Where the artist and the scientist meet in the actual

 

For in truth, painters, even when they use the greatest ingenuity in attempting to portray sirens and satyrs in bizarre and extraordinary ways, nevertheless cannot give them wholly new shapes and natures, but only invent some particular mixture composed of parts and various animals.

-René Descartes, Med. 1

 

 

Leopold regarded his canvas carefully, observing how tightly its composite parts, its interwoven and interlaced stitches formed the unitary screen of white. But it was, upon closer inspection, marked with very tiny peaks and valleys which were designed to capture and snag paint from a moving brush. Leopold rolled the once finely tipped brush in his hand, its hairs a bit frazzled and hard on the edges from an infinity of washings and dryings. His eyes followed up the hairs to where the aluminum pinched the wand and beyond to where the pointed tip of the wand lodged into his teeth. Beside him, on a roughshod table, was a book by Leibniz that he found by chance in a recycle box, a collection of metaphysical writings some student got fed up with. One could tell that Leopold had been reading it, for he had a section bookmarked on one idea in particular: that of each singular substance expressing every possible event that could ever be visited upon it. Yes, Leopold would paint today with the concept of infinity as his inspirational source, even if he hadn't the cognitive apparatus to comprehend this concept, how it differed in mathematics to philosophy. Enamoured already as he was by deserts and uncountable nouns, such concepts found likely fundament in him. There was a sense of brazenness and urgency to his creative fervour on this day, and he felt feverishly animated for the first time in a while. Whether this was to be attributed to his strange dream, he could not say, nor was he going to risk offending what was sparking his sudden output with any ungrateful questioning. He was determined to ride out what short burst of creativity had been mysteriously gifted unto him.

Backward-playing voices in his mind went into a growling crescendo as he worked, a garbled harmony of terrifying alien throat-songs. Thinking this to be a strange but pardonable part of the creative surge he was experiencing, he thrust it brutally upon the canvas. He felt as though what he was creating was enough to snag the eye of any onlooker, capture the gaze and rub it raw against the infernal texture brought about in the marriage between canvas and brush. What he desired, fully, was that the work upon completion would cause a viewer to convulse spasmodically like an electrocuted pig. The more excited he became, the faster his brush made its transit between canvas and palette – all until it all suddenly died out: the surge, the voices, the manic spark that so brazenly prompted him to slash with conviction upon the once blank space. He threw the impotent brush across the room, resulting in an unsatisfying click against the wall, the sound of small and hollow wood against the solid impenetrability of the wall. Leopold put his hands against the floor and could now hear the return of more internally derived voices; this time, he felt them as they seemed to course up through his bent arms, his sunken chest, his bleary head. And he knew: it would take much more to bring his creation to term, perhaps even an unthinkable sacrifice. He began to pound against the floor, laughing in erratic fits. Falling silent again, he left his apartment in its pitiful state, tubes of half spent oils curling with the appearance of grubs gone dry in the sun and turning metallic. The door was left carelessly open as he passed to the outside. The streets seemed to quietly hum his name. He needed no canvas, for his art was twofold: the best paintings were hung in the gallery of his mind, and his body was the greatest exhibit on earth. This feeling of personal largesse was all that stood between him and the acceptance of the fact that he had given up, that the inspiration that had possessed him had, in its fickle way, abandoned him once again.

 

Meanwhile, Dr Aymer was back in his laboratory, overseeing a demonstration on dysgenesis by one of his graduate students. They were both tackling a most strange anomaly: the progeny of the fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, were born without wings. The experiment, kept under the most strict of controls, was not supposed to produce such bizarre genetic results. But this was not the first instance of such anomalous events in the labs on campus. Dr Aymer suspected that someone was tampering with either the equipment. However, since the last instance and other such strange occurrences that went on throughout that week, the Faculty of Science had been prompted by no mean number of complaints to take action. Soon, the entire floor was under video surveillance. Those charged with the task of reviewing the tapes found no evidence of tampering or sabotage of any kind.

Dr Aymer felt a strange guilt concerning these anomalous events. Dr Aymer would assume the source of the anomaly could have been due to a wide variety of possible factors: improper procedures, fudged results, inaccurate measurement readings, faulty electronic apparatus, unsterilized equipment, tampering, a mistake in calculation, or an observational error. Of the million and one things that could go wrong in an experiment, Dr Aymer knew that anomalies were simply errors, and one had only to investigate all possible sources of error in procedural or equipment aspects of the experiment - even if it meant that Dr Aymer himself would have to delegate an outside research group to repeat the experiment. Unlike the unscientific hypothesis that anomalies represented supernatural intervention, Dr Aymer knew there to be scientific reasons for all unexplained phenomena lodged beneath any mystery. Dr Aymer, not out of an implicit distrust of his students' honesty or ability, personally conducted the repetition of the experiment that yielded the wingless flies. He, however, needed to locate the rational solution, for there were many who were seduced by some tendency to declare the event miraculous. Dr Aymer had no patience for miracles, and believed that an economy of thought would eventually lead to a safe and rational explanation.

Dr Aymer placed two wild types of Drosophila in a tube, about twelve flies in total, and kept them in a separate storage unit with a padlock only he could unlock. By the next evening, seeing as Drosophila attain sexual maturity within twenty-four hours, the flies would have mated. Surely enough, Dr Aymer removed the tube from the unity and came across the same anomaly. He carefully analyzed the DNA of both parent and offspring, and found no reason why the latter would have exhibited this genetic flaw. The flies merely wriggled pointlessly before him, almost taunting him with their impossibility. Dr Aymer replaced the tube in the unit to give the wingless flies a chance to mate. What he found two days later was even more troubling. There was a hundred percent rate of newborn flies that lacked pigment in their eyes. Usually, the wild types had brownish-red eyes, yet the progeny had white eyes. He left the flies to mate again, and puzzled over the results and rechecked the results for two more days. By week's end, the next generation was not only wingless and white-eyed, but had no legs. He could not rationally explain why this had happened, and he watched as the flies without wings or legs writhed impotently at the bottom of the small tube, now incapable without assistance to mate let alone feed themselves. He reasoned that there was a problem with this batch, and so he ordered more flies from the same supplier. The results remained as anomalous as before, so he then ordered from another supplier, yet there again was no change. Meanwhile, other students who were working on similar projects complained of the anomaly. But Dr Aymer was determined to solve the puzzle - to which he reasoned that perhaps the laboratory environment itself was tainted, perhaps irradiated - and so set about to breed the flies naturally, i.e., leaving a banana peel to rot in the open air of his home as to invite the domestic and local variety of Drosophila. Again, the results were the same.

As quickly as these flies could breed, these results were spreading quickly across the world in isolated labs. A friend and colleague of Dr Aymer's in Stockholm had complained of the same problem. Genetics periodicals became swamped with articles on this finding from all over, and it soon became the most talked about issue in genetic science. No one could adequately explain the phenomena, but everyone had their theories, and not all of them relied on core scientific principles. Some alarmists eager to turn the event into a crisis for which they could be named heralds postulated that the fundamental principles of genetics were, in light of these findings, in need of a serious reassessment. Others stated that there was a hidden evolutionary force that was somehow causing Drosophila melanogaster to suicide itself, some hidden mechanism of epigenetics that was causing a process of mass extinction. Of these theories, the most far-fetched claimed that this phenomena could be a new explanation for the dinosaur extinction, UFO interference, and a variety of other crackpot speculations. It seemed as if, with the lack of concrete evidence, the anomaly was dragging in scientists from diverse disciplines to dredge up strange theories to cover this heterogeneous situation. They all banded together in marshaling whatever hasty theory they could to their aid, for there was a lot to lose in the failure to explain. The person who could explain it best, regardless if it was true, would win.

Dr Aymer was just one among a very large chorus of scientists very concerned with the new data pouring in from flabbergasted labs all over the world. In his process journal, he wrote:

 

 

Dr Aymer received a call from his friend, Cindy, and she persuaded him to come out from his investigative creche for an evening of cocktails and dinner, despite the magnitude of the genetic situation that was consuming his every attention. It would be then that he would meet a man he had met before, but in a different place... perhaps in dream.

 

Leopold was manic at his canvas by the time a deep purple eased into evening sky, bleeding with the first seeping plumes of the night. An inspiration out of nowhere, a concept that had been mysteriously consuming him, Leopold painted one after another in a series of red lions without any rational explanation - not that he questioned the motives of his muse, a muse that seldom paid such sustained visits. Red lion on textured grey, red lion in Warhol multiples, red lion with an aureole of fruit flies, red lion frolicking in library stacks. Once this spurt of creativity was spent, he went out to a quiet, cheap restaurant, never going beyond the last few seats near the door, as if ready to pounce on any opportunity to escape back home, just in case the urge to create would visit him again. The tables were square, their tops stable upon steel stems. Around him was a modest array of patrons, most of them chatting in intimate pairs.

He could hear the voices again, and despite the fact that no recognizable words were being formed, the tone was as though jeering him. He did his best to ignore the cacophony in his head and tried to fix upon something else, eavesdropping on conversations for distraction. It was then that he heard a distinct voice two tables away.

“Oh, c'mon!” a woman playfully insisted. “It isn't that bad. They fry up a good halibut here. Think of it as slumming.”

“The tabelclothes are stained,” a male voice returned. “This will have to do. Anyway, as I was saying -”

“Can't you just leave your troubles at the lab and just enjoy yourself?” the woman pleaded with a slight chirrup of friendly irritation.

“But it's just so perplexing,” Dr Aymer defended. “This anomaly is consuming me, but I just know that there has to be a solution, a simple one, one without any hocus pocus. Why, just yesterday I read an article by Thomas Peel – you know Peel, right? He's the most imperturbable, staunchly skeptical researcher in the field. If he had been around centuries ago and told the earth was round, he would demand more empirical research be done to confirm it. Anyway, he is not given to wild-eyed speculations, but...”

It was then that Leopold and Dr Aymer locked eyes; however, the latter seemed too absorbed in thought to focus on what his eyes were seeing. The voices that had encroached upon Leopold had died clean away as he tried to remember where he had seen this man before. He hit upon it quickly: the scientist in his dream. What was his name? Kramer? Daimler? Perhaps it had all been a dream, for the events in the white room progressed in such a fashion, in the typical dream speed of stutters and unconnected moments.

Leopold was interrupted by a young woman with several facial piercings, dressed in plaid tights and an oversized leather jacket with punk band patches: “sorry to disturb you, but I recognize you from somewhere. The 'Re-envisioning Chiaroscuro Exhibit,' Kludge Gallery, right? You had a few works for sale.”

She appeared nervous, not in the mood to talk about art, and this contrived introduction hid something more pressing.

“Yeah.”

“Well, um...” she stammered in an obvious attempt to keep solid composure against emotion, “this is probably pretty stupid, but did you know an Ian Plenkowitz?”

“No, should I? Does he hang around the gallery? If he does, then I wouldn't know. I don't know anybody here.”

“Oh,” she said, deflated. “Well, maybe you knew him by his artist name. He called himself Abraxis sometimes, his signature on some of his work. He had some works at the same exhibit.”

“Nope. Can't say that I know him,” Leopold said, now more impatient that the woman should leave so that he could retrace the steps of his dream where he had met the scientist, try to make the right connections in his mind. “Besides, that was months ago. June or July, maybe. I'm not what you'd call a people person; I'm not into the art hobnobbing scene.”

“Well, he shot himself at a bar a while ago... “

When she said these words, she broke down. This made Leopold feel very uncomfortable, as he always felt in the presence of genuine human emotion – especially issuing from a stranger. He felt callous since his first thought was to reply with, “Why should I care? I'm not a subscriber to local art news.”

“Oh, I'm... sorry?” was his awkward reply instead.

“No, no, it's ok,” she said, regaining herself and mopping her eyes with her sleeve. “Not many people knew him. He was a bit of a loner. He and I were a thing, y'know, and I had no idea... but... I'm really out of people to ask. I ask around a lot, and nobody knew him. I just try to track down faces... We had broken up not too long ago... and, I dunno. Shit...”

“Well, sorry, I didn't know the guy. Did people owe him money or something, because I can be sure I didn't borrow anything from him – didn't even know him, whoever he was.”

“It isn't like that,” she defended, mopping her tears and snot with a damp, floppy sleeve. “He was my man, and I haven't got squat to remember him by. His fucking parents took all his stuff, probably threw it all away. They never understood him, never loved him like I did. They were fucking bourgeois pigs. Pillerstines.”

The word she was really looking for was “philistines.”

“Well, anyway,” she continued, still standing, “there was one thing I really wanted to remember him by, and I knew it was the most precious thing in the world to him. I was just wondering if it fell into someone else's hands somehow, for safekeeping or something.”

“What kind of thing?” he asked, somewhat regretting that he was prolonging this more than regretting that he really didn't give a damn.

“A sketchbook. If he was going to do himself in like that, he would have had it on him. He was never without it. It was his constant companion... He even slept with it in the bed.”

“Maybe he lost it, or if he was going to kill himself, he might have burnt it, thrown it in the river, gave it to some bum, buried it in the sand... I don't know what to tell you,” Leopold said flatly, immediately embarrassed with his tactless tone.

“No, people saw him that day carrying it around like he always does... Did... I'm sorry to have bothered you. I have to go. But if you see it, could you please let me know? It's all I really want of him. Here's my number.”

She scrawled down her number on the table napkin with black lipstick. Class.

“What does it look like?” he asked, this time with more concern.

“It's black with an etching of a red lion on the cover.”

After Leopold had made his promise to notify her immediately if he came across it, she left, and he was left to ponder over the strange coincidence of the red lion. Perhaps just a coincidence, but still... What possessed him to be so uncontrollably inspired and fixated by this image, to paint an entire series of them? “Maybe some sort of spirit transfusion or something,” he jingled in his mind before dropping it.

Dr Aymer had finally noticed Leopold, and was making quizzical facial gestures to establish a sense of mutual recognition through meaningful staring. Thinking it merely a figment of his overly taxed mind, he let the thoughts slide.

It just so happened that both Leopold and Dr Aymer were leaving the establishment at the same time. Cindy had been called away in mid-meal by some small crisis Dr Aymer did not register. Leopold and Dr Aymer were coming to the front door at the same time, but neither summoned the courage to speak to the other until some time elapsed. They were both heading in the same direction, Leopold a few yards behind, and Dr Aymer turned to face Leopold with the intention of speaking.

“Don't I know you?” Leopold was the first to ask.

“I was about to ask the same thing. But where?”

“My memory of our meeting is a bit hazy, but so are a lot of things in my life.”

“Hm,” Dr Aymer grunted. “Yes, I do believe we have met. I remember a white room with blue chairs and a large white table. There was nothing remarkable about the room, but the picture on a book was of a red lion, and that sticks with me.”

Suddenly, Leopold could place the image in his image, why it had been consuming him as of late.

“Does this mean anything to you?” Dr Aymer asked, noticing the look of recognition in Leopold's eyes.

“Yes, it does, but I can't make any sense of it.”

“Very peculiar.”

“Then it wasn't a dream.”

“I do believe it was a dream, but a dream we both had. I cannot understand how it is possible, but allowing for coincidence, perhaps? This is now my second puzzle.”

“Not that I'm the chummy type, but what is the first?”

“It appears that all fruit flies are quickly becoming extinct due to some genetic freak mutation, perhaps a micro-virus, or perhaps something that we haven't been able to put our finger on. It is rather perplexing.”

“Maybe nature is reacting to all this genetic modification; y'know, growing hard skin over itself to protect from scientists who tinker too much with making super-fruit and cloned sheep.”

“Genetics does not work that way,” explained Dr Aymer, baffled that still so many members of the general public held these naïve science fiction beliefs about genetics.

“Oh, well, sorry. With all the mucking about genetics can do, just out of curiousity, what do you suppose the genetic recipe for a red lion would be?”

If then struck Dr Aymer that perhaps this red lion motif could have something to do with this anomaly. He was very tired, and this was very unscientific thinking. Perhaps it would be a desperate grasping at straws, but Dr Aymer would see if he could draw up a speculative genetic table of characteristics a red lion would possess. Of course, the changing of pigment in any organism, especially one as complex as a lion, would take a great deal of time and much sequencing. However, Dr Aymer was without any further leads to resolve the current problem with the fruit fly extinction, and thought that maybe he could combine one anomalous situation with another. Perhaps the dream and the flies had some connection. It wasn't much to go on, but it was all he had. Perhaps the genetic structure of Drosophila melanogaster was trying to pattern itself to that of a red lion, and in the process of failing to achieve the impossible was succumbing to a genetic dissolution. It wasn't plausibly scientific at all.

“You have given me an idea,” said Dr Aymer.

“Great. I charge by the hour.”

“We must explore this shared dream of ours, get to the bottom of it. I suggest that we work together on this.”

“Um, ok, it was really just a bizarre dream.”

“Perhaps, but I have an intuition that the dream and the flies are somehow related. Don't ask me to explain because I could not conjure how. You are the artist, I remember.”

“Leopold.”

“Yes, Leopold... My name is Dr Aymer.”

“The gene guy.”

“Er, yes.”

“You remember that philosophy guy? Whazzisname? Rumpel? What a bag of wind.”

Dr Aymer laughed. “Yes, he certainly was a character. Say, Leopold, I don't want to abandon a fresh clue, no matter how farfetched it might be. I think it might be in our mutual interest to stay in touch. Would you be amenable to this?”

“I guess so. Do you want my number?”

“That'd be helpful. Here is my card. Do pay my lab a visit sometime soon.”

The two men exchanged details and parted ways.

 

Leopold returned to his apartment building. Going up the stairs, he thought of knocking on Gimaldi's door but heard a rather heated conversation coming from within, and so decided not to disturb him – which was a pity, since an intellectual like Gimaldi would certainly get a small kick out of Leopold's adventures as of late. Instead, Leopold settled upon his futon and had a very strange dream which involved an infinite staircase going down, down, and further down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

23

Minotaura

 

Would that this labyrinth ever end. I had not noticed that the conveyor belt with its payload of machine-produced books was not present, but had been likely demolished by Castellemare's workers. But now there were no more doors; instead, I was confronted with an interminably long, descending stairway of roughly hewn stone. Although there was enough light to make out the giant steps to aid my descent, it was insufficient to see what was marked there on the stone walls. From what I could feel and see in the dim light was that the stairway was set in a circular tower, the middle section an empty, dark pit. More disturbing still was that music from a place unseen was being piped in, casting an eerie echoing effect. The music had a distinctly Russian character about it, the traditional kind they would play in village dances.

I cannot say how long I descended that stairway, deeper into its black chasm, the light growing dimmer, but the music still at the same volume, repetitive, providing a beat that corresponded to my downward progress. I was very tired and had lost track of the hours, but perhaps I had been struggling my way through this labyrinth for over a day. I was hungry, thirsty, and sore. If there was no way out, then I would surely be dead in a few more days. The thought of being forever confined to this place hastened my steps, but carefully enough that I would not plummet and be dashed on these stone steps. After what felt like many hours, the need for sleep overtook me and I laid myself out on one of the broad steps, slipping into dream, but it was not my dream I was dreaming, but another's:

 

 

I awoke with a start. This dream had been so foreign and elaborate that I knew it not to be of my own subconscious design. Many of the elements of my current predicament and that of the dream were similar, but also very different. There was no observable frieze upon the walls, and no iron railing. The dream and its hopelessness was inducing me to take a fatal plunge. By whose design this dream? I knew I had to persevere and not be lulled by the prospect that my travel would be in vain. I longed for the normalcy of the outside world. It took me some time to realize that the music had stopped sometime during my sleep. The walls still felt rough and jagged under my probing hands that I used to guide my steps. I longed for more light that I may sit and delve into the texts I had upon my person in search of clues.

Another solid day of descent. I was becoming dizzy with hunger, parched with thirst. Would I suffer the same fate as the narrator in my dream, I wondered? I began hearing voices that I was unsure were real or brought about from a hallucinatory state. I fought hard against the onset of madness, remaining as vigilant as my faculties would allow to maintain a sense of rationality. I plumbed the details of my exotic dream, the only thing I could appeal to. After a time, I encountered another person.

“You suffered from an overabundance of love, methinks,” said a voice that seemed to belong to Angelo, but it was peculiar. It had startled me and almost caused me to trip.

“Angelo, is that you?”

“Fortune smiles on those who choose to be feared rather than loved.”

“Angelo, how did you get here? I've been stuck in this shaft for over a day. Is there a way out?”

“But you have lost even your most distant friends. Setzer the traitor your only link, now rendered eternally silent. You've not a friend in the world, Gimaldi.”

I could tell right away that Angelo meant me harm. I had no idea what happened in his own travels, or if he had planned this all along, but his voice suggested that he was prepared for a showdown. Did he discover that I had taken a poke at his boss? I stalled for time since I was far too weak to engage in anything physical.

“I have encountered some interesting clues in my travels, and perhaps we should compare notes.”

“I have all I need, and you have nothing,” he said, followed by the unmistakeable sound of his switchblade snapping open. I felt him darting quickly toward me, making a blind slash in the dim light. His knife sliced the strap of my shoulder bag which loosed itself, contents and all, down that dark pit. I tried to ready myself, but he was far quicker than I was, and I felt the sharp bite followed by the numb cold of the blade across my forearm as I attempted to deflect his strike. Too weak to run in retreat up the large steps, I parried the best I could, warding off his attack with a feeble kick that resulted in another slash across my shin. It had been foretold that only one of us would emerge alive from this labyrinth, and it very much looked to be in Angelo's favour, myself cut down in stairway without end. He advanced upon me as I backed myself into the wall of the stone shaft. Losing my footing, I fell on my tailbone, a sharp wave of pain resolving itself into nausea. Out of survival reflex, I delivered a kick that must have surprised Angelo, him not seeing that I had fallen. It happened just as he was slashing in the air where he thought I still was standing, his blade striking the stone wall causing him to drop it. My kick succeeded in repelling him, knocking him over the edge of the unguarded stairway, down into the chasm. Angelo's scream sounded for some time until it suddenly stopped instead of fading away. This told me that there was a bottom to this stairway. Hobbling painfully and with some haste, I followed the path down, holding my forearm firmly to staunch the bleeding. Luckily, the wound was not so deep as it was painful. My shin did not prevent me from my descent. Eventually, I hit bottom after about ten minutes.

The stairs ended abruptly at the bottom of the shaft. There on the ground was a shattered Angelo and my shoulder bag with its exploded contents. I hesitated a moment before collecting my things and thinking to check Angelo's broken person for any objects or clues that would be of some use to me. This is what I found:

 

-thirty silver shillings from the reign of Henry IV (15^th century?), facsimiles.

-Photocopied and folded copy of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, 1623 folio edition with heavy underlining of key passages.

-Wallet (contents: considerable amount of money in various currencies, Castellemare's calling card, one Chicago public transit pay-as-you-go card, variety of phone cards, ABM receipts, illegible list, wrinkled picture of a young woman).

-One half pack and one unopened pack of Marlboros.

-One Zippo with kitschy Egyptian motif.

-One folded page (photocopy of the title page of Swedenborg's “Summario Expositio Doctrinae Novae Ecclesiae” with handwritten notes on verso: “Colombia U: Butler Library, 6^th Fl. East – Contact Elsa. Re-acquire 7^th Med, biblioclasm).

 

The last entry spoke volumes – literally, I'm afraid to say - about Angelo's real intentions; namely, to perform a “biblioclasm” of one of the books I had in my possession. I found it interesting that he would revert to type since a biblioclasm is what the Church called the ceremony for the burning of heretical books, and I had just read much ado about the practice in the text on the Biblioclasts – another staged clue? The thirty shillings were most likely a symbolic gesture, to be given to the one he was going to betray, much in the way Judas had done to Christ. I could not discern the meaning of a few of the other items, but perhaps the Shakespeare text was his script all along. I gave him one last search, safe in the knowledge that he was dead. What I discovered, hidden among his effects, surprised me, a handwritten letter written in Italian with some Latin. The letter bore an official letterhead I did not recognize, and I did the best I could with my translation in the dim light. What it provided me with was the full name of the man I knew as Angelo:

 

Caro Angelo de Loisa, Off. Inquisitor Generalis.

 

The letter went on about his duties. I would learn that Angelo was a double agent, working for the office of the Grand Inquisitor, assigned by the Church to perform some duty in concerns Castellemare. Was there still an office of the Grand Inquisitor? It smelled fictitous to me. However, in fact, it came to pass that Angelo was readying to betray Castellemare by plucking a few texts from the Library that the Church very much wanted. As it turned out, the Devorants were either a branch of the Church, or were colluding for this special purpose of storming the Library. Whichever it was, Angelo was playing his part rather well, and perhaps explained his exaggerated zeal when he gave me his stern lecture about “protecting the Library's contents”. He was, of course, trying to look the part of employee of the month for the benefit of myself and Castellemare. Who would suspect the zealot worker, the one who kept touting the importance of the Library? I should have suspected as much, that it was all show, and his act was good enough to fool me. I collected all of his items including my own, but I had noticed a conspicuous absence: in the time it took me to get to the bottom of this shaft, someone had quietly stolen off with my copy of the Backstory. Since I had finished the wretched thing, it was no big loss, but I was unnerved that someone had been here before I was. I let it go. Before me was a large door, plain and without decoration save for one word in Carolingian script: Bibliotheca. The Library. I had come to the end of the labyrinth, and beyond that door was a minotaur of immense size.