The boy peeled Daen’s fingers from his sleeve, shaking his head in stunned negation. “Haven’t you heard? Trenna has fallen. The Dahak comes.” And then he dashed away.
The world descended into fog again, a cloud of shocked disbelief. Trenna, fallen! How was that possible? Trenna defended Cinvat’s western approach from…Daen leaned against the doorframe with his basket of berries until balance returned.
Shining Trenna by the sea, fallen!
Unsure what else to do, he let rote guide him. He slid down the wall to a sitting position and pulled his writing materials out of his tunic. Opened his book on his lap. Fumbled the bottle of ink open. His hands shook so violently he couldn’t put nib of pen into ink. When it splashed on his book and leg, he dropped the bottle and it shattered on the cobbles.
What am I doing? Asha, forgive my addled brain…
He struggled upright and closed his book, vaguely aware that the wet ink would stick those two ruined pages together. His pen lay forgotten in the doorway as he staggered out into the traffic again.
Movement seemed to sharpen his mind, and he hurried his pace—through the middle streets crowded with carts and soldiers to the Temple District, where the circle of Truth, representing the Cycles and Asha, surmounted the great brass Dome of the Temple. Up the long stairs to the huge arched doors of the Temple Library, with the shadows of mounted dragons crisscrossing his path. Blindly past the tattooed sentries who mumbled his name, their alarmed questions failing in his ears. Into the vast hall where skylights above threw slanted beams across the dusty vault. Past ranks of tables normally covered with stacks of books and baskets of scrolls, crowded with students and scholars and peasants alike, but now starkly empty. To the great desk that served as both barricade and gateway to the legions of bookcases beyond, where Mer turned toward him, eyes bright above wire-rimmed spectacles, with a gaze that shifted from worried to horror-stricken.
“Daen! By the Source! What are you doing here?”
Panting, Daen removed the basket from his back and set it on the desktop. Black juice dribbled out of it like ichor. No doubt his tunic was stained too. It would never come out. He started to apologize, scrubbing ineffectually at the liquid with his fingers, but Mer hobbled around the desk and took him by the shoulders.
“My boy, my boy! Oh Gods, what have I done? You should not be here.” The old man drew him close with arms like sticks, but sinewy and strong.
“But…I don’t understand…I have done what you asked. I’ve brought cinderblack for the priests—”
“Yes, and a good bounty it is.” A tear escaped from his master’s eye. “But I didn’t expect you to find any. My hope was that you would be gone for a long while and might escape the coming storm. Escape with and preserve everything you have committed to memory about Cinvat.”
Daen’s heart sank in his chest, pounded against his ribs. “Why didn’t you tell me that? Why would you send me out on…on a fool’s mission?”
The old man took Daen’s face in hands dry as paper and studied him, his gaze shifting from eye to eye. “I didn’t know for certain that it would happen. I only acted as a precaution against rumor. You are my brightest pupil, but you are honest to a fault—I didn’t want you to go forth in alarm, spreading news that would turn to false gossip. My hope was that you would return eventually, the rumors would be proven false, and we might laugh over my needless fears—but that in the worst event, you would be safe, you who contain everything…everything.”
“Master…if I had known…” His stomach twisted at his master’s words. He was honest to a fault. He’d scared a little girl this morning when she might have led him to new allies. He hung his head.
“No, don’t blame yourself.” Mer released him. “Not your folly, but mine. I sent you because our history lives in your brain like in none of the others. If rumor were to prove true, you might survive to put it all to pen once more and rescue Cinvat’s place in time. But now, because I played coy with the truth, here you are, successful and thorough as always…Asha, forgive me…”
Daen watched his master’s face sort through pain, then sorrow, then anger that settled with outthrust chin on firm resolve. “It’s not yet too late. You’ve returned in time to help me finish a task. Come. I have been moving the most important tomes to the vaults, where I hope we can wall them up before the hour grows too late.”
“What about these…” Daen indicated the basket of cinderblack.
Mer waved him off. “I’ll send a boy to collect them and take them to the priests, and well done, my son, well done. But think about them no more.”
The Keeper of Memory hobbled around the desk and into the maze of tall wooden bookcases. Daen followed, with one backward glance at the basket leaking indelibly on the desk of the Great Library.