Aisha pushed the board back into its place in the stairs. She took a step backwards to assess the damage done to the staircase in her haste to reach the hidden area inside. Aside from one crooked nail sticking out at an awkward angle, it looked much the same as before she took the leatherworking knife to it. She hoisted the old case of scrolls on her back and headed back to the closet where she hid the case under a pile of leather used to make bindings for new codices. She found a hammer and headed back to the stairs to repair the crooked nail. She would not have the work of heroic librarians and scribes go to waste because of her own carelessness. As Aisha the librarian she had a duty to protect the knowledge of her people. And as Irinya the princess the duty was sacred.
Aisha returned the hammer to its place in the closet and turned her attention to the scrolls inside the case. Some of them were made of the same fibrous material as the scroll hidden under her pallet in the dormitory, while the others were fashioned from Adyllian silk. She counted them. Ten scrolls in total. All older than the codices she was used to sorting for Baraz.
She pulled the closet door shut before unrolling one of the silken scrolls to read. Unlike the scroll hidden under her pallet, this one bore illustrations painted in bright colors as well as text. The beginning was emblazoned with a painting of an Adyllian silk spider, its orange and white body and rust colored legs stretched from margin to margin. Its front legs held a ball of spider silk, and rays of the sun peeked out from behind its body. On either side were two female figures in silhouette facing the text. The calligraphy was difficult to read.
This is the story of the oldest Beings. Much older than the Sun. Much older than the Moon, older than Earth and Star and Sky and Ocean. In the times before time there were only the two, Light and Dark. No one knows who is the elder of these twins, and no one knows who is the younger, but they were alike as sisters could be in both form and beauty.
Darkness lived as Light's shadow, walking beneath and beside her Sister's every step. But Light could not see her Sister Darkness, for her own brilliance blinded her.
One day, Light lamented her loneliness within the vastness of the infinite. "Why do I live if it is only to be alone, never to know another?"
Her Sister answered her, "You are not alone, Light. I, your Sister Darkness, walk beneath you and beside you."
"Sister Darkness, how is it that I cannot see you?" asked Light.
"You are blinded by your own glory," answered Darkness. "I exist within the places you do not touch."
"My heart longs to see you, sweet Sister!" cried Light. "For I am alone. How can I embrace what I cannot see?"
"It cannot be, my Sister, for there is no place between us," said Darkness. "Where you are, I cannot be."
On they walked, one Sister above and the other below until they came to place where they could walk no more. Light came to rest, and Darkness followed. And they sat silently, unable to comprehend the other.
"Darkness," said Light. "Would that I could dim myself and end my isolation. Let us create a space where we can embrace. A place of Between where Darkness and Light may coexist."
"Yes, dear Sister!" cried Darkness. "Give me a bright feather from your wings, and I shall weave it with one of my own. We shall create a gatekeeper who shall open the ways Between, so that we may know each other as Sisters."
Light plucked a feather from her wing. Darkness wove it with her own, and the two feathers formed a creature the color of dawn and dusk, having eight legs made from the shafts of the Sisters' feathers.
"We shall call you Lina," said Light to the little spider. "You shall make ways Between me and my sister. You shall weave webs and there I shall scatter my light upon all things. And my Sister and I shall behold one another and understand."
Lina did as she was asked, opening the ways Between where Light and Darkness may both exist. For this purpose she was created, to allow the embrace of the oldest of Beings.
It is Lina who taught the daughters of Aaysha to weave fine cloth, and she whose children's bite allow those who live to walk among the dead. It is she who was midwife to the Moon, bearing witness to the birth of Aaysha, Goddess of Adyll. It is her web upon which the Goddess ascended to her mother, the Moon.
For this purpose, we honor the children of Lina. They are the weavers of ways, and the gatekeepers to the Between. They are the pathfinders, who know the way when there is no way.
The door to the closet creaked open on its leather hinges, startling Aisha. She shoved the scroll behind her and backed away.
“Meow?” Old Scribe sauntered into the closet, rubbing his face on the door as he passed.
"You need to stop being so stealthy, cat!" said Aisha, bending down to pet him. "I thought you were a priest!"
Old Scribe purred and wove himself around her legs
"You are right. I need to find a better place to hide these than in my bed." The young librarian dropped to the floor where she sat petting Old Scribe. "I can't bring the whole library back to the dormitory. Someone would notice. And I can't keep pulling that board back. It is loose enough as it is! One day it won't go back into place, or it will fall out if Baraz slams a door too hard. And then he will burn all of the stories!"
She turned her attention back to the shelves she had spent the morning emptying while looking for the opening to the hidden room. "There has to be a way to get in there. If there is a way, I will find it. At least until then the books are safe."