Zandaril had excused himself from dinner early and vanished, as some of the others did, but Penrys lingered over the meal in a desultory discussion of possible plans before breaking away eventually.
She scanned briefly for Zandaril and found him out of the building but not far away and clearly in no distress, so she dismissed the puzzle of what he was doing and paid a visit to the library, something she’d been longing to do since they’d arrived.
As she walked in she inhaled the familiar scents, and smiled. I would know a library blindfolded.
An older wizard occupying a table in the front area with a stack of books looked up nervously at her entrance. His face was known to her from the classes, but there were too many names to remember. She nodded at him and picked up one of the darkened hand-lights near the door. In a moment, she’d charged its power-stone and carried it with her into the closely spaced shelving.
When she surfaced again, she was startled to realize almost three hours had passed. What had made her stop was the realization that she was charging the power-stone for the lamp for the third time.
No one was left in the front area. She sat down at the nearest table and stared blankly at its dented and scratched surface, while her body finally recognized that its legs were tired.
So many books. So many that are not in the Collegium’s catalogue, I’m sure of it. Not just Rasesni books, none of which are there, but the dozens and dozens from other lands.
She looked at her hands, her fingers flexing, and snorted. They’re not tired—they’re itching to steal whatever they can snatch, whatever my conscience says.
Penrys walked back to her isolated room down empty corridors, her thoughts still on the endless stream of titles. Her mind assembled the bookcases into a single image of all the shelves on one impossibly tall and wide wall. She thought it might equal perhaps a twentieth of the Collegium’s collection, and almost all of it new to her.
Such a plethora of gods, and so many of the titles devoted to secret knowledge. Did the devotees of one god read books dedicated to others? Was it allowed? Encouraged?
She’d sometimes thought of the knowledge represented in the Collegium’s books as a river with many streams running in to make it broader. Was this more like a forest, each god’s tree standing tall, with only superficial vines connecting them together? Surely not—how could they be so advanced in power-stone technology if they didn’t share?
When she opened the door to her room, she blinked at the vision of Zandaril stretched out comfortably on her bed. Then her nose caught up with her eyes and she smiled at the reek of alcohol. So that’s what he was doing.
His eyes popped open at the sound of her entrance and he grinned up at her.
“You’re back. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Her lips quivered and she looked down indulgently. “I assume you weren’t drinking alone.”
She took the chair and stretched out her own legs. “So, tell me about it. I thought they weren’t our friends.”
“That’s why it’s good to make new friends. One new friend, anyway. Dzantig. That’s his short name. You remember Dzantig, yes? The one who thought he could beat you first.”
“Yes,” she said. “I know Dzangabtig.”
“Did you know he helped when they broke your shield? Told them to back off when I thought they might not. Told them if they harmed you they wouldn’t be able to learn from you.”
“No, I didn’t know. That’s good.”
Zandaril lifted one arm from his prone position to waggle a finger at her. “I am sympathetic foreigner to these wizards. They come talk to me.”
His hand waved in the air.
“They think I am brave to travel with you.” He nodded his head. “Me, too. They want to know why you haven’t eaten me yet.”
Penrys told him solemnly, “Not hungry enough.” It was hard work keeping a straight face.
He nodded again as if he appreciated her answer. “I am not very drunk, you know. I told Dzantig I had to be able to walk back to my room.”
With a distinct leer, he added, “Walking isn’t really what I meant.”
A while later, well past the middle of the night, Zandaril rose from their bed and wrapped his discarded robe round him. Enough light from the sky glow of a clear night entered through the window that Penrys could make out his form as he pulled the chair over closer to the bed and sat down.
“I must talk to you seriously,” he said, and Penrys judged him nearly sober.
“These wizards, some of them, they tell me things you don’t hear. I smile and nod like a stupid foreigner, and they tell me their worries.”
Penrys raised herself up to prop her back against her pillow and the headboard.
“What do they talk about?”
“Sacrilege. Some of them are outraged to be exposing the secrets of their gods. Their gods are not all friends, and neither are their priests and followers.”
He leaned forward. “Many of the older ones are priests, did you know?
“I thought so, from their dress.”
“This did not start with you. It is Zongchas who pushed this policy, who forced them to mingle all the books and writings they brought into exile. And not all of them are unhappy about it. The younger ones are excited to learn forbidden things.”
He snorted. “Even wizards behave like children. But this is a big problem for us. For you.”
Penrys blinked. “Why us?”
“Because they can’t blame Zongchas and do anything about it. But you, you they can blame. You are a great target, just like their enemy, but right in front of them.”
“I don’t expect them to like me,” she protested. “I expect them to understand that they must band together if they want to defeat him.”
“That’s what their heads tell them, but not their hearts. Not the devotion they give their gods. Some of them think this Surdo arose to punish them for abandoning the old ways.”
“I don’t have time to sooth a bunch of ruffled feathers that they don’t even tell me about.”
Zandaril looked at her as if to evaluate her statement, and shook his head. “Pen-sha, heresy is dangerous. Dangerous! It damages our working truce. You are too blind to understand this. You have no gods.”
Those words chilled her. She knew this disturbed him about her, but they hadn’t discussed it. “I mean no harm to anyone’s gods.”
He looked at her sadly. “You looked at the library tonight. Those are not books about magic, they’re books about the secrets of the gods. You know this—you saw the titles on Veneshjug’s books.”
“But it’s the same thing,” she protested.
“Not to a believer.”
Silence fell between them. There was nothing she could say to refute him.
He must have seen the worry on her face.
“Well, never mind. Me, I do not believe in their gods, either. And if we ever find a way to loot their library, I expect my share.”
