A World Without Heroes - Brandon Mull [21]
He held up both hands. “I’m not a part of this. The dog can help you get around. Anyhow, thanks for not mentioning how we met before. I could get in trouble. I’ll keep quiet about you shooting folks with arrows.”
“Fair enough.”
Hermie picked up his candle and went to the door. “Get some sleep.” He slipped out without waiting for a reply.
Jason was left in darkness.
He had hoped Hermie might help him. It would be nice to have a friend. But the boy had only seemed concerned with making sure Jason would keep their previous encounter confidential.
Jason reclined on his cot. This would be his second consecutive night in an alternate reality. Thanks to the loremaster, at least he now had reason to believe others had crossed over from his world to this one. That gave him a little hope that somewhere, somebody might know how he could get back. With luck the answer might be nearby, waiting behind the forbidden door.
Back home his parents would have called the hospitals and notified the police by now. He might even be on the news! They would probably search for him all over the zoo—the last place he’d been seen. He wondered if any evidence would implicate the hippo.
CHAPTER 3
THE WORD
Jason awoke the next morning in darkness. Rolling over, he saw a line of flickering light at the base of the door. He fumbled out of bed, splashed his face with water, ran his fingers through his hair, grabbed the book, and left the room. A guttering lamp in the hallway accounted for the unsteady illumination.
The big white dog lay outside the door. It rose and guided him to breakfast.
“Good day to you,” greeted the loremaster.
“Good morning.”
“I see Hermie brought you The Life I Have Known. Help yourself to some food. I’m off to man the front desk.”
“What’s the dog called?” Jason asked.
“Feraclestinius Androbrelium Pathershin the Seventh.”
“No, I meant his entire name.”
“To abbreviate, I call him Feracles. Come by if you need anything.”
The loremaster left. Jason drank a hot black beverage, which didn’t smell much like coffee. At first the drink was unbearably bitter, but sweetened with plenty of sugar it became palatable. Messy pieces of dripping fruit and a small bowl of really crunchy nuts completed the meal.
After wiping his hands on a napkin, Jason picked up the book. As with the volume from the day before, it was attributed to Author Unknown. He opened to the table of contents and found the titles of various short stories. Some stood out more than others. Apart from “The Life I Have Known,” he noticed “Conversations with an Osprey,” “Mysteries of the Deep,” and “Last Wishes of a Bumblebee.”
Jason thumbed forward to an arbitrary page and read the following:
“How will you teach your children to fly?” I inquired of the mother. “I do not see how you could ever coax them into the air.”
“You do not understand because you are a man. Teaching a bird to fly is similar to teaching a man to swim. Can you swim?”
“Yes.”
“Were you frightened when you learned? Frightened you would sink?”
“Naturally.”
“So it is with teaching birds to fly. Except we fly better than you swim. The air is our element. We are as clumsy walking on land as you are swimming in water.”
Weird stuff. The handwriting looked familiar. He had a guess at who had authored the book. He leafed through the pages, hunting for clues.
Eventually he flipped to the inside of the back cover. On the otherwise blank page a single word had been scrawled: Moondial.
Having never heard of a moondial, Jason hoped the term referred to the sundial out by the well.
As Jason closed the book, the white dog stared at him, head tilted, thick fur glossy. Could the dog know the library well enough to guide him to a destination?
“Hey, Feracles,” Jason said to the large dog in his special voice. “Will you take me to the atrium?”
The dog immediately padded out of the room. Jason followed skeptically, but sure enough, after zigzagging along a circuitous route, the dog brought him to the glass walls enclosing the garden.
Jason went out through a sliding