Free Northlight by Deborah Wheeler Page A

age,” Pateros went on in that casual tone that made Terricel feel so grown up. “People were always comparing me to my father or talking about what kind of Guardian I would make when I grew up. I survived, and you have the courage to do it, too. But remember that no matter what they say, all those important people, you have to follow your own dreams and make your own choices. Don’t let anyone else do that for you.”
    Terricel had never forgotten what Pateros had said, never given up fighting the thing beneath the Starhall. All he lacked was a convincing reason to get the permission for the excavations.
    How could Wittnower or anyone else from the University, living as they did in Esmelda’s shadow, understand?
    An ache pulsed through Terricel’s chest, as if something had torn inside him. Pateros, he thought numbly, would have understood.
    â€œHave it your own way, then.” Wittnower said, shaking his head, perhaps misinterpreting Terricel’s silence for continued obstinacy. “I’ve warned you, but I won’t stop you. But there’s a limit on what I can do to rescue you from your own folly.”
o0o
    After leaving Wittnower, Terricel went to gather his supplies from the suite of study cubicles he shared with the other History candidates. The friends who greeted him seemed distant and preoccupied as they went about their business. Seeing him with notebook and pens, they probably thought he was doing the same. Then, suitably armed, he passed through the Library and into the velvet quiet of the Archives. The light in the back rooms had a curious pastel quality, a sense of suspension, as if the same dust motes had hung in the air for centuries and never drifted to rest. The reference assistant on duty assigned him a carrel and issued him an access permit to the closed stacks and historical materials.
    Time slipped by, hours and then days. Terricel sketched out a chronology and methodically worked his way backward, looking for periods of political upheaval when the succession of the Guardianship might have been subject to debate.
    There wasn’t much of interest until the Jeravian dynasty, three hundred years ago. Terricel had studied the era, but from a different perspective. The flurry of norther raids had been used as a warning of the necessity of continual vigilance. But now, as Terricel worked his way through the actual records, words and deeds leapt off the pages to vivid life. He could almost hear the speeches, the bitter accusations and counter-accusations, hear the clash and smell the dust and blood of battle, look over the shoulders of people scheming for power, struggling among themselves as well as with the northers.
    One Jeravian, nephew to the suddenly-deceased incumbent, had stepped in during the emergency and later become Guardian. The legal maneuvering was complicated, stemming from his having previously acted as de facto Guardian during his predecessor’s illness and therefore he wasn’t considered pro tem the second time. He appeared to have been confirmed by the leadership of the gaea-priesthood without the convocation of an elector’s college. A precedent from several hundred years earlier was cited. Terricel had never heard of such a procedure. He decided this was a lead worth following up.
    At first, the senior archivist refused to allow Terricel access to the most ancient documents. Normally, the archivist insisted, these areas were off-limits to even senior scholars, their contents too fragile for ordinary research. They were not available for casual browsing. In the end, it took a written request from Esmelda to get an exemption to this policy.
    The next morning, wearing a mask and cloth gloves, Terricel entered the temperature-controlled chamber. Journals and log-books, each wrapped in specially-treated paper, sat in individual cubbies on the ranges of shelves. Terricel took them down, one by one, and began examining them. Some had been