Page 68 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

Secrets should never be held too closely, for a secret that is clung to will shape its keeper and in that twisting of their being it will reveal itself. The best-kept secrets are pushed aside, levered to the extremities of the mind, so far from the day’s thinking that to press them any further away would be to forget them entirely.

The Truth, and Other Matters of Opinion, by Gustav Bergmann

CHAPTER 31

Livira

What you doing?”

“Research.” Livira ignored Jella and kept up her intense scrutiny.

“You’re researching the corridor?” Jella continued to rummage around in the leather stores. Her hands, once plump and ink-stained, were strong and calloused these days, always smelling of the glues the binders used. The aroma of leather overwhelmed the glue fragrance here though. The assistants would never allow any of the works Jella and her colleagues produced to be placed on the shelves—such interlopers would be found and destroyed with the same casual wave of a white hand that had once turned Livira’s apple to dust and pips. The book copies that Jella and the others produced must, however, appear to have come from the library if they were to be taken seriously in the city, and so their covers were tooled, illuminated, and subsequently aged to convey the necessary gravitas.

“The thing about Master Logaris’s training is that he tells us what he thinks we should know when he thinks we should know it,” Livira said.

“There’s all the books too.” Jella laughed. “He doesn’t control what you read.”

“Yes, but there’s too many of them, and he won’t point out the ones with the good stuff in.” Livira had come to appreciate that an ocean of knowledge is apt to drown you long before it educates you. The art of learning was in selection, and while generations of librarians had ostensibly been cataloguing the collection to make it accessible, they had in fact been turning it into a vast puzzle, a lock whose key was held by those in power. A lock that kept them in power. “I’ve been reading about espionage. It’s widely acknowledged as one of the most effective learning tools.”

“Espionage? Isn’t that spying?”

“Shhh!” Livira gestured for silence. She had mapped the librarians’ complex, and her map showed the junction she’d been watching from the leather store doorway to be one that any of the five most senior librarians had to cross when going from their quarters to the library. Master Ellis who, along with Masters Synoth, Acconite, and Yute, made up the head librarian’s four deputies, had just swept by. “Got to go. Tell the others to cover for me!”

“Wait!” Jella started after her, burdened by an armful of hides. “You can’t just stalk him!”

“It’s called learning!” And Livira was off.

—

Trailing the deputy through the complex was easy enough. The place was always full of librarians, trainees, and support staff going about their duties. The problem would come when Ellis reached the cavern before the library, if he was going to the library—and it seemed that he was.

Livira followed him up the step-filled square spiral that led to the cavern. She trod as quietly as she could, and patted her robes to make sure she had all her treasures with her, her little book of darkness, the Raven’s feather, the brass claw, a small collection of coins, and the pouch of dust she carried to remind her where she came from.

On reaching the top of the stair Livira settled to watch Deputy Ellis cross the cavern. The solitude of the library was the main armour for its secrets. If the librarian suspected he might not be alone then his behaviour was likely to change.

Livira had heard rumours of a wonder in the library. One that only the most senior librarians were allowed to visit. Allegedly it was set around with seals forbidding access on pain of expulsion from the ranks, none of which would give her much pause—the main obstacle was simply finding it in the sprawl of chambers. Her hope was that Deputy Ellis would lead her to it. The man had a reputation for delegation and was unlikely to go in search of a book when he could send someone else. So perhaps the reason for this visit was something that needed his personal touch.

Once the guards had let Ellis through the white door into the library, Livira began to cross the cavern at speed. She arrived breathless from the run.

“Livira? It is Livira, isn’t it?” The larger of the two guards peered at her through the face guard of his owl-helm. “What have you done to your...” He ran a hand over the gleaming steel covering his own hair.

For a moment Livira stared at him in confusion. “Oh!” She understood. “I... ah... bleached it.” The gas attack at the laboratory had turned her wet hair from black to white, though half its length had grown back black in the months since.

“It’s an... interesting effect,” ventured the second guard.

“In a hurry today, Livira,” the first man said.

“Always, Mr.Norris.” Livira knew the names of all the library guards now.

The two men were too busy staring at her hair to pay much attention to Livira’s forged library pass. Livira hurried through, thanking them.

Before the door had fully re-formed behind her Livira was at the edge of the platform with an unprotected fifty-yard drop at her toes. She studied the aisles. Almost nothing at floor level was visible save for where a few aisles ran directly away from her. She hadn’t expected to see the librarian from up here. Spotting him from the ground would be a hundred times more difficult. Fortunately, she had an alternative that offered a far better chance. A dangerous alternative that nobody she knew would recommend.

Livira started down the stairs, jumping from one to the next with jolts that would have shaken older bones until they rattled. Nearly halfway down she veered sharply to the right and leapt into space.

The jump was one she’d made before and she landed squarely on top of the bookcase, going to one knee and both hands to absorb her momentum. In the next moment she was up and running, glancing from side to side to check the aisles below.

It had taken the best part of a year to, if not conquer her vertigo, put it in a box and store it at the back of her mind. The trick was to fool herself into not understanding the drops and instead see them as familiar but abstract views absent their traditional threat. A hundred yards on, the shelf ended where the aisle folded back on itself. Livira maintained her pace and jumped. This was the most difficult kind of leap to make since she had only the width of the bookcase to tame her speed or be pitched into the fall beyond. She hadn’t yet managed not to feel terrified in the instant of landing.

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