Matias is already turning toward the shelves when he pauses and glances back at me. “Can you be more specific, lad? Poetry, fiction, theology … ?”
“Machinery.” The word slips out before I can stop it, and when Matias’s face doesn’t change, I add, “I’m studying ways to make machines that can fly. The ancients could do it.”
“So they could,” he agrees. “But we cannot. Why do you search?”
“I just think the machinery is interesting,” I say. “Have you ever seen any records on how they did it? Flew, I mean?”
The Master of Archives is still for so long that I start to wonder if he’s forgotten the question. Then he turns and sinks slowly back down into the chair at his desk and fixes me with a steady gaze. “Where did you say you were from, North?”
Skyfall. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.
“I didn’t say, sir.”
Matias watches me for some time, then says softly, “So our Nimh did find something out there after all.” His eyes are sharp and keen behind his glasses.
It’s the first time I’ve heard anyone call her by the name she gave me, instead of “Divine One” or something like it. Maybe that gleam in the archivist’s eye is a sign of fondness for her—maybe they’re friends. Maybe I can trust him. Maybe …
Matias clears his throat, and I jump a little. “I’ll see what I can find for you,” he says.
“I’d be grateful,” I reply, injecting every ounce of sincerity I have into my tone. “In the meantime, Nimh also thought there might be something you could find on the myth of the Sentinels?”
His brows lift. “The Sentinels?” he repeats. “Perhaps we have a book of children’s tales. The riverstriders and their Fisher King have kept that tale alive, but that’s the only life there is to be found in it.”
I force myself to take a slow breath to hide the sinking feeling of disappointment. If this man runs a library of this size, and he says there’s nothing suggesting the Sentinels left behind any hint of how they guarded the way between worlds, then either they never existed, or they’re so long gone they’re lost to memory.
“Perhaps there will be something on flight,” he says, his tone comforting. “In the meantime, I imagine Nimh would prefer you keep a low profile. Probably best if you don’t wander around looking like you came out the wrong side of a battle.”
I hesitate, caught between my instinct to trust this man and Nimh’s warnings to say nothing at all.
I’m so utterly out of my own skies here.
Matias sifts through the stacks of paper and scrolls on his desk. With a little grunt of satisfaction, he finally locates what he’s looking for—a cup—and takes a long sip from it. Then he speaks again.
“You made quite the entrance into the city today,” he observes. “The goddess returning home with her mysterious companion. I wonder, are our traditions very different to those in the cloudlands?”
“I—ah—uh—” I’m caught speechless. It’s one thing for us to dance around what he’s worked out. It’s another to say it out loud. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to need a reply.
“What you must understand about Nimh,” he continues, “is that she was called by the priesthood when she was five years old. When the divinity’s human vessel dies, the priesthood packs up and spreads out like so many ants evacuating a hirta tree, crawling into every nook and cranny, up and down every river, looking for the new vessel. Usually, they find a child just shy of the transition to adulthood—Nimh is the youngest ever called to become the Divine One.”
“Five years old,” I echo. I remember myself at that age, my mothers bribing me to stand still at important ceremonies, my grandfather solemnly winking at me from beneath his crown. I was surrounded by family, and all I had to do was avoid spilling food all over myself. I can’t imagine having to try toleadat that age.
“Five years old,” he repeats. “So that is the first basis of her difficulties. The second is that within a few years of their calling, our divinities usually manifest their aspect—this is the area in which they can perform great magic. Their aspect sets the tone for the world during their time at the head of it. War, peace, famine, feast.”
“What’s Nimh’s … aspect?” I try the word out slowly.
“Ah,” he says quietly. “That, we do not know. It has not yet revealed itself, though we have waited more than ten years.”
“Perhaps it’s an age thing,” I suggest. “Everyone else manifests theirs soon after they show up, but they’re older to begin with.”
“Perhaps,” he agrees, in a tone that doesn’t agree at all. “Or perhaps her fate will take another path. Some doubt her. You may have seen them in the city.” His voice dips into derision. “They wear gray as a sort of uniform, a statement against the richness of magic and faith.”
“I’ve seen them.” My voice is grimmer than I meant it to be. “Are they connected to the ones who attacked us? Attacked her, I mean?”
Matias shakes his head. “No. They would never act so openly against her. Your attackers were cultists who follow a false deity, who seek to kill Nimh. The Graycloaks merely want to remove her from power, believing that her lack of aspect means that divinity itself has left this world. But others … others wonder if hers will be a magic unlike any we have seen before. If this is the calm before the storm.”
“So … your deities are the ones who can do, uh, magic?” I try to keep the skepticism out of my voice, but it’s hard to say the wordmagicwith a straight face.
Matias’s bushy eyebrows go up, a few scraggly hairs sticking out like antennae. “There are many who can use magic, cloudlander—magicians are not uncommon; there are usually one or two even in the smaller towns and villages. The Divine One is far more than a mere magician.”
