The Enchanted Greenhouse(35)
Across the workroom, Lotti was muttering to herself as she, using a leaf as if it were a thumb and fingers, flipped through one of Laiken’s journals. He’d kept many. They dominated three-quarters of his shelves, plus Yarrow had found more in a chest under the stairs.
The problem was Laiken hadn’t intended his notes for anyone else’s eyes, especially as time went on. The early journals from before he created the greenhouse were written in a slightly archaic version of island standard, but as he aged, his paranoia had increased, and by the later journals, which appeared to hold the majority of his spells, he seemed to be employing not only a code system that she was becoming increasingly convinced relied on a codebook but also the occasional mirror writing or backward writing or, worse, both. And then there were the pages he’d destroyed: ripped out and presumably burned. Yarrow had found more half-burnt scraps beneath the stove. She had no idea what had been lost and whether the spell she needed still existed.
Lotti flopped backward and waved her petals in the air. “Gah! This is hopeless!” She shouted up to the ceiling as if the sorcerer were upstairs and could hear her, “Laiken, you’re the worst!”
“When is that journal from?” Terlu asked.
“The era where Laiken decided that he’d torture future readers with his experiments in sketching. Brilliant man. Genius sorcerer. Terrible artist. Look at this!” Scooting around the book, she propped it up so that Terlu could see. “Is that a rabbit? Is it a cat? Is it a fish? Is it a human liver with eyeballs? Who knows?”
Terlu grinned. “I think it’s a bird.”
Lotti trotted around to the front of the journal. “It would need wings.”
“The word next to it is Ginian for ‘sparrow.’”
“Ginian?”
“It’s a language that was spoken on the island of Ginia before the fourth emperor of the Crescent Islands Empire wiped it out about three centuries ago.”
Lotti gasped. “The empire wiped out a whole island?”
“Not the people, but they, like many the empire conquered, lost their language and a lot of their culture. Ginia was one of the islands who fought back against joining the empire, but they didn’t do it with ships or armies. Instead they turned their entire island into a labyrinth to trick and trap the imperial soldiers. Every building visible from the ocean was a facade, and you had to solve a puzzle to access the true homes, deep inside the mountains. It took an entire decade before they were conquered, and when they were, the emperor was determined to prevent this from ever happening again. All teachers, all elders, all keepers of wisdom—they were removed and rehoused to other islands, separated from one another, and he sent in imperial teachers to ensure the next generation wouldn’t rebel.”
“How sad.”
“Empires are not…” She trailed off before she said anything truly treasonous. Librarians of Alyssium were trained to be impartial, but how could anyone who studied history not have feelings about it? She’d never understood that. History was full of people, all of whom had lives and dreams that were affected by the dry laws and military actions that filled university textbooks. Emperor Mevorin liked to insist every action taken by the empire was for the good of its people, but far too many of its actions throughout history had been for the good of the empire, which was not—regardless of what the emperor espoused—the same thing. An empire, unchecked, was a selfish beast of insatiable hunger. Terlu took a deep breath and dredged up a smile. “It wasn’t all lost, though. You’ve heard of hedge labyrinths? Gardens with bushes shaped like mazes? The Ginians invented them, and so their legacy lives on.”
“Laiken built the most magnificent maze,” Lotti said. “It fills an entire enormous greenhouse. Or it filled. Who knows if it survived.”
From across the workroom, Yarrow spoke up. “It did, so far.”
“Huh.” Terlu scooted closer to Lotti to study the journal with the poorly drawn sparrow.
“According to legends, the Ginians placed their greatest treasures in the hearts of their mazes. Centuries later, treasure-seekers still show up on the island, thinking they’re going to find gold and jewels.” Considering, she looked at the date on the journal. “Do you know when Laiken made this maze?” This journal was from the period when he’d just begun to use codes. She showed the date to Lotti.
“I don’t know,” the rose said.
“Could it have been around then?”
“Sure. Maybe. I’m a plant. I don’t own a calendar. I know it took a few seasons before it was finished to his satisfaction. He never let me help, of course.”
She wondered …
Hopping back to her papers, Lotti asked, “What did the Ginians keep in the hearts of their mazes if not gold and jewels?”
Terlu, the former Fourth Librarian of the Second Floor, East Wing, smiled at the little rose. “Books, of course, the ultimate treasure. All their stories. And their knowledge.”
“Ah, and the emperor destroyed that, I assume.”
Terlu shook her head. “Even he couldn’t bring himself to do that. He stole it. It was housed in the section of the library that I was assigned to—that’s why I know about it, even though the Ginia Rebellion was excised from the official history books, due to how much it embarrassed the emperor.” The more she thought about Laiken’s labyrinth, the more she wondered … She had a very strong hunch about what a sorcerer would consider a treasure.