The GoldenCity

On the third floor, books had been stacked against the wall as if someone had tried to sort through the collection. Pickering led her down a corridor, made a sudden turn through a doorway and stopped. “Here we are,” he announced. “The reading room…”

They stood at one end of the large public space that dominated the top floor of the building. The reading room had a forty-foot ceiling and a green and white checkered marble floor. It was filled with long wooden tables and chairs. The room’s bookshelves were on two levels-a floor-level row of shelves and a second tier that began halfway up the wall. Some of the gas pipes in the library hadn’t been destroyed, and a few of the desk lamps were still burning. Their sputtering flames gave off an oily smell.

Pickering’s shoulders were tense and his lips were pressed tightly together. Maya wondered if her lack of fear made him nervous. She followed her guide between the rows of tables to a point halfway across the room where the floor suddenly disappeared. Apparently there had been an explosion-and then a fire-and a large portion of the library had collapsed.

What remained was a three-story fragment of the building, a pillar made of brick and stone and concrete, surrounded by twenty feet of empty space. At the top of the pillar was a fragment from the reading room-a single table on a patch of checkered floor and a barred door that looked like the entrance to a prison cell.

“There. Do you see it?” Pickering pointed at the door. “That’s the entrance to the map room.”

“So how do we get there? Can we climb up from inside?”

“No. I tried. I thought you’d know what to do.”

Maya paced back and forth, trying to figure out a way to get across the fifteen-foot gap between the pillar and the reading room. A rope was useless unless she could climb to the top of the ceiling. They could build a ladder from pieces of wood and old nails, but that would take too much time, and their activity would be noticed by the patrols. Still silent, she turned away from Pickering and climbed up the staircase to the top level of bookshelves. She grabbed the metal railing and began to push it back and forth. Books fell off the walkway with a flutter of white pages and hit the floor below.

Pickering scurried up the staircase and stood beside her. “What are you doing?”

“Grab the railing,” she told him. “Let’s see if we can break it off.”

Together, they pushed and pulled the railing until a section broke free of the walkway. Maya lay the section flat, and then shoved it forward until the one end rested on the spire like a narrow bridge.

“I knew you’d think of something,” Pickering said.

Maya adjusted the scabbard strap and stepped onto the improvised bridge. It shifted, but didn’t collapse. She took a first step, then another-trying not to look down. The railing flexed slightly when she reached the center, but she took a few more steps and reached the other side.

Using her club as a pry bar, she ripped the door from its hinges and entered the map room. It was a windowless storage space about the size of a walk-in closet. The walls were lined with shelves that held black cardboard storage boxes. Each box was tied shut with a silk cord and labeled with faded numbers.

Maya grabbed a box from the shelf and placed it on a table. At that moment, escape seemed possible, but she tried to control her emotions. Slowly, she untied the cord, opened the box, and found a faded lithograph of a creature in human form with wings and light emerging from its body. An angel. Beneath that lithograph was another angel, wearing different colored robes.

Furious, Maya ripped open two more storage boxes, stacking them on top of each other. She found full-color prints of angels carrying swords or gold caskets. Illustrations ripped from books. Water-colors and wood-block prints. But the subject was always the same: Angels on earth and in heaven. Angels floating and flying and sitting on golden thrones. Black angels, white angels and even one with six arms and green skin. But no trace of a map anywhere.

She heard a banging from outside the room. Holding one of the cardboard boxes, Maya stepped out of the doorway. Her improvised bridge had been kicked away and was lying on the rubble three stories below.

Pickering stood on the edge of the walkway, smiling triumphantly. “Don’t go anywhere,” he giggled. “I need to find one of the patrols.”

“They’ll kill you.”

“No they won’t. They know me. I can find anyone who’s lost or missing-even a demon like you.”

“What about the maps, Pickering? I just found a map that shows a passageway under the river.”

“Show it to me. Let me see it.”

“Sure. No problem.” Maya waved the box. “Just help me get off this platform.”

Pickering considered the idea and then shook his head. “There can’t be a map because there’s no way off the island.”

“Help me and I’ll defend you from the wolves.”

“If I stayed with you, we’d both be killed. You still have hope, Maya. That’s your weakness. That’s why I could lead you to this place.”