Find answers for this city, it said to him,or march into battle for this city.
He looked deeper into the dark, but perhaps it wasn’t just that. No, perhaps he was crouching before the fringes of an unfamiliar land. He knew not what might wait ahead... unless he took the first step.
Roy stood and hovered his left foot above the first slab of stone, hesitant, afraid some grave fate might befall him upon contact. It didn’t seem far-fetched that the Elder Scribes had hidden traps in the stonework to maintain secrecy and protect their manuscripts. He bore his weight into the step, and when he was certain he wasn’t about to become one of those bodies he’d envisioned, Roy exhaled.
Hurried footsteps sounded beside him. Roy went to give Percival a sidelong glance but Percival was already walking toward an unlit candle perched upon the edge of a pedestal. Not a second before he retrieved the candle, it sparked alight.
Percival strode back to the passage of stairs. The candle in his hand cast a fine glow through his blond hair. He returned to Roy’s side, his gaze flicking from the candle to the void. Only then did Roy catch Percival’s expression, an emotion rarely seen on his face: sorrow.
Roy took hold of Percival’s shoulder, tensed when Percival did. When neither of them broke away, Roy said, “Whatever your past may be, there’s no need to hide yourself. You don’t... You don’t have tokeeptoyourself. This might not be the time to share, but you don’t need to live in constant fear. And neither do I. I know you said we’re shunned for what we believe in, for who we are, but the world doesn’t always have to be like that. It wasn’t before... well,before.”
Percival gave no response, and Roy practically screamed:Can you tell me what you’re thinking? Can you show me what you’re hiding?
But Percival couldn’t answer what was unasked. Instead, he walked on, his slow stride jarring compared to his earlier excited stroll. He cupped his palm around the candle, a small length from the leaping flame. He took a step forward, and another, and another, every step bringing him deeper into the darkness.
As Percival disappeared into the void, an inexplicable sensation seized Roy, like a foul, ungodly presence had invaded his mouth and inhabited his limbs. He could feel his body as if from spans away. For a moment, he saw himself from afar, and then the darkness was rushing toward him, and he was well past Percival, a breeze squalling about him, the sound of bones clacking and the stench of moss and dirt hanging thick in the air and wrapping tightly around him—
He blinked, and instantly, he was dropped back into reality. He looked around and saw that he hadn’t moved an inch.
It’s nothing, he told himself.It’s fear, and fear can manifest in a thousand different forms... and if there’s one thing you know how to do best, it’s being afraid.
Then Roy followed after Percival, toward his fear and—hopefully—his salvation.
Part Two
The Elder Scribes
14
After a few minutes of descending into thedarkness, the planks of redwood that had hidden the passage covered the entrance once more. Roy started, his heart pounding unevenly in his chest, though it returned to its steady beat as he took in his surroundings.
The walls were painted in a honey-gold glow, stretching four steps ahead of where Percival was walking, the candle held in his outstretched hand. Beyond that, the stairs were visible. The farther down they went, the more convinced Roy became that his strange vision had been only that: his imagination fueled by exhaustion.
Roy proceeded downward, each of his footsteps accompanied by the smell of dust. Frowning, he drew to an experimental halt, making Percival glance interestedly over his shoulder, and the smell faded. Wordlessly, Percival resumed his stride and Roy followed—and the smell came once more.
It would have been easy to dismiss the scent as just the thin film of dust coating each slab of stone being disturbed. A sign, as he’d imagined, of a history secreted within this tunnel. But there was something else. Distantly, the odor of the forgotten dead assailed his nostrils, hauling up before his mind’s eye a sequence of grisly images—limp tendrils of flesh hanging from rotting bone, gaping jaws, and hollow sockets. He wrinkled his nose and groaned, a deep revulsion crawling through him. He couldfeelthose skeins of flesh scraping across his face, brushing over his cheek like scabrous fingers—
With a sharp gasp, Roy tried to shake this dark flight of fancy, focusing instead on a rational connection between the scent and the flashes in his mind.
On a logical plane of thought, this tunnelcouldlead to the burial chamber of the Elder Scribes. Several sights within the Orphic Basilica had hinted at death, memory, and reflection: on the sixth floor, a museum of old artifacts; in the Observatory, whose dust-coated surfaces alluded to forgotten objects; and throughout, the various art pieces displaying certain figures and events throughout Northgard’s history. Even the appearance of the Orphic Basilica, from outside, seemed like material for suspicion—of what hid behind those massive double doors, of what secrets the Scribes had augured all those years ago, of what, beyond the supposed hallucinations, had stopped the Radiant Droves from reducing the library to rubble.
It’s reasonable enough, Roy mused.If the Scribes wanted a place to be remembered, they wouldn’t have risked a cemetery above ground.
But if the Elder Scribes had wanted to preserve anything, it would have been their manuscripts, not their bodies. Life was finite and death was eternal, but a book could outlive its creator and the ideas within could prevail over even the greatest calamity. Perhaps the Elder Scribes had been aware of this and created a guaranteed method of survival when pitted against those who meant to harm their work: an escape route from danger.
But isn’t the Basilica protected enough?Roy thought. Every person who’d tried to burn the library to ash had faced madness and defeat. Something, a shield perhaps, had protected the Basilica from harm. So why would the Scribes feel the need for such an egress?
But he stopped himself there. Conjecture would get him nowhere. Only moving forward, onward, held the answers. Whether mausoleum or manuscripts, or something else entirely, this tunnel held a great secret. Roy could feel it in the walls around him, like coils of mist seeping from stone. Because of this, his eagerness warred with his hesitancy.
You’re getting ahead of yourself, you dim-witted fool. You don’t entertain theories. You relish facts.
It’s Percival’s fault. He’s letting you forget who you are, changing you into someone who protests evidence. You don’t make spontaneous decisions; you make careful ruminations. When have you ever resisted the traits so fundamental to your own existence?
But there were multiple examples of this sort of resistance: when he’d accepted Percival’s game, when he’d deemed the Urswaelian grant forBlack chest plateindisputable evidence of the ancestors of the Old Ones... and when he had wanted,longedfor,Percival to slide his finger into Roy’s mouth.
A cool shiver trailed up his spine. Beads of perspiration formed on the nape of his neck.
Roy furrowed his brow, his longing and frustration interchangeable, as they’d been before. But even now, he couldn’t distinguish which emotion had shone brighter when he’d stood a breath from Percival. It would have required no further effort to lean closer and taste Percival’s skin. Yet Roy had pulled away, and even after the infectious desire that had swept through his body when he’d felt the contours of Percival’s own, Roy didn’t know if he could survive another similar encounter without giving in. He would melt. He would burn.
