Eventually he reached a page where, after much glancing from margin to margin, he decided that his search could be continued by means of a solitary forefinger.
'Ah,’ he said finally after a further long study of Antyr's card. ‘Here we are, sir. Antyr, Andor Endryth.’ His tone reluctantly mellowed. ‘And this will be your Companion, I presume. Tarrian, is it?’ He closed the book and peered beadily down at Tarrian. ‘Not common, wolves, not common it all,’ he said absently, then turning back to Antyr, ‘I'm sorry I didn't recognize you, sir, but one has to be so careful these days, there are so many ruffians about and your robe…’ He cleared his throat and changed direction quickly. ‘I presume you don't come to many of the meetings, sir. Otherwise I'm sure I'd have known you straight away. I know most of the regulars and…'
'Yes, thank you.’ Antyr interrupted the lecture and, taking his card back, set off after Tarrian who was already walking across the wide, circular entrance hall towards the staircase that led down to the library.
It occurred to Antyr as he strode after him that he had not been in the Guild House almost since his father died, and, despite the contempt which he shared with Tarrian for much of the Guild's work these days, he felt an unexpected twinge of nostalgia as he looked up at the splendidly decorated entrance hall with its high-domed ceiling and stone-balustraded balconies.
The place, indeed the Guild, had meant a great deal to his father and he had always played an active part in its affairs, fighting diligently to maintain the integrity of the craft against an increasing tide of commercialism and downright quackery that was even then beginning to overwhelm it.
A pack thing, I suppose, he thought ironically as the memories fluttered in the pit of his stomach.
'Come on.’ Tarrian's voice interrupted his reverie. The wolf had reached the central well and was clattering busily down the wide stairway somewhat to the consternation of two dignified souls in formal regalia who were coming up it. Both were carrying large cats which they embraced protectively as Tarrian passed.
Antyr uttered a brief prayer of thanks that Tarrian had not given the two men the benefit of his normal opinion of such ‘flatulent peacocks’ as he passed by them, and a much longer prayer that he had not started on their Companions. It was merely a postponement however.
'Those two must have been lost,’ Tarrian said sarcastically as he reached the library door and stood waiting for Antyr to open it. ‘I doubt either of them could read anything except their fee notes. And did you see those disgusting moggies? Imagine having one of those crawling about your dreams. Peeing everywhere and coughing up fur balls.’ He concluded with a retching sound.
Antyr glanced round quickly, mortified by this unwarranted onslaught yet trying not to laugh. ‘Just remember where you are and keep your thoughts to yourself, dog, or one of the … moggies … will be calling you before the Council for unbecoming conduct.’ He managed some sternness, with an effort, but Tarrian just chuckled malevolently to himself.
'Get in,’ Antyr said fiercely, pushing open the door to the library.
As if in confirmation of Tarrian's brutal comments, however, the library was silent and deserted and it had a stale, neglected air about it. Faint haloes wavered about the few lamps that were lit as if the previous night's fog had returned here to recover itself.
Both Antyr and Tarrian wrinkled their noses in dismay. ‘Your father used to spend hours here,’ Tarrian said, sober now. ‘Looking for things that might help his clients. Looking for things that might help him understand you. Looking for anything that would make him a better Dream Finder. And there was always someone else here as well. And it was bright. Not like this. It's…'
'Like a catacomb.’ Antyr finished Tarrian's eulogy.
They stared round in silence.
The library was a large, annular room, radiating out from the central stairwell and occupying much of the basement of the Guild House. Circular rows of shelves stood tall, silent and burdened in the gloaming, marking out shadowy circular pathways which were cut at intervals by equally shadowy radial paths to form a rudimentary maze of dark high-walled alleyways. Here and there, small clusters of tables and chairs stood huddled together under solitary lamps as if gathered there for protection against the weight of darkness that surrounded them.
Antyr chewed his lip uncertainly, feeling suddenly helpless as he stared at the rows of books and scrolls vanishing into the gloomy distance. It was said that the library contained every known written work on the art and craft of Dream Finding and certainly it needed no keen perception to realize that a lifetime could be spent in study in such a place.
Yet would there be an answer here anyway? Despite Tarrian's positive denial, Antyr could not yet be certain that what had happened was not in some way his own doing.
He pulled a wry face. ‘I don't know that this is going to help,’ he said, his anxiety surfacing again. ‘We don't even know what we're looking for. Or, for that matter, why.’ He waved his arms around the waiting ranks of shelves. ‘And as for where we start…’ He shrugged in some despair.
Tarrian's tone was unexpectedly sympathetic. ‘Your father used to say, “If you don't know where to start. Start!” It's a very sound principle. Come on! Don't let this place intimidate you. Myths and Legends are over there if my memory serves me correctly.'
'Myths and Legends?’ Antyr queried in some surprise.
'Myths and Legends,’ Tarrian confirmed confidently. ‘Where else would we look? There's precious little in the standard texts that we don't already know and we'll get less than nothing from some of these modern learned papers.’ He placed a withering emphasis on the word ‘learned'. ‘What's happening has got to be something that's either never happened before or happened so long ago that everyone's forgotten about it, and my instincts are for the latter. Come on. Into the past.'
Antyr picked up a nearby lamp and struck it into life, then dutifully followed his Companion down the gloomy canyons formed by the lower shelves.
Tarrian's memory did serve him correctly and soon he was running along the aisles, enthusiastically dragging books from the shelves and issuing instructions to Antyr to collect those that he could not reach.
'That's enough, that's enough,’ Antyr cried, as he struggled with the lamp and the ninth volume that Tarrian had just pulled to the floor. ‘It'll take us a week just to read through these.'
'Have you never heard of skimming, for pity's sake?’ Tarrian replied heatedly. ‘Come on, don't…’ Further comment, however, was forestalled by an uncontrollable spasm that seized his snout and, after two of three tentative and grimacing starts, he let out a ferocious sneeze that sent a vibration running from his head to the very tip of his tail. Then another, and another. Then came a stream of abuse.
'It shouldn't be beyond the bounds of even this Guild to employ someone to dust this place occasionally.’ He blasted out another sneeze. ‘I've been in barns that were less dusty.'
'If you weren't so impatient, you wouldn't stir it up so much,’ Antyr offered unsympathetically.
'That's hardly the point, is it?’ Tarrian retorted crossly. ‘They should never have let this place get into such a mess. This isn't what we pay our Guild fees for…'
'Yes, yes,’ Antyr said indifferently, turning away and heading towards the nearest table with his burden.
Still muttering and emitting the occasional small but explosive splutter, Tarrian followed him. ‘There's a lot more, you know,’ he said.
Antyr dropped the books on to the table, and picked up the largest. ‘I'm well aware of that,’ he said. ‘But what are we doing with these, Tarrian? Just look at this.’ He brought the book close to the lamp and peered at the title intently.
'The Saga of MaraVestriss, Weaver of the Great Dream.’ He thrust the book at Tarrian, thumbing through it quickly to reveal pages black with densely packed print. ‘Or these.’ He waved at the others. ‘The Lore of the White Guardians. An Anthology of the Tales of the Knights of the Light-Defenders of the Golden Nexus. The History of Andrasdaran, the Fortress of the Gateway. What on earth can we find in these? We need logic and reason not superstition or the ramblings of ancient storytellers.'