“Go down backwards little one, it’s much safer.”
My legs shaking uncontrollably, I tried to place a foot onto the ladder. My foot struck the step and I pulled it back and tried again.
I managed to get one foot onto the ladder and then the other one.
“Come on, come down,” said the Guardian, now on the platform below me.
When I reached the lower ledge, I felt the Guardian’s unnatural and cold air emerging from the Other Side.
Down the staircases I climbed, the Guardian flittering behind me until it sighed in its inhuman voice, “Alisa, Alisa, I’ll be waiting for you, little one.”
In the foyer, Mr Ister stood calmly in front of the counter, his head craning naturally forward, his hair dark cropped like a helmet. His skin was olive and he held himself calmly, radiating self-reliance.
“Ah, you’re so prolific, Mr Ister,” said Treskoti, recording the deposits in the massive log-book.
At this Mr Ister smiled, looking almost embarrassed, his eyes lowered. “One does what one can.” He turned and looked at me curiously, as if I were a far away object on the horizon that he couldn’t quite make out. I stared back at him, feeling like a small animal before a larger one, mesmerised. We stood there, looking at each other for what seemed an eternity, as if some emotional wire hung between us. Then he turned, tall and dark, and walked out through the entrance hall.
“So polite,” said Treskoti and he pushed the books towards me. “These are for the Politicals,” he said.
“The Labyrinth?” I asked.
“The Labyrinth,” he replied.
I walked through Palasin’s Hall and down the wide staircase to the Labyrinth. The corridors were lined with strange implements, tools or weapons—intricate metal constructions. Strange gas-less lights were spaced along the roof. In little alcoves stood statues of men and women, looking on balefully in the gloom, the great forgotten writers and philosophers, thaumaturgists and politicians—the authors of the magnificent works held in the library.
Those corridors wound and curled around themselves, overlapping like a tangled piece of string. The entire thing was built by thaumaturgy, so that the angles of the passageways could not possibly add up. No map could be made of the labyrinth, for there was no direction. I had memorised the paths I was allowed to follow. The other rooms and corridors were prohibited to lowly librarians like me.
Alcove after alcove I passed, into the darkness. The roof was lined with pipes and cords and wires, their ends torn and ragged. A soft breath of air fluttered for a moment by my cheek. I looked back along the dark corridor. Somewhere in the darkness there was a flittering presence. Another cold gust of air. Leaning against the wall, my breath fast, my heart like a lizard trapped in a pair of hands, I let out a soft whimper.
“Hello, pretty.” The voice warped in and out of existence.
I ran.
“Don’t run little one.”
I fled along a memorized path, through to the first vast hall that housed the ancient morality plays. I turned past the MA-16655-U section, and towards the left-hand wall, through a corridor, round corners, past circular rooms, into the smaller passages where the labyrinth was older, its walls no longer plastered but bare rock, the wires and pipes gone. Turning quickly to my right, I came to a cul de sac where no cul de sac should have been.
Trembling, I slipped behind a wall hanging at the cul de sac’s end. My breath loud in my ears, I fell backwards into utter blackness. Throwing out my hand, I struck a lever. The floor shuddered and shifted. The movement changed from upwards to sidewards and then the floor shook to a halt. A door opened behind me and light poured into the elevator in which I now realised I lay. Revealed was a small round room lit by a line of purple and yellow glowing beads. But this was not like the other rooms in the Labyrinth. It was warmer, with rugs and hangings and couches along one wall and a small table before them. A deep red reading chair stood invitingly beside the table. Still clasping Ister’s books, I entered the room in wonder, examining the tall wooden bookcases filled with all kinds of books: tall ones and short ones, thick ones with silvery leather, thin ones bound by wicker spines. A desk with paper and quill stood against one wall and a large double-door was closed on the far wall.
I sat for a moment in the chair and I placed Ister’s books on the table. Could I retrace my steps? Afraid of beginning the search though the labyrinth, I simply sat there, paralysed, as I had been so often in my life, by the consequences of acting. And so, repressing the seriousness of my situation, I picked up one of Ister’s books, called The Mechanical Men, and began to read.
It told the story of a strange city that climbed high in the sky like a great metal mountain—all pipes and pylons, wires and tubes. A young man called Bikrim was restless. His unhappiness was unfathomable, his restlessness unnameable, his anger quick and without point. He kept these feelings deep inside, like lava beneath a mountain, threatening to erupt. It was a world powered not by steam and coal, but by a flammable molten metal, cold to touch, that ran in the mountains close to the city. By day Bikrim worked on the great pipes that carried the molten metal to the city, to fuel its flying and tunnelling machines, by night he sought out the dark spots of the city, where the lowlifes and the artists congregated, smoking and injecting drugs that allowed them to travel back in time and relive a lost age before the city was dominated by its thirst for the liquid metal, before its relentless growth, ever higher into the air, an endlessly growing burrow, a metal cancer.
The vividness of his writing brought me into what they call larev in Caeli-Amur, that dreamlike state where you somehow become one with the story, where all other things in the world drop away, where you exist in that imagined world. For a while I was Bikrim, that slender dark-skinned man. This feeling become so palpable, that as he wandered along the dark metal pathways, I could feel his body, the wiry strength in his limbs, I could smell the city’s dirty smoke and fumes, I was filled with restlessness and passion. I had always slipped easily into such reverie, but Ister’s writing seemed more powerful than the other fictions I had read. It was as if I was connected to it, just as Ister and I had fixed each other earlier with our eyes.
I emerged from that book shaken and walked back into the elevator. The lighting beads had long ago been broken inside it. With trepidation I pushed the lever. As the doors shuddered to a close, I caught a last glimpse of Ister’s books on the table, and the one I had placed there only moments before. I took a step forward, but it was too late—I was enveloped in darkness. It didn’t matter. The books were lost anyway.
The elevator stopped. At the entrance to the cul de sac the corridor led away in both directions. The memorized path—the one I had thought I had followed—was clear in my mind. Hoping that I had simply followed those turns but along the wrong corridors, I made my way back, but before long I came to a crossroads where one path led up and curled out of sight, another plunged downwards like some terrifying slide, another ended in steps. It was unfamiliar to me.
I walked up the stairs but before long the passage descended, twisting like a spring. How long I passed along those tunnels I couldn’t say, but I became delirious with fear and the lack of sensory stimulation. I was hungry and thirsty. My soft-shoed feet were quiet, but little strange noises echoed, magnified by the winding corridors. Can anything compare to the loneliness of being lost? It is as if you have woken up and found that everyone has left the world but you.
When I stumbled onto an underground stream, the sound of the water tinkling on the rocks, I collapsed and cried. I cursed myself—all the years when I had attended the modish parties in the Kinarian Pocket, drinking kuyu juice with friends, forever holding everyone at arm’s length with laughter or a witticism. I cried for lost intimacy. I was now as alone as I had hoped to keep myself, and it was not what I wanted.
“Oh little one, it’s not that bad you know. You at least will die a true death.”
Waves of hot and cold coursed up my back. To myself I s
aid, “There was so much I didn’t do.”
The Guardian’s voice, for all its warping in and out of existence, sounded dreamier as it spoke: “I had so many books to write. There were things inside me that I never had a chance to say.”
I continued: “I wanted to publish books, you know. I wanted to travel. I should have escaped to Caeli-Amur. I wanted to climb the white cliffs to the artists’ square, or head out on a sailing ship over the crested waves.”
The Guardian laughed. “Caeli-Amur, the jewelled city of the south.”
“What kind of books did you write?” I asked.
“Poems about the emptiness of the lone lover—I’d recite one to you but the words slip from my mind nowadays, as if they’re only real when written down. I laboured over those things, day and night. I deprived myself—I drank thick black coffee, I smoked little cigarettes and pored over the words by gaslight. Now they’re all forgotten. Even by me.”
“I’d like to read one,” I said, trying to befriend the creature.
“But now Treskoti will write you off like one of his damned books: ‘Item lost.’”
I said, “Help me find my way out. You know the way.”
The laughter came again.
I laid my head on my forearm, desolate and alone. After a while I raised it again and spat out, “No wonder you’re down here: look at you.”
Finally the Guardian spoke. “I’ll lead you from the labyrinth,” he said. “But you must do something for me.”
“What?”
“Come back and meet me tomorrow. You must come back and speak with me, every day, until Aya’s handprints are hidden on the moon, and the great disk is only a sliver in the sky. Oh, and I have a task for you.”
Back in the foyer, Treskoti stared at me, his leathery face impassive. “Alisa,” he said, “Where have you been?” He stepped forward and spoke in an angry rhythm: “The day...is almost...over...and you’ve...been lazing...around somewhere...hiding...avoiding...your responsibilities.” He stood back, adjusted his suit and added, “I’d hate to see you out on the street with the rest of the jobless.” He waited for my reaction, and when I gave him none he said, “Now get back to work.”
When I left the library, the summer heat was oppressive. The grubby streets were packed with horse-drawn carriages banking up against each other, Kyre-bird rickshaws ducking in and out between them, the long legs of the birds scrabbling on the cobblestones. I descended to the underground train that criss-crossed the city, passing the Undercity to the Kinarian Pocket.
I settled in a small bar lit by red lights and purveying exotic liquors imported from all across the world: peaceful flower-liquors from the Island of Aya, ice-cold desert drinks from Numeria, Anlusian hot-wine guaranteed to fill you with unnatural energy, as well as powders made by the city’s alchemists, tinctures by the forest sages in the surrounding areas. In drinks and drugs, as in everything, Varenis was the centre of the world. Leaning against the polished dark-wood bar, I searched for my shallow friends—Tori or Ganus or Matildha—quickly made, quickly forgotten. But at the tables were only unfamiliar red faces that seemed almost demonic. Just as I looked away I caught a familiar sight. At a table in the corner leaned Ister, his head craned forward on his long neck, pen in hand, bottle of ink beside him.
“I trust that you have been looking after my books,” he called to me.
I walked across and leaned against the wall next to him. “They’re in the Labyrinth beneath the Library.”
“I see,” he said sadly. “I suppose they’ll never be found. Then again, there are many little gems lost in this city.” His eyes were dark and brown and like a deer’s and again I felt transfixed.
“When the repression is lifted, your books will be found and published.” I sat myself beside him.
He laughed at that, reached forward and lightly touched my hand. It felt as if some unknown power surged into me, a flash of lightning. “Yes they will.”
“And I’ll start the printing shop that I’ve always intended to,” I said, “and your books will be read not only here, but in Caeli-Amur and across the sea.”
“By then there’ll be no need for my books. They’ll have served their purpose.”
“Oh, how sad.”
“No, no! How happy! A writer can only hope that his books will be forgotten! It can only mean that all those struggles that we write about are transcended. That the yearning is over and in some way we are finally whole.”
The following morning as I walked through Palasin’s hall towards the Labyrinth, a voice whispered in my ear. I jumped, half-turned. Mrs Emmago was leaning out from one of the aisles.
“Mr Agee will soon be working for us.” She smiled knowingly.
The fat blubbering man came immediately to mind. “What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?” She nodded, the smirk never leaving her face. She tapped her nose with her forefinger twice and then spun away. I rushed after her as she swished down the aisle.
“What happened?”
She turned and shook her head, mock-sadly. “He was found hiding books. His own, forgotten books. Arrested immediately.”
“But surely...”
“Once the order is made, well, the order is made,” said Emmago. “You can’t just remember everything now, can you? It isn’t natural. Some books, after all, have to be forgotten.”
“Everything gets forgotten,” I said and then spat out, “Everything that ends up in this library.”
She stopped walking and her face quivered. There was sadness in her eyes and she looked off into the distance above my shoulder. “You’re a clever little thing, aren’t you? We all wanted something else, didn’t we? I wanted to travel, perhaps to Numeria.” She looked at her feet. “Do you know, they say there’s a room in the labyrinth, and from that room leads a tunnel, and the door at the end of the tunnel leads to wherever you want to go. Imagine that! Anywhere you want to go.” She snapped out of her reverie and focussed on me. “It’s rubbish. As if you can go anywhere you want!” Without a further word she hardened her face and walked on, this time slower, as if away from a defeat.
When I entered the Labyrinth, I kept my head down, avoiding the blackness that shifted towards me.
“Follow me,” it said.
I followed at a distance. Occasional gusts of frigid air came from the black shifting stain, forever morphing out of formlessness and into some kind of contorted and unnatural shape—now an arm too long for its body, followed immediately by a knotted shoulder. Then they twisted back into darkness while a foot with great claw-like nails appeared and a leg bent in unnatural places.
A while later we entered the cul de sac and I stepped behind the wall-hanging. I pulled the lever and the elevator shuddered. A moment later a blast of icy air came from the Guardian as his whole body shimmered into our world from the Other Side. I wrapped my arms around me.
The room was as I’d left it, with the books on the table. The chair was comfortable as I sat in it. “You know this room?”
“I saw you the first time,” it said. “I was here with you...in the room...observing. I found you enchanting. It took some effort, residing entirely on the Other Side. We can stay there a while, though eventually we must return to this half-life half-way through a doorway but jammed by the door.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Just to talk. It’s not much, is it? But when you’re...in this half-life, it seems the strangest thing in the world.”
“But you’re a Guardian! You’re...”
“Evil?”
I said nothing.
“They destroy us; they bind us—forgotten authors guarding their own forgotten books! And what little enjoyments we have...”
I thought of this Guardian sucking the life from someone, taking her in its cold embrace and dragging her into the half-death, into the zone between worlds, eating her soul—Guardians are killers.
“Are you a man?” I asked.
“I was.”
It laughed eerily. “I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for a woman. I’d be long and happily dead. What damage love can do! And yet women, you’re so...mesmerizing.”
Disturbed by the direction of the conversation I reached down and took Ister’s book, absentmindedly opening the pages and flicking through to where I had been reading.
“You can read if you like,” said the Guardian. “I liked watching you read.”
The words sent chills down my spine, as if I had awoken to find someone watching me in the dark. But I preferred to read than to continue the conversation, so I turned to the book and again was lost in the story of Bikrim.
At the end of the shift, Bikrim’s arms and legs tremble. But he needs them to be strong. He digs the grave with the others in the ice-hard ground, passing the jackhammer between them, their smudged and drawn faces emptied of emotion. Kala had given a scream, as if something had burned him, his bald head looking up to the sky, his face filled with surprise and pain. Then he’d collapsed. Just like that. White blood had dribbled from his mouth, through his bared and grey teeth. The sentry said to leave him there and get back to work. And now, eight hours later, they’d dragged the corpse away from the pipes and were doing the job of burying the heavy bastard. There’s death everywhere, thinks Bikrim. This time Kala, last week Efrim’s hips were crushed by one of the pipes. His scream was piteous; he took a long time to die. And before that one of the pipes exploded under pressure, fragments of metal driving into Vilim’s eyes. His were more groans than cries—deep guttural sounds. Who knows what happened to him?
Bikrim needs to return to the city, to the mountain of metal and pipes, where there is life. There is no life out here on the mountain where the liquid metal runs. There is only cold and frost and spots of hard ice dotted along the slope. The other workers, their dark faces blackened by smudges of dirt, are too exhausted to speak. It’s almost as if we are mechanical men, thinks Bikrim. We don’t control the pipes and the liquid. They control us, the way an engine controls a cog. But he doesn’t say it because he doesn’t feel like he belongs. He’s always felt this way, as if he has past lives, as if he is really another person, somehow placed in the wrong body. But it’s just his loneliness. He looks at his trembling hands and notes that there is blood there. He wipes it with his other hand, and then he feels the pain. Where has the cut come from? He doesn’t know. It will not heal properly. Nothing ever does.
The Library of Forgotten Books Page 13