“You are forgetting your place, wizard!” Jaspin, incensed at the staggering insolence of the necromancer, rebelled. “It was I who hired you-you serve me!”

“I tire of your games of petty ambition,” hissed the sorcerer. “Once it suited me to further your childish schemes. But I have designs you cannot imagine. But serve me well, and you shall share in my glory.”

The pyramid lost its crystalline transparency and became cold and solid once more.

Quentin had begged and otherwise pestered Mollena into arranging a meeting with Yeseph for him at the earliest possible time. That meant the moment he opened his eyes the very next morning, the day after their limited tour of the ruined city.

Toli sat opposite Quentin over their breakfast, pointing at objects around the room, and demanding that his instructor supply the appropriate word that he might learn it. Quentin, although it seemed sometimes a colossal chore, beamed with pleasure at his pupil’s progress. Toli could already speak halting sentences, albeit simple ones, and could understand most of what Quentin said to him, though he could not always repeat it. When others were around, however, he usually lapsed into his native tongue.

They were deep in concentration when Quentin heard the old woman’s shuffling footsteps on the stone steps outside the kitchen where they were finishing their meal.

“Mollena! What news? When can I see him?” he blurted as soon as he saw her creased, kindly face poke into view.

“Soon… very soon.”

“Mollena…”

“Today-we will go as soon as you are ready.”

“I am ready now!”

“No, you have not finished your food. You must eat to regain your strength.”

Toli watched this conversation, as he did most others, in an alert silence. But then he broke in, demanding in his own tongue to know what Quentin prepared to do. “What is it that my friend requires?”

Quentin ate and related to him as well as he could the discussion between Durwin and Theido, their disagreement and the final resolution that had brought them to Dekra. Toli nodded and said, “This leader, Yeseph, he will tell us what we are to do?”

Quentin would not have put it quite that way, but after considering for a moment, nodded his head in agreement. “Yes, he may tell us what we are to do.” Mollena, who had observed their talk with admiration for the growing bond between the two, now stood them on their feet.

“Let us go, you lazy young men. It does not do to keep a Curatak leader waiting.”

The three hobbled together over the jumbled stones of the deserted streets. Quentin, again, was impressed by the elegance and grace of the vanished Ariga’s city. Even in its crumbling state the abandoned buildings spoke of a purity and harmony of thought and function. Surely, buried here were treasures beyond material wealth.

As they made their way along, occasionally meeting a group of Curatak workmen hauling stone or erecting scaffolding around a sagging wall, Mollena explained to Quentin who Yeseph was and how properly to address him. Quentin listened attentively, careful to mark her words so he would not offend the man best able to answer his questions.

They turned down a walkway, or narrow courtyard, lined with doorways which opened onto a common area of small trees and stone benches. “These are the reading rooms of the Ariga library,” Mollena explained as they passed the open doors. Quentin peered through some of the doors to see scribes busy over scrolls at their writing desks.

“Where is the library?” he asked, realizing that he had seen no structure large enough to house the great library that had been described to him. He looked around to see if he had somehow missed it.

Mollena saw him craning his neck, looking for the library and laughed, “No, you will not find it there. You are standing on it!” Quentin’s gaze fell to his feet and his expression changed to one of puzzlement. “It is underground. Come.”

She led them to the end of the narrow courtyard and to a wide doorway. Inside they crossed the smooth marble floor of a great circular room, ringed around by murals of robed men. “Those are Ariga leaders,” Mollena indicated with her hands spread wide. “We know little of them now, but we are learning.”

In the center of the round room, which contained no other furniture of any kind that Quentin could see, rose an arch. As they approached the arch Quentin saw steps leading down to an underground chamber. “The entrance to the library,” he said.

“Yes; notice how the steps are worn from the feet of the Ariga over the ages. They were lovers of books and knowledge. This,” she again embraced the whole of the edifice with a wide sweep of her arm, “this is our greatest charge: to protect the scrolls of the Ariga, lest they pass from human sight and their treasures vanish with the race that created them.”

Quentin caught something of the awe with which the old woman spoke; he was touched as before by the mingled reverence and excitement, as if he were in the presence of a mighty and benevolent monarch who was about to give him a wonderful gift.

“There,” Mollena pointed down the darkened stairway. “Yeseph waits for you. Go to him-and may you find the treasure you are looking for.”

Quentin stepped forward and placed his foot on the first stair. Instantly the darkened stairwell was lighted from either side. He turned to Mollena and Toli, who appeared about to follow him but then hung back uncertainly, and experienced the strange sensation that he might never return. Brushing the feeling aside, he said, “I won’t be long.” Then he proceeded down the stairs.

He had just reached the bottom when he heard a voice call out, “Ah, Quentin. I have been waiting for you.” Quentin stepped forward into the huge, cavernous chamber to see more books than he had ever seen in one place. Shelves three times the height of a man held scrolls without number, each one resting in its own pigeonhole, a ribbon extending on which was written the title of the book and its author and contents. So taken was he by the staggering display he did not see the small man standing right in front of him.

“I am Yeseph, an elder of the Curatak, and curator of the library. Welcome.” The man was dressed simply in a dark blue tunic over which he wore a white mantle edged in brown.

“I am glad to meet you, sir,” said Quentin, somewhat disappointed. He had expected someone who looked like a king or a nobleman of stature, not a short, balding man who walked with a slight limp as he led the way along the corridors of shelves.

“Come along,” the curator called after him, “we have much to talk about and much to see.” Yeseph stopped, standing between two tall shelves, and said, “I can tell a book-lover when I see one-you belong here, you know.”

Quentin started, as if to speak; the words seemed to fly out of his head-banished by a most remarkable sensation. It was if he had been there before… seen it just like this… somewhere, sometime-long ago, perhaps. He had been there, and now had returned.