Libyrinth

by Pearl North

  Oddly enough, the image that came to Clauda’s mind was Selene in the palace library, smirking at her own parody of herself and saying, “Why, Theselaides, of course.” Clauda nodded at Ymin. “Yes, Adept. I will.”

  Ymin sighed again and stood. “Well, you’d better, or you’d better find someone who will be willing to take care of you for the rest of your life. Now, I want you to drink this”—she motioned to a pot of tea brewing on a side table—“and sleep for as long as you can. When you awake, summon me. Do you understand?”

  Clauda nodded.

  After the adept and her assistants left, Selene came and crouched by Clauda’s bed. “What she said”—clumsily, her hand sought Clauda’s through the comforter—“if things don’t go well . . . if you need . . . I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

  “I don’t want anyone to take care of me, Selene,” said Clauda, already becoming drowsy from the tea. There was something in it to make her sleep, she was sure.

  “Of course you don’t. But if you need it, you don’t have to worry. I’ll take care of you.”

  Clauda couldn’t help but smile at the earnest look on Selene’s face. Dear Selene, she always took everything so seriously. “Then you’d better stay alive, in case I need you to keep your promise,” Clauda said.

  Clauda awoke in the middle of the night, the palace dark and silent all around her. She felt remarkably better after sleeping, whole and solid and strong again. It was hard to believe that Ymin’s admonishments were anything more than scare tactics to keep her in line. All the same, she kicked off the comforter and did the stretching exercises she’d been taught, and meditated—or at least tried to. Selene would leave at dawn. She was depending on Clauda to stay behind and make sure the queen sent her army to the Libyrinth. How, precisely, was she supposed to do that? Clauda wondered.

  Restless, she got up and put on the ornate padded robe they’d given her. She would walk just a little—to stretch her muscles and help her focus her mind. There was no harm in just walking a little, slowly, quietly. That’s right, she thought, realizing that she’d been letting herself get upset about what was happening, and that she couldn’t afford to do that anymore.

  Clauda sighed. Uncertainty gnawed at the edges of her newfound calm. Her gaze landed on a book on her bedside table. It was Selene’s copy of Theselaides, the one she’d brought from the Libyrinth. Clauda smiled and picked it up. It felt good in her hand. She thought of Selene in the library. She breathed slowly. She decided to take a walk down the hall. Moving really seemed to help, and as long as she didn’t run or otherwise exhaust herself, it would be all right. She took the book with her. Maybe, if she found a place open to the moonlight, she’d read.

  The palace was silent, beautiful in the spare light from the third moon, and she could gawk at her leisure. She walked past pillared courtyards and alcoves, gardens and pools.

  The thing to do, she thought, resting on a bench under a bower of fig trees and gazing into a rectangular reflecting pond, was to get Scio to help her spy on Jolaz. If Jolaz were flying the wing into battle, then sooner or later, the queen would have to tell her what the real target was.

  Of course, it would be easier to spy on Jolaz and the queen if she did not remain lost in the Ilysian palace, never to be seen again, Clauda thought, two hours later as yet another pillared courtyard taunted her with its vague familiarity. How many of them were there? Surely one of the ones she had passed was the one that was just two left turns from her chamber—the one she passed through on her way to the audience chamber, the Arena of the Bull, and the library? But try as she might, she could not find her room. She even tried leafing through the book Theselaides. The author had been an Ilysian, but there was no help there, either. And she was getting tired. And she had to stop and meditate a lot.

  Let the Lion gnaw it, she thought, sitting down on the bench in an arbor. She’d just wait here. The sky above the open courtyard was already starting to lighten. It would be dawn soon, and some servant would find her and take her back to her chamber.

  As she sat down her shoulder brushed some of the fig leaves. They crumbled. She looked more closely at the bower. These trees were dead, their leaves shriveled and dry on their branches. She turned around. The water in the pool was at half level and it was murky and dark. This was an abandoned place.

  She remembered what Scio had said about the previous queen’s chambers. A mixture of excitement and dread quivered in her belly. She must have wandered in here when she’d hopped that broken-down wall in an effort to reach the hallway behind the baths and get her bearings. She breathed deeply to maintain her calm, and ventured into the passageway that opened at the opposite end of the pond.

  It led to a large room that was probably the former queen’s bedchamber. A raised platform stood in the center of the room. Broken bits of stone and masonry littered the floor, obscuring what looked like it once must have been quite beautiful mosaic of fish and winged women. A very few pieces of furniture stood shrouded in cloth. The walls were dust-streaked and there appeared to be water damage in the far corner of the ceiling. An archway to the right had been painted with a design of leaves or maybe birds, but the colors were so faded that they were barely discernible. Dust stung in Clauda’s nose and throat and she stifled a cough. There was a faint, acrid smell in here that made Clauda wonder what had become of the old queen after all.

  Her morbid speculations were cut short when she heard footsteps coming down the passage from the courtyard. Clauda barely had time to hide herself beneath a shrouded desk and peek back out through the folds of the cloth. She stared, breathless, as Thela Tadamos and Jolaz entered the room.

  “. . . impractical,” Jolaz was saying.

  “Of course I’m not going to attempt retrieving the girl,” said Thela. The queen was dressed in her houserobe, a simple garment of thick blue cotton—fine quality but no match for the ornate richness of Clauda’s own. Her hair was unbound. “That’s ridiculous. Even if she is what Selene says she is, there is a bigger—and much more certain—opportunity in all of this.” Thela walked to the sleeping platform and sat down on it. “General Tadakis and the army await you on the other side of the mountains. Her orders are to follow the wing and attack what it attacks, so you will fly the wing to the Corvariate Citadel. With most of the population on pilgrimage, the citadel will be more vulnerable than we can ever expect it to be again. It’s an opportunity we can’t afford to miss. Not if Ilsysies is to survive.”

  Jolaz, already dressed for the day, leaned against a shrouded object that appeared to be a harpsichord, and murmured her satisfaction. “If the attack succeeds, we will possess the citadel, all their weapons . . .”

  “All their knowledge,” added Thela. “And when they return from their holy quest they will find their own guns turned upon them. Plus, the destruction of the Libyrinth will put Ilysies permanently in the position of power, militarily, scientifically, and culturally.”

  “We’ll have the largest library,” noted Jolaz.

  “Of course,” said the queen, “and all those of the plain who would wish to learn will have to learn from us. I tell you, Jolaz, this means much more than ridding ourselves of the Singers.”

  Jolaz nodded her head. “Very wise, Your Majesty.”

  “Is my daughter ready to depart?” asked Thela.

  “She is. She will be awaiting you on the parade ground in half an hour.”

  Thela nodded. “Leave me. I will retrieve the book, dress, and then bring it to her.”

  Jolaz turned away, then hesitated. She stood in the archway, looking over her shoulder at Thela.

  “Yes?” inquired Thela.

  Jolaz dropped her eyes, but turned to face her queen. “I just wondered . . . in light of what we’ve learned about the Singers’ new weapon . . . must it be Selene who takes the book to the Libyrinth? Why not send her servant instead, or perhaps one of our own trusted messengers?”

  “I wouldn’t trust that Ayorite farther than a fish can crawl,
” said Thela. “As for trusted messengers, we may need them.”

  Jolaz swallowed. “But according to Mab’s report, the horn is perfectly capable of toppling the Libyrinth walls. Her situation will be hopeless.”

  Thela nodded. “A ruler must be prepared to make great sacrifices. If I spared her but let her beloved Libyrinth fall, she would become my enemy, and Selene may not be crafty, but she is bold. Sometimes that’s enough.”

  Jolaz bowed deeply. “As always, your wisdom is a book of many pages, and I am only learning to read.”

  After she left, Thela stood staring after her for some time. Clauda saw her eyes shining, but could not divine what feelings the queen struggled with. At last, she turned and pulled the cloth from the object upon which Jolaz had been leaning.

  It was, in fact, a harpsichord, ornate with ebony and gold inlay. The queen lifted the lid and withdrew a book from its interior. She set it down on top of the harpsichord. Its spine faced Clauda and she could just make out the mark of The Book of the Night.

  Thela turned away and drew another book from the pocket of her robe. It was Selene’s childhood copy of Theselaides. She paced the room, her head bent over the book in her hands, her unbound hair trailing in streams across her face. Thela could have been Selene, for the look of fond reverence with which she turned each page.

  Thela sighed and straightened. She returned to the harpsichord and set the book down next to The Book of the Night. Her expression changed, as if she was mustering her determination, and again she looked like her daughter, only now it was the Selene who had thrown an Egg into a burning wagon. From the pocket of her robe she withdrew several items. Clauda was puzzled as she saw Thela first take out a very small, sharp knife of a kind often used by Libyrarians to cut paper, and then a small jar, a brush, and four sheets of blank, sturdy paper. The queen flipped the book closed, all but its front cover, then pressed the knife to the crease between the binding and the endpaper.

  Clauda barely stopped herself from crying out. Clutching the Libyrinth copy of Theselaides that Selene had left in her room, she forced herself to be still and watch as the queen of Ilysies removed the other book’s binding. And then, when it lay dismembered, its spine sewing raw and frayed against the white cloth, Thela took up The Book of the Night, and did the same to it.

  Shaking now, Clauda watched as the queen of Ilysies placed the text of Selene’s childhood copy of Theselaides inside the binding of The Book of the Night. She brushed the inside of the cover and the front page of the book with glue from the little jar, and then she placed one of the blank sheets of paper over both. The sturdy sheet was just big enough to cover the blank front page and the inside of the cover, forming a new endpaper and sealing the book inside its new binding.

  The queen did the same with the text of The Book of the Night, smoothed the cover of Theselaides down over it, and lifted the lid of the harpsichord upon which she worked, slipping the tome inside. She picked up the fake Book of the Night, put it into the pocket of her robe, and left.

  By the time Clauda switched Selene’s Libyrinth copy of Theselaides with the newly disguised Book of the Night and found her way out of the maze of passages and courtyards, Selene’s chamber was empty, swept bare of all that might once have indicated the Libyrarian’s presence. “Suck a goat,” Clauda muttered and ran as fast as she could for the parade ground, that broad expanse of grass that they had crossed when first entering the palace. Panting, she came to a stop in the front entranceway.

  On the parade ground, Selene stood facing her mother. Behind her, near the gate, was her mounted escort. Vorain held the reins of Selene’s horse Goliath.

  The queen kissed her daughter and murmured some words of farewell that Clauda could not make out. She took the fake Book of the Night from her sleeve and handed it to Selene.

  As Selene strode across the parade ground to her escort, Clauda turned and ran down the outer passageway. If she could catch up with Selene outside the palace gates . . .

  The trembling she had tried to ignore ever since she discovered the old queen’s chambers grew worse as she ran, throwing off her stride. She was just past the servants’ gate when she fell. She heard street noises, and distantly heard Selene’s and Vorain’s voices, but she saw nothing but the dust beneath her nose. She could not move, could not cry out.

  Consorting with Demons

  From the window of her room, Haly could see the practice yard of the Singer army. The stone courtyard was roughly five times the size of the Great Hall of the Libyrinth, but the mass of soldiers down there made it appear cramped.

  Row upon row of black-garbed men marched in formation, wielding rifles and mind lancets. She tried to count them, but in the distance they quickly became an undifferentiated mass. What was undeniable was that there were an awful lot of them. Maybe thousands. She shuddered.

  The door to her room opened and she turned to see Gyneth entering with her dinner. He kept his eyes down, and there was a pink tinge to his cheeks. He said nothing, simply set the tray down on the table before her and retreated to the doorway, where he stood, his hands folded in front of him, staring at the floor. Haly felt a little flutter of excitement. Maybe she was the girl the other boys in his chorus had teased him about. Why else would he be this embarrassed?

  When she finished eating the meal of lentil cakes, noodle pudding, squash, and sweet potatoes, Gyneth collected the tray and turned toward the door. Apparently he wasn’t going to ask to hear any more about Anne today. He was just going to leave. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure she was right about the source of his embarrassment. Maybe he loathed her. Maybe he was embarrassed that anyone would think he could be interested in a Libyrarian, an enemy, a timid, plain girl nobody would ever like that way.

  He was almost at the door. From somewhere inside her, very close to the place where she’d found the strength to speak up on behalf of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, she found the nerve to say, “Where are all the women?” to his retreating back.

  He stopped and turned around, surprised out of his mortification for the moment. “What do you mean?”

  Haly had no idea where she was going with this, but she licked her lips and plunged on. “Outside, in the city, I saw women everywhere, working alongside men. But here in the temple, none. Except in the dungeon.”

  His face cleared. “Oh. I see what you mean. Oh, no. Women can’t be priests.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, Yammon was a man,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  “So?”

  Gyneth shrugged. “So, if women were supposed to be priests, then I guess the Song would have made Yammon a woman, but it didn’t. So obviously only men are supposed to be priests.” This seemed to make sense to him.

  “But I’m the Redeemer, and I’m a”—she’d never thought of herself as a grown-up before—“woman.”

  “Yes.” Gyneth sighed and set the tray down on the table beside the door. He came over and she pushed a chair out from the table and he sat down. “But that’s different. The Redeemer . . . well, we don’t get to pick the Redeemer. And it’s always been known that the Redeemer would be a Libyrarian. So, I guess, you being female isn’t all that much worse, and anyway, we have no choice.”

  How flattering. At least her annoyance was taking the edge off that pathetically heartsick feeling she’d had a moment ago. “So what do you do? Are you all celibate, or do you all like men, or . . .”

  Gyneth blinked rapidly and he stared at the tabletop. The blush was back in his cheeks, and now she felt a certain satisfaction in making him uncomfortable. “We aren’t allowed to marry,” he said. “We are supposed to dedicate our lives to the preservation of knowledge and the worship of the Song.”

  “So you’re celibate, then.”

  He picked up a crumb from the table and rolled it between his fingers, frowning, still not meeting her eyes. “We’re supposed to be.”

  She was beginning to enjoy this. “What do you mean, ‘supposed to be�
��?”

  Gyneth shrugged and looked like he would avoid answering her if he could. But she was the Redeemer. “Everyone knows that Censor Michander visits the woman who runs the inn near the city gates, and she has six children. The three boys are subalterns here. They look exactly like him.” A note of anger had crept into his voice.

  “Everybody knows about it, but nobody says anything. And Conductor Tifius and Brother Ambro sleep together in the same bed and everybody knows about that, too.” He paused and at last looked up at her. “And there are lots more. I think it’s stupid to have a rule that nobody follows.” He said it defiantly, as if he expected to be struck down or at least chastised for the criticism.

  But Haly just nodded her head in agreement. “Libyrarians don’t always get married, either, though we can. My parents were married, but a lot of people just . . . you know, do like what Michander and Tifius do.” She sighed and eyed him carefully. She knew what she wanted to ask him next, but did she have the nerve?

  “Did you have a boyfriend, back there?” he surprised her by asking.

  “No,” she said. “Have you, um, have you ever broken the rule?”

  “No,” he said.

  She was sure she shouldn’t be so pleased to hear this, but she was, and before she knew it, she was asking an even bolder question. “If . . . if you were going to break that rule, would you be like Michander or like Tifius?”

  Gyneth gaped at her openly for a moment before turning his gaze resolutely back to the table. “I’d stay celibate,” he said, and hurriedly stood up and turned away. He gathered the tray from beside the door and left.

  By the next morning, Haly had come to her senses. What in the Seven Tales was she doing entertaining romantic notions about a Singer when her home and all her people were in jeopardy? She knew what it was. She’d heard about it years ago from the book International Handbook of Traumatic Stress Syndromes—Stockholm syndrome, where people come to sympathize and even fall in love with their captors. Well, she had a more important agenda to pursue with Gyneth than that.