Libyrinth

by Pearl North

  Are they mad?” Siblea exclaimed. “They have already had how many suspicious break-ins? And now they are frolicking about the kitchen like children at a picnic. I don’t like this.”

  It was the fifth day of the pilgrimage, and Haly had come to the part in Anne Frank’s diary where the residents of the Secret Annexe, worn down by two years of hiding, all came downstairs to help wash and prepare an unexpected bounty of strawberries—the first fresh fruit they’d had in many months. “I could stop if you’d like,” said Haly.

  “No. No. If the Holy One’s voice can withstand it, please go on.”

  She did not smile.

  As the sun neared the horizon that afternoon, she finished Anne’s last diary entry, and then she recited the afterword, which explained that Anne died in a concentration camp two months before the war ended. It was the second time she saw Siblea cry. “She didn’t survive,” he whispered.

  Anger filled her—on behalf of Anne, on behalf of herself, and most of all, on behalf of the Libyrinth, which this man, who had the gall to be moved by Anne’s words, would destroy. “No,” she said, a quaver in her voice, “but she left her words behind, and because of them, we know her, and she lives in us. You will never forget her, because of these words,” she placed her palm upon the box at her side. “These words that you say are dead, that you burn to liberate. How many Anne Franks have you silenced, Censor, because you cannot hear them? Because you are too stubborn to learn how to hear them?”

  He appeared to be startled, though by her words or simply her vehemence she could not know. He steepled his fingers and sat for a moment in silence. “You make it sound so very simple,” he said at last. “As if we were nothing but recalcitrant children unwilling to learn. We overcame centuries of slavery and oppression, and we did it with song. Why? Because song is what was available to us. You are mistaken. We did not choose song. The Song chose us.”

  Haly lay awake that night, her thoughts turning and turning in circles, and always coming back to the Libyrinth in ruins, its books burned or buried. She wouldn’t do it. They would torture her. They would murder her friends and teachers, but she would not redeem The Book of the Night for them.

  A vivid memory of Clauda screaming and contorting under the blows of a mind lancet ripped away her resolve the moment she’d formed it.

  But if she refused to recite or was unable to recite, the Libyrinth would be safe. Or would it? The secret of making Eggs was all that really mattered to the Eradicants. Once they had The Book of the Night in their possession, they could take it and her anywhere they chose, and destroy the Libyrinth anyway. No. She was thinking about this the wrong way around.

  For all their talk of miracles, these Singers were practical people. They had the horn, and an Egg to power it. That, as much as this Redemption of theirs, was the reason for this pilgrimage. If only there was a way to destroy the horn, or at least prevent it from working. But she was too closely guarded to try to sabotage it herself, and she could not ask it of Gyneth. Maybe Nod.

  She sat up and threw off the blanket, welcoming the night chill and its invigorating effect. “Nod,” she whispered, “I’ll tell you a story.”

  Nod crept from the chest and scrambled to her knee. He climbed up and perched himself there and looked up at her with his tiny red face. “What does she say?”

  Haly took a breath against the tension that filled her. This had to work. She gazed upon the little creature, wondering how best to reach his tiny, alien mind. She swallowed, and began. “She says, ‘Once upon a time there was a Nod, a child of the Libyrinth. But Nod was sad, because the Libyrinth, which was both his mother and his home, was broken.’ Do you know why, Nod?”

  The homunculus nodded sadly. “Heart is missing.”

  “Yes. The Libyrinth’s heart was stolen by bad singer-beasties who want to destroy Nod’s mother-home. They took her heart and put it in the Big Metal Noise Tube.”

  Nod was scandalized. “What does she say!?”

  “They will use the Libyrinth’s own heart to destroy her.”

  Nod stared at her. She could not read what was in the depths of his black eyes, but at length he said, “She still saying story?”

  “She is saying Nod’s story.”

  His eyes grew wide and he leaned back, his face filled with wonder. “Nod’s story?”

  “Yes. Nod can save the Libyrinth by stealing her heart back from the Big Metal Noise Tube.”

  “She give Nod his own story?” Awe and delight glittered in his black eyes. “She give Nod his own story.”

  The next thing Haly knew, little hands clutched at her neck and she tried not to flinch as she felt a tiny kiss on her chin. “Nod make great story,” he whispered eagerly. “Best story. She be glad she gave Nod this story!”

  He scrambled from her lap and to the bars of the palanquin. He was just able to squeeze between them, and then he lifted the bottom edge of the curtain, ducked beneath it, and was gone.

  Haly stared though the bars of the palanquin as the elephant lurched along, surrounded by hordes of the Righteous Chorus. It might have been her imagination, but she found the beast’s gait labored on this sixth day, and the voices of the people sounded weary instead of joyous. She was searching for Nod, or some evidence of his mission, though she knew how unlikely it was she would find any.

  Siblea shut the curtains, plunging the interior of the palanquin into dusty dimness. What now? Her heart beat a little faster and she swallowed against a sudden dryness in her throat. She turned to face him.

  His face was pale in the gloom, his mouth tight with agitation, his eyes bright. “There is more than one chorus of thought among us concerning the sin of literacy, you know.” His voice was accusatory—no, defensive.

  Haly stared at him and said nothing.

  “Many, like Michander and his Chorus of Soldiers, believe that text itself is an evil thing, with the power to corrupt those who come into contact with it.” He paused.

  “And what about you, Censor?” she asked. “Where does the evil of literacy reside for you?”

  He studied her a long time before answering. “Where all evil resides, in human frailty.”

  She blinked. It wasn’t what she’d expected.

  Siblea continued, “Iscarion’s sin was not in writing down the testimony of the last Ancient, but in denying that information to Yammon. It is the human failings of pride and greed that make books dangerous.” His gaze strayed to the box at her side. “For one who is disciplined, who has purified his mind through the Song over the course of a lifetime, there is little risk.”

  Excitement quickened her pulse. Perhaps she’d gotten to him after all. “One such as yourself, Censor?”

  His eyes glittered. “I must admit, I am curious.”

  Haly dared not speak. It was as if a rare bird had suddenly landed upon her hand. Any movement at all might frighten it off.

  Siblea’s hand went to his neck and pulled free a long chain from which hung a key. He stared at her. “Will you tell anyone, I wonder?”

  “If I do, you will deny it. They will believe you if you say I hate you, and wish to get you killed.”

  He nodded. “Very well,” he said, and he unlocked the box. “Ah,” he murmured as he lifted the book out and held it in his hands. Gingerly he opened it. For a long time he stared at the pages. “So that is what murdered words look like. In truth, they do look broken.”

  “I can teach you to read them, Censor.”

  He glanced at her and smiled. “That, I think, would be going too far.” But he stared at the words for some time before finally placing the book back in the box and relocking it.

  “What if everyone had access to the knowledge in books?” she asked. “Then there would be no pride or greed in literacy—no sin.”

  “That is impossible.”

  She shook her head. “Difficult, maybe, but not impossible.”

  Siblea lifted the curtain of the palanquin and waved at the multitudes outside. He dropped the curtain
again. “You would teach each and every one of them.”

  “I would teach you and Michander and all the priests and subalterns, and you would teach them.”

  “But what is the good of reading to those who have no books? Don’t tell me the great scholars of the Libyrinth will welcome such as these with open arms. No. You may not believe me, but I sympathize with you. Unfortunately, what you propose is impossible.”

  He had a point, but if ever there was a time when she could change the Libyrarians’ minds on that subject, it would be when she had the entire Singer nation at her back. It was only the faintest whisper of a hope, but it was more than she ever thought she’d feel again. She smiled at Siblea. “That is why it is a miracle,” she said.

  The Other Half of the Plan

  I know you are doing all you can to help me,” Clauda told Adept Ymin Ykobos after their session. She’d had another seizure earlier that day. Despite everything Ymin and Po and Helene did for her, they were coming more frequently.

  Ymin looked grim. There were dark circles under her eyes and Clauda wondered if she was getting any sleep at all. She stood and went to the glow warmer and prepared another pot of tea. “Helene, we’re out of mint, would you fetch some from the kitchen, please?”

  The girl nodded and left.

  “Are you sure your queen does not mind you devoting so much time to an Ayorite servant?” Clauda asked Ymin.

  That won her a sharp glance over the adept’s shoulder. Clauda had been at this for a couple of days now, making little comments about the adept putting her patients’ welfare above all else. Saying anything she could think of to make Ymin feel guilty about not using the wing to heal her. She didn’t have much time left, though. The army must be almost in position. Soon Jolaz would take the wing and the army to the Corvariate Citadel, along with all of Clauda’s hopes. “It’s not fair of her, if you ask me,” Clauda went on. “The queen, I mean. Asking you to cure me. I’m not dismissing kinesiology, but surely it has its limits. It seems to me she’s asking you to do something you were never meant to do.” Like spy for her; like be her prison guard.

  Ymin’s back was to Clauda, but she saw her square her shoulders. “This is ridiculous,” she said. She turned around. “I will not stand by while a patient who can be treated slips into decline.”

  Decline? She was declining? Ykobos’s words nearly set off another seizure, but Clauda firmly clamped her mind around the image of Selene in the library, and breathed, and breathed, and the trembling lessened, though it was never altogether gone anymore. She was declining.

  “. . . not when the means of treatment are at hand,” finished Ykobos. She leaned forward. “Clauda, what I am about to propose is . . .” She glanced about the room nervously, then went to the door, shut it, and returned. The adept leaned close to Clauda and spoke in the barest of whispers. “I know of something that might help you, but it must be done in secret.”

  Clauda’s pulse quickened. “It sounds dangerous.”

  Ymin studied her closely. “It is. I wouldn’t even suggest it but we’ve tried everything else. If my traditional methods of therapy were going to work, they would have by now.”

  Clauda nodded her understanding, pressing firmly down on the mix of excitement and panic that welled up inside her. It occurred to her that for once, the queen’s policy of secrecy might backfire. Ymin probably did not know of the plan for the army to follow the wing. “I would be grateful for anything you can do for me.”

  Ymin crossed her arms. Her body was rigid with tension. “There is a device of the Ancients. Most consider it a weapon of great power, but it also has great power to heal. I have used it many times to mend those who have been broken by its violent side. But the queen suspects you. She has asked me to report to her anything you say that might relate to state secrets or to your involvement with the chambermaid Scio.”

  Poor Scio. Clauda did her very best not to react, grateful for once that Ymin’s treatments left her too exhausted to move.

  Ymin stood and began to pace. “Which you have not done, even when you were unconscious and babbling about The Book of the Night and the princess’s childhood copy of Theselaides.”

  Clauda pretended to experience a tremor, and said nothing.

  “It might be different if you were an enemy of our nation, but you are clearly not,” continued Ymin. “And still the queen is content to let you suffer and to make me complicit in your fate. I am not a jailor or an inquisitor, and the wi—the device is not a machine of war. It is much more than that.”

  “You think this device can help me?”

  Ymin’s lips compressed into a thin, flat line. “I can make no guarantees to you, Clauda of Ayor, but yes, I believe it can. You more than most.

  “Some people’s energy systems are more fluid than others. Such people, like yourself, are particularly susceptible to the effects of a mind-lancet attack, and are very difficult to treat with kinesiology. As soon as we balance one part of your system, it starts working overtime to correct the other imbalances in your system, and pretty soon it falls out of balance again from overwork and we’re right back where we started again. However, the very fluidity that presents such a problem to us makes you an ideal candidate for this treatment.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  Ymin held up a hand. “But there is another danger.”

  “Other than being caught by the queen and ‘transferred to the summer palace’? What is it?”

  “When you are within the mantle of the goddess, enmeshed with the device, you will experience a phenomenon we call flow lines. If you leave them be, they will not harm you. But if you try to manipulate them, if you try to operate the device through them, and fail . . . In your condition, they may kill you.”

  It was done in the dead of night. Ymin and Po put Clauda on a litter and covered her with a blanket. “If anyone stops us, wail for all you’re worth, but don’t push off the blanket,” said Ymin. “We are pretending that you are Sergeant Bilos tonight, you understand?”

  Clauda nodded.

  They were stopped only once, at the entrance to the cavern. Clauda wailed and moaned for all she was worth. She even threw a few barks in for good measure. “Poor Bilos,” she heard the guard mutter as they passed.

  Clauda could see a little bit through the weave of the blanket—enough to make out the shape of the wing. She breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been afraid she’d miscalculated, and that the device Ymin spoke of really was something else. She saw Ymin place a hand on the side of the wing and a door appeared. They carried her inside.

  Once inside the wing, Po drew the blanket from Clauda’s face and she looked about eagerly. It was a small chamber, with curving golden walls. She’d expected to see a pilot’s seat, and a steering device of some sort, and a window to look out of, but there was none of that. There was only a life-size statue of a woman in the center of the room made of the same golden-colored metal as the rest of the wing.

  Adept Ykobos stood before the statue. “Mighty Queen, mother of Ilysies, blessed, brave Belrea, open for your daughters, bathe us in the light of your righteousness.” She leaned forward and kissed the statue on the forehead, lips, and belly.

  Clauda gasped as the statue parted before the now-kneeling adept, and brilliant light like a thousand spring mornings dawning all at once flooded forth from inside and inundated the chamber.

  Po put a hand to Clauda’s shoulder. “You’ll need to stand, but only for a moment. Once you are inside, it won’t matter to you.”

  “I-i-inside?”

  He nodded. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve seen this done many times. It will help you. You’ll feel much better.”

  Clauda nodded shakily and let him help her to stand. He supported her as she stumbled toward Ymin, who still knelt on the floor. Po positioned Clauda so that she was between Ymin and the statue, facing Ymin.

  The adept stood and gripped Clauda’s trembling shoulders as Po retreated. “Daughter of the plain,” said Ymin, “recei
ve the blessing of the first queen, Belrea, mother of Ilysies.” And she shoved Clauda back into the streaming light, into the open statue.

  Clauda felt as if a million tiny hands caught her. Warm, tingling fingertips seemed to be everywhere upon her, gentling her free from her initial panic, soothing and surrounding her with ease, with a relaxation so complete and deep that she was barely aware that she had a body at all. She could not recall ever being this comfortable in her entire life. All she saw was the light around her, and in it, perhaps, some rosy shapes not readily made out, patterns or spirals, fleeting and subtle. She was so relieved not to be trembling that she couldn’t really be bothered to pursue them.

  And then the light faded and the tingling stopped, and large, rough hands pulled at her and jostled her and carried her with jarring, monstrous steps to the litter, then laid her upon its hard, scratchy surface. Wait, that was it? She was supposed to steal the wing! There’d been no time. Where had the flow lines been? She’d been so taken with the pleasure of being free of her symptoms, she’d lost her chance to save her friends. “No!” she cried out, unable to stop herself. “No, put me back in, please!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Po. “We will. This was just the first time. Look. Look how much better you are already.”

  Clauda flexed her fingers, and her toes. She sat up. She held her hand in front of her face and saw that it was steady.

  Ymin examined her from head to toe, tracing the energy pathways up and down her spine and arms and legs that were by now familiar to Clauda. The adept gave a sigh of satisfaction. “Your body has responded well to the therapy,” she said. “You should be able to get some sleep now, and I recommend that you do. The relief from the tremors will be temporary at first. I’ll do my best to get you back in here again tomorrow.”

  The next night, as soon as she was inside the statue, surrounded and supported by the wonderful light and warmth, Clauda gave her full attention to the vague shapes that wound through the light like faint wisps of rose-colored smoke. They danced the way light does on the surface of undulating water.