“Go in, and if you escape, bring something out to share. To share with anybody, but to share. Knowledge was not meant to be locked behind doors. It breathes best in the open air where all men can inhale its essence.”
He turned away, then stopped again. “You know what is a maze? It is a maze in there, and if the way is not known, you will surely die. It has been said, by someone, that one should keep to the left. I do not know this to be true. That, too, could be a trick, a device to lure one on in confidence, only to betray.
“We are betrayers all. Perhaps even I. I am no longer sure. Go, find your way. We have talked this little time, one to another. It has been good, very good! I go.”
Who was Camha? He had entry to the Forbidden. He knew where the Hall of Archives was, and he had spoken well. Again Raglan was alone beside the green door. What awaited him within? Would he find Tazzoc there? Or would the Varanel be waiting? Or the Lords of Shibalba?
Erik would be guarded. Or would they believe guards essential in such a place? If he was guarded, the guards themselves might indicate his place of imprisonment. This Hall of Archives had once been a temple, and that needed thinking about. A place of worship? Or simply the place from which an oracle had spoken? From which The Voice used to speak?
That would imply there must be a secret place where The Voice might be, and from which it might speak. In his travels he had visited other such places and there had been a hidden place from which the oracle spoke.
This Voice, too, had faded out. Its clear message became mere gibberish, like that of the Delphic Oracle and others. But the priests of gods or oracles do not willingly relinquish the power The Voice provides. There had been cases where the priests usurped the power and spoke for The Voice, pretending to be it.
Hence there had to be a place from which they could speak. If he could find that place, he might reactivate The Voice. The Hand did not come to the Hall of Archives, and according to Tazzoc, no others came. Hence, the place of the oracle might have, over many years, been forgotten.
Surely, The Voice must not only have had a secret compartment from which it spoke, but also a way to reach that compartment unseen. A passage that might go right to the apartments of The Hand? A way to discover where Erik was kept?
Someone had said—perhaps it had been Kawasi—that The Hand knew what people thought and said. Even her people knew of speaking tubes, so certainly the older people would know of them as well.
First, to enter the Hall of Archives. He dropped his hand again to the latch. He opened the door and stepped inside. The heavy door closed behind him.
It was a harsh, cold, definite sound. The door shut hard, and something clicked in its lock.
He was inside. Would he ever get out?
XXXVI
The door by which he entered opened on the left of the main hall, a vast space beneath a vaulted ceiling. The floor of the central hall lay some fifty feet lower than the level at which he entered, and on a dais approximately a hundred feet away was a massive table in front of three high-backed chairs. The space in the hall before them was empty.
On either side of that space and sloping back to the wall was a series of tiers, resembling bleachers. These were banks of shelves of books, each one bound top and bottom with slabs of thin wood, like Tibetan books. Before each line of shelves was a walk, and at intervals steps leading to the tiers above and below.
Raglan’s eyes searched the room. He saw no one. Behind the three chairs was a concave latticed wall. On his right a stair led down to the main hall, with a line of massive columns, one to every other tier, each at least four feet in diameter at bottom, tapering as they rose. At some time in the distant past ceremonies must have been held here, and the great doors would have been thrown open for processions to enter and approach the dais.
Once more his eyes swept, then searched, the vast hall. Of course, something or someone might be hiding down there among the shelves of books, or might be watching from behind the lattice of that concave wall.
Somewhere here were the maps he wished to see, perhaps to find some clue to the place where Erik was held. This hall, vast as it was, could be no more than a mere corner of the huge building that was the Forbidden, and the maze, if it was truly such, lay outside this room. Yet the place where he now stood gave him a sense of great age.
Tilting his head back, he looked up at the vast space above him. Around the hall, above the tiers of shelves, there were balconies. No doubt it would have been from those balconies that the Lords of Shibalba looked down upon the processions below.
He was not afraid, he told himself. What he felt was awe, but there was something else, too—some uneasiness such as he had never felt before.
“The Archives of my people.” The voice came from behind him and he almost jumped, he was so startled. He fought down the urge to turn quickly. It was Tazzoc.
“They are impressive.” Raglan nodded toward them. “Those I see seem to be on some sort of paper. I expected clay or stone.”
“Those are stored below, in another room even larger than this.” Tazzoc paused. “Do you have anything to compare?”
“Oh, yes! We have the Library of Congress, and many university and public libraries in my country, but other countries have vast.libraries, too.”
“On stone? Or clay?”
“Actually, no. Most of those are in museums where scholars may have access to them, but many have been copied and are available in easily held books or on tape.”
“Tape?”
“A mechanical means of recording books and oral transcriptions. It enables a library such as this to be stored in a much smaller space.”
Tazzoc nodded. “There is a tale—I cannot speak for its truth—that we had such devices many years ago, and that The Hand has them now. It is also said that fresh ones are constantly made to enable him to see whatever he wishes of our activities without leaving the Forbidden.”
“And you do not know where he lives?”
Tazzoc gestured. “Somewhere in there, at the center of what you call a maze. It is in there your friend will be. Somewhere near the center.”
“You spoke of maps? Of plans?”
Tazzoc led the way, walking quickly along the face of one tier of shelves. Raglan could see that each shelf held stacks of books tied with string. The wooden backs were inscribed with characters.
Turning suddenly, Tazzoc climbed a steep stair, passing several tiers of shelves, and then in a back corner he indicated a row of shelves. “It is here.”
“Tazzoc? If we come out of this, there will be a place for you in our world if you wish to go. If not, I believe meetings could be arranged with our scholars. They would be fascinated by your Archives, and you would have a place of honor among them. Above all, copies of your Archives could be made so they would last forever.”
“I would like that.” There was pathos in his voice. “Often I am lonely. There is a need to talk, to share thoughts, to learn what others think. Here, I have only the Archives.”
Raglan lifted a book from the shelf and carefully took off the wooden slab that covered it. The thick paper, not unlike papyrus, was covered with characters. He put it aside and opened out the chart that followed.
The making of maps and plans must have long preceded what man conceived of as civilization, for the finding of places, the returning to them, or the giving of directions to springs or rivers must have begun shortly after man first began to wander the land. The Egyptians had made a god of Khonsa, the maker of plans, and Raglan had once been permitted to examine the Turin Papyrus, dating from 1320 B.C. which located an Egyptian gold mine. The Romans had drawn careful road maps for the use of their legions or the couriers who followed them.
The first map was a remarkably clear rendition of the area around the Forbidden. The mountains from which he had come and where the Anasazi had rebuilt their world were indicated only by some jagged lines, although at one point there was a crowded area of squares, rectangles, and small circles that must indicate the ruin he had visited. Near this place was a remarkably well drawn picture of a giant lizard. Tazzoc disappeared into the lower areas and Raglan turned to the shelves. Swiftly, he checked book after book, searching for the plan of the Forbidden. Tazzoc had assured him it was here, although he had not seen it in years. When he reached the very lowest shelf he found it, a larger, flatter book.