“Preserving knowledge may yet save many more lives than the would-be looters who might find this place.”
I snort.
“What?”
“The last time I was here, all but two of those who worked here refused to help us. To save the First Prince of the Empire. To stop a potential civil war. Preserving knowledge is one thing. But what use is knowledge if it’s kept only in the hands of the select few?”
She doesn’t seem to have an answer for that.
I force myself to focus on the task at hand. Too much has happened since I was last here to remember the pattern along the flagstones. So I retrieve another rock from the debris and roll it in front of me, waiting each time to make sure the paving doesn’t depress into the ground, on high alert for the sound of the mechanism being tripped.
My strategy serves me well. Soon enough, we’re about a third of the way across. I mutter a prayer of thanks to merciful Azered and push the rock out on to the next flagstone. Still fine.
We’re not yet to the place where Rakel got caught last time, when I heave the boulder in front of me. It teeters for a moment, then topples down on to the crack between two flagstones. There’s a sound like a huge bowstring snapping. Only through reflex do I manage to drop behind the rock as several spears clash into it.
Heart thundering, I look behind.
Ami was not so lucky.
She stands, so rigid that for several terrible heartbeats I think she must have been hit and I just can’t see the spear protruding. Then blood begins to ooze from a small graze across her forehead. It drips down over her eye. She makes no move to wipe it away, instead staring straight ahead to the seemingly unremarkable cliff where the weapons originated.
I slowly rise to my feet. “Are you all right?”
She blinks, as if only now realizing there’s blood in her eye, and teeters on her feet.
“Here.” I gesture to the boulder. “Sit.”
I remove the linen wrap from my head and offer it to her. “It could be cleaner, but it’s all I have. I’m so sorry.”
She stares at it for a long moment, then takes it, and staunches the blood.
I hold up my hand. “How many fingers do you see?”
“Three.”
Good. It must have been the most glancing of blows. Mother Esiku watches over her.
“Scalp wounds always look worse than they are.”
“Truly?”
I try for what I hope is a reassuring expression. “Though it’s probably best if you get this examined when we get inside. Unless you want to start a new sect of warrior-librarians. Then you should leave it – I’d wager the scar would buy you a good dose of credibility.”
It’s not a very good joke, but she manages a weak laugh.
“Are you able to walk?”
“I … I think so?”
At the concealed tunnel entrance, I light the candle lantern I’d picked up in Aphorai City. It barely illuminates the next step. The tunnel curves down and down and down in a seemingly endless spiral. I’m almost surprised after setting off the spear trap that nobody has come to greet us or head us off from our destination. When Rakel and I visited, it was clear the Library had set an effective watch – they knew when Rangers pursuing us had even entered the next canyon.
Where are they now?
Down, we walk, descending into the depths of the earth. I listen out for the first sign of the delvers, the Chroniclers responsible for carving out new chambers as the collections expand. But the only sounds are our footsteps and breathing, the rustle of our clothes.
Then I smell it.
“Is that smoke?” Ami sniffs the air.
“Char,” I surmise. “Let’s be cautious.”
By the time we reach the main chamber, the odour of a fire’s aftermath is undeniable. Last time I was here, the vast circular hall was lit up with a blue-green phosphorescence. Now, less than a quarter of the sconces emit their eerie light, and even that seems to be waning. The great statue of Asmudtag looms on the far wall, barely discernible from the soot and shadows. Even the carved stone walls are charred in places, where heaps of scrolls were piled against them and set alight, the only thing remaining the odd metal cylinder. A flash of mother-of-pearl catches the torchlight. The Kaidon phoenix – the imperial family’s crest. I attempt not to read it as a sign of ill portent.
Further in, it appears a bonfire had been set around the Archivist’s desk. Frames of some of the chairs and carved catalogue drawers have been reduced to their metal skeletons.
“Hello?” I call. “Anyone here?”
Ami runs forward and I let her go. I can only guess at the devastation she feels, at the way this would have torn at Nisai’s heart if he had known of this place, only to learn of its destruction.
When I catch up to her, she’s on her knees at the edge of the Archivist’s platform, scrabbling in the ashes. She looks up at my approach. Tears trail between the dark smudges on her cheeks.
“Who could do this?” Her voice is plaintive.
“The more pertinent question would be – who would do this? And are they still near?”
She flings a fistful of ash to the ground. “I should have realized. Whenever the Head Curator wasn’t around, it would be me that Zostar would seek out. I thought he was just one of those people who prided himself on being one of the intellectual elite, a physician flaunting his knowledge of history and other disciplines, like he wished he lived in the Great Bloom.”
I know the type she means. The ones at any court gathering who would always be talking the loudest about the facts and anecdotes they “just happened to pick up around the place”.
“We should see if anyone is still here.” She rises to her feet and attempts to dust her hands of the char. “If any of the Chroniclers are left, they may need our help.”
I follow as she heads towards one of the myriad doors leading from the main chamber, hoping for her sake we don’t find any bodies.
In the first few rooms, my hopes are borne out. We don’t find any charred corpses. We don’t find anyone at all.
Ami continues leading me through the chambers. As we pass through the shelves she shines the burning torch up and down. “If they left,” she muses, thumbing away soot to take note of the engraved number. “If they got out…”
“Perhaps they did. Before this happened. They seemed to have a sound sentry system when I was last here.”
When we reach a particular rack, she starts furiously sifting through the char – the only parts remaining of many of the scrolls the insignia on the ends of the cylinders.
“They’re not here,” she mutters to herself as she rubs one clean. “None of them are here.”
“What’s not here?”
“We have to keep looking. You know the Kaidon insignia?”
I nod. A mother-of-pearl phoenix inlaid in black Ekasyan stone. Like the ones I’d seen nearer to the entrance.
“We’re looking for the early Imperial equivalent. A silver phoenix inlaid in blue-black stone that’s translucent like glass. It only comes from Ekasya Mountain. Let’s spread out. If you find any scrolls intact in the surrounding racks, let me know. I need to check their numbers.”
But even when our hands are blackened with ash, we find nothing.
Ami wipes the sweat from her brow, leaving a dark smudge across the makeshift bandage around her brow. We’re really going to need to see to that soon.
“All the numbers immediately before and after are here. They must have been taken.”
“Rangers? Or the Chroniclers?”
“For our sake, and for theirs, I hope it’s the latter. Back in Ekasya, Zostar was studying the turns around the founding of the Empire for a reason. They’re the earliest records made after the Shadow Wars. They’re extremely rare and fragmented, but they’re our only sources that come close to telling us about the shadow warriors. The armies of Doskai.”
I shake my head. “What he did to me … those children…”
&nbs
p; “I think he’s trying to create another shadow army. And now he just might have the knowledge to do it.”
CHAPTER 12
LUZ
Vexed, is what I am. Truly vexed.
The Shield is alive. He made it to Aphorai City and out into the desert beyond. And all the while he’s somehow managed to stay ahead of me. It eventuates he’s also more cunning than I expected, covering his tracks so even I was second-guessing whether I’d lost them between the city and the sands.
When I sent the girl on her quest, I told her I’d look after her father. Curing him would have used less dahkai in the long run, but that would be breaking protocol, so I kept my word, ensuring his supply of the most advanced version of the Magister’s stand-in salve. Sometimes I even personally delivered it, when it suited. It’s no small thing to know your actions are buying a man another moon or ten. Before the salve began to fail in some patients, I would have ventured he could once again start measuring his future in turns.
Still, the old man doesn’t know that, and I’ve built up a decent rapport with Hab. It’s good tradecraft – the more friends one has, the less one finds oneself in need of using less palatable methods than polite conversation to glean information.
Hab assured me they left to come here. Yet the positively delightful thought occurs to me – perhaps he was sorely mistaken, and a rollicking about-face will be required to pick up the trail. I truly could be perched here on the edge of the canyon’s maw, getting the kind of tan I loathe … for nothing.
Oh, the tedium.
No, there we go: distant voices.
I could investigate more closely, but that wouldn’t be prudent: only a fool would corner a rabid animal. So I stay at the top of the canyon. It’s the best vantage point. The risk is that they catch wind of me being here fast enough to elude me in a chase. That risk is acceptable, and, I’d venture by the fact they’ve tethered their mounts well clear, unlikely to manifest.
A bead of sweat trickles behind my ear and I wipe it away. Aphorai born and bred I may be, but the desert has always felt … distasteful. Nothing good can come of one’s body odour reaching absolute concentration.
I chose the wrong profession. Give me fountains and shade like the next civilized person.
Below me is the entrance of what was formerly the Library, the reek of old ashes persisting. Though I suspect I know full well who has been behind the destruction, it’s been an act of immense restraint not investigating. When exactly it happened, the extent of the damage, is something the Order will need to ascertain. I wonder why we heard nothing. Were the stubborn old Chroniclers too proud to send a bird? Always so fusty and puffed-up with their own self-importance, and refusing to offer aid or seek it. But that doesn’t mean I’d want to see them succumb to the flames.
Movement catches my eye. Finally. Down on the canyon floor, a figure with burnished copper hair emerges from the Library’s tunnel. A second figure follows, walking like a warrior. Tattoos trail from under close-cropped black hair. All the way out here, he probably figures it’s safe to have not bothered to cover his head. His mistake.
It’s him, no speculating about it.
Wonderful.
Only one thing left to accomplish.
I heft the small jar in my palm. A precise blend of mandragora, sultis and poppy powder. The first is enough to sedate without paralyzing, the second makes even the most stubborn forget where they were and what they were seeking to achieve, and the third makes it seem like both those states of being are the loveliest to inhabit. The poppy isn’t strictly necessary, but I’ve always felt there’s a certain etiquette about these things.
All I need do is toss it into the canyon and, on impact, it will explode. Within a few breaths anyone down there will be willing to follow me to the end of the earth, at least until they give in to an irresistible drowsiness.
From there, it will only take a flick of a wrist.
Mercy until maturity.
I should do it. Here and now. Before they see me.
Something stays my hand. Tenets must be obeyed, but nowhere in the Order’s rulebook does it say you can’t do a little information gathering first. I’m ever loath to leave an unturned stone. Even if the secrets beneath are like young scorpions – you can never tell how much venom they’ll inject into the situation.
Instead of tossing the jar, I toe a shard of sandstone, sending it skittering over the edge as if I am but a clumsy sniffling out on their first adventure. Best to announce my presence so neither of them get any bold ideas.
They look up and I give them an exaggerated shrug of apology followed by my friendliest wave. I even summon a smile that conveys a reassuring openness that I find about as attractive as oversweetened lover’s perfume on an earnest young hopeful.
The Shield shifts, an almost imperceptible change at this distance, but anyone who has ever done serious close-quarters fighting in their time would be at pains to notice.
Better diffuse any tension as soon as possible.
“Greetings, fellow travellers!” I call down as chirpily as one can when shouting. “I mean no harm.”
Copperlocks clutches something to her chest. A souvenir? You can take the librarian out of the library…
“Who’re you?” The Shield’s baritone rumbles around the cliffs. His accent speaks of the slums, not court. Clever boy.
“Your name is Ashradinoran, yes?
“Ain’t never heard that name before.”
“Come now, might we dispense with this bluster? I have information for you. Not to mention water and food – looks like you’re running light on both. There’s a tidy little cave not far from here that I’m sure you’ll find most interesting. Follow the east branch of the canyon and you should find it easily enough.”
“And if we choose not to see this cave?”
“Entirely your prerogative, my wayward travellers. If I don’t see you there by the time the second moon rises …”
I’ll hunt you down.
“… I’ll assume you’re not interested in reuniting with your Prince.”
Instead of starting up the canyon as suggested, he nudges Copperlocks forward until she disappears under the shade of the cliff. His Shield instincts have taken over, no doubt intending to prevent them from becoming easy arrow targets.
I sigh. “I’ll have it known, I would have preferred to do this the civil way.”
I toss the jar into the ravine.
I lead their mounts to the cave, my human charges trailing us as docile as tuldah foals following an Edurshain herder’s song.
Then they sleep. Like the dead.
I’m not perturbed. Rather, it gives me time to clear out the long-desiccated remnants of the previous resident: a black-feathered lion. Too slow or injured to hunt larger game, I’d venture it retreated here to subsist on sandsquab and canyon squirrel until it found its final rest. At dusk, I build a fire at the cave’s entrance in case one of the beast’s descendants decides it’s time for them to follow in their ancestor’s footsteps.
There’s a boulder nearby, and I settle on to it, gazing up at the slice of stars above the canyon, my thoughts drifting as they are wont to do to the foibles of the Younger Gods. How disappointed Asmudtag must be in their children, to have been no better than the mortals they once walked among. Though if it weren’t for…
I pop a clove pastille into my mouth, concentrating on the spiced sweetness to prevent mention of the Lost God passing my lips.
Copperlocks is the first to wake, regaining her senses with a delicate little mewl.
I return to the cave, stretch my arms wide, hands circling in a courtly flourish. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
“You live here?” She blinks up at me, pupils large and dark this far from the fire, then turns the same incredulous expression down to where her hands are tied at the wrists. Bound, but with linen padding between the rope and her skin.
I’m no barbarian.
“Come now, do they not have figures of spe
ech where you hail from?”
She may be as naïve as she is pretty, but there’s a sharp intellect there as well, taking in her surrounds like she’s reading whole scrolls into every detail. I’d venture she thinks first, acts second.
I wonder if that ever gets her into trouble.
Just as I might be getting myself into trouble for delaying the inevitable. Particularly now that the Shield is stirring. He groans, stretching his neck and twisting his spine one way and then the other before slumping back against the cave wall, though he’s still shifting in a way that lets me know he’s testing his bindings.
Naturally, they’re tighter than the ones I fitted on Copperlocks.
“Who are you?” He demands again, grey eyes narrow.
I’ve long found that delaying an answer gives one an air of calm superiority. And if even a sliver of the gossip that’s emanated from the capital about him is true, an air of calm is of the highest value in this interaction.
“Here.” I hold out my waterskin, much fuller than the one tied to the Shield’s sorry excuse for a pack – like he’s bundled everything he owns into a ragged bedsheet – and gesture to Copperlocks.
She hesitates.
“Worried about poison?” I ask, tone arch, then take a pointed sip.
“You can’t blame me, can you?” She leans forward and I gently tip the waterskin against her lips, letting her take several gulps.
It was true, there’s nothing adulterated about the water. But the waterskin itself? Smeared with a paste made from suggos powder and nai balm, the latter to mask the smell. While she’s drinking, she’s breathing my best truth serum, which I’ve methodically, increment by increment, inured myself against over the turns. Painstaking work, but utterly worth the inconvenience.
I crouch in front of the Shield, proffering the water skin.
He shakes his head.
No matter, the proximity should be close enough for him to inhale sufficient amounts.
“Who are you,” he grates again.
If only I had a coin for every time I’d been asked that question. “Frankly, I’m more interested in you.”
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