No matter how many times Ned traveled through a Way, he never got used to it. He suspected nobody did, or at least no humans. The crawling under the outer layer of his skin, the flashes of nausea, the wrenching sensation, the disorientation — maybe some people handled it better than he did, but Ned always hated it. Of course he tolerated it, because the Library was of far too much value to ignore, particularly in his line of work, but he always considered the travel a price to pay. At least it was mercifully brief.
Unfortunately, the cost of dealing with the Library itself was less so, with its labyrinthine structure and its arcane code of conduct. Travel here was something he did only when he had a very deliberate purpose for his own research or edification, one which could not be satisfied elsewhere or in any other way, and the rest of the time he avoided the place like an awkward acquaintance. It rankled, deeply, to be here as a delivery boy. Of course, the man who sent him on this job knew that; he had been larger than life, but every bit as petty in death.
Ned had selected the Way at the base of Old Joe, in part because he had had business at Birmingham Central Library as well, in part because the knock was trivial (hum a descending pentatonic scale while snapping with your left hand and tipping your cap with your right), but chiefly because this one spat you out at one of the far ends of the Main Hall, where it was generally less congested. Ned also had a personal connection with Rizzk, Apprentice Archivist, who worked there, and a general sense of when Rizzk was in a good mood, which was useful. Archivists in poor moods were the absolute worst.
When the world tipped forward and the Way disgorged him into the Main Hall, Ned sighed, tugged on the straps of his backpack, and telescoped out his cane. The lines, even out this far into the looping and twisting Hall, curled back all the way into Wing One behind him. Not a good sign. He hoisted his pack a little higher and set off to find the end of the line, grateful he put on his hiking boots, but the pack was heavy with books and he wasn’t a young man anymore. He glanced over his shoulder at the Archivist behind the desk. Rizzk hunched across the fine-grained, mirror-smooth wood, his thousand eyes blinking sporadically and constantly, no two quite at the same time. He seemed to be in some sort of altercation with some a golden-green beetle-person, who held books aloft in two of its six legs and gestured with them animatedly. It’s not a problem, Ned tried to reassure himself. This is standard stuff for Rizzk. The line will start inching forward in no time.
The end of the line was perhaps a quarter of a mile back, wending its way along the stacks of Wing One. Ned wondered to himself if there was some sort of… special event happening today at the Library. He tried to recall if he had ever seen it so busy. As he passed various and sundry creatures — three tall pillars made of smoking and fuming violet ice, which flashed lights at each other under their translucent surfaces to communicate, a floating orb with a tiny green figure inside it pulling levers and pushing buttons, a swarm of cockroaches which seethed and rippled to form and reform the approximate figure of a man, and of course, humans of all shapes and sizes — all he could think about was how his leg was hurting already. Damn that Burnley.
When he took his place at the end of the line, behind a woman at least two heads higher than him, her long, slender body sculpted meticulously from fine porcelain, he leaned on his cane, shrugged off his backpack, swung it in front of him on his wide belly, unzipped it, and took final count of the books. Thirteen of them in all, and most in languages he did not know. Some in scripts he did not recognize. What mattered was that they were all there.
Suddenly one of the straps of his backpack came loose, and the pack tipped forward and all the books slid out and scattered unceremoniously across the polished marble floor. Ned’s eye twitched and his irises flashed briefly from green to crimson and back to green. He bit his tongue to hold back a curse. There was a soft, high-pitched grinding noise as the woman in front of him swiveled her head around on her neck to look down at him. She raised a single painted eyebrow, just slightly. Just enough for Ned to notice, before she slowly turned her head back. Behind him, there was an unmistakable creaking of a chain, and Ned looked over his shoulder to see a Docent staring at him mutely, lantern raised and swinging gently.
“Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll pick them up.” Ned bent over, inching his way down his cane.
The docent nodded and began to meander away through the stacks.
Ned began to scoop the books back in his pack. He realized this was his first time really looking at them; he had caught the flight directly to Edinburgh after the estate had given him the parcel, and he hadn't wanted to draw attention on the plane. Veritates Tacitae, read one cover, embossed with silver, in a severe and angular script. He rolled his eyes at the melodrama of it. As he picked up a few more, he noticed something interesting — and noticing something interesting was his entire line of work. A book with a soft leather cover, entitled Paroles de vraie foi, lay apart from the others, and sticking out from behind the cover were not quite half a dozen folded and yellowed pieces of paper with handwriting scrawled across them. He won the fight against the urge to say what have we here? aloud, but it was a damn strong urge.
He looked up and ahead of him. Porcelain woman had inched forward a few steps, and some sort of titanic snail had crept up behind him. It flapped its mantle mucilaginously at him in what he assumed was impatience, so he quickly finished sliding the remainder of the books into his backpack. Leaning on his cane to pull himself upright, he slipped the papers from Paroles de vraie foi, carefully unfolded them, and scanned the first one in the stack. It was significantly older and thinner than the rest, perhaps by decades, and written in an old, brittle hand, in one of the old, brittle languages in which Ned was fluent — French. He mentally translated as he began to read:
12 November 1909
To the esteemed reader of this missive,
We would first like to offer you the most heartfelt congratulations to you for being the one to have located this letter and the contents of the parcel hidden alongside it. You are the first and only to know of its existence and the bearer of one of only two such official insignias remaining in the whole of the world, the others having long ago been melted down and recast in baser denominations or pawned away. There is in truth no way for you to have found this were it not for your prowess and dedication in unearthing the realities of this world, and therefore, with all of the power vested in Us as King by God and Our people, such as there remains, We hereby bestow upon you the accolade of the sole Knight of the Order of Marie the First, through any such time and distance as is required.
Ned paused and held a hand up to his forehead as he stepped forward in line. Had he found this letter in the belongings of any other person he had ever met, known, acquainted himself with, employed, or been in service to, he would have dismissed it as a cheap hoax. It being Burnley’s, however, meant there were two options: it was an expensive hoax, or it was real. He read on.
All rights and privileges of the Knighthood are hereby granted to you, and the Right of Visitation to the Kingdom of the Sedang is officially extended. Unfortunately, due to the treacherous actions of the so-called French Republic, the Kingdom itself has been rendered inaccessible for two decades, and the world believes that We are dead. In light of this state of affairs, We have enclosed in the adjoining parcel another document which details how We are to be contacted. If We are still alive, We await your letter most eagerly.
King Marie I
Bullshit, Ned thought. There was simply no realistic way that this letter’s supposed provenance was accurate. And yet, the puzzle itched in the back of Ned’s mind. David de Maryréna was understood to be highly eccentric — obviously, given his history. His manner of death also was lost to the record. Some claimed a snakebite, others a lost duel, still others an assassin’s poison claimed his life. Was it possible he never died at all? He riffled through the remaining papers, but of course, the document on how to contact the explorer-king was nowhere to be found. He squinted and his eyes shifted from green to grey. This pair had been given to him on a long-term loan which was now long in default. They were simply too useful.
Leveraging the acuity and training of these eyes, he made some mental notes about the document itself. Onion skin paper — unusual. Still would have been pricy and difficult to come by in 1909. Not impossible. Not enough to rule anything out. Handwritten, of course, in India ink. With a dip pen based on bleed spread, stroke width, angle of attack. Consistent. Cotton fibers in the paper had held up well for the last seven decades. Very little degradation. Stored in a dehumidified space. Probably under vacuum. Possibly indeed written in 1909. By whom, uncertain.
Nowhere to go from here but to the next letter. Thicker paper. Flicking back and forth between the pages, Ned, don’t look at the dateline yet. First, second, first, second. Exact same hand, exact same script. Except — in the second, more of a shake. Hand is less steady. Very subtle. Slightly less faded ink, slightly different formulation. Maybe fifteen, twenty years more recent. Check stroke width. Same pen. Probably same nib. Unlikely to be forged. Would need to be perhaps best forger in the world.
Ned took a deep breath and his eyes flooded with green again. He leaned hard on his cane. Focusing in on that level of detail was exhausting. Worthwhile, but it took a lot of time, and a lot out of him. Breathing heavily, he brought the second letter up and began to read.
8 August 1933
To Sir Lyle Alan Burnley,
Our years have grown long in belief that nobody would ever find Our note from those now twenty four years ago. We were certain to hide it very well, in ways and places only those who have dedicated their lives to the accumulation of understanding might stumble upon, and even thus so unlikely by chance We believed We would be long dead before such a thing might occur. Therefore it is with great surprise and joy that We write these words to you now, and perhaps it is with some not-undue surprise you are reading them, yourself!
We are who We claim to be, Marie-Charles David de Mayréna, first King of the Sedang. In 1890, on Tioman Island, We falsified Our death and went into hiding, as Carnot’s government considered Us an enemy of the state and seditionist. You surmised as much in your letter, and We are as impressed with your understanding of the history as We are with your deductive skills. We knew they would not cease clandestine attempts to find and murder Us until We were killed. Therefore We orchestrated Our death, such as it was, and escaped to Our current hideaway. It is some distance from you, if your postmark is to be believed, so you will need to be forgiving of delays. Besides which, We are impelled to relay each letter through a series of couriers to obscure Our location. We are certain you understand the necessity of such things.
All of this aside, We are grateful that before We are remanded to the judgment of God that We have one person on His Earth who truly knows of Us, and that We can rest knowing that Our once-glorious Kingdom laid claim to at least one Knight. We are eager to hear back from you soon.
King Marie I
As he read, Ned was aware enough only to shuffle forward at appropriate times and avoid trodding on porcelain woman’s heels. It was simply beyond belief to imagine even Lyle Burnley uncovering all of this and becoming a knight of a brief and dubious kingdom in the middle of Southeast Asia fifty years after its collapse. Yet the facts remained — all of this lined up perfectly. The material analysis was consistent. And it was Lyle Burnley. If anyone could have managed it…
There were still three more letters to read, and Ned wanted to be sure he had time. The line had moved such that he was nearly in the Main Hall, but the line still twisted forward and out of sight, especially for Ned’s aging eyes to make out. Time to borrow another’s. His irises spun and swirled into a sharp, clear amber and his pupils dilated outward, causing his vision of the end of the line to sharpen to fine points. There was some sort of family of humans. A father, and eight children — he supposed the oldest was perhaps in her twenties. So, eight children. From the looks of it, Rizzk was issuing each of them a library card, and not particularly happy about doing so. Very fine. Plenty of time. Ned’s eyes returned to normal and he allowed himself to turn to the next letter.
28 December 1933
To Sir Lyle Alan Burnley,
We remain awestruck with your abilities. Namely, We did not expect you to deduce that We had contact with Sante Geronimo Caserio, the assassin of President Carnot, before the act occurred, although We must admit that We resent the implication that We directed him to undertake the killing in any way. We simply happened to meet him in Switzerland a few years after Our supposed death. We had returned to Europe to recover some of Our effects and sort out other various concerns and to issue a reminder to Ourselves why We chose to leave it all behind in the first place and see the world. During the course of this We happened to connect with anarchist elements. Well, of course it helped that we shared the same bleak opinion of the French Republic and of Carnot in particular. We cannot say that they would have agreed with Our beliefs, or understood anything of running a Kingdom, but we had the same enemy and for not entirely dissimilar reasons. It turns out the anarchists knew something of oppression by the Republic themselves.
We are willing to overlook your insinuation against Us in the hopes that you would be willing to perform a duty for Us in turn. When We left the Sedang in 1889 it was with the full belief We would return with the Prussians a King and hero, able to divest the land and the will of its people to a greater empire in exchange for compensation befitting someone who has laid the groundwork for a peaceable and willing colony. As you know, this was not to be, and to this day We have never again set foot in Our Kingdom. We dare not risk it, and at Our now-advanced age, the travel would be perilous. We ask only because We have left an important volume behind, one page of which ought to be buried with Us when We die. We hope you will see fit to retrieve it for Us..
Marie-Charles David de Mayréna
Ned’s head was spinning. The erstwhile king returned to Europe? To France, just a few years after faking his death? He sent Burnley on a retrieval mission? Lyle Burnley was many things, but an errand boy to a delusional, shifty historical vagabond certainly could not have been one of them.
He tried not to think too hard about his own current obligation. Besides, the line was moving faster now. His leg ached fiercely and he was eager to get these books returned and back to reality. He had a lecture in London to prepare for, and he still had his business in Birmingham to attend to.
But he couldn’t put the letters down.
17 June 1934
Burnley,
Your constant divination of my whereabouts and activities is no longer appreciated. I do not know by what Devil-given means you ascertained that I am in Argentina but I will brook your thinly-veiled attempts at extortion no longer, particularly since you have notified me that you have returned from Indochina empty-handed. The best practice for blackmail is to divulge freely the information held overhead and thus I write this with my own hand and of my own will. I am in Argentina for two reasons and two alone. One is that I desire peace. I left behind my tumultuous life long ago and have not involved myself with the course of the events of the world in years. Secondly, I indeed discovered that another acquaintance was located here. A young man who also did what was right, no matter what consequence those in control might see fit to bring him, and who I was inspired by when I met him in Berlin ten years ago. His name, as you correctly and unfortunately deduced, is Aram Yerganian, and he is very ill. I am here for no other reason than to see him and wish him well. I am not interested in “extracting” anything from him and I certainly am not here for any reasons more untoward than that. After all, at this age, I have nothing more in this world to hide.
Your much less unsubtle allegation that I was a fomenter in each of these violent and revolutionary incidents is laughable. My life has simply led me where it has through divine providence.
As to why traveling to Argentina was not too taxing, surely even you can admit there is a difference between the slow, rolling hills of Córdoba and the primitive jungles of Indochina. Unless, of course, you never set foot there after all.
David de Mayréna
Ned looked up. Somehow, he found himself now at the front of the line. He glanced back over his shoulder. Nobody was behind him but the snail, who seemed to be preoccupied reading a cookbook in some alien script. He placed his library card on the smoothly polished surface of the Archivists’ Desk without meeting Rizzk’s thousand gazes directly.
Dr. Malcolm Nine-Eyes-Davis. Rizzk’s voice thrummed curtly in Ned’s head. Always a pleasure. State your business.
“Here to return Lyle Alan Burnley’s checkouts. On account of his being deceased, you see.”
You have assumed responsibility for his materials, then? Rizzk stared at Ned, unblinking.
Ned looped an elbow through the crook of his cane, waving his hand dismissively as he began to unload his backpack. “Sure, sure. They’re all here.”
He unfolded the last note as Rizzk began to open each book and stamp them back in.
Burnley,
I don’t know how you found it, but it arrived today. Page 104, in pristine condition, with all my annotations intact. It looks, somehow, as fresh and clear as the day I last laid eyes on it, in 1889. Keep the rest of the book, why don’t you? I suspect you’ll find it intriguing.
David de Mayréna
The color drained from Ned’s face. He stopped breathing. He looked up. Every one of Rizzk’s eyes was narrowed, and Paroles de vraie foi was open on the desk. The left page was 103, the right, 106.
Rizzk's voice was taut with fury. Recompense must be paid for the damage to these materials.
Ned’s eyes rolled involuntarily as Rizzk's gaze intensified, revealing one blue iris and one milky white. Rizzk reached out with one tentacle and gripped the blue one in its socket. Ned began to scream.
On the desk, the letters of the library card shifted and twisted uncannily.
The name on the card now read “Dr. Malcom Eight-Eyes Davis”.