Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis [23]
“What did you do?” asked Vanya, fascinated in spite of himself. “Did you enter it then?”
“No. I was too scared. I stood before the chamber, staring at it for I don’t know how long.” Saryon sighed wearily. “It must have been hours, because I was suddenly aware of an aching in my legs and a feeling of dizziness. I sank into a chair then, terrified, and looked around. What if I had been seen? Surely the forbidden thoughts I was thinking must be plain upon my face! But I was alone.”
Unconsciously suiting his actions to his words, Saryon sank back into his chair. “Sitting there, in the Study Room near that forbidden chamber, I knew what it was to be tempted by Evil.” His head lowered into his hands. “You see, Holiness, I knew, as surely as I sat in that wooden chair, that I could enter those forbidden doors! Oh, they are guarded and shielded by wards and runes”—he shrugged impatiently—“but they are such simple spells of sealing that anyone with any Life in him at all can easily undo them. It’s as if they are guarded in this way as a mere formality, it being simply assumed that no one in his right mind would even want to be near the forbidden texts, let alone read them.”
The young man was silent then. His voice dropping, he spoke almost to himself. “Perhaps I’m not in my right mind. It seems lately that everything I look at is distorted and foggy, as though I’m seeing it through a gauze curtain.” Glancing up at Vanya, he shook his head and continued, his voice tinged with bitterness.
“I realized something else in that instant, Holiness. I had not discovered those books by accident.” His fist clenched. “No, I had been searching for them, deliberately hunting for them without admitting it to myself. Entire passages of other books I had read came clearly to my mind as I sat there, passages that made reference to books that I was never able to find and assumed must have been destroyed after the Iron Wars. But, when I found that room, I knew differently. They were in there. They had to be. I’d known it all along.
“What did I do?” He laughed hysterically, a laugh that cracked into a sob. “I fled the Library as though pursued by phantoms! Running back to my cell, I cast myself upon the bed and shivered in fear.”
“My son, you should have talked to someone,” Vanya remonstrated gently. “Do you have so little faith in us?”
Saryon shook his head, impatiently wiping away his tears. “I almost did. The Theldara sent for me. But I was afraid.” He sighed. “I thought I could manage by myself. I tried to drown this thirst for forbidden knowledge in my work. I sought to cleanse my soul in prayer and obedience to my duties. I never once missed Evening Ritual, after that. I took to exercising with the others in the courtyard, letting myself get so exhausted that I couldn’t think.
“Above all, I avoided the Library. Yet not a moment passed—waking or sleeping—but that I did not think of that room and the treasure which lay within.
“I should have known then that I was fast losing my soul.” Saryon’s words swept him on. “But the ache of my desires was too much. I gave in. Last night, when everyone else had retired to their cells for Resting Time, I slipped out and crept through the corridors until I came to the Library. I didn’t know the old Deacon had been posted there to scare off rodents. I don’t suppose it would have stopped me had I known, so completely consumed was I by my torment.
“As I had foreseen, undoing the spells of sealing was simple. I could have cast such magic as a child. For a breathless moment I paused on the threshold, savoring the sweet ache of anticipation. Then I entered that forbidden room, my heart beating so that it came near bursting, my body drenched in sweat.
“Have you ever been in there?” Saryon looked at the Bishop, who raised his eyebrows so alarmingly that the young man shrank back. “No, no, I—I suppose not. The books are not assembled neatly or in any sort of order. They’re just piled up in stacks as though they had been hurriedly