Haalmar Evantict's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The sealed stair stood at the end of the salt hall, a slab of dark stone set flush with the wall. Haalmar pressed his palm against it. No seam. No keyhole. He tried his father's old archive key anyway and felt the metal skid off like it had struck glass. Haalie watched from three paces back, one hand on her sabercat's shoulder. "It won't open from this side," she said. "He tried. She remembers him trying." Haalmar stepped back. "Then we don't open it from this side." Haalie's brow lifted. He tapped the notebook against his leg. "Father wrote a margin note about a spiral. I thought it was a symbol. I think it was a route. The old keeps and the cat king's castle share tunnels under the city. If the archive was built in the same season, the lower levels connect to those tunnels too. We go under. We come up inside." "That is a long walk on a guess." "Then we ask someone who knows the tunnels." They rode out before dark and reached the cat king's hall by lantern light. King Obsidian Nightwhisker met them himself, small and black and still, green eyes steady above a purple robe. He had helped their father once and never forgotten it. He listened without moving while Haalmar laid out the plan. "The archive foundations touch our lower run," the king said. "One door. It has not been opened in my lifetime. I will take you as far as the door. What is on the other side is your family's business." He tipped his head. "Your father asked me the same question, a year before he died. I told him yes. He never came." Haalmar's throat tightened. "He ran out of time." "Then do not," the king said. They walked for hours. The tunnel smelled of cold stone and old water. The sabercat led. At last the king stopped at a low iron door and stepped aside. Haalie put her shoulder to it. The hinges gave with a dry cough. Beyond was not the lower archive. It was a small dry room, shelves on three walls, a single reading stand at the center. One book lay open on the stand as if someone had set it down and meant to return. Haalmar crossed to it. The script was a language he did not know. The diagrams he did. A jaw. A skull opened in layers. Surgical tools drawn to scale, each one labeled in the lost hand. He knew the three medical records that named this book. His father had copied their citations into the front of every notebook for four years. "Haalie." His voice came out thin. "It's the surgical one. The first gap." She came to stand beside him. "He was closer than he knew." Haalmar closed the cover. The room held more shelves. Every shelf held books. None of them were catalogued anywhere above.