The Giant's Almanac by Andrew Zurcher (black female authors .txt) 📕

‘But why?’ Fitz protested. ‘I thought the Heresy wanted me for something, that you were going to help me to go home –’

‘You are not yet of age,’ Mr Ahmadi snapped, as if impatient with the complaint. He looked anxiously over both shoulders, and then, catching himself, went on more gently. ‘Child. The Heresy has many hands. Some would draw you in; others would cast you out. I know that much, but only that much. Whom I can trust, how to act – of these things I am not yet sure. It may be that, before long, I will wear more than the Heresiarch’s mask. Then perhaps we can put a stop to this once and for all – to all of it, for both of us. But whatever happens to me, soon you will come of age; then we can give the Heresy what it wants, and what it wants is the Kingdom – you remember: the Great Hoard of the shāhanshāh. I must discover where it is. I search every day. I will not give up the search until I have read every book in the library, every record in the archive, every last scrap of paper or parchment in the Heresy. For now, follow Dina; she has a head on her shoulders, and she can keep you safe. She practically runs this place. Let her teach you. No matter what the Officers of the Heresy want from you, the more you learn, the stronger you will be when the time comes.’

Mr Ahmadi had begun guiding Fitz again, down the narrow brick passage. They moved across a lawned court and between two tall buildings and into the court below the Mastery, which Fitz already knew well.

‘Child, do you still have my book? The one you took from my father’s library?’

Fitz nodded.

‘Keep reading. When you understand, you will be safe.’

By a light shove on both shoulders, Fitz felt himself propelled across a bed of gravel towards the stone staircase that, even in the pitch of a moonless midnight, he now knew was his. He placed his right hand on the stone column at the centre of the round stairs, then looked back. The courtyard behind, dark and silent, was already empty. He began to climb.

mansũba

On the next afternoon, when the boy opened the door to the library, he found it still dark. All through the night, and all through the morning, he had waited for the moment when he might visit the old man, and hear the remainder of his story. But he was not disappointed to find him again asleep in his chair. With a light step he crossed the floor, and in near silence he kindled a fire among the ashes that remained in the hearth. When the sticks had begun to burn well, he covered it with two logs that stood in a buchet nearby, then crouched before the fire, waiting for it to grow and give off heat.

At length the old man woke up, and opened his eyes to the flames burning on the hearth.

‘You have come again,’ he said, after a while.

The boy pulled the table near to the old man’s chair, and for an hour or for many hours, they studied the ornamented board that lay spread upon it, working together through the many problems that the board presented, and the meaning of those problems.

After a long time, the old man sat back from the board, and adjusted the wool blanket that covered his lap and his legs.

‘Come, my eyes, and sit beside me, and I will continue with the story that I was telling you yesterday.’

The boy went to the door of the library, and picked up one of the two stools that stood there, and brought it near to the old man so that he might sit. But before he sat down, he said, ‘Tell me, please, why do you call me “my eyes”?’

When the old man looked up at him, the light from the fire did not gleam in his eyes as the boy had expected. Instead his eyes seemed to swirl with milk, and their colour was dim.

‘Because there is nothing dearer to a man than his sight, which is confined in the tender ball of the eye. No part of the body is more delicate, no part more valuable.’ He was quiet for the space of several breaths. ‘But this is not the only reason why I use these words for you. An old man, if he is not to die within himself, must see the world as if through the eyes of a young boy. It is all too easy for the world to lose its freshness and its wonder; it is only by seeing through the eyes of another that we may avoid dying while we are still alive.’

The boy went to the table by the window, where he opened the shutter a little. But today clouds had covered the sky, and no sun fell upon the pitcher as he poured water into the black cup, and lifted it by the ring of lapis lazuli that ran beneath its rim.

After he had drunk, the old man continued with his story.

‘I told you yesterday how I travelled into a distant country, in order to trade, and befriended another merchant; and I told you, too, how this merchant invited me to his house for a meal, and afterwards recounted to me the story of the king of kings, the beggar boy and the fate of his wondrous treasure hoard. This was all I heard of the story that night, as it was all you heard yesterday, for the evening had grown late and I had much to do before the morning. I therefore returned to the inn where I was staying, and prepared the second part of my goods for sale on the following day. When the morning came, I took them