Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

When had she become this paranoid? Steeling herself, she pressed on. What other choice did she have?

The entrance chamber was empty, and Wynn took a long breath before leading the way. Finally, she pointed up the sloping side passage where she’d seen the Suman sages expelled.

Chane looked positively grim, and Shade had been rumbling intermittently along the way. The dog had even once wrinkled a jowl at Wynn, expressing displeasure at all of this. Wynn pressed onward and upward.

They emerged to face the same two shé’ith standing before the opening to the spiral stairs. She’d forgotten how intimidating they were—tall, armed, and expressionless. She stepped leisurely forward with as much confidence as she could muster, and held out the letter.

“I’m here on assignment,” she said in Elvish. “The Premin Council granted me this pass to enter the archives.”

The female shé’ith looked down—not at the letter, but at Wynn.

Wynn couldn’t help a flash of anxiety. She stood waiting, still holding out the letter.

When the woman took it, she snapped it open and scanned its content. A flicker of surprise on her triangular face washed away under a frown. She looked beyond Wynn at Chane and Shade.

“Is something amiss?” Wynn asked, extending her hand for the letter.

The female shé’ith turned over the letter, taking in the wax seal on its outer wrapping sheet. Still frowning, she finally returned it to Wynn but didn’t move. All the while, her companion watched out of the corner of his eye, as if waiting for her to decide what they would do.

“This is an order from the council,” Wynn said. “Stand aside.”

She considered threatening to get a premin but feared the woman might agree. If the pass was some kind of bait, that would end her attempt to gain the archives right here and now.

Finally, the woman stepped aside.

Wynn avoided the smoldering uncertainty in the female shé’ith’s large eyes. She strode by up the stairs, never looking back, and hoped Chane and Shade would follow quickly. When she glanced back, Chane blocked the view down the steps, but she heard the guards whispering. Then Wynn heard the sound of boots rushing off.

“Hurry,” she whispered. “I think one of them went to verify the pass.”

Chane waved her onward, and they quickstepped upward.

The stairway’s living wood walls narrowed, until they had to climb single file. The stairs curved sharply around and around, but then suddenly leveled off into a more gradually arcing and rising passage.

Wynn passed a teardrop-shaped opening filled with a glass pane in the right wall. Through the window, she saw the tops of trees and knew she was looking beyond the guild’s confines to the open forest. A soft light suddenly glowed beyond the passage’s curve above.

When Wynn finally saw the cold lamp mounted on the wall, she paused on the landing. The lamp’s cream-colored base likely contained alchemical fluids, just like those of her guild branch. The fluid produced enough warmth to keep a crystal lit instead of friction by hand. Then she spotted the door on her left, and it suddenly struck her that the guards weren’t the only obstacles.

She’d been so focused on getting past them that she hadn’t considered any archivists waiting beyond a door. If she ran into some counterpart to Domin Tärpodious, would the letter be enough?

Wynn reached for the door lever but didn’t press it. There were two keyholes in the lock plate; two keys were needed to open the door. That was why only the entrance below need be guarded.

“What are you waiting for?” Chane whispered.

She looked up the passage to another set of stairs leading farther into the redwood ring’s heights. If this door was locked, were there more above? The ring’s thickness wasn’t nearly the breadth of the Calm Seatt catacombs. Perhaps the Lhoin’na split their archives between multiple levels, but she had to start somewhere.

Wynn pressed the lever, and to her surprise, the door opened easily. This was unexpected, after the fuss over closing the archives. Perhaps she’d come to expect that nothing she tried would ever be without obstacles. She peeked in, thinking she would find someone waiting.

The main, northern entrance to her own branch’s archives emptied into Domin Tärpodious’s main room. Here she saw only rows of shelves beyond a smaller open space with three small tables. No one was present.

Standard cold lamps glowed on two tables, one of which had a pile of open books upon it. Someone had recently been working in here and left that work lying out. By the low light, Wynn spotted bound volumes and sheaves, as well as scroll cases, filling the nearest casements beyond the tables.

There was no sign of any restructuring in process.

Her anger returned for an instant, but she’d managed to gain the archives—even if under suspicious circumstances. Now she had to hurry.

Wynn rushed in. Chane couldn’t read Elvish, or many other languages found in archive holdings, but that didn’t matter. She pointed to the end of one freestanding casement where the faded etching of a lone triangle was still filled with remnants of paint.

“Look for Fire by Spirit, a triangle above a circle,” she instructed. “That’s for material on myths and legends in historical context. If you can’t find that, search for a circle above a triangle for direct myths and legends possibly categorized by culture, region, and time frame.”

The guild’s orders were often represented by geometric symbols associated with the prime Elements of Existence: Spirit, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. In turn, any works that fell into an order’s fields of endeavor were filed in libraries and archives by those symbols. Columns of symbols on casements, individual shelves, and on some works themselves, were used to classify, subclassify, and cross-reference subject matter.

Circle, for Spirit and Metaology, indicated works on metaphysics, philosophy, religion, and folklore. Triangle, for Fire and Cathology—Wynn’s own order—marked history and the organization of knowledge and information. The square of Air and Sentiology was for politics, law, government, economics, and so on. A hexagon for Water designated works of Conamology, including mathematics and applied sciences. The last was the octagon for Earth and Naturology, with its emphasis in natural and earth sciences, as well as prominent trades and crafts.

“I will start over here,” Chane answered, heading off to the left.

Wynn passed him the spare cold lamp crystal before she took off the other way with Shade. She fingered along casement ends, scanning their etched symbols, but she found only octagons alone or as the top symbol in pairs and trios. Works about earth sciences and crafts wouldn’t include what she sought. She wandered between the shelves, twice spotting Chane doing the same on the room’s far side.

Most guild archives were much larger than what was placed in their common libraries. She’d heard that the one in the Suman branch dwarfed those of the Lhoin’na and Numan. Still, one could get lost wandering the dark catacombs of her own branch. This place appeared considerably too small, and all the casements so far held only works of various subdivisions under Naturology.

It made no sense. Where were the texts for the other emphases of the guild?

Wynn stumbled upon a narrow, steep stairway in the room’s rear-right corner. Sparked with hope, she climbed into an even smaller room. Making her way through its maze of casements, she found its single central table. But all shelves along the way were marked with a leading octagon, though the columns of symbols were now three, four, or even five deep.

Wynn grew anxious. Something was wrong here. Shade huffed twice, and not from nearby. When Wynn turned about, she couldn’t spot the dog.