what
might lie beyond them, probably because I had no interest.
Everything I desired was in the room with me. Between these doors,
and on every other space of wall, were shelves for books and
scrolls and packets of papers and every kind of writing you can
imagine, even tablets impressed with minute scratches that I not
only knew were writing but could read, by the magic of dreams.
There were painted pillars to hold up the ceiling high overhead,
each one covered in its own design of interleaving foliage, people,
and animals. The figures repeated on the carved trim of the
shelves: a set of lions on one case, a set of foxes smiling on
another. They drew my touch like lodestones, and I ran my fingers
over them as I explored.
In my later dreams I wandered the shelves, selecting books and
scrolls and bringing them to the tables to pore over. There were
tablets of wax and clay impressed with tiny characters. There were
books I knew and had already read, books the magus had told me of
that I’d never seen, and even books I knew of only because
their titles had been listed in ancient times. Plax’s lost
plays, Dellari’s histories of the Peninsula’s War, the
poetry of Hern. They all were there.
And I had a guide as well. Still resenting Malatesta, I dreamed
myself a far better tutor, who could answer my questions on every
subject and never switched my hands. She was waiting for me one
night. Tall even for a man and much more so for a woman, she wore a
white peplos and looked just as if she had stepped from an ancient
vase painting. She was like the Goddess appearing as the mentor in
an epic, and I felt like a young Oenius. It was her library, I was
certain, and I a welcomed guest.
I’d dreamed the night before that I had held Poers’s History of the Bructs in my hands and read the
first part of it. The magus had once summarized the book for me,
from his notes. He had read it in a library in Ferria but had no
copy of his own. I had been thinking lately of my uncle and what
sort of king he was, and no doubt that is why the book had been on
my mind.
“What do you think of Poers, Bunny?” my tutor asked
me. “Was Komanare of the Bructs a bad king?”
She waved me to a chair and sat in one opposite.
I wasn’t sure how to begin.
“Do you trust Poers?” she asked.
“No.”
“Well, that was clear.” She smiled, and I relaxed.
“Tell me why?”
So I picked through Poers’s arguments, looking for the
places where one might suspect the author was concealing something,
without knowing exactly what. It was my first talk with my
imaginary tutor and the first of many times that she listened
patiently, as Malatesta never had, to everything I had to say and
then asked a gentle question or offered an observation. Poers makes
excuses for Komanare of the Bructs. The king was forever arriving
on the scene too late to do anything but patch up a mess his own
people had made, always trying to get them to work with, instead of
against, one another, and Poers offers one reason after another why
each attempt of the king’s failed to make a lasting peace.
Poers insists that none of it was the king’s fault, but Poers
shows signs of fudging his historical facts in order to get his
arguments to hold water, and I say that if a king can’t make
his people behave, then yes, he is a bad king.
“Well,” my tutor murmured, “at least he
stayed.”
I woke to the morning call to rise.
In subsequent dreams, we talked about the nature of man and my
uncle’s nature in particular. We did not always see eye to
eye. I sometimes disagreed with her but often talked myself around
to her position.
She was amused by my interest in the system of natural
categorization that the magus had taught me. I explained the
importance of understanding how things are connected.
She only smiled at my earnestness and said, “Everything is
connected, Bunny, to everything else. If a man tries to transcribe
each connection, thread by thread, he will only
might lie beyond them, probably because I had no interest.
Everything I desired was in the room with me. Between these doors,
and on every other space of wall, were shelves for books and
scrolls and packets of papers and every kind of writing you can
imagine, even tablets impressed with minute scratches that I not
only knew were writing but could read, by the magic of dreams.
There were painted pillars to hold up the ceiling high overhead,
each one covered in its own design of interleaving foliage, people,
and animals. The figures repeated on the carved trim of the
shelves: a set of lions on one case, a set of foxes smiling on
another. They drew my touch like lodestones, and I ran my fingers
over them as I explored.
In my later dreams I wandered the shelves, selecting books and
scrolls and bringing them to the tables to pore over. There were
tablets of wax and clay impressed with tiny characters. There were
books I knew and had already read, books the magus had told me of
that I’d never seen, and even books I knew of only because
their titles had been listed in ancient times. Plax’s lost
plays, Dellari’s histories of the Peninsula’s War, the
poetry of Hern. They all were there.
And I had a guide as well. Still resenting Malatesta, I dreamed
myself a far better tutor, who could answer my questions on every
subject and never switched my hands. She was waiting for me one
night. Tall even for a man and much more so for a woman, she wore a
white peplos and looked just as if she had stepped from an ancient
vase painting. She was like the Goddess appearing as the mentor in
an epic, and I felt like a young Oenius. It was her library, I was
certain, and I a welcomed guest.
I’d dreamed the night before that I had held Poers’s History of the Bructs in my hands and read the
first part of it. The magus had once summarized the book for me,
from his notes. He had read it in a library in Ferria but had no
copy of his own. I had been thinking lately of my uncle and what
sort of king he was, and no doubt that is why the book had been on
my mind.
“What do you think of Poers, Bunny?” my tutor asked
me. “Was Komanare of the Bructs a bad king?”
She waved me to a chair and sat in one opposite.
I wasn’t sure how to begin.
“Do you trust Poers?” she asked.
“No.”
“Well, that was clear.” She smiled, and I relaxed.
“Tell me why?”
So I picked through Poers’s arguments, looking for the
places where one might suspect the author was concealing something,
without knowing exactly what. It was my first talk with my
imaginary tutor and the first of many times that she listened
patiently, as Malatesta never had, to everything I had to say and
then asked a gentle question or offered an observation. Poers makes
excuses for Komanare of the Bructs. The king was forever arriving
on the scene too late to do anything but patch up a mess his own
people had made, always trying to get them to work with, instead of
against, one another, and Poers offers one reason after another why
each attempt of the king’s failed to make a lasting peace.
Poers insists that none of it was the king’s fault, but Poers
shows signs of fudging his historical facts in order to get his
arguments to hold water, and I say that if a king can’t make
his people behave, then yes, he is a bad king.
“Well,” my tutor murmured, “at least he
stayed.”
I woke to the morning call to rise.
In subsequent dreams, we talked about the nature of man and my
uncle’s nature in particular. We did not always see eye to
eye. I sometimes disagreed with her but often talked myself around
to her position.
She was amused by my interest in the system of natural
categorization that the magus had taught me. I explained the
importance of understanding how things are connected.
She only smiled at my earnestness and said, “Everything is
connected, Bunny, to everything else. If a man tries to transcribe
each connection, thread by thread, he will only
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