Of the ancient Master Wuhiao, it can be said that he was supremely judicious, beneficent beyond compare, and prudent without equal in his time; verily, his unparalleled acumen is memorable for its profundity, being second to none among his peers. Chief among the teachings of Wuhiao is the hang daoqi (balance of unlike things), which instructs the sophic individual in the manner of most harmonious living. Accordingly, Wuhiao acquired his unmatched intellect—oh, how inimitable it was!—from a dichotomy of unlike sources: meditation, the exploration within, and travel, the exploration without, both forsaking the concern of selfhood. Of his meditation, much is presently known and written. Of his travels, it can be said with the utmost certitude that what he encountered affirmed his teachings; that uncouth men of light hair, primitives, the females who offered sacrifices to the moon, and the warring tribes of Gao Chahng (Qarda) all are deficient of sagacious spirits; that the nokudai prowl also the distant lands beyond Yu; and that the Great Unknown remains unfit for travel both now and forever.
-Records of Wuhiao, Foreword
Sang Lamdak, Xheng Yu Xi
Cadas and Hiricho reached the eastern coast of the island-wide city of Sang Lamdak by nightfall that same day. The docks teemed with vessels of all sizes—merchant vessels, ferries, fishing boats, even warships that took in and spat out Xhengyon politicians and military personnel. The sun painted the seaside soft pink and stained the lazy cotton clouds. Odors of fish, salt, and brine defined the air.
Hiricho spoke to Cadas in hushed tones, cutting in between the beckoning shouts of fish merchants. “Just stay close by my side, all right? We’ll need to lay low, at least until we reach the mainland. If either one of our mothers finds us here, we’re both stranded in this city forever, and I’ll blame you the rest of my life. Get me?” A quiet beat. Cadas heard and understood but said nothing in return. “I’ll use some of my stipend to buy us both passage to the mainland. The rest, I’ll need to save to ensure I can afford books, lodging, and to pay the university’s lecturers. You’ll be on your own once we get there. Do you understand? Hey, are you even listening?”
“I understand,” said Cadas. Anything to get where the books were. Anything to begin the restoration of his precious Compendium.
Hiricho bought passage on a ferry from a stout man who stood with his arms folded. The world around Cadas was blurred and muffled; the two were talking, Hiricho at great length, the man offering terse replies, and Hiricho was waving his arms and thrusting a handful of bai at him. The world was too much for Cadas. He closed his eyes, drowned it out until he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” said Hiricho. He snatched up his bag and took off running. Cadas followed close.
There was limited seating left on the ferry. Its interior was dark and musty; one of the sailors led them to their cramped bunk next to the cargo hold in the lower deck of the ship, where only a tiny window near the ceiling afforded them fresh air and a view of the outside world. Hiricho’s bag landed with a thump. They sat on the faintly damp floor and before Cadas could even feel the first symptoms of his exhaustion set in after their arduous day, he was already asleep.
***
Morning came in the form of Cadas knocking his head against the wall.
The horizon strain the first bits of dawn out of the night sky, a dance of sapphire and tangerine. The room rocked back and forth. They were already on their way.
Hiricho was wide awake when Cadas sat up, and he had a stone of some kind in his hand, something white and vaguely humanoid, and as his thumb traced the features of the figurine, he rocked back and forth in sync with the heaving of the ship. He muttered to himself something Xhengyon-adjacent, but beyond Cadas’s vocabulary. The ritual went on like this for a good while until Hiricho finally opened his eyes and noticed Cadas staring at him.
“Oh,” he said. “You’re up.” He brandished the ivory statue and stuffed it into the breast pocket of his overshirt. “Just saying a prayer.”
“To who?”
“Uh, a familial god. Ancestor spirit.”
“What is that?”
“Well, here in Xheng Yu Xi, there are a lot of different gods that people pray to, but most families—”
“What is that one? Maybe I’ve heard of it.”
Hiricho smiled and patted his pocket. “His name is Mu Haoleng. My father gave me this totem, given to him by his father, and his father before him, for six generations. But my father’s lineage has prayed to Mu Haoleng for much longer. Whenever he’s feeling particularly didactic, he tells me the story of how—”
“I’ve never heard of him. What are his powers?”
Hiricho cocked his head and sputtered out a small laugh. “His, what did you just say? His powers?” Cadas nodded. “It doesn’t quite work like that. Is it different in Myrenthos?”
“We have gods, too. Twenty-nine. Each one is supposed to be in charge of something different. We know which one we’re supposed to pray to based on what we need.” Cadas leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, breathing in the scents of sea and fish, remembering the sun-loving cat he kept as a pet before he’d ever learned of Qarda or the Eloheed. How she loved a fresh-caught fish. “But I prayed to the goddess of home and family to let us stay in Myrenthos and she didn’t answer me. It’s all made up anyway. Gods don’t exist.”
He heard Hiricho scoff at first, and then their cabin was quiet for a while, quiet enough to hear the waves sloshing heavily outside, the calls of gulls circling overhead. “So, you’re an atheist?” he asked. Cadas gave a bored shrug. “Most people in Xheng Yu Xi, we’re basically the opposite. We believe that all gods worshiped in the whole world are real. We also believe that the gods used to walk among us long ago when the world was new. That one day they’ll return.”
Cadas perked up. Something about that piqued his interest—he often liked to dream of the future, near and far, and wonder what it might bring. He’d never read about this particular Xhengyon folklore. “What will happen then?”
Hiricho pulled his totem out again and studied it, brandishing it as he talked. “Well, they say the thousands and thousands of gods will gather together and read all of the books that humans have written since we were created. That day is called Orokoda. It means Returning.” Cadas remembered that as a curse word Hiricho’s mother had used. “They’ll judge us based on our tomes. Whether or not we’ve succeeded as their creations. Then they’ll decide what to do with us next.”
“Like what?”
The Xhengyon boy shrugged. “There are lots of ideas. Probably as many ideas as there are gods. Some say the world will be destroyed. Others say the gods will return to the heavens until another Orokoda. Maybe they’ll walk among us for eternity, or bring us back to the heavens with them.” He tucked away his figurine one more time for safekeeping. “One book I read said that the earth will be returned to the nokudai. That one seems bleaker than the rest. I guess it all depends on what the gods think of us.”
It took a while for Cadas to absorb all this information. The sun peeked into their cabin through the tiny window and cast a rectangle of golden warmth between them. Eventually, Hiricho dozed off again, and when Cadas finally said something, it snapped him back to wakefulness.
“Then I need to be ready. I’m writing my own book. Maybe they’ll read mine someday.”
***
The Yu mainland was to Sang Lamdak as Sang Lamdak had been to the hilltop villages and rolling farmland in Myrenthos where Cadas was born. In a word, maddening. He got the distinct impression that the entire island, the entire country, was nothing but one massive, densely-populated city from the western coast to the east, like a gigantic version of Sang Lamdak; that millions upon millions of people lived here; that none of them had ever seen a naked patch of dirt or a wild animal in their lives. Walking on the brick roads made his legs ache. Everything was loud and colorful, in perpetual motion, full of smells he’d never smelled before that refused to go unsmelled, some pleasant, most not.
“Ah, Gikuma,” Hiricho sighed, smiling. “The big city. Smells just like I remember. Like adventure!”
“Adventure smells awful,” Cadas replied earnestly, and Hiricho did that thing that most people did when he said something from the heart—he threw his head back and laughed.
“Oh, you’ll get used to it, my friend.” He clapped a hand on his back—another thing Cadas hated. “Actually, you won’t need to get used to it for long. We’ll buy lodging here for the night and leave by wagon in the morning. By this time tomorrow, we’ll arrive at the university!”
“I’m so bored. My feet hurt. I need to get away from all this noise and smell. It’s making me dizzy.” Hiricho sighed but didn’t say anything. In a rare moment of interpersonal insight, Cadas wondered what Hiricho must have been feeling at that very same moment, and he reasoned that it must have been boredom, too.
They ate bowls of shrimp and noodles that Hiricho purchased in the port market. Cadas tasted an old, familiar spice whose name he had forgotten, but it reminded him of home. Home, home. They gnawed on rolls of sweet, tough bread with their meal. Cadas dunked his vigorously into his noodle bowl and splashed broth all over his clothes. He hated the damp feeling, but the food tasted so good that he forgot all about it. They hadn’t eaten in so long.
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They slept that evening in the moldiest hovel Cadas had ever laid eyes on, full of rat droppings and rat bones but no sign of a live specimen. They slept on the floor without pillows or coverings. Hiricho propped himself up against the wall like he’d done on the ferry. Cadas tossed and turned and bemoaned his friend’s choice of lodging, imploring him to buy a nicer room in a real inn somewhere, but the Xhengyon boy denied him, denied him again, and then finally stopped responding to him for the night.
Cadas let his mind drift to thoughts of the multitude of gods coming to judge the world and its books. What splendor, what rapture that day would bring. He was still undecided as to whether any gods existed at all, but he thought that if they did, what better rubric by which to judge people than their books? Not their bravery or piety or some such other subjective nonsense.
“I have to be ready,” Cadas said, but Hiricho did not stir this time. “Just in case. I will be ready.”
***
They set out from Gikuma the next morning in a wagon that bore eight other passengers besides them. The road was ill-paved, full of cracks and loose rocks that jarred the wooden vehicle, made it squeak and groan. At one point, a wheel came loose. They stood by the side of the road for a while until the wagon driver could set the wheel back on its spoke.
Cadas didn’t like the other passengers. They sat too close for comfort—one on either side of him, a fat, middle-aged woman and a brittle old man—and he jabbed them with his elbows when their arms or legs inevitably pressed up against him. He felt smothered.
But he’d felt smothered ever since leaving Myrenthos. If this was in pursuit of something better, he willed himself to tolerate it.
The sun was low in the sky when they finally arrived at their destination. Tsuriuche. The university town. It was far more inviting than Gikuma had been. Gone were the huddled masses of fish vendors and ware peddlers, the cloistered, dingy atmosphere of it all. Here the air was clean and smelled of wood, grass, and flowers. Tsuriuche reminded Cadas of the palace grounds in Qarda, except only the gardens—none of the temples or buildings or any of those things that got in the way. It was peaceful here.
There were tall trees of many different classes and origins, at least two of which he recognized from Myrenthos, one he’d seen in the Qardish palace gardens—there were many exciting Xhengyon varieties he’d yet to study, too. They all rose up out of encloused mounds in parks and flanked either side of the main thoroughfares. There was so much to learn, see, study, and record in his new Compendium. The tome inside him ached to be written.
First, he had to get his hands on the wealth of books he’d been promised. He asked Hiricho when they’d be going to the library and if he could take Cadas there at once. He used the word please, even.
“Well, you have to pass the entrance exam just like me,” Hiricho repied. “Don’t you remember when we talked about this? The university doesn’t let just anyone use its library.”
“When can I pass the entrance exam?”
“Soon, friend. You just have to be patient.” Hiricho smiled at him as they walked, smiled his useless and unhelpful smile. How many years had Cadas’s mother told him the same thing—that he just needed to wait a little longer, suffer a little more, before he got what he wanted? That was the whole reason he left his family behind.
“I have been patient,” Cadas grumbled.
And so began the inception of a roiling hot anger that would brew within him in the coming days, spilling over in an outburst the likes of which he’d forgotten he could achieve. Soon the whole world was smeared red. He didn’t remember doing so, but Hiricho later told him all about how Cadas had chased him and his new friends from the visitors’ dormitories in his fury.
In the aftermath, alone, Cadas found himself thinking of home. Not Myrenthos this time. Not Qarda. The cellar under the restaurant in Sang Lamdak. How he still wanted to throttle his mother for burning his precious Compendium while he slept, and yet, as the red resolved into that more familiar spectrum of grays, he found himself remembering also the nights she read books to him until the moon was high in the sky, until his many questions about his absent father were satisfied and the words of fables lulled him to sleep.
That same night, he dreamed of a tree. It grew so tall that it pierced the clouds and went higher still, so wide that expansive chambers could be carved into its trunk. The interior was transformed into levels upon levels of libraries and reading rooms all for him.
There were windows in the tree. Cadas climbed and climbed and never did reach the top. He glanced to his side and saw a Qardish owleye fluttering higher into the sky, his old cat clawing her way up the bark of the tree to catch it. He found himself rooting for them both.
***
The momentous day of the entrance exam came and went. He was able to afford all of the necessary materials thanks to Hiricho’s generosity, but he was reminded again that after this day, he was truly on his own. It was all the same to Cadas. All he needed was to pass this exam and gain access to the university’s prestigious libraries.
In the University of Tsuriuche, the windows were made of a strange, ghostly fabric instead of glass, and everything else was either wood or paper—Cadas wondered how quickly an overturned candle would spread and engulf the whole campus. Everywhere he went in the world, everyone seemed to do everything differently.
A sliding fabric door opened and the tall, lithe proctor emerged, a bundle of slim scrolls in his hand that were each tied with tight red ribbons. “Wunei,” he said, handing a scroll to a young woman down the hall. “Tokkaru. Yiong...”
Hiricho was sweating visibly, fidgeting with his hands behind his back. Cadas was just impatient to receive his scroll and be done with these formalities. He had work to do. Important work.
“Daichin. Hiricho. Cadas.” The proctor offered him a smile when he handed over his scroll. “Zao. Kirriko...”
Cadas tore the ribbon off the scroll, nearly ripping the paper in half.
“I was accepted!” Hiricho exclaimed. He jumped up and down and embraced a few of the other students in the hall, while others slumped their shoulders and shuffled away from the merrymaking.
“Cadas Lars,” Cadas read aloud from the proctor’s notes on the back of his exam scroll. “The answers you gave to this exam show great promise. You have a working proficiency with mathematics and logic, you excel in your knowledge of the natural world, and you are one of the most talented artists I have ever seen outside of this university, certainly without formal instruction.
“That being said, your performance was less than satisfactory in other categories. You demonstrate only a cursory knowledge of Xhengyon culture and history. While you are a talented illustrator, you know nothing of the philosophies of art. You are wholly uneducated in the spheres of literature and government, and unfortunately, your command of the language is functional at best.
“At this time, I do not feel it would be appropriate to admit you to this great university. Do not feel disheartened. Many applicants both foreign and native fail to meet our rigorous requirements. I would encourage you to return to your home, study in earnest, and reapply in a few years’ time when you have improved your basic understanding of these disciplines. Zhejin guide your eyes, my child.”
The others had dispersed or were celebrating amongst themselves. Only Hiricho remained, standing there in the line of sight behind the scroll as Cadas lowered it. “I don’t understand what it means,” Cadas said plainly. “What do I do? Can I go to the library now?”
Hiricho frowned. “I think you and I should take a walk, friend.”
***
A day had passed since the examination. Hiricho had taken Cadas to an unused lodge of some sort at the outer periphery of campus. Here, the Myrenthian was free to kick and shriek and wail in privacy without getting into trouble, and he knew not what else to do. He was just as inconsolable when Hiricho returned to check on him.
“We can figure something else out,” Hiricho reassured him.
“I would like to go to the library now, please,” Cadas said, trying to catch his distressed breath. “Please, I said!”
Hiricho frowned again. “Friend, if you try to go there now, the university’s guards will remove you. Probably throw you in jail. They don’t allow books in jail, you know. But you have other ways of getting them. If you tell me what you want, I can withdraw books from the library and bring them to you.”
“How will I know what I want? How many can you bring me?”
“Well...” Hiricho stopped talking for a moment. “The university only lets students withdraw five books from the library per moon. I would need some for school. But if there are one or two withdrawals I don’t use, they’re all yours.”
Cadas thought momentarily, but he decided this would be insufficient. “Not enough books...” He grasped at his temples, sighing, distressed. He paced around the lodge. “I just need to read as many as I want when I want to read them. What else can I do?”
The Xhengyon scratched his chin. “Well... Wherever I find work here, I could put in a good word for you. Perhaps they could offer you the same work. Make enough of your own money and you can buy as many books as you can afford.”
Frustrated, Cadas slapped the side of his head. “I get in trouble whenever I have a job! Qarda. Sang Lamdak... Then my books get taken away, or worse.” He sniffled and wiped away a trickle of snot with the back of his hand. “I need to go find books I can read now. I need them now! Please!”
“All right, Cadas, calm down,” said Hiricho. He furrowed his brow at him. “I’m trying to help you, and you’re being ungrateful! Let me think... The only public library I know of would be in Qarda.” He winced. “But from what I’ve heard, I wouldn’t advise traveling there any time soon. Um... What about one of the shrines here?”
“What shrines?”
“There are dozens of shrines and monasteries here in Yu alone. Much more in Xheng. But they would be happy to let you read their books. All you would have to do—”
“What kind of books?” Cadas grinned.
“Well, uh... They would be religious books. Books about whatever god that shrine worshiped. But it’s better than nothing, right?” Hiricho smiled and tried to shrug off any objections. Cadas buried his face between his knees and rocked back and forth, overwhelmed by the impossibility of his life. Hiricho sighed. “I don’t know, friend. I bought you passage here so you could try to do something different with your life. I thought I was doing the right thing. Was I wrong? Do you want to go back home?”
He mulled over the possibility for a moment. He did find himself missing his family and the daily mundanities of the restaurant, but he decided it was unlikely his mother would let him near another book for at least a year after this kind of stunt. If ever again. That was to say nothing of a new Compendium.
“No,” Cadas finally said.
Hiricho shook his head. “Cadas, those are your options. You can find work here or you can go home. Do you or do you not want me to buy you passage back to Sang Lamdak? You can study hard, come back in a few years like the proctor said. That’ll only leave me a bit of stipend left. But I brought you here, and I’m willing to help you get home. I feel responsible for all this.”
“No. I don’t want to go home. I want to find a library!”
“You’re not going to find a building full of free books unless you go to Qarda or ship off to the Moth-Eaten Library, for pity’s sake! Now what will it be?”
“Did you say Moth-Eaten Library?”
Hiricho snorted. “You’re being facetious now?”
“I don’t know what that word means. What’s the Moth-Eaten Library? Where is that? And there are moths there?”
The young tutor waved his hand and took a seat on a wooden bench on the other side of the room. “It’s make-believe, Cadas. I was being sarcastic.”
Cadas frowned. “Just a fable?”
“Well, it was a real place at one point. A place full of thousands of tomes in every language, meant to be an attraction for the whole world. It was built a very long time ago. Hundreds and hundreds of years. But nobody has been there in at least a century. Even if any of the books have survived to be legible, the place is positively overrun with bugs. It’s just ruins now—well, according to the last explorer who saw it. That was over a century ago.”
Cadas stood from his splintered seat on the floor, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Where?”