“Is that…glue?”
“Not just any glue,” I answered. “It’s really thick…and it has sparkles in it.”
The silverfish’s antennae blurred with anticipation, and it legs began tap-tap-tapping on the floor, like an excited little dog getting so worked up it was going to start peeing any minute.
I slowly held the container of sparkle-glue out before me. “Back on Earth, silverfish eat more than just paper. They also eat the glue in book bindings. And this is really good glue. Expensive, top-of-the-line stuff, imported from an art supply store near the Louvre.”
The silverfish’s body began to undulate rapidly, almost as if it were swimming underwater, the strange motion a major reason for its species’ name. The giant insect took a single hesitant step forward, then a second…
“Whatever you do,” I said to Devona, “don’t move.”
Before she could ask why, the silverfish darted forward. I spun around and hurled the open container of glue through the nearest doorway. The silverfish became an argent blur as it scuttled past-missing us by only a few inches-and raced out of the room in mad pursuit of the treat I had brought it. A moment later loud, enthusiastic slurping noises came from the outer chamber, quickly followed by a heavy thud.
“Poison?” Devona asked.
I started to answer, but before I could say anything, a new sound disturbed the Library’s quiet. A soft papery rustling. A sheaf of torn book pages blew into the room on what I imagine was a musty, antiquity-laden breeze, tumbling and scratching against each other like dry autumn leaves caught in a windstorm. The pages stopped in front of us, whirled about in a column, faster and faster, closer and closer, until they merged together and resolved into the form of a friendly-faced, middle-aged man wearing granny glasses. He looked like Ben Franklin by way of Shakespeare’s tailor.
“There’s no need for poison,” Waldemar said. “A rich meal of French glue just makes the poor things logy.” He sighed. “I try my best to keep them out, but somehow they always manage to find their way in again.”
“Maybe if you wouldn’t keep leaving scraps of paper in the back alley for them to eat,” I said.
Waldemar grinned, displaying a small set of fangs. “And where would be the fun in that, I ask you?” He took my hand in both of his pale, pudgy ones and pumped vigorously. “Delighted to see you again, Matthew, my boy!”
“Good to see you too, Waldemar.” I was about to introduce Devona when he released my hands and took hers, shaking them just as energetically.
“Devona Kanti-it’s a privilege and a joy to finally meet you! And how is your esteemed father?”
Devona looked at Waldemar for a moment, his effusive greeting catching her off guard. I guess she hadn’t expected Nekropolis’s most respected historian to act like someone’s effusive uncle.
“He’s, uh, rather busy right now, actually,” she said.
Waldermar nodded. “Of course, of course. It is the anniversary of the Descension, after all. The three hundred and seventy-third, to be precise.” He paused and touched a finger to his lips. “Or is it three hundred and thirty-seven? Oh, well, it’s one or the other. I think.” Then he looked at me and brightened, as if he’d forgotten all about us and had just remembered.
“Now, how may I be of service to you and your lovely companion, Matthew?”
Waldemar’s befuddled scholar pose didn’t fool me. I’d known him too long. He was a vampire as old as Lord Galm, perhaps older. And when I looked closely into his gray eyes, I sometimes got a sense of the ancient, vast intelligence at work between them. I had no doubt he’d be able to tell us what we needed to know.
“We’d like to learn about a mystic artifact called the Dawnstone.”
Waldemar’s finger returned to his lips, only this time to tap them thoughtfully. “Dawnstone, Dawnstone…” His eyes got a far away look in them, and not for the first time after asking him a question, I had the impression that I had set a complicated process into motion, as if I’d asked a computer to divine the meaning of life and then balance my checkbook.
Waldemar began meandering about the room, muttering softly to himself, the words unintelligible, except for the occasional repetition of “ Dawnstone.”
Devona looked at me as if to ask what we should do now. I shrugged and started after Waldemar.
“Dawnstone, Dawnstone, Dawnstone…” He pulled books off the shelves, seemingly at random, flipped them open, and barely glanced at their pages before putting them back. Once, I swore he checked a book, replaced it, and then immediately removed and looked at it once more before moving on.
Curious, I pulled the book in question off the shelf myself and opened it. I wasn’t particularly surprised to find that the page I had chosen-like all the pages, in fact-was blank.
I reshelved the volume and wondered if all the books, scrolls, and parchments in this room-maybe in the entire Library-were also blank.
As I watched Waldemar continue randomly searching his collection, I had the impression that he wasn’t consulting books so much as sifting through the immense reaches of his unfathomably ancient mind, and that perhaps the Great Library itself was nothing more than a physical manifestation of his memories. And if that was true, what about the giant silverfish? Were they really pests or were they simply Waldemar’s way of forgetting?
Another thought occurred to me then. If Devona and I truly were standing somehow within Waldemar’s memories made real, what might happen if his absentmindedness wasn’t an act after all, and he really did forget we were here? Would we vanish, just two more minor memories, no longer needed? I didn’t want to think about it. I had all the existential dilemma I could handle just being a possibly soon-to-be-rotted-away-to-dust zombie, thank you very much.
“I have a number of interesting references regarding dawn,” Waldemar said as he continued looking. “Some lovely bits of poetry, and quite a few more references dealing with stone, stone cutting, stone working…Especially fascinating is a song cycle from an ancient aboriginal people dealing with a man who wanted to mate with a boulder shaped like a woman. His chief difficulty lay in his inanimate paramour’s lack of the requisite, ah, anatomy. He solved the problem by constructing a crude hammer and chisel and-”
“We just want to hear about the Dawnstone, Waldemar,” I cut in. “Not to be rude, but we’re in something of a hurry.”
He looked a bit hurt, but thankfully didn’t resume his story. Instead he took a volume which appeared to be bound in green scale from the shelf, flipped it open, and ran a finger along the righthand page. “Ah, yes, here it is! No wonder it took me so long to find it. The object in question is only mentioned in several obscure pre-Atlantean myths, and only once as the Dawnstone. Other names include the Eye of the Sun and-”
I must have been frowning because Waldemar looked at me, cleared his throat, and said, “So on and so forth. While the details of the myths vary somewhat, the basic story is the same. A loathsome demon carries off a beautiful young woman to a shadowy underworld with the intention of making her his bride. The maiden’s paramour, a strong and clever hero, ascends into the heavens and steals one of the Sun’s eyes. He takes it down into the underworld, and-after overcoming sundry obstacles-confronts the demon and unleashes the eye’s light. The creature of darkness cannot withstand the Sun’s all-powerful illumination and perishes. The hero escorts his love back to the surface world, and then returns the eye to its rightful owner, the Sun.”
Waldemar snapped the book shut. “Quite an amusing little fable. It rather puts one in mind of Orpheus and Eurydice, doesn’t it?”
“Is that all?” Devona asked, sounding like a kid who’s opened all her Christmas presents and discovered that Santa not only brought her underwear this year, it’s full of holes.
“I’m afraid so, my dear,” Waldemar said. “But I have quite a selection of other myths dealing with similar themes. For instance, there’s a story among the Native American Indians regarding-”