Chapter Fourteen

  Esselem

  The three friends stood upon a stone ring just a few paces from the bridge. Harsh wind stole Freya’s warmth swift as a cat stealing a piece of tuna out of an unattended sandwich. The fog seemed thinner now that they were out of the Travel Agent’s waystation.

  They were atop a large cliff, easily two or three hundred feet all. City killing waves crashed harmlessly against the cliff face far below. A series of stone spires tall enough to match the cliffs jutted out of the ocean. The Esselem Institute for Fable-Walkers was built on those spires. A large castle sat on the largest of the spires just to the left of center.

  It was built with charcoal grey stone. The stones came to hard aggressive lines all throughout, the roof was steep and unforgiving to match. The rest of the spires had tall and narrow towers built on them. Several permanent swinging bridges had been built into the spires. A stone bridge grander than any she had ever seen crossed the churning sea below to the large spires out in the ocean.

  The physics of the thing couldn’t be right, even with modern steel a bridge like that should be impossible. Then Freya caught herself, magic. Don’t try to assign meaning to things without completely understanding it. Roman stepped up and nudged her.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  Freya smiled. “It’s beyond my wildest imagination.”

  Just a few days ago Freya had been hopelessly lost in life with no true purpose. Now she was living two lives, both with a solid idea of where she was going. Things in the Source still needed to be worked out more. But she had gotten a start, and it was all due to this second chance. Esselem had a certain intimidation factor built into it, which Freya assumed was intentional. Why else would they go through the effort to build a castle on top of those ice covered spires? Like everything about this place so far, it seemed the answer was, ‘because they can.’

  The bridge was warmed through some unknown means. The stone walkway was still wet, but it wasn’t icing over like much of the cliffside. Wisps of steam floated up and away from the stones. Before they had even finished crossing the bridge, two doors twice as tall as a standard garage door swung open with a conspicuously large groan. At the top of the steps carved into the natural stone stood a man with long black hair, and a black beard going down to his chest. He had his arms spread wide open to welcome them.

  “Zora, Roman, you weren’t to return for a few more weeks? And you bring another for us?” The Man called out through the rain.

  Freya climbed the steps ahead of her companions, if she could kill a dozen men she could be bold. “They call me The Bookworm. These two have been very generously showing me around. It was mentioned that I could study here.” Roman looked perfectly content with Freya’s leadership. But Zora was twitching, subtle as a toddler hiding a soiled diaper.

  “They call me The Minister, I am the Chancellor of this institution. Our doors are open to any who may be searching for knowledge. That being so, we treasure the atmosphere we have built here. One of like minded learning and cooperation. Should your efforts be less than exemplary, you will be expelled from the campus.”

  “I understand, and I accept those terms.” What else could she do? Memories of Freya’s failures in college half a year prior bubbled to the surface, primed to steal away the hope she had so recently found.

  The Minister finally looked to Zora. “You have done remarkably well, I am pleased to see you both again. Please, show The Bookworm around, I will be nearby for any questions beyond your understanding.”

  With that, thunder clapped and the Minister vanished in a cloud of smoke.

  Freya raised an eyebrow at Roman. “What was that?”

  Roman shrugged. “He has a flair for the dramatic. You get used to it.”

  Freya looked through the open doors into the entryway of Esselem’s primary structure. The interior was just as grand as the exterior implied, chandeliers floated in the middle of the air, filled with magically infused balls of light at the center. That same panic she felt when she first left for college filled her. She wouldn’t allow despair to take her again. Failure was not an option, at least not failure due to her mind working against her. If she was going to lose, it would only be after putting in every effort. With a breath, she crossed the threshold, there would be no turning back now.

  #

  Freya walked the halls of Esselem alone. Roman and Zora both took off in different directions giving unconvincing excuses as to where they were going. They were probably sleeping together. Why that was such a big secret she didn’t know.

  After a few hours of exploring it became clear this castle made absolutely zero sense. She expected magnificence given the castle was built to look like a cross between Hogwarts and Barad-d?r. What she didn’t expect was this hall of mirrors, H.H. Holmes murder castle bullshit. Doors that lead to nowhere, hallways full of dead ends, and a few doors that teleported her across the castle. Then when she tried to backtrack, the door she just came through would open to a brick wall.

  Freya walked through a large arched hallway lit with moody black iron chandeliers. Large floor to ceiling windows revealed the black of night all around her. The silhouette of Esselem’s numerous spires were all that she could make out of her surroundings. Were it not for the late hour, she would have found all this terribly breathtaking.

  A single door at the end of the hall implied a way out of here. The door was far too small for the empty wall it was set into. From this distance is felt a little bit more like a doggy door than anything else.

  The soft red carpet running the center of the hallway softened her footfalls. For that she was thankful. The endless clicking of her boots on stone was about to drive her mad. She reached the door and swung it open.

  “Oh for fuck sake!”

  A painting of a fine dining hall on a brick wall greeted her. A note was scribbled on parchment and stuck to the painting. Our princess is in another castle. Freya snatched the note and crumpled it up. Everyone and everything in this realm seemed to think they were hilarious. Just as Freya was about to jump out of the window and walk back to the castle’s front doors an idea came to her. She knelt and picked up the note. A description box appeared in front of her.

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  Item: Lame Note

  Description: A note written by a nineteen year old Taco Bell employee that thinks they are funnier than they really are, as evidenced by the Mario quote whose entertainment value was beaten to death years before she was born.

  Freya stuffed the note in her pocket. While the description wasn’t immediately helpful, maybe she could use it find this teenager and punch her in the mouth. She looked over at the painting and opened another window.

  Item: Painting

  Description: A painting of Esselem’s great hall, a not so subtle nod to the fondness Esselem’s newest architect has for Super Mario 64. Once the Millennials started getting into positions of power, they started ripping off all their favorite video games for ideas on how to make shit weirder than it has to be. Someone should have told them MythHarbor is designed to draw inspiration from the written word, not from their newfangled brain rot boxes.

  Freya sighed and closed the window. Maybe it was time to reassign those few pages to something useful. Honestly she wasn’t entirely sure if these descriptions could even be trusted. It felt like whoever, or whatever, was behind them was just typing whatever nonsense came into their head. After making it halfway back down the hallway she caught herself. What had that description said? A fondness for Super Mario 64?

  Freya ran back to the still-open door and reached a hand toward the painting. It was hard at first, but then it rippled and swallowed her hand, then the rest of her.

  Freya landed on her hands and knees in the middle of the great hall depicted in the painting. All around her were rows and rows of thick natural edge tables. Beyond those were walls filled with overfull bookcases. There were a small handful of people scattered throughout the room. A few had their heads buried in books, while others were aimlessly wandering about together.

  Near large double doors leading out of the hall stood Roman. He was talking with a man a full head taller than him. They met eyes, Roman gave her a sheepish shrug. Freya stormed over as Roman’s tall friend was waved off.

  “How was-”

  Freya slugged him the shoulder, he yelped, she almost felt bad. Almost.

  “Next time you send me alone and unaware into a maze I’ll break your legs.”

  “We had to.” Roman rubbed his shoulder like a child trying to play up a fall. “It’s a mandatory part of enrolling here. Facing the castle alone for your first few hours. We were just about to come find you.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  Roman rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a baby.”

  Freya got ready to punch him again when Zora rounded the corner.

  “Found your way I see. Most people don’t.”

  It would have been nice to fight them both on this some more, but she was getting horribly tired. It could wait until the morning.

  “Where can I get some sleep around here?

  #

  Freya looked up at the wooden beams lining the ceiling. Roman’s room was surprisingly large, nothing like the shoebox for two that most college dorms were. It was still a single room, though still probably twice the size of her lodgings at The Mind’s Mirror.

  Roman laid on a large bed, he had tried to insist he take the floor, but after Freya threated to go sleep in the hall instead he relented. He was a gentleman, and she appreciated the thought. But she didn’t want to be treated like a fine lady who needed every comfort.

  Taking the floor probably wouldn’t have even been a question had she roomed with Zora. But she flatly refused to even share the room for the night. Roman’s overly gracious nature was certainly preferable to that.

  Tomorrow Freya would see The Minister, along with an unknown member of the faculty. There they would determine what her goals were, as well as what classes would best see her achieve those goals. It was exciting, yet also daunting. The identity of the Gardener, along with every other person she had met were private. But The Minister’s Source Realm name was well known. George MacDonald, Great-Grandfather of the whole damn Fantasy genre.

  Lewis Carrol, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien all looked up to the man, and without him all of their foundational novels would never have been written in the first place. That wasn’t even taking into account how the man had been dead for more than a century.

  A man who had been a contemporary of Abraham Lincoln was about to give her advice on what classes she should be taking at his magical school. Absolutely, undeniably, fucking wild. Freya’s heart raced, she began to understand why taking a second name was so common. If everyone thought they were dealing with author royalty, the whole realm would crawl to a halt.

  “Roman?”

  Roman grumbled something and flipped over. Already asleep. Freya rested her head against the pillow, she needed to sleep, and more importantly, she needed to fill in some of the holes in her reading. George MacDonald’s work was first, but there were even bigger holes she had been ignoring for too long.

  The whole Romantasy sub-genre for example. She had read Fourth Wing, and found it quite entertaining, but she hadn’t delved any deeper than that. Given how much Romantasy had taken BookTok by storm, those authors were probably the strongest in the whole realm. Barring a few notable exceptions. There were probably some magic systems she could learn from too.

  The echo of her alarm playing Hamilton’s ‘Non-Stop’ sounded inside her head. Whether she was ready or not she was being pulled back. Pressure like being covered with a lead blanket started at her toes. The pressure pushed her out of the MythHarbor, and into the Source.