She walked up the hidden stairs to the blue book cave. He was there in one of the chairs, with his nose buried in the little white book, flipping pages back and forth, his thumb bookmarking a spot near the back.
“You saw a book,” she said as she entered the cave.
Rek didn’t even look up. “The whole room, it was the whole room that went cold. You should have seen old Minyel, he looked like someone stuck a book up his butt! It felt crazy, like I was as tall as the whole spire, and I can even remember the words. The poem I mean. It was this one right here.” He held open the book to where his thumb had marked it.
“Slow down, Rekness.” She sat across from him, took her hood down and let her hair flood out. “Tell me exactly what happened. Slowly.”
So he did, reasonably slowly.
“Thermaya...” Sila said. “My my. Certainty not the sort of Artwork one learns before their scholarright.”
Rek beamed.
“Tell me more about book you saw. Before the poem book.”
He bit his lip, thinking. “It had a green cover. Or maybe it was blue. I didn’t really see much.”
“No context around it either? You didn’t see a shelf, a room, a library?”
“I don’t think so. It was just sort of like… I dunno. It feels like it was like... from a dream...” He frowned. “Sorry.”
She waved the apology away. “No, this is good. You are making progress.”
“Will you teach me more... what is it? Therma...”
“Thermaya. Me? No. That won’t help you with your bullies anyway, not unless you want to give them nasty colds.”
“Oh. What will you teach me? I’m ready.”
“Subtle Artwork. Better probing, probewarding, probeminding, better Bodyanchor. For now.” She added the last bit when she saw the disappointment blooming on his face.
“Probewarding?” Rek said. He wore the expression of someone who had bitten into a rotten grape.
“You don’t want to outright render these bullies of yours and get yourself expelled, Rekness. I need you present and in good standing at the Dance if I’m to put you on the fast track, remember?”
“Yeah, sure. But... Flek–”
“We will deal with them soon enough. For now we need to focus on finding the second book. You said that Minyel had insulted your girlfriend right before you had the vision?”
“Ye– wh– she’s not my girlfriend though.”
“Did your date not go well?”
“No it did... I think. And she likes the poems. But– ”
“She might be able to help us in finding this book, Rekness. You two need to take on your foes as a team. She is not just a prop for you to cart around at the Mountain Dance, you know.”
That got him going. “I know she’s not a prop! Why does-”
“Good. I need you to be spending time with Shaynike. You can show her the poem book. See if she can lend insight to the book-quest. I hear she is quite smart.”
“She is. Smart.”
“And keep these meetings, and this place,” she gestured around the cave, “between us, best you can.”
He nodded. She stood, piled her hair back up and donned her hood. She moved over to his chair and perched herself on the armrest. He looked up at her, still clutching the book. Sila laid a hand on the white cover. “Of all the trickiest book-quests in this library, this is the one that Minyel was never able to crack. You just cracked it. I think his time as your chief tutor is drawing to an end. Tomorrow we have off, so I will see you then.”
“I have detention. With Stoneworth.” he said.
“Not for the whole day, I trust. Find me here when you’re done,” she rose and made for the stairs.
“Sila?”
“Yes?”
“Did old Minyel really say he never cracked it?”
She smiled. “In a manner of speaking.”
She wound down the narrow steps, the smooth wood of the surrounding bookcase pressing in close. The blue light from above filtered down for a while, but there was a section in middle of passage that was pitch black, unless you used some Softshadow to light the way. Sila let the blackness envelop her as she descended. It helped her think.
The thin probe she’d sent into the aging Head Tutor had come back fairly fragmented and confused, his Bodyanchor was tough stuff even when he wasn’t actively minding it. But she had pieced together some history of his time unraveling the various puzzles and book-quests in the Grand Library. The book of Daxish love poems had stood out – not because it was one he couldn’t beat, but because it was among a few that he had never bothered to attempt.
She couldn’t be sure why the old wretch had not bothered – her probe hadn’t got nearly that deep – but she had a hunch, and had made a bet. In the darkness of the hidden stairwell, she weighed the situation. She knew the rules of the book that she sought... the book that was not really a book at all but something of an ancient capstone, a lid on a deep core of aspectral power that she was sworn to let free. Sila let a shuddering sigh escape her. So many people had died... so many souls had been rendered so that she might learn the deadly rules of the Leech Lock of Massus.
She thought of Rekness, and the girl’s honor that had triggered the vision.
She thought of Minyel, who was old, old, old. And bitter. Had his heart ever loved?
She thought of the book with the white cover, marked by the faint blush of Wayfaring Artwork. Daxish love poems.
And she thought of the theme of the book-quest, writ traditionally in plain sight as the first line of the first stanza.
It all fit. This had to be it. Green light was filtering up now from below. Sila felt the weight of the countless years on her, soon to be lifted. If she was right. She had to be right.
She emerged from the stairs, at the base of an enormous bookcase, itself surrounded by a thicket of smaller, disorganized shelves. Knowing it would make little difference now, she murmured that first stanza out loud anyway.
“O, that eternity of two young hearts,
That never ended, never began,
That answered time, answered distance,
That burned so hot as they ran.”