On everything, from the brutalized statues to the torn pages of the books which littered the floor like a confetti carpet, was a gray furring: dust. It looked as if the room had not been disturbed for years, decades even.
But it was not uninhabited. In a stone chair at the far end of the chamber, overlooking this ruined wasteland and flanked by crippled statuary, sat a man. He was robed and hooded in purest white and his hands were lost in the sleeves. He was motionless, though he was turned toward me, and, though I could not see his face under his pale and heavy cowl, I felt his eyes upon me.
He did not move. I, seemingly paralyzed, was unable even to speak. The pulsing throb which I had felt through the door seemed to be all around me, not pushing me out of the room, but swirling at me from all sides. It was as if I was at the center of an eyeball whose iris had contracted tightly about me. And then, as if the room had suddenly dwindled, the walls rushing in until the entire chamber was only a few feet square, I stood at the man’s feet and he was gazing down at me from his throne. My mind emptied. Then he spoke-or, rather, I heard a word in my head. The voice was cold and unfamiliar. It said one thing only, and it was not a question, comment, or exclamation. Rather it was the tone of someone acknowledging my presence-someone who had expected, even sent for, me.
“Outsider.”
My eyes were fixed on the dark hollow within the hood, the space where the man’s face should have been, and I could not tear them away. But however hard I stared I could not guess what that face would be like if I had the strength to reach up and tug the cowl back. Pale and old beyond reckoning, I knew, though where this idea came from, I could not say.
I felt cold, pinned like a bug under a lens, and then I had the strangest and most uncomfortable sensation of being read like a book, the pages of my life torn open and riffled as if he could see into me, into my past, into my mind and heart. I felt exposed, naked. I fought to close myself to him, but couldn’t. He had me in some sort of inverse vice that forced me apart, separated my very thoughts and feelings.
It was horrible.
I knew I couldn’t stop it, but somehow I lighted on another possibility, something that might distract or unsettle him. He had called me Outsider. Through the confusion and fear I managed to shape a defiance that was also a kind of question.
“As prophesied,” I thought.
Then, as my eyes burned futilely into his, I became aware that the charge in the air, the energy that rushed about me like liquid, had acquired a color. It was now visible as a grayish smoke tinged with violet. As it surged and darted I saw, from the corner of my eye, that it was lit by flickers of blue-white lightning ripping through sullen clouds. I tried to look away from the seated figure, but my eyes would not leave his hooded visage. The air grew heavier and darker until the flashes of light burned themselves into my vision for seconds after they had passed. As the light faded, I felt the hatred which had ravaged the room and the coldness of the mind which had gripped mine and I was overcome with fear. In desperation, I tried to shut my eyes, but they stood open as if their lids were pinned back. They burned. The black hollow of the man’s head filled my vision, but around me the room was growing still darker. There was another flash of light, more brilliant than the rest, and it forked right through my head. I cried out with a defiance born of fear and again tried to shut my eyes. It was like closing vast, iron-bound doors, and required all my strength. For a moment, my eyelids were immobile and staring, dry, smoldering so badly that I thought they would clot over with blood; then they were moving. I drew them down as if I was winching some great weight over a pulley. When they were no more than cracks through which I could see the seated figure, he shifted.
And in that second I heard a voice. It was not the voice of the hooded figure who had gripped my mind, but a voice from long ago echoing down a tunnel of memory, a voice which seemed vaguely familiar but unplaceable. The voice faded in and out, each word almost just out of the reach of hearing, resonating like a bell struck years before but somehow still ringing.
“Outsiders will come to Phasdreille,” said the voice in my head. “A small group of men and women from beyond your maps. They will alter the course of the war and of your world. They will bring change.”
If there was more, the being in the library shut it out, as if slamming a door. I felt his uncertainty and anger at the memory of the words. Then there was darkness, a subsiding of the fear and panic and a stilling of the air. I waited, and when I opened my eyes again, I was where I had been when I walked in. The room was huge again, and the figure robed in white was a good hundred yards away from me. I knew instinctively that my window for escape would be narrow, so I turned hurriedly, yanking at the handle of the great brass door. His eyes burned into me and I felt the air thickening again as he strove to hold me, but I was already out and running as fast as my dress would let me.
I had good cause to run. Not only could I still feel him watching me, I felt sure that some strange alarm had been triggered and the guards would be after me. I glanced wildly around at the library’s passages and doors, unsure of whether to bolt from the building or find somewhere to hide.
The decision was made for me. In the hall which lay directly at the foot of the stairs that led up to the dome gallery, doors boomed and a dozen soldiers in white and armed with shortswords and silver helmets burst in. They moved with the resolve of men pursuing a bear that has eaten their wives. An officer shouted and pointed, and a pair of the library’s own guards joined them, their voices raised and sharp.
“The Outsider is disguised as a court lady,” said one. “He’s upstairs.”
The company divided, drew their swords, and moved toward the double staircases, their faces strangely grim. They apparently thought me dangerous, and that would make them lethal. I moved quickly out of the gallery and toward the door from which I had once seen Aliana emerge. I had reason to doubt that she could be trusted, but given the choice between doubt and the certainty that those soldiers would kill me on the spot, I’ll take doubt any day. Call me an optimist. I tried the handle without knocking and burst in, tearing the wig and spectacles off as I did so.
She was standing inside, clad as before in a long, pale smock, open at the throat.
“They’re after me!” I spluttered.
“Will?” she said, peering at me.
“Yes. They’re after me.”
“Who?” she asked, stepping toward me, her brow clouding with concern.
“Soldiers,” I said. “I don’t know why. But I think they plan to kill me.”
“Stay here,” she said. I just stood there. A wave of fear had hit me as I remembered the looks on their faces. I was damp with sweat.
She grasped my shoulders and looked into my face.
“Will?” she asked, her face earnest, almost pleading. “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” I managed.
“I said, stay here. I can get you out, Will. Just give me a moment.”
“Right,” I answered, and began to pace beside her desk below the window.
She left the room, closing the door behind her. I sat and listened to the sound of my fractured breathing and my thumping heart. Outside, it was quiet. That unnerved me. Before, there had been booted military feet drumming on the steps and the polished stone floors. Now there was nothing.
What is she doing?