Shards of Old

The one good thing about me having to wait for Jacob was that I had a lot of time to think everything through, and man, there was a lot. The next day, first thing in the morning, he visited me again, a bit more lively but still definitely looked drained as hell, to explain a few things. According to him, and the contract, I was free to roam the castle and do whatever I want, although he asked me to not abuse that right. It was quite obvious that this place had its secrets and they were not very keen on sharing them with me - a random stranger who just barged into their lives. So instead of snooping around the place I settled on the second best thing - the library.

It took me quite a bit to find it once more, since all the corridors looked the same, and not like there was anyone who would just lead me wherever I wanted to go. While roaming around and trying not to get lost, I passed by a bunch of people, but it was either those wearing heavy armor, similar to those who arrested me back then, or some sort of monks. Long, hooded red robes, somewhat similar to those you’d expect to see on an actual priest, besides the color. Every time I passed one of those, I could hear the jingle of chainmail, meaning even they were armored. What was creepy though, was that every single person here seemed to hide their face, be it a hood or a helmet, everyone had something on their head. This, along with the baggy clothing made it hard to distinguish anyone. I was given one of those robes as well, although at first I did not feel like wearing that weird getup, considering that my old clothes weren’t in great shape after being in a dungeon and all that, I put them on anyway. And I was glad I did that. Even in those, I could feel the eyes of people on me everywhere I went. It was especially bad in the library.

When I first managed to find it, I was greeted by a bunch of spears pointed to my chest, which disappeared almost as fast as they came. Even though they backed off, they never let me out of their sight. It was pretty unsettling, every time I moved from shelf to shelf, or even if I turned the page in a book, I felt their eyes on me, and could see the heads turning towards me.

I would not let myself get intimidated by something like that though - the library had the one thing I was lacking to finally start acclimatizing to this world - information. And a lot of it. I spent most of my time here. No one was stopping me, so sometimes I was borrowing the tomes to read in my room, usually for the nights, to have something to do, since I was not sleeping anyway.

To be completely honest, that was the only reason why I kept trying to get in touch with people that seemed at least slightly more unusual - it was pretty unlikely that some random Joe would have access to more than a cookbook, and I feel even that was a stretch. That’s why I kept looking for a little bit more wealthy people, too bad every single encounter this far ended with very unexpected results. But results nevertheless.

First book I got my hands on was about the history, sadly, just of this area - a tome called “Castle at the Edge of the World”. With that title I thought I stumbled onto the fantasy section but it was indeed about the place I was in. The contents were, well, interesting to say the least.

It explained the history of this place itself. It pretty much confirmed what I was told not too long ago. Most of it was about the founder’s successors and the changes they made to the layout of the place itself, new chambers, new regulations about the subjects taught and so on, nothing that I cared about much.

Although some of the details caught my attention.

For example, their founder, not only created the castle and raised the whole mountain from the depths of the ocean - he apparently did it in a span of minutes, by himself and from the deck of a small ship that was not even anchored. To add more to this story, the material of which this place was made was a fire crystal - the same material used for gems that gave you the ability to use fire magic. A bit unbelievable, if you ask me, but I can’t argue with the results. Later, when I was alone in my room I started inspecting and discreetly chipped away a few shards from the walls. Out of curiosity, I compared it to the gem I had on my neck, and indeed, it was pretty similar, although the color was a bit darker.

But that was not the important part that got my attention. It was the place where this island was located. “Castle at the Edge of the World”- whoever wrote that, they meant that literally. As literally as not more than a few kilometers away there was a death waterfall that ended somewhere in the void, and according to the author was “the edge of the reality itself”.

Pretty hard to believe that one, let’s say that at least, so I decided to treat this library with a bit of skepticism. It was a bit sad that something like this found itself in “one of the most prestigious institutions of this world” or whatever they said.

Sadly, that was the only book that I could qualify as the “history book”. All the other ones were about the different types of magics, with the overwhelming majority of, you guessed, fire magic. Funnily enough, even with that wide choice of magic books, I could not find any speaking about non-elemental magic. There were few excerpts here and there, but the one sentence caught my attention:

As of this day, there is more than enough evidence that confirms the existence of types of magic different than elemental, but as the research of this field is yet to be properly conducted, any more information is not available to the public knowledge, as instructed by the king Axelrod.

Unsurprisingly, even here the government is still doing its thing. It seemed a bit strange that they were this direct about it though, but not like I care.

I also managed to find a bunch of books about religion that confirmed what I already learned about the Lost Church and Absolute Insight. Funnily enough, they were more informative than the stupid history book. Besides that, there was even a book called “Old minor beliefs and their foundations”. Unbelievably, it was the most interesting read out of all of them so far, but not for the reasons you expect.

The “minor forgotten religions” as the book called them, actually sounded somewhat familiar.

For example, one of the religions that it contained was something called “Church of Contradictions''. It said that it was founded a long time before the “Great Awakening”, whatever that was supposed to mean, and spoke about a politeistic religion that called itself monoteistic, with different branches of it fighting between themselves over the course of centuries. According to the book, when the branches completely cut themselves off from the main church, it resulted in a massive war that wiped most of its followers, and the Awakening finished the job, wiping it completely.

There were a lot of others, but, according to the book, all of them were already completely replaced by the Lost Church and Absolute Insight. I was not a religious type so I didn’t delve much into the subject, instead trying to find something more useful. Though without any help it was harder than it looked.

I had the whole library to myself, well, besides one shelf - marked “Anchors”. Every time, whenever I tried approaching it, the guards tensed up and immediately stopped me before I could even take a better look.

Well, they were anchors after all, no wonder they were not taking any chances.

For a few days, I kept spending my time like this - half a day in the library, another half in my room, trying to learn however much I could. After the first day Jacob even swung by and gave me my bag along with the contents back, but almost instantly left, saying that he “still needs to recharge”. I honestly didn’t mind it that much, the place was quite comfortable. Well, the only issue was their food… I didn't really need it but every time I came back to the room I had already been delivered a prepared meal, it would be a shame to waste it. Too bad it was the exact same thing every time - and pretty smelly to boot - a whole fish, grilled in some kind of spices. Don’t get me wrong, it was quite tasty, but after the third meal the smell started killing me. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised - we were on an island that was apparently cut off from the world after all - there was no place to hunt or grow crops. Especially since it was a school, they had to feed quite a bit of people - fish was the easiest choice. I would not like to be living here constantly though, imagine how annoying that would be. Think about the cook - poor bastard had to constantly deal with fish and only fish.

It was somewhere during the second week that I finally found what I was looking for - a map. It was folded inside some random tome and I only managed to stumble upon it accidentally, when it just happened to fall out while I was browsing through yet another pile of spellbooks.

It looked hand-made, in contrast to all the books that were definitely printed, although with a varied degree of success.

I don’t know how much of the world it pictured, but it mapped two large islands, maybe continents even, hard to tell without any scale to compare. The first one was larger, with a big body of water in the middle. It looked sort of like a distorted ring. The larger cities were all either on the inner side or deep in land. There were only a few small villages marked on the outer part, and most of them in the proximity of some other, larger place. To be honest, even counting the smaller villages, there were not a lot of settlements marked down, about ten or so.

The other large island was to the north-north-east, and it looked a bit less weird. It was just a long strip of land with three cities, each of them near the coast.

Besides those two landmasses, there were some small islands peppered out, unnamed and without any settlements marked, but all of them were in close proximity to the larger ones, most were closer to the north one.

Besides a singular one.

It would be easy to miss it if it was not named, since it was just a small dot near the western edge of the map. A dot with a very familiar name - Red Edge.

Well, at least I finally knew where I was.

And speaking of the edge of the map, it was also pretty unusual. It was adorned with a very impressive drawing of a waterfall, falling over the edge of the world. It made me stop for a moment. Before I straight up dismissed that thought, but seeing this again made me question things. Do they really believe that the world is flat? This is ridiculous… How do they explain horizon… or anything for that matter really? I mean, surely, this is just some artist's rendition of the map, right? I am not an astronomer or physicist but I feel like it was pretty hard to believe that sort of crap.

That day, I couldn’t get the waterfall out of my head. I took the map to my room to try and judge the distance to the edge, comparing what I was able to see through my window and what was drawn on the map. With that I wanted to estimate that the map that I got my hands on was actually showing a pretty small part of the world. If it was the comparable size to my old world, it would’ve been about 1/8 th’s of the size.

But what if it was not though?

Once more I started cursing myself for ditching that magical boat back at that small village. With that I would at least be able to take a look down and see for myself. It had so many enchantments that it surely would be able to withstand the pull of the waterfall, right? Who am I kidding, of course not, if it was that large there was no magic in this world that would be able to counteract that kind of force.

That question constantly was bouncing around in my head for some stupid reason. Maybe eating that much fish started getting to me, I don’t know. But the only other theory, about this place just being on the edge of the biggest waterfall ever on the most awkwardly shaped landmass wasn’t much more convincing either.

For the first time in a while I felt the need to visit my host upstairs, to, once more, ask some questions. Also, it’s already been a long while, Jacob was most likely rested already and able to take me back to the mainland, so I should pay him a visit anyways.

I grabbed the map and started climbing upstairs, to have a bit of a chat.

The staircase was exactly the same as the one leading downstairs, and I had to make a full lap around the tower to finally arrive in front of the next door. I took a good glance around, but there was no name or anything that would indicate that it was the wrong door, so I knocked.

I waited a good minute, but there was no answer. I tried again, but still, got nothing.

Was I at the wrong door? I mean it is not easy to get lost in this place, but not on this staircase - besides that being the first door, according to what he said earlier above me were only his quarters and For’s. The bastard probably was already rested after the first day and just went off somewhere. I tried opening the door, but it did not budge - it was locked with a similar mechanism to mine.

I was not about to try and break into his room, so I started climbing further. I was not in the mood to talk with For, but she was the only person who would know where the hell he got off to, and the only one I could complain to. And I would not pass an occasion to annoy her.

Another round around the tower’s circular staircase and I arrived at the end of the stairs and next door.

It did not even take her ten seconds to answer my knocking. Probably she was expecting someone, but definitely not me, what was clearly written on her face that instantly turned from happy smile to complete disappointment.

-Hi.

-Ah. It’s you. Good evening.

She was wearing a dress, similar to that I first saw her in when she visited me in my cell, but this time it looked a bit more plain and with long sleeves. She replaced the leather gloves with ones matching the dress, although those were fingerless as well. She still was wearing the same necklace, which reminded me that I never actually managed to ask her about it.

-If you are here I assume you have a good reason to disturb me? - she asked dryly.

-Why else would I bother my generous host?

She rolled her eyes.

-What do you want?

-Well, it’s been a while since I’ve been staying here, and not like I am getting impatient, but I think it’s about time to talk about me leaving.

-You are free to leave whenever you feel like, I am not holding you hostage here, as you are well aware - she pointed to her neck.

-Yeah, yeah, I know, but I still need your… butler? Assistant? Jacob. I need his help.

-Obviously. But I still can’t see why you come with that to me.

-I also have a few questions about some of my findings from your library. So how could I pass up the opportunity to have a chat with the great leader herself?

-You still can discuss that with him. Now, if you excuse me, I am busy.

As she was starting to close the door, I shoved my foot in the doorway.

-Ok, fine, can’t even have a little banter with you. Ow - she tried closing the door again.

-Get out or I will make you even less symmetrical. Go bother Jacob.

-I honestly doubt you could. Fukin’ - I groaned loudly when she slammed the door even harder, crushing my foot - I would if he was in his room! Can you at least let me finish before slamming the door in my face?

That immediately caught her attention.

-What do you mean “if he was”? Where is he?

-And how the hell should I know? That's why I came here - I answered, quickly removing my foot from the door, before she changed her mind and started crushing it again. - I knocked but there was no answer, I thought you sent him on a mission or something like that.

-A mission? What are you on about? We are not some stupid adventurers guild and I am not a dispatcher. And besides, who in their right mind would send someone that was barely able to walk anywhere at all?

I was gonna say that I had my doubts about her being in her right mind, but I bit my tongue and instead asked:

-So where is he then? I kinda want to get out of here sooner than later and since he is not there that clearly means he has recovered already, right?

She looked at me, irritated, clearly thinking something over.

-I need to check for myself. Move.

I gave her a bit of space so she wouldn’t lash out at me again, and she left her room, closing the door behind her. The crystal on her door shimmered lightly as the door locked.

-Go then - she gestured for me to lead the way.

I shrugged and started walking downstairs, limping a little bit, she did slam the door pretty hard on me after all. I was fine, but I would not pass up on the occasion to annoy her. I could feel her drilling look on the back of my head and I had to stifle a laugh. She looked like was feeling genuinely bad with how she treated me.

That is, when I was looking. Whenever I turned away she instantly turned back to her old, annoyed self and I could tell without even seeing her face.

When we reached the door I walked a few steps lower and bowed down, gesturing towards the door.

She sighed and knocked at the door.

-Jacob? Open up.

Of course, there was no response. She tried two more times, each time she knocked harder, but that did not change a thing.

-So… now what? - I asked, a bit impatient.

-Shut it.

One look at her face and I realized that something was wrong. She no longer was just irritated at me for disrupting her day, instead she looked worried.

-Something wrong?

-I don’t know yet. It’s not like him to not answer like that.

-Can’t you open the door? Don’t you have a master key or something like that.

-Unlike you, I am not someone who just barges into someone else's room without invitation.

-Yeah, uh-uh. So we are gonna just stand here looking at each other instead.

-Grrr.

She turned back to the door.

-If you are there, I am sorry, I am coming in.

She placed her hand on the gem. Unlike with me, the gem instantly recognized her mana and the door unlocked, opening slightly inside.

She gently pushed the door, knocking once more and entered the room.

I slowly poked my head inside behind her, inspecting the chamber.

It was pretty much the exact same as mine, maybe only the paintings were different, including the fish smell from the uneaten dinner. Flooded with red light and divided in half, but from the door we could not see anyone inside.

-Jacob?

There was no answer.

For instantly started scouring the room and as soon as she disappeared behind the divider I heard a loud gasp.

-Uh-oh - not knowing what to expect, I followed her.

Yep, she found him alright. He was lying on the bed, looking exactly as I saw him last in my room. He was a bit pale, even in the red light of this room, but besides that he looked fine. Well, besides the fact that he was not moving.

For was standing frozen next to the bed, looking straight at his face.

-Is he dead?

I mean, sure that was a bit of a grim question, but come on. She didn’t even move nor react anyway, so I started expecting the worst.

I walked past her and before she was able to stop me or at least shake off the initial shock, I managed to check his pulse.

He was still warm and most definitely alive. From this close I could even see his chest moving to the rhythm of his breathing, although shallow, it was still definitely present.

-Don’t touch him! - she finally managed to spit out, but I already stepped back.

-He’s alive. Don’t know what's wrong with him though, I am not a doctor.

She was still staring daggers at me.

-Hey, I asked you, you just were standing there looking like a dead body yourself, so I had to check. I kinda need him to get me of this stupid rock, remember?

I think she finally gave up on me, because she instead focused on Jacob again.

-Was he attacked? Have you heard or seen anyone near here?

-Nope. But I spend the most time in the library, so I could’ve missed it. Also I thought this is the safest place in this part of the world or something, so how would anyone even get here?

I know that sounded like me trying to annoy the crap out of her yet again, but this time I was serious. She realized that, although I briefly saw her eyes flash with anger.

-That does not mean that it is perfect, as you demonstrated not so long ago. And it could’ve been an attack from the inside. Like poison. Or a curse.

I wanted to laugh at a mention of a curse but I stopped myself short. This world proved weird enough that even a curse might have been possible.

-Before you jump to conclusions, don't you have some kind of doctor on site? It’s a school so maybe a nurse or something?

-Yeah we do, but I am not leaving him with you like that! What if…

-If what? - I interrupted her, annoyed. - What, I’m gonna stab him or something? I literally am unable to run away from this place. And I am gonna repeat myself: I NEED HIM AS WELL. Now move it.

I think that finally convinced her, because she finally left the room. Quite fast I want to mention.

-Just don’t kill yourself on the stairs, I don’t need more problems - I said behind her, but I doubt she heard me.

After I made sure that she really left, I started scouring the room. I was pretty curious how he ended up like that as well. Even with the two of us arguing over his head, he did not wake up or even move, just was lying there, so it was definitely something unusual.

But the room was just as regular as it gets. Besides some different contents of the drawers and such, it was exactly the same as mine - meaning there was nothing suspicious there. Even the food was identical, the exact same plate of stinky fish just by the door, untouched.

Funnily enough, although the smell was definitely noticeable, the meal did not look old. Either those fish have an amazing ability to stay fresh or it was the plate that got brought here today.

I was tempted to look a bit more carefully through his belongings, but I stopped myself. I did not want to be that rude, especially to the person who helped me. That, and I heard some footsteps outside.