Chapter 9
There is, inside me, an unanswered ache, small but constant, caused by no particular trial or tribulation, simply by the burden of existence, the effort of holding aloft my own sky. Each of us is Atlas and why some are crushed and others effortless is a mystery whose answer will not translate into my tongue.
Existential , by Jesper Lodin
CHAPTER 9
Celcha
While the librarians, Markeet and Sternus, heatedly debated how to proceed, Celcha and Hellet waited by the door with the trainees. It didn’t take long to catch the first whispered accusation, unsurprisingly from Kenton.
“They don’t want to open it. That’s why it’s not opening.”
Angry glances sliced across them.
It was true that Celcha had thought maybe the librarians and their charges deserved at least a touch of worry, but she hadn’t truly intended for the door to remain closed. And now, with her stomach growling, there was no ambiguity in her, she wanted the door open. Touching it yet again confirmed that this wasn’t a case of mixed feelings getting in the way.
Markeet returned to the group. Sweat darkened the man’s crimson robes beneath his arms. “Come on then!” He herded the group to where Sternus waited at the entrance to the chamber. “Right. Well, we’re going to have to hunt for the centre circle. The circle will sustain everyone until they come for us.” The librarian’s expression didn’t inspire confidence. Seeing his own doubt reflected at him he tried to rally the trainees. “I was on an expedition to find it... oh, fifteen years ago, so we won’t just be chasing our tails. We can start—”
Celcha and the children turned their heads to follow the librarian’s gaze back along the corridor. The white door had melted away. An assistant stood behind it.
A sigh of relief ran through the party. The assistants might not be overly helpful, but in a situation like this they wouldn’t walk off and leave them trapped. They would help trapped explorers in the same sort of way that people happening across fledglings that had fallen from their nests would return them to safety.
Tutor Ablesan had told Celcha that nobody knew how many assistants served the library. Two at least, since one had a body suggesting a male frame whereas another had one that looked more female. From reported sightings it seemed that if there were only two they would have to travel very swiftly and with intention to deceive. Beyond that nothing could be said with certainty save that there were not many.
The assistant that had opened the door had the male form. Possibly it was Yute, the one who had greeted their arrival days earlier. After a shocked pause, Markeet thrust his book satchel at Sternus, the flap stretched around the prized tome with the gold lettering. He muttered two words to the younger man then went forward to speak with the assistant.
Markeet returned after only a few moments, looking perplexed. He frowned at Celcha and Hellet. “The assistant wishes to speak with both of you.” After a short while staring at their immobility he fluttered his hands. “Go!”
Hellet advanced towards the assistant and Celcha followed. Most would not have noticed it, especially not humans or canith, but Celcha saw the reluctance in her brother’s steps.
“Assistant?” Celcha decided to take the lead. Hellet was nervous, and she was the older sibling. She was tired of him showing her the way.
“Walk with me.” The assistant turned his gleaming white back on them and paced away. Without looking to see that they were following, he began to speak. “It’s hard for the timeless to perceive the flow. Hard to see the change from this to that. Everything simply is . And yet, contrary to my nature, I struggle to do just that. I look into the current.” He raised a hand to clutch the back of his neck, a curiously alive gesture, at odds with the animated statue that he had first seemed. “And it is difficult for the timely, those carried in the flow, bubbling to its surface, borne along, ultimately drowned in it, to see the crystalline glory of eternity, reflected and refracted through many dimensions, perfect in its imperfections. Language is also caught in the flow and ever-changing. It lacks the capacity to exchange those experiences between us.”
“I... see,” Celcha lied. Ahead of them the white door grew closer. If they went through it, the librarians and trainees would be trapped with only a precious book and the dead metropolis for company.
“For many years I have watched the city that you came through to reach the library. Cities come and go at our gates. Growing from a scattering of huts, flourishing, falling into fire. Few last as long as this one has. And this is the first where canith and humans live together under lasting truce. It holds the first green shoot of the peace necessary for survival and advancement. It is, in the long march of years, a wonder.”
“Built on the backs of slaves,” Hellet growled.
“This brings me to compromise and the inherent imperfection of now. The city is a stepping-stone to something better. Something that is encoded into the structure of the library. I will... admit... to having interfered at times. Coaxed. Perhaps even guided...”
“Why are you interested in us?” Celcha asked. “It offends the librarians when you single out a pair of slaves. It’s the type of attention that could get us killed.”
“They don’t kill you.” The assistant shook his head. “My apologies, though. It is hard for me to see the world as something sliding by from known to unknown.” He touched his neck again. “I talk to you because I can’t see past you. You are turbulence in the flow. Cracks in the crystal. You, Hellet, in particular. There is no point in conversing with the others. I already know that I do not speak with them.”
He’d called them cracks. Celcha knew what had cracked her brother. The cruelty of humans, inflicted on a child. She ground her teeth and kept her silence. It was dangerous for a slave to show anger.
The assistant, seeing that she would not reply, carried on. “Anomalies of your kind are very rare. The library draws them in but still they are rare. To find two together—is unheard of. You are dangerous. If left unchecked, you might start seeing ghosts. Or even worse, talking to them.”
Celcha resisted exchanging a glance with Hellet. “Unchecked? You’re planning to... check us?”
“You can serve the library as I do. Even for assistants there was a before.”
“As you do? You mean... all white and serious?”
The assistant inclined his head.
“Or?” asked Hellet. Celcha couldn’t tell if her brother was asking about the consequences of defiance, or what the second choice was.
“Or...” The assistant shook his head. “It’s best to accept eternity. You’ll never be bored, I promise.” He saw they were waiting for him to continue. “Or, you can be repaired. You will no longer be cracks in time, no longer flaws in the crystal.”
“That sounds better,” Celcha muttered, then, louder, “It always works?”
“It always works.” A nod of the head. “You will no longer be a crack in time. You might, however, not be quite the same person you were before. You might not even be alive. You’ll be whatever was necessary for you to no longer crack the world.”
It was the gentlest threat Celcha had ever received. Even the slavemaster would have been proud of it.
“Why wait to tell us all this now?” Hellet asked. “Why not say it when we arrived?”
“I wasn’t sure when you arrived. You weren’t making that much turbulence in the flow. I thought maybe you were borderline cases. I wondered if there might be a compromise. But you’re churning things up now. You’re rocks in the stream.” He tilted his head, studying Hellet with blank white eyes. “And you’ve found two books, I see. Interesting ones.”
Celcha didn’t want to talk about books. “You’re telling us we’re going to get turned into creepy statues like you, or have something done to us that might leave us dead or broken?” She started to say that it wasn’t fair, but bit off the words. Less than a week among these sabbers, being treated as almost equals, and she’d started responding to adversity with talk of fairness or justice. When had anything ever been fair for her and Hellet?
“If you’d come here with a terminal disease would that have been so different? This is just what time has placed upon your shoulders. You can bear the cure or step out of time, as I did.”
“How are you going to make us do it, Yute?” Hellet asked. “Lock us in a chamber until we agree?”
The assistant stiffened at the use of his name. His enamel forehead remained smooth but somehow Celcha could feel the frown. “You mistake me. The library informs. It does not compel. We share information. It is for the recipients of that information to decide how to respond to it.”
“You already locked us in. That’s not compelling us?” Celcha said.
Yute almost flinched. “My apologies. I merely sought to delay you while I attended to another matter. I wanted to speak with you here, within sight of your ancestors’ great works. A monument to possibilities that irresponsible actions on your part might ensure never come again.”
“Irresponsible?” Hellet fixed the assistant with his black stare. “That sounds like judgement. Like opinion. Guidance is neighbour to instruction. Aren’t you breaking your own rules, Yute?”
Yute shuddered. “How do you know that name?” He sounded almost angry.
“ Even for assistants there was a before ,” Hellet quoted.
Yute bowed his head. “I have overstepped myself.” All emotion gone from his voice. “I’ve spent too long in the flow. Do what you will with the knowledge imparted. You will, in the end, come to understand it as I do, but the choice will be yours.”