Chapter 90 - The Royal Arcanists Repository

I couldn’t help but stop and stare. A year ago, I’d thought the Seeker’s Guild had the grandest collection of books anywhere in the world. Then I’d thought the Golden Elf college in the undercity was surely unparalleled.

Standing in the entry way of the Royal Arcanists Book Repository, I had to wonder why they needed me at all. They must already own nearly every book that ever existed—and those were just the ones I could see.

If this place was a castle, written works were its fortifications. The foyer spread out to a tiled motif of the Royal Arcanists Society sigil of a book, quill, and wand on the floor where dozens of clerks crossed from unknown origins to unknown destinations. Behind an information desk, a twin set of steps led up to a gallery of shelves that held thousands of books. Such was my gawking that a new arrival simply shoved me from behind to make way, and I stumbled off to the side to gawk at my leisure. And I didn’t even like books. I paced along the tiled floor, watching the comings and goings and trying to make sense of what looked like disorder—but the storms in my deck assured me was a perfectly controlled chaos.

Eventually, I made my way up to the information desk past a myriad of signs warning against smoke and open flames in the library. My dragons were unimpressed, but I ignored them. The spectacled clerk behind the counter peered down at me with curiosity, as though he wasn’t sure what he was looking at.

“Pass?” he asked skeptically.

It wasn’t the open hostility of the doorman, so rather than being petulant, I handed up my note. He briefly glanced at the writing and pulled over a scrap of parchment.

“You’ll want the lost and restored works department in the east wing. Follow these directions and keep to the main path.”

On a whim, I asked: “Do you have any works by a Seeker Lancaster, here?”

The clerk tilted his head. “Possibly in the divinations and arcane philosophy department. If you’re wanting a writ to borrow from the collection, there is a ten flourish per month membership with a minimum of six months commitment, and a twenty flourish initiation fee to support the restoration endowment and acquisitions initiative. I shall require your letter of credit prior to processing.

I gulped. Flourishes haven’t been mentioned much, because, well I hadn’t got any. They were gold marks, worth eleven cunnings each at current conversion. And I would need thirty of them just to check out a book. Dragons above, what was I doing in this place?

Belonging, the knaves whispered.

That was true. A knave should wear his surroundings like a comfortable cloak, whatever they may be. So I didn’t have the generational wealth to throw away on books, but they’d asked me here. All the books in all the world, and I had the one the repository wanted. “Perhaps next time,” I said, taking the instructions. “I didn’t think to stop by the bank.”

“Of course, sir,” said the clerk.

I left him and headed to the eastern wing where the restored works department lay. It took me through a hall of maps from around the world, far-off continents, islands, and expeditions into the frozen north plotted behind elven glass panes with barely any defects or clouding. I didn’t know much geography. Having spent my entire life in Dragonmaw with no pressing reason to ever leave it, I had long-since decided that the Crooked Spine Bastard Vomiting was plenty big enough. Exploring his crooks and crannies was the job of intrepid and suicidal adventurers. Exploring beyond? Pure lunacy. Several of those loons peered down at sea charts, making copies or twisting a compass to and fro over trade routes and sea lanes.

Another section of the library held works by dwarves, and the tables in the wing stood at half-height, evenly crewed with the little devils. The shelves here were all metal and bellows sucked the air straight up, because to try and get a dwarf to extinguish his pipe while he’s working is to go down to the docks and try to drink the sea through a reed. All the warnings in this wing were on the doors leading out. Mostly it contained treatises on trade, engineering, and construction. for such fat-fingered little ruffians, they were amazingly keen with their hands.

I wondered if this was what the Golden Elf library had looked like in its heyday. With more golden-haired elves and fewer, well, anyone else, really. Not much for making friends, were the elves. Big on making corpses and society-ending mistakes, though.

The restored and recovered works department was a bit past that, up two sets of stairs, down a narrow hall, and tucked into a claustrophobic wing where I saw scribes painstakingly copying manuscripts over via quill, ink, and much cursing. Others carefully glued ancient pages within new bindings. Some just dozed at their tables; their unending work momentarily halted by bodily demands. Most of them had beards long enough to trip over, stained with splotches of ink and hands like Master Hedwin that, while having the appearance of withered willow twigs, were deft and precise. These were career clerks.

Having copied only fifteen to twenty pages in my life to give to Hawkley, I couldn’t imagine a more sinister depth of hell in which to wallow. My hands cramped just thinking about sitting here day in, day out, hunched over an inkwell and blotter.

“Excuse me, young man, may I help you find something?”

I turned at the voice, which was much younger than I’d expected, but whose owner was still much older than the furtive tone would suggest. It belonged to a woman of Annalisa’s height, but with a great tangle of brown curls framing a mousy face and a pair of large half-moon spectacles. Her face was youthful in expression but had the worry lines at her eyes and mouth that suggested forty summers of fretting. It sounded instantly familiar, in the same way that everyone feels as though they recognize my face.

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“Are you Lady Pelladine?” I asked.

She smiled, pushing her glasses up her nose. “That honor is indeed mine.” she wrung her hands as her eyes slid down to the satchel at my side. Her toes started to tap with “Do you have it?”

I unclasped my satchel and withdrew a the sailcloth-wrapped book. Lady Pelladine didn’t quite manage to hide her sharp inhale at the sight of it. I pulled the other copied pages out, as well. “I have two other volumes that might interest you,”

Lady Pelladine waved that idea off, her eyes never leaving the book in my hand. “I’m afraid I’ve no interest in matters of the Wills, any longer. Perhaps the academy library. Please, may I?”

I handed the book over, expecting her to open it on the spot. Instead, she turned and began to make her way down the narrow aisles while I struggled to keep up. The recovered works department was like a maze of twisting corridors and stacks of books, but Lady Pelladine navigated unerringly to a small bench where she retrieved a set of gloves, a small mask, and a small box of what looked like jewelers tools. Again, she tottered on to a small side room with a strong smokeless lantern spotted directly down on a work bench, where she donned the gloves and carefully unwrapped the book.

As she put on the mask, I began to wonder if I ought have taken better care of these books than shoving them unceremoniously into an adventurer’s stolen bag. Then she did something somewhat worrying, and took a lump of chalk from her kit and etched a spell circle onto the surface of the bench. I felt traces of magic stir as she drew.

“You’re a mage?” I asked.

“Mmm, yes,” she said as she worked. She glanced back. “And unless I miss my mark, which I rarely do, you are as well.”

“Not enough of one to recognize what you’re making.”

She peeled back the last layer of canvas from the cracked, black leather binding on the book before grabbing a pair of calipers and using them to gently lift open the cover. She allowed herself a sharp intake of breath. Inside, a rough illustration of a many-tentacled beast led me to believe this was some sort of elven bestiary, though why the Wills thought it important, I couldn’t say. I had painstakingly copied the next five pages and a few of the diagrams.

“It’s a circle of protection,” she explained. She ran a gloved finger over the tight lines of text.

“To keep the book from being damaged?” I asked.

Her eyes scanned back and forth over the first page. “What state was this book in when you found it? How was it being kept?”

“I found it in a locked display case with the glass smashed in,” I said. I neglected to mention that I had been the one to smash the glass. I have a feeling from her raised eyebrow that I hadn’t needed to.

“If you’ve any formal training at all, you should be able to spot that this circle points in. It’s a good thing you cannot read Gilder. Most books can be read safely. Some will read you right back.”

I shivered. Yes, definitely should have taken better care of the book. “Why would you even want something like that?”

“Call it a preoccupation.” She turned another page. “The Golds made extensive study of the cults of the abyssal depths and the Bronze Wastes—or rather, the entities they worshiped. They well knew that to transcribe knowledge of a trans-dimensional thing was to transcribe part of the thing itself.” she tapped the page. “These creatures are the ultimate wayfinders, able to cross worlds as you or I might cross from one room into another. They are capable of things our minds cannot even conceive. Tell me, were there others in this case?”

“They’d all rotted away,” I said.

Her eyes fell. “Of course. That you found this at all is astounding. Pristine works of the Golds are rare enough. That you should find work of this subject in particular? Those in my circles have sought works like this for years, lad. Years.”

“Your circles?” I asked, wary.

“Dedicated collectors of lost lore. I’ve hired scouts and delvers on occasion, myself. But many of these works were lost, and even more were intentionally destroyed. History was destroyed! When I saw those pages you transcribed, I could scarce believe my eyes.”

“So, then, you want it? What’s the going rate for priceless elven works?”

She didn’t answer as she continued looking. I took that silence as a resounding yes. I waited for her to finish poring over the book and close it.

“I can write you a chit for fifty to take to the Kelier & Thorne branch bank on Cobble and Toplet.”

The dragons in my deck wanted more. The towers just wanted… gone, for some reason. The book, the library, and the librarian all put them on edge for some reason.

“Sixty, and I want a copy of the translation.”

Lady Pelladine looked as though she’d sucked on a lemon. Her eyes darted back and forth. “This is knowledge I don’t want leaving the repository, young master. The Golds kept it under glass and key for good reason. No copies.”

I noticed she didn’t mention the price. I edged my hand toward the book. “Then don’t let me walk out with this.” I made to take it, and she gasped and reached out. I stopped, having gotten my point across. “I’m sure there are other parties who are more amicable.”

“I don’t see why you’d want it anyway. Mmm…” she chewed on one of her nails, debating. “Perhaps… no. Mmm. You can view the translation, here, under supervision—strict supervision—once I’ve finished it. But I insist that you burn any additional pages you’ve copied. I don’t want this getting out.”

I took a chance. “Is that because this book has something to do with Margot Bethane?”

Lady Pelladine’s eyes nearly broke through her spectacles with how widely they bulged. “I don’t want that name spoken in these halls!” she hissed. She looked about, as though someone might hear, and began to chew her fingernails again. She reached into her pocket, but drew it out empty, which seemed to agitate her even more. Strange woman. But she definitely knew this book wasn’t on the level. We weren’t so far removed from the fel witch’s reign of destruction that her name didn’t carry a power all its own. Not all of her underlings had taken the amnesty, after all, and most mages lived in at least a little fear of having a finger pointed at them. I imagine Lady Pelladine lived in a lot of fear, pretty much all the time. I felt a bit bad about swinging that fear like a cudgel at a fussy, but ultimately harmless, librarian. But not as bad as I’d feel missing out on those extra ten cunnings.

“Mum’s the word,” I said. I patted the book cover and pulled out the extra transcribed pages. “And I won’t tell anyone about this, either. I was never here, yeah?”

The royal arcanist began to calm down and nodded to herself. “Yes. That’s how these things often go. I shall contact you through the dwarf, once the translation is finished.”

“Or if you need me to acquire other rare finds,” I said. “I’ve a bit of a knack. And it seems there’s good coin in books.”

Pelladine smiled in a way she probably thought was conspiratorial—though it was better described as barely contained obsession. “Perhaps I could use you. There are one or two other volumes on my list that require a… softer touch.” She scribbled out a chit of withdrawal for her accounts—rich people never seem to carry money themselves. They never need it. Credit is enough. Watch me try to buy something on credit. I’d be introduced to the window, heels above head. Lady Pelladine spoke a soft word and her signet ring began to glow. She pressed it to the parchment, adding her credit to the chit.

I stuffed it into a pocket and offered a slight bow. “Ma’am,”

But out of eyesight, out of mind. The lady already had her nose buried in her notes in a manner not unlike myself. I shrugged and let myself out.