The Unremembered: Book One of The Vault of Heaven

by Peter Orullian

  Something occurred to Tahn. “Wait. If you weren’t inside the library when the attack came, how do you know it has been burned? Perhaps all is not lost. Perhaps the Quiet’s fire only sealed them out from the books they hoped to steal.”

  The scrivener pointed to the top of the cliff at the vent of steam and ash issuing into the sky. Tahn suddenly knew why his first whiff of fire had not been of burning pine alone. Edholm spoke darkly, mocking Tahn’s hopefulness. “Perhaps the pages burn by the flames cast from Velle hands, the heat igniting the gentle tinder of bindings and parchment even through the stone. Or perhaps to deny them their prize, those scholars trapped inside the library set the books alight to keep them from Quiet hands.” Edholm whispered, “How it must have pained them to do it.”

  Tahn watched the ash spew into the mountain air and waft lazily south on a gentle breeze. The empty feeling of defeat stole into his chest. Edholm finally explained.

  “The dust of those who fell defending the library is now appropriately mixed with the dust of the pages they died to preserve,” the scrivener said, as if in eulogy. “The fire burned them utterly, consuming even their bones. They put themselves in harm’s way to try and save the library. You tread upon them even now.” The scrivener looked at their feet.

  “When all lay dead, the Quiet prepared to tear the mountain down and have at the books. It was then that the ash began to rain down upon them. They knew what it meant. They knew those inside the library had burned its contents rather than lose them to the Quiet. In their anger, the Quietgiven shot their fire into the mountain, burning the very rock, and sealing those scholars inside forever. I could not even die with them.” Edholm kicked softly at the coat of dust and ash that layered the clearing.

  Tahn could hear the man’s disgrace plainly in his words. “You could not have made a difference in the battle to save the library.”

  The scrivener shot a fierce look at Tahn. “You are a fool! The difference is my willingness. I wear these emblems and tools,” he said, lifting the books tied to his belt, “not for convenience or comfort. I wear them because I have committed myself to the preservation of our dearest words. That I stood by, whether my death might have been the cost, is the surest comment on my virtue … and it is my condemnation!”

  Edholm turned his back to Tahn and Sutter. “I can only imagine the suffering of those trapped within the library as the flames and smoke filled the chambers.”

  The scrivener was quiet a few moments, then finally told the story.

  “Early this morning, before the greater light shone free of the eastern ridge, three Velle came into the clearing just as you did. They wore their cowls up, and I supposed that they were couriers from Recityv as have come more frequently during this last cycle. I was there.” Edholm indicated the cliff. “I stood watch. They spread out, facing the cliff. The first to greet them, Bene, was struck down by the fire in an instant. His screams brought the guard and others to the clearing, where they made their defense.

  “They were all burned.

  “But before the futile battle was done, the ash began to fall. Those inside had begun destroying the library to keep it from the enemy. When the Velle saw this, they screamed their fury. Flashes of white fire and lightning erupted from their hands, growing larger and sending flares out in jagged bolts. They unleashed it all at the mountain itself, the fire and lightning scattering across the ground, the statuary, the trees, the cliff, scrabbling at every nook and seam. Soon, the acrid smell of singed thatch and crumbling stone filled the air. Mortar and stone bubbled and ran, the lightning feeding the fire, and the fire the lightning. All of it expanding outward, igniting more trees, soil, stone.”

  Edholm faced the cliff, his head shaking as a man trying to disbelieve. “It sealed the door closed in moments, before leaping upward and covering most of the wall. The rock began to flow, and I thought I heard…” The scrivener fell silent.

  “What?” Tahn prodded gently.

  “I thought I heard the cries of men and women being consumed by the awful white fire deep inside the vaults of Qum’rahm’se. Like their voices streamed up through the very earth on which I stood, the sound of it vibrating through my soles and into my bosom. It was a horrible thing to feel their cries … a horrible thing. In all my years, I’ve not copied a word that describes, nor translated a passage that conveys such utter hopelessness. It is an awful thing to learn: All ink, all vellum, all graphite and parchment are imperfect receptacles for the thing we call life. And poorer still to record the sorrow of death.”

  The scrivener became silent again, standing with his back to them as he stared at the low escarpment. Sutter looked at Tahn and shrugged.

  “I lay upon the ground to hide.” Edholm took a quill from his vest, and continued in a whisper. “And I could feel the shape of these instruments pressed into my belly as I hid myself. They are something of a shame to me now.

  “I will be remembered as part of the old trust that failed to safeguard the only documents worthy of preservation. It was a trust begun when the First Promise was not yet necessary, a trust carried forward through the ages until now, protected by anonymity—few know of the library—and by the wards of the order, and by a vault of living rock.” His lips snarled as he formed the words. “Now the library is gone, and there is no trust.”

  Tahn had no words of comfort for the man. He understood too well the guilt of not rising to the defense of someone or something you care for.

  As if sensing his sympathy, Edholm said, “This is none of your concern. My apologies.” Abruptly, the scrivener asked, “Where are you going?”

  Reluctantly, Tahn admitted, “Recityv.”

  The man brightened. “Aha! Come with me!”

  The scrivener rushed to the cliff face as though he meant to walk through a flow of steaming stone. He stopped, and plunged his staff into the rock. The thick flow yielded little, but the man had put a small dent in the face of it. Again he struck, grunting with the effort. “Don’t stand there idle,” he chided. “Come, put your arms to it!”

  Tahn found a pair of blackened tree limbs nearby, and handed one to Sutter. They shared a quizzical look, Sutter smiling and crossing his eyes at the mystery of the task. Then they began to pick at the stone.

  Shortly, the scrivener had pierced through. The sudden smell of burnt flesh filled the air. As though unaware, Edholm turned a sweating face to Tahn. “I’m through!” he said excitedly. “Help me bear down on the staff!”

  Tahn lent his weight to it, and together they widened a small hole in the rock. Smoke and steam rose from the opening, but the scrivener did not slow.

  “Place a rock beside my staff. We’ll use it for leverage,” Edholm ordered Sutter.

  Nails did as he was told, and held a large rock in place while Tahn and the scrivener continued to work at the stone. The wider the hole became, the more furiously the frail scrivener worked.

  Sometime later, drenched in sweat, they all stopped. But they had created an opening large enough for a man to crawl through.

  Growing hope lit the scrivener’s face. He mopped his brow, and in a rush started through the hole. “Follow me, lads.”

  Inside, the smell of burnt flesh became nauseating. Tahn covered his mouth and nose and surveyed the hallway. He expected the library to lay in total darkness. Instead, he found a dim light shining from the very stone itself in a small radius around him and Sutter. The light followed them, the walls themselves lighting in response to their movement. For several strides down the first hall, the rock around them cascaded in gentle, melted swoops.

  A few strides ahead, a charred, hunched figure lay curled into a ball on the hallway floor. Tahn advanced slowly toward the body, the radius of light continuing to track his movement. The soot and smoke caused the light to shine darkly, like midwinter dusk through heavy clouds. But it was enough to see the gruesome death mask of the burnt man lying on the floor. The figure’s hands stood frozen in the attempt to ward off the fire that had claimed him
.

  The scrivener did not wait for them, but scurried ahead. Tahn, running to catch up, continued to cover his mouth to avoid breathing in the dust and ash kicked up by Edholm’s shoes. The floor lay littered with larger bits of parchment, charred and crumbling in the gentle wind of their rushing steps.

  And more curled and huddled bodies.

  Tahn rushed past, trying to avoid looking at the lifeless, blackened forms.

  The hallway branched, and the scrivener turned right. Tahn stayed close and saw him duck into a room. Following the man, Tahn found himself looking into a large sunken chamber, great drifts of ash and scorched parchment lining the walls as if bookshelves had once occupied the perimeter.

  The smoke became overpowering, forcing Tahn and Sutter to cough even through the cloaks they held over their noses and mouths.

  Edholm dashed past them and farther down the hall, seeming now to move with purpose to someplace specific. Tahn wondered if the scrivener hoped to find survivors deep within the sacred library. Passing several more rooms, Edholm took quick glances inside. Each time he saw a fallen scrivener, small whimpers escaped his lips.

  They swept on, trampling the ashes of books and scrolls and sheaves smoldering on the floor.

  At the end of the hall, Edholm turned right and descended a stair. At the bottom, the air cleared a bit, and Tahn wiped his brow, the heat still intense.

  The scrivener raced ahead, no longer looking into ruined offices, chambers, reading rooms. They descended several more sets of stairs, and turned down countless corridors, rushing through the labyrinthine maze behind their knowing guide. It gave Tahn the impression that the scrivener had concealed something of the library’s worth or function. Quickly, Edholm outdistanced them so that they could no longer see where he ran to, but only follow his receding steps.

  Moments later, a tortured scream echoed from deep inside the mountain.

  Tahn and Sutter sprinted toward the sound, their running steps echoing off the walls.

  Again came the soul-shattering cry.

  Down another short stair, a long hall stretched deep into the library to a single room at the end of a passageway that branched no more. From within shone a pale glow—the stone shining dimly to the one life within the room. Tahn and Sutter slowed to a jog at the arched passageway that led inside. A stone lectern stood in the middle of the room, a slanted vacant altar where a book might have lain open from which to read. Its placement gave Tahn the impression that a tome of particular importance had rested there.

  “No,” the scrivener muttered. “All my Skies, no.”

  Edholm stumbled about the podium, as if he might discover something other than its bleak emptiness and the filmy layer of soot that covered it. He turned in circles, regarding the vacant walls; shelves carved directly into the stone, bearing smoldering piles of waste similar to what they’d seen throughout the library; the remains of desks half burned upon the floor like empty, leveled ramparts in this repository of learning; and along the back wall, gossamer threads of what once might have been a large tapestry now hanging like sooty webs. Then the scrivener fell to his knees in the banks of ash and withered sheets and thrust his hands deep into the remains. He crushed fistfuls of the ruined pages in his palms and raised them to his eyes as he mouthed words Tahn could not hear. Black motes of dust hung in the air about the scrivener, given light from the stone floor beneath Edholm’s knees.

  The scrivener quaked, his senses appearing to have beheld too much. Wrathfully, he cast away handfuls of the ashes, the reality of the fire’s destruction descending upon him.

  Tahn watched the man grieve and said nothing. The moment seemed to belong to the scrivener alone. Edholm bowed his head in an attitude of prayer, and the floor around him brightened through the soot that coated it. In a voice of quiet resignation, he muttered, “We are undone.”

  Thinking to give the scrivener more peace, and seek out any possible survivors, Tahn touched Sutter’s arm and nodded for his friend to follow him out of the room.

  After a single step, Edholm spoke. “Even if some still draw breath,” the scrivener said, his voice hollow, “they would rather perish than learn this news.”

  Tahn turned back toward the man. “What news?”

  With reddened eyes, the scrivener looked at Tahn as though he’d never seen him before. Then his countenance changed, the flinty edge returned, and the acute intelligence came again to the man’s face.

  “No more games, melura,” he seethed. “A hunter you may be, but this is not what brought you to Qum’rahm’se. You are the first witness to this.” He lifted his hands filled with parchment ash. “Now I must require something of you.”

  Edholm violently cleared the floor about his knees of the debris. “Come close,” he said in a broken voice. Tahn and Sutter obeyed. Without looking up, the scrivener lifted one of the books tied to his waist and tore three clean sheets from the back. Setting them on the stone, he handed them each a quill from his belt. “Do you know how to write?”

  They nodded.

  “Good. You will write what you have seen, my friends,” he said emphatically. “Leave nothing out. Describe the destruction, the smell, the ash, the burnt rock. Write of me, my shame. But mostly, write of the empty vaults you have passed through, the fate of the books, the pages, the destruction of the library at Qum’rahm’se. And put your name to it at the bottom.”

  “But why—” Sutter began.

  “Do not cross me in this, boy.” The scrivener spoke sharply. “I won’t be a coward twice.”

  Sutter raised his hands in surrender to ease Edholm’s fierceness.

  Edholm removed a vial from his belt and opened it, placing it before them. Without further instruction, he dipped his own quill and began to scribble madly upon the parchment.

  With the stink of so much soot and burnt timber about them, and a layer of ash as deep as Tahn’s ankle—spreading to knee-high mounds at the walls—Tahn did as he was asked. From his own loss of his father, he understood the sometimes inexplicable needs of a mourner. This scrivener, in his shame and loss, needed something to do, to accomplish, and Tahn would not deny him. In the vacancy left by the fire, their three scribbling quills sounded loud in the chamber.

  As he wrote, Tahn nodded to Sutter, who shrugged again and stuck his tongue out playfully, concentrating as a child might over a mundane task.

  Nails finished first, his page half written upon.

  Tahn filled his sheet, noting the smell of singed flesh and charred wood and iron as he related the devastation around him.

  Together, Tahn and Sutter waited for Edholm to stop writing. The man used three pages to make his account, his fingers moving lithely, tracing words in quick, elegant strokes. Tahn watched letters and symbols fill the parchment, lines being written in alternating directions—left to right and then right to left—all in a language foreign to him.

  The scrivener then put his quill aside on a layer of ash, blew the last strokes dry, and rolled his parchment tightly. He bound it with several strands of what Tahn thought must be hair. He then produced three ordinary-looking sticks from an inner pocket of his tunic. Taking the first in hand, he opened one end, revealing a hollow compartment within. Into it he stuffed his rolled parchment.

  He sealed it again, the seam undetectable. Reaching for Tahn’s and then Sutter’s parchments, he read each with amazing speed, seeming to take it all in at a glance. Then he rewrote their epistles on new pieces of parchment, having them sign their names again to words they could not read. Afterward, he likewise placed their parchments in the remaining sticks. Having sealed them all, he stood and surveyed the room, a profound look of melancholy drawing his face. Then he gave both Tahn and Sutter a grave look. “Now come,” he said curtly.

  Through the maze of halls and stairs and small inner courtyards they retraced their way to the entrance, but not before searching each room of the library. The hope that had lit the scrivener’s face never touched it a second time. More figures lay curled
into charred human balls, the fire having consumed everything in the vast library. The soft glow of the rock bore them company, shining dully through warped mortar and stone. At the entrance, the scrivener peeked through the hole they’d created to assure himself that all was well in the clearing.

  “They succeeded, Tahn,” the scrivener said. Tahn immediately realized that he and Sutter had signed their real names to their parchments. Edholm did not draw attention to the uncovered deceit. “The Velle came to this place and by destruction stole countless ages of accumulated thought and wisdom.”

  Having spoken it like an epitaph, Edholm went through the hole, and out of Qum’rahm’se a final time.

  Tahn and Sutter ducked back out into the light.

  Standing together, the two of them shared wary looks before the scrivener handed the sticks to Tahn. “Never allow these out of your hands. These are sealed words. The encryptions are a simple matter, understandable only to those prepared to know their truths. But the parts that a foe might decipher could be nearly as dangerous to them, to us, as the full truth.

  “They are safe against water,” the scrivener explained, “but take care not to break them. You’ll present these at Recityv. Not to some low officer or pundit. Take the sticks to Dolun’pel, head of my brotherhood, and watch as he removes their seals. Attest to their contents. If you cannot find him, give them into the hands of someone you trust, someone with authority to act on what they find therein. Do you understand?”

  “Why don’t you take them?” Sutter asked.

  “I won’t need them,” he replied. “If I make it as far as Recityv, my presence and testimony will be proof enough that Qum’rahm’se has fallen.” He poked Tahn’s chest. “You, however, are just striplings, and I’m guessing by your garb you are unknown at Recityv. These will be needed should I never make it there, and our chances are doubled if we both go separately.

  “Those in authority must know what has befallen our work here. It is imperative.” Edholm’s eyes grew distant once more. “They must know the loss and decide what must be done.”