Chapter 4: A Host With Otherworldly Powers

I fell from a ceiling head first. Screaming for a second, I collapsed onto something warm and soft. I lay upside down and stared at a fireplace filled with tongues of fire that flickered toward the upside-down ceiling on the other side of this wood-paneled room. Once I dared to stir, I reached blindly for any handhold, sat myself right side up, and gripped whatever was within arm’s reach. I dug my fingers into velvety leather.

Glancing down, I found I was sitting on a squat armchair with plump cushions stitched from slick leather: maybe seal. My wide eyes snapped to the fireplace made of quartz chunks that glowed like a wall of coals as they reflected the crackling fire. “Well, this is more like it! But who heard of laying back in front of someone else’s fire before exchanging formalities?” I narrowed my eyes and scanned the room for my host, but once the fire’s heat washed over me, my features softened. I set my booted feet on the coffee table before me. “Oh well, my compliments to the host—” My gaze fell upon a dark figure who stood hidden among the shadows. I gasped once I realized that this patchwork lump of sardine skins, held together by a mesh of stitches, wasn't some crumpled coat that had been tossed into the corner. It was the skittish birdman.

It turned its head and readjusted the leather glove that hung propped on the end of its beak. Once I managed to turn my enrapt gaze from the creature itself, I recognized the glove as one of the two that had been pulled off me during my escape from the deckhands.

I blushed over how I had mistaken it for a severed hand earlier, but who wouldn't through the haze of a blizzard?

Squinting in concentration, the skittish birdman maneuvered the glove that hung from its long appendage toward an identical one: fixed to a mannequin’s outstretched hand. Shaking its head and whipping back its glove after several attempts, the creature brought the glove’s palm to palm: slowly raising and lowering them in a mock handshake. Humming in consideration over whether it had performed the gesture correctly, the skittish birdman nodded before turning to greet its guest. However, upon hearing what I had said about formalities, it froze as if it had been struck. The creature shook its head violently and knocked its forehead with a clenched talon as if to say “oh, I am such a silly creature! How could I forget something so obvious?”

I was about to wriggle deeper into the armchair when, after a whistle from the skittish birdman, I yelled as I dropped through a portal that pushed the leather in the armchair’s seat outward. I reached upward to catch the edges of the portal only to collapse onto the hardwood. I glared from the portal in the ceiling to the pelt welcome mat I now stood on with “home sweet home” and sunflowers embroidered in jagged stitches.

Massaging the small of my back as I eased myself onto my feet, I hissed through grit teeth and clutched my head when it smacked against something. I shot a dirty look at the ceiling which stood about five feet.

The skittish birdman shuffled closer until it stood an inch from me and didn’t seem to notice when I pressed flush against the wall to maintain that distance. The creature bowed until its beak tapped the hardwood. However, raising its beak to shake my hand, the skittish birdman wailed. A bundle of leather strips dangled where the glove had once hung: likely torn when it had shaken its razor-sharp beak.

"Well, so much for leaving a memento for my crew to remember me by.” I nodded at the leather strips. “At least you enjoyed them."

The skittish birdman pressed the leather strips and the glove from the mannequin into my hands while averting its gaze.

Honestly, I am the one who should’ve been stewing in embarrassment for plopping myself in the creature’s armchair before so much as saying hello. However, I was too busy trembling at the thought of where the skittish birdman had gotten the fur-lined parka, arctic hood, and goggles that adorned the mannequin. The parka sported a gash that ran from shoulder to hip: pulled tight like a bulging scar with thick stitches. Whether it had fallen apart from age or a razor-sharp beak, there was no mistaking where the garment had come from.

The image of a dozen men and women huddled shoulder to shoulder amid a raging blizzard had been burned into my mind. I had read the record on the first and last Floating Isles colony enough times to make up for the thousands of students who left it to rot within the deepest nooks in the University’s archives. According to the lost soul who had written the record, the smallest of many sacrifices their expedition team had made included stitching the last surviving taxidermy polar bears into parkas, but what of it? Even animals born to thrive in the far north perished when the land turned to ice and the snow fell unceasingly. But when they raised a colony in this wasteland, the empire of Freylor would earn its title as the last human civilization. Apart from a novel’s worth of pages detailing supplies and plans stretching decades beyond the date they had been written, all I knew about that expedition team was that one day, transmissions from the Floating Isles ceased. Assuming they had all been claimed by the relentless snowfall, this uniform should be buried beneath a mile of ice by now. Then again, these birdmen weren't called “carnivorous” for nothing. I smiled and admired everything in the room apart from the mannequin. "You didn't just lure me here to fetch more pieces for your collection, did you?”

The skittish birdman shook its head and waved its wings in denial.

“No? Then was it to give you and your little friends an excuse to sharpen your beaks and talons after having nothing to hunt for years?" I paled when I remembered the birdman swarm I had narrowly escaped. I started shoving one of the waist-high cabinets along the wall to block the door, but I stiffened after glancing around the room.

Bundles of herbs and fish hung from the walls, but there was no door.

“But how? Where? Why?”

The skittish birdman bounded to my side, and I gaped at how gently it peeled my grip from the cabinet before the painted plates and teacups it contained could shatter. I barely felt the sharp tips of the creature’s talons. Before I could say another word, it waved me toward the wall behind the armchair.

You are reading story The Paradox Palace at novel35.com

A row of sparking rings burned into the oak panels without leaving so much as a scorch mark. Most of the portals led to identical stretches of untouched snow.

I observed the portals from a distance, but when the skittish birdman beat its wings to usher me even closer, I told it to keep itself together. Come on, Alice. You've already been through one of these; the journey wasn't anything you couldn't handle. Before I could back out, I thrust my head into a portal that was pointed toward the sky filled with flowing snow. I clutched myself when the burning cold hit me in the face. Ducking to peek over the portal’s edge for fear of going into hypothermic shock, I craned my neck and gazed up the side of the airship that had brought me here.

Its ribbed frame bulged with glistening, steel plates that curved into a sleek envelope. The gondola hung suspended beneath the rudder, reached past the envelope’s nose cone, and tapered to a spike that cast a long shadow across the white expanse.

"What? How did you do this?" I whipped my head around while searching for an explanation. My gaze landed on the weathered chunks of ivory that encircled the other side of the portal. Sparks surged through the chunks to form a circle of light: a framework that held the “lighter than wind” substance I had passed through before. Just standing inside of what was made to be passed through… well, I might as well have been suspended over a void. It was as if the other half of me I had left inside the birdman's home stopped existing the moment I entered. When the crunch of snow underfoot and the crack of pickaxes from the gorge the deckhands were excavating the colony from gave me an excuse, I pulled myself from the portal. "Ingenious!” I whirled toward the skittish birdman and replaced my pale features with a grin. “Do you have any idea what you’ve stumbled upon?”

The skittish birdman nodded before screeching.

I flinched and expected to find the creature’s brethren leaping into the room from their portals while imitating the screech.

Scampering to the cabinet, the skittish birdman pretended to push it before a door that didn't exist and almost immediately ceased the act. Shaking a claw in my face upon returning, the creature swung its wings back and forth as if it was about to leap into the portal with my airship. It finished the game of charades by patting me consolingly only on the arm.

"What? How could you limit these devices to escape hatches? Thrill seekers set on crossing the world or scaling mountains can now get it done in an instant. Everyone will praise your name when you unveil these… I suppose one could only call them portals, correct?”

The birdman raised a claw.

“No need to explain.” I held up a hand before the creature could start squawking. “Only a fool could miss how the electricity a layperson might mistake for ‘magic’ is conducted through currents that merely resemble tree roots. Oh yes, I know all about electricity. There is this device called a radio that my crew and I recently installed on the very airship you’ve been admiring through your portal. Odd that you decided to hook your currents up to an egg.” I returned to the armchair, crossed my legs, and steepled my fingers. “Perhaps you could explain the thought process behind that epiphany?"

The skittish birdman stared at me unblinkingly with its head cocked to a side: not even breathing as it considered for several minutes. Finally, it shook its head fiercely and bowed in apology.

Despite myself, I frowned. How dense does this creature think I am? Of course, that egg is the source of their magic. It was literally dangling from a stick waiting to be snatched. I could take it now. I gripped the chair's armrests and peered at the walls, floor, and ceiling. There were no portals apart from the ones the skittish birdman had made. When I deliver this magic to the Empire, I return as an expert on the subject. If I leave this room only to get blasted into paste for not knowing anything except “apparently ivory can conduct violet electricity,” some expert I turned out to be. Besides, at least now, what point would the egg serve without the “lever” that makes it produce portals? “As an archaeologist trained at the University, I know everything there is to know about anything, but I’ve always meant to come here specifically. The Floating Isles: where no one ventures. I bet it’s really that they don’t dare, but everyone back home told me, ‘why bother? Nothing stands on the Floating Isles. At least, not for long.’”

The birdman winced and retreated toward the granite countertop that stood against a corner that the creature apparently considered an acceptable kitchen.

"And yet, here you stand. You've done the impossible, and the fellows at the University just can't stand that." My face softened as the creature pulled its head deep into its robe and trembled, but I remained seated. "No, no. There’s no need for that. Don't you see how gifted you are? Leagues above those other birdmen. Goodness, they could barely summon a portal each, but look at you.” I gestured at the row of sparking rings that covered the wall.

Glowing eyes stared at me from deep within the skittish birdman’s hood as it shook its head in disbelief.

“Someone like you should never tremble." Honestly, I had to strain every muscle to keep from trembling. The creature could dispose of me at any moment, but it hadn’t yet. Even its unruly brethren were bound to understand their magical capabilities. They would just have to knock me through a portal, drop me from the top of their palace, and everyone at the University would go on believing birdmen were imaginary. Were the birdmen just terrified of the deckhands discovering that I’d been shoved off the side of a palace? Whatever the reason, they only wanted to remove me from their palace… like shoving a spider out the front door. No, not my smartest metaphor. Those get squashed. But this birdman wasn't interested in squashing me. Far from it. It took more than a passing interest in humans to practice our greeting rituals, study us through an array of portals, and excavate garments from under hundreds of feet of ice. That “passing interest” was all the leverage I had when facing magical beings who thrived where no one believes survival is possible. The University's greatest archaeologists died and made that belief a fact. Yet I had a creature standing before me that would make my claims mean more than anything the University spewed. “Some people might call me crazy for acting so certain, but I just knew there was something of worth here. Now I’ve found it!” I laughed and slammed my fist into my open palm while leaning close to the birdman. "How would you like to come back to the Empire with me?"

You can find story with these keywords: The Paradox Palace, Read The Paradox Palace, The Paradox Palace novel, The Paradox Palace book, The Paradox Palace story, The Paradox Palace full, The Paradox Palace Latest Chapter