“Did you know that Satrap used to be filled with dinosaurs?” Bel said.
Orseis’ tentacles writhed with frustration. “Of course I don’t know that! I’ve never even been to Satrap! Stop acting like you know stuff just because you’re reading those books!”
Bel blinked and looked up at the small cuttle-girl. “But reading books is how you get to know stuff. James used to talk about them all the time, but I didn’t realize how fun they would be.”
She smiled at her smaller friend. “You know, the Old World has lots of books.” Bel patted her treasure, volume one of her new collection on Technis. It was a beautiful thing: the writing was crisp and elegant, the pages were thick and smooth and bound together with large bolts of silver, and the cover was a thick leather shimmered with gold and silver thread. She refused to touch them with dirty hands.
Bel looked up to see that Orseis was giving her a look of unrestrained disgust. “It’s just a bunch of squiggles, Bel. I’d rather have a nice weapon.” The cuttle-girl hefted her divine spear and thumped its butt against the floor.
Bel chortled. “You know, I didn’t think much of them, but once I opened this one…” She gestured helplessly. “I mean, just look at the maps! Look at how the world changed, just because of stuff that people did! Look at that upheaval! Isn’t that amazing?”
Bel opened the book to the end and flipped through a sequence of maps, beginning with what it called the “pre-dynastic” period.
Orseis waved her tentacles angrily, and Bel snatched her precious book away from the errant limbs.
“Who cares about stuff from a thousand years ago! Unless that shows where the best food is, I don’t care!”
Bel frowned. “These maps are closer to three thousand years ago.”
Orseis screamed with frustration. “At least find me a book about the Old World! Maybe that’ll be useful when I go there and leave this one behind!”
Bel shrugged. “You know I don’t have anything like that. Maybe we’ll be able to take some from Technis once we defeat him.”
“Once we defeat him, your mom is going to send me to the Old World anyway,” Orseis huffed. “It’ll be too late.”
Bel’s snakes slowly slithered over her head, flicking their tongues energetically as she considered Orseis’ words. “That reminds me. Before you go, I think you should learn how to read James’ language.”
“But why? I don’t want to.”
Rather than argue with Orseis, Bel turned to Manipule, who was calmly listening to her clay egg with her ear pressed against its side.
“Hey, Manipule,” Bel called out. The friendly gorgon’s panther-patterned red-on-yellow snakes perked up immediately at Bel’s attention. She smiled so brightly that Bel almost averted her eyes as if she was staring into the sun.
“Yes?” Manipule chirped.
“Do you think Orseis should learn to read before she goes to the Old World?”
Manipule nodded immediately. “Of course! A person who reads is wonderful! Seeing you read those books is very impressive!”
Bel quickly turned back to Orseis. “There you have it. We all agree that you need to learn to read.”
Orseis turned an angry shade of purple that was cut through with crimson lines. Her cheeks puffed out as she pouted.
Manipule clapped her hands. “That is a very pretty pattern, Orseis.”
Orseis deflated at the unexpected praise. “Don’t try to teach me anything yet – I’m going to ask Beth for a second opinion,” she grumbled.
“There’s not time for that anyway,” Crecerelle said, suddenly entering the conversation. She tilted her head at the other gorgons. “The ceremony is just about finished.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Bel glanced over at the strange gathering. She, along with the rest of the gorgons, had given blood to Fortuit so that she could complete her new clay egg. After that, there had been a lot of singing and chanting that Bel couldn’t understand. Fortunately for her, the other gorgons didn’t mind if she left after giving blood. Bel had been happy to use the time for more reading.
Orseis jabbed her spear towards the ceiling. “Finally! If we rush, maybe we can be back to the surface in a day!”
Bel rolled her eyes. “Don’t forget that we’ll keep getting heavier as we go up, Orseis.”
Crecerelle nodded. “We are not accustomed to the full weight of Olympos. I apologize in advance, but we will not be able to rush. If what we’ve heard is true, we can expect to have to fight our way through as well.”
“Whatever, Cress, I’ll drag the lot of you if I have to. Let’s at least get to the water layer again. That way I’ll at least have a proper meal instead of eating more of the leftovers from the feast.”
Cress snorted. “For such a hungry girl, you sure are picky.”
“Am not!”
Manipule patted Orseis on her bald head. “She is growing. Her body knows best what it needs, Cress.”
Even as she spoke, Manipule handed Orseis a small bag of fruit. Orseis immediately began eating, putting a temporary halt to her complaints.
Crecerelle shook her head with disbelief. “Well, let’s see how far we can get today.”
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The answer to that question was, “not far.” Bel counted the steps as they went, getting to around fifteen thousand before they were stopped by a group of dour snake people with human heads. Cress had addressed the naga and nagini, and she immediately began arguing that they should have already known about the group of gorgons. The obstinate Pillar guards then insisted that they needed to verify their identity to be certain that the gorgons weren’t some type of trick from the Asura, whatever that meant. Bel had decided to ignore the entire thing – she’d dealt with this nonsense the last time, after all – and sat down with her book instead. It wasn’t long before she was completely engrossed in history.
“Ah,” she said suddenly.
“Wha…?” Orseis blearily responded. She blinked awake, her round pupils slowly returning to their usual w-shapes. “We can go?”
“What?” Bel looked around. “Oh, I don’t know. But Technis just showed up.”
“Where?” Orseis asked, alarmed. Her eyes dilated again.
“In the book, silly. After the ruler of the first dynasty ascended, their government fell apart since the ruler had been hogging all of the essence and everyone else was weak. Technis was born in the second dynasty, which was formed by the Bargainer’s people.”
Orseis glared at Bel, but the gorgon happily continued.
“You see, after the fall of the first dynasty, humans were getting wiped out by those dinosaurs from Atmos and the Elves in the west. The gods hadn’t planned things very well, I guess. But, the best detail is that now I know his original name!”
Bel thrust her finger into the air triumphantly.
“How does–” Orseis began.
“It was Dexter!”
Orseis rolled her eyes. “Can I go back to sleep?”
“It wasn’t actually Dexter, just some words that meant ‘dextrous hands,’ but I think Dexter works.”
“Keep talking, it’s so boring that I’m nearly asleep already.”
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“Ah,” Bel said suddenly.
“Wha…?” Orseis blearily responded. “No, wait, you’re still reading your book. I’m going back to sleep.”
Bel shook her head. “No, I was just surprised that they’ve finished arguing. We can go now.”
“Really?”
Bel nodded sadly. “I’m only halfway done with the first volume, but Cress thinks we’ll be stuck arguing with the Asura next.”
She hugged her book. “I’m hoping to get through the rest of volume one then!”
Orseis groaned while her tentacles writhed helplessly through the air.
----------------------------------------
Bel closed her book and sighed contentedly. “You know, that’s the first book I’ve ever read,” she said. “It was amazing.”
She looked up and was surprised to see that everyone else was asleep, except for Escarole. The armored woman stood near Fortuit, but Bel could tell she was awake when she moved occasionally to scan the area. Bel awkwardly raised her hand in greeting when Escarole’s helmet turned in her direction. To her surprise, the armored woman silently strode over to her.
“This,” the woman said, holding out a gauntleted hand, “will be useful for you.”
Bel reached out her hand and Escarole dropped a small snail into it. She stared at it, perplexed. “And this is… what exactly?”
“Look at its shell,” Escarole replied.
Bel peered at the shell, and finally noticed that it was glossy and metallic. “Oh, does it have some power over metal?”
Escarole tapped her shield, unrolled the metal, and waved it around like taffy. “It’s the ability that I use with my armor. With your mastery over liquids you should be able to use it.”
Bel grinned, delighted. “That sounds really useful!”
Escarole nodded. “In return, I would like some of the Pillar metal.”
She ran her hand over the serrations on her sword. Bel remember the strange way the powerful gorgon had used her metal manipulation to move the teeth over the surface, biting and burrowing through the stone woman’s arm.
“I wish the make the teeth stronger and sharper. The Pillar metal would be perfect.”
“Sure,” Bel agreed quickly. She’d been dragging around the pants-full of metal in the hopes of finding a use for it. With Escarole’s suggestion, Bel could make her own armor, probably. Giving up a little in return wasn’t a bad deal.
Bel looked down at the snail in her hand. “I feel kind of bad about killing this little guy, though. It’s not like he’s attacking me.”
“I found it sneaking around our camp.”
Bel eye the woman with skepticism.
“They eat metal,” Escarole said with disgust.
Bel glanced up and down at Escarole’s full-body armor. “I mean, I guess I can see why that would upset you…”
“Your precious books are also bound with metal,” Escarole pointed out.
Bel crushed the snail without hesitation.