Now they need only return with the same egg, unbroken, six months later.
The egg stage is the undoing of many a potential guardian.
Of those who depart with their eggs, perhaps half return.
The potential guardian and their unbroken egg are brought to an elder guardian. The elder guardian gestures for the egg and the potential guardian holds it aloft on their palm.
The elder guardian reaches out but instead of taking the offering closes the potential guardian’s fingers around the egg.
The elder guardian then presses down, forcing the potential guardian to shatter the egg.
All that remains in the potential guardian’s hands is cracked eggshell and dust. A fine golden powder that will never completely fade from their palm, it will shimmer even decades later.
The elder guardian says nothing of fragility or responsibility. The words do not need to be spoken. All is understood.
The elder guardian nods their approval, and the potential guardian has reached the end of their training and the beginning of their initiation.
A potential guardian, once they have passed the egg test, is given a tour.
It commences in familiar rooms of the Harbor, starting at the clock in the Heart with its swooping pendulum and moving outward through the main halls, the residents wings and reading rooms and down into the wine cellar and the ballroom with its imposing fireplace, taller than even the tallest of the guardians.
Then they are shown rooms never seen by anyone but the guardians themselves. Hidden rooms and locked rooms and forgotten rooms. They go deeper than any resident, any acolyte. They light their own candles. They see what no one else sees. They see what has come before.
They may not ask questions. They may simply observe.
They walk the shores of the Starless Sea.
When the tour reaches its end the potential guardian is brought to a small room with a burning fire and a single chair. The guardian is seated and asked a single question.
Would you give your life for this?
And they answer, yes or no.
Those who answer yes remain in the chair.
They are blindfolded, their hands are bound behind their back. Their robes or shirts are adjusted to expose their chests.
An unseen artist with a needle and a pot of ink pierces their skin, over and over again.
A sword, perhaps three or four inches in length, is tattooed on each guardian.
Each sword is unique. It has been designed for this guardian and no other. Some are simple, others intricate and ornamented, depicted in elaborate detail in black or sepia or gold.
Should a potential guardian answer in the negative, the sword that has been designed for them will be catalogued and never inscribed on skin.
Few say no, here, after all they have seen. Very few.
Those who do are also blindfolded, their hands bound behind their backs.
A long, sharp needle is inserted quickly, piercing the heart.
It is a relatively painless death.
Here in this room it is too late to choose another path, not after what they have seen. They are allowed to choose not to be a guardian, but here, this is the only alternative.
Guardians are not identifiable. They wear no robes, no uniforms. Their assignments are rotated. Most stay within the Harbor but several roam the surface, unnoticed and unseen. A trace of golden dust upon a palm means nothing to those who do not understand its significance. The sword tattoo is easily concealed.
They may not seem to be in servitude to anything, but they are.
They know what they serve.
What they protect.
They understand what they are and that is all that matters.
They understand that what it is to be a guardian is to be prepared to die, always.
To be a guardian is to wear death on your chest.
ZACHARY EZRA RAWLINS is standing in the hall and staring at the scrap of notebook paper when Kat comes out of the lounge wrapped in her winter layers again.
“Hey, you’re still here!” she remarks.
Zachary folds the piece of paper and puts it in his pocket.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have stellar observational skills?” he asks, and Kat punches him in the arm. “I deserved that.”
“Lexi and I are going to the Gryphon for a drink if you want to come,” Kat says, gesturing over her shoulder at the theater major with the dreadlocks who is pulling her coat on.
“Sure,” Zachary says, since the operating hours of the library prevent him from investigating the clue in his pocket further and the Laughing Gryphon serves an excellent sidecar.
The three of them make their way through the snow away from campus and downtown to the short strip of bars and restaurants glowing against the night sky, the trees lining the sidewalk wearing coats of ice around their branches.
They continue some of the conversation from earlier, which segues into Kat and Lexi recapping the discussion from the previous class for Zachary, and they are describing site-specific theater for him when they reach the bar.
“I don’t know, I’m not big on audience participation,” Zachary says as they settle into a corner table. He has forgotten how much he likes this bar, with its dark wood and bare Edison bulbs illuminating the space from mismatched antique fixtures.
“I hate audience participation,” Lexi assures him. “This is more self-directed stuff, where you go where you want to go and decide what to watch.”
“Then how do you make sure any given audience member sees the whole narrative?”
“You can’t guarantee it but if you provide enough to see hopefully they can piece it together for themselves.”
They order cocktails and half the appetizer section of the menu and Lexi describes her thesis project to Zachary, a piece that involves, among other things, deciphering and following clues to different locations to find fragments of the performance.
“Can you believe she’s not a gamer?” Kat asks.
“That is legitimately surprising,” Zachary says and Lexi laughs.
“I never got into it,” she explains. “And besides, you have to admit it’s a little intimidating to outsiders.”
“Fair point,” Zachary says. “But the theater stuff you do sounds like it’s not that far off.”
“She needs gateway games,” Kat says, and between cocktail sips and bacon-wrapped dates and balls of fried goat cheese dipped in lavender honey they assemble a list of games that Lexi might like, though she is incredulous when they point out that some of them could take up to a hundred hours to play through thoroughly.
“That’s insane,” she says, sipping at her whiskey sour. “Do you guys not sleep?”
“Sleep is for the weak,” Kat responds, writing more game titles down on a napkin.
Somewhere behind them a tray of drinks crashes and they wince in unison.
“I hope that wasn’t our next round,” Lexi says, peering over Zachary’s shoulder at the fallen tray and the embarrassed waitress.
“You get to live in a game,” Zachary points out as they return to their conversation, to a topic he knows he’s discussed with Kat before. “For so much longer than a book or a movie or a play. You know how you have real-life time versus story time, how stories leave out the boring bits and condense so much? A long-form RPG has some substance to it, leaves time to wander the desert or have a conversation or hang out in a pub. It might not be the closest thing to real life but pacing-wise it’s closer than a movie or a TV show or a novel.” The thought, combined with recent events and the alcohol, makes him a little dizzy and he excuses himself to go to the men’s room.
Once there, though, the Victorian-printed wallpaper repeating into infinity in the mirror does nothing to help the dizziness. He tak
es off his glasses and places them by the side of the sink and splashes cold water on his face.
He stares at his blurry, damp reflection.
The old-school jazz playing at a comfortable volume outside is amplified in this tiny space and Zachary feels uncomfortably as though he is falling through time.
The blurry man in the mirror stares back at him, looking as confused as he feels.
Zachary dries his face with paper towels and composes himself as best he can. Once he puts his glasses on the details look too sharp, the brass of the doorknob, the illuminated bottles lining the bar, as he walks back to the table.
“Some guy was totally checking you out,” Kat tells him when he sits down. “Over—oh, wait, he’s gone.” She scans the rest of the bar and frowns. “He was over there a minute ago, by himself in the corner.”
“You’re sweet to make up phantom paramours for me,” Zachary says, taking a sip of the second sidecar that arrived in his absence.
“He was there!” Kat protests. “I’m not making him up, am I, Lexi?”
“There was a guy in the corner,” Lexi confirms. “But I have no idea if he was checking you out or not. I thought he was reading.”
“Sad face,” Kat says, sweeping her frown around the room once more but then she changes the subject, and eventually Zachary manages to lose himself in the conversation as the snow starts to fall again outside.
They slip and slide back to campus, parting ways in the glow of a streetlamp when Zachary turns down the curving street that leads to the graduate dorms. He smiles as he listens to their chatter fading in the distance. Snowflakes catch in his hair and on his glasses and he feels like he is being watched and he looks over his shoulder at the streetlight but there is only snow and trees and a reddish haze in the sky.
Back in his room Zachary returns to Sweet Sorrows in his cocktail haze and starts reading again from the beginning, but sleep creeps up and steals him away after two pages and the book falls closed on his chest.
In the morning it is the first thing he sees and without thinking about it too much he puts the book in his bag, pulls on his coat and boots, and heads to the library.
“Is Elena here?” he asks the gentleman at the circulation desk.
“She’s at the reserve desk, around the corner to the left.”
Zachary thanks the gentleman librarian and continues through the atrium and around the corner to a counter with a computer where Elena sits, her hair back in its bun and her nose in a different Raymond Chandler novel this time, Playback.
“Can I help you?” she asks without looking up, but when she does she adds, “Oh, hi! Didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
“I got curious about the library mystery,” Zachary says, which is true enough. “How’s that one?” he asks, pointing at the Chandler. “I haven’t read it.”
“So far so good, but I don’t like to commit to an opinion until the end of a book because you never know what might happen. I’m reading all his novels in publication order, The Big Sleep is my favorite. Did you want that list?”
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Zachary says, pleased that he’s managing to sound fairly casual.
Elena types something into the computer, waits, and types something else.
“Looks like everything else has proper author names, so much for mysteries, but there’s some fiction and nonfiction. I’d help you find them but I’m stuck on the desk until eleven.” She clicks again and the ancient printer next to the desk whirs to life. “As far as I can tell there were more books in the original donation, it’s possible that they were too fragile for circulation or damaged. These twelve are what’s out there, maybe the one you have is a second volume of something?” She hands Zachary the printed list of titles and authors and call numbers.
Her hypothesis is a good one and not something Zachary had considered. It would make sense. He looks over the titles but nothing jumps out as particularly meaningful or intriguing.
“You are an excellent library detective,” he says. “Thank you for this.”
“You’re welcome,” Elena says, picking up her Chandler again. “Thank you for livening up my workday. Let me know if you have trouble finding anything.”
Zachary starts in the familiar fiction section. He peruses the shelves under the unreliable lightbulbs, picking out the five fiction titles on the list in alphabetical order.
Appropriately, the first is a Sherlock Holmes novel. The second is This Side of Paradise. He’s never heard of the next two, but they appear to be regular volumes, with proper copyright pages. The last is Les Indes noires by Jules Verne, in the original French and therefore mis-shelved. All appear to be regular, if old, editions. None of them seem to have anything in common with Sweet Sorrows.
Zachary tucks the pile of books under his arm and heads toward nonfiction. This part proves more difficult as he checks and rechecks call numbers and backtracks. Slowly he procures the other seven books, his enthusiasm waning as none of them resemble Sweet Sorrows. Most of them are astronomy- or cartography-related.
His last option brings him back near fiction to the myths. Bulfinch’s The Age of Fable, or Beauties of Mythology. It looks new, as though it has never been read, despite bearing a date of 1899.
Zachary places the blue volume with its gilded detailing on his stack of books. The bust of Ares on the cover looks contemplative, his eyes downcast as though he shares Zachary’s disappointment at not finding a clear companion for Sweet Sorrows.
He heads back upstairs to the almost empty reading rooms (a librarian with a cart organizing books, a student in a striped sweater typing at a laptop, a man who looks like he’s probably a professor actually reading a Donna Tartt novel) and heads to the far corner of the room, spreading his books out on one of the larger tables.
Zachary methodically inspects each volume. He peers at endpapers and turns every page, looking for clues. He refrains from removing barcode stickers but none of them seem to be covering anything of importance, and he’s not sure what another bee or key or sword would tell him, anyway.
After seven books with not so much as a dog-eared page, Zachary’s eyes are strained. He needs a break and probably caffeine. He takes a notebook from his bag and writes a note he suspects will be unnecessary: Back in 15 minutes, please do not reshelve. He wonders if reshelve is actually a word and decides he doesn’t care.
Zachary leaves the library and walks down to the corner café where he orders a double espresso and a lemon muffin. He finishes both and heads back to the library, passing a Calvin and Hobbes–worthy army of tiny snowmen he hadn’t noticed before.
He returns to the reading room, even quieter now with only the librarian organizing her cart. Zachary takes off his coat and resumes his careful perusal of each book. The ninth volume he checks, the Fitzgerald, has occasional passages underlined in pencil but nothing obtuse, just the really good lines. The next two are unmarked and judging by the state of their spines, don’t even appear to have been read.
Zachary reaches for the final volume and his hand lands on empty table. He looks back to the stack of books, thinking that he may have miscounted. But there are eleven books in that pile. He counts them again to be certain.
It takes him a moment to realize which is missing.
The Age of Fable, or Beauties of Mythology has vanished. The contemplative bust of Ares is nowhere to be seen. Zachary checks under the table and chairs, on nearby tables and on the closest bookshelves, but it is gone.
He walks back to the other side of the room where the librarian is shelving books.
“Did you happen to notice anyone take any books from that table over there while I was gone?” he asks.
The librarian looks and shakes her head.
“No,” she says. “But I wasn’t paying much attention either. A couple of people came in and out.”
“Thanks,�
� Zachary says and walks back to the table, sinking low into his chair.
Someone must have picked up the book and wandered off with it. Not that it matters, since eleven books told him nothing, the chances of the twelfth being a revelation were slim.
Though the chances of one of them vanishing into thin air probably weren’t all that high, either.
Zachary takes the Sherlock Holmes and the Fitzgerald to check out and leaves the rest of the volumes on the table to be reshelved, which should be a word if it’s not.
“No luck,” he tells Elena as he passes the reserve desk.
“Bummer,” she says. “If I encounter any other library mysteries I’ll let you know.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Zachary says. “Hey, is it possible to find out if someone checked a book out in the last hour or so?”
“It is if you know the title. I’ll meet you at the circulation desk and check for you. No one’s come by all morning for reserves, if they do now they can wait five minutes.”
“Thanks,” Zachary says and heads out to the atrium while Elena ducks through a door into a librarian-exclusive passageway. She reappears behind the circulation desk before he even reaches it.
“Which book?” she asks, flexing her fingers over the keyboard.
“The Age of Fable, or Beauties of Mythology,” Zachary says. “Bulfinch.”
“That’s on the list, isn’t it?” Elena says. “Could you not find it?”
“I did but I think someone picked it up while I wasn’t looking,” Zachary says, tired of book-related falsifications.
“This says we have two copies and neither one is checked out,” Elena says, looking at the screen. “Oh, but one of those is an e-book. Anything that’s out and about here should be shelved again by tomorrow morning. I can check those out for you, too.”
“Thanks,” Zachary says, handing her the books and his ID. He somehow doubts the book will be returning to its shelf anytime soon. “For everything, I mean. I appreciate it.”
“Anytime,” Elena says, handing his books back to him.
“And read some Hammett, please,” Zachary adds. “Chandler’s great but Hammett’s better. He was an actual detective.”
The Starless Sea Page 5
