Ice Blink

40: Escaping Kirasaq

The secret passageway was so hot, sweat slipped down Nuna's sides. Occasionally they were forced to duck under or step over the pipes running through the walls. Maliq led them confidently, pausing only to whisper a warning when a pipe approached. Nuna still ended up stubbing her toes or knocking her head against most of them.

"We could kill you," she said, amazed Maliq was being so cooperative.

"You keep making that very clear. Anything else to add?"

"But you're helping us anyway."

"Anything to disobey my father." His forced cheer didn't detract from the sheer amount of bravery he was showing just by being here.

After taking so many turns and following so many twists that Nuna's head was spinning, Maliq cracked a hidden door open and they stumbled into a night that crackled in their lungs.

Gods damn this flimsy dress.

"There's an Iri storeroom over here, we can steal their coats. We won't be very inconspicuous, but hopefully they'll let us pass if they don't look too closely." Maliq led them into another chamber which was mercifully empty, and they donned rich red coats lined with fur.

Kirasaq was strangely peaceful, the streets empty as everyone huddled inside against the cold. The palace shimmered softly behind them, nothing betraying the struggle within, and they slipped and skidded down roads which had been compacted into ice by thousands of feet.

Amarok brought up the rear, looking constantly over his shoulder, but no one pursued them. Still, the hair on the back of Nuna's neck prickled.

The library was a mass of darkness looming above the other houses, and from the outside it looked abandoned.

"How do we get in, genius?" Iki asked Maliq.

"It's amusing how you talk as if you've planned ahead when I'm the only reason you got to this city in the first place." Maliq pulled a key from his jacket pocket. "I took this coat because I knew some of the guards do their rounds here. Knowledge is power, you know." He unlocked a small side door, shoved it open with a grunt, and they filed inside.

Nuna couldn't see a thing, but the vast space that opened up around us made her skin tingle. The air tasted of old ink, dust, leather and vellum.

"Anything could be hiding in here," she whispered.

"Yeah, so many spooky librarians," Toklo replied, his grin almost as bright as Iki's hair.

She gave him an angry nudge.

An oil lamp sputtered to life in Maliq's hands, throwing light against bookshelves so tall and long Nuna couldn't see where they ended.

Amarok released a low breath at the sight of the forest of tomes. "And we're looking for information on one thing, aren't we? The spirit temples. How are we going to find that, Niju?"

Nuna felt like crying. They could be reading books for decades and might never find the one they wanted.

"Don't worry," Niju said, "the scroll I was reading from is part of a book, but information on the other two temples were missing. Torn out or maybe just not copied down."

"What was its name?"

"The Sila and..." He hesitated. "The Doom of All Things."

"Lovely," Maliq said. "Let's get started, then."

Horribly aware their lives were in the prince's hands, they split up, lighting smaller lamps to guide their way. Maliq briefly explained the alphabetical system of the library and the way books were ordered into categories.