The Giant's Almanac Andrew Zurcher (books to read fiction TXT) 📖

which he stood. Beneath his cap, his heavy eyebrows, moustache and beard all of black gave his face, and his impatience, an imposing definition.

‘As Registrar to the Heresy,’ said the man, ‘I demand by what right you knock at the Porch door.’

Fitz looked at Dina. She shrugged. Her cheeks still held their wry cheer, her eyes their distance.

‘I have no right,’ he said to the Registrar.

The Registrar scowled. ‘You’re late,’ he said. He drew the door open wide, and stepped aside with it.

Inside, the long, low hall was illuminated with hundreds of black lanterns, which hung thick from the twisted rafters on chains of iron. The wood of the floor and the high roof blazed all around them, gleaming with the lantern-light, and burned in the two hearths, one at either end of the room, where logs crackled on high-piled andirons. At the far end of the hall, seated at a long table, facing them, sat six people on eight chairs. Near the centre of the table Fitz saw Mr Ahmadi, and – to his surprise – the homeless man from outside the museum, Arwan. Of the other four, two men and two women, at first he recognized perhaps two faces from earlier in the day. One – a woman with soft features and a face pale as cream, her short hair tucked beneath her cap and her hands resting easily in her lap – seemed familiar, but Fitz couldn’t immediately place her. They sat in silence, watching the two children approach them down the length of the hall, trailed by the Registrar.

Fitz stared at the familiar woman as long as he could, trying to read her features as they approached.

I know I know you.

When they were about ten feet away, Dina touched Fitz’s arm, gently at the elbow, and he stopped.

The Registrar went to a desk that stood by the wall. He raised the desk’s cover, and from it retrieved a large book bound in brushed leather. With this under his arm, he took his place in one of the empty chairs behind the table. Fitz noticed that the chair almost at the centre of the table remained empty.

The Heresiarch. We’re in an interregnum. Keep up, newbie.

The Registrar opened the large book that he had carried to the table, to a page very near the end. It was blank. He looked up. Where before, at the door, his expression had seemed almost that of anger, now his eyes narrowed in something more like interest, as if he regarded the children before him as a difficult problem to be solved.

‘Your name,’ said the Registrar.

Fitz gave his name. The Registrar wrote it down at the top of the large, blank page, in the centre, but without formality or embellishment.

‘Who will offer to stand surety for this boy?’ the Registrar asked.

Dina took his hand. Fitz very nearly pulled it away. No one but his mother had ever touched him, there.

‘I do,’ said Dina. The Registrar entered Dina’s name directly beneath Fitz’s.

‘Ignorantia sapientia,’ said the Registrar. He looked directly into Fitz’s eyes. Even from this distance, Fitz could see that his pupils had dilated into encompassing, black pools, almost blotting his eyes completely. ‘In ignorance lies wisdom. It is said that a foolish man once challenged a prophet, demanding the secret of life and the best thing for man. Hear his answer.’

‘The best thing for man,’ said Dina, ‘is never to have been born at all.’

Fitz tried to pull his hand from Dina’s. She gripped it more tightly, and with a slight, powerful shake of her arm, forced his own hand back down. Fitz was startled by her strength.

‘What will you give,’ said the Registrar, ‘for indemnity against his default?’

‘My life for his life,’ answered Dina.

‘Your life is not yours to dispose,’ said the Registrar.

‘Nor is anyone’s,’ answered Dina. ‘And yet it may be taken.’

‘Placet,’ said the Registrar. ‘A good answer. You may stand surety for this boy. He is matriculated.’ He made a note in the ledger. Then, having set down his pen, and using the tips of his fingers, he pushed the book very slightly away from him. He sat back in his chair and regarded the two children as the other adults also did – with detachment.

Mr Ahmadi leaned forward slightly. He set his hat on the table before him.

‘We may now proceed with the enrolment. You have entered into the mother; now you must choose how you will be delivered to the father. For the game is already ended.’

‘The game is already ended,’ repeated all the others, including Dina.

‘Ignorance,’ said Mr Ahmadi, ‘is the greatest privilege. A step taken in ignorance, like flying on the wind, is a kind of blessing. And yet you may, if you choose, ask each of us one question. But only one. After that you must choose from among us.’

Fitz looked carefully at the man who had once been his neighbour. His face, still drawn and sunken from the trials of the day and night before, reminded Fitz of his father’s – of the austere portrait of Mr Ahmadi Senior hanging in the dining room of the Old Friary. But there was in his features, now, none of his father’s kindness, nothing of the gleam that, even in the milky confusion of the old man’s eyes, had animated him. Fitz wondered if he were already dead, if the light that made the heart bright and the eyes merry, that struck music into the voice and kindled nimble fire in a man’s actions, had in Mr Ahmadi Junior already gone out. The events of the night before swam in his eyes, and he wished he had been able to see Mr Ahmadi’s face while he was driving the gig, lashing at the winds, or later, when they had driven upward on the night’s gusty convections. Then he might have known.

Fitz wanted to ask what he was meant to choose. He wanted to ask what this was all for. He wanted to ask why a man