I had anticipated the question, and had long ago decided in broad strokes how much I would say, but I had not thought of that day in detail until the question came and the answer fell from my lips.
I had known that I was pushing boundaries in the libraries. I had known that there were many who believed the questions I was asking should never be asked, let alone answered. But I had been obsessed, and overconfident, and I had pursued my curiosity in spite of the risks.
Then the day came when I was called before the Master of the Libraries.
His office was huge, larger than most of the reading rooms, and high up in one of the tall spires for which all the great buildings in Vencar City were known. The room was wedge-shaped, with a door at the inner point and enormous glass windows on the arched exterior wall. The two long walls were covered in bookshelves. There was little furniture. A massive desk, plain except for the runes that twisted across its blood- and oil-stained top, bare except for a short stack of papers directly in the center and an orrery of stone, bone, and gold rings at the far corner. Three chairs: one behind the desk, and two by the windows.
Aemillian Solirius sat behind the desk. He was tall, even taller than me, and gaunt. He had a face like a knife: long and narrow, every angle razor sharp. At that time it was his fashion to wear a simple black tunic, its sleeves long and wide, draped in a plain white himation, with a golden sunburst around his neck in honor of his House. He was light skinned for a Vencarman, with dark brown hair and amber eyes. He did not look up when I entered, but the inattention was pointed.
I stood before the desk.
“Derrek,” he said, shuffling through the papers. “Derrek?”
In the way of powerful and charismatic leaders, he made an eloquent question out of the single word.
“No House, my lord,” I told him. “I go by Rowan, sometimes. It’s a Handari bastard’s name.”
He nodded slowly, and consulted another sheaf. Pure theater. I did not believe for a moment that there was anything on those pages that he did not know as intimately as he cared to. By the way he held himself, I guessed this man to be not just the highest authority I had yet encountered in human lands, but also the greatest power. I caught myself watching his hands: long, narrow, precise, beautiful.
I took a deep breath and composed my mind carefully. I had not yet met a wizard who could see through your thoughts the way that the priestesses who had raised me could. That did not mean that there were none.
“My librarians are concerned about you, Derrek Rowan,” he said, looking up at me at last and piercing me with his gaze. “They say you are obsessed, and that you are putting off your journeyman’s quest.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Tell me about your obsession,” he said.
I knew that I had never been in more danger than I was at that moment. I also knew that there was no point or profit in dissembling.
“I am studying Shiithaia’s gift to the Illustrians, my lord. The shadow magic. How it worked and how it went awry.”
Aemillian looked at his orrery, then, watching it turn. I watched his terrible, sharp, beautiful profile.
Shiithaia’s gift, umbral thaumaturgy, drawing strength and substance from the shadowy realm between our mortal world and the underworld to which the souls of the dead descended. The moon goddess had sent her prophet to teach the art – and so many other arts – to the humans who had settled on the banks of the Ilus so that they might defend themselves against the ogre hordes that would soon descend from the north. From those peoples had risen first the Kingdoms of the Moon, then the empire of Illustria. Shadow magic had armed their heroes, fortified their walls, supported their aqueducts. Then, somehow, something changed.
The veils between the mortal world and the Shadow Realm tore open, losing evil men and terrible monsters on the peoples of Illustria. Weapons built with shadow magic shattered or exploded. Spirits bound with shadow magic were loosed. Buildings risen with shadow magic fell. The empire of Illustria fell with them, and the arts of Shiithaia’s gift were lost.
“What makes you think,” Aemillian said, at last, “that you will succeed where, over almost a thousand years, so many before you have failed?”
“I am unafraid,” I told him. “And I am fortunate. And I have all their notes – at least, all those available to an apprentice of the Obsidian Cabal.”
He turned back to me, his eyes bright and sharp.
“And are you close?”
The moment of greatest danger had come. But, in his eyes, I thought I saw a kindred spirit. And an opportunity.
“Yes, my lord,” I said. “If you will grant me access to the restricted archives, I will have the theory of it within a year.”
He raised an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“And the practice of it?”
“My journeyman’s quest, of course.”
He nodded sharply, and drew first a page from the stack of papers in front of him, then a sealing kit from his desk. A drop of blood, a spark of fire, and a splash of wax later, he handed me a document.
“No door in my libraries will be barred to you,” he said. “Write me weekly reports. Send word if you find anything of particular significance. I will join you when I can.”
I left his office giddy and shaking. My greatest fear – one of them, anyway – had been averted, and my ambition was now closer within reach. But in some ways, I was in even more danger than I had been before.
I went back to my rooms. I lit a candle and a lump of incense. I poured wine. I whispered prayers. Thanksgiving. Protection.
And then I returned to the librarians bearing the seal of their master, and asked, ever so nicely, that I be admitted to their inner sanctum.
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