When the sorceress was gone, Estie found herself trembling. She felt that she had suffered an ordeal and gained nothing. If she had not done so before, she was learning to understand her husband’s anger now. The pressure of everything that she did not know, everything she feared, was making her fragile.

She needed to be stronger.

FIFTEEN

THE POWER AND THE COST

Thanks to Commander Forguile’s descriptions, Queen Estie thought that she was prepared for the sight of the library itself. Yet when Magister Oblique’s guide led her and Crayn onto the central floor of the great keep, she felt a rush of awe. She had entered a place of worship, a tower sanctified by its contents.

So long before dawn, there was no natural illumination. But lamps on the tables and cressets in the walls everywhere gave light. Level after level, the open rounds rose upward, fifteen, no, closer to twenty of them, each made like a balcony. The polished stone where Estie stood held a large number of trestle-tables without crowding—and without obstructing access to the many bookcases set around the walls. No doubt, each round above her held more bookcases. At this hour, none of the Repository’s inhabitants were using the space. If there were people on the higher levels, she could not see them. She and Commander Crayn with her guide seemed to be alone in a hallowed space.

Here and above her were books, tomes, scrolls, folios of loose parchment; maps, commentaries, descriptions, primers; works of erudition like Hexin Marrow’s sorcerous researches; texts of argument and counter-argument; histories, genealogies, legends, fables, myths. The knowledge of a world.

The Queen’s guide was a bright-faced young apprentice named Truly. He was learning to be a scribe, an area of study that he addressed with gusto. Eager to please, he delighted in pointing out bookcases where Amika’s Queen might find interesting volumes. The full history of Amika and Belleger, perhaps, including the tale of how they became separate realms? A discussion of the beliefs and customs of the most holy devotees? Or would she prefer the collected writings of the Cult of the Many? There were many. And, of course, texts on every conceivable form of warfare. Then, high on the upper rounds, the library held its vast understanding of sorcery.

There could be no greater task, declared Truly, than the work of the scribes, who labored to preserve the oldest and most decayed documents for the benefit of future generations.

Her guide spoke at length; but Estie ignored him. Instead, she stood where she was, gazing upward with her mouth open. She imagined that the answer to every desire and misery was here, available for the simple price of reading.