Rosa’s reply was unexpectedly unconcerned.
“What would I do with a statue?”
“You called on Nebe earlier. Didn’t you want to offer a rite of thanks?”
“No. The greeting I gave earlier was enough. Do you know how much I suffered getting here? What did Nebe do for me?”
“Then what were you thanking him for?”
“For letting me live this long. I haven’t died, after all.”
“Is that criticism, or a positive view of the world?”
“A view of the world befitting one of Nebe’s people. If you’re one of Nebe’s people, you have to get used to it. It’s the only favor Nebe grants: letting you live.”
They had reached the third floor. An old man coming down from the fourth rounded the corner and stopped at the sight of them. His wrinkled face was pale, and white showed through his hair. Though his back was bent and he leaned on a cane, he was still tall. He looked at the two and smiled.
“Ah, here again. The young and the library make a very good pair.”
Rosa looked at Gene, and Gene at Rosa. Each had thought the old man must know the other. All they discovered was equal bewilderment. They turned back to him. Gene asked, “Who are you?”
“What does it matter who I am?”
“Do you know us?”
“What does it matter if I do?”
He could not tell whether that meant yes or no. Gene shrugged and was about to offer a brief greeting and pass by. Then Rosa suddenly spoke.
“Does that mean the old and the library make a poor pair?”
The old man laughed again. Sensing the start of a long conversation, Gene began rubbing his temple.
“What does it matter if they make a poor pair? What does it matter if the two of you don’t suit one another?”
“What pair? We only met the day before yesterday.”
“What does it matter if you become a pair in two days?”
“Why do you keep talking about pairs? Are you a matchmaker, Grandfather?”
“If joining and weaving the connections of the whole world makes me a matchmaker, what does it matter if people call me one?”
Listening beside them, Gene laughed despite himself. He had thought Rosa merely blunt, but the sight of her so readily exchanging jokes with an old man she had just met made him think she must have had a grandfather.
“Then weave plenty of other people together. I’m busy. I haven’t time to get entangled.”
“Heh, heh. A young person without time to mate? Has the end of the world come to Delphinad? Mating is youth’s most precious calling. What does it matter if you become a pair, even if you don’t suit? What does it matter if the library and old age do not suit, so long as I wander endlessly within it?”
Then the old man passed them and went down to the third floor. Gene stared after him in disbelief before speaking.
“That old man walks straighter than he looks.”
It was true. In an instant, the old man had descended all the stairs and vanished. His cane might have been no more than an ornament. Rosa spoke.
“His face looked about a hundred years old.”
“Don’t you know him?”
“No.”
“Why have such a long conversation with someone you don’t know?”
“Just because.”
Rosa shrugged. She did not bother to say that he had reminded her of an old friend. Nor did she say she had come all the way to Delphinad because of that friend. Instead, she looked around.
“This is the third floor. I’ll go up to the fourth. See you.”
Without saying when they would meet again, Rosa merely waved and went upstairs. Gene stood for a moment, then repeated her words to himself: “You have to get used to it.” He gave a faint smile. Like Nebe’s people, apparently, he had no choice but to get used to it.
The public reading room on the third floor was the only place where ordinary people could handle the library’s books. But all the books there were copies made by scribes. The originals were kept in separate stacks on other floors. So were unique volumes for which no copy existed. To see those, one had to become a “scholar” belonging to a school formally recognized by the library.
Gene entered the public reading room. There were a hundred tables and eight hundred chairs, but scarcely an empty seat. To the left and right, shelves of copies were divided by subject, each bearing a label. When he first saw that sight, Gene’s heart had raced. Surely, somewhere in that vast knowledge, what he sought must exist. Now he felt somewhat differently. Even if what he sought was there, what good was it if he could not find it?
The subject Gene was investigating was narrow and specific. Yet there were thousands of books related to it. He did not need to read every book, but even a passing reference might contain an important key. In the end, there was no book he could simply ignore.
Tirenos, the erudite chief librarian known as “the king of librarians,” had organized the entire catalog of the library’s materials some ten years earlier. But the subdivisions by subject were still incomplete. Gene had mainly examined theological works from various religions, collections of local legends, ancient poetry, studies of ancient history, prophecies, works by mages who frequently saw visions, and books copying old pictures. Beyond those, he opened anything that dealt with strange phenomena, the creation of the world, its ending, and similar subjects.
Yet the material he found was meager, and his list of books that seemed worth examining kept growing. At this point, instead of feeling grateful for the library’s size, he felt it gradually closing around his throat.
Perhaps it had never been so narrow a subject. Thinking back to his departure from home a year and a half earlier, he recalled, for the first time in a while, the scene from his dream.
Three years ago, he had happened to drink a sacrificial liquor made by a strange people. He had slept for three days, unable to wake. In that time, Gene had a mysterious dream and saw a door. Unfamiliar plants entwined thickly around it, as though it had existed since the beginning of the world. The door was not locked. A gentle push seemed enough to reveal the paradise beyond. But Gene could not push it. He did not feel ready. He did not think he dared to break that perfection.
Ever since waking from the dream, Gene had wanted to find that door. Whether it existed somewhere in this world or only in legend, he wanted to learn anything he could. Three years had passed, but even the veins in the leaves that had hung over the door remained vivid. Why had he dreamed it? Why had he been unable to wake for three days? Was it a prophecy? A revelation?
He had come all the way to Delphinad to find out. He thought a visit to the library would reveal the secret. Though he was caught up in an unforeseen incident and considerable time passed before he had the leisure to visit, once his life became settled, he came regularly, once every two or three days, to read the materials.
That Gene, arriving in Delphinad, should become a legendary figure in its back alleys through his extraordinary good fortune was, so to speak, an unintended and unexpected accident. It had advantages. The intimidating name “ShadowHawk” cleansed his identity of its own accord and let him hide his real name. Even the residence permit issued by Delphinad’s governor listed him as “Gene Evernight,” place of origin unknown.
Walking to the far end of the public reading room, Gene entered the theology shelves at the back. He did not stay long. Emerging with a book, he went to the librarian’s desk.
“Librarian.”
Cetila, who had had her head buried in a book, looked up at Gene and smiled.
“Here again.”
Like the admission clerks, the librarians found Gene’s visits curious. But while a clerk tensed at the sight of his sword, a librarian ordinarily showed curiosity. Librarians were tremendously learned and received absolute respect. Living almost entirely within the library, with their safety and livelihood guaranteed for life, they were a little complacent, one might say, and knew little of the ways of the world.
That sometimes freed them from prejudice. In truth, librarians were more wary of seemingly quiet students than a knife-carrying thug. Those were the real villains who stole books or tore out pages.
“Yes. When will the next volume of this book be returned?”
Gene handed her the book. After looking at the cover, Cetila answered without turning a single page.
“The lower volume of Visions of the Twilight Kingdom is on long-term loan.”
“Have Those Born in the Stars and Kamahai Sastus’s Conversations with the Fairies in the Fire been returned?”
“No.”
“What about The Sage of the Market, Dialogues?”
“That hasn’t come back yet either.”
A little irritated, Gene stared at Cetila. People in the back alleys feared that look, but Cetila met it with a calm smile. Gene spoke.
“Once again, it seems every book I’m looking for is on long-term loan.”
Since it was true, Cetila smiled apologetically. Librarians were not generally kind to ordinary readers. Appointed by the queen, paid by the governor, and evaluated and promoted by the chief librarian of their discipline, they had no place in that process for citizens. Nor did anyone argue that their profession existed for readers. Librarians existed for books.
Considering that, Cetila was quite kind to Gene. It was not because she had seen him frequently for half a year. Citizens had to show the book they chose to a librarian and have it checked before reading, so Cetila naturally came to know the books Gene read. Few were for casual entertainment. A substantial number were advanced works sought only by specialists in their subjects. At first she wondered if he was a theology student who had graduated from an elementary school attached to the Pantheon. Then, while chatting with other librarians, she mentioned “Gene, the tall and manly theology student.” One burst out laughing and asked, “Are you talking about the ShadowHawk?”
At first, she could not believe it. From what Cetila had heard, the Hand of Ilmoram was an organization implicated in hundreds of acts of violence. Its patrol captain should have been a terrifying villain who could kill dozens without blinking. If he was frightening enough even to be called the ShadowHawk, how savage must he be?
Thinking that, Cetila could not treat Gene as naturally as before when he appeared the next day. That day, he happened to sit opposite her desk and begin reading. After an hour or two, each yawned without thinking, and their eyes met. Both stopped yawning. A moment later, they laughed.
Gene continued to differ markedly from Cetila’s preconceptions. It was remarkable enough that a famous figure of the back alleys sought books on rather complicated subjects. But little by little, he expanded from books in the common language to the languages of northern Mea, the southern Firran, and even Elvish. When he first brought a book in Elvish, Cetila could not help asking, “Can you read this?”
Instead of answering immediately, Gene considered for a moment.
“Only a little.”
Cetila understood that as modesty. In truth, Gene had felt a little tense, worried that she might try to guess his real identity. Yet Cetila never asked him probing questions afterward. Her manner simply softened with time, until she almost always wore a smile when she looked at him.
Gene had been turning away with the upper volume of Visions of the Twilight Kingdom when he looked back.
“Are there no limits on the number of books in long-term loans, or deadlines for returning them?”
“Of course there are.”
“How many books can they borrow?”
“About five times as many as an ordinary reader.”
“And the loan period must be quite long?”
“Yes, it is rather long.”
“So how many days?”
Cetila looked apologetic again.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that.”
Gene did not ask why. It was obvious. Long-term loans were a system for high nobles, royalty, foreign envoys, and senior officials. The library would not press such people to return books merely because they were a few days overdue. Nor would it impose the notorious sentence of “no borrowing until death.”
Ordinary citizens had no right to borrow even copies in the first place. They were permitted only to read them on the premises. One had to be a scholar at least to borrow books at all. Even then, it was only a short-term loan of ten days. Miss the deadline by so much as a day, and the iron hammer of “no borrowing until death” fell immediately.
Long-term borrowers, on the other hand, had the privilege of reading at leisure and returning their books whenever they pleased. Whether their deadline was a month, a year, or ten years, there was no need to tell ordinary citizens and provoke anger. Thanks to the class he originally belonged to, Gene understood that easily. Of course, understanding it did not make it less irritating.
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