by Pearl North
“Yes, we need to understand the stars, the sequence of the constellations, in order to open it. I know, but how do we know which is the right sequence?” said Selene.
Haly shook her head again.
“What are you doing up there?” said Clauda.
Haly pleaded to Clauda with her eyes. She opened her mouth again and with her hands, pretended to be drawing out sound.
“If you’re going to be sick, don’t throw up on the dome,” said her friend. “We just cleaned it.” She turned back to Selene. “I still say it’s a clock. Like an old Earth alarm clock. Maybe it’s set to open at a special hour. Do you know what time it was when Theselaides discovered the Libyrinth?”
Selene cocked her head to one side. “I thought you didn’t believe in Theselaides.”
Haly threw up her hands, moaned, and then spat out the poultice of accar leaves. “They’re notes. Musical notes,” she said. “I’m pretty sure all we have to do is sing them, in order.”
Clauda and Selene both stared at her. “That’s all?” asked Clauda.
“How do you know?” asked Selene.
Haly gaped. “I learned it from a book,” she said.
Selene gave her a puzzled frown. “What book?”
Haly shook her head. “I don’t know.” A twinge stabbed her tongue. Was that blood she tasted? “Please don’t ask me anything more. It hurts to talk. Let’s just try it and see if it works, okay?”
The three of them stood evenly spaced around the dome, while Nod perched upon the rump of one of the horses and watched. They cleared their throats. They began at the bottom of the scale, their untrained voices scratchy at first, then smoother as they held the note.
The segment engraved with the constellation of the Mouse, the Tale of Birth, flared into golden light and lines appeared, emanating from its single dot like petals from a flower. Clauda, who stood nearest to it, broke off in a gasp and the light faded. She quickly took the note up again, and the light strengthened.
By unspoken accord, Clauda stayed with that first note when Selene and Haly moved up the scale. The segment for Peril, the Goat, lit up, and this time, the lines emanating from its dots connected, both to one another and to those that flowed out now from Birth like rays from the sun.
Selene stayed with Peril and Haly alone sang Hunger, the Lion. Its three points gave forth lines of golden light that interconnected with all of the others in a pulsing, glowing web. Haly could hardly believe what she was seeing. She was so captivated by it that she barely heard the book that had helped her say, “The one thing they never failed at was beauty.”
Now, supported by the other two notes, Birth maintained its light as Clauda sang Balance, the Fish.
They worked their way up the scale until every segment around the dome was alight and the carvings were no longer visible beneath the intricate web of interconnection between the Seven Tales. Haly glanced at the faces of her friends. Did she look like that, too—transported with wonder? Did they feel like she did—that no matter what occurred in the rest of her life she was one of the fortunate, just to witness this?
The lines of light arced up in great loops like a flower—like the very first note had looked when they sang it. A hole appeared in the center of the dome and grew bigger, and Haly realized that what had appeared to be solid brass was in fact a series of interlocking panels so well fit as to be invisible. The hatch opened and the light went away.
They stopped singing. Haly tasted blood and realized that her wound had reopened without her knowing it. And her throat was raw. It was dark now. How long had they been singing? It had only seemed like a few minutes. Against all rationality, Haly wanted the dome to close, so they could sing and see the wonderful light again. She heard Clauda take a deep breath and sigh, and Selene made a small, wistful sound somewhere between a moan and a laugh. Maybe they felt that way, too. Silently, they stepped over the rim of the hatch.
Panels of soft white light illuminated the steps as they descended them. It was spare, functional light compared to what they had just witnessed, but welcome all the same. “The Egg must still be intact,” said Selene in a low, wondering whisper. “Of course, I should have realized that before.”
The stairs opened out into a round room about twenty-five feet in diameter, lined with empty shelves. The floor was white tile. Panels of light in the ceiling added their illumination to the lights on the stairs, so much brighter than firelight and palm-glow. In the center of the room stood a round desk, a smaller, more utilitarian version of the console in the Great Hall at the Libyrinth. It was made of a smooth, white material that was neither stone, wood, nor metal.
Haly walked along the perimeter of the room. Behind the empty shelves was a blank wall, but she could hear books on the other side, clamoring for her attention. “All that is told here happened some time before Mowgli was turned out of the Seeonee Wolf Pack”; “Route the wiring from the front light along the frame members to the area of the generator-mounting bracket”; “When tweetle beetles fight it’s called a tweetle beetle battle.”
Just as in the Libyrinth, there were stacks hidden from view behind the façade of the room they were in—shelves upon shelves of books. But unlike the Libyrinth, there was no door providing access to these stacks. She knelt to peer beneath the lowest of the visible, empty shelves, and discovered that they continued down through a hole in the floor. She just made out the tops of a few books. She reached for them, but the space was too narrow for more than her forearm. As she pulled her hand back out she saw a pair of eyes looked back at her. “Nod? What are you doing there?”
“How clean it is! How clean!”
Haly blinked. The voice was coming from behind her. Tiny hands grasped the back of her robe, and she felt the imp clamber up to her shoulder. Then who was staring at her? Haly gasped and straightened. Panicking, she grasped Nod around the middle and tore him off her back. She held him in her hand, and glanced back beneath the shelves, but there was nothing there.
“She must put Nod down, she must put him down!” Nod struggled violently in her grip.
Haly looked at him and, shaking her head, set him down. He scrambled beneath the shelves and disappeared.
“How do we turn it on?” Selene wondered aloud, still staring at the desk.
At her words a panel, which they had not known was a panel, rose from the top of the desk to reveal a smooth, white face roughly the size of a cart’s wheel. “Welcome to the Southwest Visitor Overflow Station,” the face said through unmoving lips. Its voice was a mellow contralto. “Please state your desired title, author, or subject matter.”
They looked at one another. After a moment’s hesitation, Selene said “The Book of the Night.” There was a pause, and then the console said, “One volume entitled The Book of the Night found. Please stand by.”
Selene turned to Haly, her face filled with barely suppressed excitement. Haly felt queasy with nerves and she looked over and saw Clauda’s tense expression. For generations the Libyrarians had been searching for The Book of the Night, so often referred to by Theselaides and other early Libyrinth scholars who concerned themselves with Ancient technology, but so far, never found. Selene looked back at the face and they all watched it expectantly. The face was silent, immobile, and peaceful. “What happens now?” Selene wondered aloud.
Across the room, movement caught Haly’s eye. A set of shelves was moving. She blinked. Yes, definitely moving. Like a waterwheel, the shelves cascaded down the wall and disappeared at the level of the floor, replaced at the top by new shelves. Shelves with books on them. “Um . . .”
“Do you think our desk in the Great Hall does this, too? Or would, if it had an Egg?” asked Selene, still staring at the face in the desk.
“Hey, I’m a cook, how should I know? But, maybe . . .” said Clauda.
“Uh . . . folks,” said Haly.
“What?” said Selene and Clauda in unison, staring at her.
“Look!” Haly pointed at the moving shelves.
“Oh,” gasped Clauda softly, in awe.
“Oh,” said Selene, with a note of surprise.
Eventually, the shelves stopped moving, and they stood staring at a wall of books.
Haly went to the shelves, reached out, and took a book off the shelf. “The Book of Night,” it told her, and its green cover bore the mark of the seven-pointed star, just as described by Theselaides. “I am the Literate Iscarion, and these are my words,” it said, and its voice was the same one that had told Haly about sound and light. Her hands shook. Wordlessly, she handed the book to Selene.
Selene’s hands trembled, too, as she took the book from Haly. She ran her fingers across its cover. A frown marred her reverence as she caressed the hand-lettered title. “What language is this? I’ve never seen it before.” There was a pause as she went very still, staring at the cover. She opened the book and flipped through the pages. “It’s not one of the known alphabets.” Her voice was faint. Haly heard hope dying in it.
“Selene, I . . .” she started. Selene turned toward her and the look in her eyes silenced Haly.
While Haly struggled to speak, the book told her, “The great Liberation is accomplished and it falls to me to interrogate my former master. Endymion is sick and mad and dying, as she’s been for many years, but now she’s the last Ancient; all the others are gone.”
Selene turned from them and put the book carefully back on the shelf. “All this time, and now, it’s in an unknown language,” she murmured. “Indecipherable. Useless . . .” She gave a short, hysterical bark of laughter, but when she turned around again, her face was carefully composed. “I’m going to feed the horses and settle them for the night in the shelter of the Tumbles.” She turned and headed for the stairs.
“Selene!” Haly cried, at last overcoming her silence. “Wait!”
But Selene did not stop. She put one hand over her mouth, and she ran up the stairs and out.
Haly turned to see Clauda looking almost as stricken as Selene. Cook or Libyrarian, the promise of The Book of the Night was a long-cherished dream. “Do you believe me when I say the books talk to me?”
Clauda tore her wistful gaze from the book and looked at Haly. She nodded. “I always did,” she whispered.
Haly took The Book of the Night from the shelf again. “This one talks to me like all the others. It doesn’t matter what language it’s written in. I can still hear it.”
Clauda’s eyes widened. “Tell me. Tell me what it tells you.”
Her tongue hurt, but she would speak sharp shards of glass to share this with her friend. She thought of going after Selene, but she would be back soon enough, and then both she and Clauda would convince her. Haly sat down on the lowest step of the stairs with the book unopened in her lap. Clauda sat beside her and Haly recited again from the beginning.
“Unraveling her secrets is the very last task I ever wished for, now or ever, but Yammon says I must and I know that he’s right. I don’t know what I’ll be able to understand now, when so little has ever been clear in all this time, but I will try.”
There was a noise from above, from the open door of the vault. She looked up, expecting Selene, but instead saw three masked figures descending the steps, their black robes swirling about them. Haly stood and the book fell from her lap, landing with a loud smack on the floor. Clutching each other, she and Clauda backed up until they were huddled against the console, watching as the Eradicants advanced upon them. The Eradicants carried tall staves, each topped with a glowing blue orb. As they reached the floor of the vault, they pointed the orbs at Haly and Clauda.
“Mind lancets,” whispered Clauda.
The Blade and the Jar
The three Eradicants that faced them wore masks with long, pointed noses like birds’ beaks. The masks were black, and they covered their faces from the mouth up, but she could see their glittering eyes. Their hoods were off. The Eradicant in the middle, the tallest, said, “Where is the third one?”
Haly looked at Clauda, who returned her confused gaze with one of tightly controlled fear. They both looked up at the Eradicant who had spoken.
“Three of you fled the Tomb of Dead Words,” he went on. “Where is she?” He jerked his mind lancet forward and twisted his hand on the shaft. Tendrils of blue light danced around the glowing orb.
“W-we don’t know,” said Haly, realizing that by the Tomb of Dead Words he meant the Libyrinth. She looked closer at their faces, trying to see if she could recognize them from the burning. But the beaks distorted their appearance so much it was hard to tell anything about what they really looked like.
The one who spoke stepped closer. “Put your hands on your heads,” he said.
With her heart sinking into her stomach, Haly raised her arms and felt the brush of Clauda’s wrist as she did the same. The vault suddenly seemed very small.
The Eradicant turned to the thinner of his two cohorts. “Vinnais, you and Soth go back outside. Secure the ammunition and check for her.” He looked back at Haly and Clauda and waved the sparking mind lancet at them. “I can fry you both before you reach me,” he said.
Haly believed it. As the other two Eradicants went back up the stairs, she stared, mesmerized, at the blue fire crackling over the surface of the mind lancet’s orb. She’d heard about these weapons, how they could paralyze, kill, or drive one insane. She thought she could smell the electricity—a smell like snow and ashes.
Time crawled by as they sat there under the watchful gaze of the Eradicant, whose blue eyes were like smaller versions of the mind-lancet orb, gleaming behind his long-beaked mask. Haly tried to listen to The Book of the Night, which still lay on the floor beside the stairs, but it was difficult to concentrate on anything except the arcing fire of the mind lancet and the gleam in the Eradicant’s eyes. She got only a few fragments: “the breath of the tides,” “corrupting influence of power,” and “harness the wind.”
At last Vinnais and Soth returned without Selene. That was something, at least.
“Their mounts are gone, too,” said Vinnais. “She must have seen us coming and abandoned these two, to save herself.”
Could that be true? Haly wondered, and decided she didn’t care. She was just glad Selene was safe.
“We might as well tie these two up,” said Soth, the shortest and heaviest of the three. “When Michander gets here, he might want to talk to them.”
The third Eradicant, the one who had stayed below, shook his head slowly. “We can do better than that,” he said. “These two are Libyrarians as well. Lits.” The way he spat that last word, there was no mistaking it as an epithet. They all read. They can tell us which one of these is The Book of the Night. Then, when Michander arrives, we can present it to him. Such initiative will surely be noted.” Beneath the mask, his mouth spread open in a smile.
Soth frowned. “But Ithaster, how can we be sure they aren’t lying to us? They could make us look like fools in front of Michander.”
Ithaster’s hands flexed on his mind lancet. “We can be sure,” he said. “Look how they huddle together. They are fast friends, just as that fat fool Griome said. The dark one is the clerk, the other one a servant, a slave in all but name, yet worse—a willing slave. Still, they care for each other. You can see it. Soth, take the servant and tie her up.”
“No,” Haly protested, wrapping her arms around Clauda and gripping her tightly as Soth came forward and seized her friend by the wrists. Clauda jerked her head forward and bit Soth on the arm. He gasped in pain and drew back a moment, enough to give Clauda a chance to kick him in the knee. Haly rushed forward, trying to grab him around the waist and bring him down, but instead she wound up tangled in his robes at his feet. He kicked her in the stomach and by then Ithaster and Vinnais had come to his aid. Ithaster held her as the other two tied the still-struggling Clauda to one of the vertical support beams of the shelves.
When Clauda was secured, Ithaster whirled Haly around and tapped the end of his mind lancet against her shoulder.
Sudden fire raced through her body—agonizing, paralyzing. She screamed. That one brief touch left her trembling and sweating.
“Stop it!” shouted Clauda. “We’ll give you the book!”
Ithaster gripped Haly’s shoulder, both steadying and restraining her. “I know you will. That was just a small demonstration, the mildest of the lancet’s capabilities.” He lowered his head to Haly’s ear. “We will do far worse to her if you don’t cooperate. Do you understand?”
Her head still ringing from the attack, Haly nodded. It was useless. They were going to burn every book here anyway, regardless of whether or not The Book of the Night was identified. And in the meantime . . .
“Good,” said Ithaster. “Now, we will go through every book in this vault until we find it, and if you lie, or fail to identify it, your friend will suffer unspeakable pain. Don’t think you can trick us. We have our own ways of identifying The Book of the Night, and if we find you have been false, well . . . Vinnais.”
Vinnais struck Clauda in the stomach with his mind lancet. Blue fire burst across her body and she convulsed, her raw scream shredding what was left of Haly’s nerves.
Haly’s mouth filled with sweet-tasting saliva, and she doubled over and threw up at Ithaster’s feet. When she stopped retching, she straightened up shakily and drew the back of her hand over her mouth. “Here,” she croaked, and taking Ithaster’s arm she pointed to The Book of the Night, which was lying on the floor by the steps. “This is it,” she said, drawing him after her as she crossed to pick it up. “This is The Book of the Night. I swear it. By all the books of the Libyrinth, I swear it.” She held it out to him.
It was silent in the vault but for the murmuring of books and Clauda gasping to recover her breath. Haly didn’t dare look at her. She kept her eyes on Ithaster, who stared at her a long moment. “That is the book you were reading from, when we found you,” he said.