The bed was surprisingly comfortable, amazingly soft. It was odd to have gone to sleep without Aradie, but the owl had opted to stay back at the Library without Quinn due to the heat of Halschius and something about it dampening her feathers.
Quinn also didn’t have any dreams, which was the oddest sensation. Unless the rapping on the door that was waking her up was, in fact, a nightmare because she didn’t want to get up yet. She felt like she’d only been in bed an hour or two.
“Librarian,” the voice called.
Quinn frowned. She knew that voice.
“Librarian, we need your presence, please.”
Quinn shuffled out of bed, far more drained than she would have thought possible, until she remembered the whole poisoning incident as her brain finally woke up.
“I’ll be right there,” she sighed. She got out of bed, pulled on clothes fast. It sounded like an urgent matter. Given they’d woken her in what felt like the middle of the night, it probably was.
“I’m coming,” she said, finally pulling the door closed behind her.
Opier stood there, a frown on his face. “Terribly sorry to have woken you this early, ma’am.”
“I’m not a ma’am, please,” Quinn said. “That’s my grandmother. What’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem so much as there is...”
“Oh,” she said, suddenly completely sure... “has Adrito woken up?”
“Yes, that’s where we need to head right now,” he said. “We are to join Hal and the others and go down for observational purposes.”
“Lead the way.” Quinn dutifully followed Opier down and joined Malakai, who waited at the top of the stairs. They walked down the spiral again, Quinn choosing to float because it was much easier than accidentally losing her balance and falling down the stairs to land flat on her face at the bottom, potentially breaking limbs in the process. She knew how coordinated she was when she was still three-quarters asleep.
She yawned, covering her mouth. “I’m sorry, I am so tired. I didn’t think I’d be this tired.”
“You were poisoned yesterday. Your body’s doing all sorts of healing things.” Malakai said.
“But didn’t I heal it?” Quinn asked, somewhat confused. “Like, didn’t we actually heal it?”
“Well, yes, we healed it, as you so eloquently put it, but at the same time, your body still needs to recover. Healing uses your body’s energy, Quinn. You’ve got to understand that.”
“Well, I do, on a technical basis.” She shrugged. “I just haven’t been poisoned before. I didn’t realize healing it would take so much out of me.”
Finally, they arrived back down in what Quinn dubbed the illusion chamber. Hal was tapping his foot. “We need to hurry. I thought I told you to make sure they got here as soon as possible.”
“They were asleep, sire,” Opier said.
Hal sighed. “Sleep is for the weak. But I guess you were poisoned yesterday.”
“That’s what I keep telling her,” Malakai said.
Eric finally fluttered down to join them. He tossed them all a withering glare.
“You’re not a morning person, are you?” Quinn said.
“No, Librarian. I am not a morning person. This is just typical of that Esposian to piss me off. Waking me up at this hour.”
“Yes, I’m sure he did it because of you.” Hal drawled, “Now hurry up.”
This time, the platform took them over to the left-hand back corner. This dome was substantially smaller, perhaps because the Esposian was smaller. Quinn wasn’t entirely sure why, but its size made it easier to observe.
“Is that blood?” Quinn asked.
“Yes, it seems our Asposian friend is quite violent.” Hal said, completely detached from the carnage in the dome.
Quinn shuddered. “Are those the imaginary remains of the guards that he disemboweled?” She asked. There was nothing else it could be wrapped around the throat, but Quinn couldn’t... She reached over the side and retched. Nothing came out, but the gagging wouldn’t stop.
“That’s just... you didn’t know he was that violent?” Eric asked.
“No, I didn’t. He took control of a stone golem, which I then somehow melted into lava. He didn’t seem this... well, this out of it. I don’t understand. Even when he was speaking to me at the end, I just thought he was misguided.”
“Some of them hide it better than others.” Hal shrugged. “He is misguided. Although, you know, if you’re in an echo chamber and everybody agrees with you, then you think you’re right. Which is what’s happened to him. Frankly, you could say it happened to us. We all agree with each other too, right?”
“Well, yes, but I also agree that chaos can have its uses when it’s strictly monitored and carefully used,” Quinn said. “I mean, we’ve all used it to some extent. You did to build this amazing feat of architecture.”
Hal smiled. “You’re a lot more observant than I give you credit for.”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“I get that all the time,” Quinn said. “Anyway, no, he wasn’t initially this violent. He may have been trying to crush us like bugs under his feet with the massive statue he created out of the city. So I guess...” Quinn sighed.
Malakai patted her shoulder. “There, there, Quinn. It’s okay.”
“I knew that he destroyed the city and, therefore, probably killed thousands of his citizens. I just sort of didn’t combine the two of them from where he got the materials for the golem from.” Hall turned his full attention back to the dome.
“I guess he’s always had violent tendencies.” Quinn muttered as she watched. “Oh, my gosh. Is he like bathed in the blood?”
“Well, it sort of sprayed everywhere,” Hal said. “He didn’t hold back.”
Quinn looked at the bits of viscera hanging from the Asposian’s mouth. He no longer looked civilized. He looked feral, as if something had taken control of his mind. He piloted like he was an animal needing to eat to survive.
“Is he going to be okay?” Quinn asked.
Hal simply shot her a look and said, “You want him to be okay?”
She sighed. “I just, he looks pitiful. I feel sorry for him.”
“Don’t go feeling sorry for him. This is what his mind came up with, Quinn. This is how, if he were to get free, he would treat the guards in my castle who are literally just keeping him in a room.”
“Well, I guess it’s against his will, though.”
“Of course it’s against his will. But he already killed thousands upon thousands of people. Should we just let him go?”
She knew the answer. “I guess not. I mean, I know not. I just... look at him.”
Except that moment was when Adrito snarled and moved out of his imaginary jail cell. He wandered halls and suddenly came to a door. Each hall he moved through resulted in more guards being summarily ripped apart, limb from limb, body section from body section. Quinn looked away constantly until she just couldn’t look back again.
Malakai put a hand around her shoulder and gave her a quick hug. “I’ll tell you when it’s okay to look again.”
“Thanks,” she said, knowing deep within that if he were to be let out again, many more hundreds of thousands of millions of people would die.
The noises emanating from the dome inhabited by Adrito left little to Quinn’s imagination. She couldn’t quite fathom the depths of depravity he must have experienced to gnaw on bones and tear flesh apart. Suddenly, the sounds stopped.
“It’s okay, Quinn. You can look again,” Malakai said.
Quinn nodded and looked up. The dome’s haziness had cleared slightly, leaving Adrito no longer indoors in his imagination, but instead in the dome outside his prison. It was remarkably similar to where they were, suggesting that Adrito had been aware enough during his transportation to realize he had reached Halschius.
“Was he supposed to know?” Quinn asked.
“Well, each species has their own specialties,” Malakai replied. “One of the Esposians’ is special awareness, because they can fly and are very sensitive to temperature changes, which you can’t exactly avoid, even in stasis, when you come here.”
Quinn nodded. “So he knows where we’ve brought him.”
“Yes, he appears to, doesn’t he? But even so, the pathways through to the jail cell weren’t accurate, so his awareness isn’t as heightened as it usually is. Milaro did do a good job.” Hall stared at the Esposian intently.
“What exactly did he do for you?” Quinn asked.
“Well, you see,” Hal never took his eyes off his quarry. “Milaro essentially made our guests more open to suggestions, so that when we got them here, it would be easier for us to instigate the process that we use to extract the information we require. We don’t often have a mind mage of Milaro’s caliber at our disposal, frankly. I’ve asked the man several hundred times to just drop everything he’s doing and come and help me, but he won’t do it. He said he has a kingdom to run, and now he’s got the Library too.”
This time, Hal laughed. “But seriously, I’m glad that Milaro could prepare them to this extent. I am, however, concerned that he didn’t find the trigger inside Tenejo that caused...”
Hal’s voice petered off, and Quinn focused on the dome with him. He frowned. “That’s not right,” he said. This time, instead of turning to the twin imps next to him, he went to the control panel himself. “That’s not... Opier, look.” He called him over.
Quinn wisely stayed out of his way. She’d gotten the distinct impression that Hal, in a bad mood, was someone you shouldn’t cross or even get in the way of. But instead, she watched as the dome fogged up, and suddenly, Adrito was standing on top of a long table in his throne room with several other Esposians around him, not to mention Kajaro, and two aracnios that Quinn didn’t recognize in the least.
“I made it back,” he bit out.
Kajaro raised an eyebrow. “Well, you think you made it back?”
What do you mean by that?" Adrito’s wings fluttered in irritation.
“Look around, little king. What do you see?” Kajaro’s voice spoke smoothly, but not in a way Quinn would have attributed to him.
“Where’s Latia?” Adrito asked, a note of panic in his voice.
Suddenly, Latia appeared beside him, but she was faded and looked injured, like she had been the last time he’d seen her. Adrito shook his head forcefully. “No, that’s not right. Something’s wrong.”
“I told you something was wrong,” Kajaro said. “When will you ever listen to me?”
“I listened to you enough.” Adrito practically screeched. “You’re the reason I created the Golem. I destroyed my entire city because of what you told me what I should do if the Librarian arrived, and I still didn’t get her.”
“You’re not the only one who’s failed to kill the Librarian. She seems to have some dumb luck on her side,” Kajaro drawled the words, very different from how Quinn had ever seen him speak. She wondered if Adrito had experienced something similar to this in the real world and that he just perceived people differently in his head.
“It’s not right,” Hal said, practically echoing himself from earlier, not to mention Adrito. “We need to shut it down.”
“If you shut it down now,” Opier said, “we won’t get what we want out of him. His mind will melt.”
“Better that than the glitches that are appearing in the system.” Hal snapped.
Quinn held up a hand. “What do you mean, glitches?” All she could think of was the Library and how vast and debilitating those glitches were proving to be. “Is it a virus?”
“No, no, it’s something to do with Adrito’s mind. He’s not fully under. He doesn’t believe what he’s created.” Hal paused to glance over at her, must have realized how concerned it made her. “It’s not a glitch in the way the Library is experiencing, but a disconnect between his brain and the projection spells in place. He’s too aware. The suggestion isn’t taking hold like it should.”
Quinn paused and looked over. “What do you mean, it’s not taking hold like it should?”
A hiss and a whoosh of air suddenly burst into her face, forcing her to shut her eyes. For just a second her equilibrium shifted, close to the vertigo she’d felt when the Library first found her, and then it was all quiet.
And everyone was gone except her.
Quinn looked around slowly and saw Adrito not four feet from her, inside the dome with her.
“Oh, shit,” Quinn said.
“Really?” Adrito said, happy surprise evident on his face. He sounded positively gleeful when he began to speak. “You’re really here. And this, this is really something, and I can create anything in here. Anything I want.”
He summoned a massive pendulum, except it wasn’t blunt like those on an old grandfather clock. It was sharp and apparently affixed in mid air. It swung down towards Quinn, who dove out of the way, allowing her hover ability to push her farther than she’d have been able to jump without assistance. She rolled and came to a crouch on the other side.
“Oh, Librarian,” Adrito said, “we are going to have so much fun.”