The Black Shriving (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 2) (21 page)

But Audsley schooled his features and nodded. "As you wish, Ser Tiron. Excuse my enthusiasm. If we may proceed?"

Tiron was slowly scanning the far reaches of the room. In some places, Audsley observed, you could see for a great distance, through six or seven of these semi-chambers, the line of sight unobstructed by the broad columns and bookcases. In other places you could only see into the next chamber before a wall of books cut off your vision. It was impossible to tell how large the room was, but Audsley felt on an innate level that it was vast.

"Ser," said Bogusch, voice clipped. The man pointed with his sword.

Turning, Audsley refrained from a gasp of horror. A blast of magic or some terrible gout of flame has destroyed an entire section of one wall, charring countless books into shriveled black husks on their stone shelves. Bodies lay curled and withered on the ground where the fire had caught them.

"Look like the fighting made its way here as well," said Tiron. "All of Starkadr must have been caught up in it. Proceed carefully, men. We're in no rush."

Audsley led them to the closest collection of books. There had to be a key, a map of some kind that would help one navigate the shelves, to determine what lay where for ease of reference. Tapping his chin, he examined the spines. No codes or numbering marked the books in any uniform way. The language was ancient Sigean, unfortunately, so he pulled down a dusty yellow book and ran his fingers gently over the clothbound cover before cracking it open.

Tiron waited a couple of minutes until his impatience got the better of him. "And? What is it?"

"As far as I can tell, a work of history," said Audsley, turning a page. "A history that predates my own knowledge of the world. It describes a nation once known as Alaon. According to the author, it had been but recently conquered and added to the expanse of Ennoia when this book was written."

Tiron grunted. "So, of no use to us."

Audsley bit back his protest. His mind was spinning. He had no idea what had predated the Empire. Oh, everyone knew that the Ascendant had crushed the remains of the old republic into the Empire, casting the individual ruler of each city-state through the Black Gate for defying him, with Queen Aleanna of Aletheia being the last to fall - but what had predated
them
? What had come before the republic? It was only known now by the pleasing yet vague term "the Age of Wonders". Did this Alaon date from that mysterious age?

Audsley set the book back, then turned to the others. "I'm going to need time. I cannot decipher the complexity of this library in ten minutes while you guard my back with blades."

"Then let us explore this library first and clear it of potential dangers," said Tiron. "Audsley, behind me. Bogusch, bring up the rear. Come on, Temyl."

Their little band probed deeper into the warren of chambers. While Tiron and the others always peered into side chambers or down curving corridors in search of movement, Audsley had only eyes for the shelves. There was a logic here; he could sense it -- some governing principle that made the layout purposeful and not haphazard. The rooms seemed to be organized in long curves that swept around each other, occasionally linked across curves by short passages. Yet the pattern was hard to grasp, and with his vision of the whole limited to the few chambers he could see through the gloom, Audsley found himself growing more frustrated.

They found no danger. Here and there they came across ancient pockets of resistance where men and women had been cornered and slaughtered. Their bodies spoke of their pitiful fight, with some even having brandished heavily embossed books as shields before being struck down. It was hard not to imagine their screams echoing amongst the tunnels, and the slap of their sandaled feet as they fled death into the depths of the library. Fled but not evaded, for everywhere Audsley found death.

Eventually Tiron grunted and declared himself content. There were no other entrances to the library that they could find, so with some guesswork and after a moment during which it seemed they might be lost, they returned to the fore chamber to confer.

Audsley smoothed down his now rather filthy and very worn tunic. "So. What will be our plan of attack?"

Tiron slid his blade into its scabbard. "I see no reason to split the group. We'll accompany you as you do your research, but stay out of your way."

Audsley nodded. "Very well. But don't expect miracles and marvels. This work is liable to be slow and tedious to the outside observer."

Then he belied his words by rubbing his hands together and stepping toward the stacks. Over the next hour he drifted like a bee from flower to flower, pulling down a book here, glancing at titles there, and seeking always to find some rhyme or reason to the layout of the chambers. It was tantalizingly close, but always it evaded him. He developed a distinct sense of continuing circularity, however, and saw how some subjects led into others, but was flummoxed by other juxtapositions.

Finally he sighed and returned a slender book of illegible words in verse form to its niche. He linked his hands behind his back and began to pace, staring at the floor as he ordered his thoughts. This was a library in the heart of Starkadr, yet he'd not found any texts on sin casting or magic. Were there other, more secret, libraries? That seemed very possible. Yet this one was on the third level down from the command center, as Tiron called it. Its location spoke to its importance. There was a center that he was missing, a nexus that had evaded him.

Pursing his lips, he stared at the floor, wondering if he should assay the drawing of a map, and it was then that he blinked and saw the lines. They were etched into the black rock: long, impossibly perfect curves that passed through the entire length of the room and into the one beyond it. Following the line, he reached the room's threshold and saw a rune carved into the floor. It wasn't in ancient Sigean, but it looked familiar. Ah, yes - an Aletheian pictogram of surprising simplicity.

Excited, he hurried to another archway, and saw a second pictogram inscribed in the floor.

Tiron roused himself from where he'd fallen into a doze. "No running off."

"I know. I shan't, but - never mind."

Explaining would take too much time. Aletheian pictograms were self-contained stories, written like a blossoming flower whose meaning could only be deciphered when the entirety of the message was taken in at once. Each element derived its meaning from where it lay in the drawing, resulting in poetry, allegory, or even pleasing nonsense, depending on the context. The most complex of pictograms defied unified understanding, and said more about the reader than the text itself.

These, however, were brutally stripped down. At a glance they seemed almost meaningless, for there weren't enough elements to impart a tale or narrative of any kind.

Tapping his chin, Audsley wandered back and forth from each threshold, comparing the two. Similar but with key differences, they almost appeared to be placeholders, or incomplete pictograms whose meaning was predicated on an understanding of information that had been left out. A fragment of a fragment.

Nonplussed, Audsley sat down next to Tiron and closed his eyes.

"Taking a break?" The knight's gruff voice was amused. "I thought you could read forever."

"Not a break. Attempting to solve a puzzle."

The fragments were incomplete. Perhaps the knowledge of their import had been so commonplace back in the day that there had been no need to write it out in full?

"What puzzle's that, then?" Temyl scooted closer. "If you don't mind my asking, Magister. I like puzzles. My nan was wicked smart and would while away the winter nights with more puzzles then you could shake a stick at."

"At the threshold of each door is an incomplete word in the Aletheian pictorial script," said Audsley. "Written as they are, they make no sense. Even in reference to their neighboring words, they are tantalizingly obscure. I'm sure, however, that they provide the means of navigating the library."

Temyl stood and walked over to the threshold and stared down at the pictogram. Then he smiled fatuously and shrugged. "Sorry. Afraid even my nan couldn't help you with this one, Magister. This whole library is a puzzle, if you ask me."

Audsley blinked. "What was that?"

Temyl paused. A brief look of panic crossed his face. "What was what?"

"What you said. The whole library is the puzzle." Audsley climbed to his feet. "Could it be?"

Temyl glanced at Tiron uneasily for reassurance. "I think it is. At least, I think I think I do."

"Each pictogram is part of a greater whole." Audsley hurried into the next chamber, ignoring Tiron's muttered oath. "Their elements make sense only when understood from the point of view of the library in its entirety. We'll need to map the layout, and then examine how the pictograms figure into the junctions. Hurry!"

It took them almost an hour to walk through every room, pausing so that Audsley could ink in a diagram of the library's scope. Aedelbert followed along placidly, clearly at home amongst the stacks. As they went, Audsley noted down the pictogram at each junction, growing more excited as he went.

The library was laid out in gorgeous fashion, a sublime mimesis of a pictogram all its own that spoke of knowledge as an ever-refreshing source of immortality or youth, depending on how one read it. The different seams of knowledge - history, philosophy, and so forth - fell like water in a fountain in curving lines toward a missing center.

"You see here, this blank space, the hub around which the library should turn?" Audsley spread out his map on a table so the others could crowd around it. "This is where I believe the knowledge we need is hidden."

"Very well," said Tiron. "And how do we access it?"

"Well, if one traces the flow of the different knowledges throughout the curvatures of the library - see how poetry is a natural offshoot of philosophy? - one sees that the pictograms complete each other when one selects the correct combination. So, it becomes a question of selecting the pictograms that would spell out 'magic' or the like. Easily done!"

Audsley frowned at the map. A few minutes passed, and still his search was fruitless. There was no such combination.

"And?" Tiron's voice was perfectly balanced between impatience and politeness.

"Hmm. They wouldn't have called it 'magic', I suppose. Or sin casting." Audsley narrowed his eyes in thought. A memory tugged at his mind, a sense of something glimpsed and forgotten. "They had a different name for their magic." Then it came to him: a slender tome found in the rooms behind Mythgræfen Hold. "The Path of Flames!" Again he bent down to the map, and this time the pictograms fit together perfectly. "Here - this portion from geography could be read as 'path'. And here, this section from philosophy, when combined with this pictogram from poetry, could be read as 'fire' or 'the fire of knowledge' or perhaps 'the fire of self-awareness'."

He beamed at the others, but they simply stared back. Audsley coughed. "Well, if I'm correct, there should be a curving line passing through these pictographs, all the way around this far side of the library, and then sinking into the core right about... here."

He stabbed down at the map with a finger and squinted at his notes. "A room which I think deals with cooking? I'm not sure, but let's go take a look."

A few minutes later Audsley led the group at a near run into the chamber in question. It was unassuming, its walls crowded with books, three archways leading to other, larger rooms.

Audsley pushed his glasses up and blinked at the floor. "Let's see, yes, through the archway here, you see this line? It curves beautifully right up to this... wall."

The line, etched into the black stone, swung in through one archway and terminated at the base of a slender expanse of blank stone. Audsley frowned at it. "That's... very strange." He stepped up and knocked on the wall. It was solid and cold. He ran the pictograms though his mind, picturing the map. "Did I get the combination wrong?" He could feel the disappointment in the group behind him. No, the three pictograms were simple, yet clear. Speaking in ancient Aletheian, he spoke them out in turn. "
The Path of Flames
."

The wall disappeared, and Audsley stumbled forward, off balance, into a great circular room. Only a railing prevented him from plunging over the edge of a balcony and into the depths of the room below, for there were consecutive small rings of balconies descending in telescopic manner down to a circular table at the room's center below, around which sat six corpses.

Audsley fixed his glasses and gaped. The walls were covered in tomes, but these appeared unique in character, all of them bound in black with crimson writing on their spines.

"Well done, Audsley." Tiron entered, sword drawn, but he spoke in a quiet voice as if he had entered a chapel of the Ascendant. "Well done, indeed."

"Yes," said Audsley, pushing off the railing. "This is it. The answer to the Portals and much else lies in these books. I'm sure of it."

"Who do you think they were?" Bogusch pointed down at the central table where the bodies were sitting. They were wearing robes of black, and their postures and stillness imbued them with a dignity that had been robbed from the other bodies by violence.

"I've no idea," said Audsley. "But I would guess... I would guess that they might have been important. The head librarians, perhaps, or leaders of Starkadr."