David Zindell - The Lightstone

Because a dying man had made a request of me with almost his last breath – and because I thought there was no way we could ever escape the city – I took his hand in mine and told him, 'Yes, you have my promise.'

'Good.' With all the strength that he could manage, he reached inside the pocket of his cloak and pulled out the False Gelstei that we had found in the Library the day before. He gave the gold-colored cup to me and told me, 'Take this. Don't let it fall into the enemy's hands.' I took the cup from him and put it in my pocket. Then he closed his eyes against another spasm of pain and cried out, 'Jonatham! Braham!

Captain Varkam!'

Jonatham and Braham, accompanied by a grim, gray-haired knight named Varkam, came running along the wall. They joined us, kneeling at Lord Grayan's feet.

'Jonatham, Braham,' Lord Grayam said. 'What I must tell you now, you mustn't dispute. There is no time. Everyone has noted your valor in rescuing my son's body.

Now I must call upon a deeper courage.'

'What is it, Lord Librarian?' Jonatham asked, laying his hand on Lord Grayam's feet.

'You are to leave the city tonight. You will -'

'Leave the city? But how? No, no, I couldn't -'

'Don't argue with me!' Lord Grayam interrupted him. He coughed, once, very hard, and more blood flowed out of him. 'You and Braham will go into the Library. With horses, at least two of them. Take the Great Index. We can't rescue the books, but at least we should have a record of them so that copies might someday be found and saved. Then go with Sar Valashu and his companions into the hills. From there, they will go… where they must go. And you will go to Sarad. For a time: soon Count Ulanu will fall against it and take it as well. He'll take all of Yarkona. And so you must flee to some corner of Ea where the Dragon hasn't yet come. I don't know where. Flee, my knights, and gather books to you that you might start a new Library.'

He placed his hands over his belly and moaned bitterly as he shuddered. Then he sighed, 'Too late – much too late.'

Beyond the wall, the beating of the drums thundered louder.

Lord Grayam drew in a deep breath and said, 'Captain Varkam! You will hold the walls as long as you can. Do you understand?'

'Yes, Lord Librarian,' he said.

'All of you, I must tell you how sorry I am that I misjudged, that there just wasn't enough time, and that I, in my pride, didn't see -'

'Ah, Lord Grayam?' Maram said, interrupting him. He alone, of all of us, felt compelled to put need before decorum. 'You spoke of fleeing into the hills. But how are we to leave the city?'

Lord Grayam closed his eyes then, and I felt him slipping off into the great emptiness. But then he suddenly looked at me and said, 'Long ago, my predecessors built an escape tunnel from the Library to the slopes of Mount Redruth. Only the Lord Librarians have kept this secret. Only the Lord Librarian has the key.'

Here he weakly tapped his chest. We loosened the gorget covering his throat and pulled back his mail. There, fixed to a chain around his neck, was a large steel key.

'Take it,' he said, pressing it into my hand. After I had lifted the chain over his head, he continued, 'In the crypt, there is a door. It's plastered over, but…'

Another spasm ripped through him. His whole body shivered and convulsed, and his eyes leaped out like a siege tower's hooks and fastened onto the great wall surrounding the city of night So Lord Grayam died. Like many men, he went over to the other side before he was really ready, before he thought it was his time to die.

'Oh, too bad, too bad!' Maram said, touching his throat. Then he looked at Atara as his thoughts turned away from Lord Grayam to the problem at hand. 'We'll never find the door now. Can you help us?'

Atara shook her head even as Master Juwain closed Lord Grayam's onstaring eyes.

Doom, doom, doom, doom…

'Well, Lord Grayam said to go into the crypt, so I suppose we should go,' Maram said.

'Yes, but which crypt?' Jonatham asked. 'There is the one where we buried your friends. And one beneath each of the Library's wings.'

Now the sun had set, and the sentinels cried out that the armies of Brahamdur, Sagaram and Hansh were approaching the city's outer wall.

It would have been hopeless, of course, to search each of the crypts, tapping along their subterranean walls for the sound of a hidden door. And so Liljana, seized with inspiration, took out her blue gelstei and laid her hand on Lord Grayam's head. Her touch lasted only a few moments. But that was enough for her to reach into that land of ice and utter cold -enough, as her grip closed upon the last gleam of Lord Grayam's mind, to freeze her soul. Her eyes suddenly rolled back in her head, showing nothing but white, and I was afraid that she would join Lord Grayam in eternity. Then she shuddered violently as she ripped her hand away and looked at me.

'Oh, Val – I never knew!' she whispered to me.

'Brave woman,' I said, taking her cold hand in mine. I smiled and said softly,

'Foolish woman.'

Maram licked his lips as the drums kept up their relentless tattoo. He looked at Liljana and asked, 'Could you see anything?'

'I saw where the door is,' Liljana suddenly breathed out. 'It's in the main crypt. I can find it, I think.'

I stood up then, and so did my companions. To Captain Varkam, who was looking at us strangely, I said, 'It seems that there may be a way out for us, after all. And yet

– '

'Go!' he said to me with great urgency. 'This was the Lord Librarian's last command, and it must be obeyed.'

He motioned for Lord Grayam's body to be placed on a bier. And then he told me,

'Farewell, Sar Valashu. May you walk always in the light of the One.'

Then he quickly clasped my hand and turned to look to the Library's last defense.

We sent for our horses and took them into the Library. The men and women of Khaisham looked at us incredulously as we led them clopping their iron-shod hooves down the long halls. The word soon spread that we had found a means of escaping this vast building – and the city itself. At first many clamored to go with us. But when it became known that we were going into the mountains to the east, their panic to flee the city gave way to even greater fears. For that was the land of the man-eating Frost Giants from which none had ever returned.

'What will happen to them?' Maram asked as we began our descent down the broad steps leading to the crypt. Although no one had wanted to go with us, we all felt guilty at leaving them behind. 'Likely they'll be enslaved,' Kane said. 'So, likely they'll live longer than we will.'

We met Jonatham and graham in the gloom of the crypt. They had four horses between them, each of whose saddlebags was packed with their portion of the eighty-four huge volumes of the Great Index. It made a heavy load for the horses, but not nearly so great as the burden that they themselves must bear.

Liljana located a place on the crypt's eastern wall, where the light of the torches through the arches showed most brightly. We brought forth the sledgehammers the Librarians had given us and broke through the veneer of plaster hiding the door. This was a huge slab of steel untouched by rust and still gleaming dully despite the march of the centuries since it had been hung there. With the help of a little oil in its lock, the Lord Librarian's key opened it. Before us was a tunnel wide enough to drive a cart through – and dark enough to send shudders of doubt through all our hearts.

Our passage through it was like a nightmare. Once the door had closed behind us – this cold piece of steel that would take Count Ulanu's men half the night to break from its jamb – it seemed that the earth itself had devoured us. The torches we carried sent an oily smoke into the stale air and choked us; the red sandstone through which the tunnel had been carved seemed stained with the blood of all who had died along the Library's walls. The horses hated going down into that dank, foul-smelling place. Twice, Altaru whinnied and balked, setting his hooves against the stone like a mule which no threat will move. I had to whisper to him that we were going to a better place and would soon breathe fresh air again. Only his love for me, I thought, impelled him to move on and lead the other horses forward.