He took a few steps forward, gently letting the door shut, in the draft that blew. He walked a few paces to the side to find the source of the light.
Right underneath the shelf that held the book he had been reading, and right beside the table where the History of Amefel still rested—something was there, something that, for no conscious reason, terrified him. It glowed like one baleful eye, of something which, if it were a beast, was too large to be in the room.
His ring tingled. But it protected him. He kept an eye on the glow and saw it neither grow nor shrink as he edged around two tables away, with those barriers between him and it, and looked under all, to see nothing but a glowing spot on the plaster.
It was something that wanted to be found, there was no other way to think of it: he had felt a need today to be at that table, that shelf, and he had sat there reading, searching, had he not? But he had never found what satisfied him, not even reading on into the dark.
He squatted, below the level of the tables and watched it, and moved forward one table, on his knees.
What glowed was not in the room. It was behind the plaster, as if a fire burned there. It was everything he wanted. It made no sense, but he knew it was. He crept all the way to that wall, and touched the plaster, feeling nothing but the tingle of the ring on his finger, and an answering tingle from what was behind the wall.
He had no tool to use, could think of none in the library that he had seen. He took off his belt and tried the only metal he had about him, the capped end of his belt, against the plaster, which was soft, but it was not nearly soft enough, and it would take time. He had marked the place—he could find it, even if the glow vanished with light, and now he sought to find a sharper tool somewhere in the room.
He crawled out, went to the fireside, and took a sharp bit of kindling from the little pile of wood that fed the library fireplace, but that would not be sharp or stout enough. He cast it into the coals in frustration, then, indeed, the fireplace poker offered itself. He took it, and brought it back to the counter, and knelt and dug into the plaster.
Powder fell onto the stones, damning evidence. He knew—he knew in the back of his mind that if he didn’t get this thing now, before the librarian came in, he could never get at it. He could pile books there. If he got whatever it was and got out, he could pile books where the plaster had fallen and conceal the hole. Hadn’t Paisi had taught him how to go quietly, how to cover his traces? Paisi had said he was teaching him hunting and woodcraft, but Paisi had confessed that he had been a thief, when there had been only Paisi to support Gran, and Paisi had said he could be a thief, for a good reason—
He had to be, now. It was his need to have what was buried here; it was his right to have it, when fate and his mother’s spite had taken every other thing away from him. If he and Paisi were to find their way in the world, he had to know all the truths people kept from him, and he had to protect them both, the way Paisi had protected Gran as long as he could. Now it was his mother’s sorcery that threatened their lives, and he had to have this thing to protect them all, before his mother’s spite could do worse to them than it had already done…
He reached stone, and where mortar should have been, found only more soft plaster binding the stones together. He dug out one ill-set stone, and opened a hole where light failed to reach, and a small glow within. It died like a fading coal. He extended the poker into the darkness, and disturbed something hard and light, that lifted a little and slipped back in. The poker felt only cold to the touch when he drew it out.
He reached into the gap blindly, fearing to touch he knew not what noxious thing, but feeling he must. His fingers found a little flat and very dusty packet.
Carefully he worked it about and drew it and his hand out of the narrow gap undamaged.
He turned around, sat angling his prize toward the starlight from tall, uncurtained windows. It was a codex, scarcely bigger than his palm.
He clambered back to his feet and opened the little book in the middle, but there was not enough light on this side of the room to read what was in it. He took it to the fireside, where the stick he had thrown in had taken light.
The letters crawled in front of his eyes, refusing to take shape, as if tears blinded him, or as if his eyes had grown as dim as Gran’s.
He felt the burning of his mother’s attention, felt it bearing down his back, as if she were standing there right at his back.
Get it! she seemed to say to him, as fiercely as she had ever spoken. You’ve gone this far. Now bring it to me.
“Boy,” another voice seemed to say to him—a faint, far voice, that for all the world was Gran’s.
He looked up. He saw Gran, standing right there, like a figure in smoke. “Boy, don’t dare let her have it.”
He felt as if he were smothering, as if he could not get his next breath. The fire crackled and snapped, and part of the stick fell, flaring bright flame as it did.
Fear became horrid and acute, choking him. He shut the little book in fear, and at his next blink, Gran wasn’t there. She never had been there, he thought. It was his mother who had put this shameful theft into his head, this fever like the grip of a nightmare, that he now knew wasn’t right—it was his mother that had come whispering into his ear, encouraging his fears, telling him the truth could be had, and that the truth would save him and all he loved… it was a lie. It was all a lie, and he had looked at the book, and the letters wouldn’t take shape for him.
Vision was the word; had not Tristen said that? Vision.
Knowledge. Answers held from him all his life. Dark places. The more he tried to see, frantic with fear, the more he couldn’t remember the other word, and couldn’t think what he ought to do with this thing he had brought into the light, except something that looked and sounded like Gran had said not to obey his mother.
A book, a book, for the gods’ sweet sake, exactly what one would expect in a library, a little codex that could be hidden so easily among all these books and stacks, but for some reason, and by some one, it had been hidden in a wall instead. And for all the years of his life, his mother had made no requests for any material thing, but she wanted this—this, after a decade and more without a request.
Just holding it now made his hand tingle, and made the ring on his finger glow soft, safe blue, not the baleful red of the glow he had followed. It seemed safer, by that, in his hand, than it had been where he had found it. When he had touched Tristen’s wards, it had felt like that, the tingling, and his heart had raced, had it not? It was only fear.
He felt a prickling at his nape. His mother still watched him. His mother wanted him, suddenly raged at him, like a silent shriek… but Gran had said, still quietly, as she did all things—no.
His mother should not have it. There was nothing good his mother wanted in the world, and if her desire had driven him to such behavior—and if she wanted this little book now, then he had to prevent it getting to her. He could put it back where he had found it. But shoving it back into the wall would never serve, not after all the damage he had done, and the plaster tracked about. The librarian would go to Lord Crissand, and Lord Crissand would want to see the object of his mad search, and once it was in the open, it was apt to theft by anybody else his mother might move, like a precious jewel left lying undefended in the street.
Footsteps sounded in the hall, in such great stillness, more than one footfall. His pounding heart leapt with a second fright, and he froze where he stood, then realized that the firelight he had roused might show through the seam of the doors and in those tall, uncurtained windows. Someone might wonder. Someone might open that door.