Bones of the Past (Arhel) (34 page)

“The next section is a series of six smaller rooms, each in a different kind of stone, with metal decorations. I could not make any sense of the artwork in that section—there was nothing recognizable. The section following has buildings and diagrams and things of that sort carved on the walls. It is all in plain whitestone. Compared to the rest of what I have seen, it seems dull. But the last section is wonderful. It has no books in it. Instead, it is full of statues like the ones at the front of the library—except all of these still have their paint on. The kids are playing back there now.” She turned to Medwind. “You will love it,” she said. “It is simply beautiful.”

Medwind discovered Faia was right. The statues were stunning. They stood in long rows in four different rooms at the back of the library, seeming to have stopped, for just an instant, to pose for the absent artist. The First Folk had brilliant artists among them. Medwind ran her fingers along one statue, and the coldness of the rough stone startled her.
The statues should have been warm
, she thought.

“What are they?” she asked. “The styles vary from statue to statue, but the structural details of all the beasts are the same.”

Nokar shrugged. “Gods, perhaps. Guardians. Personifications of various religious or philosophical ideals. We never have gotten a good grasp of First Folk theology—we’ve never had enough data.” The old man smiled and looked around him. “We do now, of course. Though this library alone will take at least a hundred years to catalog and translate.” He sighed. “I wish I were going to be here to do the work.”

Medwind nodded with satisfaction.
You can be
, she thought, but she said nothing. She would let him grow hungrier for the idea of continuing scholarship before she broached the topic of vha’atta again.

Thirk joined them, a smug smile on his face.

“I found the directory,” he said.

“Really!”

“You jest!”

“—Oh, that’s wonderful!”

Nokar asked, “Where?”

“Considering the general rudeness I’ve had to put up with, I don’t know that I ought to tell you—but I’m a better man than that. I’ll tell. You all walked right past it to get here.”

Medwind frowned, trying to remember anything that had even vaguely resembled a directory. They’d seen the green room… the seraphine room… the bawdy room… the metal-sculpture rooms and the whitestone ones with the buildings and roads—and then this place with its beautiful painted sculptures.

Nothing
, she thought.
There was nothing that held lists of numbers in order with writing around them. Nothing like that at all
.

“Can’t figure it out, can you?” Thirk asked and laughed.

“No,” Nokar said. “I saw nothing that might be a directory.”

“Then the despised Delmuirie scholar makes the first major find, hey?” He chuckled. “Look at the designs on all those buildings on the central room—the one you can see from everywhere in the library. The designs are rows of numbers, with writing beside each number. There’s your directory.”

The scholars went back to look. Sure enough, the carvings of buildings were covered with rows of First Folk script.

“That certainly appears to be a directory,” Medwind said. “Now we only have to figure out what in the hells it all means.”

* * *

Choufa and Kirtha and Runs Slow stayed in the largest of the four statue rooms after the adults left. All three girls clambered over the stone monsters and sat on their backs and pretended to ride them. Kirtha tired of the game quickly and got down and walked from monster to monster and began talking to them. Choufa, however, imagined that the beasts were like airboxes that could carry her back into the sky and take her wherever she wanted to go. She had been very impressed by the airbox.

Runs Slow, on the back of her beast, played out a scene of bloody revenge. “My monster flies down on the people of Blue Circle Silk! I throw my hurlstick and hit them all! They fall down dead!” she shouted.

This seemed a very good idea to Choufa. She elaborated on it. “Yes!” she yelled. “My monster takes me to every Keyi in the world! They cannot hurt me because I have
magic!
I burn them with
magic
fire and they burn and die! There are no more Keyu in the whole world!” She remembered the look and the smell of the burning Keyu, and she smiled.

“Good!” Runs Slow pretended to fly her beast, kicking its sides the way she’d seen peknu riders kicking their groundbeasts. “I am going to the peknu town. The peknu will give me much food and many pretty things because I have killed all the Silk People.”

That seemed like a good idea. Choufa liked food, and she certainly liked pretty things. “I’m going to the peknu town, too. They will give me even more food and more pretty things because I have killed all the Keyu,” she bragged. “It is more important to kill the Keyu than to kill the Silk People.”

“Then I’m going to kill the Keyu, too!”

“You can’t. I already killed them all.”

“I can if I want to. You just said you killed them all—but you didn’t really.”

“Did so.”

“Did not,
sharsha
.”

“Did, too,
tagnu
.” Choufa glared at Runs Slow, and Runs Slow glared back.

Runs Slow narrowed her eyes. She took a deep breath, then whispered, “That green stuff all over you looks ugly.”

It was a telling blow. Choufa had nothing to come back with. She stared at the tattoos on her arms and hands and knew that every inch of the rest of her was covered with equally hideous designs, and her eyes filled with tears.

She climbed down off her beast while hot tears blurred her vision and rolled off her cheeks and walked away from the monster room. She heard quick, light footsteps behind her. She kept on walking.

A hand rested on her arm. “I’m sorry,” Runs Slow said. “I didn’t want to make you cry.”

Choufa sniffled but didn’t say anything.

Runs Slow said, “I think your decorations are pretty. I just wanted to make you angry.”

Choufa bit her lip. “The Silk People hurt me. You know how they made these pictures?” She held out her arms and stared at them with loathing. “They stabbed me with sharp needles. It hurt so bad I wanted to die. They did it so I would be ugly—and I am.” In spite of herself, she started to cry again.

“No. You’re still pretty. I think so. Kirtha thinks so.” Runs Slow turned and called back into the monster room with a rapid chaos of words Choufa didn’t understand. “I asked her didn’t she think you were pretty.”

There was silence from the room.

Kirtha was talking to the monsters the last time I saw her,
Choufa thought.
But was she in the room when I left?

Both girls exchanged puzzled looks. “Was she in there when you came out?” Choufa asked.

“I thought so. She was talking to the monsters.”

“I thought so too.”

They walked back into the biggest monster room.

“Kirtha!” Runs Slow called.

Choufa began looking down the long rows of statues. She couldn’t see the little girl. “Kirtha?” she yelled.

“Kirtha? Where are you?”

Both girls stood quietly, listening. Silence. They shook their heads.
If we lose her, the peknu will kill us,
Choufa thought.
Or at least throw us out of the city. That would be the same thing
.

“We have to find her,” she told Runs Slow. “Terrible things will happen to us if we don’t.”

Runs Slow nodded. “There is a door at the back of this room. We should check in there.”

They ran through the door. The room behind was dusty, dimly lit by what appeared to Choufa to be circles of clear stone—and filled with stacks of dust-covered white tablets. There were no little footprints in the dust.

“She hasn’t been in here.”

“No,” Choufa said. “She hasn’t.”

“Then where?”

Standing at the door of the empty room, Choufa suddenly heard the low, heavy grating of stone against stone. The noise was coming from nearby.

“The next room,” Runs Slow whispered. “Run!”

Choufa could imagine terrible things—a statue fallen on the little girl, or stones broken loose from the wall, even the huge roof overhead collapsing. She didn’t trust all that stone above her. But when she and Runs Slow charged around the corner and into the next room, nothing was out of place.

There were only six statues in the room, which was much smaller than the one they’d just left. The room was dimly lit by more of those clear stones in the ceiling. Even in the dim lighting, though, Choufa could see Kirtha wasn’t in there.

“The sound…” Runs Slow said.

“The next room?”

“Maybe.”

They ran to the third monster room, then the fourth. Kirtha was nowhere to be found.

“We need to check the rest of this place,” Choufa whispered, “but we need to make sure the peknu don’t see us until Kirtha is with us again.”

Runs Slow nodded vigorously. “We must find her fast.”

Both girls took off at a run, racing down the aisles, darting quietly into side rooms if they spotted any of the peknu, looking into each cranny and hideaway provided by shelves. The building was huge, but by moving quickly and splitting up, they managed to cover it all. They met back at the first monster room, breathing hard and thoroughly scared.

“Nowhere,” Choufa said.

“I couldn’t find her, either.”

“She has to be here. There is only one door, and that is clear at the front. Somebody would have seen her.”

Runs Slow crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “If we couldn’t find her, she isn’t here.”

“Well, she has to be
somewhere!
”

“Yes. But not here.”

Choufa buried her face in her hands. “The peknu will be so angry.”

“They will probably make us leave,” Runs Slow offered. “They will probably make us be tagnu again.”

Choufa looked up. “Think. She was talking to the monsters. Do you think one of them could have eaten her?”

Both girls eyed the statues doubtfully.

“Maybe,” Runs Slow said. “I hope not.”

“Well, what about that noise we heard in the next room. Do you think that was the sound of a monster eating her?” The more Choufa thought about that possibility, the more likely it seemed. The monsters stared at her with their beady black eyes, and grinned wicked grins with their long, sharp teeth showing.

“Maybe because she was all alone,” Runs Slow said. Her eyes were huge and round. “Maybe they haven’t tried to eat us, because we are together. But if she was alone…”

“You’re right,” Choufa agreed. “Maybe we should tell the peknu.”

“No. We have be sure first.”

“But if the monsters ate her—”

Runs Slow held out her hand. “We’ll look together.”

Choufa took her hand, and trembling, both girls walked back into the second room. Knowing what she knew, Choufa realized that these monsters’ smiles were much more wicked. They looked hungrier than the monsters in the first room, and their eyes watched her more closely. She shivered—and only part of that shiver was because the room was cool. Her fingers instinctively tightened around Runs Slow’s.

“How will we know which one ate her?” she asked.

Runs Slow gave her an odd look. “We’ll check the teeth. We’ll be able to tell from the teeth.”

Choufa looked at all those very sharp, very white teeth, and her heart pounded so hard she was sure it would burst from her chest. “I don’t want to,” she whispered.

“I know. But we have to.”

“I know.”

They walked forward, slowly, taking tiny steps that got smaller the closer they got to the first monster.

“Nothing on those teeth,” Choufa said.

“We have to look closer than that.” Runs Slow climbed up on the base and stared at the teeth with her face right next to them. Choufa thought she was very brave—but crazy. “Nothing on those teeth but dust,” she reported, and jumped off the base.

They crept to the next one.

“You have to look this time,” Runs Slow said.

Choufa nodded, and swallowed hard. She licked her lips, and very, very carefully, she climbed up onto the base. She stared at the monsters’ teeth. Like the last monster, this one had a mouth full of dust.

“Not this one,” she said. Her voice came out as a funny croak.

They worked their way to the back of the room, taking turns. Runs Slow checked the giant red-and-black monster, Choufa checked the tan one with big blotches of dark brown, Runs Slow checked the pale blue-green one with thin black stripes. That left the last monster for Choufa.

It was bigger than the rest of them, she realized. It gave her a knowing smile as she approached. She was almost certain she could see it breathing.

Please don’t eat me
, she thought.
Oh, please, please, please don’t eat me
. She was shaking so hard she was afraid she would fall off the base, but she climbed up anyway, ready to look at the monster’s teeth.

The moment her feet touched the base, the room came alive with the grinding sound of stone against stone.
Oh, no!
Choufa thought. She shrieked, and fell off the pedestal, trying to back away.

Runs Slow grabbed her shoulder as she scrabbled backward. “Stop,” she whispered. “Look at the wall!”

A section of it was sliding up—a single band of greenstone in the striping of green and white stone that made up the room was crawling into the ceiling high over their heads. Behind the opening, darkness waited.

“She’s in there,” Choufa said.

“Should we go in, or should we tell the peknu?”

The stone came to a stop high over their heads, held still for the briefest of instants, and then began to descend.

“Let’s go,” Runs Slow said. “Hurry! Before it shuts!”

They ran under the closing stone door, and it slid smoothly shut behind them. The darkness surrounded them.

Then Choufa’s eyes began to adjust. “Look,” she whispered. “There’s light ahead.”

They walked toward it down a gentle slope. The stone beneath their feet was smooth. They reached the light and found that it came from overhead, a single circle of the clear stone, carved to throw light in six triangles to all sides of them. They stared at it for a moment.