Page 60 of Liminal
“Wait, an Ackland started this place?” North hisses in Leo’s direction.
“Just the university,” Leo replies quietly. “The Library was a joint effort and originally a fortress. Didn’t you pay attention?”
North turns away sharply. “I had other stuff on my mind.”
“Adolphus was just thirty-seven when he took the post, and some of his syllabi are still being taught today!” Hopkinson continues.
“Which is not a good thing,” someone mutters.
Of course, it’s the Carlton heir.
“You don’t agree there’s value in the past, Pierce?” Hopkinson slides his glasses up his nose.
“Enough to inform the present, sure.” The blond prince leans back in his chair, and I feel the Arcanaeum’s glee as it stiffens thesprings just enough to make him uncomfortable. “But if we’re still teaching the same things a thousand years later, that means we’ve not made progress.”
“A shortsighted argument.” Galileo startles most of us when he replies, voice silky with malice. “People learned to read and write then, just as they do now. The foundational principles of magic do not change, even if our understanding of them does.”
Hopkinson looks delighted at the debate going on before him, his round cheeks puffing up with a huge smile. “Librarian, do you have anything to add?” he asks.
Oh no, I refuse to get in the middle of this. “I believe that Adolphus was also involved with the creation of the University of Arcane Sciences, in Persia,” I say.
“Modern day Iran,” Hopkinson adds, helpfully. “Adolphus did so because he was interested in searching for arcanists who had fled overseas to avoid the witch hunts. As we all know, no such arcanists have ever been found, and if they did flee to other nations, it’s likely that they were killed by other superstitious inepts, just as they were in Europe. If there’s one thing all of humanity enjoys, it’s the persecution of those they perceive as different.”
He switches slides, then selects a new student to explain the next figure on the screen. All of these arcanists are before my time, though I know of most of them.
Then comes a face I should’ve anticipated.
I haven’t seen Rector Carlton since the day he was expelled from the Arcanaeum, and he must have paid the painter handsomely to do him so many favours. But those eyes are the same ones which looked dispassionately down at me while I struggled and?—
“Kyrith?” Lambert’s voice drags me back, his sunny, innocent concern a balm against the clawing memories in my mind. “You okay?”
I glance around the room, annoyed to find them all watching me. Even Hopkinson looks concerned, like he’s waiting for my answer.
“I didn’t know him well.” I smooth the front of my dress. “Next slide, please.”
Mistake. Huge mistake.
I didn’t think Magister Ackland ever did anything deserving of a portrait, but there he is. Every inch of him is as unassuming and scholarly as he was before. If the painting is to be believed, he’s more likely to be Santa Claus than a necromantic murderer.
I lose my hold on my form, dissipating into the fabric of the Arcanaeum without a word.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Of course, they would be included. One of the very reasons I was so starstruck by them both was how influential they were. Magister Ackland was credited with the discovery of over a hundred new runeforms for conjuration.
I know I told Hopkinson that I would stay for the lecture, but how am I expected to bear this? Who else will flash up there next? Edmund?
Taking a breath, which does nothing to calm me since I can’t feel it, I wonder if I should just woman up and deal with it. Yet, the mere idea of doing so leaves the halls chilly with my dread.
Am I being ridiculous?I ask myself honestly.
No. I decide at last.
I allowed biographies of my murderers and even their autobiographies into the Arcanaeum’s halls because, as much as I disliked it, I knew my hurt feelings were not more important than the history they contained. There’s no hiding from the reality that, aside from being murderous elitists, the magisters were also well-respected arcanists who contributed to society. Pretending otherwise to spare me discomfort goes against the principles of the Arcanaeum; knowledge should be available to all.
Censoring and banning books is a mechanism of controlling others, a stepping stone on the path to silencing divisive thought. I am not a dictator. I’m a librarian. It’s my job to encourage diverse reading.
Society grows when knowledge and ideas are shared, challenged, and revised.
But I don’t read those books, as is my right. I don’t hide them, but I don’t put them in the clock tower or on my desk where I have to see them. Any good scholar knows provenance is key, and though I’m not about to stick notes into the front proclaiming my pain for all to see—because some things should remain private—there are signs, alternate sources. Any true academic would want to read widely around the subject.
