The Well of Knowledge

“I’m glad you’ve taken well to our order, young one.” The master told the apprentice. One of them was short and bald, wearing simple brown robes that smelled of dust. The other stood tall, curious eyes peeking from between locks of black hair, above brown robes that smelled of the river. “Our work is an important task, even if it currently seems thankless.”

The two stood in a dimly-lit room, concrete on all surfaces not dedicated to specific purposes. The reinforced doors closed behind them, finely-crafted motors smoothly sealing the chamber. Within this space, a mere twenty feet tall but extending hundreds of feet in each direction, tightly packed shelves stood suspended from the ceiling, connected to an intricate railing network. The railings didn’t reach the center of the room, never crossing above the metal disc in the floor, roughly fifty feet in diameter.

The master approached the disc in the center, a small console rising out of the floor to meet him. “First, show me that you can recover what can be stored.” The smell of dusty robes exuded slightly stronger for a moment as aged hands swiftly moved across the keyboard, and on the screen a line of text formed. It wasn’t in a language the apprentice could read. The master pressed the “Enter” key, and the distant sound of sliding shelves could be heard. After a couple minutes, one of the suspended shelves moved from the vast herd, stopping next to the console. Spines of books sat on these shelves, and the master retrieved the spine with matching text. Unlike most of the book spines on the shelf, this one looked pristine and modern. “The original was a scroll, no spine to bind it. The scroll bar couldn’t be retrieved from the ashes of the Library of Alexandria, so no spine could be fashioned from it. This is the faintest of connections, and the most difficult to work with. If you can succeed, then nothing in this room will challenge you.”

The apprentice took up the spine in her hand. “But I don’t even know what book this is, no faintest idea of what this title reads as. I thought we would start with something easier.” She handled the spine delicately, despite her nervousness. It was taught to her at the beginning to respect the materials of the craft, and she wouldn’t dare defy that lesson.

“Then leave the place, put away your robes and go home. Enjoy your fleeting, fragile books that could be lost forever. Those that lack the ability to perform the full job are not allowed to do any of it.” The master grumpily said, grabbing a sheaf of parchment from the bottom compartment of the shelf. He turned back to his student, holding out the blank pages. “The knowledge will come to you, if you can feel for it.”

The apprentice reached out her hand, paused to quell the shaking in it, then finally took the parchment. She silently nodded, took the key hanging from her neck and pressed it into the console. A dormant light began to glow green, and the metal disc in the floor began to move, sliding under the concrete. Mere inches below the seal, a surface of black liquid was revealed.

She took a breath to calm herself, to suppress the excitement. She stepped to the edge of the pool of ink, sliding out of her robes. Then she took another deeper breath, clutching the spine and parchment as she dived headfirst into the darkness.

The master watched the surface become still, his face showing intent observation as he waited. Occasionally he glanced at the console, where a timer was counting up. Three minutes, then ten, then twenty-seven. His expression did not change.

Following nearly an hour of silence in the chamber, the surface rippled. The master’s face did not move, aside from his eyes which focused on the source of the ripple. A few minutes later more ripples appeared, each originating closer to the center than the last. Then the surface broke, the silence of the chamber interrupted by a panicked gasp. The apprentice swam to the edge of the pool, scrambling out. Her body and the completed book in her hand did not carry any drops of ink out of the pool. She quickly set the book down, wrapping her shivering, dry form with her robes. Once dressed, she could only sit down on the floor, silently staring at the pool of ink that had already settled into stillness.

The master stepped forward, picking up the book from the ground. The spine was now full, with front and back covers protecting the pages it clung to. He opened the first page and began to look over the text.

The master and the apprentice sat for hours. One stared at the still pool of ink, paralyzed by a mixture of exhaustion, shock, fear, amazement. The other read the book. Neither spoke until the back cover of the book was closed to the last page.

“You took longer than most do on their first attempt, but this text is a true English translation in full. You’ve succeeded on your first retrieval, and can now be one of us.” The master’s voice was softer, notes of satisfaction and pride in his cadence. “You can return to your quarters, take your time to recuperate. Your chores will be handled by the rest of us tomorrow.”

It took a few minutes, but finally tears of relief broke through the apprentice’s paralysis. Finally able to tear her gaze from the pool, she nodded and returned to her room. She turned the lights on in her room, sleeping with her eyes open. The images that assaulted her in the bottom of the well still lingered in the places where her vision saw darkness.

(Originally written 8/3/2017)