by Amy Cross
“What kind of knowledge?” I ask.
“One cannot simply provide a summary,” he says, turning to me. “Understanding even a grain of this knowledge requires great study and patience. I've been working for a long time, and I've barely scratched the surface.”
“What about the Hidden Library?” I continue. “We don't even know what it is, not really, just that there's a chance it contains knowledge that'll help us.”
“And you really met Rinth?” he asks, with a hint of wonder in his voice. “You have no idea how much I would like to do the same. It's said that she was around at the dawn of the Great Library. I can only imagine the wonderful tales she could tell.”
“You might have to wait a while,” I reply. “She's not exactly chatty.”
“What's that?” Cromer asks suddenly.
Looking down, I see to my astonishment that the light from the lamp is now picking out what looks like a set of ruined, crumbled columns that have partially smashed against a set of rocks. Before I can ask whether they're from the old citadel, I realize that I can see more columns, and what looks like a series of arches. As the bucket continues to move down, I see more and more rocks, and more and more chunks of some old building. Finally, the bucket gently bumps against the bottom of the chasm, and I look around to see the vast remains of a building that must have fallen down here a very long time ago.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Bartleby says, “allow me to present to you the lost, first citadel of the Great Library. You're very welcome.”
“Why did it fall?” Cromer asks, his voice filled with awe.
“That's something I haven't determined yet,” Bartleby explains, as he climbs out of the bucket and holds up another lamp. “There might be some fancy, magical reason, or it might have been something as simple as a very unfortunately-placed sinkhole. I can't imagine what it must have been like, though. All those elders and librarians, going about their work, and then suddenly the ground fell out from under them. No-one can possibly have survived, and the ruins have remained down here ever since. I've discovered so much already, but there's still a lot of work to do. I doubt I'll ever truly be finished.”
“It's so strange down here,” I say, stepping out of the bucket and looking all around. “It's really quiet and still, and eerie.” After a moment, I spot some human-looking bones next to a pile of rocks. “How many people died here?”
“Hundreds,” Bartleby replies. “A thousand, perhaps.”
“It's creepy,” Christian says, “and cold. Is anyone else freezing?”
“This place is fascinating,” Cromer admits, “but I'm afraid we didn't come here for a history lesson. Mr. Bartleby, in your work down here, have you uncovered any evidence of the Hidden Library? I know you said it was a myth earlier, but I've got a feeling you weren't being entirely honest. Please, tell us what you know.”
“You want to know about the Hidden Library?” Bartleby says, turning first to Cromer, then to Christian, and finally to me. “Are you sure? I once thought that I wanted to know its very greatest secrets, I dedicated my life to that task. There are times now when I wish I'd stayed far away.”
“We're caught up in something we don't completely understand,” I tell him. “Whatever's in the Hidden Library, it might help us figure out what we're supposed to do next. It might also help me find a way -”
I catch myself just in time.
“Home?” Bartleby suggests.
“There's got to at least be a chance, right?” I say, before looking over at Cromer. He doesn't look confident. “You'd all keep trying, wouldn't you? Even if the odds were, like, a hundred billion to one, wouldn't you keep trying to find a way to get there?”
“I would,” Cromer replies.
“Me too,” Christian adds.
“You'd better come this way,” Bartleby says after a moment. “I'll show you the way in.”
He leads us past more ruins, past huge columns and walls that once came crashing down into this pit. There are lots more skeletons, too, some of which look human and some of which look like something out of a bad sci-fi movie. There's even one skull that looks vaguely human-like except for a large horn sticking out from its forehead. I can't even imagine what the first citadel must have been like, but it's clear that – like everything else in the Great Library – it must have been a pretty strange place.
Finally we head around the far corner, and we stop in front of a large arch that marks the start of another tunnel. It's clear that the route ahead means going even further into the depths.
“It doesn't look like much, does it?” Bartleby says, with a sense of fear in his voice. “When I discovered it, I didn't actually realize what it was, not at first. Can you imagine that? I'd found the most astonishing thing in this whole world, and I just strolled through, whistling to myself and thinking about what I was going to have for lunch.”
“What's in there?” Cromer asks.
“Come and see for yourself.”
He steps through the archway, and we all start to follow. At first, I see nothing ahead except what seems like a bare, rocky tunnel. As soon as I've actually passed over to the other side of the archway, however, everything changes. I suddenly see books in alcoves that look to have been carved into the walls, except there's something different about these books. I walk over to take a look at one particular shelf, and I see that these books have an eerie glow. Reaching out, I slide one from its spot and take a look at the cover, but the title is just a collection of letters, some spaced far apart from others. When I open the book, however, I find that it's filled with perfectly legible text.
“What is this place, Bartleby?” Cromer says, and now he too sounds a little nervous. “What's different about the books in the Hidden Library?”
“The Great Library contains a copy of every book ever published in any world,” Bartleby replies, “in any language, in any format. As long as it was written, even if it only existed on someone's hard-drive, that counts enough for a copy to make its way upstairs. But down here, this is a repository of all the other books.”
“What other books?” I ask, turning to him. “How can there be other books?”
“These are the books that people thought of writing, but never quite got around to,” he explains. “Think of someone who, on their morning commute to work, daydreamed about an idea for a novel, but never wrote it. That book will be here, in all its half-thought-out, unfinished glory. Think of someone who wanted to write a story down for their child, but lacked the time. That book will be here. Or someone whose thoughts were filled with ideas about how to change the world, for better or for worse, but who kept those ideas in their head and never managed to set them down. That book, too, will be here.”
“Unwritten books?” I reply. “Isn't that kind of an oxymoron?”
“I don't make the rules,” he tells me. “I don't understand how it works, I can only tell you what I've found here. If you think the Great Library is large, then you should see this place. I've given up estimating how many books there are down in these tunnels, or how many miles the tunnels run for. Now, I'm not saying that everything here is worth reading. Quality doesn't seem to be a consideration, but these books continue to fill up the shelves, even though no-one ever comes down here to look at them. I've flicked through a few. As much as it pains me to admit this, I think the Hidden Library must be impossible to catalog.”
“Is that what the elders of the first citadel were trying to do?” Cromer asks.
“It's possible. We'll never know for sure, but it can't be a coincidence that the citadel was located here. Plus, someone had to have built the entrance.”
I continue to flick through the book that I'm holding, which doesn't even seem to have a title, and then I put it back on the shelf. Stepping past the others, I look along the tunnel for a moment, and then I turn to Cromer.
“How does this help us?” I ask him.
“I have no idea,” he replies.
“Even if what we need to find
is down here,” I continue, struggling to keep from feeling completely hopeless, “how would we find it?”
“That, I'm afraid, is a very good point,” Bartleby says. “I'm sorry I can't be of more help.”
“Do you know anything?” I ask The Book of Libraries, before trying to get it to open again. Unfortunately, it simply remains clamped tight shut. “Why did you think we should come all this way, if it's only going to be a dead end?”
“The Hidden Library is the opposite of a dead end,” Cromer points out. “That's the problem. There are so many different routes and tunnels, it'd take several lifetimes to map out even a tiny percentage of them.”
“Hey!” Christian says suddenly, stepping past me and crouching down, having spotted something on the ground. “Did you guys see this?”
He stands and turns to us, and I see that he's holding a long, thin strand of white hair. I realize that he's grimacing slightly, and finally he drops the hair and steps back, and he looks at his fingertips.
“That burned,” he says.
“Did it come from Rinth?” I ask, reaching down and picking the hair up, only to find that I too can only hold it for a few seconds before letting go. “It still has a charge.”
“Nobody else has been down here while I've been on the site,” Bartleby says. “Apart from trips to the nearby aisles to find food and water, I've spent all my time down here examining the ruins.”
“And you never saw Rinth?” I ask. “You never spotted a little white fur-ball bumping around?”
“I think I'd remember something like that,” he points out.
“How long have you been here?”
“I'd have to check my journals to be sure,” he replies, “but at least a few hundred years.”
“Then either Rinth slipped in and out once, without you noticing,” I continue, “or she was here long before you ever found the Hidden Library.”
“Isn't that kind of a stretch?” Christian asks. “We don't know how long one of her hairs would still have an electrical charge.”
I look ahead, and I spot something on the ground in the distance.
“There's another one!” I say, hurrying over and taking a look. Sure enough, Rinth seems to have left several hairs behind, and when I look along another tunnel I see a hair on the ground next to some more shelves. I pause for a moment, before turning to the others. “Rinth was here. Maybe a long time ago, but she came to this place. If she's really as old as people say, then it makes sense that she knows a few secrets. She might even have been around when the first citadel was built.”
“Okay,” Cromer says, “but how does that help us now?”
“We might not know what we're looking for down here,” I continue, “but Rinth must have come here for something specific. If she dropped enough hairs, we can follow them and try to figure out what she was after. It's not much, but it's better than standing around debating things forever, right?”
“Fair point,” Cromer replies. “Let's just make sure to leave the hairs on the ground where we find them, so we can use them to get out again.”
I head along the next tunnel, until I reach another hair. Looking ahead, all I see is the bare stone floor, but I'm sure we'll find more hairs eventually, hopefully leading us all the way to whatever Rinth was looking for. She might not be here anymore, but there's still a chance that she can act as our guide.
“What if this is all just a wild goose chase?” Christian asks as he and the others catch up to me. “Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Rinth's smart, but she never struck me as someone who really knew what she was doing.”
“If you want to wait back at the ruins, you can,” I tell him, “but I'm going to find out why Rinth came here.”
“I guess,” he says, as we set off again, searching for another hair that might show us which way to go. “I'll tell you one thing, though. I was born and raised in this world, and even I think that what we're doing right now is pretty nuts.”
For the next couple of hours, we continue to follow Rinth's hairs. Every so often, we seem to lose the trail, and we have to take a few wrong turns before we figure out where there's another hair. It's hard to imagine that Rinth was down here once, long ago, scurrying about in search of something specific, but I'm starting to understand that Rinth really must be pretty old. She probably knows more about the Great Library than anyone, even more than Claire Mathis and James Bartleby, so I can only hope that somehow we're able to piggy-back on the journey she made here in the past.
Finally, stopping next to one particular set of shelves, I see that there are six white hairs on the ground. Looking around, I realize this can only mean one thing.
“Rinth spent a long time in this section,” I say, turning to the others. “I think this might be where she found whatever she was looking for.”
Cromer looks around the next corner for a moment.
“I don't see any other hairs,” he tells us.
“I might be wrong,” I continue, “but I really think Rinth might have stopped in this spot to read something.”
“One of the books is sticking out slightly,” Christian points out, and I turn to see that he's approaching one shelf in particular. Sure enough, one of the books hasn't been pushed all the way back into its place, and I watch as Christian gently slides it out. “The Birth of All Worlds,” he reads from the cover of what turns out to be a surprisingly slim volume, maybe only fifty to a hundred pages, “by Thomas G. Rohmer. What do you think that means?”
“There's only one way to find out,” I tell him, before taking the book from his hands. “Whatever's in here, Rinth thought it was important enough to come all this way. I guess there's only one thing for us to do now.” I look at Christian, then Bartleby, then finally Cromer. “We have to read this book.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Well, that was certainly... unusual,” I say a couple of hours later, as I close the book, having finally finished reading its contents out loud for the others to hear. “Does anyone have any thoughts?”
“I can understand,” Cromer says after a moment, “why it was never actually published.”
“It just seemed like a load of unfinished thoughts and ideas,” Christian points out.
“That's because it is a load of unfinished thoughts and ideas,” Bartleby adds. “Whoever Thomas G. Rohmer was, he never put his theories down properly. He just daydreamed them, and eventually a book appeared here in the Hidden Library, containing the key points from those daydreams. This is the book he sort of, kind of, in his spare time, doodled in the back of his mind. It lacks the rigor and precision that would have come from the process of actually writing his ideas down properly. It's essentially useless.”
“Rinth obviously didn't think so,” I reply. “It seems to me that the main idea in this book is that each person, during their lifetime, creates a kind of inner world comprised of their thoughts and feelings, their experiences, their memories, everything that goes on in their head. And then once they die, their soul is trapped inside that inner world for eternity. If someone lived a rich life, filled with ideas and imagination, they'd eventually spend eternity in a rich world.”
“And if they lived a life with no imagination,” Cromer says, “and no ideas, no thoughts of their own, then they'd end up in...”
“A small world,” Christian suggests. “More like a prison. That's kind of scary to think about.”
“According to the ideas in this book,” I continue, “each person unknowingly creates a world during their lifetime, and lives there after they've died. There's some suggestion that people can occasionally cross from one world to another, to visit a friend, but the general gist is that their own world is their ultimate destiny. I'm not sure I can quite get my head around it all, but I think that's sort of how it's supposed to work.”
“The idea of multitudes of inter-connecting worlds is certainly not new here in the Great Library,” Bartleby says. “Grandapams, Forbidders, even humans... It was once thought that only half a dozen
or so of these worlds existed, but eventually we discovered that there were far more.”
“Every living person, maybe every living creature, creates one of these worlds,” I suggest. “Hey, does that mean dogs create worlds too? And cats? What about bacteria?”
“You've giving me a headache,” Christian says. “What does any of this have to do with our situation?”
I stare down at the book for a moment, trying to make sense of everything we've just learned.
“Rinth must have believed that at least some of these ideas are correct,” I say finally.
“Maybe Rinth was wrong,” Christian points out. “Maybe she came here, read the book, and realized it was just the ravings of some lunatic.”
“Maybe,” I reply, “but something must have drawn Rinth down here in the first place.”
“She might seem simple,” Cromer says, “almost child-like, but it's said that Rinth is ancient. I would not be too quick to dismiss anything that she believed.”
“So she came here looking for this book,” I continue, holding it up again for the others to see, “because somehow she believed it contained something important. How she even knew how and where to find it, I have no idea, but then again there's a lot about Rinth that seems pretty mysterious. But this book...” I look at its cover for a moment. “Something about this book was important to her. She was trying to figure something out.”
Before anyone can reply, a loud rumbling sound fills the air and the tunnel starts to shake. A crack opens in the ceiling, and a small amount of dust-like material rains down onto us.
“What was that?” I ask, filled with panic, worried that the tunnel might be about to collapse.