Xulai stood with her mouth slightly open, as though to give the ideas her mind was being flooded with a route to escape. After a long moment, she murmured, “So, if a creature knew of a safe path through this dangerous country, he or she could get from the Old Dark House up here to the abbey in a relatively short time?”
“Oh, my, yes, if he or she knew a way.”
Xulai would not have bet a flibbity-bit that the Duchess of Altamont did not know a way, which meant Jenger knew it, which was why Jenger had been able to talk to Bear across the wall of the abbey.
“Anything else?” asked Wordswell.
She nodded, her face serious. “Can you lend me something on cephalopods? The most authoritative thing you have from the Before Times.”
“You do know the books are not supposed to leave the library.”
“Can you check to see when was the last time anyone asked for any of them, or it, or whatever?”
Wordswell stalked across the room to a large file full of tiny drawers and began pulling them out, one, then the one below, then the one below that. “Cephalopods,” he murmured to himself or to her or to the air. “Cephalopods. The oceanic biology teacher spent about a week in here reading up on them . . . about ten years ago.”
“No one since?”
He shook his head, giving her a conspiratorial look over the tops of his spectacles.
“I doubt anyone would miss one book, would they?”
He blinked. “I doubt they would. Things get mis-shelved from time to time.”
“Just one,” she said. “The best one.”
“You understand it’s a copy of a copy. The original would have been dust by now.”
He moved the ladder, went up the ladder, came back down the ladder. The book was encased in an oiled wooden box that fit it very tightly and excluded almost all air from around it. The book inside was bound in leather and printed on a special kind of paper that lasted for a very long time. The title shone in gold on the cover: Cephalopods. Below it was a design of tentacles, twined around one another like a thousand noodles, and from the center of the design, two very human-seeming eyes stared at her, glinting in the candlelight. “I think I’m supposed to do this,” said Wordswell. “I have such notions.”
“If it’s any help to you, sir, I think you are supposed to give it to me.” Wrapping it loosely in her coat, she left the library and returned to Abasio’s wagon, somewhat surprised at knowing the way, less so when she realized the fisher had been directing her all along.
The trouble with reading secretly was that she was very seldom alone. While Oldwife would think little of her having a schoolbook to read at night, Precious Wind would be curious, and she might mention it to Bear. Strangely enough, Abasio was still sitting by the fire, as though waiting for her.
She unpacked the book. “I need to read this.”
He leafed through a few pages. “You’ll need a very long time.”
“You said you had a magic helmet that was a kind of library. I thought, maybe . . . And you said you’d introduce me to your love.”
He sat staring into the fire for some time. “Her name is Ollie. The library is like a little helmet that takes you into another world. It has Ollie’s whole life, her mind, her feelings in it. It also has the minds and feelings of every other person who ever used it and of all those who used other libraries like it. Information was shared among them. So, if you ask it a question, it has to be very, very clear what you need to know, because if there’s any room for doubt, you can end up exploring fascinating information for weeks or months, until your body dies for lack of food or water or sleep, so you need someone by you to pull off the helmet after a reasonable time. I know Blue’s pulled it off my head more than once. I think I can put the book into the library for you easier than you can; all I have to do is make my mind a blank and look at the pages while I turn them, ignoring temptation at every turn.” His mouth twisted, as though he had tasted something both wonderful and weird. “It’s a long book, so it may take a while. I can start tonight if you’ll leave it with me.”
Xulai considered this for a moment, nodding finally. “That would be best. Then I can return Wordswell’s book, and when I’m with you, or when we’re traveling, I can find out what might be helpful to know about the Sea King.” She sighed, handing him the box almost regretfully, for she had been looking forward to reading it herself. “I met the prior on the way to the library. He says the bird keeper is an illiterate simpleton. And then my guide almost winked at me and said the prior had all that gold on him to show how superior he is. The abbot doesn’t wear gold at all, does he?”
“Not that we’ve seen.”
“It makes me wonder, Abasio. All that glitter. And the fortune my father says he sent. I wonder who really received it here at the abbey and where it is now. There’s another very important thing: Wordswell told me something about the Old Dark House and what the land is like that lies between it and the abbey . . .”
When she had finished quoting the librarian, Abasio stared first at her, then at Blue, who
