Part Two From Sile

This is the second and third scene that come after the "Dirty Girl" section that I posted. They are in very raw form but I think give an idea of where I'm trying to go with it.

Sile



“Let her go a little longer,” the Librarian said softly.

“Librarian Redwood,” came a tentative voice through the darkness.

Deep in thought, the Librarian registered this unnecessary courtesy while simultaneously identifying the woman that had spoken it. Female. Fifty-eight years old. Seven Family. Wild Rose.
The woman’s family, lineage, life work and physical traits flashed through the Librarian’s mind in the smallest part of a second.
“Enter,” she replied courteously, immediately after her seldom-used name had been spoken. There was a rustle of heavy cloth being shifted and the shadow of a woman moved into the small, conical space.
“Librarian Redwood,” she said again and paused.
“Wild Rose,” acknowledged the old Librarian, “There is no longer a need to use my name. We both know that there is no other Librarian left to distinguish me from. The title is sufficient now.” The woman’s words hinted at a sadness that was not present in her voice.
Wild Rose spoke again: “Librarian, as you wish. I’ve come to ask you to help my daughter, to help Turtle. It’s past time she should have Chosen. Still, she seems a determined apprentice to nearly everyone in the village. I am concerned that her life work will be wasted if she remains unfocused.”
The Librarian filled a moment of silence with year’s worth of thought, summoning everything she knew about the young woman, Turtle of Seven Family. She sighed.
“Turtle spends much time with the planter-gatherers. Also the cooks, as I recall, and the healers.”
“Yes, Librarian,” agreed Wild Rose politely, adding: “She also works with the child-watchers, the house-builders, the artisans and-“
“And myself,” the Librarian smoothly finished her thought.
“Yes, and yourself. I worry that she’ll have no great skill, that her life work will not be a benefit to the Earth. All of the others her age have publicly Chosen. Even her younger brother, my son Otter, has declared himself a linguist.”
“It is not for us to choose the direction of a person’s life,” answered the old woman. “We are teachers and helpers only. Occasionally we must admonish and decide punishment, for the good of the village, but we do not like to force the decisions of others. You know this.”
Wild Rose spoke back pleadingly in the dark. “But you have done so in the past, when it was necessary.”
“Yes, we have. But interfering like this is a dangerous thing.”
“Please, Librarian. Turtle is a bright young woman. She has many gifts to give. I believe that she needs some help in deciding how best to give them.”
There was quiet in the dark enclosure again. The air between the two women was filled only by the faint scent of drying herbs, and the stronger smell of bitter black ink. The Librarian gave her answer after a few moments.
“I have thought on this. I believe that Turtle herself will show us her direction. We must be patient. Don’t worry, Wild Rose, just let her go. Let her go a little longer.”
Wild Rose mumbled a polite but disappointed “thank you” and backed out of the Librarian’s tent.

* * * * * *

A murmur of excitement rippled over the few hundred people assembled in the meeting hall on Lower Level Three, as the Students were led to the front of the room by an embarrassed-looking Guide. He arranged them side by side in front of the high table where the stern Librarian sat, glaring at them. The guide gave a slight awkward bow of respect to the aging Librarian, his stiff suit wrinkling in dark horizontal stripes. Then he backed away and quickly left the crowded room.
An Assistant came forward, accompanied by another, both in their red garments. The first assistant spoke boldly, addressing her words to the three students but her voice to the crowd.
“Cairo, Student Third Class. Shakespeare, Student Third Class. And Norway, Team Leader and Student Second Class. You are accused by the People of breaking The Law of Non-Interference, resulting in as yet immeasurable damage to the Earth and its people, both of today and of a time approximately six hundred years in our past. As all three of you have confessed your wrongdoing to the council, your guilt is not questioned. Your atonement has been deliberated on and decided by Librarian Boston and Librarian Renoir.”
The two Assistants stepped back to either side of the old man seated at the front of the room. Dwarfed and almost lost in the royal blue robe that surrounded his body and obliterated the high chair on which he sat, his voice seemed to rise from nowhere and flow authoritatively through the room.
“Cairo. Shakespeare. And Norway,” he began, after briefly clearing his gravelly throat, “The Laws that we bind ourselves by in this City are in place so that we might live as peaceably as possible with our Earth. We refuse to forgive ourselves the damage that our ancestors inflicted upon the planet. Although we are capable of both untold technology and immeasurable wisdom, we understand that it is the latter which should be embraced and the former avoided in fear of the damage it has done.” He paused for a moment, allowing the now silent spectators in the room to absorb the pain of his statements and remember. He continued:
“Anything that we create or study should benefit us, either with knowledge itself, or with a gentle technology that does no harm. You three, as Students, were privileged to be working on a very important and very sensitive project that should have brought much knowledge to our library. You understood that this was for you a learning project only; the machine was not for your use, under any circumstances!”
Librarian Boston, known for his quiet but commanding voice had now come as close to angry shouting as anyone in the room had ever heard. The three students, standing with their heads bowed in shame in front of him, were no less shocked and upset at his tone than anyone else. Norway glanced up from her feet for the briefest second as Librarian Boston paused. The room seemed to loom menacingly large, even with most of it behind her and full to the walls of people that had come to see her atonement announced.
“Your behavior is unacceptable, your decisions rash and reckless. The people of this City are appalled by the damage you have done, not to mention the damage we will never know about. Not only have you Interfered by using dangerous technology, the risks of which were uncertain at best, you have probably irrevocably damaged this same City six hundred years in the past. This is unforgivable.”
A wave of whispers flowed, hissing through the crowd. People stared expectantly at the Librarian and awaited his decision. Norway blinked her eyes hard as they teared, but she refused to let any fall.
Her jaw clenched with apprehension.
“But…” the Librarian said, and the three students looked up simultaneously, surprised. They had not expected a ‘but.’
“But,” he repeated, “You have also, however unintentionally, brought us a priceless gift. Though they should not have been taken, the young girl that you decided to help, and the infant boy that bears the mark we have not seen on a child for over forty years, are now in our hands. We two remaining Librarians are unsure of what this arrival means, as we had thought to be the last of our kind. We have taken this into consideration in deciding what your atonement will be.”
He cleared his throat again, following it with a rough and painful cough that made more than a few people flinch. Librarian Boston, frail and branchy in his overwhelming robes, did not seem likely to long outlast Librarian Renoir. She lay at that moment in a soft bed in her apartments, dictating as many of her thoughts as she could to an Assistant before falling into another grey, sickly sleep. It was never clear whether she would wake; each time she slept longer and was less coherent when she woke.
The people crowded into the meeting hall waited patiently for the old Librarian to conclude. Saddened by the evidence of his fading strength, still they were curious to hear what would be done with the three Students.
“To atone for breaking the Law of Non-Interference,” he said at last, “You three are immediately banished from the Old City for a period of five full years. During this time you are permitted no contact with anyone residing within the City; you are allowed no communication or information of any nature regarding our work. However, your purpose during that time is this: you are to travel due west from here, across the barren lands where the Lost People went when we separated long ago. We do not know if marked children are still being born to them or not. We do not even know if any of them survived. But we feel that if they are there, they should know about the child you three have brought here. You must find them. For their good as well as our own. You leave tomorrow. That is all I have to say.”
Librarian Boston motioned for the Assistants to help him from the chair, and he left the room slowly, watched by every eye in the room. When he had gone, the mumbling noise of half-hushed talk in the room began to rise and then fall as lines of people stood and filed away out the large metal doors at the back.
Norway looked first to Cairo and then to Shakespeare. They wore identical expressions of bewilderment. She didn’t ask, then, whether their atonement was better or worse than they had expected. Finding the Lost People was a children’s story, tales that parents made up at bedtime. The Lost People themselves were legend. No word or sign from them had come since they walked away from the City over four hundred years ago. Every inhabitant of the City knew that. The impossibility of their atonement and the prospect of their banishment cloaked the three Students like a shadow; they followed another Guide out the doors of the meeting hall and away to gather their belongings and say their goodbyes.