[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
than they could have learned if they studied here at Kisha for two hundred
years.
Zanja surrendered the candle to Coles and mutely followed him down the narrow
aisles. The linen-wrapped books on these shelves were very large, and in the
unsteady light seemed poised to drop on her head in an avalanche.
"We do not belong here," she whispered.
"No, of course not," muttered Coles. "We presumptuous boys, who for the price
of
a pie are giving up the secrets of all history to a complete stranger."
"I only need one fact, Master Student, not the secrets of all history. But
where
do we seek it?"
"I don't know yet," he said cheerfully. "How is your prescience?
"It's kept me alive a few times, but not always."
"What is it like to die?"
"You warn us of skulking librarians, the suspicious bastards! And I will both
seek and find, for I am a glyphologist, and I am never intimidated by
Mystery!"
The three young men behind Zanja snorted sarcastically. But they all followed
Coles's light. From time to time he paused to shine his fluttering flame on
the
dark, carved side of a shelf upright, where one or two ornate glyphs were
painted and illuminated with gold leaf so their shapes shimmered in the faint
light. Their forms were fantastically decorated and to Zanja were
unrecognizable, yet Coles needed only to examine them for a moment, and not
only
did he understand them but he also perceived a logic in the overall
arrangement.
First one way and then another he turned, paused, backtracked, and turned
again,
finding a way through the invisible labyrinth.
"Ah!" he gestured so extravagantly with the candle that he nearly blew it
out.
"Did I not promise you?"
His light revealed a map rack, which stretched into the gloom like the wall of
a
dark and not entirely unhazardous alley. In each of its pigeonholes resided a
rolled up, linen-wrapped map: at least a hundred in total, though it was not
easy to estimate in the uncertain light. Coles, trying to read a label pasted
to
the shelf's edge, held the candle flame too close to the linen, and Zanja felt
a
sharp panic. "Do you want to become notorious for burning down the library?"
Coles made an exasperated sound but moved the candle. "If you had gotten a
lampù" He studied a paper label pasted on the edge of the shelf. "Lilter 45,"
he
read. "At least the labels are in letter form."
Zanja handed out candles to the three others, admonishing each of them
against
carelessness. "Find me the most recent map of Shaftal."
The young men lit their candles and moved to push back the darkness that
filled
the narrow space between the cases. Zanja could scarcely bear to watch their
flames so near that dry paper.
Page 152
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The young men began reading labels out loud to each other. Legs drew out a
map,
at great hazard. Zanja said, "I'm going to go away on my own for a short
while... I want to see what I can, as I doubt I'll ever be here again. I
think
we're safe enough from the librarians."
Coles gestured vaguely.
He would write a glyphic poem about this night, a poem that Zanja would one
day
transliterate. And she would quote it to Emil as they climbed some stairs to
discover a huge store of books that one brave librarian would rescue from the
fire. She felt the vertigo again.
She couldn't find the way by reason and began to take her direction from
intuition alone. Her candle showed only the next step, but that was enough.
The
students' lights disappeared. She made her way past the dim, unrelenting
secrecy
of the shelves, the ambiguous, glittering glyphs, the heavy darkness that
only
grew heavier. The boys behind her became memories; she only knew that what
she
wanted became more achievable with every step.
She looked up. The books were not so grand here: small but fat volumes
bundled
up in bleached linen like so many packets of flour.
She stopped with her hand on a bundle, neatly tied up with cloth ribbons. She
undid the bows and opened the cloth, and there lay Gerunt's Decision. She had
last seen this book on Emil's worktable: not this exact book, of course, but
a
later edition from the time that printing presses came into general use and
any
plowman or barber or blacksmith could afford a book. But Emil's copy, which
had
needed much repair, had been saved from this very library. This handwritten
book
was as direct an ancestor of his printed copy as Zanja could hope to find.
This book was beautifully, ornately bound in dyed leather, with gold leafing
and
painted decorations. Zanja folded the letter to Emil into a slim packet and
slid
it carefully into the spine. Then, she wrapped up the book again and tied the
ribbons, and, with a feeling like one gets when shooting into darkness, left
the
book as she had found it. To send a letter in this manner was ridiculous.
She followed her feet again, and gradually the murmur of voices and the light
of
four candle flames emerged from the heavy silence and darkness. All four
students knelt at the corners of a map they had unrolled onto the floor, with
their hands cupped to catch the dripping wax as they illuminated the
contorted
coast of Shaftal. Even at this distance Zanja could see the extraordinary
detail
of a Truthken's map. But she felt indifferent to whatever they had discovered.
During her entire time in this Shaftal, she had engaged in wrongdoing when
she
had to, while striving to avoid doing any real harm-In order to sustain this
contradictory balance she must now leave, promptly and quietly, with the
library
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]