The Elven

by Bernhard Hennen

Some distance ahead, a seat upholstered in leather hung from four iron chains. The way it was hanging reminded Mandred of the cradle he had built so long ago. It had hung from the center beam of the longhouse on four strong ropes. The jarl felt a knot in his throat. The past was the past. It was foolish to dwell on such things.

  They had gone some twenty steps down the corridor when, on the left, another high corridor with inscribed walls branched off. The main corridor disappeared in the distance. At regular intervals, more seats were suspended from the ceiling.

  The elves decided to continue straight ahead. It made no difference to Mandred which way they went, as long as it didn’t lead them over another abyss.

  They had passed by three more side corridors when Farodin raised his hand in warning. The elf drew his sword and pressed against the wall. A short distance ahead was another junction. Mandred lifted his axe to his chest. Then he heard it. Hoofbeats. Instantly, he thought of the painting of the manboar. The beast had cloven hooves.

  Mandred felt his fingers growing moist. He waited for the taunting voice of the manboar to appear in his thoughts. Instead, he heard the clink of chains. The hoofbeats fell silent. Something squeaked softly. Then a voice mumbled something and let out a deep sigh.

  Mandred could not bear the tension any longer. With a wild battle cry, he stormed around the corner—and cannoned into a centaur suspended from the ceiling. The centaur screamed in surprise and lashed out wildly with its hooves. One hit Mandred in the chest and knocked him off his feet. In the meantime, his companions had appeared and now looked on in stunned silence. Then Nuramon broke out in a loud laugh. Even Farodin smiled.

  In front of them hung a white centaur wearing two harnesses that were fastened with chains to the ceiling. With the aid of a crank handle and a block and tackle, he could raise and lower himself in front of the wall.

  “Your behavior betrays a poor upbringing, gentlemen,” the centaur said, speaking the Dailish tongue. Mandred had no difficulty understanding him, although the words sounded strangely stilted. “In the circles I move in, it is customary to apologize when someone, in his impetuosity, has rammed his head into another’s”—the centaur cleared his throat in embarrassment—“hindquarters. But as you are clearly not conversant with simplest rules of such etiquette, and despite your sudden appearance, I will take the lead and introduce myself. My name is Chiron of Alkardien, erstwhile tutor to the King of Tanthalia.”

  Mandred scrambled to his feet. The two elves, meanwhile, had recovered and introduced themselves in return.

  The centaur turned the squeaky crank attached to the block and tackle and lowered himself to the floor. He skillfully extricated himself from the two heavy belts. Mandred had never seen a centaur like this one before. A thin band of red silk around Chiron’s head held back his long white hair. His face was lined with deep folds, and a magnificent white beard billowed against his chest. His skin was uncommonly pale. But most unusual of all were his eyes, which were the color of freshly spilled blood.

  “Sorry,” Mandred finally managed to say.

  The centaur wore a quiver over his shoulder; it contained a number of scrolls. In a holder on his leather belt were three styluses and an inkwell. He was obviously unarmed and therefore seemed quite harmless. On the other hand, he has those red eyes, thought Mandred. You should never carelessly put your trust in creatures with red eyes.

  He introduced himself. “Mandred Torgridson, Jarl of Firnstayn.”

  The centaur tilted his head and looked from one to the other. “You’re new here, am I right? And my guess is that you did not come here with the assistance of Sem-la.”

  Mandred looked to his companions. They seemed to understand as little of what the centaur was talking about as he did.

  Chiron let out a sigh that sounded to Mandred more like a snort. “All right. Then I will first take you to Master Gengalos. He is the keeper of knowledge responsible for this section of the library.” He turned. “If you would care to follow me . . .” He gave a little cough. “And would one or the other of the honored elves perhaps explain to the human that it is impolite to stare at the hindquarters of a centaur?”

  What a stuck-up windbag, thought Mandred. He was about to give the centaur an appropriate response when a warning glance from Farodin made him hold his tongue. Mandred followed the others, keeping his distance. One more remark from Chiron and he’d stuff the handle of his axe up the centaur’s ass.

  Chiron led them out of the labyrinth of granite walls and into a spacious room. Thousands of round clay tablets lay on wooden shelves set in close-spaced rows. Mandred briefly looked at a few of them and shook his head. The tablets looked like chickens had scratched their way across them. Who could read this stuff? Just looking at them gave Mandred a headache.

  “Tell your human he should put those tablets back at once,” the centaur snapped at the two elves.

  Defiantly, Mandred picked up another one.

  “Take the tablets away from the idiot,” Chiron cursed. “Those are dream rings from sunken Tildanas. They record the memories of whoever takes them in his hand and looks at them, and every recorded memory is forever erased from the mind. Let this childish fool look at them for a while, and he won’t even remember who he is anymore.”

  “Is story time nearly over?” Mandred asked. “Maybe you can scare children with your tall tales, Redeye, but not me.”

  The centaur’s tail twitched in affront. “If the human knows better . . .” Without turning back to Mandred again, he walked on.

  “Better put those back,” said Nuramon. “What if he’s right? What if you could no longer remember Alfadas or Freya?”

  “That nag doesn’t scare me,” replied Mandred indignantly. Then he put the tablets back onto their shelf. The scrawls on them seemed more dense now. Mandred swallowed. Could that broomtail have been telling the truth? He would not let anything show. “Anyway, why should I look at them if I can’t even read what’s on them?” he said, but the tone of his voice did not sound nearly as relaxed as he wanted it to. “Don’t get me wrong, Nuramon, but I don’t believe a word that red-eyed mare says.”

  “Of course not,” said Nuramon, stifling a smile.

  Mandred and Nuramon hurried to catch up with Chiron and Farodin. The centaur was talking enthusiastically about the library. It seemed that all of the knowledge of the Albenkin was gathered there. “We even have two scribes who work in the library at the harbor in Iskendria. As a rule, what humans write isn’t worth the parchment it’s written on, but for the sake of completeness, we collect those writings as well. Having said that, they compose only a tiny fraction of our collection.”

  Mandred hated the preening braggart. “Do you have the seventeen songs of Luth?” he asked loudly.

  “If they are of any importance, then someone will certainly have made the effort to write them down. Master Gengalos will know that. Personally, I am interested in perfect forms of the epic, not verses recited by slurring bards in smelly chambers.”

  Chiron had led them to a second ramp that led downward in wide spirals. Mandred imagined himself pushing the priggish centaur into the depths. Whatever the half horse said, if they didn’t have the seventeen songs of Luth, then this whole place wasn’t worth the dirt it was dug from. Every child in the Fjordlands knew those songs.

  Meanwhile, Chiron continued with his account of the library. Apparently, there were more than a hundred visitors in attendance at that moment, although in their long march so far, Mandred had seen no one apart from the centaur.

  The centaur led them on through corridors and halls, and after a while, even Mandred began to feel intimidated by the sheer quantity of knowledge stored there. He could not begin to imagine what the writers could fill so many scrolls, books, clay tablets, and inscribed walls with. Was it all the same stuff, just in different words? Were these books like the women who met at the stream to wash clothes and chatte
red over and over about the same trivialities without ever getting bored? If everything in this library were really important and worth knowing, then any normal human would despair. Ten lifetimes would not be enough to read everything recorded there. Maybe not even a hundred. It was as if people could never truly comprehend the world because its sheer variety was past all understanding. There was something liberating about that thought. Seen like that, it made no difference if you’d read one book or a hundred or a thousand—or none at all, like Mandred. You would not understand the world any better.

  Gradually, they began to pass through sections of the library where they also saw visitors. Kobolds, individual elves, a faun. Mandred noticed a strange creature with the body of a bull and the torso of a human, with wings that grew from its flanks. Then he saw a female elf talking excitedly to a unicorn, and a moment later, he spied a gnome climbing a shelf, a basket full of books on his back. The other visitors paid no attention to them as they passed. Two elves, a human, and a centaur . . . a party like that seemed less than spectacular here.

  Finally, Chiron led them into a hall with colorfully painted ribbed vaults. The hall contained a large number of lecterns, but there was only one reader in attendance, a slender figure wearing a sand-colored cowl. The hood was pulled low over the face, and the book before the figure had purple pages with writing in gold ink. Oddly, beside the lectern stood a number of small baskets of withered leaves. A strange odor hung in the air, something at once oppressive and familiar. It smelled like dust and parchment. Mandred could even discern the smell of the leaves. But there was something else . . . more a slight trace than a fact.

  Chiron quietly cleared his throat. “Master Gengalos? Please excuse me if I am disturbing you, but three visitors entered the library through the gate above the Alben gallery. They strayed into the granite corridors. And that one tried to kill me with an axe.” The centaur looked disparagingly at Mandred. “I thought it wise to bring them to you, Master, before they did any real damage.”

  The figure in the cowl raised his head, but the hood still fell low over his face, which lay in shadow. Mandred, for a moment, was tempted to throw back the master’s hood with a deft movement. He was used to seeing whom he spoke to.

  “You have done well, Chiron. I thank you.” Gengalos’s voice sounded warm and friendly, a dramatic contrast to the remoteness he otherwise emanated. “I will now relieve you of the burden of care for these newcomers.”

  Chiron briefly bowed his head, then retreated.

  “We would like—” began Farodin, but Gengalos cut him off with an abrupt gesture.

  “There is no ‘we would like’ here,” responded the hooded figure. “Anyone entering the library must first serve the library. Only then can you receive any of its knowledge in return.”

  “Our apologies.” Nuramon had adopted a diplomatic tone, and he bowed before the keeper of knowledge. “We are—”

  “Who you are does not interest me,” said Gengalos with a dismissive gesture. “Whoever comes here submits to the laws of the library. Do so, or leave.” He paused for a moment as if to underscore his harsh response. “If you would like to stay, then you will first render your services to the library.” He pointed to the baskets that stood beside his lectern. “These are poems written by flower faeries on oak leaves and birch bark. Even after centuries, we have found no satisfactory way to preserve the leaves, so the poems have to be transcribed. But it needs to be kept in mind that the text and the veins in the leaves form a single harmonious whole, and this needs to be maintained in the transcription if the poems’ deeper levels of significance are not to be lost.”

  Mandred recalled the boisterous little faery creatures he had seen in Albenmark. He could not imagine how those little chatterboxes could write anything worth preserving.

  Gengalos turned in his direction. “Appearances are deceiving, Mandred Torgridson. Few are as able as they when it comes to putting fragile feelings into words.”

  The jarl swallowed. “You . . . can see into my head?”

  “I need to know what brings our visitors to the library. Knowledge is a valuable thing, Mandred Torgridson. One cannot hand it over to just anyone.”

  “What is our task?” asked Farodin.

  “You and Nuramon will take one of these baskets and transcribe the poems onto parchment. When I am satisfied with your work, then I will help you in your search. This library holds the answer to practically any question that can be asked, if you know where to look.”

  “What about me?” Mandred asked, abashed. “With what can I earn the right to be here?”

  “You will relate the story of your life to a scribe. Every detail. I have the impression that yours is a story worthy of being put down in writing.”

  The jarl looked at the floor, feeling slightly foolish. “That’s . . . someone is supposed to write down my life?” He had a bad feeling about that, almost as if someone wanted to snatch something away from him.

  “Would you not like to grasp at least the tail end of immortality, Mandred Torgridson? Your story will be read when you yourself have long turned to dust. You have no need to hide your light under a bushel. Who has ever heard of two elves like Farodin and Nuramon choosing a human like yourself as their companion?”

  Mandred nodded hesitantly. He still had the feeling that he would be parting with something valuable if he told his life story. But was that just superstitious fear? He should not stand in the way of his companions. They had taken so much onto their shoulders to make it this far. “Fair trade,” he said. “I agree.”

  “Splendid, mortal. I thank you for your bequest to the library.” Gengalos’s words gave Mandred a pleasant feeling. Like brandy warming him on a winter night from the inside. “I will show you your quarters. The library is as big as a small city. A city of learning, built of books. There are three kitchens that operate day and night, and two large refectories. We even have thermal baths in one of our more remote wings.” He turned again to Mandred. “And we have a very well-stocked wine cellar. A number of the keepers of knowledge, myself included, put little store in asceticism. How can the spirit soar freely if we keep our bodies in chains? This way, all who study here are well catered for.”

  On Yulivee’s Trail

  Nuramon was still finding it hard to believe that the djinn in Valemas had actually been telling the truth. Though his desire to find Noroelle meant he would readily follow up the clue, he had secretly doubted the spirit’s word. But it seemed he had done well to tell his companions about Iskendria.

  They had been in the library for nine days, and he and Farodin had spent five of those transcribing the poems of the flower faeries. Since then, they had been searching for any records they could find concerning the magical barriers. It was exciting rummaging through the vast store of learning in those halls. And even for Mandred, the days they spent there were far from dull. He spent his time exploring the library and enjoying the sumptuous meals provided for them in their quarters. The wine cellar quickly became his favorite place. Of all the knowledge gathered there, Mandred was interested only in the Aegilien and Angnosian sagas. To Nuramon’s surprise, he had a centaur read the stories to him in Dailish. Compared with Elvish, Dailish was easy to learn, but Mandred had picked it up in the course of a single winter from the two centaurs at Emerelle’s court—quite an achievement for a human. The jarl enjoyed the sagas of Eras the Pandrid and Nessos the Telaid so much that Nuramon had jokingly named him Mandred the Torgrid and said that he foresaw a prodigious future for the Mandridian family line.

  Farodin had shut himself away in a study room. The keepers of knowledge had assigned a young elf named Elelalem, whom everybody called, simply, Ele, as his assistant. Farodin sent the poor fellow hunting through the entire library for texts. Because Ele spoke all of the languages needed in the library, he often served as Farodin’s translator as well. Farodin wanted to learn more about the gate spell, but he was
also searching for any accounts of magical barriers and wanted to find out more about the grains of sand.

  Nuramon still did not believe that the grains of sand could be the solution. It was true that Farodin had collected a few dozen grains, but there had to be other possibilities. Instead of sticking to their familiar paths here in this house of learning, Nuramon kept watch for fresh chances. He had just come from the horses, which he had fetched from the stable at their guesthouse and now kept with an elven woman who lived unrecognized among the humans. In the city, she was known as the widow of a well-to-do trader and one of Iskendria’s richest women. To avoid being recognized as an elf by the humans, she kept her ears and face hidden behind a veil and revealed herself only among other Albenkin. Her name was Sem-la. Nuramon wondered how, over the years, she managed to hide the fact that she did not age. The veil might work for the course of a single human lifetime, but what then? Did a niece appear from some distant city to inherit all her wealth?

  From Sem-la’s estate, a wide corridor ran underground to a gate from where one could enter the living areas of the library. Nuramon had never before heard of elves and humans living in such close proximity. Sem-la had told him that she had contacts all over the world and that she carried on her trading activities with humans and with other Albenkin and their settlements. Then Nuramon realized for the first time that both the human world and the Shattered World, too, were not places of exile where the Albenkin went to live free from Emerelle’s rule. They lived well here, even if it meant that the meals Sem-la served were human meals and not to be compared with the food in Albenmark. But anyone coming here was used to the human world.

  Nuramon climbed a long stairway and finally reached the place that Gengalos had told him about. It was a narrow hall, and very high. Left and right loomed shelves packed with heavy tomes. Nuramon was surprised at that, for in Albenmark, knowledge was seldom entrusted to books. Your parents taught you what you needed to know, and the wise ones gave instruction in what was truly important. If you had a question, then you went to someone who could answer it. Nuramon silently wondered how many thousands of animals had lost their skins to provide all of the parchment in these volumes.