Water Sleeps

13

A sudden, startled thrill ran through me. I was not alone anymore. A long time had passed. The sun had swung several hours across the sky. The quality of the light within the library had changed. It had become a much paler version of its morning self. Presumably the clouds had passed away.

I did not jump or, I hope, show any immediate outward reaction. But I did have to respond visibly to my awareness of the presence of whoever was standing behind me. Perhaps it was his breath that alerted me. The curry and garlic were strong. Certainly I never heard a sound.

I brought my heartbeat under control, smoothed my features, turned.

The Master of the Library, my boss, Surendranath San-taraksita, met my gaze. “Dorabee. I believe you were reading.” At the library they know me as Dorabee Dey Banerjae. An honorable name. A man of that name died beside me in a skirmish near the Daka Woods a long time ago. He did not need it anymore and I would do it no harm.

I did not speak. The truth would be hard to deny if the Master had been there long. I was halfway through the book, which was of the bound sort and contained no illustrations whatsoever, not even one Tantric passage.

“I have been watching you for some time, Dorabee. Your interest and skill are both evident. It’s clear that you read better than most of my copyists. Yet it’s equally obvious that you aren’t of the priestly caste.”

My face was still as old cheese. I was wondering if I should kill him and how I could dispose of the corpse if I did. Perhaps the Stranglers could be framed... No. Master Santaraksita was old but still hale enough to throw me around if I tried to throttle him. Being small has definite disadvantages at times. He had eight inches on me but at the moment that seemed like several feet. And someone else was moving around at the other end of the library. I heard voices.

I did not drop my eyes the way a menial should. Master Santaraksita already knew I was more than a curious sweeper, though a good one. I kept the place spotless. That was a Company rule. Our public characters had to be morally straight and excellent workers. Which did not make some of the men at all happy.

I waited. Master Santaraksita would decide his own fate. He would decide the fate of the library that he loved.

“So. Our Dorabee is a man of more talents than we suspected. What else do you do that we don’t know about, Dorabee? Can you write, as well?” I did not answer, of course. “Where did you learn? It has long been the contention of many of the bhadrhalok that those not of the priestly caste do not have the mental facility to learn the High Mode.”

Still I did not speak. Eventually he would commit to movement in some direction. I would respond accordingly. I hoped I could avoid destroying him and his brethren and stripping the library of whatever might be useful. That was the course One-Eye wanted to follow years ago. Never mind being subtle. Never mind not alerting Soulcatcher to what was happening right under her nose.

“You have nothing to say? No defense?”

“A pursuit of knowledge needs no defense. Sir Sondhel Ghosh the Janaka declared that in the Garden of Wisdom there is no caste.” Albeit in an age when caste had much less meaning.

“Sondhel Ghosh spoke of the university at Vikramas, where all the students had to pass an exhaustive examination before they were allowed to enter the grounds.”

“Do we suppose many students of any caste were admitted who were unable to read the Panas and Pashids? Sondhel Ghosh was not called the Janaka for nothing. Vikramas was the seat of Janai religious study.”

“A janitor who knows about a religion long dead. We are indeed entering the Age of Khadi, where all is turned upon its head.” Khadi is the favored Taglian name for Kina, in one of her less vicious aspects. The name Kina is seldom spoken, lest the Dark Mother hear and respond. Only the Deceivers want her to come around. “Where did you acquire this skill? Who taught you?”

“A friend started me out a long time ago. After we buried him, I continued to teach myself.” My gaze never left his face. For a goofy old boffin, whose stuffiness was grist for the mockery of the younger copyists, he seemed remarkably flexible mentally. But then, he might be brighter than he seemed. He might realize that he could buy himself a float downriver to the swamps if the wrong words passed his lips.

No. Master Surendranath Santaraksita did not yet live in a world where one who read and cherished sacred texts also cut throats and trafficked with sorcerers, the dead and rakshasas. Master Surenranath Santaraksita did not think of himself that way, but he was a sort of holy hermit, self-consecrated to preserve all that was good in knowledge and culture. This much I had discovered already, through continuous observation. I had figured out, also, that we might not often agree on what was good.

“You just wish to learn, then.”

“I lust after knowledge the way some men lust after pleasures of the flesh. I’ve always been that way. I can’t help it. It’s an obsession.”

Santaraksita leaned a little closer, studying me with myopic eyes. “You are older than you seem.”

I confessed. “People think I’m younger than I am because I’m small.”

“Tell me about yourself, Dorabee Dey Banerjae. Who was your father? Of what family was your mother?”

“You will not have heard of them.” I considered refusing to elaborate. But Dorabee Dey Banerjae did have a story. I had been rehearsing it for seven years. If I just stayed in character, it would all be true.

Stay in character. Be Dorabee caught reading. Let Sleepy worry about what to do when it was time for Sleepy to come back onstage.

“You denigrate yourself overmuch,” Santaraksita said at one point. “I may have known your father... if he was the same Dollal Dey Banerjae who could not resist the Liberator’s call for recruits when he raised the original legion that triumphed at Ghoja Ford.”

I had named dead Dorabee’s father already. I could not take that back now. How could he know Dollal, anyway? Banerjae was one of the oldest and most common of traditional Taglian surnames. Banerjaes were mentioned in the text I had been reading till moments ago. “That may have been him. I never knew him well. I do recall him boasting that he was one of the first to enroll. He marched off with the Liberator to defeat the Shadowmasters. He never came back from Ghoja Ford.” I did not know much more about Dorabee’s family. Not even his mother’s name. In all Taglios how could it be possible I would encounter anyone who remembered the father? Fortune is indeed a goddess filled with caprice. “Did you know him well?” If that was so, the librarian might have to go-just that would make my exposure inevitable.

“No. Not well. Not well at all.” Now Master Santaraksita seemed disinclined to say more. He seemed worrisomely thoughtful. After a moment he told me, “Come with me, Dorabee.”

“Sir?”

“You brought up the university at Vikramas. I have a list of the questions the gate guards put to those who wanted to enroll. Curiosity impels me to subject you to the same examination.”

“I know little about Janai, Master.” If the truth were told, I was a bit shaky on the tenets of my own religion, always having been afraid to examine it too closely. Other religions do not stand up to the rigorous application of reason, for all we have things like Kina stalking the earth, and I really did not want to find myself stumbling over any boulders of absurdity protruding from the bedrock of my own faith.

“The examination was not religious in nature, Dorabee. It tested the prospective student’s morals, ethics and ability to think. Janaka monks did not wish to educate potential leaders who would come to their calling with the stain of darkness upon their souls.”

That being the case, I had to get into character very deeply indeed. Sleepy, the Vehdna soldier girl from Jaicur, had stains on her soul blacker than a shadow of all night falling.