Mercedes Lackey - Foundation

Bear looked disappointed. “I have a class,” he said reluctantly. “Hang it! I wanted to help!” Then he made a face. “And aye, I wanted to go looking for herb lore, too ... nobody ever thinks to tell anyone about local herb lore. But the Guard does a lot of their own rough-medicine, and I know they use whatever they can get locally.”

Lena patted his hand sympathetically. “It’s all right, Bear, we understand. Once we find what Mags wants to know, we can plan on afternoons or evening when we just hunt out references to medicines and we all three go together.”

Bear had to be satisfied with that. Mags was both on fire with impatience and a little sick with apprehension. No matter what Nikolas or anyone else had said to him, it was still there, that horrible feeling. To find out for certain that Cole Pieters was right, right about him, right about his parents ...

He and Lena hurried over to the Guard Archives as soon as they finished eating. This time the stern individual on guard at the desk looked over his list when they gave him their names. He nodded, and waved them into a short hallway behind him without a word. They opened a door at the end of that hallway, and stepped into what was for Mags a very strange room indeed.

He had expected something like the library. This was nothing like the library.

First of all, they had to go up three stairs to get into it. This was a huge barn of a building, not just a room, with floor-to-ceiling shelves packed very closely together. There were ladders at intervals along the shelves—it was pretty obvious you would need those ladders to reach the upper shelves. On these shelves were identical wooden boxes. Shelf upon shelf, row upon row ... with only a single table with several chairs around it at the door end of the room. He would have thought such a huge room would be freezing cold, but they had some way to heat it that he couldn’t see. Then it occurred to him—the place must be heated the same way that Bear’s indoor herbarium was heated, from beneath the floor. The place had a stuffy feel to it, as if the air wasn’t moving at all. It was also very dry, and the air was scented with the smell of old paper, but oddly, not of dust. In fact, he couldn’t see any dust at all. The lighting was fairly good, too—there were narrow windows up near the roof all the way around, with glass in them.

“Oh, my,” Lena said faintly as she went up to the nearest shelf. “It’s a lot ... bigger ... than I thought it would be. The Bardic Archives aren’t much bigger than the library. Well,” she said, her voice sounding muffled as she moved behind the shelves, “At least they dust regularly.”

Mags followed her. She peered at the end of the box, then at the box next to it, and the one down from it, and perked up. “All right, this isn’t as bad as it looks. These are all nicely organized. I was afraid they were just stuck in here, any which way.”

“I should hope they are well-organized, Trainee. The Guard prides itself on organization.”

Mags could almost hear the unspoken addition. Unlike some other groups I could mention ....

From the back of the room, another old, but erect, man in a blue Guard uniform came walking toward them. He was balding, expressionless, and as impersonal as a lump of stone. “I am the Archivist. I assume since you are here, you have permission, so how can I help you find what you are looking for?”

This time, despite shields, Mags did hear the unspoken addition. I can’t have you running about pulling things down and never putting them back in order, or where they belong. Or worse, putting them back wherever you find room.

Now Mags, who had, up until this moment, loathed his geography and mapmaking class with a sincere and undying passion, suddenly was just as passionately grateful to them. Because now that he had been in those classes, he knew where Cole Pieters’ mine was, so he knew what the nearest town was. And he knew that he had come from somewhere in the vicinity of that town, because he didn’t remember a long journey. He did remember the shouting and screaming, he remembered cowering in a corner, then he remembered being put in a cart and given sweets to suck. It could not have been a very long journey. It had ended in a bare stone room, from which, after several boring days, Cole Pieters fetched him.

“We’re lookin’ for th’ reports from around about a town called Blueflower Hill an’ a place called Cole Pieters’ mine, from about ... twelve, fourteen years ago, sir.” He tried to make his tone and his expression as respectful as possible. This man would respond to respect.

The Archivist nodded. “Very good. That narrows the search down considerably. There are three Guard Posts in that area. Come with me.”

He led them between two of the rows of shelves, and stopped when they were so deeply in that Mags could not really see either end of the room. The man took ribbons out of his pocket, and sorted out a handful of white ones with little blue beads threaded on the ends. Each of the boxes had a ring attached to it; he tied these ribbons off on the rings of several of them.

“I’ve marked each of the boxes you will want to look through with these,” the man said. “You will probably see other boxes marked in this way; if you look through those, be careful not to disturb or remove any markers in the reports. As you finish a box, please remove the ribbon and either leave it at my desk at the rear, or attach it to a new box you wish to look through.” He tapped the end of the box. “The name of the Guard Post and the year are here. The boxes are organized geographically. Put everything back as you found it. You are—?”

“Heraldic-Trainee Mags and Bardic Trainee Lena,” Lena answered for both of them. “We’re looking for information for Mags, sir.”

Mags waited for the Archivist to ask what that was, but he seemed utterly incurious.

“Very good . These will be your colors until you are finished with this particular research. When you have returned all the ribbons, if you wish to pursue another line of research, let me know what it is you are looking for, and I will assign you another set of ribbons.” He smiled thinly. “If it is nothing like as specific as this one, I shall ask you to confine your searches to one small area at a time.”

Lena looked as if she might say something. Mags prevented her from doing so by answering immediately, “Yessir, Archivist sir.”

“If you need me, I will be at my desk in the rear.” With that, he turned smartly about and walked back to the back of the room, heels clicking on the stone floor with military precision.

Mags and Lena looked at each other. Mags shrugged, and reached up, pulling down the first box. “Well,” he said. “Let’s get to it.”

The box was not as heavy as he feared; he hauled it over to the table, and they unloaded the papers inside. It was all organized with fanatic precision. Each report was folded inside a stiffer, thicker piece of paper, and a moon’s worth was tied up with a ribbon or string. There were twelve bundles in each box: a full year’s worth. A year began and ended at Midwinter Night, precisely.

They looked at the bundles, and then at each other. Mags shrugged, and gestured at the box. Lena took out the first moon—Midwinter Moon—and Mags got the second—Ice Moon. They sat down with their bundles and began to skim through them.

The reports were clear and concise, and written in a very legible hand. They also concerned every bit of minutiae on the life of the Guards and the Guard Post.

If I ever can’t sleep, gonna see if I can borrow a moon’s worth of reports.

Mags went through his quickly, neatened all the reports so that all the edges were square, tied up the stack again, and went back for Thawing Moon. Lena was still deep in hers. Mags wondered what she was finding that was so fascinating.