"Oh, this isn't the archives," Sing said, pointing toward a doorway. "The archives are in there."
I raised an eyebrow and walked to the door, then pulled it open. Inside, I found an army.
There were a good fifty or sixty soldiers, all standing at attention in ranks, their metal helmets glistening in the lamplight. At the back of the room, there was a set of stairs leading down.
"Wow," I said.
"Why, young Lord Smedry!" a voice boomed. I turned and was surprised to see Archedis – the big-chinned Knight of Crystallia from Bastille's trial – walking toward me. "How surprising to see you here!"
"Sir Archedis," I said. "I could say the same of you, I guess."
"There are always two full knights on guard at the Royal Archives," Archedis said.
"Not a library," one of the soldiers added.
"I was just here overseeing a shift change," Archedis said, stepping up to me.
He was a lot more intimidating when standing.
Silvery armor, rectangular face, a chin that could destroy small countries if it fell into the wrong hands. Sir Archedis was the type of knight that people stuck on recruitment posters.
"Well," I said. "We came to investigate the Royal Archives –“
"Not a library," Sir Archedis said.
"– because we think the Librarians might be interested in them."
"They're quite well protected," Archedis said in his deep voice. “A half platoon of soldiers and two Crystin! But I suppose it couldn't hurt to have an Oculator around too, particularly when there are Librarians in town!"
He glanced over my shoulder. "I see that you've brought young Bastille with you," he added. "Good job – keep her moving about and not wallowing in her punishment!"
I glanced back at Bastille. She'd focused on Sir Archedis, and I thought I was beginning to see some emotion return to her. Likely she was thinking about how much she'd like to ram something long and pointy into his chest.
"I'm sorry we had to meet under such poor circumstances, Lord Smedry," Archedis said to me. "I've been following your exploits."
"Oh,” I said, flushing. "You mean the books?"
Archedis laughed. "No, no, your real exploits! The battle against Blackburn was reportedly quite impressive, and I would have liked to see that fight with the Alivened. I hear that you handled yourself quite well."
"Oh," I said, smiling. “Well, thanks."
"But tell me," he said, leaning down. "Did you really break a Crystin sword with that Talent of yours?"
I nodded. "Hilt came right off in my hand. I didn't realize it, but the problem was my emotion. I was so nervous that the Talent activated with a lot of power.”
"Well, I guess I just have to take your word!" Archedis said. "Would you like a knight as guard for your person during this investigation?"
"No," I said. "I think we'll be fine."
"Very well, then," he said, slapping me on the back. (Side note: Getting slapped – even affectionately – on the back by someone wearing gauntlets is not comfortable.) "Carry on, and best of luck." He turned to the soldiers. "Let them pass and follow their orders! This is the heir of House Smedry!"
The soldiers, en masse, saluted. With that, Archedis marched out the door, armor clinking.
"I like that guy," I said after he was gone.
"Everyone does," Sing said. "Sir Archedis is one of the most influential knights in the order."
"Oh, I don't think everyone likes him," I said, glancing at Bastille. She was watching the doorway.
"He's amazing," she whispered, surprising me. "He's one of the reasons I decided to join."
"But he was one of the ones who voted to have you stripped of your rank!"
"He was the least harsh on me," Bastille said.
"Only because I convinced him to be."
She regarded me with an odd expression; it seemed that she was coming out of her funk a little bit. "I thought you liked him."
"Well, I do," I said.
Or at least I had liked him - right up until the point that Bastille had started talking about how wonderful he was. Now, quite suddenly, I became convinced that Sir Archedis was plain and dull-witted. I prepared to explain this to Bastille, but was interrupted as the soldiers began to make way for us to pass.
"Ah, nice," Sing said, walking forward. "Last time, I had to spend an hour appeasing their security requirements."
Bastille followed. She obviously hadn't recovered completely, even if she was a little more animated. We entered the stairwell, and for a brief moment I was reminded of the Library of Alexandria, with its wraithlike Librarians and endless rows of dusty tomes and scrolls. It had been beneath the ground too.
The similarity soon ended. Not only was the Royal Archives not a library, but the stairwell didn't end in a strange teleporting darkness. Instead, it stretched on for a distance, dusty and dry. When we finally reached the bottom, we found the two Knights of Crystallia standing guard at another set of doors. They saluted, apparently recognizing Sing and me.
"How long will you need access, my lord?" one of the knights asked.
"Oh," I said. "Um, I'm not really sure.”
"Check back with us in an hour, if you don't mind," said the other knight – a stout woman with blond hair.
"All right," I said.
With that, the two knights pushed open the doors, letting me, Sing, and Bastille into the archives. "Wow," I said. That just didn't seem to cover it. "Wow," I repeated, this time with emphasis.
You're probably expecting a grand description here. Something impressive to depict the majestic collection of tomes that made up the archives. That's because you misinterpreted my "wow." You see, like all alphabetically late palindromic exclamations, "wow" can be interpreted a lot of different ways. It's what we call "versatile," which is just another way of saying that it's a dumb thing to say.
After all, "wow" could mean "That's great!" Or it could mean "That's disturbing." It could also mean "Oh, hey, look, a dinosaur is about to eat me!" Or it could even mean "I just won the lottery, though I don't know what I'll do with all that money, seeing as how I'm in the stomach of a dinosaur."
(As a side note to this side note: As we found in book one, it is true that most dinosaurs are fine folk and not at all man-eaters. However, there are some notable exceptions, such as the Quesadilla and the infamous Brontesister.)
In my case, "wow" didn't mean any of these things. It meant something closer to: "This place is a total mess!"
"This place is a total mess!" I exclaimed.
"No need to repeat yourself," Bastille grumbled. (Bastille speaks fluent woweeze.)
Books were heaped like piles of scrap in an old, rundown junkyard. There were mountains of them, discarded, abused, and in total disarray. The cavern seemed to extend forever, and the piles of books formed mounds and hills, like sand dunes made from pages and letters and words.
I glanced back at the knights guarding the doorway. “Is there some kind of organization to all of this?” I asked hopefully.
The knight paled in the face. "Organization? Like . . . a cataloging system?"
"Yeah," I said. "You know, so that we can find stuff easily?"
"That's what Librarians do!" the blond knight said.
"Great," I said. "Just great. Thanks anyway." I sighed, stepping away from the door, which the knights closed behind me. I grabbed a lamp off the wall. "Well, let's go investigate,” I said to the others. “See if we can find anything suspicious."
We wandered the room, and I tried not to let my annoyance get the better of me. The Librarians had done some horrible things to the Free Kingdoms; it made sense that the Nalhallans would have an irrational fear of Librarian ways. However, I found it amazing that a people who loved learning so much could treat books in such a horrible manner. From the way the tomes were strewn, it seemed to me that their method of “archiving” books was to toss them into the storage chamber and forget about them.
The piles grew larger and more mountainous near the back of the chamber, as if they'd been systematically pushed there by some infernal, literacy-hating bulldozer. I stopped, hands on my hips. I had expected a museum, or at least a den filled with bookshelves. Instead, I'd gotten a teenage boy's bedroom.
"How could they tell if anything was missing?" I asked.
"They can't," Sing said. "They figure if nobody can get in to steal books, then they don't have to keep them counted or organized."
"That's stupid," I said, holding up my light. The chamber was longer than it was wide, so I could see the walls on either side of me. The place wasn't infinite, like the Library of Alexandria had seemed. It was essentially just one very big room filled with thousands and thousands of books.
I walked back down the pathway between the mounds.
How could you tell if anything was suspicious about a place you'd never visited before? I was about to give up when I heard it. A sound.