Seventh Decimate

  Now he was able to see how the huge space was lit. The distant ceiling held an array of heavily glassed windows to admit as much illumination as the day offered. And set into the edges of each opening below the balcony railings were a multitude of lamps, all shining with a brightness that seemed unnatural—and none smoking. They burned some oil that did not fume; or their light was made by sorcery.

  After further scrutiny, he understood why the levels of the library were offset from each other rather than stacked evenly. Their irregularity allowed each to be reached by wooden spiral staircases from those immediately above and below it. But why the sorcerers had elected to construct stairs within the enormous cavity rather than through its walls baffled him. The makers of the Repository could have designed it however they wished. Apparently, they wanted to preserve the thickness and solidity of the walls for some reason.

  To protect the books from assault?

  Prince Bifalt knew the world was larger than his capacity to imagine it. That disturbing, undesired recognition had been imposed on him against his will. Still, he could conceive of no force anywhere mighty enough to take by siege—or even to harm—the Repository of the sorcerers. The Last Repository.

  Nevertheless, thinking that the library had enemies comforted him. If the Magisters here felt a need to ward their treasure of knowledge from attack, they were not immune to fear; not secure in their superiority. Despite the power of their inhuman gifts, they were natural men to this extent: they could be made afraid.

  Prince Bifalt did not want to meet any strength terrible enough to threaten the library. He did not want to know what it might be. He had already encountered too much that surpassed him. But he was comforted to suppose that such a force might exist.

  Any man who could be made afraid could be beaten.

  While the Prince gnawed on elusive possibilities, Magister Marrow interrupted him. “There,” said the librarian, pointing upward. “All of my ancestor’s books. They are on the seventeenth round. The one you want is there.

  “Come.”

  Without waiting for a reply, the sorcerer headed unerringly for the nearest spiral staircase.

  The theurgists of the Repository could be made afraid. Magister Rummage could be made afraid.

  Sudden eagerness sent Prince Bifalt after his host.

  However, eagerness did not carry him far. The climb was more strenuous than he expected. He had eaten well, rested thoroughly. Still, his lungs and muscles had not regained their familiar stamina, their trained endurance. And the librarian set a brisk pace. Before long, the Prince began to pant. Later, only a strict effort of will kept him from gasping audibly. In spite of his determination, his steps slowed.

  The sorcerer’s did not. The blind old man was a floor above his guest when he halted at last. Without obvious impatience, he called down, “Soon, Prince. Take the time you need. There is no hurry.”

  Mocking the King of Belleger’s eldest son—

  Hells.

  To measure his progress, Prince Bifalt glanced down—and nearly cried out. The floor seemed impossibly far away. The distance had increased more than he had climbed, or the thinness of the air had unmoored his mind. The lower levels wheeled below him: the steps where he stood tilted. The library itself mocked him. Without the railing of the staircase to protect him, he might have pitched headfirst to his death.

  There were too many books—

  The Last Repository was as arrogant as its Magisters. It held unnatural quantities of power of impossible kinds; immeasurable resources. Because they could do anything, its keepers believed they had the right to do everything. They could determine the life and death of realms, and did not fault themselves for doing so.

  Gasping for air—for balance—Prince Bifalt fought to recover his resolve. He began to withstand the library’s endless circles and spirals, its chaos of written words. For a moment, he seated himself heavily on the stairs, held his head in his hands, and breathed. When he resumed his ascent, he left dizziness and falling behind.

  “Here you are,” said the librarian as the Prince joined him at last. If he smiled, his beard concealed it. “Where we stand is higher than any point in Belleger. Much higher. The air is indeed thin. You are not accustomed to it.”

  He was offering Prince Bifalt an excuse; but the Prince had no use for it. Through his panting, he answered only, “The book.”

  “Of course.” Magister Marrow nodded. “The book. Hexin Marrow’s Seventh Decimate.” His tone expressed exasperation and amusement equally. “It is here.”

  Gesturing behind him, he turned and strode away around the balcony.

  As the Prince had guessed, the balcony was wide enough to accommodate a number of tables and many more chairs without crowding them against the uninterrupted wall of bookcases. Here two women clad as Magisters were the only other people present. They sat with their books several tables away from each other, and did not raise their heads as the librarian and then Prince Bifalt passed. Indeed, they were motionless in their concentration, so rapt and still that they resembled effigies. Neither of them appeared to breathe. If he had not seen one of them turn a page, the Prince might have suspected that they had died in their chairs unnoticed. With no sound or memory for guidance, the blind librarian might not be aware of them.

  At his destination, Magister Marrow stopped. Facing the bookcases, he spread his arms. “Here,” he announced. “The complete writings of Hexin Marrow. All of them. He lived a long time and wrote everything down. Everything. Mountains of paper. Shelf after shelf of notes. Most of it disjointed. Much of it useless.”

  While the librarian talked, Prince Bifalt peered at the shelves, trying to read titles or recognize names. But he was still laboring for air, and his eyes refused to focus clearly.

  “Fortunately,” continued the sorcerer, “it is not all useless. Whenever his researches led him to an important conclusion, he troubled himself to organize his thoughts and compose a tome. All the Decimates are here. All so lucidly written that only an illiterate fool could fail to understand them.”

  As if the question implied no offense, he asked, “Are you illiterate, Prince?”

  Without pausing for a reply, he pounced at the shelves. “And here,” he announced, “is my ancestor’s Seventh Decimate.”

  Snatching a volume from the bookcase, he thrust it toward his guest.

  With trembling hands, Prince Bifalt took the book, turned it to examine its cover.

  It was bound in leather as heavy as a form of armor: it could have stopped a bullet. Its author and title were deeply inset, the lettering gilded until it seemed to glow. He could not fail to read it, or be mistaken.

  Sounding stupid, even to himself, he muttered, “This is not the book.”

  Another test. A trick.

  A betrayal.

  “Not?” cried the librarian. “Preposterous! It must be.”

  Vehemently, he tore the book from the Prince. With his hands, his fingers, he examined it front and back. Then he held it at arm’s length, squinting as if he sought to see through his blindness.

  “Absurd!” he exclaimed. “Impossible. I know this book. I know them all. It is Sylan Estervault’s work. A Treatise on the Fabrication of Cannon Using Primitive Means. It belongs on the fourth round.” Suddenly clasping the book to his chest, he added in a changed voice, “Though it might interest you.”

  Swallowing every word he wanted to spit at Magister Marrow, Prince Bifalt ventured, “A mistake—”

  Of course the book interested him. Without sorcery, Belleger would need every possible form of gun. But guns were not what he had been sent to find.

  “Mistake?” snapped the librarian, instantly irate. “What do you mean?”

  “It was put here by mistake.” The Prince shrugged stiffly. “Some servant—”

  “Impossible!” repeated the sorcerer. “Absurd. You moc
k me, Prince. Every book taken from the shelves is returned to me. It is not put back. It is delivered to my chamber. I restore it to its proper place. How else can I know where every scroll and paper and volume in the library is?”

  Now Prince Bifalt felt sure that some trick was being played on him. He abandoned caution. “I do not mock you,” he retorted. “You mock me. There was no mistake. You are toying with me. You knew from the first that the book was not here.”

  “Nonsense.” Magister Marrow rasped an obscure curse. Scowling like thunder, he faced the bookcase again. “There!” He pointed at a book beside the space left by A Treatise on the Fabrication of Cannon Using Primitive Means. “Marrow’s Sixth Decimate.”

  Prince Bifalt read the book’s title on its spine. Sixth Decimate. He read its author’s name. Hexin Marrow.

  “And there,” continued the librarian. “Fifth Decimate. And there.” He pointed past the gap. “Eighth Decimate. Then Final Decimate.” He recited the titles as if the clear letters on the spines proved his honesty.

  Despite his fuming, the Prince read the spines. An eighth Decimate? A final one? If the seventh blocked the very possibility of sorcery, how much harm remained? What could be worse?

  A man is not a man at all—

  “Seventh Decimate,” insisted the librarian, “should be with its companions. It is always here. I brought you because I believed it would be here.”

  To Prince Bifalt, the reason for the book’s absence was obvious. Clenching his fists, he suggested harshly, “Then Amika has it.”

  “What?” The old man wheeled on the Prince. He sounded more than surprised: his tone suggested chagrin. “How would Amika have it?”

  Not why. How. As if the why were trivial. As if only the how had import.

  Without flinching, Prince Bifalt held the Magister’s opaque glare. He bit the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from saying what was in his mind.

  These sorcerers had conspired with Amika to arrange Belleger’s destruction. The librarian was surprised by the accuracy of Prince Bifalt’s insight. He was chagrined by the prospect of exposure.

  But Magister Marrow recovered his poise in an instant. Suddenly calm, he admitted, “A mistake, yes. A mistake of mine. There is no other explanation. You have seen my chamber, the piles on my desk. Those texts were brought to me so that I could put them in their proper places. Seventh Decimate must be there.

  “I have been too much distracted. I have forgotten—”

  The sorcerer spread his hands: a gesture of placation. “I offer my apologies, Prince. The book you want is surely there. It has not been removed from the Last Repository. No. I would have felt its departure. A sting like a wound here.” He patted his chest. “When I find it, I will send it to your quarters.”

  Then he added almost humbly, “The study of sorcery teaches strange sources of amusement. It is not my intent to mock you.”

  The Prince snorted to himself. Clenching his teeth, he kept silent. He had never loathed sorcery and sorcerers more than he did now.

  Although his sharpest wish at that moment was to be free of Magister Marrow’s company, Prince Bifalt followed the blind man down through the rounds of the library toward the inhabited levels of the keep. As he spiraled lower, however, his determination gathered force. He had suffered more indignities than he was prepared to endure. His willingness to attempt the misdirections of diplomacy was at an end. He only held his tongue because he wanted a chance to speak without being overheard.

  When he and his guide finally left the imponderable mass of books behind, he seemed to feel their weight lift from his shoulders: the weight, perhaps, of his own ignorance. Beyond question, he was no match for men who knew so much; men who felt such scorn for ordinary people whose only failing was an accident of birth. On this level of the keep, however, he could breathe. He squared his shoulders and lifted his head, stopped watching where he put his feet. Trusting himself on stairs that did not circle, on floors that did not need railings, he spoke as soon as he and the Magister were alone.

  “I will ask one question,” he announced abruptly. “One answer will satisfy me until I have the book in my hands.”

  Pausing, the old man cocked an eyebrow.

  “When,” demanded Prince Bifalt, “will you tell the truth?”

  Magister Marrow sighed. “When you do, Prince. When you do.”

  Then he waved his hand. At once, a servant appeared from a side passage. “This monk,” said the sorcerer, “will escort you to your quarters. I have had enough of you for one day.

  “Do not return to the refectory. Food will be brought to you when you request it. I am not inclined to risk another of your outbreaks. Magister Rummage will not be so gentle a second time.”

  Turning his back, the librarian walked away.

  Not inclined? Prince Bifalt was not inclined to restrain himself. “When we speak again,” he called after the librarian, “I will ask why you are afraid.”

  Magister Marrow did not reply. He did not appear to have heard.

  Cursing viciously, the Prince allowed himself to be led back to his isolated quarters.

  At his door, however, he stopped. “Hear me well, monk,” he said to his guide. “Inform the Magisters I must speak with my comrade, Elgart. He must be brought to me. If he is not, I will force Magister Rummage to cripple me. I will force him to cripple me repeatedly until I am killed, or Elgart is brought here.”

  He needed to speak with the only man in the castle who understood his dilemma and shared his purpose.

  He needed to be sure Elgart had not been harmed. Or swayed.

  And he wanted a map. If the librarian kept his word, the Prince intended to escape from the Last Repository. Somehow. If he could.

  Promising nothing, the servant bowed dutifully.

  When he was gone, Prince Bifalt entered his rooms, slammed the door, bolted it. Then he grabbed a flask of wine and drank until its acidic aftertaste threatened to choke him.

  —I will send it to your quarters.

  He did not believe anything that Magister Marrow had told him. Seventh Decimate would not be delivered to him. It was in Amika’s possession already. Or Commander Forguile had it. The librarian had lied. He would not stop lying. Slack had taught Prince Bifalt that the gift of sorcery was also the gift of lies. And if he had failed to learn his lesson from Slack, he had been given fresh lessons in Set Ungabwey’s carriage.

  Briefly, he considered drinking himself into unconsciousness. Then he set the impulse aside. In spite of every frustration, he still hoped to speak with Elgart; and if his last comrade were brought to him, he would need a clear mind. He was Prince Bifalt, the King of Belleger’s eldest son. He could wait to dull the distress of his thwarted heart.

  PART FIVE

  Nonetheless, his helplessness ate at him. It gnawed on his bones like a feasting predator. When he heard a knock at his door at last, he staggered to answer it as if he had suffered a convulsion.

  Throwing the bolt, Prince Bifalt wrenched the door open—and found himself confronting the small, slim figure of Amandis, the devotee of Spirit. Clad in her modest cloak, with her clasped hands hidden in her sleeves, and her hair flowing loose, she regarded him gravely, without a word.

  Made stupid by surprise, Prince Bifalt stared. He was barely able to find words. “Where is Elgart?”

  She did not answer. Instead, she advanced on him until he felt compelled to retreat. As he withdrew, she entered his quarters and closed the door.

  He tried to ask again, Where is Elgart? Her manner stopped him. My skills suffice to kill— He was relieved when she did not advance farther.

  In her harsh accent, she began, “You have uttered a threat against the Magisters. They will not suffer it.” She watched his face like a woman who wanted to see his expression as she drove in her dagger. “At their request, I have come to demand it recanted. Thei
r purposes and yours will both fail if you insist on provoking Magister Rummage.”

  Like her arrival, her words made Prince Bifalt’s wits spin. Even here, he was caught in the library’s circles. Striving for balance, he clutched at the first response he could find.

  “What do you know of my purposes?”

  “Your man Elgart is in our care.” For the second time, the Prince heard a hint of amusement in the assassin’s harsh accent. “I command what I desire. Flamora’s method is persuasion. Together, we learn what we wish. However, we do not speak of it to others. It is not ours to reveal.

  “She offered to come in my place. But I perceive that your self-righteousness rules you. You would repulse her. You will not refuse to hear me.”

  Her assertions were offensive. Challenging. For that reason, they steadied him. Tightening his hold on himself, Prince Bifalt regained a measure of self-control. With more of his familiar assurance, his habit of authority, he countered, “What do you want with Elgart? He is no threat to you. Neither of us threaten you. And he is loyal to me. More than that, he is loyal to Belleger. What use do you have for him?”

  He meant, How have you tricked or seduced him to expose my intentions?

  Amandis did not reply to that question. Instead, she said, “We are speaking of your threat against the Magisters, Prince. I will have your word that you will not act on it.”

  The nature of her regard seemed to promise that she would not hesitate to exact his word with blood and pain.

  “And I will have answers,” he retorted. “I have many questions. I will not ask them all. But you will answer some. That is the price of my word.”

  Still holding his gaze, Amandis took her hands from her sleeves to show him her daggers. For a moment, she twirled them in and through her fingers like a juggler practicing her skill. Then she hid them again.

  “Ask,” she commanded. “Some I will answer—if my answers will not betray the Magisters. Flamora and I have not betrayed you—or Elgart. The Magisters deserve the same respect. Their secrets are not ours to reveal.”