Paul Kemp - Twilight Falling

"We erase them," the priest explained, nodding at the numbers, "when Sephris moves on to another room. The whole house is this way."

Cale shared a glance with Riven. Rather than smug, as Cale had expected, the assassin looked … coiled.

Did evidence of madness make him uncomfortable? Cale wondered. A still more uncomfortable thought surfaced in Cale's mind-did serving a god ultimately render all priests at least a little insane? Cale had encountered at least two before: the Righteous Man, and Jurid Gauston.

The priest led them to a pair of walnut double doors, notable for the lack of numbers written upon them.

There, he turned and said to the three, "He may have already forgotten that I told him of you. After announcing you, I will await you here in the hall. Do not unnecessarily agitate him. Do you understand?"

Cale realized then that he didn't know the priest's name, and that the priest didn't know his. It was better that way, he supposed.

They all three nodded. The priest opened the doors.

The circular, high-ceilinged library smelled of ink and esenal root, an herbal paper preservative. Books, scrolls, and papers were crammed so tightly into the wall shelves that the room appeared built of books rather than wood and stone. Thamalon's collection was paltry compared to it. The single room alone rivaled the temple of Deneir's borrowing library. Books and papers, covered in numbers and equations, lay strewn haphazardly across the floor as though blown by a whirlwind. Small teaching slates, similar to those used by Cale's language instructors back in Westgate, lay here and there around the library, filled with chalked formulae written in a tiny, precise script.

Sephris sat at a huge, ornate oak desk in the center of the library, furiously writing with a stick of chalk on another such slate. His thinning brown hair, neatly parted on the side, sprouted from a round, overlarge head. He could have seen fifty winters, he could have seen forty. He wore a heavy, embroidered red robe, and where his arms peeked out of the sleeves, Cale could see numbers inked on his skin. The man had covered his body the same way he'd covered the walls.

The priest cleared his throat and said, "Sephris, the men I spoke of are here."

Sephris looked up at them, though his hand continued to scribble on the slate, as though propelled by another mind. His brown eyes, piercing and thoughtful, narrowed.

"I see them," Sephris said. "You may go."

The priest nodded and excused himself from the room, closing the door as he departed.

"I knew you were coming," Sephris said to them. His eyes looked at them but didn't seem to focus. "See?" He held up the slate upon which he had been scribbling. It was covered in various mathematical formulae. Cale could make no sense of it. Sephris must have sensed their confusion. He tapped a number in the lower left hand corner of the slate. "Three heroes. See?"

Cale didn't. Neither did Riven, it seemed.

"This is madness, Cale," muttered the assassin. "He thinks scribblings told him we were coming. How? Madness."

Cale heard tension in the assassin's voice.

Sephris smiled softly, set down his slate, and rose from his desk. He dusted chalk from his robe and looked at Riven.

"You wonder how?" the loremaster asked.

Riven made no response but took half a step back.

"How many heavens are there?" Sephris asked him.

Riven fidgeted uncomfortably. He looked to Cale and Jak as though for help. Cale had none to give.

"How many?" Sephris asked again.

"How would I know?" Riven snapped.

"There are seven," said Sephris, and he clicked his tongue. "How many Hells?"

Riven scoffed-nervously, Cale thought-and gave no answer. Sephris waited, fingers twitching.

Cale answered, "Nine. Nine Hells."

"Correct. And there's your answer. That's how I knew."

"What?" Cale asked.

But Sephris's mind had already moved on. He stared hard at the halfling, as though trying to remember who he was.

"It is good to see you, Sephris," said Jak slowly. "Do you remember me? Jak Fleet. We met through Brelgin."

Sephris nodded, smiled as though he had just remembered a truth, and said, "It is good to see you, Jak Fleet." He snapped his fingers. "You are one of the three. Servant of the eighteenth god. You remain a seventeen. That is well."

His eyes went vacant. Hurriedly, he bent over the desk and scribbled something on the slate, muttering to himself.

Cale, Jak, and Riven shared a look. None knew what to do or say.

Sephris completed his calculation, or his mad scribbling, examined the result, and nodded.

He looked up at them and said, "I'd offer you a seat, but as you can see, I have none to offer. Zero."

He focused his gaze on Cale, a studied look that made Cale uncomfortable.

"You're the first," Sephris said. "One of the five. Were you aware of that?"

"One of the five what?"

Sephris ignored him and studied Riven in the same way.

"You," he said to the assassin, "You're the second of the five. Two blades, one eye. Your soul is dark. Do you know why you lost your eye?"

Cale felt Riven tense beside him.

"Easy," Cale said to the assassin under his breath.

"You don't know anything about me, old fool," Riven said, his voice low.

Sephris sighed, the longsuffering sound of the misunderstood. He stepped out from behind his desk and walked across the library, hopping to avoid stepping on any of the papers and books, and stood in front of them. Cale readied himself to prevent Riven from doing the old man violence.

"Ten words, thirteen syllables."

"What?"

Sephris signed in exasperation and said, "The words you just spoke. Ten words, thirteen syllables. Do you believe that to be chance? Choice?"

Riven said nothing, which didn't seem to trouble Sephris.

"Not so. Not choice. The necessary answer. Two and two are always four."

For a reason Cale could not explain, hearing those words from Sephris reminded him of his attempt to articulate Fate.

"I see what you cannot," Sephris said to Riven, to all of them, "and I know what you do not." He gestured with his arms to indicate the papers on the floor. "Numbers … formulae. The universe is an equation. Did you know that? Each of us is a sub-equation. Every question a function. Each, therefore, solvable." He looked Riven in the eye and asked, "You don't want to be solved though, do you? Fearful of the answer?"

Riven looked like he wanted to spit. His hand hovered near his blade.

"He's mad," the assassin said, but sounded unsure of himself.

"No," said Jak, "he just knows things. He just. . thinks differently."

"Indeed," said Sephris softly, and he smiled at Jak. "Differently." He turned and walked away from them, again careful to avoid stepping on any papers or tomes. "Sit where you like. It does not matter."

None of them moved. They continued to stand just inside the door, as though fearful that to enter the library would immerse them in the same mad world in which Sephris lived.

"Do you know why we've come?" Cale asked him.

Sephris folded his hands behind his back and looked up to the ceiling.

"Many variables, of course …"

He trailed off, muttering to himself, pacing the library, studying nothing. Cale wondered if he should ask the question again.

"Variables," Sephris muttered, "variables." He stopped walking and turned to look at Cale, his gaze sharp. "You've brought me something."

"That shows nothing," Riven said. "A Turmishan palm reader could-"

"You've brought me a half," said Sephris with a smile, "but you wish the whole."

Cale felt the hairs on his nape rise. Beside him, Riven stuttered to a stop.

"Didn't I say so?" Jak said, and shot an I told you so look at Riven. "Show him, Cale."