The clatter of metal-shod feet chased them. Daen glanced back once to see soldiers in black leather and dull armor clambering up the shelves, knocking books off, setting torches to the dry paper. Orange light bloomed. Shouts and laughter followed.
Mer sobbed as Daen dragged him to the stairs and down. Through the vaults, with the clamor of pursuit close behind, to the smaller chamber where the books were hidden. Torchlight slashed and flickered from a dozen sources as the pursuit closed in.
Trembling, Mer attacked the wheel that would release the great lintel stone. Daen set the three books aside and joined him, but Mer struck his hands away. “No! Boy, you must go! Now!” When Daen hesitated, Mer slapped him full across the face. “GO!”
Cheek stinging, tears flowing freely, Daen gathered the books again and started across the chamber, wending a cautious path through the stacks of tomes. The wheel creaked behind him, and he heard a muffled rasp, as if insects ran within the walls—the sand flowed. The big lintel stone rumbled and growled like the cough of a giant, and Daen looked back. Soldiers with torches and swords sprinted across the chamber beyond, but the lintel hadn’t dropped, not yet. Mer struggled with the wheel, and Daen hesitated again. “Master…?”
“Go, boy! Curse you if you do not leave. You are the Keeper of Memory now. Go!”
Daen ran to the far door, knocking piles of books over in his haste. He set his load aside and grabbed the other wheel, pulling with all his strength. It resisted his efforts at first, but then moved with a lurch, stuck again, and finally spun freely. Shaking with fear, he gathered his books and darted through the door even as the lintel began to grind and chatter slowly downward.
He looked back.
The far door was still open, the big lintel stone jammed in its descent. Soldiers poured into the chamber, knocking piles of books aside, swords leveled. Flames erupted from ancient paper. When Daen saw him last, Mer crouched in the midst of the gathered history of Cinvat with an armload of books clutched to his chest, a skirmisher’s sword raised above him. Even as the stone lintel dropped, Daen heard his sorrowful cry cut short.
The thunder of the door’s closing echoed through the blackness that followed.
Goulish taps and scratching came from the other side. Daen screamed at the sounds, willing them to stop, then succumbed to anguish, shivering and sobbing for several minutes in the dark. But Mer’s voice in his head scolded him for being emotional and selfish. He braced himself with several deep breaths, then stood and felt about until his hand encountered the stone wall. Leading carefully with his toes, he started down the corridor, guided only by touch.
“I will keep your memory, Mer,” he whispered to himself.
Time crawled in the utter night of the tunnel. Drips punctuated skittering noises and the echoes of his scuffling footsteps. He struggled with his own mind, resisting images that scorched his inner eye, repeating endlessly—a monster slicing through soldiers in a single movement; the faces of Tolec, Barth, and Jennia, both in life and in death; Mer cringing beneath a falling sword. Books burning.
Accompanying the images, Mer’s last words to Daen—You are the Keeper of Memory now.
What would he do? Where would he go? Trenna was taken, Cinvat overrun. What cover or comfort would the surrounding wilderness give him? He’d been less abandoned and alone in the fog this morning…had it really only been this morning?
A memory of laughter made him pause in his tracks—the little girl, Maia, with her dark eyes and innocent curiosity. There were people in the wilds who didn’t know of the Dahak, were still untouched, perhaps less than half a day away. Vulnerable, but they had dragons. An alarm could be raised, word spread. He might be flown to safety, and the memory of Cinvat saved.
With hope kindled in his heart, Daen hurried forward, anxious now to find the end of this tunnel. Shortly, his toes struck stone, and feeling with his free hand, he discovered stairs going up. When his head bumped on a ceiling of stone, he set his books down and felt about with his hands. Hinges here, and a latch! He studied it with his fingers until he knew how to work it, threw it back, and pushed up. The door resisted. He pushed harder and it swung up a few inches.
The light of a ruddy sunset stung his eyes—after his long trek in the darkest night of his life, it illuminated trees and boulders like a noonday sun. He pressed the door higher, observing a metal rod hinged to the edge that swung down beside him. He used it to prop the door open as he ducked back inside, gathered up his books, then crawled out into the world once more. Around him lay a small stone courtyard ringed with low benches, but with wild terrain beyond.