Phinnegan raised his head, his eyes widened with hope.
“You can send me home?”
“Of course. And I will, if you agree to help.”
Phinnegan looked around and noticed that all of the Aged within earshot had their eyes upon him. Across the table, Emerald’s now green eyes burrowed into him. Vermillion was the only one who appeared relaxed, leaning back in his chair.
Phinnegan thought of everything he had experienced during these several days of adventure. He remembered Periwinkle’s hatred of this powerful Aged who sat only an arm’s reach away. There was no denying that Vermillion left Phinnegan ill at ease. However, one thought more than any other loomed large in his mind.
Home
.
“All right,” Phinnegan said quietly. “I’ll do it.”
Emerald’s eyes flashed dangerously, and he thought perhaps she would speak. But she held her tongue, and regained her composure.
Vermillion only smiled.
“I knew you were a smart boy.”
A Book of Secrets
Phinnegan sat alone in the large chambers that had been given to him for his time in Féradoon, his stomach full from the seven-service dinner he had endured. After he had agreed to help Vermillion open the First Gate, the services continued as did the in-between service entertainments. Thankfully, no one else seemingly had met their end, as the latter entertainment had been much more benign and even enjoyable at times.
Now, with the sights and sounds behind him, it was refreshing to be alone. These Aged made him feel uncomfortable, none more so than their leader, Vermillion, who Phinnegan still was not sure whether he was actually an Aged, a Young, or something in between.
Save for the crackling fire, the room was quiet and dark. Though, as the fire was large, it cast a bright glow over half the room. Phinnegan sat now in one of the two heavily carved chairs arranged before the fire. On the other chair lay the sleeping clothes that a servant had left for him.
With a yawn, he stood and stretched. He had not slept in what he guessed was at least twenty-four hours, for it was well into the night when the dinner party had ended, and the previous night he had spent in the clutches of the gholem, being brought to Féradoon from the forests outside Asher’s cottage. The large bed beckoned behind him and he removed his clothes and tossed them on the floor, throwing his travelling clothes on top of them.
When his shirt fell, the unexpected thump caught his attention. He stared confusedly at the small black object which had fallen from his pocket before he recognized it as the book that Asher had given him.
He donned the sleeping clothes and neatly folded the fine garments he had been provided for dinner before sitting on the floor in front of the roaring fire, the small black leather book at his feet. When he grasped it, he found the supple leather to already be quite warm from the fire’s heat. Phinnegan sat several feet from the fire himself but felt the warmth keenly upon his face. The crackling logs were calming and he fingered the gold-etched design on the front of the book absently as he was soothed by this sound.
Flipping the book over, he scrutinized the back cover for any other discernable symbols, but the intricate scrollwork meant nothing to him. The spine of the book, which was only perhaps half an inch thick, revealed nothing further, save a smaller version of the symbol on the front cover.
When he opened the book, Phinnegan found it just as he had before, blank and empty. The book held no more than a hundred pages, and each was completely devoid of any writing. He traced over their surfaces with his Marked finger, hoping to coax the pages to reveal their secrets, but to no avail. The pages remained as blank as ever.
Somewhere in the castle, a bell intoned the hour. Twelve long notes signaled the advent of a new day. Phinnegan sighed heavily and moved to close the book, as he was anxious for sleep. But just as the last peal of the bell vanished into the night’s embrace, a flicker of something caught his eye.
And then it was gone.
But he had seen
something
. A word? A letter? He flipped quickly through the pages of the book, searching for the flash he had seen. He was nearly to the end of the book before he found it. There, on the third to the last page, at the very top in the center, a small symbol in rich black ink. A symbol that matched the one on the cover, and the Mark on his finger.
His spine tingled and he dared not to breathe lest the symbol disappear as quickly and mysteriously as it had come. He wondered why it would appear now, but suddenly remembered a remark made by Vermillion near the end of the dinner. He had said that Phinnegan’s arrival was just in time; that tomorrow was a special day. A coincidence perhaps, but Phinnegan thought it more likely that all of these things were linked. The book, the Gate, the Mark on his finger. And now, when the bell had tolled the new day, this special day, the book had spoken its first word to him.
It could
not
be coincidence.
He sat quietly before the fire, pensive, with the book open in his hands. With a shaky hand, he touched the Mark on his finger to the symbol on the page. Though nothing else appeared on the page at first, a
tingle
in his finger told him that something had happened, that somehow his touch had made an impact.
Then the words began to appear. Finally he would have some answers.
But his heart sank just as quickly as it had risen. Though several lines had appeared on the page, they were all gibberish to him, written in a language he could neither read nor recognize. The letters were familiar, though many had been written in a manner he had never before seen. Yet even with this familiarity, he could make out not one word in the entire piece.
ABE AR EROFT HEMA RKM AY
ATT HEAPP OINT EDIT MEAN DATTH EA PPO INTE DPL ACE
CO MEUPO NANEN TRAN CETOT HEP ATH
EMBA RKIN GUPO NTHI SPAT HMUS TNO TBET AKE NLIG HTL Y
FO RTHEG UAR DIA NWITH INW ILLPUR GETH OSED EE MEDU NOW RTH Y
THEB EAR ERMUS TEN TERW ILLIN GLY
TH EBE ARERM USTEN TERA LON E
“I can’t read it,” he whispered.
He stared at these words for several minutes, vainly trying to sound out phrases that resembled no tongue he had ever heard. In the end he slammed the book closed squeezing it tightly in his fingers.
“What good is a book if you can’t even read it?” he grumbled to himself, frustrated that once again he would need to find his own way when it just appeared he had found help. In anger, he raised his arm, preparing to hurl the book into the fire.
“Would you make a second foolish mistake in one evening,” a voice said quietly from behind, causing Phinnegan to nearly fall over backwards in alarm.
He turned to see Emerald appearing from the shadows on the other side of the room.
“How-how did you get in here? The door was locked.”
“Do you think that the keepers of this castle would allow you to lock a door to which they do not have a key?” she said, a small smile on her lips as she made her way across the room to where Phinnegan sat in front of the fire.
“Besides, I have little need of keys. I have my own,” she paused, a sardonic smile upon her lips, “talents.”
“You mean because you are a gholem,” Phinnegan said flatly.
“Yes.”
“But yet, you are his daughter? How can you be a Faë and a gholem?”
Emerald looked away, staring into the fire for several moments, her eyes flashing from green to gray and back again. Phinnegan thought that perhaps her eyes stayed gray for a bit longer this time.
“It is a long story,” she said at length, a resigned tone in her voice. “Perhaps I will have a chance to tell you it some time.”
“Why not now?” Phinnegan questioned.
“Because there are more important things to discuss. For one, why you are about to make a fool of yourself twice? Is it not enough to agree to help my father? Now you are about to throw a book more valuable than you could ever imagine, into the fire?”
“He promised to send me home,” Phinnegan said sheepishly, his eyes falling to the floor.
“We shall come to that in a moment,” Emerald said dryly. “What of the book?”
Phinnegan eyed the supple-bound book in his hand.
Valuable? How could it be valuable to me? Perhaps if I could read it.
“It’s useless, I can’t read it.”
Emerald appeared disturbed.
“You mean no writing appeared in the book at midnight?”
“How could you-“ Phinnegan began to question, but the Faë-gholem gave him a dangerous look.
“No, I mean, writing
did
appear, just at the last strike of the bell.” Phinnegan saw her visibly relax, but he felt no such relief. “But it’s of no use. The writing is all gibberish. I can’t read it.”
“Let me see,” she commanded, and Phinnegan obeyed immediately, tossing her the book. She flipped through its pages, searching for the writing.
“Third page from the last,” he offered, but she shook her head and closed the book.
“I am afraid you can do more than I, for I cannot see it at all.” She tossed the book back to him and he flipped feverishly to the page where he had previously seen the writing. It was still there. Even as he had been about to throw the book into the fire, the sight of the words, words he could not even read, brought him comfort. But the frustration soon returned.
“I can see it, but what good is seeing it if I don’t know what it means. It’s in another language.”
Emerald raised an eyebrow.
“Another language? I doubt that.” Returning her gaze, Phinnegan was reminded how much her demeanor had changed from the first time he had met her in the courtyard of Castle Heronhawk. Only a few days it seemed had passed since then, yet what had been a sweet-smiling, laughing Faë now seemed a shadow of herself. As her eyes passed again from green to gray and back again, Phinnegan wondered if whatever had happened to her, whatever made her the gholem, was progressing. Would she one day be only a gholem? He pushed the thought from his mind.
“Why do you doubt that it could be in another language?”
“It’s possible, of course, but being that it was written for a human, as no Faë could bear such a Mark, I would guess it is in a tongue you would know. Although it is old. It could be Latin or Greek even.”
“No,” Phinnegan said, shaking his head. “I would recognize both of those languages. I can’t read them, but I would recognize them. This is something different.”
“Perhaps it is hidden.”
“Hidden? What do you mean?” Phinnegan turned the book over in his hands but Emerald shook her head.
“Not like that. The words, they could be encoded somehow, intended to make someone ignore them, to make someone think they could not read it. That book contains
many
secrets - powerful secrets. And they are hidden in ways most will never find them. But…”
“But what?” Phinnegan interrupted, impatient for some way to read the text that had appeared.
“But, given the timing of this text, appearing just as it has on this day, just as the bell pealed the hour, I think it is only a simple message and would guess it appears every year on this day. Though, as we have seen, few still could see it, let alone read it.”