The Ghosts of Blood and Innocence (24 page)

‘If you returned to the earthly realm, what would you do?’ Lileem asked.

She sensed Ponclast seize upon this question with the most hope he could muster, which he carefully concealed. He shrugged. ‘If I returned, I presume that would be under the grace of Tigron Pellaz. I expect he would choose my future for me.’

‘And if you could choose it?’

Ponclast’s eyes assumed a faraway expression. ‘I would be like Wraxilan, who was once a great Uigenna leader. I would become ascetic, I think, and live in a cave on a mountain.’ He smiled and turned his eyes once more to Lileem. ‘This is all pointless. I won’t be going back. We both know that.’

‘I’ll go back,’ Lileem said. ‘And when I do, I’ll speak for you. It would be too cruel to leave you here alone for eternity. As cruel as anything you ever did.’

‘How do you leave here, Lileem? You spoke of entering a book, but I think it’s more than that.’

Lileem nodded. ‘It is. When hara take aruna together, they’re like lights coming on in the darkness. They’re like stars, beacons to light the way. It’s difficult to explain. Perhaps eventually you’ll see for yourself. I choose not to extend my senses that way at present, because it isn’t the time to leave.’

‘Anything could have happened in earthly reality since we’ve been gone. Wraeththu and Kamagrian might no longer exist.’

‘That’s true,’ Lileem said. ‘However, I must do what I want to do, and that is search.’

Another time, Ponclast came to Lileem when she was outside the library, studying the pyramid. Sometimes, new carvings appeared in the outer walls, and Lileem tended to inspect them regularly. Once, she was sure she found a picture of herself.

‘Lileem,’ said Ponclast. ‘How far have you traveled in this world? Have you even ventured beyond the library itself?’

Lileem pondered for a moment. ‘When I first came here with Terez Cevarro, we walked a long way to get to this spot. Terez looked around, I think, but… he never found anything, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

‘Someone or something built this library,’ Ponclast said. ‘We must suppose there is a librarian.’

Lileem, much to her surprise, shuddered at his words. It was like a breath of chill wind had brushed her skin. ‘Perhaps they’re already here,’ she said, ‘but we can’t perceive them.’

‘That’s possible,’ Ponclast said. ‘I think I’ll explore. I think you should come with me.’

‘It doesn’t interest me. There’s nothing to see but black rock.’

‘I wonder.’ Ponclast gestured at her with one hand. ‘I think you should come.’

Was it the conviction in his voice that swayed her, or something else? Lileem could not be sure, but she found she had agreed to accompany him.

They set off, walking around the edge of the gunmetal ocean that lay behind the pyramid. Neither sun was in the sky. When the white sun rose, it was impossible to walk around outside; it was so bright it blinded you. ‘We could walk for eternity,’ Lileem said. ‘I’ve no idea how big this realm is.’

‘But we don’t get tired, hungry or thirsty, so what does it matter?’ Ponclast said. The sands were glittery black and silver beneath their feet, shifting with sound like the sucking of mud. ‘In some ways, this is a hideous place. The way it numbs the senses, takes away from us all that makes us har – or parage in your case – is terrible. Pellaz has punished me beyond my imagination of severity.’

‘In my opinion,’ Lileem said, ‘you’re safer lacking sensitivity and emotion. Look what you did to the Parasilians, Aleeme and Azriel. That was the act of a lunatic, and a psychotic one at that.’

Ponclast trudged silently at her side for some moments. Then he said, ‘Yes… yes it was.’

‘You should be glad you’re no longer so full of hate.’

‘I can’t be glad about it,’ Ponclast said. ‘That is, of course, the problem.’

‘A figure of speech,’ Lileem said. She pointed to where what looked like a pathway snaked between the dark dunes. ‘Shall we go that way?’

‘Have you been there before?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Ponclast sprinted to the top of dunes and Lileem followed him. He was staring at the sky. ‘It’s not all hideous here,’ he said. ‘Look at the wonders of the heavens against the starkness of this world. Despite its terrors, this place has its own beauty. It’s so untouched; it dreams.’ He smiled at Lileem. ‘Its dreams are recorded in the library. Perhaps this realm itself is the creator god, imagining the future. I don’t think we should be here. I think you were an interloper.’

‘Others have thought that too,’ Lileem said, ‘but if it’s true, I think we’re too small for the world to notice us. We are little fleas on the back of a mammoth, and if a mammoth has only two fleas, how can it complain?’

Ponclast laughed, and the sound of it seemed to shake the sky. Laughter was never heard in this realm. It occurred to Lileem that something might hear it. She laughed in return, and it sounded like the baying of an alien beast; a new language.

At one point during their travels, the white sun rose.  It came up over the horizon with a thundering roar, and where its rays touched, all colours and details were bleached away. Lileem and Ponclast could not be burned by it, and any blindness would only be temporary, but it was uncomfortable to travel. They kept colliding with rocks they could not see. ‘We must find a cave and sit it out,’ Lileem said.

She held out her arms and felt her way forward, her fingers running over sharp invisible rock that normally would be black. Eventually, she discerned a shadow, which as she’d suspected, indicated a narrow cave mouth. She crawled into it and Ponclast followed. ‘Terez and I did this before,’ she said, and they composed themselves in the relative darkness.

‘You came here with a har, yes,’ Ponclast said. ‘You mentioned that before. How did you get here?’

‘Through aruna,’ Lileem replied. ‘When Kamagrian and Wraeththu come together physically, it opens portals. It’s why our leader prefers to keep her parazha separate from the harish world. Too much temptation!’

‘Surely it should be investigated,’ Ponclast said. ‘It was a phenomenal discovery.’

‘Yes,’ Lileem said. ‘That’s what I’m doing, to the best of my ability. Unfortunately, Terez and I also discovered that we couldn’t leave this place in the same way we found it. We couldn’t take aruna in this realm. All such earthly pursuits are impossible here, like with the eating and sleeping. Our bodies must be in some kind of suspended state.’

‘Then how do you leave? And don’t say it’s through the pages of a book!’

‘I can’t tell you that,’ Lileem said, grinning. ‘Remember why you’re here.’

‘That is becoming increasingly difficult.’

When the white sun began its descent and shadows once again appeared amidst the brightness, Lileem and Ponclast left their retreat and continued their journey. Lileem left small cairns and arrows of stone, so that they could retrace their steps. As far as she knew, such signs would remain for them to find again. However, she was aware of a slight twinge of anxiety about losing herself; the library was her reason for being. She did not want to be away too long. And yet she was compelled to keep walking, as Ponclast was. It seemed inevitable that they would reach some kind of destination. They found it in the time of the violet sun.

For some time, they’d been walking along a deep canyon, which appeared to have been carved by water. ‘Perhaps this world wasn’t always dead and barren,’ Ponclast said.

‘I’m not sure it’s a world, in the sense we know the word,’ Lileem said. ‘There are no certainties.’

‘Is
that
a certainty?’ Ponclast asked. He pointed up to the right, and Lileem squinted to see what he meant. It looked like a stone doorway, high in the cliff face. A narrow path led up to it. Lileem stared at it for some moments, unsure of what she was seeing. Was that an oblong of carvings, or not?

‘Why are you hesitating?’ Ponclast said. He began to walk towards the path.

Strangely, Lileem felt short of breath after the climb. Rather than the physical exertion, it seemed to be because she was being faced with the astounding evidence of another created structure. The portal, as such it seemed to be, was around eight feet high and four feet wide. It was surrounded by a wide rectangular arch of carved stone. Its centre was a solid obsidian slab, which when she reached out and touched it was warm beneath her fingers. ‘Astounding,’ she murmured.

‘Certainly,’ Ponclast agreed. ‘Now how do we get in?’

Lileem glanced at him, pursed her lips, and pushed with both hands against the stone. It felt totally immoveable. ‘Not easily is the answer,’ she said.

Ponclast narrowed his eyes in thought. ‘The answer, of course, is in the library.’

‘Well… most probably. But it could take us forever to find it.’

‘Hmm, to my mind we have forever,’ Ponclast said dryly. ‘Let’s head back now and hope your way markers are still in place.’  

The markers were exactly where Lileem had left them. It occurred to her as they walked that Ponclast’s presence, and his different view of things, was affecting this realm, making it somehow more solid. Perhaps – and this was an exciting thought – he was the key to finding what really needed to be found within the library. Perhaps Ponclast could make the books settle down and behave, and reveal to them what they sought.  They discussed this concept most of the way back, deciding upon different strategies to employ.

‘I think the answer is to be found behind that portal,’ Ponclast said. ‘It’s no coincidence we came upon it. I’m inclined to agree with you; I’m affecting this realm.’

‘Maybe everything is preordained,’ Lileem said, gazing up at the sky. ‘Are you meant to be here?’

‘It’s a far preferable fate to that of finding myself in Gebaddon,’ Ponclast said. ‘I like the way this realm strips all the nonsense from my mind. I have never felt so full of clarity in my life. It’s almost joyous.’

Lileem grimaced. ‘Terez never felt that way. He hated it here.’

The immense pyramid appeared before them over the horizon. Ponclast stopped walking to admire it. ‘It is an incredible edifice,’ he said. ‘And I don’t believe it manifested here of its own accord. Someone or something built it.’

‘Then, where are they?’ Lileem asked.

Ponclast set his mouth into a firm line. ‘I intend to find out. I’ve had enough of these confounding books. It’s time we got answers.’

‘I can see why you were a leader,’ Lileem said, grinning. ‘Maybe I should have tried to order this place about more!’

‘You lived the life of an academic,’ Ponclast said. ‘I think you needed somehar like me here to remind you what else you can be. You were far too happy just pottering about your cyclopean shelves.’

‘Now, I’m reminded,’ Lileem said. ‘Come on, let’s get on with the job.
This
time, we’re going to find something useful.’

They went directly to the shaft that led to the library proper, underground. But just before they stepped upon the circular dais that would lower them into the labyrinth, Ponclast paused. ‘You know, I think I’ll investigate the upper building while you search below.’

‘Why?’ Lileem asked. ‘If we’re right and you’re the catalyst to finding things, I need you down there with me.’

‘Just an instinct,’ Ponclast said. ‘Trust me.’

‘All right. Come and get me if you find anything.’

Lileem hoped he was right, but didn’t think the upper structure was much use to them. It was an empty shell, a network of stairs, chambers and corridors that, if they had once contained anything, were now empty.

Once down in the warren of the library, Lileem applied herself with determination to examining the stone books. ‘Come on, come on,’ she whispered under her breath, ‘show me, damn it!’ She realised that for the first time in ages she felt emotion; excitement, hope, also some irritation and frustration. In fact, she had been feeling these things ever since she and Ponclast had found the portal. As if in reaction to her state of mind, the books were more contrary than ever before. Glyphs seemed to sizzle and transform beneath her fingers, information changing its mind a thousand times a second. The library was agitated. ‘As well you might be!’ Lileem told it. ‘Come on, I’ve given you years of my life. Who else cares about you but me? Give me something back.’

As she spoke these words, one hand flat against a cold slab of carvings, a shock jolted through her fingers and up her arm. ‘You heard me!’ she cried in amazement.

‘Lileem!’

At first, Lileem thought this was the voice of the library itself answering her back, but then realised it belonged to Ponclast, who was running towards her. ‘What is it?’ she called.

He came to a halt several yards away from her, and beckoned. ‘Come quickly!’

Lileem put the stone slab on the floor, not even bothering to put it back on its shelf. She ran after Ponclast, who was already hurrying back towards the elevator shaft.

When you enter the library from the outside, passing through open doors fifty feet high, you find yourself in a huge chamber, which contains only one thing: an immense seated statue of polished obsidian. Its head is invisible, high in the shadows of the chamber, while its feet are the size of small houses. It was the first thing that Lileem and Terez had seen in the library, all that time ago. Lileem had never seen its face. If you squint upwards for long enough, you might get the impression of the underside of a chin, far far overhead, but that is all. Even the dais upon which the statue sits towers feet overhead.

Ponclast led Lileem towards this statue. She saw at once, without him having to point it out, that there was something in the dais that most certainly hadn’t been there before, either in the reign of the white sun, the violet sun or the realm of the night: there was a doorway leading into blackness.

‘Have you been inside it?’ Lileem asked.

‘No,’ Ponclast answered. ‘I saw it and came for you.’

She glanced at him. ‘Something has made this happen. Perhaps it was when I touched the stone of the portal.’

‘This is the key,’ Ponclast said. He gestured towards the dark silent opening. ‘Shall we?’

Lileem went towards the doorway. She touched the sides of it. So strange. It was as if someone had come along and cut out an oblong of stone, then had taken it away.
Someone knows we’re here…
The thought disquieted her, which was odd. Surely, if there was anything around to be aware of her presence, it had known about her for a long time. Unlike other entrances throughout the building, most of which were grandly immense, the doorway was only just over five feet high, so Lileem had to duck down to pass the threshold. To her, this indicated a secret, a revelation in a whisper. Ponclast bumped his head as he followed her, cursing softly.