They were cells, she realized, her breath catching in her throat once more. Before she could protest, he tossed her into a cell and bolted the door. It was a small, dank cube with a danker, lumpier version of the bean mattresses the acolytes had in the barracks, situated against the back wall. There was also a chamber pot on the floor and not much else. It was a tiny stone cave that made her cubby in the barracks look spacious and comfortable.
“You can believe Dominus Nikola will hear about this,” SainClair said coldly. “If the Gathering wasn’t taking place tonight, I’d take you there straightaway, but maybe you could do with a good think.” He turned and stalked off.
“Wait!” she called after his retreating footsteps.
His long strides didn’t pause or even miss a beat. And like that, his footsteps were gone, and Mia was utterly alone in a mostly dark cell with just the light of the gourd in the corridor. The Gathering. She was supposed to be enjoying a night out with the others. For the first time since she’d left home some weeks ago, she began to cry.
She
held it together for a while, but finally the sobs poured out of Mia with an intensity that surprised her. Father, home, Hackberry, her freedom. Attending the Gathering with Taryn and Cedar was just the last in a long list of what was no longer hers, and she found herself mourning them all simultaneously. She finally allowed her heart to experience the abject pain she’d denied for so long. She collapsed to a kneeling position, gasped from the sobs, and swallowed hard. Her throat was sore from SainClair’s bruising touch. She hugged her arms to her body as she let the tears roll freely and her chest quake. She stayed like that, crumpled on the ground, for a good long while. It was hard to say how long, but when she finally rolled onto her back on the dirty floor, she was exhausted from crying. Her eyes were almost puffed closed, and everything felt thick. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. A subtle warmth pulsed softly against her stomach.
It was the small, brown leather book. She had taken it from the Archives more than two weeks ago and carried it with her in her sash. She couldn’t say why it was with her now, except she felt compelled to carry it. She pulled it free from her robes, clambered up onto the dirty mattress, and leaned against the cold stone wall at the back of the cell.
“How is this even less comfortable than my barracks bunk?” she said to no one.
Mia held the book in her hands, savoring the warmth it emitted. Although she’d been carrying this book around, she’d never even cracked it open. She breathed in deeply, held it, and breathed out, repeating this process to calm her nerves. She squinted at the volume in her lap and opened it to the index.
Blast that bloody SainClair for leaving her with no light. Numerous family names graced the first page of the index, none of which she recognized. She flipped to the letter
J
. There was a Jaynor but no Jayne. Maybe the Jaynor family was a distant relation. This seemed to be an ancient tome after all. She flipped back to the beginning and noticed Draca. Dominus Nikola’s family name was Draca. She turned to the entry for it. The page contained a complex listing of the descendants of the Draca family; it even had a Nikola.
That can’t be the Dominus. This book is ancient. Maybe he’s named after that ancestor.
“We Jaynes don’t have any such storied history,” she murmured. “No seal, no family estate.”
Clearly she was alone, and at this point, she wasn’t above speaking to herself. The ability to talk openly was actually rather liberating. She flipped again to the index and found another name she recognized: SainClair.
“Figures,” she muttered. “I should have guessed that blockhead has a family entry.” She opened the book to SainClair. The family crest was an owl sitting on a lotus flower. “That crest looks very familiar.” She turned the book over in her hands. “Ha!”
The author must have rather liked the SainClair crest. After flipping back to SainClair, she looked through the list of names. She didn’t think anyone had ever told her SainClair’s first name.
Could any of these dusty old names be his?
The very last line caught her attention.
“Jayne!” She exhaled sharply.
One of the SainClair ancestors had Jayne as a first name.
How much would that irk SainClair?
Jayne SainClair had a sibling named Thaddeus. That was where the line had left off in the description. It was odd that no dates appeared by any of the names, but there was a lot about this book that was odd.
Between the dank cell, her bout of crying, and her inadequate access to a handkerchief, Mia’s nose was running unabated. A tickle hit it just then, and before she was able to cover it with her sleeve, a large sneeze erupted, spraying indelicately across
An
Exhaustive Genealogy of the Families of the Realm
.
“Oh, blast me to the Core!” she yelled, and patted at the page with her damp, nasty sleeve.
Brother Cornelius wouldn’t be happy if she ruined this archival tome, boring topic or not. Fear gave way to full-on panic when the phlegm of her sneeze soaked into the page and the ink started to fade and change.
“No, no, no!” Mia flipped through the book, but words were fading all over the place. “What in the name of…”
She turned back to the title page and with continuing horror looked at the fading text. The ink shifted, melting into a puddle and reforming before her eyes. She blinked, mouth agape. The title now read
Compendium
.
Below that, she read aloud, “Alpha Level activation coding complete. Please state your name.”
As she spoke, the text changed again, and an invisible hand inked in additional words below the ones she’d just read aloud.
“Affirmative,” she continued to read. “Please state your name.”
She paused for a moment. “Mia Jayne,” she said, suddenly embarrassed about speaking aloud.
It was one thing to talk to herself, but it was something entirely different to talk to a book. If she wasn’t going daft before, this very well could be proof of an acceleration in her deteriorating mental state.
The book’s text updated itself again.
Name acknowledged. Welcome to Compendium, Mia Jayne. Your profile has been created.
“What is this daffy book?” she asked, still staring at the title page in disbelief.
The text in the book obliged her question.
Compendium at Alpha Level is a voice-activated knowledge acquisition and storage tool coded to your current profile
.
Please proceed at your convenience
.
“What do you mean by ‘knowledge acquisition’?” she asked, dubious.
Compendium has access to a collection of information that can be searched at your command. It is ready to assist at your convenience
.
“What kind of knowledge?”
She probably had gone insane, alone in the dark, but even if she could believe her eyes—and if this book really was doing what it appeared to be doing—if it was an ancient volume, how much could it know about anything current? It had to be archaic and full of misinformation.
Compendium has access to information pertaining to history, politics, engineering, botany, literature, genealogy, and many other topics. Please specify your desired criteria at your convenience.
“Can you stop doing that?” she asked.
To what are you referring?
the booked wrote back with an elegant flourish in its script.
“That ‘at your convenience’ thing. It just seems cumbersome. And please stop referring to yourself in the third person. It sounds condescending.”
The phrase “at your convenience” is appended to certain responses to create the feeling of politeness and understanding.
“Well, it irks me,” Mia said. How embarrassing that her first conversation with a book was to complain about its attitude. Its tone was really bothering her, though.
Please confirm that I am correct when I state that you are requesting that I not be polite
, the book wrote.
Mia would be blasted if that book wasn’t just a tiny bit snarky. She smirked a little.
“Be polite,” she said. “Just don’t be overly polite.”
Please provide more specific parameters
, the book printed out.
Well, it wasn’t being polite anymore; she would give it that.
“Never mind,” she said. “Tell me the history of the Order.”
Trick question!
She congratulated herself mentally. After all, this book predated the Order.
Accessing the Network
, Compendium wrote.
This may take a moment.
Yeah, right.
To her shock, the pages began to populate with information, including a timeline, cleric roles, bylaws, branches, major players, and many other subjects related to the Order, the scope of which encompassed surprising detail.
“How is this possible?” she muttered to herself.
Please provide additional detail in your query
, Compendium responded.
She rolled her eyes then decided it might not be a bad idea to ask the book.
“How is it possible that you have information about the Order when you’re older than the Order?”
Compendium reconfigured its text again, and the information about the Order receded into its pages.
I
am Compendium
, the book scribbled out.
Mia rolled her eyes again.
I am an information resource. The timing of such information is irrelevant.
“How do you learn this information?” she asked.
My apologies, Mia Jayne,
Compendium jotted in its elegant hand.
You haven’t unlocked sufficient access to that information.
What in the Core did that mean?
“So can you can tell me information that hasn’t happened yet?” she asked, her mind reeling with possibilities.
Negative. My data is based entirely on factual information in existence as of this moment. I can provide information of the present, but I cannot foretell the future. I can make projections based on past information, but these are inherently speculative in nature.
“Can you only show me text?” she asked, pondering the cryptic responses the book was giving her.
Negative. I also can provide drawings and schematics.
“Show me a map of Lumin.”
Mia expected a tiny ancient map to appear, but instead a grid manifested with numbers running across the top and letters running down the side.
“Where is Willowslip?” she asked.
It spans E4 to E6 on the grid
, Compendium replied.
Would you like me to enlarge those tiles?
“Please do.”
The ink blurred against the page as if it had been doused with water, and the image zoomed in. All of Willowslip was mapped out in the small drawings. The alphanumerical system returned as well.
“Please enlarge D1.”
Compendium complied, enlarging the image further, until the little hammock islands of her home in the tropics to the southwest resolved in ink before her eyes.
“It’s so far away,” Mia whispered with longing in her voice.
The location you have designated is precisely 547 kilometers from your present location.
Compendium knew where she was located in relation to other places? Interesting.
“Do you have the schematics of the Compound?” she asked. Those might come in handy. She was still getting lost often, even after a full month as an acolyte.
Do you wish to view a topographical rendering or a planar outline of the level where you are currently located?
“Topographical.”
An intricate drawing simulating the elevation inside the mountain was rendered on the first page. Again there was an index allowing her to call out any section she wished to see in greater detail.
“Please provide a greater description of my location,” Mia said, instead of bothering with the letters and numbers
Compendium shifted again and sketched out drawings of the cellblocks and the tunnels leading to them. Y
ou are in the upper cellblocks of the brig
, Compendium wrote.
“There are other cellblocks?”
Affirmative. A maximum-security dungeon is located three levels down.
“How many levels are there in the Compound?” Mia had firsthand knowledge of four separate levels but suspected there were more. It was hard to tell because of the way the passages were situated.
The Order’s facility has fifteen separate elevations
, Compendium replied. It then qualified its response.
Some levels overlap in elevation, so I have elected to respond in terms of elevations rather than levels per se.
The Compound was much larger than Mia had suspected.
“Show me the schematics for the chamber containing the elders,” she said, itching to see how the Order harnessed the power of such massive trees so deep inside a mountain.
A complex diagram drew itself onto the pages of Compendium. A grove of trees stood in the center, their trunks very large and containing many heavy branches heaving skyward. The trees were so large they actually tunneled up through the mountain just as Cedar had speculated in their earlier conversation. A massive cylindrical shape had been cut in the center of the mountain, through which the arboreal elders grew. They stretched right up and out of the top of the mountain. They also branched out into various smaller tunnels like a honeycomb.