'Here,' hissed Osidian.
Carnelian joined him and saw the chameleon carved dancing into the spindle's tip above the six stacked reels. How many people of my House? he signed.
Osidian shrugged. 'Your House is as ancient as the Commonwealth.' The beads clinked like armour as he ran his fingers down the stack. The reels are fat. The blood-taint of maybe,' he shrugged again, 'eight twenties of generations.'
Carnelian took hold of the topmost reel. He could feel the beads shifting under his hands. He lifted the reel carefully off the chameleoned spindle. It was as heavy as a stone. Osidian pointed out a chair. Carnelian carried the reel against his chest and impaled it on the chair spike. He was glad when Osidian closed the lantern's shutter. For some reason, the reel's rusty blacks were reminding him of massacres.
The beads soon absorbed him. They were simple to learn. Most of the beadcord was made up of the numbers one to nineteen, with a bead like a berry for zero. It was strange to feel the first name he came to was his own. He ran the cold, rough beads through his fingers again and heard them say his name, Carnelian. The beads after that were his blood-taint: zero, zero, one, nineteen, zero, nine, fourteen, sixteen, nine, thirteen, fifteen. The next name along the beadcord was his mother's, Azurea, followed by the first few beads of her blood-taint: zero, zero, zero. He ran the beads through his fingers again. Three zeros. Blood-rank three. Such purity. It made him proud. He read the next numbers almost trying to feel something of his mother in them. Two, one, three, nineteen, nine, sixteen, seventeen, ten. There was nothing there but cold iron. Beyond the separator bead was Suth Sardian, his father, and the numbers: two zeros matching his and then a three, fifteen, nineteen, fifteen again, ten, three, two, ten.
He read on, finding Spinel's blood-taint and the others of his House's second lineage. Next came the third lineage. Then he found his grandfather's name, his grandmother Urquentha's, the parents of Spinel and so on, further and further back in time. His father's father's father. Numbers and strange names rolled through his head as he wound them up from the ancient past.
He released the beadcord, sat back bewildered, awed by the tale of years, feeling he was like the Pillar of Heaven holding up a skyful of ancestors.
'I've had enough,' he whispered. He had forgotten Osidian. Convinced suddenly that he was alone, Carnelian felt around. His hand found him.
'I am here, Carnelian. Where else do you think I would be?'
'Looking up your own bloodline.' There was a long silence. 'I know my blood,' Osidian said. 'I did not mean-'
'It does not matter,' whispered Osidian. 'Can you find your own way back?' 'Well, yes
'Farewell then,' said Osidian and with a waft of air was gone.
Later, in his chamber in the Sunhold, Carnelian was wondering for the hundredth time if he would ever see Osidian again. He had replayed those last few words endlessly in his mind. Each time he had felt a stabbing in his guts. Why had he so carelessly offended him? His stomach ached as the words circled round in his head like carrion crows.
He went to bed early and ate nothing. Sleep would not come. When it did, it brought dreams. All night he fumbled blindly over a stony beach seeking the pebble that would whisper to him its answer.
Carnelian awoke feeling tired. Sullenly, he determined he would not go to the moon-eyed door. He told himself that he did not want to. Eventually he had to confess he was reluctant to go in case Osidian should not be there. He turned his anger on himself until fear of never seeing Osidian again made him leap up. He rushed through his dressing, cursing. It was already morning.
He took less care going to the trapdoor than usual. Halfway down the steps he found that he was counting them, swore and stopped, though each footfall was like a bead slipping through his fingers. He thought he had prepared himself for the disappointment but when he reached the moon-eyed door he found its blank gaze withering. Osidian was not in his usual place. That was the end of it. Still, he could not bring himself to turn away. He heard the clink and saw it opening. Osidian walked out and Carnelian lurched a few steps towards him then stopped. 'Osidian.' Relief thinned his voice.
The boy's eyes were like summer sea. He twitched a smile. 'What shall it be today, my Lord?'
Carnelian tried to think through the blood pulsing in his head. He ran through what he remembered Osidian had said the day before. 'History?' he suggested.
Osidian showed surprise. 'I thought you did not like history.'
There is more to history than conquests.' He racked his mind for a topic. For some reason he recalled the Masters arguing theology that night on the watch-tower roof.
The beginning.'
The creation?'
The beginning of the Commonwealth. The Quyans. The Great Death. Does the library contain reels going that far back?'
Osidian's brow creased. 'I have never sought such antiquity. What you speak of is more religion than history. Still…'
Carnelian grew calm watching Osidian thinking. There was so much he wanted to know about this strange boy but he feared to make even the smallest enquiry.
There is one place to find out if such a reel exists.'
'Let us go there, then.'
Osidian made his hand into a barrier sign. 'Less haste. We will have to be careful of the Wise. Most of them are busy calculating the Rains' arrival, arranging the Rebirth; that is why we have seen nothing of them. But what you seek lies at the library's heart, the very centre of their web. Many will still be there and they will detect the slightest vibration. We must be as silent as shadows.'
Carnelian nodded, his pulse quickening again.
Carnelian crept into the library after Osidian, who was holding the lantern up to light their way. After a few chambers, Carnelian reached out to touch Osidian's shoulder. The boy turned round, raising his eyebrows.
The lantern? Carnelian signed.
Osidian grinned. Yes, it is one.
Carnelian made a face at him. It is very bright.
Here the only eyes are ours, replied Osidian, constructing complicated signs with his free hand. The light will help you amid bumping into anything.
Carnelian gave a snort and they went on.
He soon lost count of the chambers. They were moving between the benches of another when he almost ran into Osidian who had come to a sudden halt. Carnelian followed the direction of his gaze and saw a Sapient with his pleated waxy noseless face, the black almonds of his eyes alive with malice. He came round the bench towards them. When he was between two benches, he stretched the four fingers of each hand out to either side. The fingertips settled on the benches like feathers failing from the air. The hands tensioned like exquisite traps. The Sapient stood motionless, a spider waiting.
From the corner of his eye, Carnelian caught a tiny white movement. He turned his head slowly, keeping an eye on the Sapient. Osidian, his eyes round, signed with his free hand, Not a blink. His fingers feel everything.
The Sapient's hands jumped up from the benches. Carnelian focused fully on the creature as he came treading towards them, his long white feet sucking to the floor like mouths, his fingers swimming, sensing currents in the air.
Carnelian looked desperately for an escape. The coldness of the floor was making his feet ache but he dared not move. Sweat was trickling down the gutter of his spine. Some was oozing down his nose. He feared that it might collect in a drop and fall, betraying them. He drew his shoulders back, his head further still, drawing away from the four-fingered hands. The Sapient stopped between two new benches. Again, he deployed his hands then froze. Carnelian looked from the cages of fingers to the black insect eyes. He could smell the Sapient's musty odour.