Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

“The Architect must see this,” I said.

Mist combed her pearly hair out with her fingers, pulled at the front of her strappy T-shirt and stared at the incredible view. “We could easily get trapped up here,” she said. I was an unarmed emissary, but Lightning and Serein carried their customary bow and broadsword as respective signs of their status. Mist walked between them, knowing that with Lightning’s lethality at a distance and Wrenn’s invincibility at close quarters she was as safe as in a fortress.

I was wilting badly; I wasn’t born for a temperature of forty degrees. My clothes clung to the backs of my knees, my armpits, chest. I was more uncomfortable even than Fulmer in his designer suit; I was desperate to stretch my wings. Mist had decreed that their strength would raise too many questions among the Trisians. I had folded them under my baggy shirt, which gave me an unattractive hump running the length of my back. The wings’ elbows brushed behind my thighs and the wrists hugged at the level of my shoulders. My wings’ leading edges were damp; from the wrist of each one to the small of my back the feathery patagium webbing cleaved together with sweat. The flight feathers stuck out from under my shirt.

“Don’t spread,” Mist muttered.

“You don’t know what this is like. I’m boiling!”

“Come now, it’s no hotter than a Micawater summer,” Lightning said cheerfully.

The crowd of Trisians were not at all bothered by the sun. They kept pace with our party at a respectful distance and chattered together inquisitively, with curious and affable expressions. Children ran among them, peering from behind their parents’ legs. A flock of white doves burst from a roof, wings whistling. I strained for refreshment from the faintest breeze, and I envied them. They didn’t have to hide their ability to fly.

The street started to zigzag up, its steps closer together; it turned hairpin bends as the gradient steepened. It was immaculate with low walls on either side beyond which was open ground strewn with boulders under craggy outcrops. Blooms of butterflies rose and fell on lavender, wavered over planted hibiscus, lemon trees and bougainvillea, honey-drunk.

Then we reached the flat hilltop and entered the open courtyard of two dazzling white granite buildings. At the far end was the massive columned square edifice we had seen from the quayside, set edge-on to the sheer side of the crag’s cliff. A second, longer hall of the same two-story height adjoined it on our left. It had pilasters with scroll capitals set flat against its walls, a roof made of red pantiles. I was awestruck by the vibrant buildings; they were only the size of the Throne Room but somehow as impressive as the entire Castle.

The crowd trotted in behind us, and when we stopped they gathered around, watching Fulmer exhale smoke and stub out his cigarette in its amber holder.

“This is the Amarot,” Vendace proclaimed. “From here, the Senate cares for Tris. Please follow me…”

“It’s the hall of the governors,” I said in Awian. “Come on.”

We crossed the courtyard that was one hundred meters square, paved with mosaics in copper, blue glass and black ceramic. Geometrical designs ran around its edge, and in its four quarters there were pictures: galleys, a weighing scale, a dolphin and Insects. Insects?

The mosaic showed a young woman with brown flowing hair, standing in a swarm of Insect heads and huge antlike bodies. She held a wine-colored pennant that streamed out behind her and the folds of her dress molded closely around her breasts and thighs. She had flowers in her hair and an expression that looked more pained than noble.

Lightning recognized it at once; his eyes opened wide. “I’m right,” he said. “It’s Alyss of the Pentadrica.”

“It must be a coincidence. How in the Empire could they know that story?”

“I don’t know, Jant. I really don’t know.”

Vendace led us through an open door into the long building. The air was cool and still, and we all stood blinking for a second until our eyes adjusted.

“If this is a church,” said Wrenn, “then thank god’s coffee break.”

Vendace said, “This connects with the Senate House. I will show you the way. It is the library of Tris. A quarter of a million books have been collected here. Danio is the Senate member who takes special charge of it.”

“It’s a library,” I translated.

“Then thank the librarians!” Fulmer took a cambric kerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead with it.

A library! I trailed my fingers along the cedar shelves as we passed, and my heart beat faster than in the Moren double marathon. A quarter of a million books! It may not be as extensive as the royal collection in Rachiswater, or the archives of Hacilith University, but I had been through most of those.

Vendace saw my rapt expression and chuckled. Every single book was unknown to the Empire and brimful with new information I could spend the next century piecing together. Some of the larger tomes were attached to their shelves with brass chains. They were bound in leather and their pages were paper or vellum. There were coffers full of codices and square baskets packed with papers.

The lower stacks were divided into pigeonholes storing scroll cylinders made of bronze. Some were green with verdigris and others polished by use. There were ledgers of loose leaves; slim volumes bound in boards, in violet and dark red buckram. There were folded maps and plans of every town on the island.

A few books lay open on a table where a reader had left them. One was actually hand-copied and beautifully illustrated with colored ink. The rest were woodcut-block-printed, which again showed how far behind the times Tris was.

We passed bay after bay; each shelf had yellowing posters listing its contents but Vendace was leading too quickly for me to translate. All the same, I was beside myself with joy; I had found my treasure.

As we were led through the long room I began to grasp the enormous extent of the repository-it was floor-to-ceiling full of recorded knowledge. A few solitary scholars occupied chairs and tables in the bays. Fluid music drifted in from outside, a stringed instrument, but the windows were too high for me to see who was playing.

I tried to glimpse words on the covers and I lingered until I was trailing behind the group. Wrenn and Fulmer gave the books not one glance. Fulmer swung his walking stick as if he was taking a lunchtime stroll in Rachiswater Grand Place. Wrenn’s astonished gaze scanned everything without perceiving it. Mist was trying to communicate with Vendace and took no notice of the books. Lightning, however, had the gleam of fascination in his eye.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” I said.

He nodded with the ardor of a collector. “What an excellent discovery! I must have copies made and shipped back to my library. Of course it won’t generate the profit Awia so badly needs, but the knowledge might help us. I think I can afford the payload room for one or two shelves.”

I wondered if Lightning could see any work of beauty without wanting to own it. Sculptors and painters in the Fourlands vied for his patronage, knowing he would preserve their creations and provide the means to support them for life. “We must curate this for the Empire,” he continued.

“It looks like the Trisians have done a good job of that already.”

“Jant,” Mist called back over her shoulder. “Stop dawdling. Are you under the influence? Shall we maroon you here and pick you up in a couple of hundred years?”

The books on the nearest shelf seemed to be works of philosophy and natural science: The Germ Theory of Medicine, Manifesto of Equality, Optics and the Behavior of Light, The Atomic Nature of Matter and other Theories by Pompano of Gallimaufry, Zander of Pasticcio’s “The Explication of Dreams,” An Inquiry into the Uses of Saltpeter, Worlds Beyond Worlds: Transformed Consciousness, Some Descriptions of the Afterlife, Tris Istorio-A History of Tris.