The Invasion of the Tearling

Tyler closed his eyes and then, mercifully, they were past Seth and down the stairs. Anders began to speak again, his voice pitched low enough to reach Tyler, but not Brother Jennings, who trailed silently several feet behind. “I am not unaware, Tyler, that this must be an unpleasant errand for you. And every unpleasant errand requires not only punishment for failure, but reward for success.”


Tyler followed mutely, still trying to push Seth’s image from his mind. The Holy Father’s talk of reward did not cheer him in the slightest; in his childhood, Tyler had seen village dogs trained in much the same way for the ring. When an animal was beaten hard enough, it would work just to not be beaten, and consider itself well rewarded. The status quo could shift at any time.

My books.

The numbness broke slightly and Tyler felt agony there, waiting, like freezing water beneath thin ice. He focused on walking, feeling each step as an individual ache. The old Holy Father had always used the lift to transport him between floors, but Anders rarely did so. He seemed to enjoy demonstrating his own fitness, and now he was surely enjoying Tyler’s discomfort as well. The arthritis had woken up, causing Tyler’s hip to throb unhappily. His broken leg snarled with each step, even though Tyler was careful never to let it bump against the ground. He concentrated on each of these discomforts, almost relishing them, easy pains that were entirely physical.

After endless flights of stairs, they passed the ground floor and continued down the steps into the Arvath’s basement. Tyler had never been to the basement, which was only a resting place for Holy Fathers deceased. No one came down here except for two unfortunate brothers who had drawn the duty to keep the crypts free of insects and rats. These two, men unfamiliar to Tyler, sprang to their feet and bowed as the Holy Father entered, Tyler following at his heels like a ghost.

Anders took the torch that one of the young men offered and led Tyler into the tombs. It was bone-cold down here, and Tyler shivered in his thin robes. They passed the entrances to many crypts, decorated arches of stone that stretched high above them on both sides. The corpses of Holy Fathers were always embalmed before being laid to rest, but Tyler still thought that he could smell death in this place. Briefly, he wondered if Anders had brought him down here to kill him, and then he discarded that idea. He was needed.

God, please show me the way out.

The crypts were behind them now. Ahead was only a single large stone door, covered with a layer of dust. As they drew up in front of it, Anders produced a simple iron key.

“Look at me, Tyler.”

Tyler looked up, but found that he couldn’t meet the other man’s eyes. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the bridge of Anders’s nose.

“I am the only person with a key to this door, Tyler. But if you succeed in your task, I will give this key to you.”

He opened the door, though it required several twists of the key to do so. The door squealed miserably as the Holy Father shoved it open; no one had entered this room in a long time. The Holy Father beckoned him inside, but Tyler already knew, somehow, what would be there, and as light from the torch fell over the room, despair wrapped around Tyler’s heart.

The room was full of books. Someone had constructed shelves for them, the sort of rough-hewn furniture that had predominated after the Landing, when even simple tools were difficult to come by. Tyler’s eyes roamed helplessly across the room: shelf after shelf of books, thousands of them, all the way down to the far wall.

He stepped forward, drawn helplessly, reaching out to touch the books on their shelves. Some were leather-bound, some paper. No one had cared for them, or even bothered to organize them; titles and authors had been thrown together haphazardly, stacked horizontally on the shelves. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. The sight hurt Tyler’s heart.

“Tyler.”

He started. For a moment, he’d forgotten that the Holy Father was there.

“If you succeed,” the Holy Father said softly, “not only will you have the key to this room, but you will become the Arvath’s first librarian. You will cease to be the Keep Priest, and I will relieve you of all other duties. No one will ever bother you again. Your only task will be to live down here and take care of these books.”

Tyler turned back to stare at the room, breathing in the smell of old paper. He could spend the rest of his life in here and not read the same book twice.

“The poison is delayed,” the Holy Father continued. “It will take some two or three hours for the Queen to show the first symptoms. This is your window to return to the Arvath.”

“They’ll come after me. The Mace will.”

“Perhaps. But not even the Mace will dare to remove you from the Arvath without my permission. You saw how they had to lure Matthew to the Keep in order to take him. You may never be able to leave the Arvath again, but so long as you make it back, you will be safe from reprisal, and you may live your life out here, with these books.”