The Library of Forgotten Books (11 page)

I look around the room and back to the painting. He seems to be challenging me, daring me to betray his memory. I look at Madame Didion and she shrinks backwards, turns away and says, “They’re in the library.”

She stands still for a moment and then, in a broken voice says, “Excuse me for a moment.” She shuffles quickly back into the corridor where she sobs, high and uncontrolled. I remain still before the portrait of her dead husband as she weeps on the other side of the wall, emitting low and uncontrolled guttural sounds and great heaving breaths. We stay in place, like mirror images of each other, as the house descends into yet a darker shade of gloom. Finally the sobbing stops and shortly afterwards she comes back into the room.

“I’m looking forward to showing you the library,” she says, “I’m sure you’ll like it.”

It’s a whole wing, the library, with stairs rising to antechambers, little grottos filled with ramshackle shelves, some entirely covered with grassy mould or lichen, as if thin green blankets have been thrown over them. But no! I think. Not the books! What wonders could be lost in there?

I follow her into a splendid circular domed study, with a massive desk made of oak resplendent under the glass ceiling, the sky now the darkest shade of blue. The dust has taken this place too but Madame Didion is oblivious to it.

Everything has a ramshackle feel, disorganised and cluttered. Piles of yet more books stand beneath the shelves, towers threatening to fall onto each other. Scrolls form a great sea to one side of the desk, which is cluttered with tiny statues and fountain pens and ink wells and mechanical watches and incense burners and other assorted knick knacks. It is so
disorderly
.

“Are the notebooks here?”

She looks away, breathing rapidly, her small chest rising and falling. I hope she doesn’t cry again.

Madame Didion looks back at me for a moment. Her gaze holds mine and we wait, as if to see whether the other will break. I cannot ask her again for the notebooks.

“Here they are,” she says finally, and reaches up to a book-filled shelf. She pulls down two large books. Didion’s famous notebooks. I look at them, with their thick leather binding. Dust makes the brown leather appear grey.

She holds them in her hands, and rubs her bony little thumbs over the soft leather and the fine engravings, once silver but now merely residual. She rubs the books the same way she rubbed her hands earlier.

“You’d better take them,” she says, but instead of giving them to me, she places them on the desk, away from me, and steps backwards. A parchment sits on the desk; my eyes strain in the darkness to make out a spidery handwriting laying out formulae, equations, paragraphs of reasoning. Beside the parchment lie the pages of a manuscript. Neither is dust-covered.

“Six?”

“Oh yes, the others are up there on the shelf. You’d better get them.”

We stand there, in some sort of counterpoint. Perhaps I could only take four, then at least she’d have two left. But I know it’s impossible. The items will be taken to the House Arbor Palace, itemised, shelved, studied by the House Thaumaturgists. Dissertations and critiques will be written, lectures and debates organised. Careers will be made. I must take them all or questions will be asked.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” I ask.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear.”

“You were the one, not him. You. I saw the way the flowers leaned in towards you.
Your
flowers. And these:
your
notebooks.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” She turns away, looks for no reason towards a shelf on the wall. “Don’t be silly,” she says again, quietly.

But even now I can see the sheen of thaumaturgy around her. I’ve studied Carel’s
Ontology of the Thaumaturgical Universe
and Taslin’s
Structure and Augury
. I can read the powers in the air; I can put together formulae and equations, one after the other, connecting and intertwining them just so. I can see her aura now that I’m looking for it, wavy and old in the darkness that encloses us. Her pride will keep her secret until death, and I will not betray it.

“Take the books and I’ll show you out,” she says.

She leads me through that massive and empty mansion, the dust billowing about us. It is almost completely dark now, and dead plants emerge from the gloom like ghostly relics of some ancient desert, and the doors gape like even blacker holes in the night. When we come to the entrance hall the candle-flowers on the vine try desperately to emit a tiny yellow light.

 “Aren’t they beautiful,” she says, standing next to the grand staircase.

I try not to sneeze as I make my way to the grand entrance doors. I pass through them and look back. She stands there, beside the half-dead vine, like a ghost herself.

“Shall I shut the doors?”

“Don’t bother,” she says. “I don’t care.”

“People might come in.”

“They don’t.”

I nod (though I doubt she sees it in the darkness) and turn away.

“Why don’t you come again?” she says. “We’ve had such a lovely time.”

I turn back. “Yes. Perhaps I will.” I feel guilty saying it, and as if it will make a difference I add: “I think I might.”

And then I turn and head out of Director Didion’s house and up to the street. Stars twinkle between quickly moving clouds. The horse and carriage stands silent on the street: the horse’s head down and unmoving, the driver waiting patiently as is proper when transporting a thaumaturgist of House Arbor. The bulbs on the furnace trees have begun to glow, and even now, as autumn is upon us, I can feel the faint warmth emanating from them, like little fires hanging in the night. It will not be long now until winter.

The Passing of the Minotaurs

For the first time in ten years the minotaurs came to the city of Caeli-Amur from the winding road that led through the foothills to the north. There were three hundred or more of them. From the city they appeared as tiny figures—refugees perhaps. But as they approached, the size of their massive bodies, the magnificence of their horned bull-heads, the shape of their serrated short-swords, became apparent. The minotaurs had come for the Festival of the Bull. When the week was over, they would descend from the white cliffs on which the city perched and board the ships that would carry them out over the sunken city and home to their Island of Aya.

The citizens of Caeli-Amur watched the minotaurs silently, from their balconies or the city’s white walls. Some of the elderly leaned toward each other and whispered: “So few? There are so few of them.” Many of the children, especially from the factory districts, ran out to meet the magnificent creatures, laughing and calling to them until they drew close and the power and size of the minotaurs quietened them. Gliders swung out over the creatures and watched them from above, safe on the cool currents of air that swept in from the sea. Finally, when the minotaurs arrived at the city, some, who yet held to the old ways, fell onto their knees in supplication. The minotaurs were still worshipped as gods by a few, though to harm them was considered a crime by all.

The orderly line broke apart when the minotaurs entered the city and spread out like tributaries into a delta: some climbed their way down to the water-palaces and steam-baths that ran along the peninsula at the north side of Caeli-Amur, others caught the sooty street-trams through the windy streets along the cliffs, others yet took the cable car that ran from the massive machine-tower near the piers to the top of the cliffs. Those minotaurs seeking knowledge found their way to Caeli-Amur’s famous cafés, where the philosopher-assassins debated in the afternoon, drinking coffee and eating fruit. By nightfall, the minotaurs could be found in the liquor palaces and beer halls.

In one such drinking tavern, long after the sun had descended over the mountains to the west, Kata eyed a group of minotaurs. They dominated the place, which was little more than a hot and dirty hall with a bar along one wall. The men sat frightened and quiet along the walls or in the corners, or slinked past the minotaurs, hoping not to brush against them. Minotaurs were quick to anger, especially when they were filled with beer or hot liquor. Kata knew she would have to approach; she needed two of them. But first things first, she thought, as she took a drink of the bitter liquid from the flask at her waist. She kept her face still, though she wanted to grimace. The medicine tasted earthy and pungent, like dirt and ul-tree roots mixed together.

She watched and scratched distractedly at the metal sheaths that rubbed against her skin beneath her shirt. Realising what she was doing, she stopped. The shirt was dark and loose, and she wore a skirt that reached her knees. Together they showed off her shoulder-length hair, which was black as the minotaurs’ eyes. Beneath her clothes Kata was lithe but unusually muscular; she was an athlete, of sorts.

A group of four minotaurs sat laughing at the front of the room, telling each other jokes about labyrinths and reminiscing about the Numerian Wars. She remembered the Festival of the Bull a decade earlier, when she was living on the streets after her mother’s death, but had forgotten the sheer physical presence of the minotaurs. Their shoulders and chests were like the statues of Caeli-Amur’s heroes that stood in the water-parks to the south of the city, where waterfalls and canals cut their way through light woods and the statues were seven, eight feet of white marble, muscles sculpted beneath their stone cloaks. But it was the minotaurs’ heads, those most valuable of trophies, that emanated majesty: the flaring nostrils, the wiry and scented hide, and most especially, the deep and dark eyes, mesmerising and inhuman. Kata was afraid to look into the eyes, but she would have to.

To one side along the bar sat a slightly smaller minotaur with a dark hide. He did not speak but seemed to be brooding.

That one, she thought.

She slid down the bar and stood next to him.

“Why are you watching us?” he asked.

She could not look him in the eye; she felt guilty. “How far is it to Aya, across the sea?”

“Five days, if the wind is good.”

“Why don’t you use steamers? You could be sure to arrive in time.”

“Tradition. Anyway, I do not trust steamers. What if they break on the open sea? What if those wheels along their sides fall off? Give me the wind any day. It cannot be conquered but offers its gifts freely. It is a trusty partner, at times.”

She looked up into his left eye and then away from its glistening darkness. Its inky magnificence horrified her.

“What have you here, Aemilius?” The booming voice came from another minotaur. She forced herself to look up at the massive head, towering over her. She held his eye for a moment before looking away.

“You know,” he said, stepping toward her so his chest came close to her face, “there was a time when a minotaur could stay wherever he liked during the Festival of the Bull.”

The smaller one sat impassively. “Those days are gone, Cyriacus.”

Kata stood up and placed her hand against Cyriacus’s chest, which was like a solid wall close to her face. His presence was magnetic, his strength palpable. She pushed against him. He didn’t move. She pushed harder, and he took a step backward. “It’s rude to stand so close to someone you do not know,” she said.

Cyriacus laughed and turned. “Hey, Dexion. We have a spirited one here.”

Aemilius leaned into her and said, “It is not wise to play with minotaurs. They are unpredictable and dangerous.”

“I can hold my own,” she replied. He nodded, turned, and walked away, leaving her with Cyriacus.

“Have a drink,” the minotaur said, handing her his own tankard.

She took a swig of the liquor, which burned her throat. She held back the cough. “Anlusian hot-wine,” she said, feeling her lips and mouth burn with the spices, the vapour rushing into her nose, making her eyes water.

“Yes. These new liquors fire the belly and the mind.”

“I live close to here,” she said. “I have more wine there, and it is free.”

He stood close to her again, and she felt the heat of his breath on her face. She forced herself to look up into his deep black eyes and put her hand against his chest again. This time she did not push him away.

They climbed up the stairs that ran along the side of the house, Cyriacus behind her. The key rattled in the lock, and the door swung open into her first-floor room. Kata lit the lamp by the door. It was her windowless parlour, a kitchen off to one side. More stairs led up to her bedroom and a balcony that overlooked the northern parts of the city.

Kata walked over to the table and leaned against it. Cyriacus slammed the door behind him—it shuddered on its hinges. He strode toward her, grasped her by the waist, lifted her like a doll, and sat her on the table, leaning in so she could smell the hot spices of the Anlusian wine and his hide, scented with pungent ginger and clove perfume. She touched the side of his face, feeling the thick and wiry hair. But still she could not look him in the eyes. Quickly she took her hands from his face so she would be ready.

Cyriacus stepped in and pulled her closer by the hips, so their bodies were hard against each other, Kata’s legs splayed around his trunklike thighs, her skirt riding up her legs. She placed her hands on the table behind her as he slowly and carefully unbuttoned her shirt. He looked down to see the waistband that held the sheaths behind her back.

“What?” he said, laughing. “A knife belt? What would a little—”

But Kata had already drawn both long-daggers. She plunged them into his ribs. Cyriacus let out a deafening roar and threw the table away from him. Kata flew through the air backward, the table rolling and spinning beneath her. She struck the wall and fell to the ground, the table crashing against her shins. She felt no pain yet, just the rush of adrenalin.

Cyriacus stared down at the two daggers, his head shifting from left to right in disbelief. Only the handles were visible, one jutting from each side. Blood coursed in deep red streams down his waist and onto his thighs. He snorted, looked up at her and said, “You’ve killed me.”

Kata struggled to her feet and stared back at him. She was horrified by the scene: everything was wrong. Though she had killed before, it had always been in the wars between the Houses. She had felled three men with her knives, watching them collapse in seconds before her. It was war and she felt no remorse. Now she could hardly bear the sight of this magnificent creature at the end of its life.

Astonishingly, Cyriacus came at her. She turned and ran to the stairs that led up to her bedroom, thumping footsteps close behind her. She pushed herself, taking the steps three at a time, her breath loud in her ears. If she could make it to her bedside table she might stand a chance.

She burst into the room and dived across the bed, reaching for her bolt-thrower on the small table. From the corner of her eye she saw him charge into the room. She turned, raised the bulky weapon and fired a bolt. Blood spurted from his abdomen like pollen from an open flower.

 He staggered back and came at her again. She threw open the doors and ran onto the balcony, reloading the thrower. No man could withstand such physical punishment, yet Cyriacus still came at her, massive and godlike. She heard the final click of the thrower and raised it, but it was too late. He was on her, his force crushing her against the balcony wall. A cry escaped her lips. So, she thought, this is how it ends—I was wrong to commit this blasphemy.

His breath steamed from his nostrils; his long, thick tongue lolled from his mouth. “I will crack your neck like a rabbit’s,” he said, grasping the top of her head in one huge hand. “I will take you with me, woman, to the land of light.”

“Please,” she said, her voice broken.

Cyriacus looked at her in puzzlement, blinked slowly, his hands losing their strength, and crashed to the floor like a cliff into the sea.

Kata left him there, changed her clothes, and walked out into the night. She cut through the factory district, full of dirt and grime, the smoke from the underground machines pumping out even at night. She had grown up in these streets, after her mother had died, running with the urchin gangs, selling trinkets, stealing, doing odds and ends for House Technis, running messages, setting up robberies and murder. Finally, she joined the long ranks of dispossessed philosopher-assassins who lived moment to moment in Caeli-Amur, debating in the cafés in the afternoon, lounging in the liquor halls in the evening, convinced they were free but forever at the beck and call of the Houses.

When she lived on the streets, Kata had been a pinch-faced girl, scrawny but sly. She had never forgotten her mother’s last words, as she lay in the factory infirmary, her face a splotchy red-white, the contagion eating away at her insides: “Do whatever you must to survive, Kata. The gods know there’s nothing else to do.” And then blood had come to mother’s lips and dribbled down her chin, her chest had thrust itself forward unnaturally, an awful odour was loosed in the room, and she had died. The next day Kata was on the street. She cried that first day—never again. Now she had one more minotaur to kill and she would be free.

Kata climbed to the complex of palaces and administration buildings and found Officiate Rudé, a wiry little half-Anlusian administrator of House Technis. Things were set in motion. Rudé accompanied her with two workmen back to the house in the carriage that would secretly carry away the minotaur. She took them to the balcony but avoided the sight of the minotaur’s body.

Rudé took a sharp intake of breath and ran his hands through his fire red hair, speckled slightly with white. “Majestical,” he said. “Fascinating. I should have liked to have talked to him...” Like most Anlusians, he had a youthful aspect for someone so late in life: it was his quick and energetic movements, his lithe and boyish body. “I didn’t think you would do it.”

“I told you I would,” said Kata.

“I knew you were hard, but even so.”

She stole a glance at the creature. It lay at odd angles against the balcony wall.

“Get to work,” Rudé ordered.

The workmen opened their cases and took from them mechanical saws and jagged knives with wicked blades.

“And be careful of the horns. They’re the most valuable pieces. And the hide.”

“You people...” Kata said.

“Remember, you asked for this job,” Rudé said, looking away from the minotaur.

Kata could not bear the high whine of the saw or the wet thump of the minotaur’s flesh, so she walked down the stairs.

As Rudé followed her, he called back: “Don’t damage the eyes. Our thaumaturgists need those eyes for their preparations. Don’t get anything in the eyes.” He followed Kata into the room and said, “One more, Kata, and your debt will be repaid. Think about that. Think about how hard you’ve worked. Just one more minotaur.”

“Even if I repay the debt, I’ll never be free of you. None of us ever will. It doesn’t matter which House, you’re all the same.”

Rudé threw his head back and laughed. “Kata, remember, without us you’d still be on the street. Remember who this building belongs to.”

From above, she could still hear the sickening sound of meat and bone being cut to pieces. When they left, she suddenly felt her legs and back. She looked down at her blood-covered shins, pieces of skin scraped into ridges near her ankles. The adrenalin had long ago left her and now all she could feel was pain.

Two nights later, Kata watched the Sun Parade, celebrating the moment four hundred years earlier when the sun had broken through the fog and Saliras’ forces had been routed by the minotaurs and the Caeli-Amurians together. The parade descended from the top of the cliffs toward the public square by the piers. Figures walked with hideous masks: distorted faces that looked as if they had melted in great heat, goats with gigantic eyes and too-thin faces, and, of course, bulls. Others played thin, high-pitched flutes or circular drums that fit beneath their arms and could be squeezed to change the note. All were dressed outrageously in oranges, reds, yellows. Crowds watched from the side of the road, clapping at the leering masks. Scattered among them were the minotaurs.