House of Books - Chapter 1 - The Beginning - Seg.3

{Arkyntesh}1

I ran through the alien streets of Tylon, my black robes flapping behind me like wings as I darted around the empty buildings. I sobbed through gritted teeth as I ran; not knowing at all where I was going. I almost tripped over my robes, so I threw off the first few layers as I went. Aimlessly, I rushed around the corners and up the bending roads until finally I threw myself against a wall, pressing my head and hands against it as if to melt into the faded red paint. 2

It felt like a dream. It had to be a dream; only there could my mother possibly be dead. And my sister… I sank to the ground as another bout of tears filled my eyes. I never cried; never. I was twelve years old; practically an adult. And a Prince of Ilia didn’t show weakness… but I couldn’t stop it. 3

“That bastard!” I realised. He didn’t even care when he killed his wife and his own child. And me. He was going to kill me. Hatred boiled in my veins. That bastard! He was a murderer. He never even loved my mother. He didn’t deserve her; she was always so kind to everyone. All this time… I always assumed that I deserved it when he beat me and threw me down the stairs when I was little. I decided then and there that I would kill him; avenge my mother’s death. THAT BASTARD!4

I punched the wall as hard as I could. The wall didn’t even crack, but my knuckles did. I gasped and gingerly held my aching fist. Sighing, I put my head back on the wall. Where was I? What was I going to do now? I opened my eyes and the red wall filled my vision. My life would be this wall and I would forget everything; at least for the next few minutes.5

“What are you doing, boy?”6

With a small breath, I looked up. An old man with black hair down to his shoulders stood before me. Wiping my face with my already wet sleeve, I stood up quickly. I wondered why he called me ‘boy’. I would have expected him to call me, ‘Ilian’ or ‘Ilian Prince’. Maybe I didn’t look like a Prince anymore. No, I was the only Ilian in the city, so that couldn’t be it. Why did he simply call me ‘boy’? I supposed that was what I was. “How long have you been standing there?” I asked. 7

“Not long.” The man leant heavily on a gnarled stick with thin, weak-looking arms. Maybe he was senile and didn’t realise what had just taken place in the centre of the City. “I’m sorry about what happened to your mother.” 8

I guess not. “What do you want?” I asked. “Do you want to kill me? I can’t help if I’m telekinetic, and I’m not evil, ok? I never even knew—”9

“Relax, boy. I want to help you.”10

Well, that was the last thing I expected. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. “Why?”11

The man chuckled pleasantly. “I’m a firm believer in fate, and the odds of our meeting here are small. Besides… we telekinetic folk should stick together. Come.” 12

He turned and slowly began sauntering around the side of the red building. I hesitated foolishly, because he’d just told me he was telekinetic. But then I realised how stupid that was. What was the worst he could do, anyway? Levitate me? Or stab me in the head when I’m not looking. No, nothing he could do to me could possibly make me worse-off than I already was.13

I took one step and he stopped abruptly in front of me. He turned to the red building and, frowning, I searched the plain wall for whatever he was looking at.14

“We’re here,” he said. 15

“What?” I asked. Was he crazy?16

“This,” he continued obliviously, “is my house.”17

I looked again at the unremarkable red wall. “There’s no door. We can’t get in.” 18

“Exactly!” he grinned. “The only way to get in is through the roof. So unless you have a ladder, and that’s even if you know about the entrance at all, you can’t get in without telekinesis. You see that?” The old man pointed at a simple plank of wood lying on the ground by the wall. 19

“It’s a plank of wood,” I said.20

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” He aimed an outstretched hand at the piece of wood and levitated it into the air at the height of his shoulder. Leaving it suspended in the air, the old man carefully placed his arms over it. “Telekinesis is limited partly by your physical, and partly by your mental strength. Unfortunately, you can’t control your own body with your mind, because you already do normally. And you, no matter what, are always limited by physical circumstances because the body itself is purely physical. But there are loopholes,” he grinned. “If you can pick up a plank and whatever extra weight that just happens to be on top of it, you can levitate yourself. A warning, though: Don’t try to levitate your clothing. For one thing, it’s too thin and there’s too much to concentrate on at once. For another thing, the wedgies you get from it are absolute murder.” 21

His brow furrowed in fierce concentration, the man stared at the plank in his arms. To my surprise, he lifted clear off the ground and slowly elevated all the way up to the roof’s edge. Swinging the plank cheerfully over his shoulder, he looked down at me. “Are you coming, or what?”22

I looked around. “Even if I had a plank, I couldn’t lift myself.”23

“Nonsense!”24

I bristled. “I only figured out that I was even telekinetic at all about an hour ago; give me a break.”25

“True.” He considered this for a moment. He sighed. “Well, I guess it can’t be helped. You’d better not be too heavy, son.”26

He stared at me with the intensity that he used with the plank, making me uncomfortable. He held out both his hands and the wood fell from his shoulder onto the roof beside his feet. His eyes narrowed, his hands shook, and I just stood there.27

Finally he gave up, wiping his brow with his sleeve. “Guess I’d better treat it like a band-aid then.” And in one swift movement, I was pulled off the ground and sent sprawling onto the roof. I yelped in surprise as I hit the hard surface and the old man threw the plank of wood over the side of the roof back to the ground.28

He held out a bony hand to help me up. “My name is Mehyl.”29

Hesitating only briefly, I took his hand and stood up. “Arkyntesh.”30

“It’s a pleasure. Now help me open my front door.” 31

I look around to find that in the centre of the roof was a sort of trap-door type thing. A keypad sat above the handle. 32

“The code is 873-902,” Mehyl said. I typed in the code and lifted the door open as he continued, “It’s easy to remember because that’s how many books I have.”33

“What?”34

“In you go,” he said and pushed me down through the hole. I fell into what looked like a cave of books and landed on what felt like more of them. I couldn’t see any of the walls through the piles and piles of hard-cover and paperback novels, in fact, I couldn’t see anything but books and the hole above me where light streamed in, interrupted by Mehyl’s moving silhouette.35

“Alleyoop,” I heard the old man announce.36

I cried out and quickly rolled out of the way just before he landed neatly beside me. “What are you doing down there?”37

“You could have killed me!” I exclaimed as I scrambled to my feet.38

He shrugged. “You’re still young; your bones bend.” 39

I stood there gaping at him like an idiot while he muttered to himself and fumbled around in the dark for a light switch.40

“Ah!” he cheered after a minute, and the room lit up suddenly with the warm light from the tiny globes that covered the ceiling. I never realised they were there before. “Just promise me,” Mehyl said as he appeared from behind a column of books, “that you’ll never bring anything in here that burns. 873, 902 books is a lot to lose.”41