Chapter Thirty
From a completed epic fantasy novel told across two time periods.
Lydee
Year 1378 (Present day)
An unofficial extension of the university, the Fostrilya Royal Library remained in operation. Lydee was thankful for that, as she stepped out of the heat of late morning Oslidor and into the comparatively cool and grandiose space. The lobby was quiet, as usual. Above her, along the second and third floors, Lydee could see nothing more than a handful of individuals scanning the stacks or walking past rows of books. Besides the relief from the heat, she was thankful as well for the lack of people. Today she wished not to be seen. At all if possible.
After her ‘meeting’ with Gregorich, what she wished most of all was to speak with Richard. She had been left feeling uneasy in a most peculiar way after her brief interaction with that man with the bushy eyebrows. Conversing and exchanging information with Richard could help jostle free the knot which had tied itself within her mind. She knew there was something amiss, but she could not free it from where it was hidden. The feeling was similar to when one sets out for the day and knows she forgot something, but not what it was.
For now, she would have to pursue the only option available to her. This, unfortunately, made her reliant on information obtained from Iniko. The man would not have intentionally misled her, but she did not trust his memory. Or his mind, whatever is left of it.
Iniko had told her that Woller was interested in prices of luxury goods during the early days of the Xu dynasty. Having dwelt on that detail for some time, Lydee had begun to construct a possible intention behind Woller’s research. A young Divine King had recently come into power in Xu. Octavius Xu had declared that he would cleanse his nation of vice and the worship of material goods. At first, this had led to a ban on any item he had deemed ‘unnecessary.’ When that went disastrously wrong, he replaced the ban with high taxes. If Woller was studying the prices of the same goods, centuries ago, perhaps he was hoping to forecast the economic impact these new regulations would create. The nation was famed for its expansive dye and tobacco plantations, and those goods were now severely restricted due to the exorbitantly high taxes which had been put in place.
Knowing the type of items Woller was interested in was helpful, but there were other questions regarding the particulars. She wished now that she had pressed Iniko more on the exact timeframe. Not that he would have remembered. And not that it would not have taken more patience than she could muster.
The concept of a period of time being the ‘early days’ was itself an issue. The royal nations agreed that they had each been founded during a singular event which took place during what was referred to as Year 0. The veracity of that claim had been doubted by scholars for time immemorial, of course only on East Saltion. To question that on Saltion, save for in Withigan, would be reckless at best. To complicate matters further, the very oldest records were accounts from the holy books of The Path. As those were outlawed in the royal nations, she would have to find the earliest documents she could.
The royal library contained tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of books, papers, scrolls, and parchments. Of this multitude, the majority of the sources were from within Vinredor. Finding information that was thousands of years old, and told of Xu, would be a challenge.
The building was expansive enough to contain areas where she had never visited, even after years of research. The below ground level in particular was quite foreign to her. Among other subject matters which could be described as esoteric, or mundane, depending on who was asked, she knew the basement was where shipping manifests were kept. The library was unlikely to contain records of prices in Xu, but by looking at the prices of items entering Vinredor from Xu, it made sense that one could determine the prices in the country of origin.
She headed toward the spiral staircase which led there, eyes darting side to side without adjusting her head so as not to make it obvious that she was watching to see if she was being observed. Not detecting any eyes upon her, she took the first step down.
If she had waited for only ten seconds before beginning her descent, she might have heard one of the double doors at the entrance to the library open. If she had then looked back, she would have seen a nondescript man in a plain white scholar’s robe enter the lobby. He would have done his best not to indicate that he was looking for someone, so she might not have suspected anything was amiss. As it was, she missed the man entirely. Not knowing the layout of the library, or where Lydee was heading, the man simply began wandering the stacks, making sure to appear as innocuous as possible.
With each step down, the air became cooler. The oil lantern at the top of the steps was lit, but Lydee had to set further lanterns ablaze, a sign of the infrequency in which this level of the library was used. So deep into the earth was the basement that Lydee began to feel chill when she reached the bottom. Upon illuminating the space in front of her, the first object she saw was a table upon which someone had left a partially unrolled scroll. A thick layer of dust covered the scroll as well as the table.
And with the university closing its doors and the professors needing to find new employment, this space will see even fewer visitors than usual. Perhaps if I run out of funds, I can live down here. The scurrying of a rat, inches from her feet quickly dispelled the idea of residence from her mind.
As she searched the stacks, a memory of Woller came to her. When she had first joined the university, he had told her an anecdote of one of his many disagreements with the old librarian, Paitrov. The man possessed a knowledge of history which put the professors at the university to shame. He was an invaluable reference when conducting research, but Woller, believing himself to be the foremost authority on all things historical, had challenged the librarian’s claim that the East Saltion nation of Hon Rin was once a minor territory belonging to its current neighbor, Silth Ju. Woller had set out to prove himself correct, stating that he would conduct a lengthy period of research until he could definitively show that he was in the right. Instead, Paitrov had told the professor to wait in the library’s lobby. He had gone down into the basement for five minutes before returning with no less than three documents which Woller had no choice but to admit proved the librarian correct. Woller told it as a joke, but also as a piece of advice. If one ever needed assistance while at the library, he only had to speak with Paitrov. Unfortunately, the man no longer worked there.
Would that Paitrov was here to assist me now. At least that story has directed me here. If information of the ancient history of East Saltion is down here, it makes sense documents pertaining to ancient Xu would be as well.
The basement was larger than the ground floor, spreading out in all directions past the boundaries of the floor above it. Even though she lit every lamp she came across, Lydee had difficulty seeing where she was going. Reading the words on the sides of the shelves was an even greater challenge. The room expanded out into narrower and narrower passages, making it take quite some time to find a shelf with ship manifests from the first century. When she finally found what she was seeking, she looked at her surroundings and realized she had no sense of where she was, or how to get back to the staircase. She hoped that she would find what she was looking for here because she was not enthusiastic about prolonging her time underground, the musky air giving each inhalation the slight taste of mold. Was there truly mold down here, feeding on irreplaceable historical items? Had it always been this way, or was it just another sign of the decay the library had suffered after Paitrov’s departure?
Someone had given serious effort to assembling the collection she was viewing. The manifests were all written on parchment, of which Lydee could discern multiple types. The documents had been stacked together by year, some in crates and others covered in hide or leather and bound by string or gut. A thick layer of dust lay across the covers, but the documents on the interior remained in good condition. While the ink had faded, as Lydee knew it would, they were still legible once she took held them directly below a lantern.
Removing a set of manifests gave her a strange sensation, as though she were disturbing the slumber of something which did not wish to be awakened. As isolated as she was, she could not help but look over her shoulder every now and then for fear of something just on the cusp of her imagination. There were no sounds now in the basement, not even the scampering of a rat.
On the bottom shelf now, Lydee attempted to withdraw a booklet when a crate fell, spilling parchments out onto the floor. Rigid documents scattered in different directions, some lost in the darkness behind the shelf. She reached under the last wooded level and began to feel for the papers. On her knees, arm extended, her hand bumped up against something cool. Unlike the shelf itself, which was made of hardwood and gritty to the touch, the surface she felt now was perfectly smooth. It was, she realized after a moment, metallic.
Strange. There is nothing else metallic here that I have seen.
Lydee gathered the papers within her reach and placed them back in the crate. Knowing there were a few she had missed, but being unable to find them with such a paltry amount of light, she took the nearest lantern from the wall and placed it on the floor.
Was it dedication to the preservation of historical items, or a more innate curiosity which pushed her to lay down on the floor with her face brushing up against the stonework? Either way, with the lantern now illuminating the area, she looked under the shelf. One piece of parchment was just out of reach. Try as she might, she could not extend her arm far enough to reach it. She chose to remove more booklets from the shelf to create a space to reach through. That was when she saw what she had felt earlier.
The wall behind the bookshelf was made of ironwood, just as the other walls she had passed in the basement had been. Ironwood was a logical choice being common in the dry climate of Oslidor and the surrounding areas. The center of the wall however, a circular space of nearly a man-height in circumference, was dark grey metal. Lydee stared at the anomaly in front of her, unmoving except for the slow rise and fall of her chest. She pulled more booklets off the shelf, then began crawling through the space she had created. The lantern’s glow reflected off the metal, casting the area in an eerie light. Cautiously, Lydee reached out to touch the surface. While it felt as smooth as a pearl, there were odd swirls and abstractions along the surface which gave it the look of having been folded upon itself. She moved her hand along the metal as she stood, curious as to what could have caused its strange appearance. At a higher plane, the lantern revealed odd shapes on the floor to her side. She shuffled in the narrow space, one hand touching the wall until it simply vanished.
She lifted the lantern above her head to shine down on the floor, the light showing that the wooden wall had been cut, fractured pieces of wood scattered on the ground. The cleared space was large enough for her to fit when she turned her body to the side. Not knowing precisely why, she shifted the lantern into her other hand and entered the space.
Through the gap in the wall, she found herself in a room with three sides covered in bookshelves. Lydee walked to one and picked up a leatherbound booklet. The cover appeared modern, but the pages of parchment inside were ancient. The first page seemed to be notes taken regarding events in someone’s life, their travels. There were dates as well, but they made no sense. The first entry was dated as being from the year 4,122, a date which had not yet come to pass. The parchment and ink were clearly ancient, in decent condition but fading and torn along the edges. Further pages followed the same pattern.
Lydee took another booklet off the shelf and inspected it. This one was dated beginning in the year 9, making it, if true, the oldest document she had even seen, or ever heard of. Even Redemption, the first holy book of The Path, was considered to be from the second decade of the first century.
None of this can be. These dates are impossible… aren’t they? But if so, why are these items hidden behind a wall? And why and when was it broken into?
Lydee’s heartbeat had increased without her realizing it. She scanned the room in disbelief, shaking her head and wondering if this was in fact reality, or but a fevered dream. Then, in the distance, a sound.
Someone is descending the staircase.
Panic.
Lydee filled the interior pockets of her robe with booklets, then turned to the gap in the wall from which she had emerged. She squeezed through and crawled to the bookshelf which contained the manifests. She paused then for a moment and was barely able to hear footsteps above her own heartbeat. They did not sound as though they were getting closer.
Whoever it is may be as lost as I am.
Still, she did not want to be found in a space that was clearly designed to be hidden. Through the space she had cleared in the shelf, she rushed to return the manifests, unmindful of their original order. Standing up and dusting herself off, she could tell that the footsteps were now indisputably louder, and increasing in volume with each passing moment. She scanned the area and realized she was at a dead end, the lantern which she held providing the only available light.
A difficult decision to make now. Return the lantern and attempt to hide in the darkness, or find the exit while hoping to avoid whoever else was in the basement? A glance at the floor forced her hand. Her path could easily be tracked by the footprints she had left in the dust which had accumulated due to disuse. It was this dust that made her feel so certain she was now being hunted. That two individuals would seek the basement on the same day, when it had so clearly been neglected for such a long time felt too unlikely to be a mere coincidence.
Lydee did her best to move away from the footfalls. She stepped carefully, making sure not to make a sound and followed her own footsteps until she came to a hallway that branched in multiple directions. There she took a new path. The path spread out again and again, the floor now free of footprints. Behind her, or truly in which direction she did not know, the footsteps continued, muted but audible.
She did not know how long she walked, or how many turns she made, but she eventually found herself at the staircase again. At the base of the stairs were a second set of footprints. Where they led out, the footsteps began to flow seamlessly into her own.
There is no doubt. Someone is searching for me. Or, at the very least, someone is searching for the person they know is down here.
A last look back, then Lydee placed her lantern on the ground and quickly, but silently, ascended out of the underground and back to the familiar confines of the Royal Library, sure, in the way that one can only be in times of terror or dismay, that her life had become inalterably changed.