by Pearl North
Haly’s heart clenched with panic at what she was about to say. “You don’t have The Book of the Night.”
Michander bared his teeth. “But we will have it, and soon! You think it’s out of our reach in Ilysies? We will raze Ilysies to the ground. By the time we’re done, that bitch-queen Tadamos will be begging to give it to us—”
“Brother Michander,” admonished Siblea, “you must not speak so to our Redeemer.”
Michander flushed and looked to Orrin, who shook his head disapprovingly.
“Honored fathers of the Righteous Chorus,” said Haly, hoping she had the appropriate honorific. She needed to strike the right balance of authority and respect, just as Seven Principles for Success in Sales had always said, much as she’d tried to ignore it. She was a miraculous figure to these Singers, but she did not think Orrin would forget that she was also a helpless clerk. “There is something that has long puzzled your Redeemer. Now that you know who I am, and the new day is at hand, I would have you explain it to me.”
They stared at her expectantly. Good. They were at least willing to hear her question. “If I am to redeem the words that have been written, why do you burn books?”
Siblea answered her. “The fire liberates them, Holy One. They reside unspoken in the Song, until by your Redemption, they are given voice once more.”
“Then it is your belief that only a book that has been burned can be redeemed.” She knew that wasn’t true. If it were, they would not be so careful to avoid burning The Book of the Night.
“No, Holy One. The Redemption is for all words, murdered and liberated alike. All will join with the Song, and the Song will speak.”
“Then why bother burning them?”
“Because they are dangerous!” blurted Michander, whose eyes blazed with anger before he caught himself and dropped his gaze. “Holy One,” he added.
Dangerous to whom? Haly suppressed the tiny smile that twitched at the edges of her lips. These men whom she had feared all her life were themselves afraid—afraid of losing technological supremacy. They burned the books so no one else could learn what they could not learn, and they used the concept of liberation to justify it.
“What Censor Michander means is that it is our duty to unite murdered words with the Song whenever we find them, by whatever means is available to us,” said Orrin.
Haly drew herself up and gave them a smile she hoped was full of compassion. “Too long has the Song been wordless. Too long has the will of Yammon been open to interpretation by those less Righteous than yourselves. But you have overcome centuries of darkness and error. Truly, the shining perfection of your love for the Song has brought me to you, of all the generations. The Redemption will be yours, but first you must cast off the errors of the past.”
Michander’s vivid gaze mellowed to pride, Siblea looked at her with dawning respect, and Orrin’s flat, black eyes were flat, and black.
Haly spread her arms and boomed, “No word that has been burned can be redeemed!” Before they could say anything, before her heart stopped dead with terror, she moved to the iron box on the table and placed her hand upon it. “My covenant with you begins now, here, with these words. I can redeem them for everyone, but not if you burn them.
“As a Libyrarian, it was my job to preserve knowledge. The people of the Song understand the importance of preserving knowledge, and this knowledge is the most important of all because it concerns people, and their wisdom and beauty and folly transcend Time. Their words are here to teach us how to survive. I can bring you their teaching, but you must choose. Cast off the old way of false Liberation, or turn your back on Redemption and dwell in silence forevermore.”
In the stillness that followed, she thought they must all hear the frantic pounding of her heart. All the religious phrasing was nothing but a cover. She had given them an ultimatum—if they wanted her to translate The Book of the Night, then they had to stop burning all the other books. How would they react to such a power play? She waited. They stared at her, and then at one another. At last, Orrin gave a fractional nod, and Haly breathed again.
That night she slept with the locked box in her arms, Anne’s words lulling her to sleep. She’d saved one book . . . for now. Maybe somehow she’d save the rest.
In the morning Gyneth brought her breakfast as usual, but after she finished, he stood in front of her for long moments, his head bowed, his fingers twitching on the handles of the tray. At last she said, “Is there something you wish to say to me?”
Gyneth bowed, somehow bending his body over the tray full of dishes without dropping anything. “Holy One, I—” He stopped, still bent over his tray, apparently numb with reverence.
Haly sighed. She got up, took the tray from him, set it down on the table beside the door, and said, “Sit down,” indicating the bench at the foot of her bed.
Gyneth gaped at her.
“Oh, for the sake of the Seven Tales! Two days ago you were telling me I was an ignorant savage, remember?”
His face, already red, deepened in color and he began to kneel.
“No! Stop it! Look at me!”
With difficulty, Gyneth met her eyes.
“I promise I won’t smite you. Now what did you want?”
Gyneth’s eyes strayed to the locked box and he chewed the corner of his upper lip, apparently trying to gauge the peril of asking for whatever it was he wanted. At last he found the courage to say, “What happens to her?”
“To whom?”
“To Anne.”
Ah. “Do you want to hear more?”
“Yes, Holy One.”
Haly smiled.
After meals, Haly recited the diary of Anne Frank to Gyneth. And whenever she paused for a drink of water it was hardly a break at all, because he was full of questions. What was a Jew? What was a concentration camp? Were the Jews literate, and the others people of the Song? Was that why they were persecuted?
When Haly explained that reading and writing were part of the standard education of the time, Gyneth fell silent, looking very grave.
“It’s not anything bad, you know, reading and writing.”
Gyneth’s eyes widened in shock, and he fixed his gaze on the floor at Haly’s feet.
“It’s just a skill. One anybody can learn.”
Gyneth’s hands clenched on his knees. His head shook almost imperceptibly.
“No?”
“I would not presume to correct the Redeemer,” he said, his voice cold.
She’d liked him better when he was telling her she was damned. “But your Redeemer commands you to. And while we’re at it, your Redeemer commands you to look at her when you speak. And stop bowing all the time.”
Gyneth stared at her, anger and fear in his eyes. “Those who commune with the murdered words cannot hear the Song.”
“But I hear the Song.”
“That is different. You’re the Redeemer.”
“And what if I told you that what you’ve been taught about reading and writing is wrong?”
“You can say anything you want to me. You’re—”
“The Redeemer.” Argh. Frustrated, Haly tugged at the locks on the metal box. If only she could show him he had nothing to fear.
Gyneth stood. He began to bow, then caught himself and straightened again. “With the Holy One’s pardon, I must go now. I have to prepare for my Circuits.”
Haly blinked. It hadn’t occurred to her what Gyneth did when he was not here. “Circuits?”
“The comprehensive exams every subaltern must pass in order to enter the priesthood. Electronics, mechanics, metallurgy, medicine, and agriculture. There are a lot of songs to learn. But Censor Siblea says I’m almost ready. I’ll be one of the youngest in my generation to give recital.”
“And Siblea is your teacher?”
“One of them. But he is my mentor. That is why I assist him with you.”
Just as she had assisted Selene back at the Libyrinth. Again she thought about their identical brown robe
s and she wondered about Iscarion.
But first things first. After Gyneth left, Haly set about trying to get the metal box open. She set it on the bench beside the window where the light was good, and took a close look at the locks. They were key locks—nothing special, but also quite impassable unless she had the key or could pick them. No password or flash of book-borne inspiration could help her here. It was a simple mechanical problem.
“And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles,” said the book.
She rummaged around the room for something with which she could attempt to pick the lock. There was nothing. She took another look at the locks. Perhaps they could be broken with brute force. As if she had that in plentiful supply. Still, it was worth a try.
Haly picked up the table beside the door and hefted it. It was small but the top was marble and she could barely lift it. She placed the box on the floor, lifted the table, and tried to drop it on the book so that it hit the hasp of one of the locks. She only succeeded in putting a dent in the wood floor, so she tried again.
There were twelve dents in the floor by the time she gave up, her arms trembling from the strain of lifting the heavy table. She sat down on the floor and stared at the box.
“Who besides me will ever read these letters?” asked the book.
She examined the hinges, which she discovered were covered by a protective metal housing, so she couldn’t push out the pins.
“What does she say, what does she say?” she heard from a slight distance.
At first Haly thought it was the book, and some trick of acoustics or distraction. But then the voice came again, more insistently and from beneath the bed. “What does she say?”
Haly’s heart leaped into her throat as she watched Nod crawl from beneath the bed and hop to the box. He laid his tiny hands upon the metal and put his ear to it, looking up at Haly plaintively. “Nod misses the stories.”
She grabbed him and clutched him to her chest, kissing the top of his bald, red head. “Nod! Nod! I’m so glad to see you! What are you doing here? How long have you been here?” Her words tumbled out, one after the other.
Nod squeaked and struggled to free himself, finally pinching her sharply with two tweezers-sized fingers. “Nod didn’t follow her all this way so she could strangle Nod!” he scolded bitterly, hopping away from her to crouch on top of the locked box again. “Here here—Nod just get here. Stuck in nasty dungeon place for days.” He made a face.
Seeing Nod again made Haly realize how much she missed the Libyrinth. Tears welled in her eyes but she swallowed, blinked, and quelled them. “Did anybody see you?”
“Tsk. Beasties never see Nod. Beasties too big to notice little Nod in the corner, along the wall, among the curves of the Big Metal Noise Tube they build down there. What is that thing for, does she know?”
Haly shook her head.
“Nod neither,” he muttered. “Don’t like it, though.”
Haly nodded and sighed. “I’m so glad to see you.”
Nod snorted impatiently and put his fists to his hips. “Glad mean she tell Nod story now?”
“I’ll tell you a story, but first you must do something for me.”
Nod lifted his hands to his ears and pulled them. He hopped up and down on the box. “Do something for her! Days and days in stinky dungeon and she says do something for her.” He bared his teeth. “This Nod should have gone with the Clauda beastie. Fine. What does she want?”
“This box is broken, Nod. It won’t open. See if you can fix it.”
For half an hour Nod swarmed over the box. He investigated the locks and the hinges, at last succeeding in prying off the hinge covers with his tiny fingers and removing the pins.
Haly lifted the small, much-mended book from the box. It was paperbound, the picture on the cover faded to a ghostly image, barely discernible but for the eyes, which stared out at her with such intensity, it was as if they were alive. She was almost afraid to open the book for fear it would disintegrate, but the paper and ink used by the late-period Earth publishers was nearly indestructible. She opened it and ran her fingers over the words, and though her voice was raw, she recited to Nod for a full hour.
That night she slept with the book cradled against her chest, and Nod curled beside her head. She slept well.
From ancients before Ancients comes the adage;
Current times resistance equals voltage.
The Chorus of Electromagnetism sang with enthusiasm, their voices filling the small recital hall. The chamber was one of many just like it throughout the Temple of Yammon. At the far end of the room the floor rose up in a series of steps, each about two feet higher than the previous one. These steps curved in an arc facing a podium centered before them. The chorus stood upon the steps, and each row had a clear view of their conductor, who directed them from behind the podium.
Behind him, and closest to the door, benches provided seating for those who came to listen, though performance was by no means the primary function of either the recital halls or the numerous choruses that used them. Through practicing their repertoire of songs, the Singers preserved their knowledge.
Siblea, Orrin, and Michander had decided that Haly needed to develop an appreciation of their way of life, so in the three days since the test, Haly had visited almost twenty different choruses, each dedicated to a different area of knowledge. She’d listened to the Chorus of Medicine, the Chorus of Mechanics, the Chorus of Soldiers (of which Michander was the conductor), even the Chorus of Cattle Breeding.
Positive charge, negative charge, these are the two kinds.
Like charges repel each other, opposites do bind.
The chorus finished singing. As the men on the steps bowed deeply to Haly, the conductor turned around, beaming. “An honor, Holy One,” he said, and bowed also. Haly, flanked by Siblea on one side and Michander on the other, stood along with them and nodded her head stiffly.
The chorus members were all staring at her with identical expressions of awe and reverence. It was like this everywhere she went. It creeped her out. It wasn’t so bad when they were singing and she could concentrate on the music, but now, with all of them just staring at her like they expected her to perform some miraculous feat at any moment—like spout wine from her ears, for instance—she just wanted to get out of there.
But as usual, after the singing there was a little reception to endure. Members of the Chorus of Electromagnetism produced a small table that was a twin to the marble-topped one in Haly’s room. The conductor, Tifius, sat down on the bench behind theirs, and the table was set between the two rows of benches. Michander, Haly, and Siblea turned around on their bench so they could face him, and members of the chorus served them tea and oatcakes. At least, sitting this way, she faced away from most of the chorus, though she could still feel their adoring gazes boring into her back.
“I tell you, Siblea, Michander, I never thought this would come in my lifetime,” said Conductor Tifius, a shortish man in his early sixties with pale hair and eyebrows, and blue eyes that sparkled with excitement. He glanced at Haly and bowed his head. “Holy One.”
Haly sighed and nibbled on an oatcake. That was pretty much the extent to which any of the conductors spoke to her.
“Just imagine, a Maker of Eggs! Tell me, Siblea,” Tifius continued, “when will the presentation be made, have you decided?”
The presentation. Haly’s stomach churned at the mention of it. She set the oatcake down on the edge of her plate with a soft clink. Siblea had informed her this morning that she was going to have to stand in the mouth of that enormous statue of Yammon and sing to the multitude of the Righteous Chorus. Not just the Singers in the temple, but almost all the people in the Corvariate Citadel would fill the enormous amphitheater for the event.
“That depends on how the work of the Chorus of Acoustical Engineers progresses, Tifius. We want to hold the presentation on the eve of our departure on the pilgrimage, and we won’t be ready for that until their
work is completed.”
“Oh, of course, of course,” said Tifius. “I understand completely.”
Haly didn’t. “What work?” she said.
Tifius looked at her in shock and bit his oatcake in half. Michander frowned and looked like he wanted to tell her to shut up, but Siblea merely smiled and said, “I believe you did your part to move things along when you first arrived here, Holy One.”
“That horn thing in the dungeon?” she said. Conductor Tifius blushed visibly at the mention of her imprisonment. “What does it do?”
“You will see in time, Holy One,” Siblea assured her.
Tifius swallowed the remainder of his oatcake and stood up, apparently unnerved by a Redeemer who actually spoke and asked questions and referred to grisly realities. “Well, this has been an honor, the honor of a lifetime.” He bowed deeply to Haly again, and shook hands with Michander and Siblea, who also stood. “I suppose you have a busy schedule. I wouldn’t want to make you late for your next appointment.”
“Where are we going now?” Haly asked once they were in the hallway outside the recital hall.
“We’re visiting Subaltern Chorus Five,” said Siblea. “I think you’ll enjoy this one. Its members are all your age. In fact, it is Gyneth’s chorus.”
“I don’t understand,” said Haly. “What is its subject matter?”
“It has no subject. It is an administrative chorus. I myself am a member of the Chorus of Censors, and there is also a Chorus of Conductors. The subalterns are organized in choruses by age and the rate at which they have advanced in their studies. Each chorus is educated as a group by attending the recitals of other choruses, and as individuals by being apprenticed to priests. I am very proud of Gyneth. He is only fifteen, and yet he is a member of Subaltern Chorus Five, the very last chorus before an initiate sings his circuits and becomes a priest.”
As Siblea spoke, they proceeded down a wide hallway with floors and walls made of large, gray stone blocks. Some of the blocks were engraved with songlines, as she’d seen before. On her other side, Michander stalked, silent and, she suspected, a little bored.