“And this section here,” says Shara, “it … it …” She bows her head and lets out a slow breath. Then she looks up at Mulaghesh.
Mulaghesh smiles grimly and nods. “Yeah. You know. You know we can’t possibly keep something like this secret. Not something this big. We’d post guards. Then someone would ask questions about those guards, what they’re guarding, and they’d keep asking questions until they found out. Or we’d try and excavate it, study it, document it, and someone would see all the equipment, all the personnel, and they’d ask questions, and they’d keep asking questions until they found out. Trouble”—Mulaghesh files a rough nail away on the edge of one engraving—“is unavoidable. And worse, Wiclov knows about it, so if we try and stay here and do anything, it’s putting a knife in his hands: ‘Look at Saypur, keeping our most sacred temple secret in the earth, getting their dirty foreign fingers all over it.’ Can you imagine that fallout? Can you imagine what would happen, Ambassador? Not just to your investigation, but to the Continent, to Saypur?”
Shara sighs. This is an argument she expected, but she’d hoped the solution wouldn’t be quite so drastic. “You really want to … to just cave it in? You think that’s our best option?”
“I’d prefer to fill the damn tunnel up with cement, but the equipment would attract too many eyes. I’ve already asked our engineers about it—there are some wooden struts at the door that are definitely load-bearing. It wouldn’t take more than an hour.”
“There’s evidence, though. Someone’s been here, restoring the Kolkashtani atrium. They even put a stone door frame in here, though I’ve no idea why. It … It must be whoever’s working with Wiclov!”
“Are you certain of it to the extent that you would risk Continentals discovering this place?”
Shara rubs her eyes, then sits back and stares out at the Seat of the World. “Looking at it, I just know,” she says, “that I could spend a lifetime studying this.”
“If you were a historian,” says Mulaghesh. “But you’re not.”
Shara flinches, stung.
“You’re a servant, Ambassador,” says Mulaghesh softly. “We both have a duty. Neither of us will be doing it down here.”
In Shara’s head, Efrem Pangyui is saying, What truth do you wish to keep?
The candelabras stutter. A thousand shadows dance. Ancient faces glower, vanish.
“Do it,” says Shara.
*
The trudge back up the stairway feels interminable. Shara commits herself to memorizing everything she saw, everything she read. By all the seas, she tells herself, we won’t lose this, too.
“So there was nothing miraculous down there?” asks Mulaghesh.
“Not that I saw,” says Shara absently.
“That’s a relief,” Mulaghesh says. She pulls an envelope from her coat pocket and holds it out to Shara. “We’ve been reviewing the stolen pages of the list from the Warehouse. The idea of finding any more of this, out in the open, gives me nightmares. These twenty pages are what we think got the Restorationists so excited—or something in them, at least. But they probably got much, much more.”
If there is one thing that can break Shara’s concentration, it’s this. She snatches the envelope from Mulaghesh’s hand, tears it open, and reads:
356. Shelf C4-145. Travertine’s boots: footwear that somehow makes the wearer’s stride miles long—can cross the Continent in less than a day. VERY IMPORTANT to keep one foot on the ground: there were originally two pair, but the testing wearer jumped, and floated into the atmosphere. Remaining pair still miraculous.
357. Shelf C4-146. Kolkan’s carpet: Small rug that MOST DEFINITELY possesses the ability to fly. VERY difficult to control. Records indicate Kolkan blessed each thread of the rug with the miracle of flight, so theoretically each thread could lift several tons into the air—though we have not yet attempted such, nor will we. Still miraculous.
358. Shelf C4-147. Toy wagon: disappears on nights of a new moon, reappears on the full moon full of copper pennies bearing the face of Jukov. Once returned with a load of bones (not human). Still miraculous.
358. Shelf C4-148. Glass window: originally was the holding place of numerous Ahanashtani prisoners, trapped inside the glass. When Ahanas perished, the panes bled for two months—prisoners were never found or recovered. No longer miraculous.
358. Shelf C4-149. Edicts of Kolkan: Books 237 to 243. Seven tomes on how women’s shoes should be prepared, worn, discarded, cleaned, etc.
“Oh,” says Shara softly. “Oh my word.”
Mulaghesh stops briefly to light a match on a stone protruding from the tunnel wall. “Yeah.”
“This is what’s in the Warehouse?”
“They just had to get ahold of a part of the list with an unusually large amount of active, miraculous items. A lot of glass pieces, though.”
“The Divinities were fond of using glass as a safe place,” Shara murmurs.