Pathfinder Tales: The Redemption Engine
Page 22
Roshad nodded slowly. "Chaos. Total war across Golarion. There'd be nowhere that wasn't touched."
"As above, so below," Salim said. "Balance is everything. And that's what Pharasma does: maintains the equilibrium. Judging souls is just a facet of that, a means of keeping control. The Gray Lady seems like she doesn't care, but that's an oversimplification—she's simply not on anyone's side. If the scale tips in any direction, everything falls apart."
He stopped, realizing that the men were looking at him, Bors half-smiling. "What?"
"You said you weren't a real Pharasmin," Bors said.
"I'm not. The Grave Bitch is my owner, not my god."
Bors shrugged, but his smirk remained. Between them, Roshad gave a quiet laugh.
Salim threw up his hands. "Dead gods, is everyone a philosopher today?"
Fortunately, at that moment the path rounded a last bend in the cliff, and all other thoughts fell by the wayside.
The Great Library of Harmonious Scripture rose up in a cluster of nine majestic towers, no two the same height or shape, and each paying only a modicum of respect to conventional physics. Though seemingly composed of brilliant white stone interlaced with ribbons of crystal, the towers thickened and thinned at whatever intervals their architects saw fit. A tower that was narrow at the bottom could twist and grow like the spout of a tornado, projecting huge buttressed balconies as it ascended. Another tower might suddenly open to the sky for several stories, the vast bulk of its upper levels supported on slim pillars. Staircases wound in and out of the towers, wrapping them like vines creeping up a tree—and indeed, the stairs on one of the towers were a lattice of green and brown, broad leaves waving in the wind. From the towers' feet spread long buildings and plazas that filled the space between them, combining the whole assembly into a single structure. Winged forms flitted between towers, landing on balconies or diving down to disappear among the rooftop fountains and pyramidal glass skylights of the compound.
The path Salim's party followed led them not to one of the towers, but rather to one of the long rococo facades that connected them. Perhaps twenty yards out, the trail descended a wide set of steps into a stone courtyard curiously devoid of ornamentation, which ran the length of the wall like a moat. Across the space, two grand double doors—bright wood banded with silver—stood flush with the blank wall a good thirty feet above the ground, without any apparent means of reaching them.
As soon as Salim set foot on the stairs, the ambient light began to dim. Beside him, Bors and Roshad murmured as they experienced the same uncanny sensation. Having grown used to Heaven's ever-present, omniradiant light, it was a shock to suddenly find one's self in shadow again. The light continued to weaken as they descended. Above, the sky still burned with its usual luminance, yet the light seemed to stop at the level of the stairs, shadows closing over the party's heads like the surface of a pond. By the time they reached the bottom, they were encased in twilight.
But not for long. Salim was the first to touch the stone of the courtyard, and as he did, the flagstone lit up, a golden sigil appearing beneath his boot. The next step produced another, and then they were shooting away from him in a line, a glowing road of angelic script. Halfway across the plaza, they began to ascend into the air, climbing unsupported until they reached the doors. As the others came to stand beside him, their own paths emerged, joining together like rivers to create a single scroll of light leading up to the entrance.
"So does knowledge lead us out of darkness," Nemeniah intoned.
Salim barked a laugh, and the angels frowned. Roshad and Bors gave him inquisitive looks.
"Sorry," he said. "It's just...a little over the top, don't you think?"
Bors cheek twitched upward. "I think we might have passed some gilded lilies on the way up."
Roshad snickered, and Nemeniah's frown deepened. "Symbols are key to maintaining faith, Salim."
"I'm sure they are," Salim said. "By all means, let's continue."
He led them across the plaza and up the glowing cascade. As long as he didn't look down, it was no different from climbing a normal staircase, the translucent letters firm beneath his feet. At the top, the doors swung open of their own accord, the floor beyond them thankfully simple stone again.
They were in yet another antechamber, this one with a wooden reception desk. Behind it, several tall arches stood covered by purple curtains.
Floating above the wood, glowing with its own light, was what appeared to be an orrery, its thin network of golden wires allowing tiny gemlike balls to rotate around the burning sphere at its center. Remembering the floating lanterns in the Hall of Others, Salim stepped forward and nodded to the orrery as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. "Hello."
The tiny worlds spun faster. "Greetings, scholar." It twisted in the air, its orbits and glowing sun suddenly reminding Salim of an eye as it focused over his shoulder on the others stepping up behind him. "Nemeniah! Malchion! May the gods smile upon you."
"Hello, Baya," Nemeniah said. "This is Salim, and his companions Bors and Roshad. They come on the business of Pharasma's Court, and Faralan's assigned us to guide them."
"Of course!" The orrery—whose feminine voice was almost absurdly chipper—shifted to focus on Salim once more. "We are happy to assist. The scholars of the Great Library are particularly inclined toward the Gray Lady in her role as goddess of prophecy. What can we aid you in finding? Records of fallen heroes? Forgotten revelations and their evaluated accuracy? Perhaps hymns for the noble dead?"
Salim couldn't help but smile. The archon—for surely that's what it was—sounded so eager, so earnest. If it were possible to call a thing of wire and light "cute," he thought Baya might qualify.
"Maybe later. Right now, I need to know where an angel might have gotten access to forbidden magic. Heretical texts."
Baya's central globe of light shifted suddenly from soft yellow to an angry red. Her loops of wire spun faster, and with a sharp whisk of metal on metal, blades extended from each of the tiny planetoids. The room filled with a sawmill whine.
Salim took an involuntary step back as the archon floated toward him.
"Access to those documents has been restricted for your safety," the pleasant voice said. "Your request has been logged. Further requests will not be permitted."
paizo.com #3236236, Corry Douglas
Chapter Nineteen
The Great Library
The blades continued to whir.
Nemeniah held up a hand. "Peace, Baya. Commander Faralan has authorized us to show them whatever they wish. Including the Vault of Correction."
"Oh!" Baya's blades snicked back into their hidden slots, her orbits slowing their frenetic pace. "In that case, Malchion and Nemeniah can show you the way." A pause, then in more hopeful tones: "You're sure I can't interest you in a forgotten language? Or perhaps the funerary rites of the strix in their native Arcadia?"
Salim had no idea what a strix was. "Perhaps later."
"I hope so. The library can be a dangerous place for mortals, and the Vault..." With a sigh, Baya floated to one side, and the curtain directly behind the desk followed her, drawn back by invisible hands.
"Knowledge is always dangerous," Salim said. "We'll be careful." He looked to Nemeniah and Malchion. "After you."
The party moved through the curtain, Nemeniah leading and Malchion following. The room beyond was filled with row upon row of desks like Baya's. At each sat a single figure—some classic angels or archons similar to Nemeniah and Malchion, others with stranger forms. Of the latter, the most common were shaped like beautiful winged women from the waist up and giant snakes below, their serpentine tails coiled beneath the wooden desks. Every surface was piled high with scrolls, folios, and stacks of loose paper, the room's occupants intently reading or copying their contents. A few glanced up at the new arrivals, but most ignored them.
"Archiving the knowledge of Heaven is no small task," Nemeniah said as they
passed through the ranks. Though the room's far wall was only thirty or so desks away from where they had entered, to left and right the rows stretched on into seeming eternity, the tiny seated figures dwindling out of sight. Magic? Or simply another instance of Heaven's malleable distance?
They passed gratefully through another arch and into a chamber that, while huge, was at least finite in its dimensions. This one was long and tall—the nave of a vast cathedral, with high stained-glass windows spilling tinted light across the empty space where pews would normally stand. Unlike a standard cathedral, however, this one didn't have a single pulpit or altar, but rather dozens spaced equidistantly around the great room. On each, someone was singing—sometimes a single angel, sometimes an entire choir of them, attended by audiences of appreciative angels and mortal souls.
The result should have been a cacophony, yet from where Salim walked down the middle of the cathedral—a path clearly delineated by a deep purple runner—the voices were no more than a faint buzz.
Experimentally, he stepped sideways off the rug. Immediately, the medley of voices quieted, replaced by that of the nearest performer. He was a thin man—a mortal soul, glowing and transparent—with a bald head and long beard. The song he sang was in a language Salim didn't recognize, filled with strange resonances and ululations, yet his deep bass was so smooth and euphoric that Salim felt his spirits lift in spite of himself.
A hand touched his shoulder—Nemeniah. Salim realized that he'd stopped, and that the rest of the group was looking at him.
"The Song Halls are a glory unto the highest," she said. "A favorite of mine as well. Yet where we're going, it's vital that you stay on the paths. Not everywhere within the Library is this pleasant."
"Right. Sorry." Salim moved back onto the carpet, the man's song fading behind him.
Near the middle of the cathedral, they hit a junction and turned, passing through several small square chambers, each blank stone with archways in all four walls. Salim counted their turns—right, then right, then right again—yet while his mental map said they should be emerging into the Song Halls once more, he found himself in a new chamber.
Instead of a church, this seemed to be a palace ballroom. While a few angels sat in chairs along the walls, addressing small audiences, the vast majority of the creatures simply mingled and chatted, small groups knotting and then disbanding.
"A party?" Roshad asked.
"Almost," Nemeniah said. "Oral traditions are just as important as books and scrolls, and the Library keeps them in the form they were intended."
Then they were through the crowd and into a chamber with yet more rows of desks. Beneath their feet, the floor was covered in a carpet of deep green moss. The air hung thick with incense, and each desk bore its own burner and a pile of sticks. Rather than reading, the angels at each table were bent low over their open documents, eyes closed and hands clasped in an attitude of prayer, filling the air with muttered chants.
"Blessing new additions to the collection?" Salim ventured.
"Verifying," Nemeniah said. "Most of the books the collections take in start out suspect, the work of mortals or other unreliable sources. The Veracity Choir uses magic to determine the truth of questionable passages. If their own abilities fall short, they consult the deities directly."
"They ask the gods?" Even given Salim's refusal to place any deity on a pedestal, the idea of petitioning such a powerful being over a book was ridiculous. "And the gods answer?"
"Of course." Nemeniah looked surprised. "Why wouldn't they? We're doing their work."
Salim's stomach clenched with the old familiar anger. He wanted to explain to the angel that most people who tried to talk to the gods never got a response—that, in fact, children starved and believers died on the rack without ever hearing a word from their supposed saviors. The idea of a god settling quibbles between scholars while his mortal worshipers lived in squalor or disemboweled each other over splits in doctrine made him physically ill. Yet all he said was, "Your library is significantly different from those I'm used to."
Nemeniah stopped before a door—one of the first they'd seen inside the building, made of dark metal etched to resemble wood. She smiled. "Oh, we're only beginning."
Then she opened the door.
They stood on a narrow balcony. Salim immediately registered the waist-high railing around the edge as the type that wasn't high enough to actually save you if you tripped, only ensure that you tumbled ass-over-teakettle as you fell.
Beyond that railing lay a chamber so vast that the only visible wall was the one they'd just emerged from. Behind them, that flat plane of gray stone stretched out in every direction, disappearing into darkness save for those scattered points where identical balconies thrust forth, illuminated by faint, sourceless glows. Ahead was only a vast black nothing, with no way to tell how far it extended out, or up or down. And in that space...
Bookshelves. Thousands upon thousands of bookshelves, of every size and shape. They floated unsupported in the air, each disconnected from the others and seeming to bob slightly in an unseen current. Most were wooden, though Salim saw a few more impressive ones carved from stone. Each was lit with a small, glowing lantern that hung out over its face like the deep-sea fish that Aziri sailors sometimes pulled up in their nets. Farther out, the darkness swallowed the cases, leaving only the lanterns to indicate their presence.
A dark sea studded with stars, ready to pull Salim down into its embrace.
"Welcome to the Stacks," Nemeniah said.
As they watched, lights moved out in the night—angels bearing lanterns or glowing with their own inner radiance, swooping and diving between the various shelves.
"It's beautiful," Salim said honestly.
"It's absurd."
The group turned to stare at Roshad. The little man crossed his arms. "So it floats—big deal. That doesn't make it useful. How are you supposed to find anything out there?"
Nemeniah's chuckle sounded forced. "A fair point. And this is just one of the collections—the Great Library's holdings are uncountable, and growing every day. Yet there is still a system: subjects grouped together, vast catalogs and magical research assistants. There are angels who spend eternity among the shelves, learning their webs of information and guiding others to what they need." She shot Salim a smug look. "But the best way to find what you need is through faith."
Roshad scoffed, but Salim understood. "She means literally, Roshad."
The angel nodded. "Just as the Verifiers use prayer to determine the truth of works, divine magic guides the Librarians and helps them locate the works they need."
For a moment, Salim wondered if she was baiting him, intentionally showing off how angels squandered the gods' attention while mortals went without. But no—as far as the angels were concerned, Salim was a priest of Pharasma, as pious in his own way as they were. It would never occur to them that someone might chafe under that yoke.
Besides, the angels didn't need to bait him. Heaven took care of that on its own.
"So the information we need is in here somewhere?" he asked.
"Not quite," Nemeniah said. She and Malchion held out their arms.
It took the Iridian Fold men a moment to get the point. Once they did, Roshad barked a laugh. The two men took long, pointed steps back toward the wall.
Salim knew how they felt, but he wasn't about to show weakness in front of the angels. "Come on," he said, and moved forward into Nemeniah's embrace.
It was strange being close to a female body so much larger than his own. She had none of the smells of a human woman—no sweat or cloth or old food, nor even perfume. She turned him out so that they were looking the same direction, his back pressed to her stomach, and wrapped him firmly around the chest with arms as tight and secure as leather straps.
Next to them, Malchion took Bors and Roshad under one arm each, letting their chain run around his back beneath his wings and hoisting the two men like piglets brought to market. Roshad mutte
red as much, but Bors seemed amused.
Then Nemeniah stepped forward over the railing, and they were falling.
Not flying—falling. Neither of the angels bothered to open their wings. Instead, they fell headfirst down the shaft of the great well, bookcases streaking past them, with only the smallest twists of the angels' limbs keeping them from slamming into one of the floating stacks. The wind of their passage tugged tears from Salim's eyes, and he fought to keep them open, despite every instinct in his body crying out for him to close them so he wouldn't have to see the ground in the seconds before they hit.
With simultaneous cracks like sailcloth catching wind, the angels' wings opened. Salim's innards jerked downward again as their freefall dive became a swoop, their descent shallowing out. As the animal terror of weightlessness subsided, Salim realized that Nemeniah and Malchion were singing, their voices chasing each other over and under the melody in a game of musical cat-and-mouse.
Angels. Salim shook his head and concentrated on not vomiting.
Time seemed to stretch in that dark field, yet soon enough the void beneath them began to move, seeming to ripple in a flat plane.
Water. They skimmed low over the lake, and Salim realized that the seeming eternity of lights was in fact an illusion, the still waters reflecting the artificial stars above. As they flew, the water began to lighten, its depths glowing with points of blue-green radiance.
There were bookshelves here, too, floating on the surface on narrow pontoons, bobbing slightly in the wake of the party's passage.
"Isn't that dangerous?" Salim asked. "Keeping the books so near the water?"
Nemeniah laughed. "Just wait."
Ahead, a structure resolved—a floating platform made of wood. Here the angels alighted, setting the three mortals back on their feet. Salim forced himself to stand up straight, not moving while he regained his bearings. Roshad staggered about, still muttering curses and imprecation against "winged terrors." Bors put a hand on his shoulder.