Scriber

by Ben S. Dobson

  I had never felt so small in all my life. It was bad enough to be torn down by the one man whose opinion I valued above all, but to have it witnessed by others was worse still. Bryndine’s expression betrayed nothing, but the disappointment on Wynne’s face was unbearable.

  And Illias was not done. “I am not the one wasting my life, Dennon. You are. And it breaks my heart.” His anger was fading, but the sorrow that replaced it was no easier to take. “You will come with us, or I swear by the Divide, I am done with you.” He half-turned away, as though he couldn’t bear to look at me.

  I couldn’t speak; I wanted to cry. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was going to help.

  Bryndine stepped towards me and grasped my arm. “Master Illias, do you mind…”

  Illias gave a brusque wave of his hand, and Bryndine led me a short distance away.

  “We spoke of this, Scriber.” Bryndine’s grey eyes looked like steel as she fixed me with a stern gaze. “You need to come with us.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can,” she said, “but you are afraid to.”

  I jerked my arm from her grasp. “Yes. I admit it, I’m afraid. I’m a coward. You were right from the beginning.” It always came back to this. No one made me feel inadequate quite as well as Bryndine.

  “Fear doesn’t make you a coward, Scriber. But you may want to consider what this fear will cost.” She looked pointedly back at Illias.

  I am done with you, he had said. Illias was the only family I had. I could not lose him. And I would only be in the Old Garden for a moment. Much as I didn’t want to admit it after all the fuss I had made, Bryndine was right.

  Still, I was not quite willing to admit that she was right, at least not to her face. Instead, I shouldered past her and strode towards Illias. The old man turned to face me as I approached, but I kept my head down—it was too difficult to meet his eyes just then. My voice lodged in my throat, but I forced myself to speak. “Illias, I’m sorry,” I whispered, staring at my feet. “I’ll come.”

  It was not Illias who answered.

  “I think not, Scriber Dennon.” Sister Olynna’s voice. Startled, I turned to see her approaching, led by a young Sister whose hair barely reached past her ears.

  “How fortunate that Sister Gretyl came to me in time,” Olynna continued. “I only thought to look at this tunnel of yours, but now I see that the Mother brought me here for another reason.”

  Illias rounded on her, his ire finding a new target. “I can have the women collapse what is left of this place with a word. Is it worth that much to you to stop Dennon from passing through?”

  He was bluffing; Illias would never deliberately destroy a historical site. Sister Olynna had to suspect as much, but still the threat left her speechless for a moment—the Eldest were not accustomed to dissent.

  “You… you are not serious, Master Illias. You have sworn oaths against doing such a thing, and the punishment would be—”

  “The punishment would be too late. The Garden would still be gone.” He spoke with such intensity that I almost believed it, despite everything I knew about the man.

  Olynna turned to Bryndine. “You would not allow your women to do this.”

  I found myself holding my breath as I waited for Bryndine’s response. She could undermine Illias with a word, and she might—lies and threats were not her way. The side she chose would very likely decide the issue, and I realized with some surprise that I was not sure which resolution I would prefer.

  “It is not for me to allow or disallow, Eldest,” said Bryndine. “I am no longer their Captain.”

  “It is your choice, Olynna.” Illias gestured to the dome behind him. “Let Denn through and we will follow the passage away from here and leave the Garden in peace. It costs you nothing.”

  The Eldest Sister looked us over with a cold eye. “Fine, then. Bring him with you. But I will not be silent about this, Illias. The people will know of your sacrilege. The King will know.”

  “If we find what we are looking for, nothing you say will matter,” Illias replied. “And if we do not, you would always have condemned us.”

  Olynna glared at him with a hatred so fierce that it had to be impious. But she said nothing more, only turned and stormed away with Sister Gretyl hurrying behind. I was torn between disappointment and gratitude as I watched her go. For better or for worse, there was nothing standing between me and the Old Garden now.

  Illias smiled gratefully at Bryndine. “Thank you for the support, Captain.” His eyes fell on me, and it looked as though he might say something, but instead he turned towards the Garden. “Come—we have work to do.”

  Stepping into the Old Garden for the first time in five years, I could not help but feel I was dreaming. And my dreams of the Old Garden never ended well.

  The entry dome was just as I remembered it—enormous, empty, and echoing. Each footstep against the polished marble floor reverberated endlessly. A mosaic of religious imagery spanned the curve of the dome above. It was not perfectly preserved—tiles were missing here and there, and in some places large swaths of stone were bare—but what remained was impressive. The scenes told the story of creation: the Mother and the Father before the Divide, the Dragon and the Wyddin, the birth of mankind.

  To the north and south stood large oaken doors leading into the halls that encircled the courtyard, halls filled with offices and dormitories for the Children who had once lived and worked in the Old Garden. Those doors were roped off—the structure had not been in active use for decades, not since Syrid’s grandfather King Eryk had declared it an historical site sixty years before. The Eldest of the Children dwelled in the nearby Royal Garden now, built over the ruins of the Archives by King Eryk’s command.

  Opposite from the entrance, on the east side of the dome, were the double doors that led into the courtyard—the Garden itself, where the Eldest had once preached to Kings and Queens. I had led nine men to their deaths beyond those doors, and it was all I could do not to turn and flee as I approached them now.

  When Bryndine pushed the heavy oaken doors open, I could see into the courtyard, and I balked. It looked as though it had been untended for years. The grass grew long and thick, and weeds sought to strangle what few flowers remained. Hedges that had once been carefully groomed and sculpted were now bushy and unkempt. But it was what lay beyond all that wild growth that stopped me: the place where the grass ended and the pit began. The place where the east wall had crumbled and collapsed, where a priceless artwork had been destroyed, where men had died. Stepping through that door would be stepping into my nightmares.

  But Illias was watching, so I gathered all the courage I had, and followed him through.

  I could not help but look upwards as I passed the doors. Suspended in the open air overhead was the great glass image of the Father, wrought in bright blues and soft whites and brilliant yellows, the sky and the clouds and the sun all at once. His face was a study in tragedy, somehow showing every moment of thousands of years spent separated from his love, and he reached forth one hand longingly towards… nothingness. Where the Mother should have been, yearning towards him across the Divide, there was only empty space, lending new meaning to the Father’s anguished expression.

  For a thousand years and more, the Mother and the Father had resisted rain and snow and wind and the natural downward pull of the earth. But they had not been able to survive me. The Mother was gone, and the Father was ready to follow his love into death. The impossibly delicate frame that held the glass figure up was failing. Whatever work of engineering had held them both in the air for so long had needed both halves to support itself, and while the School of Arts had tried to bolster the Father with thick iron bars and chains, it did little good. The glasswork god sagged more every year, dropping panes of colored glass from his slowly warping frame.

  With my eyes focused upwards, I nearly blundered into the great hole that was the east side of the courtyard. Wynne grabbed my arm and pulled me back
from the edge, looking at me with concern.

  “Careful, Scriber Dennon. It’s steep,” she said.

  I nodded but did not reply, forcing myself to look down.

  A makeshift scaffolding of wooden stairs had been erected since I was last there, descending down into the Underground chamber some twenty feet below. Much of the rubble that had once filled the chamber had been cleared away by Bryndine and her company. Instinctively, I looked for the bodies that I saw every night in my dreams. I half expected to see broken corpses pulling themselves from the debris, but Bryndine’s women had been thorough; not a stone remained to mark where the men had died.

  In my mind, though, I saw them still. A Scriber never forgets.

  The women waited for us below. Debra and Leste hauled away a heavy rock, and Orya steadied a support beam while Rylene helped wedge it into place. Deanyn saw me looking and smiled. Only Illias and I remained above; Wynne and Bryndine were already descending the stairs.

  “Denn…” Illias spoke softly, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I know this is not easy for you. What I said—”

  “I deserved it.” My voice sounded strange in my ears, flat and empty.

  “Let’s not linger here,” Illias said. “It will be easier for you once we have moved on.” But he did not descend; he waited with me until I was ready. Despite what had happened outside, I loved him for that.

  I did not want to go down into the darkness. I could not see the west end of the Underground chamber; it continued on under my feet, back towards the Old Garden’s dome. Continued on beyond where the sun could reach, beneath the earth and the huge stones of the Garden, beneath hundreds of tons of heavy, crushing weight.

  But it also led to what might be the greatest discovery made in five hundred years. And I could be a part of it. For just a moment, I let myself feel excitement instead of fear. It did not last long, but it was enough.

  “I’m ready,” I said, and I stepped onto the stairs.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Prince Fyrril Errynson, the eldest son of Ullyd the Forgetter, was thought for centuries to be of little historical significance. Little information on his life survived the Forgetting. A single song by the minstrel Adello gave rise to rumors of an illicit relationship between the two, and according to the Salt Mountain clansfolk he spent time there in his youth, meeting with the Barrock to renegotiate their mining treaty with the Kingsland. No record of him as King exists, and as such, it was concluded that he must have died before taking the throne.

  It is only recently that the truth has been discovered: Prince Fyrril may be among the most important figures in the Kingsland’s history.

  — From Dennon Lark’s The Forgetting Remembered

  Several hours later, sweating in the stuffy, stale air and the heat of the lanterns, I regretted coming at all. It was a miserable experience from the very beginning.

  Only six of us had entered the tunnel, for safety’s sake—it had seemed unwise to bring a group of twenty into an untested passage that had been sealed for centuries. Illias and I were among the six, of course, and with us came Wynne, who had begged to be included; Bryndine and Debra for their muscle, in case we encountered any obstacles; and Sylla, because she flatly refused to stay while Bryndine went. Despite being the only pinned Scriber in Bryndine’s company, Tenille had opted to stay behind, rightly pointing out that if the worst happened, she might need to lead the women in a rescue effort.

  It made for a quiet group. Though I did not blame him for his anger earlier, I still felt awkward with Illias, and Bryndine and Wynne had witnessed me at my most pathetic. I could barely look any of them in the eye. Sylla despised me, and I was too nervous to speak with her—now that I was sober, the story of how she had killed her husband filled me with more fear than pity. And as for Debra, I did not know her well, and she was a terse woman, not given to lengthy conversation.

  In that silence, I could clearly hear every other sound in the passage. I jumped at each creak and rumble, terrified that the tunnel would fall. Trapped underground with only dim lantern light to see by and waiting for a disaster I was sure would come, every moment felt like a scene from my worst nightmares. And there were other sounds too, more than just natural ones. Every so often, soft voices would drift through my mind, whispering terrible words. It felt much like when I passed a fireleaf on the road, but there were no fireleaf trees there under the ground. Perhaps we were passing beneath them. In any event, my nerves were raw and frayed after the first quarter-hour of exploration, and it got no better from there.

  Progress was slow. At several points, we were forced to stop and clear the passage where the ceiling had collapsed inward. Bryndine and Debra did most of the work—the tunnel was not wide enough for more than three people to stand abreast, and Bryndine and Debra together were worth at least three people of a more conventional size. The blockage was always fairly minor, and never took more than a half-hour to clear, but it did not inspire much confidence in the tunnel’s integrity. I was particularly terrified when we passed beneath the Salt River; when I heard the roar of water rushing overhead, I was sure that the ceiling was falling.

  After some four hours of walking, we came to another chamber. It was little more than a large basement with fire-blackened walls, like most of the Underground, but in one corner was a set of stone stairs leading up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. The way continued on west from there, but it was badly blocked—the west wall of the room and the passage beyond had partially crumbled, and it looked to be worse than the small cave-ins we had already encountered.

  Illias brought us to a halt. “We must be very near the city walls now,” he said. “We should try that door, it may bring us above ground. I would like to get my bearings, and if we need more hands to dig out the passage, it would be better to bring them in this way.”

  I agreed with enthusiasm, though more because I was desperate to see daylight again than anything else.

  Debra climbed the stairs and pushed on the wooden trapdoor, but it did not move. She tried pulling, and got no better result. “The bastard’s stuck,” she grunted as she yanked downwards on the metal ring that served as a handle.

  Working together, she and Bryndine were eventually able to wrench the wooden door open, showering themselves with dust and debris. It led up into a small shaft with a wooden ladder inside, perhaps ten feet in height.

  The ladder was not sturdy, but it held together surprisingly well for its age—it supported Debra’s weight, though she nearly fell when one rung broke under her feet, and I thanked the Mother and the Father that Bryndine had not risked attempting the climb first. Another wooden door sat at the top of the shaft, but this one was partially rotted, and Debra easily tore it away. Beyond it there was nothing but tightly packed earth.

  It appeared to be a dead end, but Debra took her pick-axe from her belt and scraped at the obstruction, causing another shower of dirt to rain down the shaft. At the sight of the falling earth, my heart almost stopped. “What are you doing?” I shouted up at her. “You’ll bring the roof down on us.”

  “There’s not more’n a foot of earth above, Scriber,” Debra called back down. “I’m already through.”

  I peeked up after her; she was right. A dim light was visible at the top of the shaft.

  As it turned out, we had dug our way into the earthen wine cellar of a merchant on the edge of the Tradecourt. He took quite a start when we walked out of his basement, but he became very cooperative when Illias and I showed him our pins and told him we were working with the King’s niece, though Bryndine was forced to remain below until we could find a ladder that would hold her.

  When we exited the house, we found ourselves mere yards from the city wall. Illias had been right in his estimate. “We need to clear the passage,” he said, his voice rising with excitement. “If it goes beyond the wall, it as good as proves that the books were smuggled out of Three Rivers.”

  “But to where?” I asked. I had been mulling the question over throug
hout the day, and still had no answer. “Ryndport is the obvious choice—it is the Prince’s seat, and it lies to the west. But it has been searched a dozen times. There isn’t any practical place the Archives could be hidden there.”

  “We can only hope we find something that tells us, my boy,” Illias replied. “Perhaps Fyrril left some sign, something that relates to Adello’s songs. We’ve come this far on your theory—there must be something to it. For now, we need to bring the rest of the women to help clear the tunnel.” It felt good to have his confidence again, though I did not entirely share it.

  Wynne volunteered to fetch Tenille and the others, and they arrived back within the hour with the necessary tools and a new ladder. I can’t imagine the owner of the house was pleased when twenty of us invaded his basement, but he hid it well.

  The collapse was quite bad, and Illias was meticulous in ensuring that the tunnel was properly supported as the women hauled the debris away, so the work went slowly. We had not broken through by the time daylight dwindled into dusk.

  When evening fell, Illias halted the digging. The women had worked through the previous night, and he was unwilling to deny them their rest again. But I could see the worry in his eyes as we parted; he had only a few days left before the Council voted to remove him.

  It was not until mid-afternoon the following day that the last of the blockage was finally removed, and we were able to continue. But as it turned out, we did not have far to go.

  Perhaps a hundred yards beyond the cave-in, the tunnel came to an end in another chamber. It had the look of a smuggler’s lair, a dirt cave dug out by hand. The back of the cavern sloped upwards into a wall of loose dirt. It was not hard to guess that there had been a passage there once, used for bringing illicit goods in and out of Three Rivers, but it had long since caved in on itself.

  But it was not the nature of the chamber that interested me; it was what the chamber contained.