“The Academy is built to resemble the passage of time,” said the Chief, still striding several paces ahead of Keturah. “The cells use it as a memory aid, with each room used for a different chant. As with time, it can only be approached from one direction so that just by living in this space, my historians become intimately familiar with the period for which each is responsible. That also means we shall have to hurry to catch the cell you want.”
“And which cell is that?” Keturah was tall and usually strong but she could feel the lingering weight in her legs from the poison, and the older woman was almost pulling away from her. The disciplined running regime built into life as a historian, thought to clarify the senses and improve the all-important memory, was said to make them the fittest women in the Black Kingdom.
“Forty-seven thousand eight hundred from the Deep,” said the Chief Historian. “A time three thousand years ago.”
As they walked, the curve of the corridor became tighter and when the lake disappeared from their right-hand side and was replaced by stone walls, Keturah realised they were spiralling into the centre of the Academy. There were doors on both sides now, seemingly still made of hornbeam, and a humming was beginning to fill the air, as though they drew close to the core of a bee-hive. But instead of a choir of workers, she found that at the centre of this spiral was a flight of steps that led upwards on to the second floor. They were at the centre of another stone spiral, and without breaking stride, the Chief led her onwards. This time the doors on either side were made of a wood with a dark stripe of heartwood running up the centre of each board that Keturah could not place.
“What wood are these doors?” she asked.
“Rowan,” came the reply from ahead.
They spiralled outwards, carvings still flashing past Keturah (a vast serpent covered in chain mail erupting from beneath the earth; enormous butterflies that snatched up racing figures; people without eyes, crawling through tunnels to piles of treasure within; always that spider-handed angel lurking behind, carved less deeply into the stone so that its presence was faint), the humming persisting and at times reverberating powerfully enough to make the doors rattle. After a rather shorter time than it had taken to navigate the first spiral, they came to the outside of this one. It was another colonnade that looked out onto the lake, but this one more elevated. Keturah reflected that the entire purpose of their journey so far had simply been to get to the first floor of the building. Apparently, this was not the end, however, for the Chief was leading her up another flight of stairs to another spiral corridor, this one with honeyed doors of beech.
Keturah understood. By making the passageway of the Academy a multi-layered spiral, its builders had produced a single immense corridor some miles in length, with each storey demarcated by a different kind of wood, fresh carvings and a tally that helped distinguish it from its fellows. It was a parsimonious model of the river of time and, as each Historian remembered the period for which she was responsible, she would envisage the walk through this immense spiral. Each door was a different episode and, if they chose to enter it, they could perform an in-depth chant regarding the events of that particular period. That was the humming which Keturah could discern: the chanting of each cell, performing one of the hundreds of historic episodes they could recall. The entire structure was a memory aid.
On the fourth floor (this with doors of walnut), they at last stopped outside a room bearing a “III” carved into the wood. The humming was still reverberating through the door and the Chief raised a knotted fist, battering at the boards. The humming stopped abruptly and there was a pause before the door opened to reveal a cream-robed acolyte on the other side. “My lady,” said the acolyte, a little surprised. She stepped aside and the Chief Historian swept inside, Keturah on her heels. Within the room was bare, grey stone, adorned only with a fragrant oily scent which Keturah could not place. Another acolyte sat in a corner and three historians knelt on thick rush mats. Unlike the acolytes, their robes were black, with a system of cream bands representing the time period in which each cell specialised.
“Peers, this is Keturah Tekoasdottir,” announced the Chief. “Perhaps you can help her. She wishes to hear the chant that details the formation of the Kryptea.”
A look of swift surprise passed between the two acolytes, and the two peripheral historians glanced at their central colleague. She was older than they, perhaps a hundred and eighty years, her black hair heavily lined with grey and her face the spider’s web of lines that denotes someone who has lived a life outside. “Certainly we could sing it, take a seat, Miss Keturah,” she said and she gestured at the bare stone floor before her.
Keturah folded graciously at the waist and knelt. “Good,” said the Chief Historian. Her eyes rested on Keturah once more, and then she left without another word. To Keturah’s surprise, the acolytes stood and scurried after her in silence. She was left alone with the three kneeling historians.
The two peripheral
