Chapter 26

“You practically kidnapped the man,” Second exclaimed.

“Fauntel has been to the columbarium before, more than once, in fact,” Danel said. “Furthermore, he was the only one I knew who could easily read the name plates. There is no one else. The geas is real and as far as I can tell, the more I keep moving in the correct direction, the more the gods leave us alone. Fauntel wanted to wait until after lunch because it was more convenient for him? Do none of you recognize the seriousness of our plight? The gods are interfering now.”

“Still, you could have given him some warning,” she said.

Danel sighed. “There is no map. There is no travel journal to refer to as I explore. The last Librarian to reach these depths died a thousand years ago and no one today remembers his name. No one knows why he was there, or which god sent him or whether he succeeded. Is he an entry in the Librarian’s Reference?”

She ignored his question. With a sigh, Danel continued, “Fauntel had a bodyguard and I brought him back to the First Floor. If he is that fragile, then why in the name of the gods is he still a Librarian? Show some spine.”

“You’re not helping your case, Danel.”

“The lights went out on the Second Floor between seventy-second and ninety-third hallways for over two hours today. When is the last time such an outage happened?”

She rubbed a cloth across her spectacles. “Do you think this incident is related to your search?”

“Accidents and incidents are accelerating,” Danel said. “I know the difference between causality and correlation, Second, but I don’t believe in coincidences in the Library of Ibados either. Something is going on down there and it is affecting us up here. Upstairs may be a huge gossip chamber, but I’ve no doubt that you and Head are aware of events that the rest of us are not.”

She perched her glasses on the end of her nose and gave him a sour look. “I cannot and I will not tolerate you coming up to the Third Floor and making demands and threats. What do you propose?”

“I will pack for a full expedition, leaving tomorrow morning. I’m taking Janner and Rahim with me and we’re not coming back until we reach the bottom.”

“Reckless,” Second said. “Reckless and unnecessary, Danel. We’re not trying to stop you, but you are taking far too many chances without proper precautions.”

“Sunder has taught me all that he knows. He is a capable man, but this geas and where it leads is far beyond his comfort zone. He would have us move a snail’s pace for the sake of assuaging his fears. I do mean the word fear instead of anxiety, concern, caution, or any other synonym. I cannot remove the fear vector from this search, and I can no longer abide by the glacial pace he sets. He doesn’t compromise either. The gods have forced my hand, Second.”

“You make the gods sound like a convenient excuse,” Second said. “You’ve managed to alienate Sunder and Fauntel. You also managed to drag Frage into your desperate search and now she is something else unto herself. Are you going to ruin these two men who have volunteered to explore with you?”

“No one has died, and no one has been permanently harmed,” Danel said. “Why do you make these accusations?”

“Because I will be asked these questions, Danel, and I need to have the answers. Few understand and many more don’t want to understand. Your behavior challenges your fellow Librarians to the core of their mission.”

Danel had a ready retort on his lips, but he withheld his first comment. “I don’t know what to say to that observation. What we face is a challenge to the definition of our mission. Does the Library of Ibados belong to the gods or does it belong to the people of the world. If you say both, then you land in the middle of the dilemma we have now. The people of the world expect us, the Librarians, to know the entirety of the Library of Ibados. We don’t know all of it, and we hide this lack from the world. Our lack has returned to bite us in the ass.”

Danel took her silence as an opportunity. “Where is Head?”

“The Daughters of Raua have filed a formal complaint against you and accused the Librarians as a whole of prejudice against them,” Second said. “Head was quietly negotiating some sort of solution when Librarian Frage intervened, accusing Priestess Pachout of heresy and of violating her oath of office. Security has locked down their mission. Meanwhile, other Orders sense an opportunity and are seeking redress for a multitude of issues. None of their issues have merit but the process takes time and effort. There was a protest in front of the Grand Reading Room yesterday, which some of the more unruly Orders provoked. Our Head Librarian is most unhappy these days.”

“I heard the water went out in the Wizard’s wing,” Danel said.

“The water is back on,” Second said instantly. “We believe it was a failed pipe.”

“Believe, hope, think, trust: do you hear yourself? We operate on certainty, yet that sense of stability is slipping through our fingers. The Librarians are doing their jobs as they have always done, so it must be the gods. I have what I hope is the final key, Second, and I am leaving as soon as our kits are refilled.”

“I cannot give you any more resources, Danel. With the ongoing troubles, we’re stretched thin, thread-bare thin. If you could delay a day, I could use you now. You have a singular knack for horse trading with the Orders.”

“Tempting, but the geas is overwhelming,” Danel admitted. “I would enjoy taking a few of their holier-than-thou’s and running them down the chute; I really would. Even so, I can barely sit still and carry on a cogent conversation with the Second Librarian. I’m not entirely in control of myself unless I’m on task.

Second took off her glasses and tossed them casually onto her desk. “There is no precedent for your situation. Head and I went through the Librarian’s Reference, and we cannot find a mention of Librarian Bustami nor the Room of Soldatorme. Each time you descend into the depths, you return with more mysteries and disturbing accounts. Go, Danel. Go with Yudi’s and Erta’s blessings and locate the foundations of the Library of Ibados. Take provisions for one week. You are dismissed.”

Danel left without saying another word.

Rahim cleared his throat when Danel entered the kitting room. Danel scanned the room, confirming they were alone. “You have found something?”

“I couldn’t sleep last night and decided to check out the master catalog on the other side of the Great Reading Room, the one you Librarians coddle. I am not a fan of the long, boring books these priests and scholars go on and on about; I read though,” Rahim said. “I saw nothing that interested me, but I decided to do a different author search on a whim; I searched for Bustami. Imagine my surprise when the Librarians’ catalog sent me to my second favorite public reading room, which is on the Second Floor, second corridor at the twelfth hallway. This room has the best selection of adventure with roaring tales of all sorts of heroes on fantastical journeys, in my opinion. Bodices rip and pants tear and bodies pant too. The collection is hundreds of years old, much better than the crap that comes to the Library of Ibados today. The master catalog led me to the card catalog for the room.”