Secrets of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 3) (4 page)

At that moment, more than boats,
swords, or flutes, Koyee knew that she'd discovered her true love:
books.

She walked between the shelves,
smiling. It felt like all the horrors of the world—the loss of her
family, the flame of war, the light of day—could never reach her.
Here between these books was a different plane of existing. Here were
knowledge and wisdom themselves, a realm of thought and memory. She
walked among the stars. Every book here was a world unto itself, a
world she could lift off a shelf, open up, and delve into like a
spirit.

"I don't know where to
start!" she said, still smiling.

"I don't know either."
Torin looked miserable. "There must be a million books here.
We'd grow old, shrivel up, and die before we could read a tiny
fraction of these. Blimey, just reading the titles would take a
lifetime." He sighed. "I'm a humble gardener from a humble
village; I don't know how to be a scholar."

"What we need is a
librarian." Koyee walked between two shelves and pointed.

Down an aisle, maybe a hundred
yards away, rose a stone desk. A figure sat there, white of hair, too
distant to see clearly. Koyee inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of
the books, and walked toward the librarian.

When she reached the desk, a
wizened, whitened creature raised his head from a book. He was an old
man but so ancient and small he seemed to Koyee like some spirit from
a tale, someone to be found behind a mushroom rather than a desk. His
nose thrust out, long and thin as a finger, supporting golden-rimmed
spectacles. Curtains of white hair like cobwebs hung around his face,
and his beard flowed across the desk like a tablecloth. His ears
thrust out like antennae, and his eyes—very large and very
blue—blinked at her.

"Well, hello young . . ."
He adjusted his lenses. ". . . young woman. Welcome. I am Fen,
Guardian of Books, Lord of Lore, Keeper of Knowledge, Augur of
Wisdo—" He began to cough, patted his chest, and cleared his
throat. "I'm the librarian. What knowledge do you seek?"

The old man seemed barely larger
than Little Maniko. Koyee smiled. "A book about clocks, Master
Fen."

"Ah!" The little man
rubbed his hands together. "Clocks! Purveyors of time. Keepers
of moments and eras. Masters of horology. Very important devices,
yes, for us here in endless night. Did you know, child, that the
world would once turn? Did you know that all hourglasses are made to
track the dance of old days and nights?" His voice was a high,
quivering sound like a harp string. "Not many believe it, but I
have books of old . . . books that speak of those times, yes. What
clocks does your eager mind seek to study? Hourglasses? Water clocks?
Mechanical clocks of gears and springs? Perhaps the buried sundials
of the ancients? Or maybe—"

"I don't know," Koyee
said, feeling it best to interrupt before he started coughing again.
"It's a riddle. Something about a clock that's broken, that has
to be fixed."

". . . or perhaps
astronomical clocks or—" He blinked and gasped. "A clock
that is broken?" His voice dropped to a whisper and he leaned
across the desk. "Surely you don't mean . . . oh Flame of Ilar."

Torin reached the desk, holding
a small bestiary with a bird on the cover. "What's so wrong with
broken clocks? I mean besides maybe being late for dinner."

"Many
things, young master!" said the librarian, frowning at him.
"Hosts have been late to battle because of broken clocks,
letting their kingdoms fall. Lovers have missed their trysts, then
jumped into the sea to drown their pain. Broken clocks can topple
empires and shatter souls. But . . . ah . . . there was
one
clock . . . one clock that did far more than crush an empire."

Koyee shivered. "What can
be worse than crushing an empire?"

Old Fen smiled, revealing small
golden teeth. "Breaking the world itself." He hopped off
his seat, rushed around the desk, and clapped his hands. "Come
now! Old Fen will lead you to knowledge."

He rushed down the aisle, his
robes fluttering and his slippers thumping. Koyee and Torin followed.
They moved through the labyrinth of books, and Koyee longed to stop,
to reach to the shelves, to explore all the words around her. Every
book seemed to call out to her, begging to be read. But Fen was
moving too quickly, and Koyee only caught glimpses of the titles she
passed—books about beasts, magical artifacts, star maps, and
histories of heroes.

Fen led them under an archway,
past obsidian statues of dragons, and into a dusty chamber. Lanterns
shaped as laughing spirits hung upon the walls, fur rugs covered the
floor, and armchairs stood against walls. A fireplace crackled in the
back, its burning blocks of tallow casting orange light. Books filled
more shelves here, seeming more ancient than any Koyee had seen.
Their leather spines peeled back, the runes upon them so faded she
could barely read them.

You'd
have loved this place, Okado,
Koyee thought, a sudden sting of pain shooting through her.
You
were a warrior but wise too. I wish you were here with me.

Fen grabbed a wheeled ladder,
pulled it toward a wall of shelves, and climbed. He reached for a
heavy codex almost as large as he was. As he pulled out the book,
dust showered. Standing below, Torin sneezed.

"Ah!" said Fen. "Here
we go. The Cabera Clock Chronicles by Master Zenafren." He
pulled the book to his chest, hobbled toward Koyee, and handed her
the codex. "This should teach you a few things. This book is
about the greatest clock that ever existed—a clock that tracked the
dance of the stars themselves and the spinning of the worlds . . . a
clock of legend, the clock that broke Moth."

Koyee took the heavy book,
leaning back and nearly crumpling under the weight. "Thank you .
. . Master Fen!"

Torin hurried forward to help
her. Together, they carried the oversized book toward an armchair.
Koyee climbed into the seat and wriggled into the soft cushion. The
chair was large enough for two, and Torin sat beside her. They placed
the book upon their laps.

Koyee opened the tome with a new
shower of dust. She swallowed a sneeze and stared at the first page.
An illustration covered the parchment, depicting a mountain rising
from the dusk, the light of Timandra to its west, the shadows of
Eloria to its east. A dial appeared upon the mountaintop, inlaid with
numbers from zero to nine. Ilari runes appeared beneath the
illustration, and Koyee read aloud.

"The Cabera Clock."
She gasped. "It says it's over twenty thousand years old, Torin!
I didn't even know people existed to build a clock twenty thousand
years ago."

Torin flipped the page,
revealing a new illustration. Here appeared an animal Koyee didn't
recognize. It reminded her a little of a bear, large and shaggy and
covered in golden fur. It had eight limbs—six of its paws stood upon
the ground, and the foremost pair rose to hold a harp. Its face
seemed sad to her, long of snout and large of eyes.

"A 'Clockwork Cleric,'"
she read. "Maybe humans didn't build this clock after all."

Torin leaned down and squinted.
He struggled to read the language of Ilar and stumbled over the
words. Koyee smiled and patted his shoulder.

"Don't hurt yourself. Let
me read for you." She flipped the page, began to read the story
of the clock . . . and slowly her smile vanished.

 
 
CHAPTER FOUR:
DAUGHTERS OF SUNLIGHT

Bailey stood alone in shadow.

A single candle burned upon her
table, and she stared into her tall mirror. She did not know who she
saw. A woman. An orphan. The daughter of a lord from a minor house,
an exile, a warrior of the night. A lost soul.

"I am alone."

Her reflection stared back at
her. Her brown eyes seemed weary. Her skin, which had always been
tanned and freckled, now looked pale. Her old pride—her two golden
braids—did not shine here in the darkness. Where was the girl she
had known, an adventurer who swam through rivers, chased butterflies
in fields, climbed trees, and wrestled Torin—he was always the
monster in their games—on grassy hills? That girl had died long ago.
That light had left her.

"And you left me too,
Torin."

She had joined this quest—her
greatest, most tragic adventure—to look after him. And now he spent
all his time with Koyee. Even Cam, whom Bailey used to deride and tug
by the ear, would have been welcome company here in this city, but he
only spent time with the exiled queen.

"And here I am—Bailey
Berin, alone in a room in a city of shadow."

The empress of this land had
given Bailey a chamber in some fortress. It was fine enough a
place—the chair upholstered, the bed soft—but to Bailey it felt
like a prison. She was raised in sunlight and grass and water, and in
this city of shadows and stone she felt herself wilt.

She turned away from the mirror.

Maybe
I should go home.
Her eyes stung.
Hem
is gone, and maybe Torin and Cam no longer need me. I came here to
protect them, but they found new women.

She knuckled her eyes, ground
her teeth, and cursed.

"Don't be stupid, Bailey!"
she scolded herself. She punched the wall. "Don't be some stupid
. . . cry baby! You're a warrior. You're strong. The others are weak.
Torin?" She snickered. "A babyface. Cam?" She barked a
laugh. "A runt of a shepherd. I don't need them. I don't need
anyone."

Lips tight, she grabbed her
sword. Torin perhaps had switched to a katana, but Bailey had not
forgotten her roots, and she kept her longsword of sunlight, the
pommel shaped as the half-sun of Idar. Buckling the weapon to her
belt, she stormed out of her chamber.

She burst outside onto the
streets of Asharo. A cobbled boulevard stretched before her, lined
with houses of black bricks. Chimneys pumped out smoke. The red flame
banners thudded from crenelled roofs. Everywhere she looked, she saw
soldiers waiting for war. Back in Qaelin, the fallen empire of the
mainland, soldiers had seemed to her like mystical spirits, slender
men clad in silvery scales, their spears tall and pale like orchids.
But here in Ilar, the southern island of Eloria, soldiers seemed to
her more like demons of darkness. They wore heavy plate armor, the
steel lacquered and black, and their helmets were shaped like
scorning demons complete with bristly mustaches. Many marched back
and forth, clanking like oversized beetles, tasseled swords and bows
hanging across their backs. Others rode upon great panthers, the
beasts growling beneath them.

Yet when Ferius arrived here
with his hosts of sunlight—knights on horses, hammer-wielding
barbarians riding bears, and archers upon elephants—could this army
of the night, for all its might, withstand them? Bailey had thought
Yintao safe too, and yet those walls had fallen. Perhaps there was no
safety in the night.

"Bailey!" A voice rose
across the street, and a small shadow came racing toward her.
"Bailey, by the light, I've been looking for you."

She frowned. "Camlin
Shepherd! What do you want?"

He reached her and wiped sweat
off his brow. He panted and it was a moment before he could speak
again. "They found something! Torin and Koyee. Some way to
defeat Ferius with a giant clock and a spider-bear and a missing hand
. . . or something like that."

Bailey sighed. "It's
finally happened. You've contracted stupidity from Linee." She
shook him. "Cam! By Idar. What are you talking about?"

"I don't even know!"
He grabbed her arm and began pulling her down the street. "Just
follow me to the library. Torin can explain it better."

She rolled her eyes but she
followed him. "Yes, I'm sure that when Torin explains about
missing hands and spider-bears, it'll make perfect sense."

When Cam finally dragged her
into the library—Bailey cursing at him to slow down all the
while—she found everyone else inside. Torin and Koyee stood at a
table, a book the size of a heater shield open before them. Linee
stood at their side, hugging herself, and Cam went to stand beside
her.

"What's all this about?"
Bailey said, hands on her hips. "Why did you call me here?"

She couldn't curb her rage. So
the babyface had his girl of the night. The runty shepherd had his
queen. What did they want her here for—to gloat? To scorn her for
her loneliness? She snorted. She was better than them. She was
taller, stronger, faster, and wiser. What did she care what any of
them thought?

"Well, speak!" she
said. "Tell me or I'm leaving."

It was Koyee—that damn little
urchin—who stepped forward and spoke first. Bailey was tempted to
throttle the pale waif. Koyee Mai—with her slender frame, large
purple eyes, and perfectly smooth white hair—made Bailey feel
clumsy, awkward, too tall and gangly, some lumbering giant beside a
fairy. She hated the girl for that, and she hated her for stealing
Torin.

"We found a way to undo the
lies of Ferius." Koyee spoke in Ardish for her benefit, her
accent thick. "We can make the world turn again. Day and light
can return to the world of Moth."

Bailey covered her eyes and
laughed. "Oh dear Idar, the lot of you are mad."

When she turned to leave, Torin
raced around her and blocked her passage.

"Bailey, wait." Pain
filled his eyes. "Just listen to what we found out."

She glared at him. The damn boy
perhaps sported some stubble now, and maybe he'd grown a few muscles
during the war, but he was still a damn babyface. She didn't care
what anyone else said. Bailey knew who he really was. She had taken
an orphan into her home, had wrestled him into submission in the
fields, and had seen him jump at rabbits in the dusk. Maybe now, with
his armor and battle scars and a couple more years of weariness, he
could fool Koyee, pretending to be some warrior. But he wasn't
fooling Bailey.