'Stay where you are,' the voice hissed.

Carnelian put an arm up as the light climbed to his face.

'What have we here?' said the voice as Carnelian tried to back away.

The lantern clunked down on a bench that opened to expose its burning heart. Carnelian blinked and saw the shape standing behind it. Long, pale Master feet stepped into sight. Carnelian looked up. The face reflecting the light made his eyes hurt. He narrowed them and saw a Chosen face, its beauty only marred by a birthmark on the forehead like the impression of a kiss. The eyes were diamond nails pinning the face to the darkness.

'Are you going to get up?' the face said, offering Carnelian a hand.

It was a boy not even his age. Carnelian slapped it away. 'I can stand without your help.'

The boy's eyes moved over him as if he were reading glyphs inscribed over Carnelian's body. It made him feel uneasy.

'You surprised me,' said the boy, now scanning Carnelian's face.

'You were the one lurking in the blackness like an owl. What by the burning blood were you doing?'

The boy's nostrils flared. 'Reading.'

Carnelian stared into his eyes, fascinated. There was something familiar about this boy. For some reason, Carnelian became embarrassed.

'In the dark?' he said, affecting a derisive snort.

'In the dark.'

Carnelian frowned, wondering if the boy was making fun of him. The boy's eyes moved elsewhere, allowing Carnelian's shoulders to lose some of their tension.

The boy stooped to pick up Carnelian's sword. He angled the blade, weighed it in his hand, looked up. 'Hardly a princely weapon, my Lord.'

Carnelian blushed.

'What did you intend to do with it?'

Carnelian felt silly. 'Protection.'

The boy raised his eyebrows. 'From?'

'How would I know?' Carnelian said loudly.

The boy turned the sword round and gave its hilt into Carnelian's hand. Carnelian laid it down on the edge of the bench. 'What were you reading?' he asked, to say something.

This.' The boy held up a necklace that sagged off into the gloom. He pulled, making more of it appear. He offered it to Carnelian who took it in both hands. The beads felt like teeth.

'Beaded rope?'

'Beadcord.'

Carnelian held it closer. Stone, and shell, and pink coral all carved into different shapes. The colours?'

The boy raised an eyebrow. 'In the dark?'

Carnelian grimaced. The shapes, then?'

The boy nodded. 'Run your fingers along it. No. Without looking at it.'

Carnelian closed his eyes and rolled a bead round in his fingers. 'A little ridge.'

'And the next one?'

Carnelian moved his fingers to the next one. 'Another ridge.'

'Feel again.'

Three ridges,' said Carnelian, feeling round the bead. The boy nodded approvingly. The first one is "earth", the second, "flower".' 'Jewel?' 'Exactly.'

Carnelian gaped at the beads. This is a story?' 'Rather a historical treatise.'

Then we are in a library of the blind,' said Carnelian, looking round him at the bobbins on their spindles.

'Of the Wise,' corrected the boy.

'Are they here?' Carnelian asked, suddenly alarmed, searching the darkness.

The boy's eyebrows lifted. 'Bound to be, somewhere.' He waved his hand. 'But there are many, many chambers and the Wise are preoccupied at present.'

'I shouldn't be here,' said Carnelian, lapsing into Vulgate.

'No,' the boy said in the same language, with the beginnings of a smile. 'And you?'

The boy looked amused. 'I'm as elusive as an owl.' 'I should leave.'

The boy shrugged, turned round and sat on something like a chair that was in a niche in the wall. He draped the beadcord over his knee and began counting its beads through his fingers.

'I think I'm lost,' said Carnelian.

'Yes, you would be,' the boy said without looking up.

Carnelian grew angry. 'If it would not incommode you very much, my Lord, I would appreciate it if you were to show me back to the moon-eyed door.'

The boy looked up and hooked Carnelian with his eyes. Carnelian withstood their brilliance with some difficulty. 'Give me your lantern,' the boy said.

Carnelian obeyed. He watched the boy walk off between the benches in a ball of light that was fringed with the glitter of beadcord. He followed him. They passed through seemingly endless numbers of chambers with the boy a black shape always in front of him haloed by the light. At last, they reached a door, its silver scarred with locks.

'Your moon-eyed door,' the boy said.

Thank you,' said Carnelian.

The boy gave a nod.

As he was turning away, Carnelian reached up and touched his shoulder. The boy looked at the hand as if it were the mouth of a snake. Carnelian withdrew it and found himself blushing.

'I was wondering…?'

The boy gazed at him.

'Would you consider teaching me to read the beads?'

The boy frowned. He stared down at his hands. They were long-fingered, clever hands. They looked so like marble that Carnelian was startled when a finger moved.

The boy was gazing at him. 'Be here at the rising of the sun and forget the sword.' He gave Carnelian the lantern, turned and disappeared into the darkness.

As Carnelian came back up into the Sun in Splendour, he felt as if he were returning from the Underworld. He looked back down the steps. The meeting with the boy seemed almost a dream. What had possessed him to arrange to go back and see him? As he made his way back to his chamber, Carnelian realized that he did not even know the boy's name.

Before dawn, Carnelian lost hold of the edge of a dream and woke. He rose, cleansed himself, dressed, put on his mask and went out from his chamber. The watch guardsmen looked up at him with weary eyes. He stopped them kneeling with a gesture. They began to shuffle together an escort. He told them he had no need of them. When they sneaked glances at each other, he gave assurances that he would be safe.

He encountered no-one on his way to the trapdoor. He lit the steps with his lantern. Removing his mask to see more easily, he made his way down and then along the dark nave. All the way he kept telling himself that this was madness. The moon-eyed door was closed. He widened the lantern's beam and raked the shadows with it looking for the boy. No-one was there.

As he lowered the lantern its light washed around his feet. The door's huge eye stared tearfully over his head into the hall's black heart.

'Well, that's a relief,' he lied, as the disappointment washed over him.

The silver trembled as one of the leaves slid away, slicing the eye in two. Someone came out through the gap. It was the boy. His bright face made the door's silver look like lead. For a moment they gazed at each other. Then, saying nothing, the boy turned and disappeared. Unease blew out of the gap like a draught but still Carnelian followed him.

Through the mazing library Carnelian followed, watching the boy's white feet tread the edge of his lantern's light. They stopped between a wall and a beadcord bench where a niche cut back into the stone. Lifting his light, Carnelian saw one of the curious chairs on which the boy had sat the previous day.

The boy took the lantern from Carnelian and indicated that he should sit on the chair. Carnelian sat. He fingered the spike that rose from the end of the chair's left arm. The boy put the lantern down and turned to face one of the bench's spindles. He took hold of its topmost reel, lifted it free and then threaded it down onto the empty spindle next to it. He lifted the second reel from the original stack and turned with it in his hands. It could have been a human head wrapped in a jewelled cloth. Hoisting it, the boy impaled it on the chair arm's spike.