It was Tethia’s bedroom, and this had been Tethia’s library.
Well, shave my eyebrows and call me a Discreet.
I kept the book in my hand while I went around the room again pulling books out and checking publication dates. I had to laboriously translate from different formats of pre-Interregnum dating systems, but after half an hour or so I was convinced: nothing in this library had been published after the Interregnum. Nearly all of the books were published late in the reign of Tortaalik, the last Emperor before the Interregnum.
There were four chairs scattered about just the way they should be: all of them looking comfortable, and none of them near enough to another for conversation. I took my treasure over to the nearest one and sat down. Rocza flapped furiously for a moment; I guess I’d sat down too abruptly.
“Sorry,” I told Loiosh.
I opened the book and started reading.
“Boss?”
“Hmm?”
“How long?”
“I’m just going to skim a bit, try to figure out who did what and how it worked.”
“I know. I mean, how long until I should bite your ear as a gentle reminder that we’re growing old. And hungry.”
Rocza flapped her wings, which I took as agreement with the hungry part.
“Give me about an hour.”
It didn’t take an hour; in fact, it didn’t take two minutes for me to get completely lost and to realize I understood nothing. Usually a book like this will have an introduction to explain the context and what the book hopes to teach, and these are often useful to those of us with no clue about the subject matter; but there wasn’t one. It started right in with an account of “an attempt to use Delmi’s Reclamation within the prescribed area” that resulted in “certain minor tremors detectable by water in glass” and “observable wavering of vision reminiscent of Pare’s Focus when attempted beyond the recommended distance.”
Well, now I knew that.
I skipped around in the book long enough to know that everything else made even less sense, and I was about to close it when my eye happened to catch the phrase “the Vestibule.” This was, in case you’ve forgotten, the place Devera had spoken of, where she had gone to see Darkness.
I read the sentence it was in, then the sentences around it, then more sentences around it, and knew as I much I had before I started. But I wasn’t prepared to call it coincidence just because I didn’t understand it.
I closed the book and tapped it with my thumb for a few seconds.
I got up and walked around the perimeter of the library to see if I could spot any breaks in the wall—libraries are obvious places for secret entrances because bookshelves are so good at concealing them. If there were any, the bookshelves were too good at concealing them. I sat down again and looked at the book. I opened it again to the page with the reference to the Vestibule, tried once again to make sense of it. If I understood anything, it had to do with reasons not to visit the Vestibule, and about being swallowed up, and I very, very much hoped it would have nothing to do with my problem. I swore and stood up. I put the book back where I’d found it, because I am a good person, then I took a last look around the library, and left.
10. Waters Below the Ground
There was one more door to open before the hall ended; it was on the same side as the library.
I opened it and looked, and a fresh breeze hit me. Another thing that hit me was the realization that what I was looking at ought to be on the opposite side—that is, I should have been stepping out onto the cliff. And with that came the realization that the library ought to have extended far over the cliff.
I stepped through and was outdoors and Loiosh said, “We’re free! We’ve escaped!”
“Uh-huh. Notice how the ground is still wet from yesterday’s rainstorm?”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
“Yep. Maybe we can walk away and be somewhen, but I’ll bet not. Most likely, if we keep walking we’ll find ourselves back in the house.”
“Going to test that?”
“Yes.”
What I was seeing was just what I ought to have seen when I looked out the windows in those first rooms: the rough, rocky landscape that led to the cliffs, and what I’d seen from the roof: generally flat, not much growing except coarse grass and small shrubs. I looked for signs of Kieron Road but didn’t see any, which proved nothing.
I set out walking away from the place, and after about twenty paces turned and looked at it. It wasn’t gone, as I’d half expected it would be. I walked a little farther and turned again. Yes, it did appear the same as I remembered it, coming from the other direction. Speaking of directions, insofar as it made sense at all, the front entrance should be that way, to my right. I set off in that direction, looking for the road. The house, the manor, the “platform” was just to my right the whole time, and I kept looking at it. It annoyed me to admit that it was an awfully good-looking house, manor, “platform.” It was graceful, with swooping curves, and there was a sort of purity to it. And the windows looked good, as they reflected—
I stopped and looked up.
“Boss? Why does the sky look like that?”
“Just what I was wondering.”
It wasn’t entirely different from the sky I usually saw when I looked up. I mean, it wasn’t like I was looking at a different sky, but it seemed higher, if that makes sense, and there was some other color in there, muddying things up. The net effect was that the day seemed brighter, almost like it was out East—
I found where the Furnace was, and I could almost see it. Usually, you can feel it, but you can’t see where it is behind the Enclouding. Now I could: right there, high above me, east and a little north.
“We’ve gone back to the Interregnum,” I said. “I’d say pretty late in the Interregnum.”
“Okay.”
Rocza jumped around on my shoulder a little, nervous.
“Tell her to relax, Loiosh. We’re getting used to this ‘jumping around in time’ thing, right? Pretty soon it’ll be no big deal.”
“Whatever you say, Boss.”
I stared at the Furnace, hidden as it was behind the Enclouding, until I sneezed. That used to happen to me a lot when I was in the East. I stopped looking at it and watched the manor some more, but it didn’t do anything.
Oh, well, it sort of did: someone passed in front of one of the windows. I couldn’t identify features, but from the gait, I’d have guessed a soldier; perhaps a guard on duty. I kept watching, and someone else passed by the window, this one with hunched shoulders, perhaps a servant. Then the guard returned, or maybe there was another.