Chapter 23

Having stepped through the door into a narrow hallway, they emerged into the room. Remembering his lessons, Danel ordered his bodyguard to leave his weapon in the doorway, jamming the door open. With determination, Danel stepped into the room.

The room was hexagonal. On all but two sides there were twenty shelves with five long shelves per side. Each shelf contained thirty-five books of uniform format and each book was exactly four hundred and ten pages with forty lines of script on each page. There were letters on the spine of the book that in no manner informed the reader what was on the pages of the book.

Danel put back another book in its place. The lines were full of random letters and numbers. Sometimes the symbols would be bunched together as if they were words of different lengths and at other times, a number such as 21 or A4 sat between blank spaces. He found no real words.

Janner walked over to the narrow hallway on the other side of the room. There were two doors, one of which was a toilet and the other a coffin-like sleeping space. After the door was a spiral staircase leading up and down. Peering into the next room, Janner declared that the next room looked exactly like the first one and there was the same hallway across on the other side. He returned to Danel looking slightly pale. “What is this place?”

“It’s a library,” Danel said. “I’ve read about this place, but I swear it was a piece of fiction. Yet, here we stand and our eyes do not deceive us.”

“Yeah, this place has books but don’t tell me it’s a library. I wasn’t born yesterday,” Janner was scanning the room with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“The room feels ... infinite,” Danel said quietly. “If your report of the exact replica through the same narrow hallway is correct, then we are standing in an infinity.”

“As you said, my eyes do not deceive me.” Janner’s voice was harsh.

“Only a god can create an infinite thing,” Danel mused. “This is a library, but a library conceived by a god, maybe created by a god. Is there a guild mark on the ceiling?”

Janner shook his head. “Not that I see.”

“Then we are no longer in the Library of Ibados, Janner. We have entered a place built by the gods. I don’t think we are safe here. Still, there are many books in this room alone. The symmetry is alluring; it’s beautiful. The key to all the knowledge of the gods could be in this room in one of these books. We should look closer.”

Janner gave him a squint-eye. “Let’s get the hell out of here, Librarian. No mortal should be here and if they stay, who knows what becomes of them.” He took Danel by the arm and yanked him towards the front hallway. Reluctantly, Danel allowed himself to be dragged out of the room. Only when he saw the weapon leaning against the door, did the spell break.

Standing in the anteroom, Danel rubbed his temples, trying to purge the mesmerism that had effortlessly afflicted him. A wave of vertigo came and passed. He counted to ten before he opened his eyes. The room was decidedly the same, which brought only relief.

Janner pointed with his weapon. “That room is a trap, a maze that will leave a man wandering forever if he loses sight of the entrance.”

“Yes,” Danel said wringing his hands. “The rooms beyond the door are a maze and I’ve no wish to open the other two. We have an infinity trap, which the ancients called a labyrinth.”

“I’ve heard of that word, somewhere,” Janner admitted. “How do you spell it?”

“L-a-b-y,” Danel began when Janner launched himself to the third doorway.

“Look at the plaque,” Janner demanded. “LABY” He traced the letters with his finger.

Danel checked all three plaques again, “LABY, RIN, THAS: Labyrinthas, a small derivation of the word common in adjacent languages.”

“The plaque moves,” Janner said, holding back his hand like he had touched a burning ember.

“We have our puzzle,” Danel said. “If the plaques move, then all we need to do is spell the word correctly.” He walked over to where the man was standing and bent down to examine the plaque. The brass plate appeared to be placed in a sleeve made of brass as well. Pressing his fingers against the plate, he wiggled it. Then he pushed upwards, and the plaque rose with his fingers. “Take this plaque and put in place of the first plaque. Bring the first plaque over there back to me.”

Janner ran with the brass plate like it was burning his fingers. He ran back just as quickly. Danel tapped the plate in place and pushed it down until it was set. The “ting” of a small bell rang through the room.

“Do you see anything?” Danel asked.

“Nothing’s changed,” Janner said.

Danel went for the door. “It’s locked.”

“This door is locked as well,” Janner confirmed. “This one, too.”

Both men wandered around the room, trying to discover what had changed. Danel was confident he had heard the sounding of a bell, and the spelling of the word was correct. The ceiling was the same, the floor unmoved and the only change was the locking of the doors. They were missing something.

“Hey, Ho,” Janner called out. “Did the staircase we came down end at this anteroom? I don’t remember seeing another set of stairs going down. I was paying attention to the room when we came down though.”

Danel joined the man at the stairwell. “We found it. Truly, we have found what I came seeking: The next steps.”

“You didn’t just make the worst pun I can imagine at a time like this, did you?”

“Not intentionally, but I’ll proudly own it,” Danel admitted. “I’ve proven that we still have our wits about us. If we can laugh at a pun, we didn’t abandon our senses in one of those rooms. I wonder if ... no, it’s better not to think about it. The day is not done, and we should continue.”

“Will we be able to return upstairs?”

“Unless we kill ourselves down here, then, yes, I believe so. You could easily trace your way back without taxing your memory for the details.” Danel set his jaw. “Upward appears not to be problem. The dangers all appear to prevent the unwary from going downward. I see this upward/downward as the pattern of the moment. We are talking of gods and their ways though. They, a blessing to them all, are never straightforward.”

“You’re in luck, then, because nothing today has been straightforward,” Janner said. “Maybe the gods are with you.”

The two men walked down the staircase, neither saying a word. Before they reached the bottom of the stairs both heard the tinkling of water. Each nodded to the other in confirmation as they approached the doorway. The view took Danel’s breath away.

In front of them was a fountain and a statue from which the water was cascading. Mythological creatures frolicked on the rocks as water ran past their feet and paws. The winged horse was bowing its head to listen to the lizard-headed marmot who clutched a delicate bouquet of flowers in its front paws. An eagle on the body of a deer perched on an outcropping, looked down at the two-footed fish leaning against the rocks at the bottom. Overseeing them all from a rough hewn stone seat in the middle was a man with a goat’s head and cloven hoofs for feet.