Free Shadow Prowler by Alexey Pehov Page A

the old man asked querulously.
    “Uh-huh.”
    “A magician’s apprentice, I suppose.”
    “Yes.”
    “Oh, sure,” the old-timer chortled, not believing a single word.
    For a minute we walked on in total silence along service corridors with dim light streaming in through narrow little steel-barred windows. Specks of dust glittered and sparkled as they drifted through the rays of sunlight.
    “So tell me, apprentice, what the hell are you doing with that wasp hidden under your cloak?” the old man suddenly asked in a cunning voice, stopping and looking me straight in the eyes.
    “I see you’re sharp-sighted,” I said, amazed. “How do you know about the wasp?”
    “How do I know?” the old man muttered, walking on. “I served thirty years as a scout in the Wild Hearts. So I ought to be able to spot a lousy little crossbow, even if it is hidden.”
    “The Wild Hearts? A scout? Thirty years?”
    “Sure.”
    Well now, how about that! The old-timer’s a genuine hero, a walking legend! But then what’s he doing in a place like this? Over their period of service the wild ones put together a fair-sized fortune, so they can relax and live out the rest of their lives in their own little houses with no worries or cares, and no need to slave away day and night, choking on old dust.
    “You’re not lying?” Somehow it was hard to believe I was face-to-face with a genuine Wild Heart, even a retired one.
    The old man snorted angrily and rolled up the sleeve of his greasy, moth-eaten, light green shirt to reveal a tattoo on his forearm. A small purple heart, the kind that lovers draw on walls, only this one had teeth.
    The Wild Heart. And below it the title of his unit: BRIAR .
    So the old-timer isn’t lying
. No fool on earth would be stupid enough to tattoo himself with the symbol of the Wild Hearts, let alone the name of a reconnaissance unit. The Hearts would simply slice the rogue’s arm off, tattoo and all. And they wouldn’t bother about his age.
    I whistled.
    “Oho! And how many missions?”
    “Forty-three,” the old man muttered modestly. “I got as far as the Needles of Ice with my detachment.”
    I almost stumbled and fell. Forty-three missions beyond the Lonely Giant? That was impressive. This old-timer deserved a little respect.
    “Was it tough?”
    “You bet it was,” the old man replied, thawing a little. “We’re here.”
    We left the dark, narrow little corridor behind us and entered an immense hall that seemed to go on forever. The vast numbers of tables and chairs for visitors were all empty, except for one, where a youth wearing the robes of the Order was sitting. He was leafing through a thick, dusty book, blowing his nose into a handkerchief every second. The snot-nosed juvenile took no notice of us.
    An entire lifetime would be far too short to read everything that had accumulated in the library over the centuries. The huge shelves of black Zagraban oak soared way up high into the space under the domed ceiling, their tops hidden in darkness that not even the light streaming in through the tall lancet windows could dispel. There were thousands of books—hundreds of thousands—standing on the shelves, preservingthe knowledge of thousands of generations of Siala on their yellowed pages.
    There were narrow balconies winding around the walls of the library, so that visitors could climb all the way up to the ceiling to get the book they needed. There were books here that had been written by half-blind priests sitting beside a candle with its flame flickering in the wind: ancient tomes of the elves, who had created their manuscripts when the full moon shone and the black waters of the Iselina reflected the heavenly lamp of night as they flowed between the roots of gigantic trees. There were books here by the gnomes—written first on clay tablets, and later on thin sheets of metal, and finally printed on the printing press they invented, which was stored away somewhere safe in the Steel Mines.