Palimpsest

A fair copy of a long roll takes a skilled hand the better part of a season, and a copyist who rushes it is worse than one who never touched it, since a false copy read as true does more harm than a gap. So the work is slow on purpose.

Over the course of a working lifetime, a copyist of the Nirali Archive will faithfully reproduce a few hundred of the tens of thousands of records in their care. They will know the shelves on which those records sit as well as another person knows the rooms of the house in which they were born. They begin young and they finish old, and most of them finish in the building.

— A History of the Keeping of Records. Held only in the Nirali archive; no copy is known to exist elsewhere

Chapter 46 The Game is Afoot

"So, you and Kaelin?" Darian asked, not looking at Elis as they walked along the road. The streets had grown crowded by now; the day had begun for the city. As the two of them walked together through the crowd no one looked at them too closely, and that, at least, Darian could count as a good sign. But even so he could sometimes hear people whispering among themselves, talking about the murder and about Nivela. He didn't think it would take very long for it to spread through the whole city.

"What?" Elis asked, as though wanting to wave the question off. But after Darian gave her a knowing look she understood there was no escaping it.

"I don't know if there's a 'me and Kaelin' to speak of," she began, sighing. "Thinking about it right now, with the situation the way it is, might be a little selfish."

"Buuut," Darian pressed, trying again to get an answer out of her.

"But we shared something, and that's something I haven't had in a long time. My relationship with the man I first married wasn't bad, and after he died there were a few special people, but Kaelin…" she swallowed the rest of the sentence and looked off down the road ahead. "I don't know."

"You went through a trauma recently, and it made me glad that you could leave it behind you. But Kaelin lost someone she loved not long ago too, and I've seen how she suffered. I'm aware she still drinks more than she should some nights. We're all aware of it, in fact, but there isn't much we can do."

"I didn't know that."

"What I'm trying to say to you is to be careful with her, and if you're not serious, not to let her get too attached. Right now this might feel like medicine to her, or it might make things much worse."

"I can't guarantee I won't die, but I can tell you I'm thinking about something serious with her. Even so, I've told her I want to leave it to time for now and not to rush anything."

At this Darian slowed and finally stopped. When Elis stopped along with him, he turned to her and said, "That's an extremely considerate thing to do," giving her a warm look. "I hope nothing goes wrong between you and no one gets hurt. And forgive me if I've overstepped, I may just have come at it a little too protectively."

"It's all right," Elis answered with a smile. "I like that you protect her this much. I just never thought I'd be talking about my relationship with a girl I'm into with a dwarf I've only just met."

"You'd best ask me about it, then," Darian answered. Then the two of them went on walking, letting out ragged bursts of laughter like people whose nerves had gone.

◈◈◈

"Whoever came up with the idea of building a bridge between two buildings must have been a genius," Tivver said to himself as he neared the archive building without even looking where he was going.

"I think I could marry whoever thought up the glass dome, myself," Vaelra said, walking right beside him.

As the two of them walked toward the building with their mouths hanging open, they came close to falling several times but wouldn't give it up for it. At the same time, Ravah was sizing up the guards around them and anyone who might be armed. Veylith, having noticed the barricade drawn across the building's entrance, had already begun searching out the building's possible exits. On the way here the city in general had seemed to be without much commotion, but the closer they got to the archive, the more the tense faces and the eyes watching with suspicion had increased. The people gathered in front of the building waited like a wave of panic poised to spread across the city. In front of the barricaded building at least six or seven guards stood at the door, allowing no one through. The others, far greater in number, moved about, some among the crowd and some as though patrolling around the building.

"This isn't going to be so easy, by the look of it," she whispered, drawing a little closer to Ravah, who was sizing up the surroundings the same way beside her.

"I hope Orsillia's name is enough to get us inside," Ravah answered the same way. "Because in front of this many people and against this much security, brute force is meaningless."

"There's always a door or a window to be found, my big-boned friend," Tivver said, suddenly diving into the conversation.

"Or an official to be convinced—manipulated, even—and used," Vaelra added. Though the two of them were still gazing at the building in open-mouthed wonder, they reminded Veylith and Ravah once again why they could trust them with their lives. Then, a few steps on, they tripped over each other and went rolling to the ground.

Picking them up off the ground and heading for the building without drawing too much attention, Veylith and Ravah moved their weapons, just in case, into a position they could reach for. Then they approached the guards who had closed off the entrance to the door. The six guards, all women, stood lined up at the door almost like a rope, looking ahead and nearly without reaction. When the two of them drew a little closer from the corner, a man suddenly appeared in front of them.

"I don't know who you are, but for now entry to the building is forbidden," the burly man said, stopping right in front of them. He was a half-orc, exceedingly intimidating, his skin a greenish-grey and his height surpassing even Ravah's. When he folded his arms the muscles in them stood out all the more sharply.

In a move you wouldn't have expected from her, Ravah stepped in front of Veylith and came face to face with the man. "The Domina sent us to find out what happened here. She said giving her name would be enough. And may I learn your name?"

"No such notice came to me, and Commander Briyva ordered me to let no one through. My name is Corven, Captain Corven. But I don't think that has anything to do with this," answered the man, holding the same stance.

"Even if we give the Domina's name, she told us to bring back to her the name of anyone who stood in our way. Captain Corven," Ravah said, and looked at him without moving, with a blank and calm expression.

At this Corven unfolded the arms he'd crossed and, studying them carefully, rubbed his jaw. Drawing a deep breath and letting it out, he turned to the guards at the door. When he made a sign with his head the guard at the very front withdrew and opened the way. He looked at Ravah again and, almost in a growl, said, "You have two hours. In two hours the archive commission comes here to clear and seal the office. After that the building will be opened for use again." Ravah nodded and took a step, but Corven cut in front of her and gripped her shoulder. "If anything goes missing from the office, then even the Domina won't be able to save you."

"Thank you for your help, Captain," Ravah said in a cold voice much like the man's own, and looked at the hand he'd laid on her shoulder. When the man drew his hand back at this, Ravah went on walking without so much as looking at his face. The others came along behind her without speaking.

"Well, that was scary," Vaelra said, breaking the silence, speaking almost in Tivver's place. "The way you looked at the man, like you were about to kill him, unnerved even me."

"I know men like that," Ravah answered, with a far more normal manner than the one she'd shown outside. "They aren't people you can convince by laying out your case and talking reason. There's only one language they understand."

"Intimidating and threatening with physical strength," Veylith said, finishing her sentence.

"And the most absurd part is that they respect it. As if comparing dicks this way was some honorable act."

"As absurd a way of reaching an agreement as it is, it was your balls that got us in here," Tivver said, with a sly grin.

"I know," Ravah said, walking on ahead, not letting them see the pleased smile on her face.

When they moved on into the building and came to the central area, even Ravah and Veylith couldn't hide how much the sight affected them. Vaelra and Tivver, for their part, kept on discovering something different every minute and marveling at it with strange noises. They could barely walk straight for staring at the details of the glass statue and at the dome. But when they finally reached the other side of the building they were all fixed on the office door, which stood ajar. Up to this point no one had let the possibility of failure, or the chance of coming away empty-handed, enter their minds. When they came to the door, though, the weight on the other side of the scale made itself felt. If they failed they would be forced to flee from here, and even in that scenario Kaelin would never be able to speak with the elder. The reason they had come here, and any chance of finding a clue as to where they would go next, would vanish entirely.

"Kaelin has no time to lose," Veylith said at last, scattering all the thoughts. Then she pushed the door and went inside. The others, with a resolve much like hers, entered the office one by one.

…

The inside was bright with the light coming from the round window set high up, and the curious shape of the glass let it spread to every corner of the room. All the walls were covered with shelves, and some of them looked as though they'd been ransacked. The wide wooden desk standing in front of the glass on the far side was covered with papers and books. Just as much disorder had spread across the floor. It looked as though a robbery had taken place inside, but, oddly, there was no sign of any struggle. Though the whole crime scene and these details were in front of them, none of this was the first thing they noticed.

The first thing that struck them as they came into the room was the smell of blood. Before they could focus on the state of the place and on every possible detail, the smell reaching their noses threw them, as if they'd walked into a wall. It had made every one of them turn their heads to almost the same spot: the huge dried bloodstain on the floor.

Though the others looked at it with a bitter expression, they had begun to spread out into the room. But the same wasn't true for Tivver. He had stood staring at the stain on the floor, with a blank, faraway expression. It was as though he could see the body that had lain there a short while before, could feel the warmth in it gradually fading. He had only just met her, perhaps, but even so her passionate way of talking and her irrepressible character had managed to make an impression on him. He flirted with a great many women, but very few of them could form this kind of bond in him. And what they all had in common was that they resembled the first woman who had ever taken his breath away.

"We're going to find whoever did this," Ravah said, breaking into his thoughts. She'd knelt down beside him, laid a hand on his shoulder, and treated Tivver more warmly than she ever had.

"I know," Tivver answered, taking hold of the hand on his shoulder. Then, finally pulling his eyes from the bloodstain, he turned to Ravah with a faint but grateful look. He squeezed Ravah's hand and shook off all the feelings on his face, as if shrugging them away. "To work." After saying this he turned around and began to examine the lock on the door in detail. In a short while, without turning back to the others, he said aloud, "There's no sign of forcing on the lock. Either the door was already open, or the killer had the key, or they didn't come in this way to begin with."

Ravah looked at him for a moment with a half smile, then joined in the deducing herself. "Kaelin came here in the morning, and when she arrived Nivela still wasn't dead. So the killer must have come into the room and gone before her."

"But Kaelin hadn't seen anyone leaving the room. And the killer couldn't have taken the risk of leaving this way and being seen," Vaelra continued. Then, lifting her head and looking toward Tivver, "So whoever came through the door either came as a friend or was someone who already worked here. Either way, it's certain they didn't leave by the door."

Veylith, who had stopped in front of the round glass window set high up and was looking at the garden behind it, joined the conversation too. "The glass isn't broken, and there's no opening part on this metal frame." Then, sighing, she turned to the others and, lifting the front of her hat, went on, "The killer used another exit, and we need to find it too. It also shows the killer knew the room very well."

"Wonderful," Tivver answered from the other end of the room. "Now everyone who uses the archive is a suspect."

"What about the apprentice?" Ravah broke in, naming the most fitting suspect that came to mind.

"Who, Lexim?" Tivver said, surprised.

"They'd separated before he went off to the library, hadn't they?"

"Yes, but he went into the room right behind Kaelin too, and there was very little time in between," Veylith said, focusing on the holes in Ravah's idea. "Even if he knew the building very well, he'd have to slip in quickly, stab the woman, go out by another exit, and get back to the front door before Kaelin went into the room. It isn't impossible, but it would be hard for even a trained assassin to pull off."

After she pointed out the obvious, since they had no other suspect for the moment, everyone went back to searching the room and the exit.

…

For a while they examined the room and the shelves covering the walls, but there was nothing but scrolls and books. At one point Vaelra even sat down in Nivela's chair and started going through her desk. Some clue, or perhaps some device, might have been placed here. But the things she found were a great deal more paper and books. Finally giving up on looking for anything hidden, she grew curious about what Nivela had been working on and began reading the things on the desk. Most of them were about the use of script in the first age, and the definition of the god symbol kept coming up over and over in the texts. Remembering the subject they'd talked about the night before, Vaelra had begun to think this might be connected to the symbol Kaelin had seen. As she went on going through the papers, Vaelra noticed that Nivela had begun piecing some things together, since there were a great many papers and notes taken down on the desk.

"Huh," Ravah said aloud, surprised all of a sudden, drawing everyone's attention. Then she crouched at the foot of one of the shelves and began examining the floor. After that, still looking, she asked, "Do any of you have mud or dirt on your shoes?"

"Our feet haven't touched anything but stone since this morning," Tivver said, starting to come closer to her.

"What did you find?" Veylith asked, and right behind him headed over there too.

Crumbling a small amount of dried dirt on her fingertips, Ravah lifted her head and looked toward Veylith. "Stuck to the carpet, and not all that old, either."

As Veylith looked carefully, along with Tivver, at the crumbs of dirt at the foot of the wooden shelf, something else caught her eye too. She saw that there was a faint, barely visible mark on the thin carpet on the floor, almost tracing a half-circle. Then, to be sure, she began running her fingers along this arc. Finally, after lifting her head and looking at the tall bookcase, an arm and a half wide, she met Tivver's eyes. "Could it be?" she asked in a low voice.

Tivver looked at her with a similar expression and then at the bookcase. "Give me a minute," he said, and began to examine the bookcase far more carefully. Finally he closed his eyes and laid his ear against the bookcase, and pressed his hands flat to the shelves, his palms touching them. Everyone in the room was watching him but not making a sound. An expectation had formed on all their faces and kept growing. "Interesting," Tivver said at last, without opening his eyes.

"What?" Ravah jumped in, watching him in anticipation.

"There's definitely a mechanism here, but I haven't worked out yet how it operates," Tivver answered. Then, without lifting his ear, he began running his hands over the shelves. After his hands had passed over the gaps in the shelves, they came to the two thin drawers at the very bottom. Though he fiddled with the first drawer quite a bit, nothing changed, but when he touched the bottom drawer his bearing began to shift. Instead of pulling the knob-shaped handle of the drawer, he began to turn it. For he had at last begun to hear the sounds of gears turning inside the bookcase. He went on turning the handle exceedingly carefully, until at last a click was heard in the silent room. At this Tivver opened his eyes, pulled back a little from the bookcase, and pushed the shelves gently with his hand. The whole bookcase turned in place, creating a passage to the corridor behind, and came to a stop upright. Since the other side of the bookcase was a bookcase as well, it was built so that even fully turned it wouldn't give itself away. Since it opened toward the corridor that wrapped around the ground floor, Tivver had thought it was made to spare whoever worked in the office from having to come out and go all the way around. And at once it had crossed his mind to turn his head to the other side of the room and consider that there might be a similar passage there too.

"We've found the killer's escape route," Ravah said, bending to the floor and digging a little more dirt out of the carpet.

"We may have found the way out of the room, but we still don't know how they got out of the building," Veylith added, having already put her head out through the opening and looking at the corridor that went on, turning with the slope ahead. "And something tells me that from here we should go to the harbor."

"The harbor?" Tivver said, turning to her suddenly.

"I don't think there are many places in this city where you could pick up dirt on your feet," she said, and watched the dawning understanding on Tivver's face. Then, "Let's see if we can find an exit up ahead," she said, taking a step into the corridor.

"I'm staying," said Vaelra, who hadn't made a sound this whole time, all of a sudden, stopping Veylith halfway through her step. Along with Tivver and Ravah, she too turned to Vaelra and, with a curious expression, waited for an explanation. When she finally lifted her head from the papers in front of her and looked at their faces, Vaelra realized she needed to explain herself. "Look, Nivela was after something important here, and both her death and Kaelin could be connected to it. Maybe I can find a clue here."

"All right, then," Veylith answered, "since your instincts say so." After looking at her for a moment, she added, "But I don't think it's a good idea for you to stay here alone." Then, turning to Tivver beside her, she started to say, "Tivver, you—"

"No," Tivver cut her off in an utterly calm voice. "I want to find the son of a bitch who did this, not go through books here. Besides, how are you going to find the hidden exit without me?"

Though Veylith was surprised by this reaction of his, she could understand what he was feeling. And he had put his finger on a fair point too. "Well, I suppose trying to change your mind about it would be a wasted effort. The two of us go after the killer, then," she said, and turning to Ravah asked, "Will you stay here?"

"Sure. You know me, boss, I love reading books," Ravah said, rolling her eyes.

Veylith let out a breath and gave a quick laugh at this manner of hers and threw her right arm over Ravah's left shoulder. Ravah did the same to Veylith, and after they greeted each other with their heads they let go. Veylith and Tivver stepped out together to go at the same time through the two openings on either side of the upright bookcase.

"Hey!" Vaelra cried out, and stopped them on the threshold. When the two of them turned at the same time to look at her, "Try not to die, and come back to the Red Lantern house tonight safe and sound."

"Yes, ma'am!" the two of them answered Vaelra at the same time, then turned and disappeared into the long corridor.