Sylphie Gelton's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Sylphie crossed the last of the glossy spires and reached the tower. It rose gray and tall, crowned with curved arms that swept toward the sky like frozen comets. She had crossed the ridge for this. Now she stood before its only door, and the door would not open. A heavy lock held it shut. Sylphie pressed her long, glass-thin fingers against it. She pushed a thread of herself into the keyhole and felt for a latch. The metal was too tight. Her body slid in but could not turn the pins. She pulled back and studied the seams. No gap. No crack. Just stone and iron and a door that ignored her. She tried strength next. She thickened her arms and heaved. The door held. She thinned herself flat as paper and crept along the frame, hunting a slit wide enough to pour through. The frame was sealed all around. Sylphie sank to the step, defeated. The fragment sat inside, close enough to feel, and she could not reach it. Then she heard footsteps on the far side. Bolts scraped. Sylphie froze. The door swung inward, and a slime guard filled the gap. He was broad and dark green, with a hard, glossy shell and two flat eyes that swept the step. A ring of keys hung from a cord at his side. He had opened the door to look out, not to let anyone in. "No one climbs the ridge for nothing," he said. His voice was slow and heavy. "Slimes that think come sniffing here. We keep them out." Sylphie's whole body wanted to ripple. She held it still. She kept her borrowed shape smooth, her pale face calm, her bright eyes wide and empty. She made herself look like a lost traveler, not a slime with a mind. "I climbed the wrong ridge," she said. She let her voice go light and confused. "I was looking for the water. For the great ship built of slime." The guard studied her. His eyes moved over her long arms, her glassy trailing fingers. Sylphie did not breathe. She did not blink too fast. She thought of nothing, or tried to look like she did. "Down the ridge," he grunted at last. He pointed past the spires. "The ship's at the water. You went too high." He turned to shut the door. In that half second Sylphie moved. She let one thin ribbon of herself trail loose along the ground, past his heavy foot, over the threshold. As the door swung, her ribbon slipped inside and clung to the shadow behind the frame. The lock snapped shut. The guard walked away. Sylphie stood on the step in her traveler's shape. But a sliver of her was inside now, hidden in the dark, waiting. She had not gotten in. She had gotten a piece of herself in. And that piece could open the door from the other side.