Library of Absolution

by Jennifer Derrick

  She also told them stories and worked with Candace and Margaret to teach both the boys and girls to read and write. It was her way of thumbing her nose at the Ministry and their quest to obliterate knowledge, especially among females. Alarick watched her direct her passion for books and words toward the younger generation and laughed to himself. The Ministry really didn't know what it was up against in Elissa. She was a force. Even blind she found ways to teach youngsters the enjoyment of the written word. If it were up to her, the whole world would read and damn the Ministry.

  He and John worked around the Keep, not only handling the administration of the place but helping out in other areas, as well. With so many mouths to feed, the gardens and livestock needed more tending than ever. The workshop always needed help making or repairing needed tools and equipment. Both men turned their hands to any necessary tasks when they weren't seeking survivors from the latest village sackings.

  Alarick and Elissa had no trouble passing the evenings, either, often leaving dinner early to spend more time with each other. Alarick was amazed that he never stopped wanting Elissa, nor she him. Night after night they came together in absolute joy and wonder.

  The love he felt for his wife was so intense it was almost painful. Sometimes it felt more like fear or grief, those inescapable emotions that took up every space in a man's heart and crowded out everything else. At least joy lay underneath the pain rather than sadness. Alarick figured that small difference was the only thing keeping his love for Elissa from killing him.

  Before they knew it, autumn was near. Enough time had passed, and it was time to reconsider returning to their bookish duties.

  Alarick broached the subject one night while they were cuddled together in bed.

  "I think we could go soon," he said. "Especially if we went somewhere small to start. A friend in Ireland says the posters of us grow old and faded. The Ministry isn't replacing them with new ones, so it's possible we're no longer their biggest target."

  "Mmm," Elissa whispered, stroking Alarick's bare chest. "We could, but there's only one problem."

  "What's that?"

  "I can't peregrinate anymore."

  "What? Why not? It's not you doing the work, and I haven’t lost the ability. We can go.”

  “Margaret says that pregnant women shouldn’t peregrinate.”

  “But—" Alarick was already launching his next argument before her words hit him.

  If it were possible for words to knock a man flat, Alarick was down.

  “Pregnant?” he asked after a minute of moving his lips but making no sound. “Pregnant. How did that happen?”

  The stupidity of the question registered too late for him to avoid asking it. Elissa laughed.

  “If you have to ask, I wonder who you’ve been making love to all these months,” she said. “And before you ask, it likely happened in this very room, unless it happened that one time down by the waterfall.”

  Alarick said nothing more, his brain struggling to process this incredible news.

  Elissa continued speaking in a vain effort to give him time to gather himself.

  “I spoke to Margaret yesterday, once I was sure I wasn’t just late.”

  “Late for what?” Alarick asked. “Oh,” he said once his brain caught up to exactly what sort of late she meant.

  “She said that while most pregnant women can peregrinate with no issues, it can be problematic in some cases, especially past the third or fourth month. She doesn’t recommend it except in case of life threatening emergency,” Elissa said. “So it looks like we’re staying here.”

  “I’m going to be a father,” Alarick said in wonder. “A father.”

  “You are,” she said. “Congratulations.”

  He looked down at her and his eyes misted with tears. She already lay half on top of him, but he pulled her closer, clutching her to his chest. How was it that in such a short time everything had changed for him? How had everything become so wonderful, simply because one woman arrived in his life? She humbled him beyond measure.

  “I’m due in late spring,” she said. “You have some time to get used to the idea.”

  She reached to touch his face.

  “You’re smiling,” she said.

  “And I may never stop,” he said, pulling her close and kissing her thoroughly.

  He felt his erection growing against her thigh.

  “Does this mean we can’t—" he began to ask.

  Elissa reached between their bodies and grasped him gently.

  “It absolutely does not,” she said, rising over him and taking him inside her.

  “Thank god,” he breathed.

  Alarick never tired of watching Elissa’s body change. At first the changes were barely noticeable. He had to remind himself that she really was pregnant. The morning sickness brought the reality home, however, and Alarick hovered impotent and helpless every morning as she heaved and gagged. As he watched Elissa battle the illness, growing paler and weaker day by day, he wished desperately for something to alleviate her suffering.

  He asked Margaret and Candace if there was anything to be done, but they assured him there was not. Beyond some herbal remedies, this was not something magic could fix. Nature had to take her course. Alarick stood by as Elissa suffered and he could do nothing more than hold her and tell her it would be okay.

  And miraculously, it was okay. After three horrible months, near the end of which Alarick began to actually fear for Elissa’s life, the sickness abated and Elissa bloomed. Her color returned and Alarick swore he could see her belly growing hour by hour. The changes were endlessly fascinating, but nothing compared to the moment when, in the sleepy dawn of one morning, Elissa took his hand and placed it on her belly.

  "Just wait," she said, pressing his hand down on her growing mound.

  A few moments later and there it was. A tiny flutter of motion, no more than a bubble bumping against his hand.

  "That's—" he began.

  "That's your child," she said. "It's been happening off and on for a few days, but I haven't been able to catch it when you're nearby."

  Feeling his child's first movements broke some last dam of emotion in Alarick. Tears filled his eyes and he laid his head on Elissa's belly, weeping softly.

  "I do love you," he whispered, both to the new life within and to Elissa.

  Elissa stroked his hair and murmured, "We know."

  "Do you think it's a boy or a girl?" he asked.

  Elissa shrugged and laughed. "No idea. Margaret thinks girl based on the shape of my belly, but Candace thinks boy for the exact same reason. Do you have a preference?"

  "No," Alarick said. "A boy would be fine because I understand boys. I know how to teach and discipline a boy. But girls are special, especially to their fathers, I think. Even if I don't understand them at all."

  Elissa laughed. "You're learning."

  "Yes, but with a girl I'd be terrified of her ending up with someone like me!"

  "She should be so lucky," Elissa said, stroking his cheek.

  He felt for his child's movements every day after that, always amazed to feel the motion, which quickly changed from a flutter to a thump as the baby grew. Strangely, Elissa's pregnancy instilled a new sense of optimism in Alarick. It seemed impossible that he and the other residents of the Keep could die if he had a child on the way. The universe would never be so cruel.

  Of course, he knew the universe could be exactly that cruel. How many people had he known who'd lost children or pregnant wives to the Ministry's purge? He wasn't stupid enough to believe he was special, somehow destined to avoid death. He hoped, though, and that was an unfamiliar emotion.

  Hope wasn't enough to keep Elissa near him, though. As the days passed, Alarick saw less and less of her during the day. While he worked around the Keep, she spent hours closeted in the library with Candace. Alarick assumed they were working on reorganizing the space, or perhaps Elissa was strengthening the protections on some of the books.


  He didn't think anything of it at first. But when she stopped her story times and left the Keep's childcare operation to others, he became concerned.

  "What do you do all day?" he asked her one evening over dinner.

  She merely smiled and said, "It's a surprise."

  Her answer satisfied him for a while, but as her pregnancy progressed into its later stages, she became even more absent. Elissa began taking meals in the library instead of with him. She worked late into the night and was gone from their room by the time he woke most mornings.

  He tried to enter the library one evening after Elissa had gone to bed, but found it locked with a password spell. No password, no entry. He tried a few words he thought Elissa might choose, but nothing worked. After each attempt, the door actually laughed at him. He was amused by Elissa's magical skill, but alarmed by her behavior. Locking him out of his own library wasn't like her.

  Neither she nor Candace would let him inside the library when he tried to visit while they worked. They met him at the door and told him their work was private and he'd know soon enough. Cornering Candace didn't help, either. For all that she'd been helpful to him in the past where Elissa was concerned, on this mystery she was unyielding.

  "Trust her," Candace said. "She's fine and she's working on something you're going to like."

  "As long as she's okay," he said anxiously.

  "She is. I'm making certain she eats and rests. This is important to her. Let her have this."

  So he did. He stopped inquiring, stopped visiting the library, and trusted Candace and Elissa. It was difficult, but Candace was a healer. She wouldn't let Elissa endanger the baby. Alarick tried to view Elissa's time with Candace as a good thing. If anything went wrong, Candace was the best person for Elissa to be with.

  He nearly broke his promise once, when he saw one of his craftsmen entering the library. Why did he get to go in but not Alarick? It's part of the surprise, he reminded himself. At least he hoped so. Waiting was maddening and Alarick's natural impatience didn't help.

  One evening, in the final weeks of her pregnancy, Elissa joined him at dinner.

  "After we eat, I'd like you to come to the library," she said.

  "I would be happy to. We can go right now," Alarick said, rising from his seat.

  "I know you're dying to know what I've been doing, but I'm starving and want to eat, first," she said, laughing and tugging him back down to the bench.

  "Sorry," he said, but he couldn't stop himself from bolting down his own food and waiting impatiently for her to finish.

  "You're like a kid at Christmas," she chided him as he all but dragged her to the library when the meal ended.

  "I've been in the dark for months," he said. "I'm due for some answers."

  They entered the library and Alarick anxiously scanned the room for anything new. He saw nothing. The place was in the same disarray as before. If anything, it was maybe a bit worse. Elissa's surprise obviously wasn't a reorganization of the space.

  Elissa took his hand and towed him toward the scriptorium, her cane tapping out a rhythm as they crossed the stone floor. At the door, Alarick saw it. A handsome leather-bound book rested in the center of her desk. The cover was a rich brown and it was embossed in gold with the same symbol he'd had engraved on her wedding ring: His wand crossed with a paintbrush. The crest of the Keep was also embossed in the lower left corner, along with his motto, "Protector. Servio. Conduco."

  Alarick reached for the book. Uncertain if he was supposed to touch it, he drew back like a guilty child.

  Elissa laughed, having felt his movements.

  "Go ahead. You can touch it. It's for you. Well, for us. And ultimately for our child," she said, caressing a hand over her huge belly.

  He moved to the desk and opened the front cover.

  "What the hell?" He jumped back from the desk, startled by the near-perfect likeness of Marius that stared up at him from the flyleaf.

  "Marius?" she asked, unable to see what caused his outburst.

  "Yes," Alarick said. "What's he doing here?"

  "He's the guardian of the book," Elissa said. "Should anyone other than you or I, or someone who shares our blood, attempt to open it, they'll have to battle Marius. And they won't win. He was the fiercest fighter either of us ever knew, and one of the best men, as well. It seemed fitting. My choice will make sense as you read," she assured him.

  Alarick wasn't so certain, but he stifled further remarks. He sat down on her stool and began to read. After about a page, it dawned on him that the handwriting was familiar. He'd seen it before she'd been blinded, back when she wrote him letters.

  "You wrote this?" he asked Elissa who'd wandered to the sofa to sit down.

  "I did. Candace taught me how using a tool she came up with. It's there on the desk," she said. "Lay it on page in the book and you'll see how it works."

  Alarick noticed the unfamiliar piece of metal next to the book and picked it up. It consisted of one straight piece of flat metal that, when placed on one of the books' pages, ran vertically up the page. Several horizontal strips of metal protruded from the metal spine, crossing the page at exact intervals.

  He saw how Elissa used it to guide her writing across the page. It would keep her writing straight and prevent the lines from overlapping. Plus, she could tell by touch when she reached the end of a line, as well as the end of a page. All she had to do was learn how to space the words properly, but she could probably do that by touch, as well, using her finger as a spacer.

  "Ingenious. Candace came up with this?" he asked.

  "She did. I told her I wanted to write the book, but that I could not write. Initially I asked her if she would transcribe it for me, but she had the better idea. One of your craftsmen made it for her from a prototype she made from hay, of all things. He also bound and embossed the finished manuscript for me. You've got some exceptionally talented people here."

  "They're all getting raises. Or something," he added, remembering that no one in the Keep earned money.

  "Anyway, that's part of why it took me so long to finish. Learning to write with that was slow going at first."

  Alarick was impressed yet again by Elissa's determination to prevent her disability from dictating her life. If he were suddenly blinded, he would likely lie in bed and moan about his misfortune. Yet she had taken back almost all of what had been taken from her. Pride surged through him.

  "You amaze me," he said.

  Elissa laughed. "Just read. I'll rest over here until you're finished."

  So Alarick read. The night around him stilled and deepened and still he read. Every now and then he glanced over at Elissa, but she had long ago fallen asleep on the sofa. As Alarick flipped the pages and fell deeper into the story, he couldn't believe what he was reading.

  The story was her story. Their story. She began with their first meeting at Keldon and told of everything that had happened since. She spared none of her personal feelings, or Alarick's, writing of their tribulations, failings and, ultimately, their love.

  She'd peppered the story with illustrations. Some were the same as she'd drawn for him when she'd illustrated his diaries. Others were new. The picture of him in his falcon form particularly interested him. She'd drawn the Keep and some of the residents. Margaret, John, and Candace featured prominently. Alarick assumed those were for entertainment value only, as she'd said she couldn't enliven the drawings of living people.

  The book read like both a fairy tale and an instruction manual. And by the end, he'd figured it out. An instruction manual was exactly what Elissa had created, albeit a highly entertaining and personal one.

  Her book told of magic's eradication at the hands of the Ministry and how she and Alarick had worked to preserve magical knowledge for future generations. She explained how to access the library, should it be sealed, and how to remove or alter the enchantments on the books. Any of their descendants would be able to read this book and, as long as they retained some magical powers, find th
e library Elissa had created and release its knowledge into the world. The book would serve as a starting point for the magical world to regain what was lost.

  The only part to which he could not reconcile himself was the ending. There wasn't one, at least not one that explained how she could be certain that the library would remain intact even if the Keep were destroyed. She ended the story at the present time, just before her delivery, yet her instructions assumed that the library would still be here, and the Ministry would not have removed any books.

  As far as he understood her magic, the only way for that to happen was for her to die inside this library, her blood spilled here by another. That would seal the library in such a way that only someone who shared her blood could reopen it. Without that final protection the Ministry, if they breached the Keep, would be able to remove the books from here. And it still didn't explain how the library would avoid destruction if the Ministry tore the Keep down.

  He didn't like the assumptions she seemed to be making. Not at all. It was as though she was preparing to die here. She couldn't know that would happen, though. She could die an old woman in her bed. Both of them could be killed on a mission to retrieve more books. The idea that she was planning to die in this library, murdered by another, did not sit well with him. He hoped this was an oversight on her part, that there was some part of her magic she hadn't shared. Or that this was a fairy tale and the instructions were more allegorical than factual.

  Alarick closed the book and watched Elissa sleep, amazed at how her mind worked. She'd seen the necessity of not only preserving knowledge for future generations, but also for providing them with a roadmap for accessing that information. And to protect the book, she'd chosen Marius. The choice made sense. She couldn't choose Alarick or herself, as they were both still alive. Marius was the natural second choice. He'd died helping them create this library; he would fight to protect this book and their descendants.

  Alarick wasn't certain whether to ask Elissa to bring the drawing to life or not. Sometimes he desperately wished for a chance to talk to his old friend, but he also realized that nothing good could come from bringing back the dead. Would he be able to let Marius go if he saw him again?