The Library of Ibadꂦs

 

Finn Sinclair

©Finn Sinclair, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I say that the Library is unending. -Jorge Luis Borges (Labyrinths)

Chapter 1

The choppy waters of the strait made Danel slightly queasy as the ferry struggled to cross to the western shore. Three months of crossing plains, mountains, and forests had collapsed into one moment. Danel dared to lean out over the rail to catch a long look at the city of Strabo, the gateway and guardian city. His hand pinned his hat down on his head as he cataloged the warehouses on the shore, the light towers that marked the north and south points of the harbor and the two- and three-story buildings that rose behind them. He had read the historian Garbure’s description of Strabo, but to see the city with his own eyes was a moment to remember. The words became concrete.

A horde of profiteers and hawkers descended upon the docked ferry just as Garbure had described it, chaotic. Danel had already shifted his meager coin purse to a safer spot and slid the four-inch double-sided blade into the palm of his hand. When he felt a hand or finger poking, prodding or grabbing, he stabbed it. In no time, Danel had worked this way through the crush on the pier and onto the paved landing. A quick examination confirmed that all was intact and still secure. Remembering the details of Garbure’s description, he walked to the south exit from the landing and turned left. The carts and coaches were lined up and waiting for passengers as the author had described them over a hundred years ago.

As Danel approached, he listened as the drivers called out destinations. He walked a long way past thirty or forty carts until he finally heard a driver all out, “Library of Ibados.” Danel scanned the people standing to the side, looking for like-minded travelers. He caught the eye of a young man with black hair that kept falling in his face. His shoes were worn, and his face was lean. Next to him was a woman near the same age with tangled, long hair and a sack over her shoulder. He approached them, giving them his name and asked if they were seeking transport to the Library.

“Dari,” the girl said, her voice betraying her not quite mature age, “Yes, but I’m lacking coin.”

“I have the same problem,” the young man said. “I’m Fado.”

Danel cocked his head. “Maybe if we combine what few coins we have, we can wrangle a fare.”

“Not for all three,” Dari pointed out.

Danel made a grand gesture of looking up and down the street. “We are so far from the harbor, and I don’t see a lot of possible fares, much less those with plenty of coin. Our driver is far down on the list and perhaps he will be amenable. Everybody must eat.”

They counted their coins. Dari approached the driver who requested a sum far above what they had on hand. Danel burst out laughing at the number. “For such a sum, I could have four men carrying a palanquin with runners up front calling forth my name and my deeds.” The man blustered and fumed, suggesting that his ancestors knew only how to eat insects and grass. Danel suggested the hitched beast would understand better than the man in the seat. The driver cursed his mother and his father with acts of deviancy. Danel explained that he did not understand, and would the man kindly explain what acts he was implying? The man’s ears were red.

Danel laughed again, before walking down to the next cart. This driver was still laughing at Danel’s antics. He accepted their coins and the three piled into the back of the cart. The ride took almost an hour to pass through the city to the other side. As they rode Danel asked his companions, “Where are all the other candidates?”

Fado explained that most of them arrived yesterday if not earlier. Of the stragglers who arrived today, they were on the first ferries and overland coaches in the morning. “The Wise Ones say that those who arrive first have the best chance of landing a slot.” Danel announced he did not believe the story and that it sounded like a good way to gouge gullible students and their parents. The cart stopped in front of metal gates that reached three people high. One gate was open.

The plaza in front of the library was huge, which only accentuated the enormity of the Library of Ibados on the other side. Danel had to struggle to keep his mouth from dropping as they descended to the plaza and walked across the gigantic smooth blocks of stone. An entire army, complete with chariots and olliphants could stand at attention in the space and still have plenty of room to maneuver. They approached the huge arch that sheltered the great entrance doors. Hundreds of would-be students still swarmed around the entrance, yet the place looked mostly empty.

As they waited, Danel asked his two companions, “What do you want to study?”

“I’m going to be a wizard,” Fado said. “I already demonstrate the traits necessary to master the art. I also have three letters of recommendation that confirm my skills.”

“I plan to become a priestess to the goddess,” Dari said. “My learning is undeniable.”

Danel was going to ask which goddess she had in mind, but they stepped up to the people in official looking robes. He gave his name and his best subject, history. The man pinned a bright green ribbon to his coat and told him to follow the green line. When he stepped through, he found Dari and Fado both had green ribbons as well. “They welcomed us through the door,” Danel said, doing his best to hide his utter awe beneath the vaulted ceiling.

Sounds bounced around the grand foyer, rolling through the space as if they were traveling from afar. Danel felt small and insignificant, as if his ambitions and sense of self were laughable little items found around the sides of a dustbin, waiting to be swept up by the broom. Both of his companions had also lapsed into silence as they looked around with wide eyes.

He caught sight of the green line and urged his companions to follow. They passed great rooms filled with other candidates who had arrived earlier. They had shed their coats and were eating out of ceramic bowls with utensils. Danel’s stomach rumbled. Finally, they reached the room where the green ribbon stopped.

A proctor took their names before they entered, welcoming them to get some food from the carts that were stationed on one side of the room. Danel practically threw his coat and satchel on a chair and raced for the food. Taking a large bowl, he scooped deeply from the meat and broth dish, going back again to snatch the carrots and potatoes that were lurking among the meat chunks. He commandeered a large roll, more akin to a small loaf, before returning to his seat. He was fully committed to ladling his spoon to his mouth by the time his new companions rejoined him. They ate with gusto too.

When the hunger abated, Danel leaned back from the table and took a deep breath. The ceiling was high overhead, with hanging arches from which brass chandeliers with oil lamps hung on metal chains. The wainscoting was a dark wood and the plaster above was smooth and white all the way up to the ceiling. A few paintings of people with serious expressions looking out on the world were spaced out on the wall, all of them in dark blue robes.

“What’s next?” Danel asked.

“We wait, I guess,” Fado said, pushing the hair out of his eyes again. They made small talk for an hour or so, getting to know each other and from where they had come. Danel had traveled the farthest, the grasslands of the Steppes of Betloss. “I am the third son,” he explained. “I will not inherit, and neither will my sisters, although they will receive a dowery. My mother schooled me from very young, hoping I would enter the civil service of the Yu-Ang dynasty. She looked eastward and I looked westward.”

“My parents are milliners,” Dari said. “They have managed to build a stable clientele among the nobility of our country, but the whims of the court are dangerous. A snippy word from a royal insulting one of the Court by mentioning their hat, and our business would die instantly. They have gained enough coin to perhaps buy their children a more secure future. My brother imports brocade and lace. I’m here.”

Fado gave a small belch and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “My father is the mayor of the largest village in our county. The place isn’t big enough for the two of us. I don’t want to spend my life sitting in a tavern listening to buffoons talk about their sows or worse, listen to their sons talk about their sows as they ply for advantage.”

Danel nodded his head, not really understanding. He liked a good, fatted pig from the jowls to the hocks. He did not trust his companion would accept a quip on the quality of pork though.

“Listen up, candidates,” a man called out from the front of the room. “We will begin interviews shortly. If you are a candidate for wizardry, you will not be returning to this room. Grab your possessions now and come to the entrance. Proctor Ghent will escort you to the testing area. No sense in having novice wizards blowing up the rest of us.”

The room let out a nervous chuckle.

“That’s me,” Fado said, standing up. He walked up to the front with a third of the room without so much as a ‘goodbye’ or ‘good luck.’ Danel was not impressed.

After the candidates left, Danel watched as servants rolled in another cart and took out the first ones, now laden with dirty bowls. He was puzzled. “Sweets,” Dari said. “I see cookies and dates and prunes.” Danel followed her and stood in line beside her. They each took one of each and retreated to their seats.

By the time they had nibbled through their treats the proctor had returned. “If you wish to apply for the novitiate or become an acolyte to one of the gods who take up residence in the library, please take your possessions and follow me across the hall. You will not be returning here.”

“Bye,” Dari said. “May the goddess look down upon you and bless you.”

“You as well,” Danel said, bowing his head slightly. He watched her leave. Looking around the room, he counted ten people total, which put him ill at ease. He had been certain he would meet many who marched to the same drum as him. The falsehood of his assumption had him doubting himself and his decision again. The ten looked at each other and made their way to the middle of the room.

“What did you come to study?” a tall, broad woman with a big bosom asked the gathered.

“Philosophy.”

“Architecture.”

“Alchemy.”

“Geography.”

“History,” said Danel. “I thought there would be more of us.”

The woman who asked the question gave a short laugh. “The first to leave were seeking power or fame. The second call was for those seeking security from the great big world,” she said with a wave of her hand at the door and the hallway beyond. “I seek to quench my curiosity. Only the Library can offer what I seek and if I need to crawl on my knees or scrub the floors daily to gain permission to search the stacks, I will do it.”

The proctor returned and called for the ten to follow him. They continued down the hallway from whence they came, past the red ribbon hall, which was empty and the yellow ribbon hall, which was also empty. The proctor motioned everyone to follow him up a staircase that had a landing twelve stairs up that led to another set of stairs in the opposite direction upwards. They were seated on benches outside of proctors’ offices. One proctor would stick his or her head out the door and call for the next candidate. Finally, Danel’s turn came.

He followed the older woman into the room and took a seat in a real chair, one with a back and arms. The room had a desk that was more than big enough for an open book and sheaves of paper. A bookcase stood on his left with five shelves and four of them were filled with books. A lamp with a reflector shield stood at the corner of the desk but there was light filtering from a hidden source in the ceiling in some manner that he could not detect. A picture of a mountain scene with fantastical creatures hung on the right-hand wall. She recorded his name and where he was from on a blank sheet of wood pulp paper. How many languages did he speak? When he answered five or six, she raised an eyebrow. He rattled off the three he spoke well, he admitted his Qin was adequate, and his Hoda and Keltie was good enough for trade and a beer in a tavern.

How many could he read? All but Keltie because the alphabet was a list of hundreds of pictograms. She asked him to name the last three books he had read. Then she asked him about his maths. Could he execute algebraic equations? Did he know how to calculate geometric shapes and ratios? Some, a little, Danel admitted. He had only read two books on the subject as his mother prepared him for civil service exams. What was his favorite subject and what had he studied? Danel waxed poetic long enough for the woman to ask him to cease.

The entire piece of paper was filled with her notes. Danel leaned back in his chair and smiled. She smiled back at him. “The interview is done,” she said, putting aside her mysterious pen that was not a quill. “Indulge me, please. Why are you here, Danel of Betloss?”

Danel looked her in the eye. “I want to be a librarian.”

“Why not a wizard?”

“The wizards I’ve met have learned a few spells, a few rites or rituals, and they stop. Maybe they seek out a relic that will enhance their skills. They are content with a little bit of know-how and have little . . .curiosity.” Danel liked that word.

“You could easily be an acolyte,” she said.

“They don’t seek unless their god or goddess tells them to seek,” he said. “Their existence is dedicated to serving, and if they learn something, it is an accident of the divine orders they are given.”

“A researcher, then?”

“I love history, and I could get lost in the search for years,” Danel said. “I’ve never been content to dwell long on one subject day to day. There are always new horizons, new subjects whose existence I did not know. They draw me away from what I am already doing.”

She chuckled at his description. “No one will accuse you of being short of considered opinions. How did a horse-trading nomad of the steppes come into all this learning?” He told her about his mother and her efforts on his behalf.

She moved the leaf of paper to the corner of her desk. “If I were to tell you that you will begin your studies tomorrow morning, what would you say?”

“Easy,” Danel replied. “The dawn cannot come quick enough.”

She laughed. “You are one of us, I’m afraid. Your thirst will never be quenched, and your hunger will always gnaw at you. Your searches will haunt your dreams and you will find no respite deep in your cups. Your eyes will ache, and your back will learn to creak.”

“Better than having my back ache and my eyes creak as does my father and uncle,” Danel said. “What you describe is the symptoms of a long and involved search to know. I understand there will be consequences, but is that not the human condition, madam proctor? If you confirm I am a proper candidate, I’m ready to begin.”

Chapter 2

A knock on the door startled Danel out of his sleep. Despite his exclamations that he would rise with the dawn, his head hit the pillow, a real pillow, and he fell asleep immediately. Stirring in the sheets, he managed to croak out an incomprehensible set of syllables.

The door opened. A young woman dressed is a coarse white, natural cotton dress that looked like a robe stepped into his room. “Good morning, good sir,” she said with a smile in her voice. “I have come to present you with your new robe this morning.”

“G-Good,” Danel managed to stutter as he sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. “Robe?”

“Librarian’s robe; you wear it over your regular clothes” she said, holding it up on a hanger for him to see. “I suppose you are a little confused, waking up for the first time in the Library of Ibados.”

“Quite,” Danel admitted as he took a deep breath, squinting at the dark blue robe with the yellow cord dangling at the waist. He was about to leap out of bed to finger the material when he realized he had an excellent case of morning wood; it felt good, stretching hard. Trying to navigate the awkwardness, he asked, “Have we met?”

“No, I am Satya, acolyte of the Goddess Neftali,” she said with a curtsy. “I am your assigned docent, guiding you through your first day as a Librarian. It is a great honor to be appointed a docent to a Librarian.”

“Well, glad to have you,” Danel said, deciding he needed to tackle the issue head on. “I need to address the immediate needs of the day. Where might I find the toilet?”

She looked down at his crotch. “Someone is already up and ready to bless the goddess this morning.” She hung the robe on a hook nailed into the wall. Bending over, she whisked the sheet off the bed, leaving Danel naked on the mattress. With a grin, she leaned over the bed between his legs and slurped his erection into her mouth like a dancer gesturing to the audience.

He sucked in his stomach as his breath caught in his throat. The sensation was sudden and astonishing. He held himself up with his hands out to the side propping himself up. After caressing the head with an incessant swirling of her tongue, she applied a suction that had him bending forward. She gave him a wicked grin before she grasped him by the root and stroked him. Blindsided, he cried out as he erupted into her gulping throat.

“O goddess,” he gasped as she sucked him dry one last time.

“Truly, the goddess has blessed us,” Satya said, rising from the bed. “Now, we must hurry a bit.” She escorted him to the ablutions room, pointing out the important parts, confirming he was trained in the convolutions of indoor plumbing. When he was done, she escorted him back to the room, where he found his meager clothes washed and folded. A new pair of socks was dangling on the edge of the bed. “They were unrecoverable,” Satya said.

Dressed for the day and draped in his new robe, Satya walked with him down the short hallway, explaining what was to be found where, such as the linen closet. They went down a short three stairs to a larger hallway, which led to one of the long corridors. To the right was the dining room.

Stepping into the common dining room, Danel cataloged first, the men and women in blue robes with cords of different colors and then some other women only, in the coarse natural cotton robes, again with cords of different colors. He counted eight round tables. Recognizing one of the younger faces from yesterday, he made his way over to her table where several others were already eating. All of them had the same color cords around their waist.

“May I join you?” he asked with a hand on the back of the chair.

“Of course,” the familiar woman said. “You’re Danel, correct? I’m Frage.”

“The philosopher,” he replied. “I remember.”

“Sit, Librarian,” Satya said. “I will bring you some breakfast. Two or three eggs?” He gave her his order and she disappeared through a doorway in the corner.

“You passed,” he said to Frage.

“Aye,” she said. “The interview was obvious, don’t you think. “Either you had what they were looking for from the start or you didn’t.”

“Yes,” Danel said, reviewing his memory. “My interviewer basically told me right then and there without making the formal ask. I didn’t want to come off as the cocky fool in the interview, but I sure felt like one by the time the conversation ended. Humble was not the path to take.”

“What I don’t understand is where we fit in the hierarchy of this place,” Frage said. “Acolytes of the Goddess Neftali as servants, even for our elders.” She gestured towards the other tables. “I come from a merchant’s house, and I’ve heard of but never seen such a grand presentation.” She dropped her voice. “It reminds me of royalty.”

“My acolyte spoke my title with reverence,” Danel said. “Strange to be sure.”

“Did she bow down before you?” Frage asked with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

Danel could not hide the blush. “She took me quite by surprise.” Deciding that he needed to change the subject, “What happened to the other candidates who came with us? What happened to those hundreds and hundreds of others who also came through the front doors?”

“I don’t know,” she said, frowning. “I cannot imagine showing up at the library less than thoroughly prepared. Yet, they did not give us any exams or test our abilities. Explain that one.”

A plate of eggs with meats, bread, and a pile of pureed potato appeared in front of Danel. He wanted to dig into the plate like the famished peasant he was, but his docent stopped him. She placed a fork in his hand. When he went to dig in, she grasped his fist and repositioned the fork between his thumb and fingers, explaining that librarians were expected to dine with the best of manners. She released his newly configured hand and dropped a cloth napkin in his lap, telling him that gravy drips and food stains would not be tolerated. Finally, she placed the knife in his right hand, showing him how to cut the meat into bite size pieces instead of shoveling whole chunks in his mouth. Danel ate an embarrassing, slow breakfast.

“Chopsticks are easier,” he muttered to Frage when he thought Satya was not listening.

After breakfast, the bowls were swept from the tables, but everyone remained seated. A woman with gray hair and glasses on a necklace around her neck stood, calling for everyone’s attention. Her cord was dark blue like her robe. She announced a series of assignments that made no sense to Danel although he tried to follow what she was saying. Assaying the Drohgos Collection and pinning pockets to the volumes was the big announcement followed by hoots and hollas from the other side of the room. Danel looked at his newest companion and shrugged.

“Today,” the woman began, “we welcome our newest Librarians to the fold. They received their yellow cords this morning and will begin their orientation immediately following dismissal from breakfast. If you have a yellow cord,” she said in her clipped tone, “you are to remain seated while everyone else makes their way to their assignment. Remember, Head will be joining us for dinner this evening and your companions are expected to join us. Dress, ladies and gentlemen, will be appropriate and there will be no exceptions. Dismissed.”

Danel looked at his worn clothes underneath his robe, wondering what sort of appropriate the woman was pointing out. Looking around, everyone else was dressed far better than he was. He guessed he would cross that bridge when he came to it. When he looked up from his musing, Danel realized that the room had emptied and only seven dark blue robes remained, including the gray-haired woman.

“Only six?” he pointed out to Frage.

“There is so much we don’t understand that we don’t even know what to ask and where to look,” she said softly. The woman was approaching their table, ordering the two others at a different table to join them where Danel and Frage were sitting. Danel sat up straight.

“Greetings, Librarians,” she said when everyone was seated. “I am Kathedra and I am Second to the Head Librarian. My official title is Second Librarian, but everyone calls me Second. You are joining a rare breed and there are few who can do the job we are tasked to do.”

She finished speaking and gave each of them a hard look. Danel felt like he was back in his mother’s tent and finally gave into the impulse. “Please, Second, what is the job?”

She gave him a second apprising look. “You are the one from the Steppes. I was told I would be surprised by your presentation. I will give credit where credit is due.” She looked at the others. “Our job is to run this edifice whose very nature tends towards chaos. We represent the epitome of order, yet we barely keep the chaos at bay. The Library of Ibados is many levels or layers, most of them unseen by the outside world. We house the knowledge of the world, both the known and the unknown. All that is known in the world is housed here, but the question is always where and in what form. There are great dangers in the lower levels, for which we are responsible and hidden places whose secrets we are sworn to keep.

“Your primary duty is to find the answers to the questions of the day before your own studies may commence. To accomplish this duty, you will need to understand how we catalog, where to find the collections, and most importantly, the geography of the Library of Ibados. The library is much larger than it appears to the eyes.

“Further, we have staff researchers such as the proctors, service guilds and religious orders housed within the library. We are responsible for them, and they serve our needs. The only exception are the wizards and their minions, who are consigned to the furthest corner of the library and the most distant yard. They are to be kept as far away from the rest of us as possible. Also be aware, gods and goddesses find respite and lodgings within the Library at times. All I can offer on the subject is, be careful and circumspect.”

The pantheons were real. The statement of fact rattled Danel, for he had done his best to avoid the rituals of the Steppes. He had not cursed the gods as far as he could remember, but he had never praised them either. Having helped his mother hoist the prayer flags to send the blessings across the plains and mountains, he had stood silently and daydreamed while she sang the rites. Now, he was living in the same building as the gods.

“What are our tasks today?” someone asked.

“The docents will direct you, but you have fluency tests and class assignments in library processes,” Second said. “Drink deeply from these reference texts, librarians. You will be using this knowledge and these protocols for the rest of your lives. They will guide you and at times, they will protect you. You will find no speed reading today, only patient reading. I leave you to the care of your docents.”

Second departed and the six leaned in around the table. “Most troubling,” Frage said. “I expected order, not making order.”

“Gods, chaos, dangers,” said the young man with a western accent. “No, no one warned me such things were here.”

Danel chuckled at their thoughts. “We won’t be bored, which was one of my great concerns. When your enemy is barreling down on you on his warhorse with his sword at the ready, what good are warnings? You train, you fight, and you train again. I did not realize I would need to battle here, and if I must, I choose this place to do so. This is the ground I choose to hold.”

The others looked at him funny. Before they could respond, their minders came and led them out of the room. Danel lost his bearings as they switched hallways and took a staircase. When he tried to get Satya to explain her pathway, she could not rightly say, only that “this is the only way I know.”

She led him into a room with three large rectangular tables. On each of the tables were many books. The Librarian was wearing a green cord. He introduced himself as Fauntel and asked Danel to read aloud from as many books as he could. The first table was easy. Of the ten books, he could read eight of them without much difficulty because the dialects were similar. The eighth book was a stretch, but he could pick out some words on the page, just not enough to make a coherent translation.

The table on the far right was full of books written in pictograms. He recognized four of the books and identified the language, but admitted he could not read a word. The fifth book was Keltie. He showed the librarian he knew enough to identify the most common sigils of the elements of a pictogram and then he found the symbol he was looking for on one of the inside pages. “This is the word for beer,” Danel said, feeling unjustifiably smug.

The third table, the one on the far left, was the most interesting to Danel. Six of the ten were alphabets he had never seen. The other four had distinct but similar letters that appeared to come from a common source that was familiar to him. The nations south of the Steppes claimed to be the descendants of the oldest cities in the world and their proof was their one common source alphabet that was more typical on clay tablets than paper. “I recognize some of these,” he explained. The librarian leaned in from the side and asked Danel to explain.

“These texts predate Brocha, but Brocha is based on them as I was taught,” he said. “This is the word for water because I know the Brocha alphabet corresponds to these more primitive letters. In Brocha, this word is pronounced “mayah,” and it means water.

The librarian walked over to the corner and returned with a piece of paper and one of the magical pens. “It’s not magic,” he said. “The ink is inside, enclosed in a thin glass vial. The tiny metal ball on the bottom releases the ink as you roll it. “Now, if you would, please write the Brocha alphabet in a column down the page and insert the matching letters from this older script next to it. Only write in the ones you know, don’t guess.”

When Danel was done, he had filled in about half of the unknown alphabet with Brocha-corresponding sounds. When he put aside the pen, the librarian held up the sheet of paper and waved it as if he were drying the ink. Then he sat down with the sheet and began reviewing what Danel had written. After Danel had explained how each Brocha letter matched the unknown one, most were obvious, the man sat back and considered the work.

“I have an older man who claims to hail from Ravina,” he said. “He says Brocha was his birth language. He is one of our Recorders of the Record for the library. Let’s see if he can fill in more of these blanks. If so, we may be able to crack the code of this text. Well done, Librarian. As Head likes to say, ‘today, you have earned your bread.’”

“I passed the test?”

“There was no test, young man, just hundreds upon hundreds of questions of which you answered a few. I will assign you some alphabets to memorize. I would like to sit you down with the pictograms, but you seem allergic to the idea.”

“Yeah, my mother claims I gave her gray hairs over our arguments and my father was hoping for more inside information when we traded horses with the eastern nations. I couldn’t help them either.”

The man went to the doorway and signaled for the docent to come. They had a brief conversation, glancing at Danel a few times, making him uncomfortable. Finally, Fauntel pointed to Danel, “I have kept you overly long and you are far behind the schedule Second set out for your colleagues. I think your next class would be useless and contraindicated for the skill sets I already see. Thus, I am sending you off to cataloging. Learn it. Grind through it like the rest of us did and move on from there. Don’t bother complaining; get a study partner and apply brute force memorization. There will be a thoroughgoing exam.”

“If I have to do that to be able to do this again, I’ll do it,” Danel said. “This has been one of the best hours of my life and it is still morning.”

Chapter 3

“How was your morning?” Danel asked Frage. They were sitting on a bench with a small basket between them. In the basket they found two rolls, hunks of hard yellow cheese and two pieces of fruit. They ignored the two stools that were under a sidebar of a small hallway that led to a kitchen, even though they looked more comfortable. They could hear the cooks yelling and banging pots, pans, and other implements Danel could not identify.

“Alphabets were a dud,” she said. “Administrative record keeping was interesting. Cataloging methodology, well, you were there. You?”

Danel took a bite of cheese. “I have a penchant for alphabets. They’ve already decided to drop me from record keeping, which makes me happy. Now, I’m prepared to make my first Librarian decision.”

“Really? Pray tell, what decision do you have in mind?” She tore the roll in half and pressed cheese into the soft center.

“Frage, my decision is to ask you with respect of your skills, to be my study partner for cataloging. Please?”

She swallowed her bite. “Since you ask nicely, yes. I was planning to ask you as well. Do you have a plan of action? I bet you do.”

Danel chuckled at her implied opinion of himself. “Hear me out: we are sitting for forty-five hours of instruction over fifteen weeks, with the exam during the sixteenth week. We will have three one-hour lectures a week. I’m guessing I need three to five passes to memorize an hour’s worth of material, which translates to nine to fifteen hours a week of study. Worse, Fauntel, my Alphabets instructor, warned me twice that there are no shortcuts in this class, meaning I have at least nine hours of study every week and probably closer to the probable fifteen. How many of those study hours do we need together and how many alone?”

“We can’t answer that question yet,” Frage said, absently chewing the last of her roll. “Regena assigned us the first chapter for the next class. We should read the chapter by ourselves and then we sit to review what we read. In truth, we should also read the next chapter ahead but I’m not certain we will have that kind of time.”

“Makes sense. What do we have after this repast?” Danel asked because as far as he was concerned, all the decisions had been made.

“Library geography. For the life of me, I cannot tell you how to get back to anywhere we’ve been this morning.”

Danel pinched a crumb of cheese between his thumb and finger, popping it in his mouth. “Hallways that I think go in one direction surprise me by running in another. Staircases go up and go down and one floor in no manner matches another. It is as if you are stepping into a different building when you take a staircase.”

“Maybe we are,” Frage said. “No one said a library had to be one building.”

“But I saw with my own eyes, one building,” Danel protested.

“God and goddesses, hidden knowledge and suppressed secrets,” Frage counted off with her fingers. “Surely, folding spaces within spaces would be a common godly skill. Think of all the Genie in a Bottle stories; they’re all different but for the first central element, the genie lives in the bottle. I call that folded space.”

“I call that fantastical,” Danel scoffed, biting into the fruit.

Frage laughed at him, pointing with the stem of her fruit. “After twenty-four hours inside the Library of Ibados, how can you not use the term fabulously fantastical?”

“Point taken,” he said. “How will we ever learn this place?”

“Lots and lots of practice,” she said, gnawing the flesh around the seeds. “Never let them see you sweat.”

“Sweat?” Danel said, holding up his arms as a gesture of his sweaty armpits. “Speaking of which, I have only these clothes for dinner, and we are expected to dress appropriately. Whatever appropriate is, it is not what I am wearing.”

“Ask your docent,” Frage suggested. “You mentioned lunch and snap of the fingers, they made it happen. This is a different kitchen from this morning because we’re on a different floor. Don’t you think these docents could be part of the fabulously fantastical?”

Danel called out for Satya, who was sitting on the bench with Frage’s docent further down the hall, nibbling on a biscuit. Leaving her food with her companion, she glided over as if eager to take another command. Danel explained his dilemma to her. She thought about his conundrum for a moment before speaking.

“The seamstresses usually have standard dinner garb at the ready, even if the guest requires a stitch or two. Allow me to escort you to your next orientation. While you are in class, I will seek out the seamstress. As your docent, I promise you will be dressed appropriately this evening.” She bowed.

The geography of the Library could have been as Frage theorized, but his orientation was not delving into the mystery of how and why every hallway runs its own path and every stairwell is more than walking to another floor. Instead, they learned how to read the signs embedded in the walls and framing of the building. Hallways had numbers if one knew where to look. Flat lintels versus fluted lintels were the difference between rooms and hallways, and the sort of hallways were described by the number of flutes, one through five. Stairwells usually gave indications on the cap of the posts and the ligature of the spindles, whether the staircase was wood or stone. Even the baseboards and the crown moldings offered explanation of the room or the run. Danel sighed at the amount of material he had to memorize and had to memorize quickly. He refused to get lost, and he detested the idea of being dependent upon another to get around more than necessary.

He emerged from the class into the hallway rubbing his temples. Looking at the acolytes together for the first time, he saw they were all dressed the same, had the same color cord around their waists and wore the same bracelet on their right arms. Yet, the six docents were as different as day and night, from thin to plump and from different parts of the world. Bello’s docent had black skin that contrasted sharply with her robe, and she was a head taller than most everyone else. Frage’s docent had hair like corn silk; she was slight like a gust of wind could knock her down.

Satya took his hand, leading him away immediately before he could make any goodbyes. When he queried where she was taking him, she replied that the seamstress demanded that she meet him in person to assess what could be done in an afternoon to avert disaster come evening. Clothing a Librarian was a bigger deal than either Satya or Danel understood earlier.

Danel was escorted into a room more akin to a closet with shelves full of cloth on one side and bins on the other. In the back was a strange machine with a thick arm on one side supporting a round tube with a surgical-like needle suspended on two metal spikes on the other side. He was going to make a quip about torture devices, but he was yanked, twirled, and then foisted up upon a box.

The seamstress had her hair in a bun and a pin cushion strapped to her wrist. “He’s a disaster,” she said as she made another circuit around him. “Nice butt though,” she said, patting his derriere. She squeezed his arms and then ran her hands across his chest. “He’s got muscles and definition too. Are you sure he’s a Librarian?”

“O yes,” Satya said, taking the question as an opportunity to run her hands over his arms and chest. Without any prompting, Danel popped an erection, and he noticed that Satya noticed. She smiled at him, not the least bit guilty.

“Well?” Danel prompted.

“You’re going to need two sets of workaday clothes,” the seamstress said. “Those can be fitted from the standard fare on the shelves. Tonight is more difficult. Let me think?” She began tapping her finger against her chin. “Ah!”

She strode over to a bin in the corner and opened it. She began rummaging through it, tossing pieces of clothing to one side or the other. She held up a white cotton shirt with blue embroidery on it. “We had a prince two or three years ago who feted the Librarians before making his request. The night went a little longer and the bottom of the wine pitchers were a little deeper than he expected. Long story short: he spilled wine down the front of his blouse. I took the garment to clean it, which I did; a little salt is all it took. He forgot it and I forgot it, and here we are with a garment fit for royalty. He was bigger than you though, and already growing a stomach.”

She had him try on the garment. “A quick dart on either side at the seam and you can get away with this piece. The pants are another story. Drop ‘em, dream boy.”

Danel did as he was told and when she looked over, she screeched. “He is not from the provinces, he’s from the barbaric frontiers beyond the borders of civilization. We will need the hand of the goddess to get him dressed for dinner.” She whipped out a leather measuring tape and began taking measures every which way. She even had the temerity to grasp his marbles from below and weigh them in her hand. Danel squirmed and she looked at him exasperated. “Do you want an undergarment that cups you gently in its grasp or one that strangles your numblies until you can no longer make babies.”

“If you insist,” Danel huffed. “Coming from the wilds where cannibals hunt with their filed teeth, I’ve never been in the care of a seamstress before. As for you yanking at my stones, I prefer to strip the skin from my victims and wrap my body in the bloody trophy.”

The seamstress looked at Satya, “He thinks he’s funny too. Are you sure he’s a Librarian?”

Danel snorted. “It’s my first day. They haven’t had a chance to beat civilization into me yet. I’m stubborn that way apparently.”

The seamstress wrote down the last of her measurements with a fine lead stick wrapped in a wooden cylinder. “The pants will be baggy because we don’t have a choice. There is no chance a cobbler can get him a pair of shoes either. Polish what he has as best you can, and I will try to put a flair at the cuffs to hide them better.” She pointed at his crotch. “Burn that piece of fabric. Treat it like it’s toxic waste, covering your mouth and nose when you dispose of it.”

Satya acknowledged the orders.

“What time is dinner with the Librarians tonight?

“19:00, I fear,” Satya answered.

“I will have clothes sent to his room by 18:00 at the latest. Please have him bathed and groomed by then. I wouldn’t bother with a shave, simply shape the scruff that’s there. Put a blue ribbon on the hair in back and trim the dead ends. I’ll have a full complement of clothing for our young barbarian in four or five days. And you, young man, try not to embarrass your betters.”

She dismissed him with a wave.

Outside the workshop, Danel asked where they were off to next. “I’m supposed to give you a full tour of the Librarian living quarters on the Third Floor. We need to cut the tour short though, and get you, what was the word the Second Librarian used? Fumigated. We need to take the time and fumigate you. Do you have your books?”

Danel did not try to guess what the long tour was because the short tour was confusing enough. He practiced reading the walls and lintels though, which did help him navigate. His issue was he did not know to where he was navigating. He needed the basics of ‘the classrooms are on the Second Floor south’ or the novice rooms and hallway were ‘Second Floor midway’ while the other Librarians had apartments on ‘the Third Floor southeast’. Once basic locations were established, then Danel could navigate. He had not even known there was a night kitchen, much less that it was on the ‘First Floor mid north.’

Satya rushed him back to his quarters among the novice rooms, which shared a communal bath. All six of the new Librarians were housed on either side of the dead-end hallway with two sets of complete baths at the end, one each for male and female. The three empty rooms were locked.

Danel found himself standing under a spigot, a wonder unto itself, before he sat on a bathing stool. Satya scrubbed him with a scented bar of soap and a long-handled brush. She did not hesitate to thrust the brush up the crack of his ass either nor was she gentle. He bent over from the waist, allowing her to wash his hair with another soap she called shampoo.

When she was satisfied at last, she tried to drown him in buckets of water. Once she was satisfied with her work, she dried him off with a towel. Her dress was soaked through. Feeling bold he stepped into her and grasped her around the waist.

"Sir, we don’t have time,” she said. “We still have to trim your hair and your beard, and clip your nails.”

He sighed and released her. Shrugging her dress back into place, she bade him to sit on the stool again. She handed him a hairbrush and told him to work out the knots the best he could. He gave up after a few minutes. She did her best to oil his hair and work out a few more of easier knots. The rest she cut out with a thin pair of scissors, the likes of which Danel had never seen before. She slapped some thick white cream on parts of his face and scraped the skin with a peculiar knife she called a razor blade. Declaring his nails unredeemable until they grew out, she hustled him off to his room. He passed his fellow novice, Bello, along the way who looked thoroughly amused at Danel’s suffering.

His new clothes were hanging when they opened the door to his room. His breech clout had been replaced by a thin cotton wrap that Satya called underwear. His underwear did hold his ball sack comfortably, he had to admit. His new pants, his dress pants, had buttons on either side that buttoned up to his waist. When he let go of the waistband, the pants stayed up without a belt. He wrestled himself into the blouse and stood patiently while Satya tucked in the bottom into his pants. “Stop wriggling,” she admonished him.

“You’re tickling me,” he said.

“You need a little makeup around the eyes,” she said reaching for her small bag.

“No,” Danel protested. “Barbarians and cannibals do not wear makeup. Maybe one day you will convince me but today is not the day. Slap my ceremonial knife in my waistband and I am dressed and ready to meet my betters.”

Satya looked at her feet. “Knives are not permitted among the Librarians. I apologize I cannot fulfill your command.”

“Why don’t Librarians have knives?”

“You don’t need them,” she said. “You’re a Librarian. You’ll see.”

Chapter 4

“At least you clean up for presentation,” Frage said, as she gave him the once over.

“Humpf,” Danel grumbled. “All this scrubbing and puffery for what? I’m not even allowed to wear my ceremonial knife, the most important item a man can carry for all to see. Looking at my knife, you would know I am from a horse-trading family and a blooded warrior. This,” he said, plucking at his blouse and pants, “means nothing.”

“Your clothes do speak, O brave barbarian,” she said, mocking his glare of death. “Here, clothes mean respect for others. You need to adjust your perceptions from thinking it is about you when the point of the evening is putting your elders at ease in your presence. You listen to their anecdotes, and you laugh politely at their jokes. You humor them. Pay little heed to the food, giving your attention to your dining companions. You can do this, yes?”

“I’m not dining in my father’s tent anymore,” Danel said. “Who are you calling a barbarian?”

Frage chortled, “Your own words.”

Danel pretended not to hear her answer. “Our dining room this evening is Second Floor north. We need only to seek one of the northbound hallways.”

“Or we use our docents who already know how to get there without getting lost,” she said. “I’ve no doubt that we will spend considerable time during the coming weeks wandering lost in these hallowed halls until we begin to make sense of its confounding ways. I, for one, don’t wish to waste my energy on getting lost now when I am gifted a perfectly willing guide. Apparently, our guides do more than get us to our next destination. Correct?”

Danel gave her back the same chortle she gave him. “Correct, although I hasten to add I do not ask my fellows any of the leading questions that may spark their curiosity about our docents.”

“With you leading by example, we have no need to ask most questions about our docents,” she said, shaking her finger at him. “Come. My father always told me that ten minutes early IS on time for people in our position, you know, the underlings.”

They followed their docents down a long dog leg before arriving at an ornate doorway with marble framing the two overly large doors. The other four yellow chords were already waiting in the hallway. Danel greeted them by name and bowed slightly to each as he did so, as was his custom.

“The doors are locked,” Edel said. He was a bit pudgy around the middle with thin lips under a sharp nose. His clothes bespoke of the colder climates of the great woodlands. “I tried them already.”

Danel looked around to ask his docent, but all of them had disappeared. Having no reason to doubt the man but also lacking patience, he tried the door himself. Grasping the long metal handle that was secured to the brass plate at both the top and bottom, the door did not budge. However, as he started to let go, the handle jiggled ever so slightly. He turned to Frage and raised an eyebrow.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“Either opening the door or breaking the handle,” he said. “I’d make a wager, but my pockets and my purse are empty.”

Edel crossed his arms and presented a look of disdain. Danel reversed his grip on the handle and attempted to rotate the handle clockwise. He felt something give. He added his other hand and the handle and its brass plate both rotated about an eighth of a turn. Something clicked and the door opened outward.

“Door’s open,” Danel announced, pulling the door fully open and inviting his colleagues to enter with a grand sweep of his free arm.

“Showoff,” Frage whispered as she brushed past. “How?”

Timidly, they moved into the room until Danel stepped in to gauge the space. They had entered at one end, which was empty. At the other end was an ornate fireplace and in front of it were twelve tables sparkling with china plateware and crystal goblets. The other Librarians were standing around in three or four clusters, looking at them.

“Well, that did not take long,” one of them shouted out. “We hardly had to wait for them to figure it out.”

“Here, here,” said another. “Perhaps they have more on the ball than the last batch.”

“Hey, I resemble that remark,” a woman called out, and everyone surrounding laughed.

Frage pressed against Danel’s shoulder and softly said, “Remember, it’s about them, not us. Be glad you passed another test and let it go. We are the new ones here and we don’t know the rules.”

Danel nodded, putting his father’s best horse-trading face on before walking to the other side of the room with an enthusiasm he did not especially feel. He walked up to the closest group, not knowing any of them, and bowed slightly while grasping his wrists and introducing himself. With half-hidden looks of amusements, they introduced themselves, giving their years as a Librarian. When they finished, he bowed again and made his way to the next group, continuing around until he had introduced himself to everyone.

The last group included the Second Librarian. When he finished, she invited him to join her at her table. Her partner held her chair for her before taking a seat himself. When they were seated, only then did Danel sit in the chair to her right. His attention was taken by the table setting and the counting of all the utensils laid out on either side of the large plate. He sighed.

“Problem?” Second asked, with a hint of mirth.

“Chopsticks are so much easier,” Danel said. “I understand the western ways, but our eastern neighbors have made our obligations for sharing a meal more elegant and easier to navigate.”

“Really,” she said. “I’ve dined with many from the Eastern Lands and while a few have arrived with their lacquered sticks, most put them away quickly enough.”

“As I am sure I will as well, now that I’ve heard your report,” he said. “Until then, I will muddle my way through this dining tradition. Surely others have come from different food cultures?”

“We Librarians are a strange lot,” she said. “No two of us hail from the place and only two or three come from the same kingdom if you can imagine. When Lassos arrived twelve years ago, he was terribly distressed that we ate on separate plates. In his culture, people who trust each other eat with their hands from one central dish using bread as a scoop. Eating from separate plates was a statement of a banished or isolated soul. He wanted to know why we isolate ourselves from each other if we are brothers and sisters of the Library of Ibados. While his dining expectations have evolved, his question continues to resonate with me. Why, indeed?”

“These dinners are served every evening?”

“Good gracious, no,” she said. “We would have a rebellion on our hands if we did. This is your first full day here and that is the reason for this grand spread this evening. In this manner, we can welcome you formally and you can meet all of us in one place at the same time. Most nights everyone goes their own way, or we meet in the common dining hall. You were in our dining hall this morning, which also serves in the evening. Midday will find most of us spread out across the building. Of course, for you first years, there is a night kitchen on the First Floor for your late cramming sessions.”

“O joy,” Danel remarked. He looked around at the tables. “Is the Head Librarian joining us this evening as you mentioned?”

“Damned fool always runs late,” her partner said. “There was a time we wanted to tie a bell around his neck to track him down. Now, we assigned him an assistant whose primary task is to get the man where he needs to be when he is supposed to be there.”

“Running this huge edifice with only fifty people? I can only imagine,” Danel replied.

“Fifty-five actually and you and your year-mates add ten percent to the total,” Second said. “Yes, we are stretched a bit thin, but make no mistake, we are on top of everything that happens within the Library of Ibados. Soon enough, you will be as well.”

Danel let the last comment linger for a moment, signaling to his superior that he was taking her words seriously. He decided another tact was probably best. “What brought you to the Library of Ibados?”

“I come from one of the great merchant families based in Theodora. All the children were trained in arts of the intellect along with the mundane learning of accounting and contracts for the girls, and negotiation, politics and sailing for the boys. If I told you that all of us children had a glorious childhood, I would be understating what my parents did and gave to us. The best painters of Theodora gave us master classes and the king’s composer taught us music theory. Simply radiant. Then I reached maturity and my father decided that he should arrange a marriage for me with another noble family, whose lineage was military. I was horrified and most of the family thought the proposed match was a disaster waiting to happen. He would not be dissuaded.

The High Priest came one day to deliver to my mother the Blessing of Beneficence for a donation she made to one of the orphanages. Detesting the man, my father made an excuse not be present when he arrived. The High Priest pulled me aside after delivering the blessing, telling me of the Library of Ibados and how the god indicated I was qualified to be a candidate. However, I would have to leave with him that day to make it to the annual Day of Interview. I packed a small bag and with my younger brother’s help, I snuck into the back of the High Priest’s coach, under the sedan seat. My father’s purser glanced through the carriage and never saw me. Here I am.”

The first course was served. The table remained silent as everyone savored the stuffed shellfish.

When the course was whisked away, Danel turned to the rest of table and asked for their stories. A salad of beets was served and afterwards, the stories continued. When the servers were bringing large trays out of the kitchen and placing the trays on wooden stands to serve, another door burst open and a man with a huge white beard followed by a middle-aged man who waddled-waltzed into the room. “Sorry I’m late,” he called out. “Where the hell am I sitting?”

“In the middle where you prefer,” Second said, standing up at her place. She pointed to the table she meant.

“Thank you, Second, efficient as always,” the Head said. “Where’re the young bastards? Stand up.”

Danel and his five fellows rose from their seats. All of them stood in the position of the fig leaf, hand grasping the other wrist dangling in front of their crotch. He gave each of them a hard look. Using his finger, Head pointed at each of them, stating their name. Danel was impressed, considering the man had never seen his face before now. “Sit down and enjoy your meal. We’ll speak afterwards,” Head instructed.

Doing his best to stay on task, Danel tackled the breast of fowl with his meager skills, choosing his implements by watching those around him. The vegetable course was easier. He almost messed up the sweetened gelatin, but he held back at the last moment to watch how the people at his table held the spoon, with their thumb and fingers again, which he thought was a waste of effort. The gelatin was almost tasteless.

After the brandy was shared and the crystallized mint leaf was consumed, the Librarians and their companions made their goodbyes. They yawned and they stretched as they slowly made their way to the door from which the Head emerged. The six looked across the tables at each other as the Head Librarian reached over and poured himself another full snifter of brandy.

“Get over here and take a seat,” Head called out. “I’m not going to bite you; they already fed me this evening.”

As they made their way over, the Head Librarian dismissed everyone else in the room. Even though the tables were still filled with dishes, goblets and utensils, he ordered all the servers and cleaners to take their dinner and return after. He patted his assistant and told him he was done for the day, sending him off as well.

“Good man,” Head said as his assistant departed. “He means well, but he’s not a Librarian and as such, does not understand.”

Danel piled the forks, knives, and spoons onto the plate in front of him and moved the plate to the side along with the glass and two goblets. His fellows followed suit, clearing a space around the Head Librarian. Frage went so far as to clear the Head’s place setting, except for his brandy sniffer, and moving the decanter of brandy closer to the man.

Head cleared his throat. “Let’s assume that everyone you’ve met thus far has been polite and forthright. They’ve made some declarations and laid down your first daunting challenges. Correct?”

They all nodded.

“The challenges are not difficult to master; they are buckets upon buckets of material that you need to digest as rapidly as possible. The content is easy to grasp. The complication is the vast amount of content you need to assimilate. Did you figure this out already?”

“Yes, Head,” they said almost in unison.

“In six months, each of you are going to come to my office and we are going to have a conversation. By then, I expect you to thoroughly disabuse the notion that we Librarians manage this edifice and its contents. Everyone else in the building manages the stacks and the building, even the batshit wizards. We build the Library of Ibados, and we create the Library of Ibados. You will find hallways that go nowhere because ‘the where’ has not been created. You will find startling heights that give you views of the cosmos and depths that will threaten your notions of a living earth.

“When you sit in my office, you will come prepared to tell me how you are going to build and create the Library of Ibados. I will take no questions nor elaborate on this specific subject until then. Now, ask the questions that you are dying to ask. I have half a decanter of good brandy and lights are still burning.”

The six all looked at each other. Bello finally perked up. “Out of the thousands who came to interview yesterday, how did you whittle down to us six?”

“Hmm,” the Head said before taking a swig from his glass. “WE did not choose any of you. The Library of Ibados chose you.”

“How?” Frage asked.

“As you entered one of the First Floor halls to wait for the segmenting of the students by interest, the entrance would flash white normally. When each of you entered, the doorway flashed blue. All the proctor does is put a check by your name. Choosing librarians is as easy as falling off a stool.”

“Then the interview was purely for show?”

“Of course not. While I would never waste a proctor’s time interviewing wannabe candidates, we need to know your strengths and interests as soon as possible. Also, we also want to determine if you’re deranged, or personality disordered. We’ve had one or two in the past, and the stories never ended well. Nonetheless, you can be an asshole and still be a Librarian. We will schedule time to beat the assholery out of you, however. Personality disorders are beyond our capacity.”

“The gods?” Danel offered.

“Pains in the ass, if you ask me.” The Head reached for the decanter and poured another tipple. “They are intimately tied to the Library of Ibados and I don’t know why. My predecessors sought answers and also came up empty. The gods come and go, from pantheons we know and don’t know. Ostensibly, the ones we know interact with their devotees. They give their acolytes directives but concerning the Librarians, the gods send us their dictates every so often. One does not court conversations with the gods.”

“War, Harvest, Love, Death?” Frage asked. “Which gods come?”

“Those are human-applied attributes. They are gods and their agendas are too often unfathomable. Do not make the novice mistake of assigning them categories that have little resonance in their interactions with us. The gods are not limited to the areas assigned by the temples that worship them. They have questions or commands, and we are the Librarians of the Library of Ibados.”

He directed them to grab a sniffer, any one of them would do. He filled their glasses with just a little bit. “To your tenure, my young Librarians. May it be long and enduring.”

They drained their glasses.

Chapter 5

“How many times did you get lost yesterday,” Bello asked Danel as he entered the little room off the formal dining room. The high kitchen was closed presently, which made the room and the hallway an ideal place to sit and cram. They could leave the door open, and no one would pass by or disturb them.

“Twice by accident and once by design,” Danel said. “Now that I understand that the staircase north of Fauntel’s reading room rotates each time after you take it, I run up to the top landing and step out, then I run back down and I’m one corridor east. It’s a crazy system but it works.”

“Gives me a headache,” Bello said. “I wandered for twenty minutes yesterday and had to ask a Wycoxyl acolyte for directions. I was mortified.”

“You got where you needed to go?”

“No, I took her home with me and we wrestled in the sheets until early morn. I’m way behind putting in the study hours these last few days.” Bello grimaced as he waved at the two texts on the table. “I’ve never been a lady’s man before but some of these acolytes see my robe and, and, I can’t stop myself.”

“O mortal man, given to the weaknesses of flesh and blood, who wilt then rise to the heights of noble vision when the urges are earthly bound and unquenched?”

“Someone got laid last night?” Frage said, dropping her books on the table.

“Our good man here found yet another willing acolyte and well, you know the rest of the sordid tale,” Danel said.

“I should say so,” Frage said. “After another chapter on cataloging diary entries, I marched over to the night kitchen, and I dragged that Chuppa-Nukari hunk that I’ve had my eye on for a week to my bed. Strong, virile, and able to go the distance I must say. Yes, I can pick the winners.”

Both Bello and Frage looked at Danel who blushed a deep crimson.

“Cough it up, Librarian. You did something last night,” Frage said with one eye squinting.

“You know that Kumme priestess that arrived a couple of days ago with questions. Second had to do the intake because she was that important?”

“You nailed a priestess?” Bello said. “I bow before your humble presence.”

Danel shook his head. “She swore her god led her through the hallways to me. Folks, I don’t think she was looking for ecstasy; I think she was hunting a sperm donor. She came, we did our thing, and she left. I feel kind of dirty today.”

“Well, we all had an opportunity to get some tension released,” Frage said. “Let us thank the gods for the opportunities they send us and then pound the books. I’m feeling the power tonight and metaphysics is one big ole’ bundle of boredom to conquer.”

They studied and quizzed each other for three hours. “I’ve reached my limit,” Frage declared. “Who’s up for a handful of those fried noodles dusted with the hot chili spice?” They all agreed, slipping their books into their messenger bags, and stretching their cramped muscles.

Danel had no problem guiding them down to the First Floor, second corridor at the twenty-second hallway. Of the six yellow-cord librarians, he was the first and best at navigating the ways of the Library of Ibados. He found the passages a great game and a puzzle while his classmates took to the task as if everyone must learn to scrub the water closets.

The night kitchen had a special drink only their staff knew how to make. They were able to force bubbles into the water with a special device that was a cylinder with a rod that went in and out of it. One could flavor the sparkling water with the juice of any fruit that was available. Danel sat down with a glass of dragon fruit water and a plate of fried dumplings, darkly tan and layered with red dust.

As he quietly munched on his nighttime treat, he felt a presence at his right shoulder. Looking up, he smiled and said, “Hello, stranger. I haven’t seen you for a while.”

Satya smiled in return. “I have missed seeing you as well, Danel.”

“What brings you here?” he asked. He glimpsed his two study partners watching the exchange with naked curiosity.

“My mistress, the Priestess Aungsul, wishes to have a word with you. Now, if possible.”

The smile slipped from Danel’s face. “Do you know what the priestess wants?”

“She did not say,” Satya replied, staring at her toes.

Knowing that acolytes did not violate orders from their superiors, Danel could tell she had been ordered to say nothing more than his presence was requested. Even if he tried to bargain with “the only reason I would come now is . . .”, she would not be able to respond in kind. Furthermore, he surmised that if he did not answer the summons, Satya would be punished for her failure to bring him. Some of the orders were free with the whip and other chastisements.

He popped one last fried dumpling in his mouth and washed it down with the last of his sparkling water. Standing, he bid his study partners a good night and with a hand gesture, ordered Satya to lead the way. In his short time in the building, he had not traveled to any of the enclaves of the Orders dedicated to one of the gods. Up until this moment, his life had been study, sleep, and some occasional sex thrown in to remind him there was more to life. Even his drinking was curtailed to the sixth night because there were no classes on Seventh day. He was committed to passing his exams and there was no excuse that would suffice to derail him as far as he was concerned.

Now, he was summoned. Second had cautioned them during one of her long dissertations that the priesthoods were volatile and competitive among one another. As he dragged that memory up, he first recalled her warning not to become involved in their internecine conflicts. Librarians were to stand above all that drama. If the drama escalated, the Librarian could quench it in one swoop by demanding an oracle be solicited from the god. Of course, the consequence was having to deal directly with a god, which no one ever wants.

He placed his hand in Satya’s as they walked. “Tell me,” Danel began, “would you have been punished if I had refused to come?”

She refused to make eye contact but nodded her head.

“Satya, your god desires obedience but they do not wish abdication of the mind. Your priestess violates the spirit of the law even if she is within the letter of the law. I came, not because of your priestess or her request, I came because I cannot abide you being punished for something entirely not your fault. Do you understand?”

She nodded again, but not before she wiped a tear from her face. They continued down the corridor in silence. When Danel caught sight of the draped flags of the order, he dropped his hand and straightened his robes. When his father was entertaining clients and his sons were required to appear, often to run messages, they were expected to act with reserved focus, with an expressionless expression pasted on their faces. He pulled up that face as they drew up to a narrow archway with a door.

“Mistress,” Satya announced, “Librarian Danel.”

“Librarian Danel, so good of you to come on short notice. Please have a seat,” she offered him a cushion that sat on the other side of a low tea table. Danel knew from his childhood that different sitting positions at the tea ceremony had different implications. Sprawling was reserved for trusted friends. A simple crossing of the legs meant one was among equals while resting on one’s knees was a sign of subservience. He folded up his legs and presented the lotus position, a statement of a superior spiritual state.

The priestess was not happy, but she folded herself reluctantly into the lotus position because she had no choice. She could not lose status in front of her acolyte. Danel gave her time to appraise his person as he studied her as well. She was a middle-aged woman who watched her diet. Still, the makeup could not mask the tiny wrinkles that were starting to form across her face, a usual circumstance in the slightly dry environs of the library.

“You have requested my presence, Priestess of Neftali,” Danel intoned in a quiet voice, one that caused her to lean forward. “This librarian is curious.”

The priestess was put on immediate notice that while she was sitting with a yellow cord Librarian, she was not dealing with a novice. She gave him a second look over. “I have learned that a Priestess of Kumme visited your chambers last night.”

“If she did, what business is it of the Goddess Neftali?”

“We have a letter of understanding with the Temple of Kumme,” she said. “Children of Librarians are highly prized, and one Temple cannot solicit one without consultation and approval of the other Temple. Your chambers do have a bearing on our Order in this circumstance.”

“Unlike your acolyte, Satya, who has come to my chamber to celebrate with joy the presence of the goddess, the Priestess of Kumme came to my chamber neither with joy nor celebration. As you know, Librarians do not show partiality towards any of the Orders, nor do we follow any of the interactions or communications between the Orders. We store and catalog your records as we receive them. What passes as agreements to share Librarians for procreation is new information to this Librarian. That such an agreement exists is disturbing.”

“I can assure you, Librarian . . .” she began but Danel cut her off. “I do not want to know or be responsible for the reasons the Orders negotiate who comes to our beds or why. You should rejoice that your acolytes have taught me only blessings and benevolence in the name of your goddess, and for the good of both of us, we should leave those lessons and understandings at the forefront of our relationship.”

“If she is pregnant, there will be calls for acts of retribution,” Priestess Aungsul said. “Surely, you can understand our concern.”

“Surely,” Danel said, nodding. “If her goal was a Librarian’s baby, she will be banned from the Library of Ibados. If there is a further ban on the rest of the Order to be considered, you must file a formal request with the Head Librarian. As for the child, if there is a child, the child is mine, not the Goddess Kumme or Neftali. I will place the child in a good home myself, so that the fates may bestow the paths this child may walk.”

“How will we know if she conceives and how would you retrieve a baby from a distant temple?”

Danel chuckled. “No one is so far removed from the Library of Ibados once they’ve been here, that they cannot be found.” Danel figured he was pulling a blatant lie out of his ass, but something else made him hesitate, as if he was not wrong. He held his gaze upon her. “Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention, Priestess Aungsul.”

She looked as if she was going to say something more, but Danel had lost any patience that he had before he arrived. There would be no horses to be traded tonight, only information. He stood without using his hands to push himself up, a little bit of showmanship that let his opponent know that he was not an apprentice of the devotion. He called for Satya who, he could see, was waiting in the hallway against the far wall in a repose of prayer. When she came into the room, he handed her his messenger bag with his books.

Turning to the rising priestess, Danel bowed with five fingertips touching five fingertips with the Qin position of a teacher. He thanked her for the conversation and told her to call upon him if another situation arose. In front of the priestess, Danel directed the acolyte to follow him back to his chambers as he was tired.

With no one voicing an objection, he walked out the door and turned towards his personal chamber. After a good half-hour of brisk walking down two corridors and several hallways, they arrived at his chamber. He did not give Satya a choice.

He pulled her inside and tossed the messenger bag in the corner. Quietly, he shut the door and then drew her near to him. He kissed her on the forehead.

“I don’t need lust tonight,” he explained, looking in her eyes. “Tonight, I need the tender blessing of the goddess. Share with me for a while and let us take our pleasure before we sleep. Tomorrow, you will return and take up your common duties again. Everything that happens here you may freely share with the priestess as long as you begin by explaining that I requested your devotional. Do you understand?”

“I am yours with the blessing of the goddess,” Satya said as she broke out in a smile. “Mayhap we add harmony to the world.”

“We will try our damnedest to add, but if we only end up enjoying ourselves, the rites will still be fulfilled. How does this dress come off?”

Chapter 6

Danel dumped his dirty plate in the bin on the rectangular table next to the kitchen. Most of the Librarians left their plates for the servants to clean up, but Danel had a different agenda. He had already learned that the servants had their own networks of information and gossip. A simple gesture of respect, putting his plate in the bin, was instantly recognized, and provided entree into their world. Besides, he had been trained not to waste the servants’ time on trivial crap that takes two seconds if everyone polices their own dishware. His parents were smarter than he knew when he was younger, like six months younger.

He mustered up his courage and walked over to the table closest to the fireplace. “Excuse me, Second, may I have a moment of your time before we leave for assignments this morning?”

She rubbed her eyes like she was anticipating something distasteful was attached to Danel’s request. She agreed. After the assignments were distributed, she motioned him over.

Danel sat and told his story of the last two nights. When he finished, she released a weary laugh and shook her head.

“First,” she said, “There will be no children. You and your yellow cord fellows have been rendered sterile for the duration of your studies. The gods are probably keeping tallies and taking bets over the sexual antics of you and your fellows as they must do every year that we have candidates. I’m disappointed that only Frage has approached me about birth control. Men and their members: some things don’t change, I’m afraid.

“Second, as you might deduce if you are not thinking with your small head, the precautions that Librarians take are not discussed with any of the other groups within the Library of Ibados. You shall not mention these items either.

“Third, I am pleased you heard my warning about being drawn into the conflicts between the Orders. They can’t help themselves, and they make life miserable for everyone around them. I wouldn’t be surprised if their gods distance themselves at times such as this. Still, you were able to elicit the information and leave nothing behind: no promises, expectations, or favors.

“Finally, you know by experience that sexual relations are allowed between acolytes and Librarians as long as there is mutual consent. I strongly suggest you stay away from liaisons with higher ranking members of any given Order. They will have another agenda that will complicate your ability to act as a Librarian, every time.”

Danel bobbed his head. “Yes, I have learned that acolytes are dispensable. Few if any are treated as individuals and are, instead, lumped together as the community thereof. Meriting the gods’ providence comes with rank. Further, I learned the acolytes may share my bed, but they share little else. Their loyalty is to their god and not to me. As they give, thus have I given. They quench the undeniable urges and nothing more.” He grimaced.

“Please explain, then, why you took this particular acolyte with you back to your mattress after your conversation with the priestess.” Second watched him closely.

“Horse trading tactic,” Danel said. “Simple, really.”

“Horse trading? We do have a section of materials on the subject, but I have not delved into any of the texts. What was this simple tactic?”

“In horse trading, there is always a question of who is more powerful, the buyer or the seller, the breeder or the stable owner. Sometimes it is equal and other times, the balance of power is easy for all to see. Then there are the other instances. Priestess Aungsul thought to prove she was more powerful than a yellow cord Librarian. By taking her possession and leaving her without the ability to protest, I demonstrated to the priestess where the balance lay, namely, with the Librarian.”

“I see,” she said with a sigh. “I hope you were not particularly attached to that possession. If the priestess understood your message, that acolyte was reassigned to a temple elsewhere, probably far away, first thing this morning.”

“She was a sacrifice from the moment she was ordered to fetch me,” Danel said. “There is nothing godly about these Orders that I can see, Second. They are shortsighted, venal, and eat their own young. I recognize they are useful to the Library of Ibados, but there are consequences of their help.”

Second stood up. “We have a meeting of the minds, Danel. We are at the three-month mark and already you are demonstrating acuity we would hope to see in all our yellow cords. I’m not sure you got lucky, or whether your horse trading is that good. No matter, next time a ranking member of an Order summons you, demur. Agreed?”

“Yes, Second, I will do as you ask.”

“Good. Your exams are in eighty-eight days. You are expected in the Grand Reading Room this morning and you will be manning the back desk. If you do not run, you will be late.”

“Yes, Second. Good day to you,” Danel bowed as he wished her well. He bolted from the room and took a right at the corridor. The seemingly direct route to the largest Reading Room was to the left, but Danel had discovered another route the other day and he was anxious to try it.

He had found the older staircase hidden in an archway in one of the short hallways that contained pipes, conduits and ducts that were a mystery to most everyone. The lighting was spotty as well. Still, the stairwell was open going both up and down. He ran downward to the first floor and found a closed door. He swallowed before opening the door. Blinking in surprise, he stepped into a sorting room. Volumes and scrolls were dumped willy-nilly on shelves on one side, tables and workstations in the middle, and more shelves on the right with cataloged items ready to be distributed to the collection proper.

“Bridles and britches,” Danel said. “I think I reached the Grand Reading Room complex.” He crossed the room and stepped through another door into the reading room itself, near the front entrance. He scratched his head, wondering how that staircase got him to such a different part of the building that normally takes twenty-five to thirty minutes, yet here he stood, having beaten everyone to the room.

What had Frage called it? Folded space? She may have been more accurate than she realized, he thought as he chewed on a fingernail. There were several staircases that flipped direction if you stepped out and back in and now there was this one that went an impossible distance. The irony was Frage hated taking staircases and confined her forays to the bigger, better-known stairwells. He would never get her to try it.

Danel walked out the front doors of the Grand Reading Room, locking the heavy doors in the open position with the attached hooks. The wide foyer had an imposing desk in the middle that prevented anyone from going straight into the Reading Room. On the plaster walls hung artwork, huge paintings of pastoral scenes on one side and ocean shores on the other, supposedly by master painters. Danel had not gotten to the chapter on cataloging art. Next week.

Peering out the small window in one of the two entrance doors, he counted fifteen people already waiting to enter. These were mostly researchers. Some of them were on staff with the Library of Ibados, but most were visiting scholars and academics. By midmorning, the curious and the sightseers would arrive to crane their necks at the ornately carved ceilings and the leagues of stacks. Docents would usher them into the room with invocations of caution to remain quiet and hold their questions until they were back in the corridor.

The people manning the front desk were not Librarians. They were clerks and security, most of whom were employees of the Library of Ibados and a few others who were members of the Orders. No wizards were allowed. He had not necessarily been looking for people to voice sympathy with the wizards, but thus far, he had not found a single individual saying something good about wizards.

Safety was a set of protocols that Danel was still learning. Retired soldiers who had achieved rank comprised most of the command positions of the security force. Nearby kingdoms sent young men mostly, to be trained for security positions and they filled the lowest ranks. Certain Orders also provided both men and women, and some of them were rumored to be assassins in training. One Order from the far south sent futanari only, believing these individuals embodied dual spirits. Danel found the security arrangements confusing and daunting, as explanations were dropped in drips and dabs. Newly Red Cord Fauntel had hinted that “stuff happened” requiring seasoned military.

Making an about face, Danel returned to the reading room. Since he was alone, he allowed himself to gawk at all the architecture, the soaring arches, the massive blocks of stone that supported the great weight above and the long lines of shelves that raced from one end of the room to the other on both walls, with more shelves plunging into a deeper interior on his left. Lights, the mysterious source of which no one claimed to understand, bathed the entire room in an even glow that was easy on the eyes. The long tables with their twenty sturdy chairs on each side, stained dark with age, were worn in strategic places. Hands always grasped the table at that point, thousands or tens of thousands of hands over uncountable years. The records of the Library of Ibados went back at least two thousand years, although there were darker whispers that the Library was far older, built upon an ancient temple to one of the elder, unmentionable gods.

None of that superstition was on the exams. Danel dropped those thoughts and marched to the back of the room. He ascended the short platform and took a seat behind the long, curved desk with the rail to keep non-Librarian hands off and away from him. He pulled out his texts and his notes. With a sigh, he began to read the next chapter.

He was deep into the page when a scrape of shoes on the floor caused him to look up. The veteran researchers were slowly making their way to their favorite spots. Danel wondered if they accomplished anything on any given day as half of them were staring into space or “resting their eyes” at any given time. The younger students and scholars were now entering, walking faster to secure a prime spot, whatever the criterion was that defined a spot as prime. He went back to his page.

“Excuse me, Librarian,” a young woman stammered. Her hair was cut short, and her clothes were frumpy, as was typical for ranking students nearer to their dream of attaining scholar status in their home countries.

“How may I help you?” Danel asked.

“This book I am reading on pre-Audrian medicine refers to a text as one of its sources. I looked in the card catalog and I cannot find it. Can you help?”

Danel asked to see the book and the statement of reference. He read the paragraph and made note of the name. He flipped back a page because the paragraph did not give enough context. He looked down at the woman, “You are studying medicine as practiced by . . .?”

“The Cult of Verinat<click>na.”

“Ah, one of the clicking languages. We do have a collection although I am not personally familiar with the contents on the shelves. You have two choices of solution: I can direct you to the shelves and you may need to go through the entire collection, depending on how it was cataloged. Or you can approach the Order of Ta<click>de<click>nadel and ask their priesthood if they know or even have the text. If they are flattered by your request, they will feed you a grand meal and then insist you ask them more questions. I hope you can hold your liquor.”

“Sounds like fun. Where is the Order located, please?”

“Second Floor, Third Corridor at Hallway 92 or 96. They are not a large Order in the Library of Ibados, but they are a lively bunch.”

“And if I don’t return from this foray?”

“We will assume you fell into their ecclesiastical version of debauchery, and you do not need saving. Debauchery is its own reward, after all.”

“If you weren’t pulling all this information off the top of your head, I would be questioning whether you’re a real Librarian. You sure don’t sound like one.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Danel responded. “Good luck with your adventure.” He returned to his studies.

Once she left his desk, it was as if the floodgates opened. The knowledge consumers were polite enough not to form a line, but they took aisle seats at the nearest tables, which had been empty. Apparently, no one wanted to work under the nearby gaze of a Librarian.

At one point, a woman security guard came strolling up the aisle in a crimson robe with a four-foot staff with a thick knob at either end. “Do you have a real question or are you here to annoy the Librarian?” she asked. About half of the waiting crew returned to their former seats. She continued to the desk and walked around the side. “I didn’t know you had arrived. I would have chased away these know-nothings earlier if I had seen you come to the front desk.”

“I came into the room through an entrance in the sorting room,” Danel said. “I didn’t realize I needed to inform the front desk that I arrived. Are they always like this?”

“You’re a fresh face,” she said. “Or as they say where I come from, fresh meat to taste.”

Danel chuckled. “From where have you traveled to serve here?”

“I am from the Island of Serengay in the Placidaxo Sea, south of the Yu-Ang Empire.”

“I almost applied for the Civil Service in the Yu-Ang Empire,” Danel said. “I came here instead. Does the color of your robe have a meaning?”

“I would bleed crimson for my king and queen,” she said. “I am a distant relation to the royal line and have permission to enter the military caste. They have sent me here to train. When I return, I will enter the royal arm of the military.”

“Excuse me, Librarian,” an older man with shaky hands said. He placed an old, moldering tome on the rail. “I think this book is miss-filed.”

Danel took the text and dismissed the man with an automatic response of “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will look into it.” He turned back to the soldier. “Do you study here too?”

“Ooof, do I study,” she said, puffing out her cheeks. “There are two rooms of stacks just down the corridor at sixty-third that are only military subjects. I’m told there is a restricted stack on the third floor that only those ‘who need to know’ can enter. Do you know anything about that?”

Danel gave her a small smile. “What is or is not in the Third Floor stacks is not restricted by enforced authority, but finding what you seek is nigh impossible without a Librarian. Librarians only respond to requests from the commanders of the security forces because as you can see, everyone wants access all the time. However, if you are invested in learning all things military, I can name at least three other less popular but worthy collections that are housed on the Second Floor, First Corridor at the third hallway. Usually, only three or four people a day frequent the stacks there and they are approachable, well-regarded scholars on the subject.

“Seriously?” she asked, almost incredulous. “There is more here that would serve my needs and is more accessible without competing for the same books?”

Danel nodded. “Everything is here; it’s just a matter of finding it.”

Chapter 7

“I can’t feel my hands,” Danel moaned.

“My eyes are so tired I can’t open them,” Bello whined.

“My leg muscles are cramped from sitting so long. I don’t think I can walk in a straight line,” Frage said. “Who are these sadistic bastards?”

Danel pressed the cold compress tighter on his forehead, pushing the ends into his temples. The water from the rag was running down the side of his face. He focused on his breathing, trying to take slow, even breaths. Eventually, his heart beat a normal rhythm. “I will need a drink or three,” he announced.

That was a preview of The Library of Ibados. To read the rest purchase the book.

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