The Infinite Library

by Kane X Faucher

  “The door swings in,” I said, trying to put a face of calm into our plan of escape. “You are the stronger of the two of us, so I'm going to open the door, and you're going to charge out in the lead with me right behind you.”

  I could see in his eyes that the plan was not appetizing to him, but there would be no choice – the apartment was too high up to make a daring jump to ground level. We steadied ourselves in our respective positions: I quietly clutched the doorknob while he leaned forward in a linebacker's stance. On the count of three...

  One... The wall beside the door was being scratched with something, or it may have been the rattle of a spray paint can.

  Two... Murmuring voices, some macabre laughter in the hall.

  Three... I flung the door open and Angelo darted on cue, barreling into a blurry collection of strangers taken by surprise. I swung myself around the now open door and shouldered my way through, not pausing to record the faces or manner of dress of those performing the siege. We took the stairs down three and four at a time, careening into walls and madly scrambling our way out. I could hear footfalls not far behind. The front entrance seemed like the longest mile away, but we did make it. I felt the brushing of a hand that failed to gain grasping purchase upon my clothes, and we wriggled out into the street, breaking into a full sprint.

  By the time we felt that we had put a safe distance between us and our pursuers, it must have been twelve blocks into the downtown area. We ducked nervously into an all-night cafe and nested ourselves in the back, keeping a clear view of the service exit in case we would need to bolt again. By this time, I knew it was appropriate to reveal my plan... or at least have the time to properly develop it. It was hard to recall, given that it had been formed momentarily under duress, and it seemed that my reasoning for going to Detroit have all but evacuated.

  I stumbled over my words between catching my breath, my chest stabbing and hammering. “It's a vague idea, but it's all I have right now. I say we go to where Setzer was murdered and -” I stopped when Angelo shot me a wide-eyed glare that suggested that I was insane for even considering it. “Listen, I know this seems crazy, but we need to get to the source of the problem. I think that Setzer's predilection for manufacturing a profusion of texts may explain what we saw back at my apartment.”

  “It was a fucking miracle we got out of there,” Angelo protested. “We could have suffered as Setzer did. And now you mean to tell me that our next plan of action is to go to the scene of the crime?”

  “It would be the last place in the world they would look for us, whoever 'they' are.”

  “What do you base that on?”

  “Nothing deductive – purely intuition. We need to get the reins on all this mystery.”

  “No, you mean you have to solve the mystery. It was your damn curiousity that caused all of this, I'm sure of it! Everything went tits up in our lives the moment you got involved.”

  “I'm sure it's just a coincidence,” I defended.

  “You were getting too close to somebody's secrets, poking your beak in places it didn't belong. This is the shit that happens when dippy academics try to play Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Angelo, it's not going to serve us to point fingers at this point. It's too late for that, and this is the hand we've been dealt. I think it's a smart idea for us to work together. You have your own mystery to solve: the apparent sickness of the Library, the sudden surge of slipped books. We have to check the bus schedule and leave tonight.”

  Just as I said that, I could see Angelo's hands frantically searching himself. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck!”

  “What?” I asked, partially exhausted by the endless parade of panic.

  “My PDA! I left it at your place! Fuck! You have no idea what I have on that thing... and all my USB keys, too! Shit... Just great! They're probably going through it right now, have all my info, contacts, the works. I'm absolutely fucked.”

  “Are you sure? And is it that vital, given our current situation?”

  “Yes, I'm fucking sure,” he snapped in irritation. “And, yes, it's fucking vital. I could be expelled from the Order for this, for being so goddamn careless! All that sensitive information in the hands of those not in the Order-”

  “Given the way the Library has been behaving as of late, there might not be an Order if we don't take action. Your standing with the Order isn't really my concern, and I know so little about the Library that I don't know if I should be assisting in any way. What I do know is that we are on the run, and obviously we are both targets.”

  I was trying to calm Angelo down since the rather animated conversation risked drawing further attention to us. Angelo was obviously still lamenting over his forgotten PDA, and he most likely felt emasculated without it. For my part, as fortune would have it, I did well to plan ahead by taking the two books with me. We eventually made our way to the bus station and, since we had fallen out of a talking mood, I was able to soothe my nerves by dipping further into the awfully written tale.

  18

  Excerpts 18-22 from the Backstory

  The sky was black, macabre. A cruel wind blew on my face, and everything had changed. Gimaldi and I feared the worst without really knowing why. Castellemare joined us with a mocking grin on his face.

  “I'm sorry, but you lose,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “We conquered your labyrinth. What further tests must you subject us to?”

  “Where are we?” Gimaldi asked sternly.

  “Why, here, my good friend,” Castellemare said as if the question were facile. “Does it matter?”

  “Castellemare, I am through with your antics,” charged Gimaldi. “You've pranced about like some smug villain, playing your little paradoxical games. The boy is not yours to mould. He will not be one of your devotees. He is a creature of Reason, not your charlatanism.”

  “Then by all means, weave your wild and illusory metaphysics if their intricate arabesques give you pleasure,” Castellemare said with a laugh. “Besides, this is a rather silly discussion.

  “Then why have you dragged us into it, and into this labyrinth of yours? What are you trying to prove?” I challenged him.

  “Nothing at all,” he said, a bit confused by my question. “Really, I do things for amusement.”

  I must here confess that I did read Codex Infinitum to its conclusion. However, knowing that he – the other Gimaldi – was reading this, I could not in good conscience, and for what I now know, report anything further that would aid him. I do not do this to be cruel, but actually out of mercy for a man I would never come to know beyond the confines of text. What I report now will be of little value to that other Gimaldi, but it is my hope that the scant clues I offer will better guide him... hopefully away from these beguiling mysteries and atrocious consequences.

  19

  An end to theological mischief. Just one more trial for Gimaldi. Press the all-one cipher of the immanent and infinite Library into a man and that man will become the Librarian.

  “Am I to believe that all of what I have endured, and the labyrinths I have traveled, was nothing more than a training exercise for a job I had not applied for?” asked Gimaldi.

  “Gimaldi, your weakness is in not recognizing what is metaphorical and what is literal. You will no doubt take the pressing of the one-all cipher as metaphorical, and the imminent synthesis as literal. You know nothing about information.”

  20

  Beware:

  “Exactly,” he smiled. “The impossibility of existence is marked by the absence of all formalities. It is simply enough to be a sufficient being in order to be all beings. Is not infinity simply a matter of sufficient reason, hm?”

  21

  (What you have to understand is that which will come to pass can only do so if you read it)... As for Castellemare, he would disappear without a trace, along with his villa. Leave it all alone, Gimaldi. Stop reading. Run.

  FIN

  19

  Setzer's Labyrinth

>   Ts'ui Pen must have said once: I am withdrawing to write a book. And another time: I am withdrawing to construct a labyrinth. Every one imagined two works; to none did it occur that the book and the maze were one and the same thing.

  -Jorge Luis Borges, “The Garden of the Forking Paths”

  There would be no time for rest, for we had no idea if we were still being tailed. Nor did we know for certain who was tailing us. Although I had fairly reasoned that it probably was the Devorants – the same Order I had assumed murdered Setzer – I could not know for certain. I was also not entirely certain I could trust Angelo, for although he seemed to be as genuinely frightened and confused as I was, it could have been yet another of his elaborate acts, the kind he is more than capable of putting on to re-acquire books and make his social way seamlessly throughout the world at every one of its levels. Now was not the time for severe doubt to cripple me, but rather a time to take action and inch that much closer to the resolution of this mystery. To that end, I led Angelo to Setzer's apartment.

  “Maybe this isn't such a hot idea,” complained Angelo. “The man has been murdered, and I would think there would be some kind of ongoing investigation. That means cops, and that also means they'd probably be digging for some clues at his home.”

  But, as it turned out, there was no police presence. More surprising, his front door was unlocked, so I let myself in. The interior was steeped in gloom, and nothing seemed disturbed outside of normal everyday use. Some unfinished dates were wrinkling at the bottom of a glass bowl, a third of a bottle of wine was left but conscientiously re-corked, and everything looked as it should. However, it was not my intention to play the curator of Setzer's knack for tastefully moneyed minimalist décor. I prompted Angelo to follow me a bit further, down that corridor I had walked down just the once, on that first meeting with Setzer, to the rooms marked A, B, and C. In the shoddy workshop-esque central room that connected all three other rooms, there was a small pile of messy notes that I examined.

  “This is glamourous,” said Angelo. “I'd have expected a tidier space for the head of a so-called Order.”

  I hushed him and added, “This is hardly the time to get in your professional digs. The man is dead, and I aim to find out why so that we can find out who is after us.”

  Angelo grunted and I began reading the pile of notes I could only assume were written in Setzer's hand:

  Joel Barlow, The Vision of Columbus

  That Hartford swine with his gaudy paean, that wretched little token-piece and parlour-antic philosophical pretension he called his book. Oh, widely read, hailed as a high act of literature... .But then he had the nerve to extend it to a full epic, the failed Columbiad. This, of course, furnished from the Library as a possible book. But not all books in the Library have merit.

  “One centered system, one all-ruling soul,

  Live thro' the parts, and regulate the whole.”

  Such maundering claptrap! Nine books of it!

  (what is behind the boards?)

  Pollard(?) An Essay on Colophons, The Gentleman's Book of Polite Literature (1788), Maghur Empire (15??), Check Sothebys auction catalogue, A manual on physiognomy and the five divisions of countenance, A History of the Martyrs, Senecae Tragoedie (1679?)

  -Some minor damage on the headband, a few wormholes and foxing. 8vo. Obv. early rebound, attempt to remove ex-libris stamp. Fair to poor condition.

  -Retrieved from estate sale F.R.N, 27 vo.s, Only 4 of moderate value.

  And so on. Setzer seemed to be making notes on recent acquisitions, but nothing particularly occult. These were just the rather disappointing notes of a book collector and little more. His criticism of the Barlow text was also none too shocking either – in fact, I agreed with his opinion. His interest for what was behind the boards of the cover is little more than a book-collector's trick where we uncover the error pages stuffed by publishers in the hopes that one of the leaves will prove to be of more value than the book itself.

  “Gimaldi, come take a look at this,” Angelo beckoned from another bench. I replaced the notes and went to him. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he had encountered something awry. “Here,” he said, giving me a loose sheaf of handwritten pages, directing me to the last page.

  -Castellemare goes into hiding.

  -Once the murder takes place, Gimaldi and Angelo preyed upon by mysterious visitors. They'll come to the apartment and enter the labyrinth. At that point -

  And that was where it tantalizingly left off, just like that, plopped into an eerie present time. I gave a cursory glance at the preceding pages, and written upon them were all the events that had taken place since I met Castellemare. More off-putting still were some of the descriptions of my private actions when I was certain I was alone, including a list of my thoughts and feelings at the time, phrased a bit more eloquently than I was capable.

  “What does this mean?” I asked, but somehow knew that Angelo had as much of an idea as I did - which is to say, none.

  “The whole fucking thing, written down, like a goddamn stage play! Where are the other pages? If I'm being strung along some kind of chintzy drama, I want to know what happens next,” he said, now turning his attention to searching everywhere in that sparse space.

  I thought on this for a time before stating, “Setzer was an artificer. I am beginning to think that he scripted everything, but I have a hard time understanding how he got this much detail, and why everything proceeded so seamlessly according to script. And why we would he write in his own murder without trying to prevent it?”

  Angelo had given up when he turned up nothing. I turned the last page and read something very faintly written on the bottom margin: and then they came and took the rest of the pages. Angelo kicks over bench in anger.

  Just then, Angelo did just that. The pine bench clattered on the floor and was split in one of its distressed cross-slats.

  “Angelo, calm down. Look at this,” I said, and I pointed to the writing. He immediately went pale. I took the pages with me and had an inkling to check the now upended bench. As fortune would have it, there were a few more pages stapled to its inner planks. Just like in the movies, it was some sort of code.

  “What's that?”

  “I think it's a code,” I replied. Angelo gruffly snatched it from my hands but did not fare any better than I could in decoding it. “I'm not sure what it means,” I offered.

  Heaving an exasperated sigh, Angelo said, “Then I suppose we aren't left with much choice: Gimaldi and Angelo enter the labyrinth.” He pointed to the doors.

  “Are you sure you didn't have anything to do with this?” I said, indicating the pages of our script. “You could just be acting it out according to the director's plans – whoever that director is.”

  “Gimaldi suggests to Angelo that they go to Detroit,” Angelo read off mockingly.

  It seemed as though both of us would have equal reason not to trust the other. A hundred silver tongues of warning and foreboding were wagging in concert, beseeching me not to go beyond any of those doors. What lay behind them I had only seen in sketch, that one time, and it was most likely they had changed. Did not Setzer inform me that he and Castellemare were merging libraries? Was that not the revealing colophon that would explain Setzer's murder, this eerie deterministic script that detailed every one of my movements since I first clapped eyes on Castellemare? Was Setzer even dead? I had not bothered to inquire of myself if I believed Angelo's words to be true, but accepted them wholesale. It would have been callous of me to demand to see the body in order to confirm Angelo's pronouncement, and perhaps he knew that, lending him the temporary bond of safety to commit this ruse. It would have been a lie to say that I wasn't still sowing seeds of doubt about my ex-colleague – or, rather, there was too much in what he said and did that didn't add up, compounding doubt. Was this an elaborate setup, Angelo paid handsomely on the sly to play a role, lie about a murder, only for him to commit one here in this labyrinth? It was too late now: we were
here and had to press on, not leaving me any opportunity to corroborate the details of Setzer's alleged murder. Why hadn't I investigated this, checked the local newspaper or searched online for news of a murder in Detroit? I would have made a lousy detective.

  The memory of what I had read previously on the bus was beginning to superimpose its pattern on the present. But instead of the teacher-Gimaldi and student-narrator taking up the challenge of a more wooden Castellemare, it was me and a potentially treacherous man under the employ of a Castellemare who had gone mysteriously missing – and, yet, setting the challenge in absentia, in his own indirect and far-removed way. I could not be certain of this, but it did fit the pattern.

  These thoughts were now barreling through my mind, now that panic had urged me to consider them at the precipice of what could have been my end. The gravity of what was before me had broken the idle logjam in my reasoning. I came to realize that it was merely circumstance as to why I seemed to so frequently place blind trust in Angelo, in Castellemare, in Setzer, perhaps even Leo if he was somehow involved in all of this. I could not say it was paranoia, but rather a desperation and hunger to know who was the puppet master in this cryptic menagerie. Who were the players, the played, and who the playwrights?

  I thought back to that labyrinth I had read about, how the story's Gimaldi and the narrator ambled for days within it, encountering books I recognized as fictitious or even common in a way unintended by the narrator who desired, and failed, to inject mystery through the tack-on heaviness of Latinate titles, shallowly presented histories. Perhaps more unsettling was the memory of a Borges story I had read long ago, “The Garden of the Forking Paths”: in one version, I kill you. In another, you kill me. Perhaps here, in this labyrinth, only one of us would emerge. Perhaps I was destined to kill Angelo – a thought so preposterous given that I was hardly the murdering type. But, then again, my entire life from Vatican City up to this point has been a series of impossible moments and inconceivable events. I went from lapsed lecturer and entrepreneurial rare book hawker to being a hired thief for a library outside of reality and a fugitive from the deceits and possible vengeance of secret orders I knew nearly nothing about. Had I been seeking a bit of extra thrill value in my life, this was clearly not what I would have chosen. I was more surprised with myself that I had become so deeply drawn into this mystery rather than choosing to walk away – which I probably could have at any point. Of course, it was vanity that most likely drew me in, but for all I knew my name appearing in forbidden books foretelling my role in some upcoming 'grand synthesis' could have been forged post facto by Castellemare and company to ensure that I stuck around. For what reason, I was still unsure.