Unfettered

by Terry Brooks

  It wasn’t the thorough sort of entry that would please Mer, but it would have to do. He hefted his load and started west, slightly north, downhill toward his home. Earlier than he expected to, he descended out of the clouds into familiar terrain of oak and moss.

  The sight of Cinvat’s domes and towers gleaming in scattered beams of sunlight quickened his heart and added length to his stride. He couldn’t wait to deliver his bounty, glad to leave behind him the mists that shrouded the uplands.

  Soon he hailed the city guard, who swung a gate beside the eastern portcullis open for him to enter, and he hurried through crowded streets toward the Temple Library. As the throng jostled and bumped him in passing, Daen felt an edge, an urgency that troubled him. He slid into a doorway to watch and listen.

  Everyone moved with unusual haste. A troop of foot soldiers marched past in double-time. Dragons bearing mounted warriors circled overhead in greater numbers than was normal. Expressions were fearful, voices clipped or strident. Panicked conversations jumbled together in his ears, but he listened, taking mental notes the way he’d been trained to do, planning ahead to the entries in his record.

  He heard “armies” and “battle” and “Dahak” again and again.

  Finally he grabbed a courier by the sleeve as he passed. The boy spun about with fear rather than annoyance or anger in his face.

  “I beg pardon, young sir, but can you please tell me why everyone’s in a panic?”

  The boy peeled Daen’s fingers from his sleeve, shaking his head in stunned negation. “Haven’t you heard? Trenna has fallen. The Dahak comes.” And then he dashed away.

  The world descended into fog again, a cloud of shocked disbelief. Trenna, fallen! How was that possible? Trenna defended Cinvat’s western approach from…Daen leaned against the doorframe with his basket of berries until balance returned.

  Shining Trenna by the sea, fallen!

  Unsure what else to do, he let rote guide him. He slid down the wall to a sitting position and pulled his writing materials out of his tunic. Opened his book on his lap. Fumbled the bottle of ink open. His hands shook so violently he couldn’t put nib of pen into ink. When it splashed on his book and leg, he dropped the bottle and it shattered on the cobbles.

  What am I doing? Asha, forgive my addled brain…

  He struggled upright and closed his book, vaguely aware that the wet ink would stick those two ruined pages together. His pen lay forgotten in the doorway as he staggered out into the traffic again.

  Movement seemed to sharpen his mind, and he hurried his pace—through the middle streets crowded with carts and soldiers to the Temple District, where the circle of Truth, representing the Cycles and Asha, surmounted the great brass Dome of the Temple. Up the long stairs to the huge arched doors of the Temple Library, with the shadows of mounted dragons crisscrossing his path. Blindly past the tattooed sentries who mumbled his name, their alarmed questions failing in his ears. Into the vast hall where skylights above threw slanted beams across the dusty vault. Past ranks of tables normally covered with stacks of books and baskets of scrolls, crowded with students and scholars and peasants alike, but now starkly empty. To the great desk that served as both barricade and gateway to the legions of bookcases beyond, where Mer turned toward him, eyes bright above wire-rimmed spectacles, with a gaze that shifted from worried to horror-stricken.

  “Daen! By the Source! What are you doing here?”

  Panting, Daen removed the basket from his back and set it on the desktop. Black juice dribbled out of it like ichor. No doubt his tunic was stained too. It would never come out. He started to apologize, scrubbing ineffectually at the liquid with his fingers, but Mer hobbled around the desk and took him by the shoulders.

  “My boy, my boy! Oh Gods, what have I done? You should not be here.” The old man drew him close with arms like sticks, but sinewy and strong.

  “But…I don’t understand…I have done what you asked. I’ve brought cinderblack for the priests—”

  “Yes, and a good bounty it is.” A tear escaped from his master’s eye. “But I didn’t expect you to find any. My hope was that you would be gone for a long while and might escape the coming storm. Escape with and preserve everything you have committed to memory about Cinvat.”

  Daen’s heart sank in his chest, pounded against his ribs. “Why didn’t you tell me that? Why would you send me out on…on a fool’s mission?”

  The old man took Daen’s face in hands dry as paper and studied him, his gaze shifting from eye to eye. “I didn’t know for certain that it would happen. I only acted as a precaution against rumor. You are my brightest pupil, but you are honest to a fault—I didn’t want you to go forth in alarm, spreading news that would turn to false gossip. My hope was that you would return eventually, the rumors would be proven false, and we might laugh over my needless fears—but that in the worst event, you would be safe, you who contain everything…everything.”

  “Master…if I had known…” His stomach twisted at his master’s words. He was honest to a fault. He’d scared a little girl this morning when she might have led him to new allies. He hung his head.

  “No, don’t blame yourself.” Mer released him. “Not your folly, but mine. I sent you because our history lives in your brain like in none of the others. If rumor were to prove true, you might survive to put it all to pen once more and rescue Cinvat’s place in time. But now, because I played coy with the truth, here you are, successful and thorough as always…Asha, forgive me…”

  Daen watched his master’s face sort through pain, then sorrow, then anger that settled with outthrust chin on firm resolve. “It’s not yet too late. You’ve returned in time to help me finish a task. Come. I have been moving the most important tomes to the vaults, where I hope we can wall them up before the hour grows too late.”

  “What about these…” Daen indicated the basket of cinderblack.

  Mer waved him off. “I’ll send a boy to collect them and take them to the priests, and well done, my son, well done. But think about them no more.”

  The Keeper of Memory hobbled around the desk and into the maze of tall wooden bookcases. Daen followed, with one backward glance at the basket leaking indelibly on the desk of the Great Library.

  Gaps decimated the rows of books, many shelves vacant entirely. “You have been at this already, I see. Where are Tolec and Barth? And Jennia? Are they helping?”

  Mer paused and turned toward him, peering over his eyeglasses. His face drew long. “I sent them away this morning when the rumors became truth, with instructions to get as far from Cinvat as they could, not to return until they know all is safe…If ever. The more of you who escape, and survive, the better chance Memory has.”

  He turned away again.

  Daen swallowed and hurried after. They passed row upon row of volumes Daen had read or copied or repaired. Here were the chronicles of the Conquest of Lannaris, followed by the story of the Lascarion Peacemakers, and the Trials of Lautern. He saw that Mer had already removed the oldest and the newest of each copy, preserving both the ancient original and the most recent translation, leaving those of middling age to chance.

  A painful lump filled his throat. So much would be lost, even if he escaped with all his memories intact and the vaults escaped plunder.

  Mer stopped before a shelf containing the volumes of the Third Age, and pulled out several books without delay. “Here, my boy.” He dropped the volumes into Daen’s waiting arms, stacking them until Daen whimpered. He added one more, grabbed the last and largest two for himself, then started down the row again. “This way. Quickly now!”

  The stairs to the vaults were old beyond reckoning, artifacts left from the original library built in centuries past. They represented the original hall, around which the city had risen layer by layer, until now the ancient ceiling was below the level of the streets. Daen caught himself against the wall several times when his feet slipped on the smooth, rounded steps. They emerged into dank gloom where torches burn
ed fitfully in sconces along the walls. Shelves of stone staggered away into darkness, arrayed like miniature rowhouses in the poorest quarter of the city. Mer plucked a torch from a sconce and led the way down one of the narrow avenues. Daen stumbled after.

  At last they climbed a short stair into a smaller room, with a rounded ceiling decorated in ancient mosaic. More tiles peeked from the walls, between the books that filled every corner. Stacks upon stacks of books. Every horizontal surface bore mountains of ancient tomes in leather and cloth, wood and paper. Piles supported planks of wood, with more piles atop that, baskets of scrolls tucked into every void. There was scarcely room to walk between them, but there was order nonetheless. Bits of paper stuck out here and there with notes penned in his master’s careful hand.

  “Put them here, my son.” Mer set his tomes gently on a low bench, and Daen managed to place his beside them without toppling the entire stack. Then Mer produced a note from the pocket of his robes and stuck it into one of the volumes. “There are a few more books to gather, but first I want to show you something important.”

  He pointed to the lintel of the door by which they had entered. “Do you see this great slab of stone here? This is how the vaults will be sealed if worse comes to worst.” Daen felt a touch of nascent panic at what might follow. Mer continued. “This wheel here,” and he indicated a large metal ring like a cartwheel set in the wall beside the door, “when turned completely to the right, will release a cascade of sand within the walls. A counterweight will fall, releasing the stops that hold this stone up. It will crash down and seal this chamber against any assault.”

  Daen considered that, allowing in his mind that a man might turn that wheel and still escape before the sand ran out and the door fell.

  “Now come with me over here.”

  Mer wormed his way through piles of books to the opposite side of the room, where Daen saw an identical arrangement of door and wheel. Mer slapped the stone doorframe “The passage you see beyond this door winds under the streets to the northern foothills of the mountains. In a last resort, this will be our escape route. We’ll drop this door behind us…and pray that the mountains aren’t crawling with the Dahak’s minions.” He said the words with great calm, but his eyes were wide and bright.

  Daen could only nod.

  “Now let us go and collect the last of the books.”

  When they returned to the great hall of the Library, they heard screams from the city.

  Daen ran to the doors, with Mer hobbling after. The sentries stood in ready pose, looking out with their halberds lowered. One of them turned, his face ashen, and raised a hand to stop Daen from going to the door.

  “What…?”

  “It has begun,” said the sentry, voice cracking. “You should go back—”

  “No! I must see. I’m a student of the Keeper.” Daen shoved his way past and into the doorway. “I should see and take notes, make a record…” His voice failed when he looked out over the city.

  Mounted dragons swarmed over the outer defenses, a tidal wave breaching a sea wall. A black cloud of winged terrors snatched soldiers and civilians up into the air, tore them apart, flung the pieces, returned for more. Their riders dropped nets to snare men and drag them from the ramparts, or threw pots that shattered into flame in the city below. Dragons landed in cleared areas; extra skirmishers dismounted bearing swords and crossbows. Cinvat’s defenders gave battle—dragons grappled with dragons in midair; their riders fired crossbows and swung swords. Warriors ripped from harnesses plummeted to their deaths. Beasts toppled from the sky with broken necks or crippled wings. A dragon corpse crunched onto the stairs not thirty feet away and rolled loosely over, revealing half a mangled rider still strapped to the saddle.

  A groan of shock escaped Daen. When Mer clutched his shoulder he jumped.

  One of the sentries pushed them backward so forcefully that Daen had to catch Mer in a stumble. “Get inside! We are barring these doors…”

  They pulled the doors closed, doors that had stood wide in welcome Daen’s entire life. Ornate brass latches rotated shut with a clatter. The bar fell into its braces with a heavy thud.

  “Come, my son.” Mer’s voice was strangely calm. He pulled Daen by a sleeve. “We have a task to finish.”

  There came a boom on the door that rattled its hinges and echoed around the great hall.

  “Hurry, now!” Mer led Daen to the big desk, went around to the back, and reached underneath. As he struggled with something, Daen noted the basket of cinderblack where he’d left it, the rivulet of black juice now puddling on the floor.

  Mer wrestled three large tomes onto the desktop. Daen recognized them immediately. One was a student’s primer in the history of Cinvat. Not a detailed record, but complete—a best, single repository of Cinvat’s story. Another was a discussion of philosophy that had guided the creation of Cinvat’s representative style of governance. The last was a book of poetry, an omnibus of the most beautiful and inspiring works of art from several ages. Tears came to Daen’s eyes, for he knew why Mer had set these three aside. When he looked to his master’s face, the old man nodded sadly.

  “If all else fails, these must escape,” he said.

  Something large struck the doors again, followed by scratching and shouts. The sentries—only three of them, Daen saw—positioned themselves in a line across the entry. The doors flexed inward; the bar groaned under the strain. One of the sentries looked back, flinching as the door boomed again, but then waved them away. “Go! You can’t stay. Bless you, Keeper, for your service. May Asha keep you.”

  Then something long and wide, but flat, like a gigantic curved blade, pushed through the space between the doors, destroying one of the latches. It swept upward, and the bar flew off its braces and thudded to the floor. The doors burst inward, hinges bent and latches shattered. The sentries cowered in a rain of wood splinters and metal shards. A dragon’s silhouette filled the opening, before a towering column of flame and smoke in the city beyond. As it tucked its leathery wings close and entered, the torchieres revealed its monstrousness. Black armor replaced its top frill, bolted to the midnight scutes of its long arching neck. A dark helmet covered its head, with only slits for the eyes to peer out of. In place of paws on its forelimbs it instead walked on the tips of two long, curved blades, strapped to the upper leg and bolted to the scales.

  Runnels of fresh blood bathed those blades.

  The sentries charged, but the beast reared up and its weapons slashed out, longer than the reach of a halberd. The men were cut in half with a single scissor-like motion.

  Mer whispered in Daen’s ear, “Sweet Asha! Boy, collect the books and follow me.”

  But a deep voice froze them. Daen hadn’t noticed the rider before this moment, strapped into an ornate saddle atop the dragon, clad in black armor with a huge flat sword on his back. “Keeper of Memory!” he said, “The Dahak has sent me to find you…with a gift.” He reached behind into a saddle-borne chest and withdrew three objects, then hurled them into the hall.

  Three heads crunched onto the marble paving and rolled into view. Mer moaned in horror and started toward them, but Daen held him back. It took him but a moment to know Tolec, Barth, and Jennia, the other students whom Mer had sent away this very morning.

  Daen gathered up the books as Mer began to wail. Foot soldiers poured in through the doors to either side of the dragon, which reached down to gobble up pieces of dead sentry. Shaking with terror, Daen grabbed Mer’s sleeve and dragged him into the forest of bookcases.

  The clatter of metal-shod feet chased them. Daen glanced back once to see soldiers in black leather and dull armor clambering up the shelves, knocking books off, setting torches to the dry paper. Orange light bloomed. Shouts and laughter followed.

  Mer sobbed as Daen dragged him to the stairs and down. Through the vaults, with the clamor of pursuit close behind, to the smaller chamber where the books were hidden. Torchlight slashed and flickered from a dozen sources as the purs
uit closed in.

  Trembling, Mer attacked the wheel that would release the great lintel stone. Daen set the three books aside and joined him, but Mer struck his hands away. “No! Boy, you must go! Now!” When Daen hesitated, Mer slapped him full across the face. “GO!”

  Cheek stinging, tears flowing freely, Daen gathered the books again and started across the chamber, wending a cautious path through the stacks of tomes. The wheel creaked behind him, and he heard a muffled rasp, as if insects ran within the walls—the sand flowed. The big lintel stone rumbled and growled like the cough of a giant, and Daen looked back. Soldiers with torches and swords sprinted across the chamber beyond, but the lintel hadn’t dropped, not yet. Mer struggled with the wheel, and Daen hesitated again. “Master…?”

  “Go, boy! Curse you if you do not leave. You are the Keeper of Memory now. Go!”

  Daen ran to the far door, knocking piles of books over in his haste. He set his load aside and grabbed the other wheel, pulling with all his strength. It resisted his efforts at first, but then moved with a lurch, stuck again, and finally spun freely. Shaking with fear, he gathered his books and darted through the door even as the lintel began to grind and chatter slowly downward.

  He looked back.

  The far door was still open, the big lintel stone jammed in its descent. Soldiers poured into the chamber, knocking piles of books aside, swords leveled. Flames erupted from ancient paper. When Daen saw him last, Mer crouched in the midst of the gathered history of Cinvat with an armload of books clutched to his chest, a skirmisher’s sword raised above him. Even as the stone lintel dropped, Daen heard his sorrowful cry cut short.

  The thunder of the door’s closing echoed through the blackness that followed.