18

Excerpts 18-22 from the Backstory

The sky was black, macabre. A cruel wind blew on my face, and everything had changed. Gimaldi and I feared the worst without really knowing why. Castellemare joined us with a mocking grin on his face.

“I'm sorry, but you lose,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “We conquered your labyrinth. What further tests must you subject us to?”

“Where are we?” Gimaldi asked sternly.

“Why, here, my good friend,” Castellemare said as if the question were facile. “Does it matter?”

“Castellemare, I am through with your antics,” charged Gimaldi. “You've pranced about like some smug villain, playing your little paradoxical games. The boy is not yours to mould. He will not be one of your devotees. He is a creature of Reason, not your charlatanism.”

“Then by all means, weave your wild and illusory metaphysics if their intricate arabesques give you pleasure,” Castellemare said with a laugh. “Besides, this is a rather silly discussion.

“Then why have you dragged us into it, and into this labyrinth of yours? What are you trying to prove?” I challenged him.

“Nothing at all,” he said, a bit confused by my question. “Really, I do things for amusement.”

I must here confess that I did read Codex Infinitum to its conclusion. However, knowing that he – the other Gimaldi – was reading this, I could not in good conscience, and for what I now know, report anything further that would aid him. I do not do this to be cruel, but actually out of mercy for a man I would never come to know beyond the confines of text. What I report now will be of little value to that other Gimaldi, but it is my hope that the scant clues I offer will better guide him... hopefully away from these beguiling mysteries and atrocious consequences.

19

An end to theological mischief. Just one more trial for Gimaldi. Press the all-one cipher of the immanent and infinite Library into a man and that man will become the Librarian.

“Am I to believe that all of what I have endured, and the labyrinths I have traveled, was nothing more than a training exercise for a job I had not applied for?” asked Gimaldi.

“Gimaldi, your weakness is in not recognizing what is metaphorical and what is literal. You will no doubt take the pressing of the one-all cipher as metaphorical, and the imminent synthesis as literal. You know nothing about information.”

20

Beware:

“Exactly,” he smiled. “The impossibility of existence is marked by the absence of all formalities. It is simply enough to be a sufficient being in order to be all beings. Is not infinity simply a matter of sufficient reason, hm?”

21

(What you have to understand is that which will come to pass can only do so if you read it)... As for Castellemare, he would disappear without a trace, along with his villa. Leave it all alone, Gimaldi. Stop reading. Run.

FIN