Anthology - The Search For Magic

Jai took in a long, difficult breath. In his mind he heard the words of the Lady Librarian, spoken only today: We can’t forget who we were, Jai. It’s how we know who we are, and how we can guess who we will be. How could he abandon the holy work? Breathing again, he understood he could not, and he knew it would gain him nothing to continue to press his case with his parents.

“Jai,” Marise said. “Son, go back to the Library.”

He shook his head, not understanding.

“Have your supper and then go back. You always do at this time. It would seem strange to anyone who might be watching if you didn’t tonight.”

Jai looked to his father, who nodded slowly. “Yes, but be back before the moon is highest. Say nothing to anyone about our plans.”

Jai did as he was bidden, and when he left his parents’ home, his were the usual lurching steps, his hitching gait well-known to his neighbors and to any minion of the Marshal who might be watching.

Jai sat in silence among the histories of the kings. He had no plan for staying behind. He had not even the smallest thought or idea to turn into a plan. He had only his work, and this he did, trusting that some idea would spring to mind. So sunk in concentration was he that the sound of a footfall startled him. His heart jumped, and he looked up to see Annalisse standing in the doorway.

“Here you are,” she said, entering the room. “I’m not surprised.” She slipped a finger around the edge of the first page of The History of Kith Kanan. “You are the best of my students and the most faithful of my apprentices. Any of the others would have left this work for tomorrow.” She fell silent a long moment, her silence like shadows creeping. “And yet, I don’t know how many tomorrows there are.”

Jai looked up. “Lady?”

“Don’t you hear it, Jai?” She looked at the manuscripts and books, at the sturdy tables and high stools. She turned, looking out the door, and Jai knew she saw what he did: gracefully spiraling staircases leading down into winding corridors, reading rooms, the silent nooks where once scholars came to study, and the vast, high arched chamber in the middle of all, where the most prized pieces of the library’s collection were displayed. There, in older days, elven kings had entertained poets and philosophers.

“Jai,” she said, “This place has been a temple, in its time as sacred as any raised to gods. Treaties were signed here, laws enshrined here. All that we are is contained in the towers of this place. In the march of Medan’s Knights I hear an ending coming.”

The scent of ancient ink and venerable parchment filled the room. Jai looked around at the folios, the books, the tightly rolled scrolls all here for repair. Sometimes in quiet hours, when there were only these for company, Jai thought he heard the scratch of ancient quills, the voices of elves many long years dead as they spoke the words of an age-old ballad or tale. And yes, he could feel an end coming.

“Do you think the dragon will fall upon us, lady? Do you think…?”

Annalisse shook her head. “Who can know? But I feel… something. Like the future knocking on the door of the present. I have spent so much time among the histories and the long tales that I often think I can see the pattern of how things work out. You feel it, too, don’t you Jai?”

He admitted that he did. An end was coming. To a kingdom, to a long and many-leafed branch of a shining history…

Annalisse’s eyes went soft and sad. “I feel something else, a closer ending. Are you leaving, Jai?”

Shock ran like lightning along Jai’s nerves.

Annalisse shrugged, a melancholy smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Well, I see how you look around tonight, how your fingers linger on everything-table, pen, page. You look like a man who has another road to take.”

Fear made him shiver even as he scrambled to think of something to say. In the end, he reached for a portion of the truth, hoping his voice didn’t shake.

“Madam, I’m sorry. I would have told you in time. My father has had word that his uncle who lives in Mianost is calling the family to gather.”

A cloud chased across her brow, then vanished. “Ah, that’s a shame, but it has been a long time coming, hasn’t it?”

Jai nodded. “It has.”

“Well”-she sighed-”I’m going to miss you. How long will you be gone?”

Jai said he wasn’t certain. “There is the gathering of the family, and then…”

And then they must wait for his father’s ancient uncle to die. After that, the funeral rites, a period of mourning, and the settling of the will. All this, his pause asked Annalisse to understand, and she nodded gravely as though she did.

“When do you leave?”

For the barest moment, Jai hesitated, feeling he’d said too much already, not knowing how he could have said less.

“I’m not sure,” he lied. “Mother said something about making an early start. Father said he had some small matters to tend to.”

His lie sat like truth. He knew it because Annalisse’s grave expression never changed. With his next breath, however, Jai spoke sudden words unplanned, and these were not lies.

“And,” he said, glancing causally away as if this were a minor detail, “I don’t know that I’ll stay in Mianost as long as my parents will. After my uncle’s death, that is. The business of his will and the disposition of his home… well, that’s best handled by my father. I might well come back here.”

He said this, and it was all he could do not to smile. He’d found his plan. He had, for he’d said aloud that he would return, and if he did not… why, that would look suspicious indeed.

Briskly Annalisse clapped her hands, as one does who doesn’t like to dwell on sadness anymore. “Well! Let’s make use of you while you’re still here. There’s no reason we can’t at least begin to catalog the repair needed on the first page of the Histories tonight.”

Jai agreed there was no reason, and they spoke of his departing no more.

When he returned home, Jai let his parents know he’d been obliged to say something to Annalisse about their leaving Qualinost, and he told them what other thing he’d said. About Annalisse, they seemed to understand that he’d had no choice. They agreed that he’d handled the matter well. About his decision to return to Qualinost after sufficient time had passed, his parents were not pleased. His father looked like a man being blackmailed. His mother quietly wept. Neither could change what he’d done.

The Windwild family left Qualinost as planned. The night’s darkness was just going to gray, the sky yet possessed a few stars, and the moon had only an hour before sinking into the west. Like people who had nothing to hide, the Windwilds left the city riding-Marise upon a pretty roan mare, Emeth on a tall black gelding, and Jai astride a docile little gray that followed his mother’s mare peacefully. At Manse’s suggestion, they made the most of their pretense, taking care to greet those few who saw them and to say they were going to Mianost prepared to mourn a kinsman. At the black-breasted guards who walked the four spans of the silver bridge that girded Qualinost they did not look.

One of those who stopped them on their way was Annalisse, the Lady Librarian. Outside her home, which was not far from her beloved library, she looked up from a bench in the garden at the sound of bridles ringing. She went out from the garden and took Emeth’s hand in hers, speaking quietly of her wish that his uncle pass peacefully from the world. “But not,” she said, “until he experiences the joy of seeing all his kin come to gather around him, the old and the young. Travel in peace, Emeth, and keep well.”