The Barrow (20 page)

And while Harvald enjoyed secrets, and had traversed parts of the city underground in pursuit of them, he was most interested in the kind that brought with their discovery the potential for some useful reward. The kind, he very much hoped, that he carried in his satchel.

Though no longer a member of the University, Harvald's position as a clerk in the Chancery of the High King's Hall allowed him access to the campus and, most importantly, its vast Library, the greatest in the Middle Kingdoms bar none. The Library had grown from a small scriptorium and scroll room at the University's founding, to now fill three of the four building wings of the Library Quad, effectively forming a single large U-shaped wing of the University. While most wings had multiple entrances—certainly many from the interior quads of the University, and usually one or two from the exterior streets surrounding the University campus—the Library had only a single entrance at one end of the U shape, located in the center wing in the middle of the quads. Most of the windows and doors on the lower floors were bricked up and walled over. The rest of the U-shaped wings were filled with chambers and halls filled with books and scrolls and study rooms, arranged in somewhat haphazard fashion and cared for by a small cadre of librarians under Magister Clodarius, master of the Chair of Letters. In general the chambers and halls were readily accessible by students, save for the chambers in the furthest part of the U shape, where the University housed the rare books in its collections too valuable to let students handle without supervision, and books the access to which had been restricted or even outright forbidden. Such books were kept behind locked and magically warded doors: grimoires of occult spells, books on necromancy, secret screeds on the Forbidden Gods of the Nameless Cults of the Damned.

Which, naturally, was exactly where Harvald was headed.

He passed under the main arched gateway to the University off the High Promenade, went up the stepped street to the heights of the Quarter, and approached the main doors at the South Wing. The few guards there spotted his Chancery badge and recognized him, and just waved him through. He glanced up at the statues that lined the main entry hall as he passed them, depicting some of the first and greatest magisters of the University, beginning with the flanking statues of Eldyr and Maderyd, two of the Hundred Sons of Mad Myrad. He wondered what they would think of an impostor walking so cavalierly through the front doors.

Crossing the Lower Quad felt a bit like a homecoming as it always did, and his mind was already beginning to anticipate the more difficult parts of his intended expedition. Ignoring the curious glances that his Chancery badge earned from some of the younger students that saw him, he passed into the doors of the Center Wing of the University and turned right into the long corridor that would take him to the doorway to the Library.

Getting into the University itself was never really a problem, even if the front gates were locked as they sometimes were at night; there was always a door or a window somewhere left unattended. Entry into the Library was a bit trickier, as he and Stjepan and Gilgwyr had discovered during their days as students. The only entrance was the one he now passed through, and it was attended at all times. He forced himself to look and more importantly
feel
casual.
You've done this a hundred times before, and this time is no different
, he repeated in his head as he approached the front desk of the Library.

Luckily he recognized the librarian behind it, a sour old Danian nicknamed Grim Liam by the students, and relief washed over him.
By the gods, I can even try to make this easy
, he thought. Like most of the librarians, Grim Liam had been a student once himself; many remained as librarians out of love for the Library and the University; out of love for Magister Clodarius, who was one of the most popular teachers there; or, as was the case with Liam, because they were unable to find service with a lord's household or at the High King's Hall, and did not wish to risk the more unpredictable life of a scribe- or sage-for-hire. Most of the latter sort of librarian accepted their lot in life with equanimity; but not Grim Liam, who took his disappointment and anger out on the students that had to deal with him.

Harvald, however, had seen in Liam's anger an avenue to friendship and perhaps with it, opportunity, and so over the years he had gone out of his way to break down Liam's surly demeanor by buying him drinks when he saw him in the local taverns, and confiding in him some juicy but meaningless bits of gossip from the High King's Court. He'd even taken Grim Liam to one of the less reputable dancing halls over on Penny Street to ogle several fine-looking temptresses. Of course, he had hardly singled Grim Liam out in some prescient fashion preparing for just this very moment; rather, he'd spent time and money like that with hundreds of men and women across the city over the years, all as a way of
tilting the odds
, as he liked to think of it.

And on this occasion, his gamble had paid off, for rather than looking up from the ledgers to observe his approach with the scowl with which he greeted most other visitors, Grim Liam's face broke out in a huge, friendly grin when he saw that it was Harvald walking toward him.

“My dear Harvald!” Grim Liam said, standing and offering a hand. “How is life at the Chancery? It's been a dog's age since I've seen you here in the Quarter.”

“Aye, what was it, last Midéadad, I think?” Harvald replied, heartily shaking his hand. “Over at the Pig & Prince.”

“I believe you are correct, right after the Feast of the Scales,” said Liam, pleased that Harvald had remembered. “They must be keeping you busy over there. Just the other day I was thinking to myself that I hadn't seen you yet this year, nor this past winter either.”

“Aye, haven't been in the Quarter much of late, spent most of the winter deep in the Records Hall at the Chancery, and only got back from a journey out of the city just recently,” said Harvald. “Court business, and all.”

“Ah, perhaps then a few tales over drinks might be in order?” said Liam hopefully.

“Indeed, I may be headed back out of the city in a few days, but perhaps we could try for the Pig & Prince again, say the evening of this Secondum?”

“Excellent!” cried Liam. “I look forward to it. Of course, if the Court takes you elsewhere, I would understand completely.”

“If I am forced to leave the city beforehand, I promise I shall find you upon my return,” Harvald said with an easy smile. “We are long overdue for a drink.” He allowed a cloud to cross over his face. “This latest work has been most troubling, and I would not mind a chance to unburden myself. Indeed, I am glad it is you at the desk this day, as I have an unusual request. I've been asked to make a copy of some of the pages of the
Libra di historum Manonesian
for someone at the Chancery. They don't have a copy of it there, it's quite rare as you know, and the only copy I'm aware of in the city is the one in the rare books collection here. Some interesting stuff came up during the campaign against the Rebel Earl last year, some stuff about the old histories of the Manon Mole and the Wyvern King, and the only thing left to be done is to compare what was learned up in the hills with what's written in there.”

“Nothing unusual about that. If it's one of the rare books rooms I'll just enter you into the ledgers with the name of the Chancery Lord requesting the copy to be made and fetch you the key,” said Grim Liam, grabbing a brown leather ledger from beneath the desk, where it sat next to a rarely used black ledger.

“Ah, that's the unusual part,” said Harvald, and leaning forward he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial tone, and let his eyes fill with meaning. “I can't tell you the name of the Chancery Lord.”

“What?” said Liam, a puzzled expression on his face. “Well, that is un . . . oh!” Liam gave a start, as he unraveled the hint, and he also lowered his voice. “You mean; it's for
him
.”

“Yes!” said Harvald. “I mean, it's just a bit of research, but still, it's very exciting. Apparently he very much liked the work I did for him copying the transcripts of the trial of Lord Wilhem last year. I think I told you about that, didn't I?”

“Oh yes, a terrible business, that!” said Liam. “Well, then; I suppose it might be best if this one was off the ledgers completely, wouldn't it?”

“I was afraid to ask, old friend, but that would be most excellent indeed,” said Harvald.

“Then let's just put that particular ledger away,” said Liam, slipping the brown ledger back under the desk. “I can just enter you as having entered into the general Library, then. Would that work, do you think?”

“Yes, I think that'd be fine,” Harvald said; after all, some students and guards had seen him enter the Library doors so it might stand out later if for some reason his name was not recorded anywhere. He watched as Liam wrote his name into the main ledger of the Library, and then could barely stand it as Liam stood and consulted a massive bound ledger, the Catalog of the Rare Books Collection, that was on a separate desk behind him. After a few minutes that seemed like hours to Harvald, Liam finally reached down, rummaged a bit in a drawer beneath the desk, and fished out a brass key.

“Here we go,” said Grim Liam. “The key to the Blue Room in the Rare Books Wing, where you can find the
Libra di historum Manonesian
. The password is
regismata
.”

“Most excellent, old friend,” said Harvald with a smile. “Most excellent!”

As he walked through the halls and galleries of the Library, Harvald discovered he'd been sweating into his shirt during his interaction with Grim Liam, the fear building in him that someone would come along and interrupt before he'd had a chance to make good his entry. But now relief that he had cleared the first hurdle flushed the fear away, making it difficult for him to keep a measured pace as he made his way deep into the wings.

He passed the scriptorium halls, where students and scribes diligently made their own copies of the books they were studying, or were employed in creating copies of some work at the request of a noble or member of the High King's Court.
Still the old-fashioned way
, he thought as he remembered the many hateful hours he'd spent there doing the same. Printed books had finally appeared in Therapoli, imported from Palatia and Hemispia beginning a hundred years ago, and were now increasingly available, being produced even within the city itself. But the University did not own a printing press—though Harvald knew of eleven in operation in other parts of the University Quarter and over in the Foreign Quarter—and neither did the High King's Court, a mark of the general conservatism of the city's most powerful institutions. Instead, students and clerks spent many hours laboriously hand-creating copies of ancient texts and important documents, and therefore duplicating in some cases the errors and editorial decisions of some previous generation of copyists.

During his time at the University, a great debate had raged about the appropriateness of the use of both printed editions of books and the use of Indices created to make their perusal easier, both of which were rejected as foreign concepts alien to the proper traditions of the University. Only the more cosmopolitan students of the Mottist College—named in honor of the Lord Mott, Vizier of Palatia and inventor of the first Indices—embraced the printed word with enthusiasm.
Hard to believe that those debates had come to bloodshed
, he mused. But now, only a few years later, the debate was muted if not largely over, the presence of printed books firmly established in the city and the University, and their ascent was almost certainly inevitable.
Try standing in the way of the future
, he thought, glancing at the rows of students diligently bent to their task,
and it will sweep you aside.

After the scriptorium halls, he passed through the four great halls of the main Library wing. Each hall held copies of the books of the four Ages of History, going back chronologically. So the first hall was filled to bursting with the books of the current Age, the Age of Iron and Fire, which began when Akkalion, the Emperor of Thessid-Gola, fell into what came to be called the Gray Dream; the second with the books of the Bronze Age, which began after the Catastrophe that ended the Worm Kings and the darkness of the Winter Century; the third with the books of the Age of Legend, which began after the sinking of Ürüne Düré and the end of the War in Heaven with the ascension of Islik to the throne of the King of Heaven; and then finally, the last hall filled with the books of the Golden Age, that most ancient time when gods and men walked Geniché's earth together, stretching all the way back to the Age of Creation. Only one book had been created during the Age of Creation: the Great Book of Yhera, the Queen of Heaven, written with the blood and skin of the Great Dragon, and from which grew her Sacred Tree. And that book could only be found in the Otherworld, where the World Mountain and the Sacred Tree met Yhera's palace in the Heavens. Only the greatest of magicians and heroes could ever hope to see that book, and get a chance to read it or, if they dared, inscribe their lives within it.