Libyrinth

by Pearl North

  Siblea took her elbow and steered her to the right, into a large courtyard that was open to the sky and carpeted with grass. Numerous footpaths wound among the shrubbery, small ornamental trees and sculptures of vague, undulating forms that resembled the songlines in three dimensions. Priests wandered the pathways, humming and singing softly to themselves.

  “What are they doing?” she asked Siblea.

  “Most of them are memorizing. Some are composing.” He pointed to a short, wiry priest who walked with his hands clasped behind his back. “That is Conductor Faravan of the Chorus of History. He is most likely composing. His chorus is by far the most active in composition, since history is always being made. When he completes his composition, he will sing it to the Chorus of Censors, and we will make any alterations we feel are advisable, before the song becomes a part of our overall body of knowledge.”

  Haly stopped and turned to face him. He was so matter-of-fact about it. He gazed at her with his customary faint smile, as if there could not possibly be anything objectionable about what he had just said. “And will you cut out the part where the Redeemer is imprisoned in the dungeon?” she demanded.

  Michander huffed and crossed his arms in annoyance, but Siblea pursed his lips, considering. “No,” he said. “I think it makes a better story if we leave that in.”

  Haly had no idea how to respond. Siblea’s frank and unapologetic acknowledgment of censorship left her speechless. She turned and they continued to walk along the footpath, but not before she heard Michander mutter under his breath, “Of course you’d leave it in. It wasn’t a member of your chorus who made the error.”

  As they neared the far end of the courtyard, they passed a priest who was playing one of the little handheld harps she’d seen used in the dungeon. He stood alone in a small alcove formed by dense hedges. Haly paused to watch him. He plucked the strings, listened, then plucked out a new sequence of notes, listened to those, and so on. “What is he doing?” she asked Siblea. “Is he composing, too?”

  Siblea followed her gaze, put one finger to his lips, and tilted his head to the side, indicating that they should move on. When they had passed the opening to the alcove, Siblea said, “I did not wish our voices to disturb him. He is doing mathematics.”

  “What? But he was just playing music.”

  Michander snorted. “What do you think numbers are, Holy One?”

  Siblea raised his hands. “Perhaps a better way to put it is to say that musical notes are the voice of numbers.” At her still-puzzled look, he tried again. “Each number can be represented by a musical note. Manipulating notes in music is equivalent to manipulating numbers with mathematical operations like addition, multiplication, and so on.” He raised his eyebrows, waiting to see if his words would sink in.

  Haly didn’t fully understand, but she could at least grasp the basic concept as he’d described it. It made her wonder, though. “Is there more information in the songs, then, than just what the words say?”

  Siblea smiled at her. “For those whose ears have been trained to hear it, there is.”

  Despite tarrying in the garden, Haly, Siblea, and Michander arrived early at the recital hall used by Subaltern Chorus Five; that much was clear by the raucous shouts and laughter issuing from the doorway as they approached. From the far end of the hallway, which was much like the one they’d passed through on their way to the courtyard, a black-garbed priest was hurrying toward them. Siblea smirked and put his hand to Haly’s elbow. “Let’s get there before Conductor Cyncus,” he murmured.

  To Haly’s surprise, Michander gave a snort of laughter and they all quickened their pace. As they neared the room, the voices from inside became clearer.

  “Gyneth wants to kiss her! Don’t you, Gynnie? You want to—” Haly recognized the voice as belonging to Orrin’s attendant, Thale.

  “No! I don’t! Shut up!” That was Gyneth.

  Haly, Siblea, and Michander reached the doorway to the recital hall. Inside, Gyneth and three other boys were rough-housing while ten or twelve more looked on and shouted occasional remarks and encouragement. All of them were Haly’s age or a little older, and dressed in brown robes.

  On the lowest step at the back of the room, Thale had Gyneth in a headlock, and a heavyset blond boy was trying to climb onto his back. “Gah! You’re so fat, Baris, you’re going to break my back,” shouted Gyneth. He wrested himself free of Thale’s grip and straightened, dumping Baris onto the floor.

  A smaller, dark-haired boy tackled Gyneth and they both fell down. He and Baris pinned Gyneth to the floor and Thale stood over him. “Admit it, you want to kiss her!” said Thale. He lifted his robes and turned around. He flexed his legs, sticking his long-underwear-clad butt over Gyneth’s face. “Admit it or I’ll fart on you!”

  Gyneth was laughing so hard he could hardly force the words out. “You’re just jealous ’cause even though you’re Orrin’s attendant, I have the best job.”

  Thale scrunched up his face dramatically, and then a loud fart noise was heard. Everyone screamed and scrambled back to the corners of the room, yelling, “The green death! The green death!”

  After days and days of somber reverence, Haly found it a relief to see people acting silly. Standing in the doorway with Michander and Siblea, she couldn’t suppress a giggle.

  At once the boys all turned their heads to the doorway and froze at the sight of her. Gyneth’s hair stood up on one side of his head. His flushed face turned a deeper shade of red and the merry light in his eyes fled as he stared at her in horror. Beside him Thale tugged his sleeve and they both hastily got to their knees and bowed in supplication, the other boys following their lead. So much for silliness, then.

  “My apologies, my apologies,” said a voice behind Haly. She and the two priests turned to see Conductor Cyncus standing in the hallway, breathing hard. He was a middle-aged, plump, dark-haired man with a soft face and bright dark eyes. “I beg your pardon, Holy One, may you live now and forever in the Song eternal.” He bowed to her. “I did not realize you would be so prompt. I—”

  “Never mind, Conductor Cyncus,” said Siblea. “We are early.” Haly glanced at him and then at Michander. Both of them seemed amused to have caught the conductor and his chorus unawares. So despite all outward appearances of rigid order and obedience, it seemed that the Singers had a sense of humor, after all.

  “Oh. Oh.” Cyncus peered past them into the recital hall and saw the boys prostrating themselves from scattered positions about the room. “Boys,” he said sharply, as Michander stepped to the side to let him pass. “Take your places at once!”

  As the boys sang about the periodic table of the elements, Haly thought about what she had seen and heard. They had been teasing Gyneth about a girl. Was it her? Did she want it to be her?

  So far as she’d seen, she was the only girl in the temple, outside the dungeon, that is. But there might be others she hadn’t seen, or they might be talking about someone outside the temple. Why did that idea fill her with disappointment?

  Maybe it was as Gyneth said, and he didn’t want to kiss this girl anyway, whoever she was, and the boys were just teasing him because they were jealous.

  She watched Gyneth as he sang, his eyes clear and warm, his voice rich and deep. She watched his lips move around the words, and she wondered what they would feel like on hers.

  Peril is the Goat

  Clauda stood in the open doorway of Selene’s chamber, watching the tall, slender Libyraryian pack her saddlebags with methodical grace. “You were right,” she said. “We can’t trust your mother.”

  Selene looked up. She opened her mouth to speak, then stopped herself and abandoned her packing. She went to Clauda, drew her inside by the arm, and shut the door. She turned, her back to it, her hand still gripping Clauda’s arm. “What did you learn?”

  Clauda licked her lips. Her mouth was dry. She was afraid, and it was making her stomach tremble. Or maybe that wasn’t the fear. She heard flies buzzing. “I don’t
think you should go to the Libyrinth.”

  Selene looked more closely at her. “Are you ill?”

  Clauda shook her head, though she could feel the shaking now deep inside her—definitely more than fear—and it echoed in a numb tingling in her hands and feet.

  “But you’re shaking. Come now, come here.” She led Clauda to the low couch and sat down beside her. Her hands gripped Clauda’s tightly. “Breathe. Remember what Adept Ykobos taught you.”

  Clauda took several deep breaths, imagining that she was a tree; drawing energy up through the soles of her feet, releasing it through the top of her head and then drawing it down again through her head and releasing it into the ground below. It helped. The tingling in her hands and feet receded. She regarded Selene, who had taken care of her after the mind-lancet attack, who had thrown an Egg into a burning cart to save her and Haly. How could Clauda consider herself good with people when she had so completely missed Selene’s true value, her loyalty, her bravery? Scio was right; she would make a fine queen. “You can’t go,” she croaked.

  Selene’s lips compressed with worry and stubbornness. “Tell me why. What’s changed?”

  Clauda nodded. “Not here,” she said.

  “You’re right,” said Selene. She looked at the door and then back at Clauda. “It’s a fine day today, and you really musn’t miss Ilysies in springtime. I know what we’ll do.”

  They rode out beyond the palace and beyond the city, both of them together on a large black horse that Selene called Goliath. Selene did not think Clauda was fit to ride by herself, and Clauda didn’t dispute it. It was a fine day, and Clauda tried not to let her anxiety overshadow the warmth of the sun and the strength of Selene’s arms around her as the Libyrarian gripped the reins with competent hands. Clauda let herself lean back against the comforting solidity of Selene’s chest and tried not to think at all.

  They dismounted on a hillside bordered on one side by a vineyard and on the other by the abrupt cliff and the blue sea. There was not another human being as far as the eye could see.

  Selene spread a blanket on the ground and took food from a basket that she’d lashed to the back of Goliath’s saddle. They ate soft cheese and honey, bread, cucumbers, and the little red berries that were not raspberries. At length Selene uncorked a flask of watered wine and poured them each a cup. “Well?” she said, handing Clauda her cup.

  Clauda took a drink to forestall the inevitable. She cleared her throat. “Scio showed me another spy hole,” she said.

  Selene raised one eyebrow, but didn’t comment.

  “I heard Queen Thela talking with you, and then with General Tadakis.”

  Selene nodded.

  Clauda swallowed. “She’s not telling the general to attack the Libyrinth.”

  Selene’s eyes widened.

  “She’s not telling her where to attack at all. She told her to take the army into the Plain of Ayor and await the wing. They are to follow it and attack what it attacks.”

  Selene took a deep breath and slowly nodded. “I’m not surprised. My mother loves secrets, and she suspects an Eradicant spy in the palace. She would not risk them discovering her plans.”

  “We can’t count on her sending the army to support you.”

  “I tried to tell you that before,” Selene observed without rancor. “It’s even odds whether she’ll save the Libyrinth and exact tribute from us, or conquer the Corvariate Citadel while it’s all but abandoned.”

  Clauda swallowed, absorbing this. “You can’t go,” she said.

  Selene smiled at her and shook her head. “But it’s a good plan.”

  “A good plan? You didn’t think so yesterday.”

  “That was before you discovered the wing, and eaves-dropped on the queen’s conversations. And have you found out why Scio is helping you yet?”

  “She wants you to be heir.”

  “Oh, dear.” Selene rolled her eyes and laughed. “Me, queen—can you imagine?”

  “Yes. Maybe you should. Maybe you should stay and challenge them and—”

  Selene shook her head. “And be poisoned or walled up or just disappear? And then what would happen to Haly? Even if I could succeed, and I can think of nothing I’d enjoy less than ruling a nation, we don’t have that kind of time.”

  “But—”

  “No. I’m going and you’re staying and that’s my final word as your senior ranking Libyrarian.”

  “I-I’m staying?”

  “Yes. When I go to the Libyrinth with the book, I want you to stay here and keep up what you’ve been doing. It could be useful.”

  Useful. How typical that when the words she had longed for Selene to say finally came, they were unwelcome. Irritation overcame irony. “Are you insane? Don’t you understand what that means? If she doesn’t help us, the Eradicants will destroy the Libyrinth, and you’ll be . . . You can’t go.”

  Selene gave her a crooked grin. “Oh, but I have to go.”

  Clauda couldn’t speak. All she could do was shake her head. There were tears in her eyes, and she didn’t even care. Haly was lost, and Selene seemed determined to follow her right into the hands of the Eradicants.

  Selene’s grin faded and she leaned toward Clauda, putting a hand on her knee. “Don’t you see? In the first place, if I don’t go, Mother will know we suspect her, which means she’ll suspect we’ve been spying on her, and that could be very dangerous for you. And in the second place, I took the opportunity of last night’s card game to recruit my escort to the Libyrinth—the best of Vorain’s regiment. Women loyal to her, and by extension, to me.

  “Even if Mother doesn’t send the army to the Libyrinth, a well-trained fighting force, guided by those who know the Libyrinth well, can hold out in the stacks against a much larger force for a long time. And I’ll be able to get Haly back. They’ll have to bring her inside, you see, for their Redemption, and we’ll be waiting for them.”

  The tingling was back in Clauda’s hands and feet, and gray flies buzzed at the edges of her vision. “But then what? You’ll be trapped there. It’s only half a plan!”

  Selene shrugged. “It’s half of a good plan, Clauda. And in the meantime you’ll be here, working on the other half.”

  “W-wh-what?”

  The look of trust and affection Selene gave her pierced Clauda to her unsteady core. “You’ve gotten us this far, haven’t you?”

  Clauda’s muscles started locking up.

  Selene gripped Clauda hard by the forearms. “Remember what Adept Ykobos taught you.”

  Clauda tried to imagine she was a tree, but this time it didn’t work. All she could think of was Selene bleeding to death on the marble floor of the Libyrinth’s Great Hall. “I-I can’t.”

  “Then focus on something else. Anything. Focus on me. Look into my eyes, Clauda. Concentrate.”

  Though the gray flies hovered everywhere around them, Clauda could just keep them away from Selene’s eyes if she stared hard enough, and she fell into twin tunnels of night as her mind clung to the fact that Selene was counting on her.

  After what seemed like a long time, the fit passed, leaving her muscles sore in its wake. She slumped to the ground and lay on her back. Selene hastily fetched her saddle blanket and folded it, lifting Clauda’s head and easing it back down on the padding. “As soon as we get back to the palace you’re seeing Adept Ykobos. And this time I want you to actually do what she tells you. Complete bed rest if she says so. These tremors should have gone away by now, but if anything, they’re getting worse. You need to rest more.”

  “How am I going to come up with the other half of the plan if I do that?”

  Selene frowned. “You’ll just have to find a way. Here.” She lifted Clauda’s head and put the wine flask to her lips. “Drink some.”

  Clauda sipped the watered wine and said, “Are you sure you’re not just leaving me here to keep me out of harm’s way?”

  “Yes. Clauda, I know you’re scared. I wish I could take care of everything. But I
learned a long time ago that different people are good at different things. I can’t afford to protect you. Haly and I are going to need you here. And you won’t be safe. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, as long as I’m not safe, either.”

  It’s as I suspected,” said Ymin Ykobos after a prolonged and painful examination of Clauda’s energy pathways. She helped Clauda to sit up and pulled the comforter over her sweat-chilled skin. One of her assistants brought Clauda a cup of water, which she accepted gratefully. Selene sat in one corner of the room, looking grim as she paged through a copy of Theselaides. It wasn’t her childhood copy. It was the one she’d brought with her from the Libyrinth, though it was nearly as worn as the other.

  Ymin sighed, her lips compressed, and continued. “The disruption has worsened. It is most likely permanent. What you do now will determine how much of your muscular function you will retain.”

  Clauda shook her head in confusion and looked to Selene, who stared back at her wordlessly.

  Ymin leaned forward, grasping Clauda’s forearm and reclaiming her attention. “I’m talking about your ability to walk, Clauda of Ayor. Your ability to pick things up, to manipulate them. Feeding yourself, dressing yourself. You can lose it all if you keep on the way you’ve been, darting about the palace at all hours and fretting over . . . whatever it is that has brought you and your mistress here. You have got to relax, and rest, and practice the meditations I’ve taught you.”

  “I have practiced,” Clauda mumbled. How was she supposed to relax when Haly was in trouble, when the Eradicants were going to destroy the Libyrinth, when Selene was blithely riding off to her own destruction? Just thinking about it made her tremble.

  “Now see? It’s happening again, isn’t it?” said Ymin.

  Clauda nodded.

  “You’ve noticed that the attacks come when you’re under stress. You need to avoid stress, and if you can’t avoid it, you must learn to control your response to it. Take deep breaths and focus. Do the tree meditation, or develop in your mind a picture that relaxes you, and focus on that.”