The curator of the archive of Earth’s history follows a cross-reference…to danger!

“They warned me about you,” the Professor said. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use this. It’s a warrant for access to the index, from the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge You’ll see it’s been countersigned by the Home Secretary.”

“It’s finished!” the author said. “The tale of a boy on the verge of manhood, who goes on a quest to understand the labyrinth that his civilization inhabits. But where shall I ever submit this story?”

Librarians argued that the end of a wall could also be considered a beginning, and also that a wall that begins need not necessarily have an end but could continue on forever from that point. This gave rise to the legend of the Eternal Wall, one that neither began nor ended but went on forever. Some Librarians believed that if one were to follow this Wall from any one point along it, for as far as one could go, the journey would become metaphysical and one would attain transcendence along the way.

This tale is a despondent cry for salvation, howled into a cruelly incoherent void!

Fael felt a strong need to shout, to let his voice echo also between those walls. He brought his hands up and yelled, “Ish al limagui.” The words were an old greeting used by Fael and his blood family to greet each other in the streets. But it was not these words that came back in the echo. Instead the answer sounded like, “Hilo-een.”