He had no clear sense of where he was going. Perhaps he could find a way back inside the mountain; perhaps he could reach one of the wide roads which he sometimes glimpsed on the lower slopes. Surely they led to a gate to the interior, for how else could fresh produce be supplied to the day markets?
He was descending a narrow stair, with a vertical rock face on one side and nothing but a slender rail of gleaming metal protecting him from a sheer drop on the other, when it suddenly turned and went under an arch. Something stopped him with implacable force, as if the air around him had congealed, and asked him his business. But it yielded at once to his will, and he went on down the stairs with invisible shawms braying and a stentorian voice gravely announcing the arrival of a Hierarch.
As Yama entered the courtyard at the bottom, a squad of guards in full armor pushed him aside and clattered up the stairs, pistols and falchions drawn. The courtyard was wide and shaded by high stone walls. In the middle of it, a soldier with an officer’s sash over his corselet stood on a table. He was shouting at the people milling around two gates in the high wall at the far end.
“There is nothing wrong! Resume your places! Nothing is wrong!”
Slowly, order was restored. Clerks resumed their seats at tables shaded by large paper parasols. The crowd separated into lines before the tables. Both of the gates were guarded by armed men. One seemed to be an entrance; the other an exit. All who went through the latter were stopped by the guards, who carefully scrutinized the wads of documents which each person had collected at the tables. Yama, too tired to consider retracing his path, joined the end of the line nearest him.
The line moved forward very slowly. The clerk who sat at the table questioned each petitioner closely, pausing now and then to write in various books or to stamp papers handed to him. The man who had come to stand behind Yama told him that there was no hurrying anything here.
“It’s an old department,” he added, as if this explained everything.
“It is?”
The man looked at Yama and said, “Are you lost, brother?”
He was an old man, stoop-shouldered and yet still tall, as tall as the Aedile or Telmon, with smooth black skin and silver eyes. Coarse white hair wound into long corkscrew ringlets framed his broad-browed face; three fireflies nested there. He looked at Yama with a shrewd, kindly gaze.
Yama said, “I believe that I did not come here by the usual route. What is this place?”
“The Department of Apothecaries and Chirurgeons,” the old man said, and his silver eyes widened when Yama laughed.
“I am sorry,” Yama said. “It is just that I have been searching for this place, and came upon it by accident.”
“Then you were surely guided here by the will of the Preservers, brother,” the old man said, and shook Yama’s hand by way of greeting. He added, “Certainly you are more fortunate than the fool who tried to force entry through the Gate of the Hierarchs. Some poor wretch tries it at least once a year. After the guardian has finished with him, the guards display his body before the main gate as a lesson.”
“Then I am doubly fortunate,” Yama said.
The old man’s name was Eliphas. He was a runner who made his livelihood by researching cases which physicians could not cure by normal means. Eliphas explained that most of the people queuing in the courtyard were runners for physicians or leeches; he assumed that Yama was from a family which could not afford to employ an intermediary. He saw that Yama was hungry, and took one of Yama’s pennies and purchased waybread and water from a stall on the other side of the courtyard.
“A tip if you have to return next time,” Eliphas said, smiling tolerantly as Yama devoured the waybread.
“Bring food with you. It’s cheaper, and will probably be better, too. But I don’t suppose they told you how long it would take.”
“How long does it take?” The black waybread was heavy and very sweet, but it satisfied Yama’s immediate hunger at once.
“Usually a day to get through the preliminary certification,” Eliphas said, “and then a day or two more to have the records searched. It depends on how you phrase your question. That’s part of the art.”
“My question is quite simple. I want to know if the Department of Apothecaries and Chirurgeons can help me find my people.”
Eliphas scratched among his white corkscrew tangles with long, thin fingers. His nails were curved, and filed into points. He said, “If you can pay, I’ll be glad to help. But I’ve never heard of anyone who does not know his own bloodline.”
“If it can be found anywhere, it can be found in Ys,” Yama said. “That is why I came here. When I was a baby, I was found on the river and taken in by a kind man. But now I want to find my real family. I believe that there are records here that will help me, but I am not certain that I know how to find them. If you will help me, I will be glad to pay what I can.”
Eliphas said, “If you pay for my evening meal, and my breakfast, why then, brother, I’ll do my best to put you on the right road.”
“I can pay a fair price,” Yama said, stung by the thought that Eliphas was offering charity.
“It’s fair enough, brother. The way to learn about the system is to see how it responds to questions, and I believe that I may learn a lot by asking yours. The more you learn about the way information is catalogued, the more efficient you become. I can process up to a decad of questions in parallel. There’s not many who can do that, but I’ve been working here all my life. In the days before the heretics, of course, it was simpler, because all records were stored within the purlieu of the avatars. I remember that what we now call librarians were then called hierodules, which means holy slaves. The real librarians were simply subroutines of the avatars. They spoke through the hierodules, and their answers came promptly. But we live in an imperfect age. The shrines are silent, and we must ask clerks to search through written records which are often second- or third-hand transcriptions, and not always stored where they should be.”
“But why is it that you are not allowed to know how the library is set out? It seems to me you must work in the dark when all that is needed is to open a shutter.”
“Why, there are a thousand clerks employed by this library alone, and this is one of the smaller ones. If everyone knew where everything was to be found, the librarians would make no money and could not afford to maintain the records in their care. And if facts were free, why then I wouldn’t make any money either. But that’s the way it is with most professions, brother. If their mysteries were removed, why then there’d be no need for most of the people in them. I’d say nine-tenths of the business of any department is to do with guarding the mysteries, and only one-tenth in applying them. That’s why rituals are so important. I’ve asked thousands of questions in my time, and reckon I know as much about medicine as most leeches, but I could never practice as I’m not inducted into their mysteries. If I’d been born to one of the medical families it might be different, but only the Preservers can choose how to be born into the world.”