Libyrinth

by Pearl North

  “Selene, listen here—”

  “You must control your clerk!”

  Peliac and Griome clamored for Selene’s attention. Haly was right. It all depended on what Selene told the Ilysians to do, and they knew it well. Selene ignored them and continued to stare at Haly for a long time. “I don’t know if I’ll ever think of them as anything but Eradicants,” she said, “but you’re right about the second part. It’s a good plan.”

  Haly and Selene came downstairs to discover that one-quarter of the Great Hall—from the Alcove of the Fish to the Alcove of the Cow—had been converted into a makeshift hospital. About twenty wounded Libyrarians and servants lay on pallets on the floor, tended to by Libyrarian Burke, who had dedicated herself to the study of medicine. She supervised three clerks—Kia, Clae, and Issic—as they changed bandages and gave their patients water.

  “Winter comes to water as well as land, though there are no leaves to fall,” said a book.

  The stench of death emanated from the Alcove of the Dog, where the corpses had been gathered. Hearthmistress Hepsebah, herself nursing a bandaged arm, oversaw servants in the process of carrying the bodies up to the top of the sixth tower where they could be decently burned.

  “The weight of the odors was heavy on his soul, like chains, like old burdens reassumed,” said another book.

  Between the dead and the Libyrinth wounded lay the wounded Singers, no more than ten of them, languishing on the hard stone floor. “We can’t have that,” said Selene, and she broke away from Haly.

  Haly watched, expecting Selene to confront Burke about the Singer wounded. Instead she went up to Hepsebah. “They can’t be burned yet,” she said, pointing to the body of a Singer soldier that was being hoisted up the stairs by Jan and Bessa.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Mistress Selene,” said Hepsebah, “we won’t be burning them, just our own dead. Them we can pitch over the walls and let that rabble out there take care of them.”

  Selene shook her head. “You can’t do that, either. There’s a chance that those outside don’t know yet about what happened in here. We need to keep it that way for as long as possible. So no burning, of anyone, and definitely no throwing the bodies over the walls.”

  Hebsebah nodded. “I see, Mistress. Yes, of course. But let us take them to the top of the Dog’s Tower all the same, won’t you? They’re stinking the place up something fierce.”

  Selene nodded.

  Haly caught up with Selene and tugged her sleeve. “What about them?” she asked, pointing to the Singer wounded.

  Selene frowned. “What about them?”

  “Something should be done for them.”

  Selene sighed and gazed past the Singers to the orderly pallets where the Libyrinth wounded lay. “It looks to me like Burke has her hands full with our own people.”

  “But—”

  “They’ll die soon anyway, Haly.”

  Haly looked at the nearest of the Singer wounded. He was a soldier with a broken leg. There was no need for him to die, but he would if he didn’t get any medical attention and gangrene set in. “Selene—”

  Just then screams came from the far end of the Great Hall, where the rest of the surviving Singers were penned up inside the palanquin. Haly saw a number of Libyrarians standing close to the bars of the enclosure, but from where she stood she couldn’t make out what they were doing. Whatever it was, the Singers didn’t like it. She ran toward the cage.

  Arche, along with the Libyrarians Talian, Micah, and Noil, stood clustered at one end of the enclosure. They had all lost loved ones in the battle. The four of them were surrounded by a larger group of Libyrarians and clerks, who were shouting things like “Book burners!” and “Eradicant savages!” The Ilysian guards, standing in a loose ring about ten feet from the cage, looked on placidly.

  Talian and Micah, both large, strong men, had one of the Singers by the wrists and had pulled his arms through the bars of the palanquin, stretching them tight. The Singer’s face was wedged into one of the spaces between the bars. Haly recognized him. He was a member of the Chorus of Medicine, and he was screaming.

  “Maybe only a god could bear it,” suggested a book.

  In the space between his outstretched arms stood Arche and Noil. Arche’s hair was matted with sweat and blood, and there was a streak of scarlet across her cheek. Beside her stood Noil, who had been Frise’s master. The older man was of primarily Ilysian stock, with dark hair gone to gray; a tall, slender build; and a prominent nose. Arche held a book open in front of the Singer while Noil pried his eyelids open, forcing him to look at the words.

  “The question of fragmentation and wholeness is a subtle and difficult one,” said the book.

  The rest of the Singers were in an uproar, all except for Siblea and Gyneth. Siblea leaned down, his face close to the man’s ear, speaking quietly to him. They were packed so tightly into the cage that Gyneth, though only three feet away and on the same side of the cage, was separated from them by five people or more. He stood up on his toes to shout over the panicking Singers. “It’s okay, Rossiter, you can look. The words won’t hurt you.”

  “Stop it! Release him!” yelled Haly. The Libyrarians merely looked at her and snorted in derision. “You were the one who wanted them left alive,” said Arche.

  By now Selene had caught up. Haly turned to her. “Selene, make them stop this, now. This isn’t the way.”

  Selene eyed her. “They aren’t actually hurting him. If what you say is true, if the Eradicants are willing to learn to read, then let’s start with him. Let him prove it.”

  Haly swallowed. She had a point. Though what the Libyrarians were doing amounted to torture, that was only because the Singers clung to a belief that had to be cast aside.

  Haly stepped up beside Arche. This close, she could hear Siblea’s voice underneath Rossiter’s screaming. “I tell you there is nothing to fear, Rossiter. Stop screaming. Don’t struggle. You are only doing what they want.”

  “I am damned,” Rossiter cried. “I won’t hear the Song.”

  “You will,” shouted Gyneth. “No harm will come to you!”

  Beside Gyneth stood Baris, the heavyset subaltern who had been horsing around with Gyneth and Thale on the day she’d visited Subaltern Chorus Five. She remembered him laughing as he tried to climb on Gyneth’s back. Now his face was dirty, and a gash on his forehead slowly oozed blood. He was pressed up against the bars of the cage. “How do you know?” he accused, grabbing Gyneth by the shoulders. “You spent a lot of time with that lit. What did she do to you?”

  Gyneth tried to take Baris’s hands, tried to calm him, but the other boy’s fists curled tighter into the fabric of his robe. “She didn’t do anything to me,” said Gyneth. “She did me no harm! Our Redeemer showed me the error of that teaching when she was our guest at the citadel. Written words are nothing more than symbols on paper. She taught me how to read them and I have heard the Song many times since then! Do you hear that, Rossiter? You are not damned!”

  Baris’s lips contorted with outrage. “Blasphemer!” he screamed and grabbed Gyneth around the neck, choking him.

  “Stop!” cried Haly, but Baris did not let go. Others in the cage urged him on, and joined in as best as the cramped conditions would allow, clawing and jabbing at Gyneth. Haly’s heart hammered in panic.

  Meanwhile, the rest of the Libyrarians had grabbed books from the shelves and rushed to the bars of the cage, holding them open and jeering.

  The books clamored, “He had the most astounding collection of teeth”; “To oppose something is to maintain it”; “The essence of strategy on these occasions is to be as near the door as possible.”

  All of the Singers except for Siblea, Gyneth, Rossiter, and Baris screamed and clapped their hands over their eyes. Rossiter’s voice gave out and he subsided into muffled sobs. “Baris!” shouted Siblea. “Let him go.” But Baris simply closed his eyes and continued strangling Gyneth.

  Haly looked around frantically. One of the
Ilysian guards had a Singer mind lancet slung through the sash of her tunic. Haly went right up and wrested it from the cloth. Before the guard could retaliate, Haly twisted the spiral-engraved sleeve midway along the shaft and activated the mind lancet. The orb at the end of the lancet glowed blue.

  The look Haly gave the guard left no doubt as to her willingness to use the weapon, and the woman made no attempt to stop her or retake it.

  Haly turned and shoved the mind lancet through the bars of the palanquin into Baris’s side. He screamed and went limp, sagging forward onto Gyneth, his hands falling away from Gyneth’s neck.

  Gyneth coughed and gasped for air. Thank the Tales, he was still alive. She whirled on the Libyrarians surrounding the cage, brandishing the mind lancet at them. “Back off!” she shouted. Those nearest her blinked and stepped away, lowering their texts. She stalked around the sides of the cage and the others followed their example, until she reached the group surrounding Rossiter. Arche looked up at her, her nostrils flaring. “What are you going to do? Attack us? Your own people?”

  If she had to, Haly thought. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Selene reaching out to stop her, but before either of them could act, Siblea shot his hand through the bars of the cage and snatched the book from Arche’s hands. Surprise registered on the faces of those who saw it happen.

  “Enough!” Siblea roared. “Members of the devout chorus, collect yourselves! We are not children to be cowed by superstition. We are the learned ones. What Gyneth says is true—there is no harm in the written word. Look!” Casting a defiant look at Arche, he opened the book and leafed through it, his eyes scanning the pages.

  “Knowledge, too, is a process,” said the book Wholeness and the Implicate Order, which had a large orange butterfly on the cover.

  One by one, the Singers peeped through their fingers and beheld their last living leader gazing upon the pages of a book. Everyone, Libyrarian and Singer alike, fell silent, staring in amazement. Talian and Micah released Rossiter’s arms and stepped away from the cage. Noil put an arm around Arche and drew her back.

  Siblea looked up from the book, his piercing eyes meeting those of the Singers and the Libyrarians, one by one. “Behold the first miracle of the Redemption,” he said.

  Rossiter alone did not watch Siblea. Once released, he sank down upon his haunches as best as the cramped quarters would allow, and covered his face in his hands. He was crying and muttering, “I saw them . . . I saw the murdered words.”

  Haly reluctantly glanced at Gyneth, who now rubbed his reddened neck and swallowed, his gaze exultant as he watched Siblea. How she wanted to go to him, but she crouched down beside Rossiter instead, twisting the carved sleeve on the mind lancet as she did, powering it down. She tucked the weapon under her arm and reached her hands through the bars of the cage. She stroked his head, then took his hands and firmly pulled them down. “Rossiter,” she said. “Brother, open your eyes.”

  “R-r-redeemer?”

  “Yes. Open your eyes, Rossiter.”

  He swallowed and at last opened his eyes. They were blue. He stared at her. “I . . . I can see.”

  Haly smiled at him, and nodded. “You are not blind, and you are not damned,” she told him, and then turned her head and nodded toward Siblea. “Look.”

  Rossiter gaped openly. “B-but, the murdered words—”

  “Are dead no longer,” Haly finished, her voice rising in volume, pitched now to carry. As she spoke she stood, and pulled Rossiter up with her. “They speak to those chosen to hear them, and you, and Censor Siblea, and Subaltern Gyneth are the first of my chosen. The first three members of the Chorus of the Word.” She released Rossiter’s hands and took the mind lancet in her right hand, holding it at her side. She turned to look at Selene. “Three have embraced the Word,” she told her, “and they will be released from bondage.”

  Selene’s eyes traveled from Haly’s determined face to the mind lancet in her hand, and then to the Libyrarians and Ilysians who were looking on. Haly watched her calculate what the others would do if she released them against what Haly would do if she didn’t. She couldn’t be certain what sum Selene came up with, of course, but Haly was pretty sure it involved herself going berserk with the mind lancet and ultimately getting torn apart by a mob of angry Libyrarians. And Selene had gone through a great deal—too much—on Haly’s behalf to let that happen now. Selene looked profoundly unhappy, but she nodded, and gave the order.

  How vast was the sky, and how small and inconsequential the world and its people and their problems. A little snarl of matter compared to the clear pure blue above.

  Clauda had no way of knowing whether she could get to her friends in time, but then there was very little left of Clauda to worry about it. She was doing what she was made for: flying, soaring, coasting on the currents of air that wound about her like the curving lines she saw in her mind when she entered the statue. Below her the mountains were sharp, jagged exclamations of matter, like the earth shouting, but she was too high up to listen to the whiteness of their icy voices. And then they were behind her and all the earth below sloped down into the vast brown Plain of Ayor. Home, she thought, and she felt it was the Clauda part of herself that thought it.

  And that was when she remembered she had someplace in particular to go, and an army to bring with her. She could sense them below, a great encampment dwarfed by the breadth of the plain where they awaited her. Follow the wing, the queen of Ilysies had told her general. The queen had intended the wing to lead them to the last home of the Makers, the Corvariate Citadel, but that was not what Clauda-in-the-Wing intended to do.

  Something in her metal skin tingled and spoke with something vast far to the south—a milling roil of voices whose words were indistinct, though she felt them like a rippling on her skin. The Libyrinth called to her.

  She climbed higher and higher, up until no birds flew near her, until the clouds were far below and she saw the great curve of the world, stretching down and out against the lip of the blackness that would someday consume everything.

  From here she saw the whole Plain of Ayor and the Lian Mountains and bright Ilysies near the sea—the sea that remembered the blackness beyond and did its best to be like it. She saw the Corvariate Citadel in the north, a humped mass of steel no larger than a pebble, and she saw the Libyrinth, surrounded by its own devouring cloud of blackness. When she saw that, her rage knew the color of righteousness, white hot and electric blue, and it built inside her, and she gathered herself for war.

  She dove, down and down, reveling in the wind and the velocity, pulling out of her headlong plummet just before gravity would have made her its prisoner. She swooped over the tents of the Ilysian army’s camp, low and fast enough to make the fabric flutter, to make the women’s hair lift and the dust rise. She banked and turned. As she passed over them again, they were already mustering to follow her.

  Rossiter, under guard, was set to tending the Singer wounded, while Haly, Selene, Siblea, and Gyneth all went to Selene’s chamber to discuss the Redemption.

  “The middle of the Atlantic Ocean”; “balance is necessary”; “challenge the rule”; “her thoughts strangely torn”; “a cataclysm of love”; “friend.”

  Haly was tired, and her cot in the corner called to her with a tale of sleep more compelling at the moment than any book in the Libyrinth. She led Gyneth to her cot and sat down beside him. She pulled back the collar of his robe and saw the red marks of Baris’s fingers on his neck. “Are you all right?” she asked him, and he nodded, but he was still swallowing a lot, and there was a glassiness in his eyes, a mix of exhaustion and fear.

  Selene pulled the chair from her desk and stood it next to the fire, across from her own customary seat. “Siblea, isn’t it?”

  Siblea inclined his head.

  “Please sit down.” She rummaged around in the scroll case beside the desk for a moment and then pulled out a dusty bottle. The Pavanian whisky. In the time that Haly had been her clerk, she’d only
seen Selene open that bottle once before. But Selene opened it now. She looked around the room for glasses or something like them, and found only a mug with the mostly evaporated dregs of three-week-old tea inside it. She grimaced and threw the dregs into the fire, looked back into the cup, and grimaced again. She set it back on the desk and said, “Let the Lion gnaw it.” She put the bottle to her lips and took a healthy glug, then handed the bottle to Siblea.

  They all had a drink. The whisky filled Haly’s mouth with fire and a taste like burned moss.

  For a moment nobody said anything and Haly realized they must all be as tired as she was.

  “The beginning is hearing,” said a book.

  Selene had taken her seat beside the fire and now stared at Siblea. At length she said, “Why did you do that, down there?”

  “You mean when I looked at the book?” said Siblea.

  She nodded.

  Siblea opened his hands. “It struck me that the time had come to abandon what was no longer useful.”

  Beside Haly, Gyneth took a sharp intake of breath and sat up straighter. Selene narrowed her eyes and said, “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “We find ourselves in an interesting situation,” said Siblea. “Those of us within the Libyrinth are in your power, and yet you are surrounded by us and we possess a weapon that can destroy the Libyrinth and all within it. First and foremost, I wish to live, and therefore, it is my fervent desire that those of my brethren outside do not use the horn while I am still in here. But there is more. That young woman, your colleague, the Thesian—”