A. Hartley - Will Power

And in that second I heard a voice. It was not the voice of the hooded figure who had gripped my mind, but a voice from long ago echoing down a tunnel of memory, a voice which seemed vaguely familiar but unplaceable. The voice faded in and out, each word almost just out of the reach of hearing, resonating like a bell struck years before but somehow still ringing.

“Outsiders will come to Phasdreille,” said the voice in my head. “A small group of men and women from beyond your maps. They will alter the course of the war and of your world. They will bring change.”

If there was more, the being in the library shut it out, as if slamming a door. I felt his uncertainty and anger at the memory of the words. Then there was darkness, a subsiding of the fear and panic and a stilling of the air. I waited, and when I opened my eyes again, I was where I had been when I walked in. The room was huge again, and the figure robed in white was a good hundred yards away from me. I knew instinctively that my window for escape would be narrow, so I turned hurriedly, yanking at the handle of the great brass door. His eyes burned into me and I felt the air thickening again as he strove to hold me, but I was already out and running as fast as my dress would let me.

I had good cause to run. Not only could I still feel him watching me, I felt sure that some strange alarm had been triggered and the guards would be after me. I glanced wildly around at the library’s passages and doors, unsure of whether to bolt from the building or find somewhere to hide.

The decision was made for me. In the hall which lay directly at the foot of the stairs that led up to the dome gallery, doors boomed and a dozen soldiers in white and armed with shortswords and silver helmets burst in. They moved with the resolve of men pursuing a bear that has eaten their wives. An officer shouted and pointed, and a pair of the library’s own guards joined them, their voices raised and sharp.

“The Outsider is disguised as a court lady,” said one. “He’s upstairs.”

The company divided, drew their swords, and moved toward the double staircases, their faces strangely grim. They apparently thought me dangerous, and that would make them lethal. I moved quickly out of the gallery and toward the door from which I had once seen Aliana emerge. I had reason to doubt that she could be trusted, but given the choice between doubt and the certainty that those soldiers would kill me on the spot, I’ll take doubt any day. Call me an optimist. I tried the handle without knocking and burst in, tearing the wig and spectacles off as I did so.

She was standing inside, clad as before in a long, pale smock, open at the throat.

“They’re after me!” I spluttered.

“Will?” she said, peering at me.

“Yes. They’re after me.”

“Who?” she asked, stepping toward me, her brow clouding with concern.

“Soldiers,” I said. “I don’t know why. But I think they plan to kill me.”

“Stay here,” she said. I just stood there. A wave of fear had hit me as I remembered the looks on their faces. I was damp with sweat.

She grasped my shoulders and looked into my face.

“Will?” she asked, her face earnest, almost pleading. “Are you listening?”

“Yes,” I managed.

“I said, stay here. I can get you out, Will. Just give me a moment.”

“Right,” I answered, and began to pace beside her desk below the window.

She left the room, closing the door behind her. I sat and listened to the sound of my fractured breathing and my thumping heart. Outside, it was quiet. That unnerved me. Before, there had been booted military feet drumming on the steps and the polished stone floors. Now there was nothing.

What is she doing?

I got up and stepped closer to the door and heard, or thought I heard, stealthy movement behind it. I backed toward the window and I thought about what she had said. She had called me Will. Not Mr. Hawthorne, not William, Will .

Suddenly we were friends?

Opening the window, I peered out down forty feet of sheer stone to a flagged courtyard below. No chance.

Though small, the chamber was thoroughly furnished and the walls were lined with books: destined for the fire, no doubt. There was a miniature furnace with a narrow pipe chimney. Beside it at floor level was a hatch, about three feet square, with a heavy winch mechanism and a braking lever set in the wall above it. I pulled at the hatch door and it moved upward, sliding in a pair of grooves. The floor inside was a square wooden panel suspended by chain at its corners. Dropping to a crouch, I climbed awkwardly inside, feeling the base shift and swing alarmingly. Then I reached one arm back into the room, groped for the winch handle, and pulled the lever downward.

Several things happened simultaneously. The panel beneath me dropped as my weight sent it tearing down a dark shaft, almost severing my hand in the hatchway as it fell. At the same moment, I heard the chamber door crash open as the soldiers entered. As I plummeted downward, the thought of hitting the bottom suddenly seemed at least as bad as whatever the troopers up there had intended to do with their swords. The chain rattled through its pulleys and all light but the receding square opening into Aliana’s room dwindled to nothing as I hurtled noisily down.

Then there were faces peering down from that square, leaning down into the shaft. I saw the shadows of gloved hands grabbing at the chains, trying to stop my descent. Their efforts were in vain, though they slowed my fall slightly. This, ironically, made my impact with the ground less jarring. I crumpled and rolled, too delighted to be on solid ground to be too concerned with the inevitable bruising that the fall would leave me with.

I was getting to my feet in what seemed like another storage room piled high with books destined for censorship or destruction when Aliana’s voice, distant and echoing like the ghosts in old plays, pinned me to the spot. She was leaning into the shaft and her voice was cool, gloating, so that I almost didn’t recognize it. “You didn’t really think I’d help you, did you, Outsider?” she whispered. I paused, astonished and touched with dread. It was as if a veil had been plucked from her face and I was seeing her as she really was for the first time.

“I should have known,” I shouted back. “Never trust a book burner.”

“You are as stupid as the goblins,” she added. “You can’t possibly get out of here, you know. A gross and degenerate creature like you, evade us?”

There was a hint of bitter amusement there; I could hear it. She started to say something else about how I was going to get the death I deserved, her voice never losing that calm, insinuating tone with which she had begun, but I wasn’t listening. I stuck my head back into the shaft and turned to shout something up at her, and found that the crossbow, though awkward in the confined space, was already aimed. I saw the light on her face and in her hair, but I never saw her eyes until I sensed the crossbow bolt speeding at my face.

I cried out, I think, and pulled back just in time to feel a rush of air and see three inches of steel-tipped quarrel slam into the splintering wooden platform. She began to talk again, but I knew she was just stalling till the soldiers got down to me. I didn’t stick around to listen.

I was in a stone room piled with boxes of books. There was a single wooden door, and through this was a corridor which joined up with the passage I had used to enter the building from the side. I ran out into the cold sunshine, unlacing my bodice and stepping out of the dress as I did so, knowing that they were mere yards behind me. I let the dress lie where it fell.

My course of action was clear: I had to put Phasdreille behind me. Nevertheless, I had returned to the palace, intending to stay just long enough to get my belongings and think for a moment. It wasn’t a great idea, I suppose, but I didn’t know where else to go, and I suspected the city gates were already held against me. I was in the palace for no more than two minutes, but it was long enough for Garnet to find me. Perhaps that was what I’d gone back for.