Engines & Demons - The Undestined

Chapter 14i

A junior clerk escorted Tahlia from the lift's mid-level embarkation hall, through drab corridors where the clerks resided, and up to the doors of the new library. It was the first time she had been there, though she had been in the old library many times, finding her own ways through its forgotten rooms, clambering up its time warped shelves and hiding in its dusty corners. She had even found a secret chamber behind a set of shelves once, its low ceiling hung with rachnid spikes. She had spent countless hours concealed in its darkness, curled up on stolen blankets, a hand-light propped up beside her head and a stolen book open on her chest. Now, though, all the books had been given a new home.

The clerk pushed one of the tall, pristinely carved, doors open and politely motioned for Tahlia to proceed him. As she passed through the door, she had to suppress a gasp of surprise. The old library had been dark and cramped and dusty, a place in the lower fortress where only the clerks went, but the new one was a true spectacle.

The space where it was housed had once been the magazine, which served the western war-engine battery that was now Klinberg's private garden. Once the Engineers and Growers had finished their work, the place had lain empty for two hundred and fifty years, its vast chamber sealed up and forgotten. Now the place had been opened up, and was no longer dark.

Tahlia had to half close her eyes in the glare of light flooding through the tall windows that filled the far wall from floor to ceiling. An army of clerks were busy among the new shelves and wide stepped balconies, sorting and stacking old books into their new home. The dust from them caught and glittering and formed slanting columns in the light from the windows. Competing with the musk of the books was the sweeter scent of fresh carved wood and hive wax.

"This way," said the clerk politely, motioning Tahlia towards a nearby staircase that led up to the second level of shelves. They passed small tables and chairs, set along the balcony edge, which were all piled high with books. Tahlia sidled over to a table and looked at one such pile with interest. Unlike most of the others, the books looked new and they seemed to be on the subject of plant care.

"Do not touch," said the clerk curtly.

"I did not intend to," replied Tahlia disdainfully, and went back to following the man towards a set of stairs leading to the third and final tier. The shelves there did not contain books, but instead were filled with loosely bound sheaves of paper, or were divided into square apertures where rolls of parchment were stacked. Tahlia would have liked to get a closer look at them, but the clerk hurried her on towards a final set of stairs. She followed their spiral, up to a curved balcony, which ran the length of the outer wall, above the room's tall windows. It was darker there, and the air was chillier out of the sunlight, but Tahlia could see doors lining the wall, and it was to one of these that the clerk led her.

He knocked, opened the door and motioned her inside.

The room beyond the door was as light as the great chamber below, and the air was warm and filled with the scent of the gardens from its open window. It was small and simply furnished with two deep comfortable chairs and a table beneath the window on which stood two old books, one propped open on a reading stand.

The look she received from her father, as he glanced up from his position in one of the chairs, was somewhat less welcoming than the appearance of the room. She heard the door click shut behind her, making her heart jump, and she realised she was suddenly full up with unfamiliar nerves. She seldom felt uncomfortable in the presence of her father, but the look on his face was one she did not recognise, and so had no idea how his current mood could be appeased.

As a standby, she put on a bright smile of innocence and placed her hands demurely behind her back.

"Hello, father," she said.