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"No, sieur," I said, and in fact I did not As far as the candlelight flew there was only row upon row of books stretching fro Soht; once or twice I saw evidence that rats had been nesting a two- and three-level ho on the covers to form the rude characters of their speech

But always there were books and more books: rows of spines in calf, morocco, binder's cloth, paper, and a hundred other substances I could not identify, soilt, many lettered in black, a feith paper labels so old and yellowed that they were as brown as dead leaves

"'Of the trail of ink there is no end,'" Master Ultan told o - ould he say if he could see us now? Another said, 'Aover of a collection of books,' but I would like to meet the man who could turn over this one, on any topic"

"I was looking at the bindings," I answered, feeling rather foolish

"How fortunate for you Yet I aer see the it That would be just after I had become master librarian I suppose I was about fifty I had, you know, been an apprentice for many, many years"

"Is that so, sieur?"

"Indeed it is My master was Gerbold, and for decades it appeared that he would never die Year followed straggling year for me, and all that tian, asthe books I enjoyed But I found that narrowedfor such books Then I devised a plan of study forobscure sciences, one after another, froe to the present Eventually I exhausted even that, and beginning at the great ebony case that stands in the center of the rooainst the return of the Autarch Sulpicius (and into which, in consequence, no one ever comes) I read outward for a period of fifteen years, often finishing two books in one day"

Behind us, Cyby murmured, "Marvelous, sieur" I suspected that he had heard the story many times

"Then the unlooked-for seized me by the coat Master Gerbold died Thirty years before I had been ideally suited by reason of predilection, education, experience, youth, family connections, and ambition to succeed him At the time I actually did so, no one could have been less fit I had waited so long that waiting was all I understood, and I possessed a ht of inutile facts But I forced e, and spent more hours than I could expect you to believe now in atte to recall the plans and o foragain in a reat library "But edwhich I should have been considering the operations of the establishment that looked toof a clock, a new passion cauessed what it was"

I told hiht - on the seat of that bo on the forty-ninth floor that overlooks - I have forgotten, Cyby What is it that it overlooks?"

"The upholsterers' garden, sieur"

"Yes, I recall it now - that little square of green and brown I believe they dry rose there, as I said, and had been for several watches, when it caer For so When I tried, I could only think of certain odors and textures and colors that see discussed in the volu it, I had been observing it as a physical object The red I recalled caht ers still was that of the paper on which the book was printed The s the traces of birch oil It was only then, when I saw the books thean to understand their care"

His grip on htened "We have books here bound in the hides of echidnes, krakens, and beasts so long extinct that those whose studies they are, are for the most part of the opinion that no trace of them survives unfossilized We have books bound wholly in s are covered with thickset gems We have books cased in perfuulf between creations - books doubly precious because no one on Urth can read them"

"We have books whose papers arecurious alkaloids, so that the reader, in turning their pages, is taken unaware by bizarre fantasies and chies are not paper at all, but delicate wafers of white jade, ivory, and shell; books too whose leaves are the desiccated leaves of unknown plants Books we have also that are not books at all to the eye: scrolls and tablets and recordings on a hundred different substances There is a cube of crystal here - though I can no longer tell you where - no larger than the ball of your thumb that contains ht dangle it froh in the world to counterweight the other All these I ca them my life's devotion For seven years I busiedand superficial problems of preservation were disposed of, and ere on the point of beginning the first general survey of the library since its foundation, iven all books intothe keepers stand"

"If you can't read the letter I brought, sieur," I said, "I will be glad to read it to you"

"You are right," Master Ultan otten it Cyby will read it - he reads well Here, Cyby"

I held the candelabru parchan to read, the three of us standing in a little circle of candlelight while all the books crowded around

"'From Master Gurloes of the Order of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence - '"

"What," said Master Ultan "Are you a torturer, young man?"

I told hian to read the letter a second time: "'From Master Gurloes of the Order of the Seekers - '"

"Wait," Ultan said Cyby paused again; I stood as I had, holding the light and feeling the blood ain, and his voice was asme Cyby read well "I can hardly recall uild You are familiar, I suppose, with the method by which we recruit our numbers?"

I admitted I was not

"In every library, by ancient precept, is a rooht picture books such as children delight in, and a few simple tales of wonder and adventure Many children co as they remain within their confines, no interest is taken in theh I could discern no expression on his face, I received the iht cause Cyby pain

"From time to time, however, a librarian remarks a solitary child, still of tender years, anders from the children's room and at last deserts it entirely Such a child eventually discovers, on some low but obscure shelf, The Book of Gold You have never seen this book, and you will never see it, being past the age at which it is met"

"It must be very beautiful," I said

"It is indeed Unless my memory betrays me, the cover is of black buckranatures are co out, and certain of the plates have been taken But it is a reh all books are shut to me now The child, as I said, in time discovers The Book of Gold Then the librarians coodparents at a christening They speak to the child, and the child joins them Henceforth he is in the library wherever he may be, and soon his parents know hi the torturers"