Pierrot's Song

Chapter 3 - Desecration-3

They jumped apart when Sofia returned with the two torches ablaze once more. She carried a travel bag over each shoulder. Mina quickly kneeled and searched the wall near floor level for the eye with an opal at its centre. A great deal of dust had been dislodged, and though she had a general sense of where it was, it took longer than she thought to find it. She brushed the dust away from the opal, triumphantly pressed it—and nothing happened.

‘No!’ she cried.

Sofia scanned the unyielding rock, her face haggard with concern. Carefully, she propped the two torches against the wall so they wouldn’t fall over.

‘I don’t think those men caused the last rockfall. I think that was an avalanche. Maybe it shifted the mechanism,’ she said. ‘This is the spot where the wall opened, right?’

Mina peered at the wall. ‘I think so.’

‘We’ll see if we can help. When I say, try the eye again.’

Luka came and stood beside Sofia, his one good hand searching the wall. He ran his hand down the wall in a straight line. ‘Found this side.’

Sofia stood back for a second, measuring the distance with her eyes, then placed her hands against the wall near Luka’s hand. ‘Okay, Mina. Press.’

With Sofia and Luka leaning on the wall. Mina pushed the opal as hard as she could. A cracking sound filled the air, then the hidden door slid back and away again. Swiftly they distributed the travel bags and torches between them and set off down the stairs once more.

‘Well, if we don’t find a way out, this is going to be a spectacular place to die,’ Luka said.

They wound their way down the stone staircase, quickly at first, then more slowly as it twisted on and on. The torchlight barely broke the darkness and the air grew colder with every turn of the stairwell. After long minutes of this endless descent Mina’s legs began to ache from the strain, but she could not let her concentration drop as the stairs were uneven, old, and crumbling.

Sofia led the way, confident at first, but eventually her steps began to falter. They all halted to rest and catch their breath. After a few minutes Sofia broke the heavy silence.

‘Logic tells me this has to lead somewhere, or it wouldn’t be here.’

‘The stairs in the cliff at home, which everyone uses to get to the port, feel like they go on for an eternity too,’ Mina said. ‘The darkness takes away any sense of time.’

‘And not knowing what we’ll find, or how far it is,’ Sofia agreed. She began her descent again, her final comment trailing behind her. ‘There just has to be something at the bottom.’

Luka, at the back with the second torch, stayed silent.

The stairs continued on and on. Time and darkness gradually robbed them of their optimism.

Although Mina’s legs trembled with fatigue, she was unwilling to stop. She only spoke when she realised if she fell forward onto Sofia, they might both tumble down into the endless descent.

‘I need a break ag— What?’

Just as she spoke, Sofia stopped dead in front of her. The reason became apparent when the tall storyteller stepped aside so Mina could see what lay ahead.

They had reached another chamber, about the size of the kitchen in Mina’s home. There were two torches in wall brackets, and Sofia swiftly lit these from her own torch, lighting the entire space with ease. Dropping their travel bags near the stairs, they explored the small chamber. There was not much to see.

The air was cold, but dry. In one corner was a huddled shape. Sofia approached it slowly, her hand trembling as she reached for the bundle. After the attack, violence and death seemed to linger in the air. Mina’s heart lurched. ‘Not again. Is it actually her this time?’

With a swish of cloth, Sofia pulled aside the dark fabric. ‘They’re garb,’ she said, relief making her voice too loud in the tiny space. Mina and Luka helped her lift them up and examine them. All the garments were old and extremely fragile, but a glance showed they had once been magnificent. There were several long tunics of fine linen, decorated with goldwork embroidery studded with gems circling the sleeves and hem. None of the tunics were complete though—roughly cut squares of fabric had been removed from all of them.

‘Why would someone do that?’ Luka asked.

The others shook their heads, and they all resumed their search of the small chamber. There was little to see: a wooden bed with a straw-stuffed mattress which rotted and crumbled at their touch, and, laid out on the floor in front of the only part of the wall without much curve to it, a piece of fabric threaded with dull gold and silver. It had probably once been a bright, colourful weave, but was now grey and full of holes. Arrayed across this were various objects.

At the centre was a thick pillar candle, half burned and heavy with wax drips. There was a carved hand harp, its strings gone, next to a scarf of sheer fabric, beaded at the edges. The colour was impossible to determine—it too was faded and grey with age. There were two wooden balls that might once have been brightly painted, but now had only the memory of colour. Beside them was a brush, its bristles crumbled to stumps, and a flat spatula-like knife, the blade heavy with rust.

‘It looks like a shrine,’ Luka whispered.

Sofia kneeled before it. ‘It is,’ she said, her voice too hushed. ‘To the muses … or should I say the princesses? We saw these on the statues upstairs. These are the tools of their talent.’ She reached out, her hands gently brushing the items. ‘These belonged to them. They were real. It’s all real.’ She looked around the room. ‘There’s nothing for the storyteller though. I would expect vellum, or a pen …’

Mina turned and walked to the bed, kneeling beside it. ‘What a terrible existence, to hide away here.’

Though the room was spartan, she realised on close inspection the bed had detailed carvings on it, twisting knotwork entwined with small animals. She ran her hand over the shapes, wiping off years of dust. The animals looked alive, the carving so detailed they danced still, though the years had coated them in grime.

‘Whoever lived here must have come from wealth,’ Luka said behind her. ‘That’s not a commoner’s bed.’

‘The mattress isn’t high quality,’ Mina said, leaning on it.

The straw crumbled under her weight, and she felt something hard under her palm. On close inspection of the fabric there was a slit. She reached in, grimacing.

‘I hope there aren’t rats,’ she groaned. Her fingers touched something solid and she pulled it out. A leather-bound book fell into her hands, its cover cracked and darkened with age, but the seven-pointed star embossed there still intact. There were even remnants of paint in the points, bare traces but enough to tell each point of the star had been a different colour, and dots of gold in the lines suggested the star had once been outlined with gold leaf.

‘Careful,’ Sofia said, her voice so near Mina startled. The storyteller kneeled behind her, her hands reaching possessively for the book. Mina placed it on the mattress and opened it slowly. The pages crackled under her fingers, warning of their fragility. As she turned the pages, she began to wonder why it had been so carefully hidden. There seemed to be numbers and formulas, with brief paragraphs of explanation. Pictures of planets and stars appeared here and there.

‘It’s an astronomy text,’ Sofia said. ‘I recognise it. De sphaera di mundi, the sphere of the world. It was written by Ionnis de Sacro. He was a scholar in Rien, over three hundred years ago. I don’t know why it would be hidden. All the great libraries have a copy. As books go, it’s important, but not that valuable.’

Mina kept turning the pages until her fingers faltered. She had nearly reached the end of the book and here the pages became hard to read. It took them a minute to realise what they were seeing. There were two layers of writing. The original, elegant calligraphied text was overwritten with dark ink in a less careful hand.

‘Oh, great Creator,’ Sofia whispered. ‘It’s by her … Eulalia. The first storyteller.’

She pointed to a word on the page. Eulalia.

‘It’s her will,’ Sofia continued. Mina turned one more page. It too was overwritten by darker ink. After that the pages contained only the original text. ‘She hid her words inside words.’ She stood and returned to the other items. ‘These belonged to her sisters. The flute, for Calinda, the musician; the juggling balls for Volante, the cirquer …’ Her voice died away as she touched the items reverentially.

Mina turned back to the first overwritten page.

I am Eulalia, duchess of Aurea, princess of Litonya, and these may be the last words I write. None of my titles matter now. It is all gone. My sisters, my home, my life. I tried so hard to stop it happening, once I understood, but I had been blind, just as my sisters had. I thought I would die here, near my sisters’ shrines and I was prepared. But now it is not only my life for which I am responsible. I must take my baby …

Mina stopped reading and looked up, meeting Sofia’s eyes. She saw her own shock mirrored on the storyteller’s face.

Sofia shook her head. ‘There’s nothing in the tales about a child. That child would have been the heir to the throne.’

Mina resumed reading.

I must take my baby to safety, because he would never let it live if he knew. The child would be a threat to his stolen place as ruler of Litonya. It is nearly winter, so I must travel swiftly. I will take the child to the farthest end of the country, as far from HIM as is possible. I have written all that happened to my sisters and I, the tale of Tarya, and I will leave it here. Perhaps one day it will be discovered, and someone will do what I cannot. Mourini is too strong now and I fear he has even greater plans for what he has learned to do through Tarya—what he has stolen from us all—than just be king. Tarya is a gift to be shared, not a power to be hoarded. But I am alone, and tired. I cannot stop him. Once my child is safe, I will return and guard my sisters’ final resting place until I can join them in the heavenly realms.

‘That’s all there is,’ Mina said, searching the remaining pages for the overwriting.

‘There’s no sign she ever came back,’ Luka said. ‘No bones.’

Mina nodded. ‘I wonder what happened to her.’

Sofia had moved back to the tunics, inspecting them again. Though her movements were gentle, the fabric shredded under her fingers. She placed a silvery tunic back down on the pile.

‘I know why the pieces were removed,’ she said. ‘She was going to travel during winter, and she was pregnant. She made herself a cloak to keep warm. A patched cloak from the dresses of her lost sisters.’ Sofia swept her arm wide, showing the inside of her own storyteller cloak, with its many-coloured swatches of fabric. ‘She was a storyteller. That was the first storyteller cloak.’

Sofia suddenly turned and punched the wall, then clutched her hand to her chest. Mina and Luka could only stare at this unusual loss of control by the storyteller. ‘I’ve been searching for this my whole life. The purpose for the muses.’

‘But surely their purpose is inspiration?’ Mina argued. ‘That’s what we were always taught.’

‘Then why are they always just decorative?’ Sofia responded. ‘They are on everything—pillars, paintings, all kinds of artwork—but they don’t do anything. The Creator is always the one in the stories who bestows blessings, who shows the way, who teaches … The muses just appear and do their arty thing and artists go “I’m inspired now” and that’s it?’

‘Isn’t that enough?’

Sofia shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think it is.’

‘Why would the stories be changed? Who would change them?’

Sofia grimaced. ‘If we discovered the answer to that, I think we’d discover why the Council is destroying people whose works open the door to Tarya. History tells us King Ambrosi heralded in a golden age for the arts, but from where I’m standing, he created a set of rules that stifled creativity and reduced the muses to ineffectual dolls!’

She opened one of their travel bags and flourished The Tale of Tarya. ‘I think we’ll find some answers in here.’

‘Ambrosi again,’ Mina mused. ‘You mentioned him before.’

Luka coughed quietly then. ‘Sorry to interrupt but I think I’ve found a way out.’