The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(41)

Still… for some reason, I now felt drawn to the place.

I wandered through the library’s entrance hall and was greeted only by the sounds of my own faintly echoing footsteps. The ceiling was thrice the height of a man, braced by enormous round pillars and a maze of floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Both cases and pillars were covered by shelf upon shelf of books and scrolls, some accessible only by the ladders that I saw in each corner. Here and there were tables and chairs, where one might lounge and read for hours.

Yet there seemed to be no one else around, which surprised me. Were the Arameri so inured to luxury that they took even this treasure trove for granted? I stopped to examine a wall of tomes as thick as my head, then I realized I couldn’t read a single one. Senmite—the Amn language—had become the common tongue since the Arameri’s ascension, but most nations were still allowed their own languages so long as they taught Senmite, too. These looked like Teman. I checked the next wall; Kenti. Somewhere in the place there was probably a Darren shelf, but I had no idea of where to begin finding it.

“Are you lost?”

I jumped, and turned to see a short, plump old Amn woman a few feet away, peering around the curve of a pillar. I hadn’t noticed her at all. By the sour look on her face, she’d probably thought herself alone in the library, too.

“I—” I realized I had no idea what to say. I hadn’t come in for any purpose. To stall, I said, “Is there a shelf here in Darren? Or at least, where are the Senmite books?”

Wordlessly, the old woman pointed right behind me. I turned and saw three shelves of Darren books. “The Senmite starts around the corner.”

Feeling supremely foolish, I nodded thanks and studied the Darren shelf. For several minutes I stared at them before realizing that half were poetry, and the other half collections of tales I’d heard all my life. Nothing useful.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” The woman stood right beside me now. I started a bit, since I hadn’t heard her move.

But at her question, I suddenly realized there was something I could learn from the library. “Information about the Gods’ War,” I said.

“Religious texts are in the chapel, not here.” If anything, now the woman looked more sour. Perhaps she was the librarian, in which case I might have offended her. It was clear the library saw little enough traffic as it was without being mistaken for someplace else.

“I don’t want religious texts,” I said quickly, hoping to placate her. “I want… historical accounts. Death records. Journals, letters, scholarly interpretations… anything written at the time.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at me for a moment. She was the only adult I’d seen in Sky who was shorter than me, which might have comforted me somewhat if not for the blatant hostility in her expression. I marveled at the hostility, for she was dressed in the same simple white uniform as most of the servants. Usually all it took was the sight of the fullblood mark on my brow to make them polite to the point of obsequiousness.

“There are some things like that,” she said. “But any complete accounts of the war have been heavily censored by the priests. There might be a few untouched resources left in private collections—it’s said Lord Dekarta keeps the most valuable of these in his quarters.”

I should have known. “I’d like to see anything you have.” Nahadoth had made me curious. I knew nothing of the Gods’ War that the priests hadn’t told me. Perhaps if I read the accounts myself, I could sift some truth from the lies.

The old woman pursed her lips, thoughtful, and then gestured curtly for me to follow her. “This way.”

I followed her through the winding aisles, my awe growing as I realized just how truly big the place was. “This library must hold all the knowledge of the world.”

My dour companion snorted. “A few millennia worth, from a few pockets of humanity, nothing more. And that picked and sorted, trimmed and twisted to suit the tastes of those in power.”

“There’s truth even in tainted knowledge, if one reads carefully.”

“Only if one knows the knowledge is tainted in the first place.” Turning another corner, the old woman stopped. We had reached some sort of nexus amid the maze. Before us, several bookcases had been arranged back-to-back as a titanic six-sided column. Each bookcase was a good five feet wide, tall and sturdy enough to help support the ceiling that was twenty feet or more above; the whole structure rivaled the trunk of a centuries-old tree. “There is what you want.”

I took a step toward the column and then stopped, abruptly uncertain. When I turned back, I realized the old woman was watching me with a disconcertingly intent gaze. Her eyes were the color of low-grade pewter.