Horn of the River God: Book I of The Song of Agmar

by Frances Mason

  All Thedran’s knew the Labyrinth accommodated a veritable army of monks and nuns. The twins, Jared and Javid, had told Alex it was as much monastery and convent as library; with the brothers of the order of Pulmthra, god of learning, and sisters of the order of Kemthi, goddess of wisdom – Brothers and Sisters of the Leaves as they were known – living as well as working among its collections and scriptoria. In fact, the scriptoria and collections were considered by the orders as shrines to the knowledge which those deities loved, and working in them the most sublime of devotional rituals. What few Thedrans knew was that the labyrinth was better appointed than many a noble’s palace. The dormitories had adjoining garderobes. Cloisters surrounded well-tended gardens, open to the sun and stars. A herbarium extended over several floors. One massive infirmary cared for the ill, and another for monks and nuns who had been robbed of their wits or mobility by the passing of years. There was even an observatory, which Jared remembered fondly, though he claimed it was nothing compared to the one he had built on the southern tower of South Gate. Other than all this there were the ubiquitous storehouses; stacked with sacks of milled grain, baskets of fresh fruit and vegetables, amphorae of olive oil. There were barrels of wine large enough for a grown man to swim in; others only as large as a fat ox, filled daily with milk or cream; jars of honey shaped like a rotund monk, and not much smaller; huge blocks of cheese, large as cart wheels; priceless spices and healing herbs in such abundance that their piles filled and overflowed from the vaults dedicated to their storage. There were even piles of salted meat, stored as insurance against times of famine, when the supplies of fresh meat could no longer be daily renewed. These and many other things most city urchins would only ever see in hungry dreams were abundant for the devotees of knowledge over bodily pleasure. With undisguised disgust the twins had explained to Alex that, though the orders were sworn to individual poverty of the body so that they might instead enrich the mind, in truth they did not live an acetic life, being provided with many kitchens, bakeries and refectories; and lay brothers and sisters kept the ovens baking, the fires burning, the spits turning and the feasts feeding for the too frequently fat monks and nuns all hours of the day and night. The twins had spoken with less disapproval of rooms full of bales of scraped animal hides for parchment, bundles of goose quills, sheets of gold leaf, and huge vats filled with dyes and paint and ink.

  All of the labyrinth’s wonders and excesses were paid for by its wealthy benefactors, most especially by the crown; for the library was indisputably one of the wonders of the known world, and the greatest repository of learning from all its quarters. Scholars travelled from all over the known world in the hope of seeing just a few of its treasures, and its greatest treasures were of knowledge. Many, frustrated by the slow and difficult access to its books and scrolls guaranteed by the bureaucratic mindset of the orders, converted to the worship of Pulmthra or Kemthi, and disappeared into the Labyrinth, never to be seen again. Others traded access to their own rare tomes, if the Labyrinth possessed no copy, allowing the scribes to copy them, in exchange for the thoughts or styles or beautiful artwork of an obscure chronicle or philosophical or scientific treatise, or the poetry of a long dead language. By tradition none could enter the Labyrinth of Leaves but its brothers and sisters, and even kings respected its privileges. This meant that Augustyn, duke Relyan, despite his power, could not help Javid obtain more quickly the codex he wanted. That only left one option, thievery. Alex had always said it was better to have friends in low places than high places.

  For lawful entrance, or approach; the monks and nuns, and the merchants who supplied them, would approach from the eastern or western end, from which long piers extended. For more creative entry, such as an artist of Alex’s fine sensibilities might attempt, it was better to keep clear of the ends. There, the massive iron bound oak doors within giant pointed arches were guarded by monks. Unfairly, Alex thought, they used scrying magic that even a skilful thief like him could not avoid. When he was younger and not much more innocent he had tried entering that way, climbing to the end of the western pier. A monk-sentry had come down the stairs from the door, raised his hand, and light had rolled out like an expanding ripple on the lake from a glowing ball that formed in his hand. When Alex had hidden beneath the pier he had seen the unnatural light wrap around underneath it. As the tentacles of light extended from the northern and southern edges of the broad pier he had dived to escape them, and swum out until he could no longer hold his breath. When he had surfaced he had seen two monks searching the pier, among the crates and barrels, around which the light flowed, leaving no shadows in which to hide. After he had related this incident to another thief they had told him the rumour that thieves were skinned alive inside the Labyrinth to supply parchment for the scriptoria. He had never tried again.

  He was older now and wise enough to know that everything that sounded like a lie might be the truth, and every truth was just a cleverer kind of deceit. Which was to say, you never knew where the truth was, so sometimes you just had to take a chance and hope for the best. The twins had scoffed at the legend of the monks and nuns flaying thieves, and if you couldn’t trust a cunning, self-interested ex-monk well, at least you knew you hadn’t lost all your wits. He was taking a chance, but not too much of a chance; he was not going to enter the labyrinth by the piers, he was a sneaky little bugger, as his father would have fondly said, and, if worse came to worst, he had this deadly sword at his side. He might not like murder, but he would sooner be guilty of one more thing in his life of many crimes than let a sadistic monk or nun take his skin, make a scroll of it, and there inscribe a treatise on the evils of thieving.

  He rowed toward the centre of the Labyrinth. There, where the twins had said it would be, he found a section of the Labyrinth which had collapsed into the water. It was half way between two refuse collection points, each about a hundred yards away. The damage was not visible from the tower of the twins, or from the shore of the lake, though the bargers would surely see it during the day. In the night, because of the way they weaved in and out among the pylons, the light of their lanterns would not reach it. The floor of the lake was shallow at this point, so that floors and walls and stairways jutted out of the water, though nothing substantial enough to lead all the way to the jagged tear in the floor high above. At the edge of the tear extra pylons had been inserted to prevent any further collapse. No one had made any effort to repair the collapse though. A dim light filtered through into the exposed area, which was nearly fifty yards across and twenty wide. The beams and floorboards of a higher level were intact, perhaps three stories above the original lowest level.

  It would be easy enough getting up to the lowest level. He moored the small boat against some of the wreckage. Taking climbing claws out of his satchel he climbed out, onto a rotting staircase projecting diagonally from the water and leaning against a pylon. Attaching the claws to his hands and knees he edged up the wooden pylon toward the tear in the floor. When he reached the edge and hauled himself over he was surprised to find the air unusually dry, given the proximity of the lake. Perhaps the orders of the Labyrinth used magic to preserve their collections of books and scrolls. The dim light he had noticed from below filtered through from several exits on different levels and both sides of the tear. Shelves without books lined the walls of the rooms that had been rent by the collapse.

  He took out the circular, flat black gem Jared had given him, and peered into its depths. As he looked it began to glow with a fierce white light. He was afraid that it would reveal him, if anyone should be nearby, and shoved it into the folds of his doublet. Then he recalled that Jared had told him the light was only an illusion. He took it out and it was dark. He peered into its depths again. This time he kept watching. The white light soon divided into all the colours of the rainbow. The rainbow swirled and drew out into strands of each colour, then the strands wove together, forming a recognisable pattern. He saw a map of the Labyrinth, in three dimensions, and his atten
tion was drawn to a point brighter than the rest. He searched through a few nearby doors, checking each time against the plan the gem projected into his mind’s eye, until he was sure it was as the old man had said. The bright point was his own location. There was another point that drew his attention in the gem, though it was a long way through the twisting labyrinth of zigzagging, looping, turning back and around passages, and stairways and ramps between levels, in a dizzying array that seemed to challenge logic, as if stairs that led up sometimes emerged on lower levels, or passages entered from one direction could not be exited except by another. The very strangeness of the map made him wonder whether it could possibly be the real labyrinth that he saw in the gem, but after passing through several such impossible places, and finding they behaved exactly as he saw in the magical map, he came to accept that the impossible must be real. He gave up trying to understand the map, and simply followed it through the Labyrinth.

  Some areas were dimly lit by lamps, though the lamps did not flicker with flame. He had seen this before. Magical light. As he approached such rooms the intensity of light in the lanterns seemed to increase, so he carefully avoided them, relying on the map in the gem to lead him around them. He quickly lost count of the corners he had turned, of the stairways he had climbed or descended, the ramps he had walked up or down, the passages he had traversed. He tried to keep a sense of direction, but with the illogic of the Labyrinth it was impossible. He wondered if he was going to emerge through the very door by which he had left the collapsed room, so little sense did he have of his location. This was a strange experience for him, who usually had such an excellent sense of direction. Blindfold him and drop him in the middle of a strange part of the city, and he would find his way out in short order. But here, every turn, every step, only increased his disorientation. He tried to focus on the gem, and the walls seemed different when he looked up. Had he walked without knowing while looking into those depths, or had the Labyrinth actually changed around him? He could not tell. He would shake his head, look into the gem again, get his bearings, and move toward his goal. Occasionally he would hear voices, and he could not be sure whether monks or nuns were nearby, or whether he was hearing ancient echoes. Was that a crack of timbers easing, or a floor collapsing into the lake, or just an idea in his head? Sometimes he would stray closer to the voices, against his thieving instincts, but the voices seemed to move away from him as he walked toward them. Other times he would try to avoid them, and they would come closer with every step he took away. He was sure he was going mad, and wondered whether he would ever get out of there.

  He heard voices again, and in despair he turned away from them. As he fled they came closer, then he stepped into a darkened room, and beyond he could see figures around a lantern. Doubtful of his senses he stepped toward them, but this time they did not recede. Space behaved reasonably. He snuck up close to the open door, keeping to the shadows, desperate for human contact, but wary of the urge to run in and greet them. The Labyrinth was certainly enchanted, and its fey magic made this thief want to reveal himself. He repressed the urge but edged closer. The room was octagonal, with three doors, and shelves on the blind sides. A ladder rested against one of the shelves. All of the shelves were filled with books and scrolls, and in the centre of the room was a table, on which were piled more books and scrolls. On the floors beside the shelves were more piles of books, some of which reached all the way to the ceiling, which was unusually high. There were some lower piles too, which in the distance he had mistaken for human figures.

  Around the central table books lay open and a lone monk in the plain white habit of the order of Pulmthra went from one to another, peering in their pages and muttering to himself, “No, not here, no, not that. But where?” Alex realised he could see through the monk’s body to the far shelves. Just as strangely, the books themselves were translucent. The monk muttered to himself and walked across the room toward a shelf. “It must be here, it must be. The catalogue cannot be mistaken.” The monk reached for a shelf, and vanished. Then he appeared again, perusing the ghostly books in the same order, making the same comments, walking toward the same shelf, and again vanishing. Again and again the monk searched and vanished, clearly the ghost of some monk whose search for knowledge had not ended with his life. Alex thanked the gods he did not care about books.

  He stared into the gem again, and realised that he was outside the very room which the map indicated. He shuddered. He would have to enter the ghost’s lair. He considered turning back, but he had come so far, and it had not been easy. He had to complete this job. He saw one of the books was not translucent. Only one. It had fallen over on the shelf without other physical books to hold it up. The shelf was at about shoulder height to Alex. He stepped into the room. The ghost ignored him. Perhaps it did not see him. The book lay on the shelf that the ghost always went to before vanishing. He waited until it did so again, then quickly went to that shelf and picked up the book. On its gold ornamented cover he saw the symbols that Jared had shown him.

  “There it is,” the ghost shrieked, and the sound was like the scream of a soldier slowly dying, forgotten among the corpses of a fallen army, and the caw of the crow feeding on his corpse, and the air smelled of rotting flesh and blood and faeces. Alex span around to face the dead monk. The ghost rushed at him and terror washed over him like a viscous fluid from which he knew he could not escape. The ghost shrieked as it came, “there it is. Finally it is found. Finally its secrets will be known.” It reached out, as if to close its fingers around Alex’s neck, and his free hand went to the hilt of his sword. But the sword did not scream of blood, and he realised this ghost had no blood for it to drink, and knowing that felt the onrush of his doom. Then the ghost passed through him, raising goose bumps on his skin. Alex spun about. The ghost continued toward the bookcase, reaching out to where the book had lain. Then, as its hand touched that now empty space, it vanished. Alex span back around, waiting for it to appear again where it had before. Would it play the same terrifying part until the end of time? Had Alex somehow increased the spirit’s torment by removing the volume? But it did not appear again. Alex wanted to flee but his curiosity held him rooted to the spot. He stared at the place by the table where the ghost had appeared before, and waited. After several minutes he was sure the ghost would not return. He looked around. All of the ghostly books had vanished also, from the shelves, from the piles, and from the table at the centre. The only book in the room was the one in his hand. He slid it into his tunic.

  Even though the ghost was gone, along with the room’s insubstantial books, the whole place exuded a weird presence, as if someone were about to breathe in his ear. Though it was warm on the lake, in here there was a distinct chill, and he doubted its origin was natural. He looked once more into the gem, hoping to quickly find his way out of the labyrinth. Only then did he realise the fatal flaw in the gem. Though it could show his current location and his final destination, it did not show the way back to the point where he had entered. He would have to find his way back without assistance. He cursed himself for his lack of wisdom, then cursed the old man for his equal lack of foresight. If he had known he would have paid closer attention to his path in getting here. His sense of direction was good if he bothered to pay attention, though he was not sure it would have helped in this enchanted labyrinth. He headed in what he thought was the direction from which he had come, and hoped he was not going deeper into the labyrinth. He passed through several rooms that seemed familiar, then he reached one which he thought he had already passed through, though he was sure he had travelled a straight line since then.

  “You may not pass.” a voice growled in the darkness, and Alex froze. “I taste you, thief.”

  That, thought Alex, is the oddest warning I have ever heard. He tastes me?

  Alex could not locate the source of the sound. It seemed to come from all sides, as well as above and below. He edged back toward the door through which he had entered.

  “I f
eel you, thief.” The floor thrummed with the deep, resonant voice, and the hairs on Alex’s nape stood on end. He darted toward the empty doorway. He rebounded from it, though it had been empty air when he had entered. The force was so great it threw him into the air in an awkward somersault. Catlike, he landed on his feet.

  “I have you, thief.”

  Alex’s hand went to the hilt of his sword, but he heard no voice calling for blood, and wondered if this was another tortured ghost. Despite this, he hissed, “you won’t skin me, monk.”

  Then the voice laughed. “Why would I skin a thief?”

  “For parchment?” Alex said, but it was more a question than a statement, and he felt embarrassed, suspecting he had stated an absurdity.

  The laughter boomed. “You would make a poor parchment, thief. Too soft.”

  “I am not soft. I have muscles like iron, speed like a mountain lion, the quickness of an alley cat.”

  “Yes, cat burglar, thief. You are as quick as a cat, but I have you all the same.”

  “Show yourself.” Alex waved the sword around.

  “Oh, you are brave, thief.”

  “Let’s see how brave you are. Show yourself.”

  “Oh, master of shadows,” the voice mocked, “see you me not?”

  “Well, obviously.”

  “Then you are a fool or you are blind.”

  “I admit I was foolish coming to this place,” Alex said then, puffing himself up, added, “but I see everything. I have the eyes of a hawk.”

  “Yes, thief, you have the eyes of a hooded hawk.”

  “Are you going to show yourself?”