The one called Racho nodded. “From what part of this Citadel are you, messenger?”
“From the Matachin Tower. Master Gurloes sends me to the archivist.” The other armiger's face tightened. “You are a torturer, then.”
“Only an apprentice, sieur.”
“I don't wonder then that my friend wants you out of his sight. Follow the gallery to the third door, make your turn and continue about a hundred paces, climb the stair to the second landing and take the corridor south to the double doors at the end.”
“Thank you,” I said, and took a step in the direction he had indicated.
“Wait a bit. If you go now, we'll have to look at you.” Racho said, “I'd as soon have him ahead of us as behind us.” I waited nonetheless, with one hand resting on the leg of the ladder, for the two of them to turn a corner.
Like one of those half-spiritual friends who in dreams address us from the clouds, the old man said, “So you're a torturer, are you? Do you know, I've never been to your place.” He had a weak glance, reminding me of the turtles we sometimes frightened on the banks of Gyoll, and a nose and chin that nearly met.
“Grant I never see you there,” I said politely.
“Nothing to fear now. What could you do with a man like me? My heart would stop like that!” He dropped his sponge into his bucket and attempted to snap his wet fingers, though no sound came. “Know where it is, though. Behind the Witches' Keep. Isn't that right?”
“Yes,” I said, a trifle surprised that the witches were better known than we.
“Thought so. Nobody never talks about it, though. You're angry about those armigers and I don't blame you. But you ought to know how it is with them. They're supposed to be like exultants, only they're not. They're afraid to die, afraid to hurt, and afraid to act like it. It's hard on them.”
“They should be done away with,” I said. “Vodalus would set them quarrying. They're only a carryover from some past age — what possible help can they give the world?”
The old man cocked his head. “Why, what help was they to begin? Do you know?” When I admitted I did not, he scrambled down from the ladder like an aged monkey, seeming all arms and legs and wrinkled neck; his hands were as long as my feet, the crooked fingers laced with blue veins. “I'm Rudesind the curator. You know old Ultan, I take it? No, course not. If you did, you'd know the way to the library.”
I said, “I've never been in this part of the Citadel before.”
“Never been here? Why, this is the best part. Art, music, and books. We've a Fechin here that shows three girls dressing another one with flowers that's so real you expect the bees to come out of it. A Quartillosa, too. Not popular anymore, Quartillosa isn't, or we wouldn't have him here. But the day he was born he was a better draughtsman than the drippers and spitters they're wild for today. We get what the House Absolute don't want, you see. That means we get the old ones, and they're the best, mostly. Come in here dirty from having hung so long, and I clean them up. Sometimes I clean them again, after they've hung here a time. We've got a Fechin here. It's the truth! Or you take this one now. Like it?”
It seemed safe to say I did.
“Third time for it. When I was new come, I was old Branwallader's apprentice and he taught me how to clean. This was the one he used, because he said it wasn't worth nothing. He begun down here in this corner. When he'd dine about as much as you could cover with one hand, he turned it over to me and I did the rest. Back when my wife still lived I cleaned it again. That would be after our second girl was born. It wasn't all that dark, but I had things on my mind and wanted something to do. Today I took the notion to clean it again. And it needs it see how nice it's brightening up? There's your blue Urth coming over his shoulder again, fresh as the Autarch's fish.”
All this time the name of Vodalus was echoing in my mind. I felt certain the old man had come down from his ladder only because I had mentioned it, and I wanted to ask him about it. But try as I might, I could find no way to bring the conversation around to it. When I had been silent a moment too long and was afraid he was about to mount his ladder and begin cleaning again, I managed to say, “Is that the moon? I have been told it's more fertile.”
“Now it is, yes. This was done before they got it irrigated. See that gray-brown? In those times, that's what you'd see if you looked up at her. Not green like she is now. Didn't seem so big either, because it wasn't so close in — that's what old Branwallader used to say. Now there's trees enough on it to hide Nilammon, as the saw goes.”
I seized my opportunity. “Or Vodalus.”
Rudesind cackled. “Or him, that's right enough. Your bunch must be rubbing their hands waiting to have him. Got something special planned?” If the guild had particular excruciations reserved for specific individuals, I knew nothing of it; but I endeavored to look wise and said, “We'll think of something.”
“I suppose you will. A bit ago, though, I thought you was for him. Still you'll have to wait if he's hiding in the Forests of Lune.” Rudesind looked up at the picture with obvious appreciation before turning back to me. “I'm forgetting. You want to visit our Master Ultan. Go back to that arch you just come by —”
“I know the way,” I said. “The armiger told me.” The old curator blew those directions to the winds with a puff of sour breath.
“What he laid down would only get you to the Reading Room. From there it'd take you a watch to get to Ultan, if ever you did. No, step back to that arch. Go through and all the way to the end of the big room there, and down the stair. You'll come to a locked door — pound till somebody lets you in. That's the bottom of the stacks, and that's where Ultan has his study.” Since Rudesind was watching I followed his directions, though I had not liked the part about the locked door, and steps downward suggested I might be nearing those ancient tunnels where I had wandered looking for Triskele. On the whole I felt far less confident than when I was in those parts of the Citadel that I knew. I have learned since that strangers who visit it are awed by its size; but it is only a mote in the city spread about it, and we who grew up within the gray curtain wall, and have learned the names and relationships of the hundred or so landmarks necessary to those who would find their way in it, are by that very knowledge discomfited when we find ourselves away from the familiar regions.
So it was with me as I walked through the arch the old man had indicated. Like the rest of that vaulted hall it was of dull, reddish brick, but it was upheld by two pillars whose capitals bore the faces of sleepers, and I found the silent lips and pale, closed eyes more terrible than the agonized masks painted on the metal of our own
