Barrett took them through the door on the right side of the room.
Although the design was much the same as the previous two chambers, only half the walls contained bookshelves while the rest of the wall space was adorned with racks of weapons hung on display. The furnishings were a bit different, as well. There were only four tables, placed in the corners of the room, and they were smaller and round.
Much of the center of the room was taken up by sections of floor that had been raised a foot off the ground, creating platforms that were either long and thin or roughly square. The platforms were covered in thick, rugged carpeting that was marked with white lines in various designs.
I think those are for training and sparring, Aaron mused. Pretty wild to see a mini dojo hidden in a library.
There were two doors on the right side of the room and a third in the far left corner. Barrett led them through the far door into a spacious room containing yet another private library. Aaron guessed it was about twenty feet by thirty — nearly as many square feet as his apartment in Sacramento — and it was two storeys tall, with a walking mezzanine lining the walls.
The rest of the room contained more personal furnishings. A large desk dominated the room, but there was also a reading lounge beside a fireplace in one corner and a gaming area in another. The gaming area was old-fashioned, made of a single wide table with the top carved and painted to create the board for several classic games, like chess or checkers, backgammon, and cribbage, among others.
Barrett moved to sit in the lounge, which was the only place with enough seating to accommodate everyone. The desk had four chairs opposite Barrett’s, but there were five of them beside the old drakus, so the couch in the reading area made the difference.
“Let’s get down to brass tacks,” he said when they’d all taken a seat. “I hear you ran into our old friend, so I’d like your initial impressions before I bring you up to speed.”
Aaron, Albert, and Griffin all turned to Kiara. She had stayed behind to speak with the vigilum and had already given them a run-down of her conclusions during their impromptu conference in a storage closet before coming to the archive.
“They know about the attacks for sure and they might have some idea about us being close to a Primus,” she said. “That’s my read on it anyways, but I only had a brief conversation with her so I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in it.”
Barrett nodded along to the brief explanation. When Kiara finished, he tapped his nose with the tip of his index finger.
“You got it in one,” he said, though he didn’t sound as pleased as he usually did. “After my meeting with them, I’m confident they know a good deal more about this situation than I’d have suspected. I was able to glean a bit of intel from what they said and maybe shine them on a bit to look in some wrong places, as well, but I’m not sure. Aaliyah’s sharp as a tack.”
The old man sighed heavily. “They knew about the attacks for sure, and that it was mostly hired help doing the heavy lifting. I’m pretty sure they already had some idea about the Primus but if they didn’t I told them as much.”
“Why the hell would you do that?” Kiara asked, much to the chagrin of the other two delvers.
“Not my finest moment I admit, but I was flying by the seat of my pants,” Barrett said with a chuckle. “Aaliyah raised a subject I had not anticipated and it caught me completely off guard. She already seemed to be angling to push me into a corner over why we were suddenly the belle of the ball, so to speak, so it was a bit of a gimme.”
The delvers exchanged glances, Albert being silently volunteered to ask the question that had passed between them.
“What could she have asked that got you so flustered?”
Barrett laughed softly at that, shaking his head. “We’ll circle back around to that. I have another question I need to ask first — did Aaliyah or her partner pay any special attention to Aaron?”
“No,” Albert said. “They didn’t challenge his cover story — which he performed really well, by the way — but I didn’t catch them shooting any looks his way either.”
“Are you sure?” Barrett asked.
“As sure as I can be, but that Tribune with her was an elf and they’re supposed to be incredibly perceptive.”
“I’ll second Albert’s take,” Griffin added. “If they paid Aaron anything more than passing attention, they covered it just about perfectly.”
Barrett relaxed into his chair. “Alright then, that’s something at least. Back to your question; the reason I was thrown off my game was that Aaliyah’s main reason for coming to see us seems to be that The Sleeping Dragon has resurfaced. It was somewhere nearby — possibly right here in the City this whole blasted time — and, last night, someone stole it.”
The delvers exchanged another look, confusion clear on their faces.
“The Sleeping Dragon is a book on oneiromancy that was stolen from the Drakon shortly before Oliver Milton disappeared,” Alice volunteered. “In the past, it was one of the most reliable ways for locating a nascent Primus and there’s a good chance our enemies have been using it to hunt down candidates before we can find them ever since it was stolen.”
Aaron hadn’t dreamt of the Conspicuous Pursuer since he’d come to New York, possibly the first two consecutive nights of sleep without finding himself in that stupid maze in a long while. If the book with the magic needed to send the thing after him had been stolen, that might explain the change.
“Does that mean the thing that’s been chasing me in my dreams will come back?” he asked.
Alice looked at him apologetically, her emerald eyes meeting his. A tingle crawled up his back and his mouth suddenly felt too dry to swallow. In almost no time at all, he’d forgotten how overwhelming her presence — and the magic behind it — could be. He tried to lock his emotions in a steel box, separate from his other thoughts, and pay attention to the conversation.
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice caressing his ears like the exquisite harmony of a choir. “I’m so sorry, but I’m not sure if your dreams have been the result of oneiromancy from The Sleeping Dragon or something else entirely.”
“Are there steps we can take to mitigate the risk in either case?” Barrett asked her.
“I think so,” Alice said. “The Sleeping Dragon isn’t the only grimoire on oneiromancy, so there are things we can do that should provide some measure of protection against intrusions or assaults on Aaron’s dreams. It will help if I can be closer to Aaron.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Aaron tried to ignore the sudden sensation of his stomach flipping over and pushed away unwanted thoughts about just how close he’d like Alice to be.
“How, uh… how close are we talking?” he asked.
“We can set something up in one of the apartments in Aaron’s building,” Barrett said. “Would that work, Alice?”
“That should be more than close enough,” she said, shooting an encouraging smile at Aaron.
Do not invite her to stay in your spare room, Aaron told himself. You’ve got no shot at seducing a woman like Alice and there’s too much risk she’d find out about Baby Bear. Just keep your stupid fantasies in your stupid head, Aaron.
“There’s something else we can learn from this theft,” Barrett went on. “We already knew several orders of magi were working against us finding a new Primus. We can also deduce they were probably using the magic in The Sleeping Dragon to stay one step ahead of us. Someone stealing the book tells us there’s a new player on the board and we have no idea what their intentions are nor what they’re capable of.”
“What can we do to improve our odds of coming out on top?” Griffin asked.
“I think we need to go to ground,” Barrett said after some consideration. “We’ll put our people on high alert and adopt a siege protocol, but that’s only going to go so far keeping Aaron safe. He needs time to figure out where the sceptre is and the chance of a mercenary squad running into y’all by pure fluke is too high for my tastes.”
“We could go into total lockdown,” Kiara suggested. “The apartment is about as secure and concealed as it can be, so he should be safe as long as he stays in the building.”
Aaron couldn’t help but frown at that. The idea of going into lockdown in his apartment, as nice as the apartment was, less than a week after he accomplished his dream of moving to New York City was the last thing he wanted. He didn’t usually have problems keeping himself entertained at home and he’d gone weeks without leaving his apartment for anything other than work or groceries before, but that was back in Sacramento.
I might go stir crazy staring out my window at the capital of the world, he thought. Especially before I’ve had a chance to experience more than a tiny fragment of it.
“We could move our schedule up,” Griffin suggested. “We were planning to take the next few days for some really basic training, but could knock it down to today and tomorrow, then head down on Friday.”
“Head down where?” Aaron asked.
Albert grinned at him. “To one of the local dungeons. There’s no better training than field exercises!”
A dozen questions popped into Aaron’s head, but Barrett spoke up before he could voice any of them.
“Sounds like a plan. Which one?”
“We were thinking of taking the Buttonwood Gate down to the Well,” Griffin replied.
Barrett rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’s a solid choice, not particularly dangerous but still a challenge. It can get ugly, though.”
“The world is ugly,” Albert said. “We all have to learn to face it some time.”
A small frown appeared on Aaron’s face once more. He wasn’t the most world-weary and hardened cynic humanity had to offer, but he was far from a doe-eyed innocent brimming with naïveté. He didn’t appreciate the insinuation that he was unaware of just how ugly the world could be.
But I also don’t know what dungeons are like outside of role playing games, he told himself. Or that dragons, elves, and beast-people existed up until a few days ago, for that matter.
As much as it galled him, he opted to keep his mouth shut for the time being. He did reserve the right to give Albert shit after he’d seen what these dungeons were like, however.
“We were planning to go either this Monday or next,” Kiara said. “Since we need to get off the grid, this Friday is the soonest I’d feel comfortable heading down. But if all goes well, we could spend a week or more delving.”
“Hold your horses,” Barrett said. “It shouldn’t take that long to get through the Well.”
“No, but the bottom of the Well has access points to several echo dungeons,” Kiara replied. “They’re not without their own dangers, but they’re pretty tame compared to a lot of other echoes.”
I need a damn notepad or something, Aaron thought. I have so many questions and I’m worried I’m going to forget most of them before I get a chance to bring them up.
Barrett stood up from his seat. “It sounds like we’ve got a plan of action and I couldn’t think of a better group to handle it, so you can consider this meeting me signing off on your plan. I’ll let you get back to your business of the day.”
“I’ll come by this evening to make sure everything is in order, if that’s alright,” Alice said.
Aaron kept his big mouth shut. It was the best way to keep her glamour mixing with his personality to tag team him into saying something stupid. He opted for a smile and nod. A bit awkward, perhaps, but he couldn’t take the risk with her magic whammy working its magic… whammy.
Barrett remained in his study while Alice walked the four of them back out to the central chamber. The room had become much busier in the few minutes they’d been in their meeting, a dozen people were working around the library at various tables and bookshelves.
Katrina, the Archivist, saw them return and came to join them. Alice quietly accepted her thanks for walking them out before heading back towards Barrett’s study.
“Welcome back, welcome back,” Katrina said warmly, turning her attention to Aaron. “So, where were we? Ah yes! I heard you needed help finding something. How can we be of assistance?”
“I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to share,” Aaron said. “I’m trying to find this thing and part of it is trying to remember stuff that I am supposed to have inherited, I guess.”
Katrina smiled knowingly. “Your third Tribulation; I’m familiar. I supervised collecting the materials that were sent to you with Miss Kellogg. Was there something from them you needed more information about?”
“Not them exactly, no,” Aaron said. “I saw something else, a vision I guess. It was of a building overlooking a body of water.”
“Really? Tell me more, as much as you can.”
Aaron closed his eyes and tried to visualize the image he’d seen so many times the night before. “It was a big house, like an English country manor, and it was made of bricks, I think, and had white trim. It was kind of like a castle crossed with a chateau and there might have been towers at the corners. Square towers, I’m pretty sure”
“What was your perspective of this place? Were you moving? Did you see anything else around?” Katrina asked.
“No, it was like I was over the water looking at the house. In fact, it was like I was way above the water, like fifty or a hundred feet. The house wasn’t right on the shore. There were these tall bluffs of dark stone and the house was set back from them a ways, so I shouldn’t have been able to see more than a sliver of the roof. If that. And there’s something else, too — it was a painting. The image was. Or… it might not have been a painting at first, but it was, it was definitely a painting later.”
Katrina brought her hands together. “Interesting. This might have been a painting made by Oliver Milton himself. Or it could be a piece in his collection, since I don’t recall anything suggesting he was a painter. We can look through some catalogues of art he owned, that might yield some results.”
Kiara stepped away from the quiet conversation she’d been having with Albert and Griffin to join Aaron and Katrina.
“That would be great,” she said. “We do have to limit the search to about an hour, though; we’re on a bit of a truncated schedule due to some recent developments.”
“Then the game is afoot,” Katrina said, a twinkle in her eyes. “Let’s get started!”