Opening Acts

  *** ***

  Macsen the librarian was asleep in the palace library, face down in a book, snoring. An army could have invaded and he would barely have stirred.

  There was no one else among the shelves and tables and chests of books so old that some of them had been written before worldrunners came to Ymbria. The book of maps that Elen needed was on a shelf up near the high ceiling; it needed a ladder and a far stretch that nearly sent her tumbling to the floor, but she recovered it and herself with no bones broken. With the book lying heavy and solid in the pocket of her coat, she trod softly toward the far end of the room.

  Tall glass cases gleamed in the dimness. They were full of interesting oddments, lesser treasures and bits of history that were not so precious that they needed to be hidden away in the royal treasury. Among the tarnished trophies and the coins of ancient realms hung a medallion on a faded ribbon. It looked like a silver coin rubbed smooth with age. On one side was the image of a nine-spoked wheel. Elen had never seen the other: it was hidden against the back of the case.

  Her breath came hard as if she had been running a race. The lock on the case was sealed with a spell, but the steel of Elen's lock-pick broke it with a pop and a spark. The pick, which had begun life as a hairpin, leaped out of Elen's fingers. She hissed in startlement and shook them hard: they throbbed and stung.

  Gingerly she retrieved the hairpin. It was harmless again, and so was the lock.

  Some skills that Elen's more interesting friends had taught her were more useful than others, though her mother might not agree about this one. She opened the case as quietly as she could, darting glances at Macsen, who had not moved a muscle in all that time.

  The contents of the case had no such spell on them as had warded the lock. The medallion felt like ordinary silver, cool and smooth; its back was covered with writing too faded and worn to read. Legend said that such baubles had held enormous power once. If that was true, this one had lost the last of it long ago.

  Still, along with the book of maps, it was the best chance Elen had to fulfill her plan, short of stealing a worldrunner- and she was not quite crazy enough to do that. She hung the talisman around her neck, tucking it into her shirt. It was cold against her skin, but it warmed slowly as she made her soft-footed way past Macsen and out of the library.