A Hollow Mountain (The Brightest Shadow Book 2), page 70
"When?" Kan asked, but Eraes had already read the letter and had the answer.
"Right now. I need someone to ready a group to join me, including at least one Fareye."
"You're actually going to meet them? But what if it's a trap?"
"They agreed to meet at the library itself, which is in our effective range and past theirs. The only trap I can see is if the urgency involves a warrior, which is why I asked for a Fareye." Eraes slammed the paper down on the table and straightened. "Whatever the mansthein are doing, it puts those historic buildings at risk. I need to go if there's any chance of protecting them."
More importantly, she wanted to reopen negotiations, but she didn't say that. Since she had left Teralanth, something had changed, more and more strategists assuming that conflict with the mansthein was inevitable. As far as she could see, that was an unwarranted assumption, and it reminded her of a certain bright-eyed madman.
As she left the command center, Eraes found herself soon joined by a small group that included a Fareye. Even out here, the Teralanthan military was efficient. They soon passed their own lines, entering into the region where both sides could field warriors. For the sake of the average soldier, it was kept clear except during major offenses.
The Library of Unwan sat within that zone, between the city of Corunyon and her little port. As they marched toward it, Eraes wondered if it was really worth the trouble at all. Even in the best of times, it had never been any great center of learning, merely a gathering place for relics of the past becoming a relic itself.
Yet the fact that the message had insisted on an urgent meeting drove her forward. There had been no subtext in the message, yet the very fact of it after the silence was itself strange. Either a mansthein commander had suddenly taken an interest in history or something stranger was going on.
When they arrived outside the squat pyramid, scouts reported that the mansthein had done as they'd promised. The enemy commander had brought only a small group of his own soldiers, taking a defensive position beside the library but showing no sign of anything but caution. They said that he awaited her within, so she gestured to her Fareye to be alert and went to meet the man.
"Eraes Tor Yin." The mansthein who greeted her was a Laenan man with thinning green hair, curled horns, and a bit of a paunch. He chuckled and put one hand on his hip as she approached. "So you are the one who keeps slipping supplies around our blockade."
"I thought this was about the library." Eraes folded her arms behind her back and refused to smile until he revealed his purpose.
"Oh, it is. Can we leave all these soldiers behind and speak commander to commander? They have so little appreciation for the past, it would only bore them."
Given that the area was secure, such a proposal was likely harmless. Though an old trick was to send a warrior in place of a commander and decapitate the opponent's army, that was one of the many reasons she had been trained to view sein. To her eye, the commander was almost completely untrained, so his proposal was likely only a request to speak in private.
She nodded curtly and both groups cautiously moved to the entrance of the squat pyramid. Most of the scholars at the library had abandoned it when the fighting began, but a few workers emerged to open the doors for them. Eraes and the mansthein commander entered together, soon seated across from one another in a pair of chairs in a quiet lobby.
Though she wanted to examine the library at length, Eraes told herself that there would be time later and constrained herself to military concerns. It appeared almost entirely abandoned, but she could see the rows upon rows of scrolls beyond. So far, everything had been as secure as promised, so she turned her full attention toward the enemy commander.
"My name is Olaenaq, and I have actually called you here under false pretenses." Smiles gone, he regarded her with a hard gaze - she didn't see a trap in his eyes, only desperation.
"This isn't about the Library of Unwan?"
"Take it." He tossed a scroll onto the table between them. "The military doesn't care about it, though on a personal level I would hate to see any ancient Teralanthan culture destroyed. But it matters less than our present concern, which is why I brought you here."
"I see." Eraes took the scroll but didn't look at it, waiting for him to get to the point. He seemed to be expecting a question from her, but her gaze eventually forced him onward.
"The truth is, there was never meant to be a siege of Corunyon. The matter is... well, it is rather an embarrassment, but give me some time to explain and you will understand."
"The Seinan army is fighting the Laenan one." Though she'd figured it out that very day, Eraes spoke in a bored tone as if she had known all along. "The people of Teralanth do not appreciate being drawn into your internecine conflicts."
Judging from the shock on his face, Eraes was overwhelmingly grateful to the spies who had brought her that intelligence. Olaenaq had anticipated being able to frame the military situation to a naive human, but now he might be more honest. After readjusting some of the buttons on his uniform, Olaenaq nodded and explained.
"That was never our intention, but there is a... conflict between Laerith and Ith Silvaros. Our forces were meant to threaten, yes, but only to convince you to allow us the use of Corunyon without such disastrous sanctions."
"If you think I control national sanctions, you've vastly overestimated my importance."
"I was getting to that. You see, some Seinan factions have a vested interest in preventing us from having use of such a valuable port in Teralanth. They sent a legion of their own to prevent any peaceful negotiations, then began pushing for a siege. The Laenan navy had no choice but to set up a blockade before they did - they would have choked the life from the city."
Eraes regarded him coolly with no need to fake skepticism. It explained some of their movements, but it was also far too positive a story for her. The enemy commander sweated under her gaze and she could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he wondered how much she knew.
"So you see, this war is truly between the mansthein forces, not against you humans. Shifting for position has even given way to violence, though both legions maintain a polite fiction otherwise. But if you wish to lift the siege, then the fastest path is to work with us to break the stalemate..."
"I understand." Eraes sat forward, her fingers laced together across her knee. "You aren't convinced that the Laenan forces can gain the upper hand, so you're coming to the humans in the hope that they'll join your side and fight along with those blockading them."
"No, I would never assume so much!" Olaenaq shifted uncomfortably, which had been the purpose; now any request of his would seem an imposition. "But we are severely lacking in military intelligence. We cannot be seen to scout our ostensible allies, yet the sides are rather clearly cut, since our conflict has such a stark racial dimension. You are the only ones with a reason to be investigating both sides, so perhaps..."
"I'm sympathetic, commander, and I'm willing to feed you intelligence about the other mansthein army. But I need a better token of good will than making this library into neutral ground. If the Laenan blockade of Corunyon is really so unwilling, I want you to allow supply ships through."
"To do so would dishonor our naval capabilities... but I was sent here with the authority to grant it." Olaenaq smiled in triumph, but not toward her. She realized that he had considered the human side of the conflict nothing but terrain, and her only an obstacle on the way to his enemy. "A specific ship will be given a time and place to pass through, and in return we expect to receive useful intelligence. If both sides are true to their promises, we can meet again to exchange more."
"Agreed. I am glad to find you a reasonable man, Olaenaq."
They rose and he thrust his hand forward, so Eraes shook his hand in the Laenan style. Afterward she had to resist the urge to wipe off her hand, not because he had been repulsive, but because the gesture simply felt so strange. He left her with another scroll detailing further information, which she could reasonably hope was authentic.
In a single stroke, she had brought supplies to Corunyon, expedited the mansthein army's departure, and secured the safety of a historical site. The frustrating part was that it had come about through no real genius on her part, only basic competence and luck. So many ploys against the enemy, then this simply stumbled into her lap.
Still, she thought that she deserved to reward herself. After sending her soldiers to check for any mansthein trickery on the premises, Eraes allowed herself to wander deeper into the library. The wooden shelves were nearly a forest of their own, filled with scrolls and books, organized not in tidy rows but according to some ancient system. Overhead, the stone of the ceiling was blunted by ornate wooden panels expanding in all directions.
After growing somewhat disoriented, Eraes decided to search for a scholar. Even though the building was nearly abandoned, she eventually found a man in a traditional scholar's robe. He made her pause momentarily: he had golden eyes, like most of the noble families, yet unusually light brown skin. Eraes quickly decided it was irrelevant and nodded to him.
"Take me to the oldest section of your library. This is a personal request, not a command."
"Of course, commander. We are all grateful that you have kept the Deathspawn from burning the library."
She frowned at the surprising vehemence, but followed the scholar regardless. He led her through the spiraling corridors until at last they came to a secluded space lit by soft yellow sein spheres.
"This room contains the oldest of scrolls that have been copied in recent memory, so you may feel free to read them. If you wish to remove a scroll, simply ask any one of us for permission. But please do not attempt to force the door below, as the lower archives contain materials that have not been copied or indexed. Some of them might crumble at your touch."
"I understand. Thank you."
Once he left her, Eraes began to wander the shelves, occasionally brushing her fingers against the ornately carved rods. Each shelf was divided into many compartments, which were all given clear rune labels. She quickly learned the basic system of organization, ignoring the sections devoted to Teralanthan history and focusing on those that were truly obscure.
Here, the labels were names of past civilizations that no ancient human had ever used. If any records from those cultures had survived, they were written in unintelligible text and their true names were long forgotten. She had only dim knowledge of such ancient periods of history, and from her understanding most scholars were equally uncertain.
As she began to investigate specific scrolls, however, she found a few commentaries on ancient documents. One was a treatise on building castles that had been essential to the earliest Teralanthan builders. Another was a sein manuscript, the drawings of figures comprehensible even if the text meant nothing. Some of the present day's greatest arts traced their legacies back to these earliest scrolls.
Another illustrated scroll caught her eye and Eraes found herself poring over the drawings. What struck her as strange was that the figures did not look particularly Teralanthan to her. Their skin might be any color, given the stylization of the drawing, but their hair was unmistakably straight.
This scroll could only be a copy of a copy, and it had been placed in a compartment listed as unsolved mysteries. She had no guarantee that the scribes who had copied it had done so accurately, or even that it meant anything at all. It could have been a tale for children, for all she knew.
Or a Legend.
Shaking herself, Eraes turned away from the shelves. She had planned only to distract herself from her obligations for a time, yet she ended up carrying the two scrolls with her. Though she thought it might be difficult to find a scholar, she bumped into one almost as soon as she turned around.
"May I remove these two scrolls from the library?" Eraes asked. The man stared at her, then slowly shook his head.
"I am afraid that I am not who you presume I am."
"Then who are you?" Even as she snapped out the words, Eraes looked at him more carefully. His skin was more suited to Baelen or Salenkh than Teralanth, but she had assumed he was a traveling scholar. Yet now she saw that he wore the clothes of a common laborer, not a scholar's robes.
In his rough arms he carried a box of scrolls, which she now examined for a second time. The parchment was ancient and many of the rods were cracked... they looked far older than the scrolls she held in her hand. Though she knew nothing of him, she found herself suddenly suspicious.
"What's keeping you?" A disgruntled voice spoke from deeper in the shelves - not in Teralanthan, but in Araln, the language of the Eternal Empire. She whirled to track the voice and discovered a much stranger man approaching them.
Though he spoke Araln, he had pale skin and red hair going gray. His robes were completely unfamiliar to her, a gray cloth draped over his shoulders above black silk. That was less important than the fact that those robes were covered in dust, along with his shoes and the hands that carried a number of ancient scrolls. Given the cleanliness of everything she had seen, they could only have come from the restricted archives.
When he saw her he paused, eyes widening. Eraes turned to him and spoke sharply. "Are you a scholar studying at the Library of Unwan?"
"You could say that." He switched to Teralanthan despite her attempt at Araln, his grammar flawless and his accent unfamiliar. "I'm sorry if my friend here bothered you. He's a better scholar than he looks, I promise you, but he tends to focus too much on whatever lies before him."
"Just what are you studying in the ancient archives?" Eraes stepped toward him, but he stepped back smoothly. His companion shifted around her, carrying his box of scrolls to stand behind the strange scholar.
"Oh, whatever suits our interest. We'll be on our way, so please don't mind us."
"Stop right there." Eraes put as much authority into her voice as she could before they could go. "I think we need to speak to the head scholars about what exactly you intend to do with those scrolls."
The strange man made a face, like a child denied a treat, and started to turn away. His companion didn't move, however, speaking quietly in Araln. "She has only been polite to us. Why be rude?"
"Fine, if you insist." The scholar rolled his eyes and turned back to her, returning to Teralanthan. "You may think we are suspicious, but we are only scholars of curiosities. As it happens, we are visiting your lovely library because it contains a few old stories about the Legend. Nothing that would interest you."
Eraes stepped forward despite herself. "It does interest me. In my travels, I met a man claiming to be the Hero from those very stories."
"Huh." The scholar scratched at his scalp just along his receding hairline. "Why do you care?"
"Because..." She took a careful breath, considering. Though she had no reason to trust him with anything, and taking him before the authorities was the obvious choice, her mention of the Hero had been the first time that he had truly looked at her. "Because I believe those prophecies of the future may be true after all. Studying them may be our only way to avoid disaster."
To her surprise, the man snorted. "Prophecies? You really don't understand at all, do you?" He cast a mocking glance to his companion, who shrugged slightly apologetically. "You see? There's no point talking to her, not when she still thinks this is about prophecy. We have what we need, so let's just go."
"Stop!" Eraes rushed forward, not sure if she intended to physically hold them in place. The strange scholar grabbed his comrade and pulled him back, so her hand only grasped a single scroll sticking from the top of his box before they moved away. Then space folded on itself and the scholar voidwalked both of them from the library.
The rush of wind sent several scrolls falling from the shelves and swept her clothes around her. Scraps of parchment torn from ancient manuscripts fluttered inward as if to linger in their absence. Eraes had a thousand potential thoughts, but they refused to come together. Instead she slowly reached out, grasping one of the scraps of parchment.
Only a scrap. When she opened the scroll she had taken from them, it contained nothing but meaningless runes, so faded as to be nearly unreadable. Feeling fate close around her, Eraes turned on her heel and left the library as quickly as she could.
Part 5
Total Unity
Chapter 52
-
"I am the first of the sages. I am alone."
- The opening lines from First of the Sages, a manuscript of unclear provenance. Though found in a buried archive beneath the City Undying, it is written in a nearly forgotten script now found only in the Unaian Wilds.
-
"Almost home." Melal stretched his arms over his head as they walked. "I'm looking forward to a good meal and a real bed for once."
Home? Slaten regarded Melal with surprise, as the other man had expressed little affection toward Olondris and Mantyos. The appeals of food and bed were understandable enough, but Slaten had never felt like he belonged in Torgaadi. They might not be as closed as an Oken village, but they had their own way of life and he had never been part of it.
Every time they returned to the town, the surrounding hills became more familiar, but he could never call them home. He did feel himself begin to relax as they passed the gate, the errants nodding to them respectfully. They offered only a little stability, though perhaps it would hold, given the Hero's current state.
When he had set out from Mount Tmil, Melal had overflowed with purpose, reminding him of every Hero that came before and promising to wipe the north clean of all Deathspawn. He remained fixated for far longer than before, but with days upon days of travel, Melal gradually emerged from the Hero. Though he had roused himself when they reached the north, they'd soon learned that the mansthein forces around the mine were too numerous to be effectively fought.
After their most recent scouting attempt, which again left behind allied Bloodskin and errants, it seemed that Melal was content to relax. For once, Slaten agreed completely, though he hoped to use that time to train. He thought he might be near the point of being able to hear sein, and since Tani also lacked that sense, they worked together.
