There’s a silence in the library, too – a peaceful, serene atmosphere like someone has covered the very air itself with soft velvet. It’s a silence of respect – the weight of deep knowledge.
I step quietly into the room, letting the door click softly shut behind me. I’m suddenly completely alone, even in this barely-occupied estate. I keep my footsteps soft, and even my breathing is shallow and silent – as if breaking the silence would somehow be sacrilege.
Two staircases curl up on either side of this cavernous chamber, winding their way to a second story which contains even more bookshelves, each filled to the brim with real, rare, paper books.
In the middle of the room are three, well-worn chairs – so huge and towering that there’s no question who they were designed for, and whose weight had bowed their legs and polished the ancient wood.
Those three Aurelians must come here to read and learn together.
My legs move without thought, placing one foot in front of the other. I’m drawn to these books, and I walk forward almost robotically until I reach one of the sets of stairs. Each stair I climb, I have to stretch to reach the next step. Like the huge, wooden chairs down below, these staircases must be made for the long legs of those three seven-feet-tall warriors; not a mere, barely literate human woman like me.
I’m in awe. There must be thousands upon thousands of books here, surrounding me on all sides, above and below – each one packed with who-knows-what knowledge and wisdom.
I hesitate before I grab one and open it. Everything in this manor seems so precious and rare, but I’m going to have to get used to touching rare items… unless l want to live my life like a wraith, flitting from room to room.
I extend my hand forward, then dart it back suddenly, before my fingertips reach the leather of the book I’d been reaching for.
It felt like I’d touched something – some strange, invisible barrier, which yielded to the pressure of my reach but was still tangibly, obviously, invisibly there. It was like putting your hand through a gigantic soap bubble, only the bubble didn’t pop like one made of soap would.
I try again, and this time feel as if there is a giant, invisible aura around all these books. It must be how they’re atmospherically protected and kept in such good condition. Some of these books must be ancient, and paper and leather would understandably break down over the course of hundreds or even thousands of years; especially when kept in sunlight.
This library represents almost everything I know about these three Aurelians and their love of ancient artifacts and valuable art. They want to keep it preserved, and protected…
…but they don’t hide it away, or lock it up, or make any effort to prevent anybody else appreciating it, or touching it…
I think of those three wristwatches, just left out in the open in Gallus’s bedchamber.
…or stealing it.
I shake my head, and swallow down the stab of guilt I feel in my belly.
Instead, I grab a book, knowing the oils of my hand are degrading it, but my curiosity rising to a peak I can’t resist.
I run my fingers across the cover of the leather-bound tome I’d selected and pull it from the shelf. I gingerly open the cover, breathing in the smell of the ancient paper as it fills my nostrils.
The lines of words on the pages are mostly incomprehensible to me, but the pictures are not. I feel like I’m suddenly transported to another word, and I only wish I could read the language the words are written in.
There’s a picture there of a simple leaf – and, yet, it’s not like any of the leaves on the trees inside the city grounds. Outside of the city limits nothing much grows. Inside, there’s enough water to flourish an ecosystem of fruit-bearing trees – some tall enough that a young, sneaky little waif like me could climb them as a child, to steal the precious, sweet reward hanging from the branches.
I actually smile when I remember that memory. It leads me to remember more – back to when I first found a fig tree in Sector 2. I would sneak past the guards that protected the richer neighborhood from thieves like me, and clamber the branches to get my mouthwatering reward. I never got caught, and returned again and again.
In fact, that’s how I learned the skills that eventually became my living. Climbing silently. Sneaking deftly. Taking what I wanted, and never getting caught. My lonely childhood taught me to always learn where the value was – to constantly and correctly assess the risk versus the reward. Part of me always quantifies everything, and that’s what’s so disconcerting about this enormous manor house, filled with objects of incalculable value. It’s like climbing the lowest-hanging fruit tree in the world, and finding it overflowing with succulent, ripe fruit that it would be effortless to pluck and sink my teeth into.
I mean, just consider the countless leather-bound books and tomes in this enormous room. There are thousands of them – tens of thousands – and any one of them, sold on the black market, even knowing it would only get a fraction of the actual market value, would still be enough to set me up for a new life on Oasis.
The wheels in my head begin turning.
Maybe there was another reason I didn't tell Darr that I’d already found those watches. Maybe my subconscious was one step ahead of me. Perhaps it was even for a reason other than simply wanting to spend more time
