Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

Except for the palace itself, the Bureau of the Towers loomed higher than any building in the Chancery, its vast hexagonal bulk heaving skyward in stark, unoramented walls of black brick, windowless as cliffs. Behind those walls in .serried ranks were four divisions, each with six departments; each department with ten sections, each section with a Supervisor; each Supervisor responsible for ten Towers and thus ten townships. Each Supervisor had a deputy and an assistant. Each of these had a clerk, perhaps more than one. Some Towers, after all, were much larger than others, and the supervision of them was therefore more complex.

Deep in the bowels of the bureau lay the labyrinthine vaults of Central Files, their complexities guarded and their secrets plumbed only through the let and allowance of the Librarian, Glamdrul Feynt, who did not, as might be naively supposed, have any responsibilities at all for the library wing of the palace. There had not been any books or records worthy of attention in the library wing for generations. What was there could be cared for, if at all, by Tharius Don, cared for by Tharius Don simply because it did not matter. Such was Feynt’s opinion. He had not seen the books in the library wing. He did not need to do so. He had seen what was in the files, and everything of importance was there.

So now, Gendra Mitiar, passing by the great corridor that led to her offices and reception rooms, her dining halls and solaria, elected to descend the curving stone staircase that led to the vaults below. The railing of this stair was carved in the likeness of fliers slaughtering weehar, thrassil, and an unlikely animal that was the artist’s dutiful though uninspired conception of the legendary hoovar. None of the party except Jhilt-who shuddered to see the ravenous talons so bloodily employed, reminded thereby of certain habits of the Dame Marshal’s-paid any attention to the railing. Gendra did not see it. She had stopped seeing it several hundred years before.

The whoom, whoom, whoom of the viol announced her coming. Far down an empty corridor that dwindled to tidiness at the limit of its seemingly endless perspective came a faint echo a door slamming, perhaps, or a heavy book dropping onto stone. At this, Gendra halted, snarling at Jorum Byne to stop the noise. Jhilt, too, was silenced with a gesture, and the five waited, heads cocked, listening for any defect in the dusty silence.

“ ‘Roo, ‘roo, ‘roo,” came the call, softened by distance into a whisper. “Haroo. Your Reverence. Dame Marshal. Haroo?”

“Tosh,” growled the Dame Marshal. “Jorum, go find him. Bring him here. And don’t lose sound of him. He’s half-deaf and likely to go limping off in six other directions.” Pleased with her own wit, she chuckled, grinding her teeth together as she found a bench along the wall to sit upon, not bothering to dust it, though it was deep with the even gray coating that covered every surface in the files. The bench was in a niche carved with commemorative bas reliefs, fliers and humans locked in combat, fliers and humans solemnly making treaty. Dust softened the carving, obscuring the details. No one had looked at it for generations.

“Glamdrul Feynt is too old for this job,” Gendra assured her clerks and bearers, going so far as to glance at Jhilt as though the information were so general it might be shared even with so insignificant a person as she. “Too old, and too deaf, and too crippled. Trouble is, hah, what you might suppose, eh? Trouble is no one else can find anything! We give him apprentices, one after the other, boys and boys, and what happens? They vanish. Lost. So he says. Lost in the files, he says. Can you imagine. Hah!”“It is said,” ventured Jhilt in a whisper, “that a monster dwells below the tunnels here, coming out at night to feed upon those in the Chancery.”

Gendra found this amusing. “A monster, hah? Some toothy critter left over from ages past, no doubt? A hoovar bull, mebee? Got frozen in a glacier until we built Chancery atop him, hah?” She roared with laughter, stopping suddenly to listen to the clatter of approaching footsteps, one firm, one halting.