The Reader (5 page)

A single line had caught her eye. Just a few markings clustered together, like the footprints of a sandpiper that has abruptly taken flight. They stood out because they were alone;
the other marks paraded on and on across the paper, but these ones were flanked by white space.

She leaned so close to the paper that the tip of her nose nearly touched it, and she inhaled its pulpy odor. Furrowing her brow, she fought for the right sounds, willing her tongue and teeth to work—the whispered consonant, the hiss.

This

Grinning, she smacked the paper with the flat of her hand. She said it once more, memorizing the order of the shapes: “This!” The next word was faster:

is

And the one after, even quicker:

a

The last one made her pause. She struggled with the pieces, trying to force them together, to make them make sense.

“B-buh . . . buh . . .”

Then it came to her, in all its clarity, leaping like light out of a prism, into bands of color:

book
.

She said the whole thing again, more sure of herself this time: “This is a book.” Her voice sounded awkward and resonant among the whispering trees, but she said it again, all together:

This is a book.

Like saying so made it true. She said it again, and again, not entirely certain that the final word meant anything, although the more she said it, the more it made sense. It was a
book
. This strange rectangular thing had named itself.

It had a name.

“Book.” Sefia grinned.

For a moment, she felt as if the marks were bright and burning. Gold crept in at the corners of her vision. Then she blinked, and the whole world flooded with light, whirling all around her in wide interconnected circles, up into the sky and among the stars. She'd seen the light before, but this one showed her the world was
full
of little golden currents, a million of them and a trillion motes of light, all perfect and exact and brimming with meaning.

The sight of it all knocked her back in the hammock. The book fell from her hands.

Magic.
It made her feel like she was peering past the edges of the stars into whatever lay beyond.

She could feel herself, dimly, still in her own body, still sitting in her hammock, but there was so much brilliant, churning light she felt like she could be swept away at any second, lost forever in the sea of gold.

It was terrifying to see so much. To drown, flailing, in light. Her stomach turned. Her temples throbbed. She clung to the side of the hammock, as if that would anchor her, as if that would stop the world from spinning.

Then she blinked, and it was gone, and Sefia lay there dizzy and gasping, trying to focus on the black forms of the trees, on a single star, to stop her vision from reeling.

What was this magic?

How did her parents come by it? And why did her enemies want it?

Did Nin know was it was for?

The unanswered questions wheeled around her as she
pressed her hands to her head to stop the throbbing in her skull. The trees hunkered in close around her.

She repeated the words:

This is a book.

They were so small. There were dozens of other marks, hundreds of other words, just on that one sheet of paper—and on the next, more marks, more words . . . and the next and the next and the next.

Sefia thought of her vision, that sudden dizzying feeling that everything was huge and connected. Were there signs for each of the stars, and grains of sand on the beach? For
tree
or
rock
or
river
? For
home
? Would they look as beautiful as they sounded, hovering in the air?

It was as if, all this time, she'd been locked out, catching glimpses of some magical world through the crack beneath a door. But the book was the key, and if she could figure out how to use it, she'd be able to open the door, uncovering the magic that lay, rippling and shifting in unseen currents, beyond the world she experienced with her ears and tongue and fingertips.

And once she understood them all—all the signs, all the words—she'd find out the meaning of the symbol on the cover, and she'd find out why her family had been taken, and who had done it, and how to hunt them down.

T
wo weeks ago, just days after his fourteenth birthday, Lon would never have believed his life could change so drastically or so fast.

There'd been the usual morning traffic at the south gate—farmers and merchants heading up to Corabel's tiered heights, sailors fresh from the sea, smelling of salt and mischief—but many of them were regulars, onto his tricks, so he didn't work particularly hard at coaxing them to his table.

He slid the small brazier of coals closer to him, then back, a little to the left, and again to the right. He'd been clinging to the dwindling hope that his parents would return for his birthday and whisk him away from the city on some fantastic voyage to a distant land, where he'd begin an apprenticeship with a great seer, only to be kidnapped by a sand pirate desperate to find the cure for the sickness that plagued his beautiful daughter.

But his parents had been gone for six months, traveling with a troupe of other acrobats and actors and street performers. They didn't make enough to hire messengers, so he had no idea when they'd be back. He didn't even know if they were still in the kingdom of Deliene or if they'd traveled south to the other islands.

Sighing, Lon sprinkled a pinch of incense over the brazier, and in the sweet-scented smoke that spiraled from the embers, he felt as if his life were unraveling before him: a string of days that would turn into years, each one the same as the last, telling fortunes by the city gate, until he grew too feeble to carry his table out onto the street.

As the smoke dispersed, he spied an old man wandering through the crowd, his graying shoulder-length hair uncombed, his eyes darting wildly from the terra-cotta rooftops and ornamented iron balconies back to the cobblestone streets as if it were his first time in Corabel. You could always spot visitors to Deliene's capital by their bewildered looks and crooked necks as they tried to take in all the busy sights of the city on the hill.

Squinting, Lon studied him carefully. The man's skin was dark and wrinkled as a walnut shell, though there was little sun damage on his face and hands. His sweeping velvet robes were ill suited to travel on the crowded streets, and as other passersby stepped on his trailing hems, Lon caught sight of his soft slippers, the uppers already splitting from the soles.

He must work inside,
Lon observed,
but he left the house today without thinking to change his clothes.
In a hurry? Or just absentminded? And if he was a visitor to Corabel, why did he look like he had just stepped out of his house in his dressing gown?

“Hey, grandfather!” Lon called. “Over here!”

Blinking, the old man looked up. He seemed to have trouble focusing.

He probably wears glasses.
Lon stood, waving him over.

The old man made his way through the handcarts and fishmongers fresh from the sea, stubbing his toes on the cobbles and bumping into sailors on shore leave. He collapsed gratefully on the short stool Lon offered him, dabbing at his brow with the edge of his embroidered sleeve.

Lon grinned. After that, it only took a little prodding to learn the old man's name—Erastis—and a little more to get him to exchange a few copper zens to have his fortune told.

“Take a pinch of incense and sprinkle it over the coals,” Lon explained, pocketing the man's coins. “I'll be able to see what's in store for you in the smoke.”

Obediently, Erastis did as he was told. The fire crackled and through the smoke, Lon began scrutinizing him, mentally noting the callus on the middle finger of his right hand, the ink stains and the stray hair on his embroidered sleeve, the curve of his back and shoulders, the purple shadows beneath his eyes, the shallow indentations on the bridge of his nose.

But Erastis didn't bat an eye when Lon explained that he wore glasses, that he rarely went out but was on an important errand, that he spent most of his time hunched over a table, inking fine details with a sable brush.

The old man smiled, creasing his already wrinkled face. “Any con artist could tell me that. I heard
you
were special.”

Lon balked. “From who?”

“You tell me.”

Never one to back down from a challenge, Lon swept his hands through his dark hair, making it stand up at the ends. Inhaling deeply, he stared straight into Erastis's hazel eyes. He felt his awareness begin to split in two as the bright colors and the clatter of traffic began to fade, replaced by his perception of the world that went beyond sight and sound and smell. Usually, all it took was some observation and a few leading comments, and his clients would practically tell him what they wanted to hear. But when he needed it, there was always this double vision. He needed to concentrate to divide his consciousness between the physical world and the shining one beneath it, and he always came up sick to his stomach, as if he'd swallowed too much seawater, but in the worst of times this extra sense got him paid and kept him fed, and he was more than a little proud of it.

He could look at the detail on a patched sleeve and watch its history unfold before him in scattered images: old mottled hands sewing in the guttering candlelight, a grandfather on his deathbed, a journey to the capital to register his passing with the Historians in the Hall of Memory.

If he examined the empty setting on an old brooch, he'd see what happened to the missing gem: a miserly master, a midnight theft, a pawnbroker, ailing children, and draughts of foul-smelling medicine.

Lon blinked, and his extra sense swam into focus. Bands of gold flooded over the old man's head and shoulders, streaming down his arms to his slender hands, where they pooled with meaning.

And he knew why Erastis had come.

“This is only the third time in the past decade that you've left home, but someone named Edmon said it was important.” Lon passed a hand across his face, surprised. “He said
I
was important. He said you'd want to meet me. ‘Because the Library has been without an Apprentice for too long.'”

Lon blinked again, and his extra sense ebbed out of him. The light disappeared, leaving him swaying slightly as he fought off the dizziness, the nausea. “What's a Library? How'd he know where I was in the first place?”

“Your gifts.” Erastis tucked his hair behind his ears and leaned forward. “Other people are born with talents like yours. You've heard of them, I'm sure: seers, conjurers, makers of magic weapons. Most legendary figures have some sort of ability that makes them noteworthy.”

Lon beamed. “Like the man with the strength of an ox? Like the jeweler who made the Cursed Diamonds of Lady Delune?”

“They're amateurs compared to us. We can teach you to use your gifts with the precision of a scalpel.”

“Who
are
you?”

“We are a society of readers.” Erastis smiled. “People like you.”

Readers.
Lon tested the word on his tongue, though the reverence in the old man's voice kept him from saying it aloud.

“We were formed long ago,” the old man continued, “before any of the Historians can remember, when each wave of history erased everything that had come before. All was chaos and darkness, and into that darkness we became the light, charged with the protection of all the citizens of Kelanna.”

Lon frowned. Ever since the resolution of the blood feud between the Ken and Alissar provinces, Deliene had been doing all right, but every day he heard news of war in Everica, of famine and ruination in Liccaro, the Desert Kingdom. “You're not doing a great job of it, are you?”

“Eh, you try protecting an entire world from itself.”

“Isn't that why you're here?”

“True.” Erastis smiled ruefully. “We have great plans for you.”

He described the wondrous feats of magic Lon could achieve if he joined them. They'd walk among the mountains and across seas, like the adventurers and outlaws that filled his daydreams, all oceans and sailing ships and
pop
s of gunfire. Their deeds would bring peace to an unstable world, preserved in legend among the stars.

“There's never been peace like that. Not once,” Lon pointed out.

“There will be.”

“How do you know?”

“We have the Book.”

Lon hadn't known what the Book was, but he could feel his path forking before him: Down one path was the life of a street performer, spinning fortunes for spare change. Maybe one day his parents would take him with them. Maybe they'd never return.

Down the other path lay the unknown, with the promise of power and danger and the kind of great purpose he'd always imagined for himself . . . and he knew he had to find out what that purpose was.

He used his meager savings to leave a message for his parents at the main post and left Corabel with Erastis that night.

The next day, he entered into his new life as the Apprentice Librarian.

• • •

T
he Library itself was more than Lon could have imagined. It had been built into the side of a mountain, overlooking granite peaks and a valley carved by ancient glaciers. The north wall of the Library was made entirely of glass, with doors leading to a terraced greenhouse that refracted light like a prism.

The Library had a domed ceiling and stained glass windows and balconies guarded by bronze statues of past Librarians. The walls and marble columns were hung with electric lamps that bathed the rooms in plentiful golden light. Electricity! It enthralled him with its mystifying machinery; the rest of the world was still using candles and kerosene lamps.

A sharp
thwack
brought him out of his reverie, and Lon snapped to attention. Erastis, the Master Librarian, was tapping the chalkboard with the tip of a long stick. Lon had been right, of course: years of poring over manuscripts had given the Librarian severe myopia, and he wore thin half-moon spectacles on the end of his nose. Already, Lon had learned that when he rushed through his lessons, Erastis would glare at him over the rims of his glasses, stern and judgmental.

Just like now.

“Tee,” Erastis prompted.

Lon was supposed to be working on his letters, though he'd
memorized the alphabet before the end of his first week, and now found these exercises dull.

T
“Tee,” he repeated dutifully. His tongue tapped the backs of his teeth.

A slow, thin smile spread across Erastis's face. He tilted his head, as if he were listening to music. “Splendid, and . . . ?”

H
“Aitch.”

I
“Aye.” Lon's attention wandered again.

In the center of the main floor was a circle of five curved tables fitted with reading lamps, inkstands, and little drawers for pens, linen bags of pounce and sandarac, blotting papers, lead pencils, gum erasers, magnifying lenses, straightedges—anything you might need for writing or copying. Steps led to more tables at the edges of the room, where caramel-colored wooden shelves reached up to balconies furnished with velvet couches and more alcoves of bookshelves behind.

There were thousands of manuscripts in this room. Some of the oldest were in desperate need of restoration, their bindings fraying, their pages speckled with mold, and Erastis often spent his afternoons repairing torn pages and reattaching loose spines while the Library's blind servants dusted the shelves, though they never touched the texts themselves.

All the servants in the Main Branch, including the ones who served the Library, were blind. To protect the words, Erastis said. To ensure that the power they held would not fall into the wrong hands.

The manuscripts were divided into Fragments, texts copied out of the Book, word for word in painstaking script, by other
Librarians, long dead; and Commentaries, interpretations and meditations on the meanings of various passages, indexes and appendices and tomes filled with definitions and etymologies and cross-references. Masters and more advanced Apprentices used the Library's books to further their studies, to learn from the past, to plan for the future. But Lon wouldn't be able to examine them until the Master Librarian said he was ready.

Erastis was working on his own Fragments now, copying sections of the Book no one had read before, to preserve the writings in case the Book was lost—or worse, destroyed. Except for the missing texts that had been lost in the Great Fire, you could find enormous amounts of information from the Book on those shelves: records of noble lineages, histories of the provincial border wars, prophecies of things to come. Despite all this, Erastis estimated that they had reproduced only a small fraction of the Book.

“Much of it is useless,” he'd said, idly waving a calligraphy brush through the air. “I've studied pages upon pages of the history of a single stone.”

“Why bother copying it, then?” Lon had asked.

The Librarian had answered, “Because a single stone can alter the course of a river.” And when Lon had rolled his eyes, he'd added, “And because it is written.”