Heartened by the recent events, Gilwyn spent more and more time in the library, imagining himself at the helm of the great edifice. When he had arrived in Koth, Thorin had offered the job to him, saying that the library needed him. It did, Gilwyn knew, but he still had a life and a lover to return to in Jador. Nevertheless, he daydreamed about remaining in Koth and reopening the grand ‘Cathedral of Knowledge,’ returning both the city and its icon to its glory days. How proud would his mother be to see him now, he wondered? She expected great things from him. Before she died, she had told him to reach for the stars.
Gilwyn pulled the duster from his belt, stretching to feather the higher books. Had he disappointed his mother? He thought so. But then, everyone in Koth was disappointed, because the city had fallen into ruin over the years, breaking all the dreams of it populace. The young face of Gilwyn’s mother burned brightly in his memory, and he held it while he dusted, unaware of the melancholy smile curling his lips. She had died young but he remembered her perfectly, and the memory of her gentle touch was never far from his mind. Thinking of her now, his hand stilled. His eyes drifted blindly from the books, seeing nothing but the image of her smiling face.
‘Oh. .’
He caught himself with a sigh, stepping down from his stool and laying his duster down on a shelf. He rarely felt alone in the huge library, but now the solitude of the place unnerved him. It was almost noon, he was sure, and he promised Thorin he would be back in Lionkeep for midday meal. He glanced around the rotunda, proud of the work he had done, and then glimpsed a tiny movement near one of the many long reading tables. He pivoted to see it better, catching sight of a bit of tawny fur. Still in his dream state, he grinned when he realized it was Teku.
And then froze.
Impossibly, unimaginably, Teku jumped from one table to another, stopping to chatter at him from across the room. The monkey who he’d left in Jador gave him her familiar grin of little teeth. Gilwyn barely breathed, trying to make sense of what was happening. His eyes scanned the chamber, but everything else was the same, without a hint of distortion.
‘Teku,’ he said softly. ‘You can’t be here.’
As she always did, Teku gave her little monkey bark, then climbed up onto one of the shelves, wrapping her tail around a pole of wood to support herself. She dangled down from the long appendage, urging Gilwyn forward.
‘It’s not you,’ said Gilwyn. ‘It can’t be.’
Teku frowned in annoyance. Always remarkably intelligent, her human-like expressions left no doubt to her thoughts. Pulling herself up again, she hopped to a bookshelf closer to the exit, then jumped up and down excitedly. In her language, that meant for Gilwyn to follow her, but Gilwyn shook his head.
‘Whatever you are, go away,’ he told her. He glanced around the rotunda. ‘Do you hear me, Kahldris? I know this is your doing. You’re in my mind.’
Teku seemed not to hear him. The monkey leapt to the floor, clapped its tiny hands together, then loped out of the rotunda, looking back at him to follow. Her chattering went with her out into the hall, where she screeched for Gilwyn to come. Sure that he was being duped, Gilwyn nevertheless went after her. Ruana touched his mind instantly.
Don’t, she urged. That’s not Teku.
‘I know,’ Gilwyn assured her.
You’re doing just what Kahldris wants. Don’t follow her.
Too curious to ignore the monkey, Gilwyn stepped out of the rotunda and into the corridor. Fleet-footed Teku was already well down the dim hall, but chattered happily when she saw Gilwyn following. Again she started off, heading down the corridor toward the private living chambers. The darkness of the hall gave Gilwyn some pause. He had spent very little time in that part of the library since returning, and still didn’t care to see the places where he and Figgis had lived. Teku, disappearing around a bend in the hall, called insistently for him to proceed.
‘What does he want?’ Gilwyn wondered. There was no sense of Kahldris in the air, yet he knew the spirit toyed with him.
To frighten you.
‘With a monkey?’
To Gilwyn it made no sense at all, and the puzzle of it propelled him down the hall. With Ruana’s cautions ringing in his mind, he hurried down the corridor after the monkey, catching glimpses of her as she continued rounding corners. Gilwyn’s clubbed foot ached in his special boot, trying gamely to keep up with her. Very quickly he was in the living area, a much less grand part of the library marked by plain stone walls and small, narrow chambers. This was where he had spent his adolescence, where he and Figgis had shared their lives, and the ghosts of the place were all around him suddenly, flooding him with memories. With only the light from the clouded windows to guide him, Gilwyn struggled to see where Teku had gone, peering into the many chambers to find her. Her chattering voice was coming from everywhere at once, and like a hall of mirrors the corridors all took on the same, confusing greyness. Gilwyn realized with dread that things were not exactly as they were before. The halls were impossibly narrow, and not because they’d been rebuilt. Just as he had when he’d come to Gilwyn in Roall, Kahldris was changing the landscape.
‘We should go,’ he told himself, but turning around did him no good at all, because the way he’d come was blocked. A wall that shouldn’t have been there had sprung up in seconds, and the only way out was forward. The panic of being trapped gripped Gilwyn. He forced himself to stay calm.
Wait, said Ruana. He means to trap you, Gilwyn. This is a game, but you don’t have to play.
‘Don’t I? There’s no way out now.’
Whatever he would find going after Teku, it had already been ordained. Gilwyn stiffened his resolve, refusing to let Kahldris best him. He took a resolute step forward. Teku’s calls stopped instantly. Silence engulfed the hall. Up ahead, a chamber beckoned, pouring out orange candlelight. Vaguely he remembered the room, calling it up from his past. Not a room from the library, this one was from Gilwyn’s first home. The place he had been born.
‘Lionkeep. .’
Things had changed in Lionkeep over the years, but he was back there suddenly, nearly two decades in the past. Shadows grew in the chamber’s threshold, the frantic throes of a woman in labour. It was his birthday, and in that room he was being born.
Inching forward, the illusion became complete as he heard his mother’s cries, screaming as the midwives consoled her. The agony of his birth drove her cries through the hallway. Gilwyn pushed himself onward, unable to look away as he neared the chamber. At first he saw Gwena, the midwife who had delivered him, half hidden behind a woman’s bloodied thigh. Gwena stared intently into the woman’s womb. Another woman — a girl, really — stayed beside Gwena, looking frightened as the one on the bed continued to scream. She was Beith, Gilwyn’s mother. Gilwyn could see her contorted face now, streamed with tears, the veins on her neck bulging with effort. Gwena urged her on, coaxing her to push the baby from her body, its head beginning to crown between her legs. Fluid rushed from the womb, staining the sheets. Beith screamed for it to end. Gilwyn reared back, the surroundings swimming and changing as the library more and more became Lionkeep. Then, inexplicably, his mother turned to look at him. When their eyes met, she scowled.
Gilwyn couldn’t move. Like his mother, he wanted to scream, but even breathing became difficult as he forced himself to watch his own bloody birth. With one last momentous push, the infant that was him came tumbling out of Beith’s body, wet and wailing, the cord connecting them pulsing pink with life. The midwives looked at the infant and all at once their happy faces shrouded in dread. The baby — baby Gilwyn — writhed in its own wet bounty, its hands hooked, its fingers fused to clubs. Gwena shrieked at the hideous thing and the girl at her side fainted away. His mother was sobbing, somehow knowing the monster she had birthed. Gilwyn shook his head wildly, falling back.