worshipers flitting through the forests and dancing around trees with flowers in their hair.”

She kept her gaze focused on the gathering storm. A jagged blue bolt of light streaked out of the clouds, temporarily scarring the air above. Cedar sighed, and she turned to face him. His expression remained serious, his hands threaded together in a knot upon which he rested his chin.

“Maybe you should look up the Druids in Compendium instead of spouting off nonsense based on inane assumptions,” he said. “Such ridiculousness is beneath you.”

Mia quirked an eyebrow at him. He ran his well-formed hands through his dark hair in exasperation at her apparent lack of interest in the topic. Her thoughts dwelled on his hand covering hers then his lips pressing against hers. Her face grew warm, and she forced herself to shake off the feeling. This nonsense about the Druids and these idle thoughts about Cedar were irrelevant. His mouth set in a tight expression, Cedar was disinclined to let Mia stumble on in ignorance.

“The Druids are a sect as old as the Order itself. Some say they were once the same organization before a divergence of philosophy emerged.”

Mia thought she might be able to see where this was going, but she kept silent. The air coming from above Brother Cornelius’s planters chilled markedly, and the wind blowing in through the open roof quickened. Her body convulsed in a slight shiver, and she rubbed her hands together.

“Whereas our mission is to protect that fragile link with our forebears through careful study of artifacts and other sources of knowledge,” Cedar continued, “the Druids believe such knowledge and any remaining objects that contain it should be used as means to achieve a social ideal.”

“So they want to take the knowledge of the artifacts to the masses?” Mia asked. “That hardly seems sinister.”

“The sentiment isn’t sinister at all,” Cedar said, “but the corruption of the idea and the methods to obtain the desired end are quite. The Druids have allied themselves with those who would retain power at the expense of all of our freedom and at the expense of the very nature that they worship.”

“That seems rather vague and a bit melodramatic,” Mia offered. “Not to offend,” she added hastily.

“It’s this sanguine attitude by the common folk that has allowed the Druids to flourish and insinuate themselves into government and society. They aren’t nearly so harmless as that.”

“I just don’t understand your position,” Mia replied. “If they’re interested in using the artifacts to better humanity, how is that any different from the Order?”

Cedar’s frustration level wasn’t easing as their conversation continued down this path. He sighed heavily and rubbed his dark eyes. When he pulled his hands away, his face was drawn into frown lines. Mia was sorry for being so argumentative when he was clearly stressed out, but it was her opinion that he didn’t approach the Order, or the Druids for that matter, with the proper amount of skepticism. Her question hung in the air between them, and with a heavy pop, a flood of rain began to pour into the open ceiling, dousing the flora in the planters and filling the room with a light spray.

22
Scouting

Lumin Cycle 10152

Protests
, threats, and begging aside
, Mia decided she would get close enough to the Catacombs to determine how the clerics entered. Her hope that she could hide in the auxiliary corridor was short-lived. Compendium pointed out that, in an abundance of caution, such access tunnels terminated well away from the entrance to the Catacombs. She racked her brain, spent hours pacing the Archives fitfully, and rejected one idea after another.

“Why can’t I just have you sneak in there for me and listen to how they open the door, since you seem to know everything else?” she yelled at Compendium in frustration.

I am not capable of independent transport, but I am capable of recording auditory information
, typed Compendium glibly.

“What?” she asked. “Please explain that second part.”

I am capable of receiving auditory input and storing it for later retrieval.

“You mean you can listen to a conversation and recount it?”

I am capable of accessing any auditory input and recounting it, not just conversation.

“But you can’t play it back for me, right? If it’s a beep or a tone, I’ll have no way of knowing from your typing what it actually sounds like.”

“Correct. Alpha Level is not capable of direct recording.”

Mia rolled her eyes. Compendium was so persnickety sometimes that she wanted to throw it against a wall. She never would, though. When she wasn’t yelling at it, she treated it gently, packing it away carefully in her sash or stowing it for safekeeping in her mattress. It was her comfort and her strength of late, and the more she thought about the Shillelagh and what would happen if she and Taryn failed, the more it became her courage itself.

“Well,” Mia said, “if I can get you close enough to the entrance, it might just be our only shot at getting any information about the security door. Is there any other information you can collect?”

If connected to a conduit, I am also able to read information that flows through the conduit and store such information for later retrieval.

“You don’t say?” Mia said, tapping her chin with a finger, a mannerism she had to stop, lest she begin to grow whiskers like Brother Cornelius.

I did just say
, typed Compendium, and Mia laughed.

“Compendium, you really are funny sometimes,” she said, patting the book.

I hardly think so
, replied the book.

Caught up in her thoughts, Mia indelicately slammed the book shut and replaced it in her sash. She had to find Cedar and Taryn and tell them the plan. They were running out of time.

“
I
still think this is utter madness,”
Cedar whispered, as they crept along the corridors.

“Shh,” Mia hissed back, moving quietly. Tracking and silent movement never had been her strong suit, but she’d been honing these skills at the Order. Everyone seemed to move as if they were made of air.

“This is my last chance to talk you out of this crazed plan,” he whispered back, “so I’m not wasting it.”

Mia rolled her eyes at him. “You didn’t have to come with me,” she whispered. “In fact I wish you hadn’t. This task doesn’t require two people.”

“Your sense of direction is deplorable,” Cedar replied. “You’ll risk all of our necks if you get lost and caught in the act. I don’t know how you ever survived in the forest without falling into sucking sand or over the edge of a cliff.”

“The forest has discernible landmarks, and each tree looks different. This place is a winding set of cavernous and identical corridors,” she whispered grumpily.

They proceeded in the direction of the Catacomb doors. Mia had mentally reviewed every possible contingency over the past twenty-four hours. They knew when the shift would change. In addition, Compendium provided directions. It located a crevice under the moss where it could be stowed discreetly and which was within its audio-recording range. Cedar contributed the knowledge that the moss itself was conductive and may be transmitting some information from the door. Compendium instructed Mia regarding how to hook it up to the moss. She had nothing to worry herself over. Everything was planned to the nth degree. And yet she had a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach that she couldn’t shake. Her hands trembled slightly, so she kept them tucked into her robes as they walked. She couldn’t remember being this scared, not even with the stalker.

Even then she had known Father would reach her. As scared as she was then, she was more scared now. She had Cedar with her, but their relations were strained. She sensed from him some suspicion after their talk in the laboratory. Some sense of chivalry or maybe watchfulness kept him at her side tonight, though, as they crept along the empty corridors that led into the bowels of the Compound. The watch wouldn’t change for another hour. They’d left themselves ample time to get down and hide Compendium.
Totally simple
, Mia thought, trying to regulate her rapid breathing.
This is just reconnaissance.
She had to get it together, or she’d never be able to go through with the rest of the plan. As they moved down the final corridor sloping downward into a black abyss, their steps slowed. There was no lighting anywhere in this corridor, and the mossy walls were thick and spongy under Mia’s hand as she reached out to steady herself.

“Should we use a gourd?” she whispered to Cedar. She could barely see his outline in the darkness, and his features were totally obscured.

“Best not to, I think,” he whispered softly, his voice right by her ear.

She shivered from the unexpected feeling of breath against her cheek and gritted her teeth. Placing Compendium and finding the access corridor would be that much harder in pitch-darkness, but Cedar was right. They would be able to see a light coming a mile away in this darkness, and so would anyone else.

“Well, let’s get to it then,” she whispered back. His hand came up and touched her back, which stiffened. The hand moved up her back to her shoulder and down her shoulder to her trembling hand.

“We need to stick together,” he said. “This is the easiest way. I know it’s awkward.”

It was. The last time he had held her hand, it had been a comforting warmth. But now their hands were clammy. It wasn’t so much reassuring as emphasizing the cold fear she was feeling.

“It’s all right,” Mia said, but it wasn’t at all.

With her right hand on the wall of the corridor, and her left gripping Cedar’s tightly, she inched along the downward-sloping corridor, careful not to make a sound. She hoped she wasn’t cutting off Cedar’s circulation, but there was nothing to do for it. Her hand had grown a mind of its own. They proceeded along as fast as Mia dared, with her patting the wall as they went, until it ended abruptly. She snaked her hand along the wall at the back of the hallway until it touched the bare stone of the archway to the door. Suddenly she drew her hand away, as if touching the stone of the door itself might set off the security alarm. She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. Cedar, as if reading her mind, squeezed her hand reassuringly.

Mia squeezed back, and they steadily inched their way across the threshold to the left of the door. The schematics showed a divot near the base of the door on the left. Once they were past the door, she shuffled her hand down the moss toward the ground, dragging Cedar down with her. Now came the tricky part, especially in the pitch black. She would just have to hope she did this next bit correctly. She disengaged her hand from Cedar’s, but he remained crouched so close to her that she felt the warmth of his body nearby. He was stone silent. Gritting her teeth and trying not to make any noise or let her hand tremble too badly, she pulled Compendium gingerly from her sash. She already had instructed it to record everything it heard from the time she gave the instruction until the time she told it to stop. She didn’t want to risk speaking in front of the door, having an incorrect voice or command being recorded in its presence, and possibly setting of a security alarm.

Mia patted along the mossy wall, the moss cool and springy under her hand, until she found the divot. She pushed her hand into the moss and was able to wiggle a finger through to the other side.
So at least that’ll work
. Her heartbeat quickened in urgency. This entire process was taking far too long.
Concentrate!
Stop wasting time clamming up. Just go!

Her fingers felt around for an individual thread. She found a nice thick vine at the back of the moss matt and pulled it forward gently and carefully so as not to disturb the remaining thicket. Once she had the thread separated, she groped for Cedar’s hand and placed it around the vine. He took hold of it and held it in place. She reached into her sash with both hands for her small snipping tool. She also pulled out some small sticky leaf patches sometimes used for binding conduit edges. The tape had been precut into two small squares for precisely this reason. She stuck them to the side of Cedar’s arm for safekeeping.

With the cutting tool in her left hand, Mia carefully snipped the vine so that Cedar was holding one side and she was holding the other. After replacing the cutting tool in her sash, she balanced Compendium on her knee and pulled one piece of sticky leaf from Cedar’s arm and used it to secure one edge of the cut vine to the binding of the Compendium. She did the same with the other side of the vine and the other piece of tape. When the second vine was in place, a faint but distinct blue light traveled along the patterned design on the outside of the Compendium then faded back into blackness. She almost dropped the book in surprise. She hoped the light was a good sign and not a bad one.

The entire arrangement was precarious in any case, but Mia gently placed the rigged Compendium into Cedar’s hands. This next part was delicate work. She wiggled her finger back into the moss near the divot until it was all the way through. Then she added another finger and another until all five fingers were through. Next she widened the hole. Once she had one hand stretching open the moss, she gently took Compendium from Cedar and balanced it on her knees again. With her other hand, she guided his hand to the moss hole and placed it in to hold open the hole. Then she gently pulled the hole with one of her hands while very carefully inserting Compendium into the small pocket in the wall.

They fumbled through the process. Mia was sure the moment a guard walked up, he would notice something amiss. It was the best they could do, though. Once Compendium was in, she felt around the mossy divot for any misplaced vines. It appeared everything was in place. Taking a deep breath, she groped for Cedar’s hand again and gave it a quick squeeze. He squeezed back, and they proceeded directly back the way they had come, first up the wall until they were standing, then past the doorway, then along the corridor.

We’re almost there
, she thought, but then something way off in the distance made her stomach flop. It was the dim glow of a gourd.
Someone’s coming!
Cedar apparently saw it too, because he immediately squeezed her hand hard. They picked up their pace. They had to get to the auxiliary corridor before that light came close enough to see them. Mia’s arms trembled. Cedar apparently sensed her burgeoning distress and took the lead. He tapped silently along the wall with his slipper as he moved quickly and carefully. Mia followed, almost numb with fear, trying not to make a peep or even breathe.

It took five eternities, but the light drew nearer and nearer. She couldn’t see who was carrying the gourd and hoped upon hope that whoever it was couldn’t see Cedar or her. Finally Cedar squeezed her hand to indicate they had reached the entrance to the auxiliary corridor. They crouched quickly, and Mia groped around with her free hand. It pushed into the moss just as it had when she had entered the Crater Grove. Cedar took her free hand, and together they pushed their hands through the moss, arms flailing silently out the other side. He pressed against her body as he shoved her silently through the moss into the stone of the auxiliary corridor. They huddled and scooted themselves along the bottom of the corridor so that the moss wasn’t directly in front of them. Only moments later, footsteps approached the mossy hole in the stone. Mia waited for them to stop, but they didn’t.

“Do you smell something funny?” said a familiar gravelly voice. Mia’s body seized up at the sound. It felt like all the blood in her body had drained into the stone floor. Her limbs were stiff and unmoving but rubbery to the touch.

“If you’re accusing me of flatulence, I’ll not have it,” another voice replied.

For the first time ever, Mia heard SainClair laugh with genuine mirth. “No, Brother, I need not accuse. That’s just your natural state.” The unknown brother chuckled back, and the footsteps receded out of Mia’s hearing. Cedar’s arm came around Mia’s shoulder then, hugging her to his body. They huddled like that, not speaking, not moving, and barely breathing as the moments ticked by. But the tension wouldn’t leave her. She did everything in her power to calm her breathing, but it kept coming shallow and ragged. After a while, Cedar gathered her closer in his long limbs, almost tenderly, although she suspected he was just trying to keep her calm so as to not blow their cover.

They had no timepiece, but time slowly ground to a halt as they waited. All Mia knew was that the extreme agitation she felt eventually subsided as the warmth of Cedar’s body sank into hers and exhaustion set in, deeper and more powerfully than she’d ever known. She must have fallen asleep like that, because the next thing she knew, he was shaking her gently as the sounds of footsteps approached from the opposite direction. They were slow and deliberate steps. Feeling disoriented, Mia wriggled slightly, but Cedar held her firmly as the steps drew nearer. His frame was slim and hard and his grip like iron. There was no speaking coming from the corridor, but a yawn that was practically a roar for its volume and length echoed along the shaft as the steps diminished into the distance. They waited for a good long while after the sounds of the footsteps departed before trying to wriggle free from the cramped auxiliary corridor.