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Faustinus had drawn him a map of Diernemynster, but the sorcerer admitted he hadn’t been there in some time, and buildings might have been put up or torn down. Hamon had never had much of a sense of direction, and he stood at the edge of the wide courtyard, ringed with buildings, turning the map one way, then the other before he located what surely had to be the chapel. And that meant the low building on his right, near the edge of the cliff, had to be the dormitory for visitors. Maybe.
He headed up to the door, and before he even reached the top step, a young male Shangian hillichmagnar pushed the door open and ushered him inside.
“Here for research?” the man asked, looking almost painfully eager to help. “Terrible day to be traveling, but you made it, and that’s the important thing, isn’t it?” He glanced at Hamon’s white and gray habit. “Leofine order, right?”
“Yes,” said Hamon. “Brother Friel, Priory of the Blessed Illumination, Formacaster.”
“A very fine institution.” The hillichmagnar introduced himself as Wong Zhi and had Hamon sign the guestbook. Then he showed him to a simple, but comfortable room with a fresh straw mattress and down comforter and a little leaded-glass window that looked out across the snow-covered courtyard at the chapel.
Every joint from Hamon’s neck to his toes ached to collapse into the bed and fall asleep. But he knew Moira was here in this strange little community somewhere. He had to figure out where she was.
But how could he broach the subject? He couldn’t very well say, “Excuse me, but are you holding my lover somewhere around here as a prisoner?”
“If you’d like to rest,” said Wong Zhi, “I could wake you for lunch.”
“No, I think I’d better get started right away,” said Hamon, giving one last, longing glance at the mattress and the fluffy white pillow.
Wong Zhi shrugged and explained the rules of the place: “We ask that visitors stay out of the hillichmagnars’ dormitory, unless you’ve been invited. That’s only for privacy, though. Other than that, you can go wherever you like. Oh, and if you venture to the right of the music hall, be careful—there’s a 700 foot drop over there, so stay on the marked path. I don’t suppose you’re musical, are you? We’re having a bit of a concert tonight, and you’re welcome to join in. Or simply listen.”
He led Hamon back out to the snowy courtyard and pointed across the way at a tall building, sprouting with porticoes and buttresses and loggias and balconies. “That’s the library, and I imagine you’ll want to start there. Earnwine is the librarian. Tell him I said ‘hello.’”
Hamon thanked the hillichmagnar and crossed the courtyard. He paused on the steps of the library and looked around. There was a very fine Leorniac chapel, and what looked like a meeting room or banquet hall. And a domed building that he guessed was some sort of Immani-style gymnasium. Or perhaps a music hall. Nearer at hand, there was an anonymous kind of gray stone apartment block; he guessed this was the dormitory. Other buildings huddled in the snow around the courtyard, but none of them had the appearance of a prison.
What did a prison look like, anyway, though? On a couple of occasions, when serving at court, Hamon had gone down to the Wealdan Castle dungeons to speak with noblemen who had been detained on this or that charge. The place had been dank and damp and full of steam from the pump tower that carried hot water to the whole building. But no one looking at the palace from the outside would have known what lay under the ground.
“Might as well start here,” he thought. So, he turned and walked into the library. There was a central reading room, three stories tall, with balconies jutting out overhead, and stairways and corridors disappearing between towering, crowded bookshelves. Reading tables lined the main floor, and in the center, several large books were displayed under glass cases. Off to the side, near a low arch, two women—presumably hillichmagnars—sat talking in low voices.
An older hillichmagnar with a long, brown beard rose from behind a central desk and introduced himself as Earnwine, the librarian. “I had thought we were done with researchers for the year,” he said, a bemused smile on his lips. “But here you are, even in this weather. Is there something I could help you with?”
Hamon had given this question some thought on his ride up the Haraldsweg from the south. He was supposed to be a researcher. That meant he must have something he wished to research. And it couldn’t be something simple, like “I’m looking for the original copy of the Halig Leoth,” because then the librarian would probably walk him over to one of those glass cases and say, “Here it is.” So he had come up with a really tricky problem.
“I’m hoping to trace the development of the Onsetting Candle in Ivich tradition,” he said. He already knew this was something theologians had been arguing about for centuries. “I’m wondering what influence the Kenedalic heresies might have had on this. And pagan beliefs, too. Also, is this related to the lighting of candles in the Gudinna religion of Krigadam?”
Earnwine looked impressed. “Well, if you can figure all that out, I will be very eager to read your book. Or books, plural, as I’m sure that will require multiple folio volumes.” He pointed to stairways and passages off the main room, saying, “The early hillichmagy collections are there. But the religious materials from the various Ivich denominations are down there. Oh, and our Early Gudinna collection isn’t quite so extensive as one might hope, but we have a number of manuscripts in Gallery 5B—that’s up there and to the right.” He looked from side to side. “Oh, blast it all, where is Evika? I’m sorry, but my assistant seems to have disappeared. Let me go find her, and she can take you around.”
“No, sir, there’s no need.” The librarian seemed quite congenial, so Hamon took a chance. “Actually, this first day I wanted to wander around and see what you have. Is that alright?”
“Oh, yes,” said Earnwine. “The entire collection is open, only....” He turned and scowled at the two women huddling together at the study table. In a lower voice, he went on. “There is one particular gallery, in the cellar, that is off limits at the moment. I do apologize.”
Hamon was not a hillichmagnar, but he had grown up in a monastery, and he instantly recognized the look Earnwine was giving the two women. They were outsiders. They had been foisted upon him by someone. And they were obviously connected with this gallery he wasn’t allowed to see.
He knew he was pressing his luck a bit, but he was desperate to see Moira again, so he said, “Just so I don’t wander into this gallery by accident, where is it, exactly?”
Earnwine studied him for a while, then shook his head, smiling. And this was an entirely different look—the look of one insider to another. “I appreciate your solicitude in this matter. But if I wanted to get to the gallery,” he nodded at an archway to his left. “I would go down those stairs, then take the first right, and go through the map room. Then through an arch and down a set of stairs.” He stood back and winked. “But of course, Brother Friel, you surely don’t mean to go there, do you?”
“How do you know who I am?” said Hamon.
In a low voice, the librarian said, “Caedmon sent a bird ahead of you. I’ll distract those two,” he indicated the women at the table, “but you must hurry.”
Following the librarian’s directions, he found the map room, and then the arch, and finally a set of steps going down into a smaller chamber lined with cabinets. He found two women there, hands raised as if ready to cast spells. One was a small young woman with brown hair. The other was Moira. He ran down the steps to her.
“Hamon, what on earth are you doing here?” she said.
He kissed her, quickly but quite passionately, before he answered. “I’m here to rescue you. Faustinus is...somewhere. There’s a barrier spell or something like that, so he sent me in.”
The other girl looked at the two of them and whispered, “Are you...are the two of you together? Oh, that’s so romantic.” Then she introduced herself as Evika Videle and explained that she and Moira had once been students together.
Moira held up her arm, which had a little bracelet. “I hope Faustinus knows how to get this blasted thing off. I can’t do magy while I’m wearing it.”
“Oh, I’ve got something for that,” said Hamon, taking out the bronze knife Faustinus had given him. He feared he might hurt her with it. But it turned out that tapping the blade against the bracelet was sufficient to break the spell. The bracelet fell away, and Moira gave Hamon a longer, much deeper kiss.
“This is really sweet,” said Evika, “but the two of you need to leave before Tatiana and Shyama come back.”
“The librarian is stalling them,” said Hamon, “but you’re right; we should go.”
They ran up the steps, and Evika led them out a side door to a little portico. “Oh, good,” the girl said, looking around. “A lot of times people come out here to smoke. But it’s all clear.”
Hamon told them Faustinus was waiting on the southern road, called the Haraldsweg, and both of them immediately knew how to get there. But to do it, they needed to cross the courtyard, where they could be seen by anyone who happened to be looking out a window.
“If only we had some sort of distraction,” said Moira.
Almost as if in answer to her request, huge fiery explosions, in green, blue, and gold lit up the mountainside to the east, beyond the music hall. Thunder rumbled around the hills, and snow cascaded down the roofs of the library, shaken loose by the concussion.
The courtyard filled with hillichmagnars, running to see what was going on. All of them looked and pointed in the exact opposite direction of Moira, Evika, and Hamon.
“Is this someone’s idea of a prank?” someone shouted.
“It’s a bit early for Seefest,” someone else said.
Moira led the way, and they sprinted past the crowd and down the road to a little ice-covered bridge, where Faustinus waited for them, out of breath, but grinning.
“It turns out there’s a path that goes up the valley to the east, outside the barrier spell. I doubt Astrid even knows it’s there.” He shook Moira’s hand, “Good to see you again, dear.” Then he shook hands with Hamon and Evika and congratulated them on the escape.
Evika declined their invitation to join them. “Earnwine needs me in the library,” she said, “and if Astrid finds out I helped you, I’ll tell her it was Caedmon’s idea, and then she’ll have to forgive me.”
Before the sun set, they were down the hill and headed for the Styrung, which they reached soon after dark. As she had promised, Vittoria the Emissaria had set up a post station there.
“We’ve got another at the top of the pass,” she said, “and a third one halfway to Terminium on the old caravan road.”
They had over two hundred miles to ride, and Hamon still hadn’t slept or had even the slightest rest. But Moira was understandably eager to get as far from Diernemynster as possible, and when she noticed the way that he winced when he got in the saddle, she leaned over and whispered that she would personally tend his injuries when they got to a proper inn. And that helped sustain him through that dreadful night, and all through the awful day that followed.
In places, the snow drifts were nearly as high as their stirrups, and several times the horses balked and refused to continue. But each time, Faustinus and Moira would dismount and talk to the animals in low, soothing voices. Hamon now recognized the signs of calming spells, and he remembered that he had been angry at Moira for using those same spells on him. But maybe, as with the horses, the spells had been for his own good.
At last, as the sun went down again over the desolate plains of silvery-white snow, they spotted the high spires and soaring temple domes of the city, all sparkling with crusted ice.
“Almost there,” said Faustinus.
“We’ve still got to find which safehouse they’re at,” said Hamon, with a sort of whimpering groan.
Moira smiled. “I think we can save that until tomorrow. Let’s get a room for the night. I want to give my rescuer his reward.”
And suddenly Hamon didn’t feel tired, after all.
“Do I get anything?” asked Faustinus, wiggling his eyebrows in a suggestive way.
“You get the satisfaction of a job well done,” said Moira. “And beyond that, I will leave you to your own devices.”