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Chapter Fifty-Eight



Druadaen put out a hand to steady Aji Kayo as they navigated a narrow and slippery path between stalagmites festooned with Saqqari warning chops. The elderly scholar was the one who knew the way to their destination, but knowledge did not protect him from the potential missteps of advanced age.

However, he not only navigated the tightest and trickiest spots sure-footedly, but he occasionally avoided them altogether with nimble hops.

“It is just ahead,” he said reassuringly. “But this is a good place to stop.”

“You wish to rest?” Druadaen asked solicitously.

“No. Do you?” the First Scholar retorted impishly. “Actually, this cave has places to sit. The cavern known as The Vengeance of the Gods does not.” He lowered himself to a flat-topped stalagmite that resembled a decapitated mushroom. “Besides, this is a better place to talk. And since there are lanterns in here, a better place to read, as well.” He waggled his wispy gray-and-white eyebrows at Druadaen conspiratorially. “And it is very private. Which I conjecture you knew, and which is why you proposed this particular outing instead of meeting in a more comfortable location. Such as near my hearth, furnished with ample wheat-wine.”

“That would have been very enjoyable,” Druadaen agreed, “but this is far more prudent.”

Ai-ha!” exclaimed the scholar. “A young man who speaks the word ‘prudence’ with the gravity of an old one? You frighten me, Outrider Druadaen; what has happened to you?” he taunted.

“I suppose I have matured since last we met.”

“Is that what it is? Well, I do not think much of it! It makes you somber. And very dreary company!” He chuckled at Druadaen’s small smile and rueful nod. “However, your message was unusually cryptic.”

“I have become unusually cautious.”

“So I perceive. No longer the eager young fellow I met in the Archive, then.” He sighed. “Well, we should sit here or continue on. Which?”

Druadaen sat.

“So,” muttered Kayo out of the side of his mouth, as if he might be overheard by the stolid rocks, “a clandestine meeting. So very dramatic.”

“Probably unnecessary, but one can never tell.”

Aji nodded. “Yes: I know something of the ship on which you arrived. It was originally destined for Tlulanxu, was it not?”

Druadaen smiled. “You are unsurprisingly well informed.”

“And yet the master who hired that Uershaeli ship decided to come here, instead. No doubt incurring much greater costs doing so. Interesting.”

It was a testimony to just how well informed Aji was that he knew the ship’s itinerary and that it was not operating under the direction of its captain. “And you are probably also aware that it came up from the south.”

“I believe I heard something to that effect,” the scholar said with a small smile. “So tell me: What happened that you have come to Saqqaru instead of Dunarra?”

“Are you familiar,” Druadaen began, “with a place known as Imvish’al?”

Aji’s knowledge was evident in the question with which he replied. “Do you refer to the present-day archipelago or the ancient land? You have been there? You must tell me how that came to pass and what transpired!”

Which Druadaen did in considerable detail, often due to the unusual or incisive questions from the Saqqari First Scholar. At the end of the tale, he frowned. “And so you did not remove all the contents of the library?”

“We couldn’t, although Tharêdæath gave it serious consideration. But then we received a message from Dunarra that redirected us.”

“Here?”

“Yes, but only to provision ourselves for a longer journey.”

“Ah,” said Kayo, his face suddenly impassive. “Then this does concern the Hidden Archivist.”

Druadaen stared before he muttered, “If this Hidden Archivist is such a secret, then how does everyone seem to know about him except for me?”

Aji smiled, covered a small chuckle with the back of his hand. “Hardly so, my young friend. But you must understand: that role has existed for millennia—since before Tharêdæath was born—and those who have held that office have often influenced crucial events. The capture of the current one is a matter of great significance.”

“So I gathered. It’s not every day that a ship receives new orders when it is in the middle of the ocean and has not seen any new vessels in weeks.”

Kayo simply nodded.

“You do not seem surprised.”

“Should I be? Or should you? It seems to me you are no longer a stranger to the powers and prerogatives at the disposal of those who make policy or are the embodiments of it.”

Well, I guess that’s true enough. “Since the Orchid Throne seems to rely on your counsel in similarly urgent matters, I can’t help wonder if you have even more knowledge about our changed orders than I do. Or Tharêdæath, for that matter.”

Kayo shook his head. “Knowledge? No. Conjecture? Yes.” He shrugged. “Forces are being gathered to reclaim the Hidden Archivist. Ordinarily, that would have been done immediately, but I suspect it has taken this long to get reliable report of where he is being held…and by whom.”

Druadaen had a sneaking suspicion that he knew even more than that, but to press would not only be rude, but pointless: Aji Kayo was a loyal servant of the Orchid Throne and would not divulge what he had been charged to keep secret. “If so, that leaves me in an awkward position. I am still an Outrider, but my friends owe nothing to the Consentium. Yet, if they do not come with us, then they are stuck on Saqqaru. And they will have to spend most of the coin they have won just to find passage back to Ar Navir, since it is unknown if Tharêdæath’s ship will ultimately return here.” If it is still afloat, by that time.

Aji waved a leathery hand as if to swat away those problems. “I am sure that something may be arranged for them. Now, let us return to a more pressing matter: How did you leave things at the library of Imvish’al?”

“As best we could. A small group of guards remained there. Key accounts and references on various topics were identified and removed for conveyance to Mirroskye. There was talk of sending an expedition from Mirroskye itself, but the Iavarain with us were not optimistic that the Council would take action. Then we received our new orders, and here we are.”

Aji shook his head sadly. “Such a shame. Let us hope it does not end badly.” He peered sideways at Druadaen. “Now, why was your request for a visit worded with such care, and why in a place so convenient to clandestine purposes? Could it have something to do with what you found on Imvish’al?”

Druadaen produced a small book from inside his coat. “The more I thought back upon our earlier meetings, the more I became certain that your researches have been similar to mine…but focused on your homeland. I also began to suspect that you came to see the same impossibilities, the same conundrums that I did. But by the time you wished to investigate them more deeply, you had already sworn your oath to the Orchid Throne. Which would also mean that your ability to travel—as often as you needed and wherever your investigations might lead—was extremely limited.”

“And so?”

“And so, I think this may have been what you had hoped to find before you were compelled to work under such constraints.” He passed the book to the old scholar. “It is not the original, but I copied it as faithfully as I could. And, speaking for the Council of Mirroskye, Tharêdæath has promised that those who wish to see the original, to establish its provenance for themselves and to check the accuracy of their copies, may do so at request.”

“That is an unprecedented accommodation, among the Iavarain,” he said with a deep nod. He opened the book, glanced at its contents, closed it again. “How did you come to know I sought exactly this?”

Druadaen shrugged. “I began by presuming that the Orchid Throne’s records of Saqqaru’s origins were either purged long ago or were sealed. And if they were sealed, that put you on the horns of a dilemma: whether you were seeking to find the truth, or had done so and wished to share it, you had to do so without breaking any oaths of silence or secrecy you might have made to the Throne. So you had to find the proof outside Saqqaru. That’s why you visited the Archive Recondite so often and pored over the references on your own country.

“But because I read what you had—and often specifically consulted the very same references—I knew the limitations you had encountered. There was a great deal of tantalizing information available, but all of it was fragmentary, anecdotal, or inconclusive—such as the poems, and ships’ logs, and traveler’s journals that should have mentioned Saqqaru, but instead refer to this part of the ocean as a landless expanse.

“Then there are the navigation charts and guides that describe, in detail, carefully measured passages through these seaways but without ever encountering the land or people of Saqqaru—despite following courses which would have them sailing through hundreds of miles of plains and mountains. And although their nautical calculations could be challenged as ‘backward,’ their calendars seemed to bear them out. Their journeys from Mihal’j or Ar Navir simply could not have been made so swiftly had there been a landmass in the way.

“But all of those accounts were too scattered, too fragmentary, to be considered proof. So, I went in search of it.” He glanced at the tome lying in Aji’s hands.

The old man’s eyes had either become rheumy or shiny. “You have observed and learned much, young Druadaen,” he said. “I thank you for the book.”

Druadaen touched a marker he had left in it. “I think you will find this section particularly gratifying.”

Taking the hint, Aji opened the book, began to read, then glanced at his young friend. “And when did you learn to read ancient Saqqari?”

“I still don’t. But I researched certain words and phrases, knew how to identify them.”

Aji nodded, read for a long minute, then looked up. “There is much to read here. Would you be kind enough to summarize it for me?”

Druadaen nodded, pointed to the significant sections as he explained. “With my friend Elweyr’s help, we were able to read the Mihal’ji accounts pretty well. They seemed to be the predominant power upon Imvish’al and were great traders. This place was a logical midpoint for many of their journeys, particularly those where it would have been both safer and more profitable to take on fresh water and rations at such a convenient midpoint in the long sail to Solori and Khazhakt.

Druadaen looked Aji in the eyes. “There are hundreds of indexed and complete accounts by those traders, First Scholar. They recount their journeys, the goods they conveyed, the goods with which they returned, the smallest islands upon which they sheltered. There is never one mention of Saqqaru, but many, many log entries that recount in detail the measures taken to establish their course and position with precision: positions that would put them in the middle of this landmass. Which is why we may believe their plentiful maps that show this not only as open water, but with approximate depths and even well-charted fishing shoals.

“Ah,” he exhaled, closing the book, “you have made an old man very happy. But also very fearful.”

Druadaen frowned. “I understand why these findings make you happy, but…fearful?”

He nodded. “Yes, and I feel both for the same reason: because it confirms my suspicions. That pleases me very much. But the Orchid Throne will not welcome this.”

“Even if it does not come from its own archives? And even if it is presented by you?”

“Particularly if it is presented by me. It is one thing for such things to be proven. It is another if the Empress’s own First Scholar—whom she has declared the leading expert in our most ancient history—is the one to present the evidence and attest to its authenticity.” Although no one was with them, he leaned close and murmured. “Circumspection is required in this matter. I shall not share these writings. For your own good, you must do the same.”

Druadaen sighed. “It’s a little too late for that, now.” When Aji stared, he explained. “Just before meeting you here, I gave copies of this and the other references to the Second Courtier of the Orchard Throne’s Penultimate Chamber.”

Aji closed his eyes. “Youth,” he sighed, “is so trusting.” He patted Druadaen’s long, strong hand with his small, wrinkled, and spotted one. “Perhaps there is a benefit in it. When a troubling artifact is surrendered so freely, so…”

“Ignorantly?”

Aji smiled. “If you like. But when so sensitive an item is remitted so readily, it cannot reasonably be seen as politically motivated. Rather, it is the sign of political ingenuousness.” He shrugged. “It is rightly said that nothing suggests that an action was undertaken innocently as the actor’s own ignorance of its consequences.”

Druadaen shrugged. “I doubt I would have been allowed to keep the references, anyway.”

“Of course not.”

“But at least the copies I have made for Dunarra will always be available in the Archive Recondite.”

“I am not sure they will be allowed there, either. But time will tell.” He stood. “Come. Let us reflect upon these impossibilities you have proven while contemplating mute evidence of others.”

* * *

Aji stopped and swept a hand at the walls of the immense chamber they had entered. “Behold: ‘The Vengeance of the Gods.’ Compelling, is it not?”

Druadaen could only nod. Although the Grotto of Stone Bones in the Under of the Gur Grehar had been impressive, this was astounding. Almost complete skeletons reared up from the ground or were frozen in the act of emerging from the rough walls. Creatures with skulls twice as high as a tall man stared at the ceiling, at each other, over their shoulders, and even at the entrance in which the young Dunarran and elderly Saqqari stood. Teeth the size of scimitars grinned in frozen anticipation of feasting on them or each other or whatever had been fleeing from the gigantic predators when they were trapped in stone eons ago.

They were surrounded by a horde of their smaller cousins. It was as if they had been swarming beneath and about the limbs of the larger ones when fate caught that action in a permanent still life. They ranged from the size of large aurochs to small, birdlike carnivores with long jaws and even longer legs. The petrified statuary extended all the way up the walls to the ceiling, where stalactites hung like the teeth in the upper jaw of a still greater beast, ready to swallow the entire scene in one bite.

The longest of them had deposited their mineral drippings upon many of the fossils directly beneath, thereby creating second, smaller stalactites that hung upon their jaws, tails, and spines like icicles of stone. It created a momentary impression, however impossible, that these skeletons had somehow been frozen while perversely animated in a parody of living.

Aji smiled up at Druadaen. “Even for those as talkative as we are, it has the power to leave one speechless.”

Druadaen nodded. “And this is the battleground where these creatures were defeated by humans, with the aid of the gods?”

Aji nodded, pleased. “You remember the tale, then? Excellent. The legends say that these are the collected remains of many battles fought in this one place. Which must have been a marsh, as you can see from the ferns.”

Druadaen had not noticed them, since they did not protrude from the wall. But now that he looked, the walls themselves held the solid remains and impressions of various tropical plants. “And were they also turned to stone by the gods?”

“So it would seem, although it remains an unanswered mystery how so many fronds might have given offense to deities. But do you see anything missing?”

“Well, human remains, obviously. But of course, the gods were on our side, so I am sure we had few losses.” Druadaen smiled. “And besides, we were not the target of their ossifying mancery.”

“Yes. I think you must be right about our unprecedented safety upon this battlefield. The primitive forerunners of our modern qinshoqi—temple-keepers, would be the closest translation—were the ones who, over generations, wielded the chisels that revealed this miracle. They say the lack of human remains is proof that the gods so love our kind that they did not suffer even one of us to die in the battles. But you may have noticed that it is not just our skeletons that are missing.” Aji waited, explained when Druadaen did not follow his implication. “If you were to study every square inch of this chamber with great care, you would not find any broken weapons or tools. Not even a single flint spearpoint, nor the slightest fragment of other finished stone, let alone metal.”

“And how do your qinshoqi explain that?”

“They assert that such items were not preserved because, like all things human, they were fallible and so, too fragile. That they have been crushed by the unrelenting mass of rock above, the rusting and eroding effects of water, or otherwise annihilated by the passing of the millennia.”

Druadaen nodded, even as he stared at fine-boned, freestanding bird skeletons that could not possibly have outlasted a stone axe-head or metal implement. “And yet…”

“And yet.” agreed Aji with a rueful smile. “Come, let us depart. I sometimes get a headache if I stay too long in this place.”

* * *

Aji, blinking as they emerged into the daylight, asked, “I wonder: Did Tharêdæath make any remark upon your findings and your conjectures about Saqqaru?”

Druadaen shrugged. “Only to confirm that, to the best of his knowledge, no Iavarain histories refer to the Saqqari continent or people. It is not even mentioned in the collected tomes of the Iavan downfall.”

Aji looked up with one eyebrow raised. “The Costéglan Iavarain is hardly an encyclopedic tract.”

“No, but the scholarly commentary on it is extensive, and includes the equivalent of gazetteers. Although he has not read all of them personally, Tharêdæath does not recall any mention of a land with the geographic particulars of Saqqaru, nor any human culture or language that would be a logical antecedent of your own.”

“Well,” Aji grunted as they mounted the steep stairs that led away from the cave complex, “when you find the Hidden Archivist, you may no longer need to rely upon Tharêdæath’s recollections. The person in that role must not only have read all the original sources, but could recreate most of them from memory, if required. And he has access to even older records of the Iavarain.”

“In the Hidden Archive beneath Tlulanxu?”

“And elsewhere,” Aji replied cryptically as they ascended the last few steps.

Ahearn was waiting for them at the top. He nodded, frowned, then bowed to Aji, who seemed simultaneously bemused and charmed. “I doubt you are here for me, Esteemed Warrior.”

Ahearn bowed even more deeply. “An’ it please you, I’m not.” He turned to Druadaen. “New plans.”

“Oh?”

“Two ships just docked, one running Dunarran colors. I’ve no knowledge of the other, but she’s listing badly. And they bring news; we’re no longer sailing off on Tharêdæath’s shadowy mission.”

Aji smiled. “So: it is already accomplished.”

Ahearn stared at the wizened Saqqari, bowed again. “It’s not often one such as me is in the presence of a sage who’s also a soothsayer.” He glanced at Druadaen. “He’s got the right of it; whatever we were to help Tharêdæath do has already been done. But how yer scholar friend could know that in advance—”

Aji laughed. “No divination was required. It was a likely outcome.” He turned to Druadaen. “At any rate, I am glad your travels brought you here and that you are no longer sailing into battle.”

Druadaen smiled. “Yes, I could do with a little less danger, for a while.”

But the smile left his face when Aji held up a very wrinkled index finger. “I did not say that, my young friend. I suspect you are now sailing to a different kind of danger.”

Ahearn frowned. “Apologies, great sir, but I’m afraid you’re mistaken in that prediction. We’re bound back for Dunarra.”

Aji smiled patiently. “Just as danger comes in many forms, it also lurks in many places.” He turned to Druadaen. “May you take your next steps in safety…and with great care, my friend. Now you must excuse me; it is time for my nap.”


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