Delivery to the Lost City

by P. G. Bell

  “Suzy!” hissed her father. “Those women have guns!”

  “Don’t worry, Dad,” said Suzy, trying to keep her own anxiety in check. “They’re the Lunar Guard. It’s their job to protect the tower.”

  “We have a right to use the library!” shouted a gelatinous orange slug-thing at the front of the crowd. “I thought you were supposed to be open to everyone now!” There was a low chorus of jeers and mutterings.

  “And I’m telling you again,” said the guard with the green hair, “the management reserves the right to close the library without notice, which is exactly what’s happened.”

  “When are they going to open it again?” shouted a minotaur in a ball gown. “I’ve got important medical research to do!”

  “They’ll open it as soon as they’re ready,” the guard replied.

  A jagged figure made of glowing blue crystal cupped its hands around its mouth and yelled, “You’re hiding something!” This prompted a fresh chorus of jeering and booing from the crowd. For the first time, the guards started to look uncomfortable.

  “No one’s hiding anything,” said the guard with the orange hair. “But we’re dealing with a security situation and no one gets in until it’s resolved.”

  The crowd descended into animated chatter.

  “I bet it’s the old Lord Meridian,” Suzy heard someone say. “He’s taken over again.”

  “That’s why no one’s been able to find him anywhere,” said a sparkling cloud of red gas. “He’s been hiding here all along.”

  “They probably welcomed him back with open arms,” muttered a nearby gnome.

  Wilmot, who had been watching the crowd with mounting concern, put his hand up. “Excuse me!” he called. “We’re from the Impossible Postal Express. Lady Meridian sent for us.”

  The crowd turned to stare as the green-haired guard pushed her way through to him. “You’re the posties?” she asked.

  “Postmaster Grunt and Deputy Postal Operative Smith, at your service,” said Wilmot, clutching his lapel to show off his badge. Suzy did likewise.

  The guard scrutinized them both through narrowed eyes, then looked Suzy’s parents over. “What about these two?” she said.

  “They’re observing our delivery,” said Suzy. “For, er…”

  “For health and safety purposes,” said her mother, narrowing her eyes right back at the guard. “And this tower of yours had better be safe, or I’m going to complain to your supervisor.”

  The guard stared at her. Suzy’s mother stared right back.

  Suzy cringed, but didn’t dare intervene.

  “Just get in there as quick as you can,” said the guard. “Her Ladyship needs you.” She led the way back through the crowd to the turnstiles, and for the second time that day, Suzy was uncomfortably aware of hostile eyes boring into the back of her head as she passed.

  “How come they’re allowed in?” said the gelatinous blob. “That’s not fair!”

  “It’s a conspiracy!” someone shouted as the rest of the crowd muttered and fussed.

  The guards unlocked the turnstiles and waved Wilmot, Suzy, and her parents through onto the drawbridge.

  “Sorry to ask,” said Wilmot as they passed through, “but what exactly is going on?”

  “Trouble,” said the red-haired guard. “Her Ladyship will tell you all about it.”

  The four of them hurried along the drawbridge toward the tower. “Well, this is all very exciting, isn’t it?” said Suzy’s father. Suzy was used to him highlighting the positive in any situation, but even she thought he sounded a little uncertain. It was a feeling she was beginning to share.

  A pair of large glass doors marked the entrance to the tower. They swung open in welcome, and the four of them stepped into a tall, circular atrium, pierced from top to bottom by shafts of colored light from the tower’s stained glass windows. The walls between the windows were lined with bookshelves, but to Suzy’s surprise, they were almost entirely bare, and a small army of white-robed library assistants were scrambling up and down ladders, stripping the remaining shelves of their contents. More library assistants and even members of the Lunar Guard hurried back and forth, through doorways and down staircases, carrying armfuls of books away. Every one of them looked tense and nervous.

  Even more surprising were the piles of abandoned books littering the floor. There were thousands of volumes of every shape and size, lying in disorderly heaps that reached almost as high as Suzy’s waist. Their spines were cracked and their pages creased. Their blank pages.

  Suzy picked a volume up at random and leafed through it as she and her parents followed Wilmot through the mess. Every page was completely empty. Even the cover was featureless. She put it down carefully on the nearest pile and selected another, but it was blank, too. She looked again at the mounds of discarded books surrounding them and realized they were all the same—there was not a single word in any of them. Something about the sight sent a little chill through her.

  “Is this normal?” whispered her mother, looking around in confusion.

  “No,” said Suzy. “Definitely not.”

  “Quickly now!” a voice she recognized rang out across the atrium. “Those volumes of Vogon poetry should have been in the archive ten minutes ago. And you there! Where are you going with those four-dimensional pop-up books? They’re supposed to go to the lower stacks, not the upper reading room. Come along—we’ve lost too many books already. We need to get whatever’s left to safety.”

  Wilmot wove through the chaos to a circular reception desk in the center of the atrium, where a tall female troll with honey-colored skin was directing everyone through a megaphone. An ancient-looking troll sat behind the desk with his fingers in his ears.

  “Hello, Mom,” said Wilmot, waving his arms at the troll with the megaphone. “Is everything all right?”

  “Oh, hello, Wilmot dear,” said his mother, lowering the megaphone. “Thank goodness you’ve come.”

  “Yes,” muttered the elderly troll behind the desk. “Thank goodness!” He pulled his fingers from his ears with a loud double pop. “And young Suzy as well. You’re both a sight for sore eyes.” He reached up and used his sleeve to absentmindedly polish the steel plate that covered half his scalp.

  “Mr. Trellis!” said Suzy. “And Mrs. Grunt! I didn’t realize you’d both be here.”

  “I’ve found my second calling in life,” said Mr. Trellis. “Library Assistant Bertram Trellis, at your service.”

  “The Old Guard has joined the staff at the Ivory Tower until Trollville is rebuilt,” said Mrs. Grunt. “And right now they need every able pair of hands they can manage.” She gave Suzy’s parents a quizzical glance. “Are you here to volunteer?”

  Suzy’s dad looked a little lost. “Um, no. Sorry. We’re with Suzy.”

  “They’re my parents,” said Suzy. “Mom and Dad, this is Gertrude Grunt. She’s Wilmot’s mom, and she ran the nursing home for retired posties in Trollville.”

  Gertrude reassessed Suzy’s parents with a quick look, and smiled. “Delighted to meet you both,” she said hurriedly. “But I’m afraid the pleasantries will have to wait. I need to make sure we get as many of our surviving books to safety as possible before Her Ladyship arrives with the package for you to deliver. Mr. Trellis, could you call her and let her know the crew of the Express is here?”

  “Righto,” said Mr. Trellis, and reached for the phone.

  While he placed the call, Wilmot looked around the atrium in surprise. “Did the package do all this?”

  “This is just a fraction of what it’s done,” said Gertrude. “It’s drained almost every word in the tower. Hundreds of millions of books, wiped clean. We’re doing everything we can to save what’s left, but…” She shook her head sadly. “I fear it’s too little, too late.”

  Suzy tried to imagine the whole library bled dry. All the knowledge, history, and culture of the Impossible Places, erased. It was catastrophic.

  “Don’t forget the souvenirs
!” a new voice echoed around the atrium. Suzy turned and saw a small, round female troll, with the same eyes and honey-colored skin as Gertrude, hurrying toward them. She wore a baggy white T-shirt covered with black writing, and was pushing a clothing rack on wheels. The rack was filled with identical white T-shirts on hangers.

  “Hello, Aunty Dorothy,” said Wilmot. “What are you doing?”

  “They put me in charge of the new gift shop,” said Dorothy, proudly. “They might not be works of great literature, but someone needs to help me move these T-shirts out of harm’s way.”

  Gertrude tutted. “Dorothy, this really isn’t the time.”

  “Well, I’m not going to be the one to explain to Her Ladyship why all her souvenirs are suddenly blank,” said Dorothy.

  Suzy squinted at the text on Dorothy’s T-shirt. “What does it say?”

  Dorothy straightened the front of the T-shirt so Suzy could read it. In jaunty black text it said:

  MY FRIENDS WENT TO THE IVORY TOWER AND ALL THEY GOT ME WAS THIS LOUSY REASSURANCE THAT IT’S NO LONGER AN INSTRUMENT OF CLANDESTINE AUTOCRACY.

  “Would you like one?” said Dorothy. “They’re on sale.”

  Suzy gave her an apologetic smile. “Thanks, but I don’t really get it.”

  “No one gets it,” said Mr. Trellis. “These T-shirts are terrible. But until someone can persuade Her Ladyship to give up control of merchandising, we’re stuck with them.”

  “What’s wrong with my merchandising?” said a voice. Mr. Trellis jumped. A woman with a flowing mane of neon pink hair was approaching the desk, carrying a glass cylinder the size of a hatbox, fixed to a squat metallic base.

  “I’m sure it’s not my place to say, Your Ladyship,” said Mr. Trellis. “Please don’t fire me.”

  “I’ll fire you out of a cannon if you keep calling me ‘Your Ladyship,’” the woman said, setting the cylinder down on the desk. “My name’s Neoma. Please use it.”

  Neoma was solid and square-shouldered. She wore a gleaming white version of the Lunar Guard jumpsuit beneath a floor-length white cape, fastened around her shoulders with a gold chain. Suzy couldn’t help noticing that she still had her old plasma pistol strapped to her thigh.

  Before Suzy could say hello, her dad stepped forward with his hand out. “Lady Neoma,” he said. “I’m Suzy’s father, this is her mom, and we’d just like to say what an honor it is to be here inside the moon.”

  Suzy cringed, while Neoma looked at his hand as though he had smeared it in something.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, and stepped around him. “And you,” she said when she caught sight of Suzy. “I hear you’re the one who stopped that giant robot from obliterating Trollville last month. Ripped it in two down the middle, in fact.”

  Suzy felt her parents tense. “Maybe,” she replied.

  Neoma’s features softened into the barest suggestion of a smile. “Well done. And take it from me, you never forget your first killer robot.”

  At last she turned to Wilmot. “Hello, Postmaster,” she said. “Are you ready for this delivery? It’s got to go out immediately, and I mean right this instant. Top priority. All other duties superseded.”

  “We came prepared,” said Wilmot. “What will we be delivering?”

  “We’re a library,” said Neoma. “Take a guess.”

  Wilmot blushed a little. “A book, then,” he said. “All right. But where’s it going?”

  “That bit’s complicated,” said Neoma. “I don’t know.”

  “Then how are we supposed to deliver it?” asked Suzy.

  Neoma raised a finger for silence and looked around the atrium. The last of the guards and library assistants were just staggering out of sight down a winding flight of stairs leading to the archives. “Mrs. Grunt,” said Neoma. “Give me the megaphone.”

  Gertrude handed it over, and Neoma raised it to her lips.

  “You can bring it down now,” she shouted. “We’re ready for you.”

  A few seconds later, three figures appeared on one of the winding staircases leading to the upper reading rooms. Two of them were Lunar Guards, their plasma rifles primed and glowing, and between them was a small, skinny boy with pale, pinched features and a mop of ash-blond hair. He wore an off-white tunic and carried a large leather-bound book at arm’s length. He looked as though he expected it to explode at any moment.

  “Frederick!” said Suzy as he and his escort arrived. “Mom, Dad, this is my friend I was telling you about. He’s the Chief Librarian.”

  Frederick flashed them something that was halfway between a smile and a grimace, but didn’t take his eyes off the book. It was thick, and its cover was pitted and black with age, like a medieval Bible that Suzy had seen in a museum once. Its title, picked out in curling silver script, was The Book of Power, and it was sealed shut with a tarnished metal clasp.

  “What should I do with it?” said Frederick. A few beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

  “Just put it down gently,” said Neoma. She slid off the desk as Frederick, holding his breath, laid the book down where she had been sitting and took a big step back.

  “How’s it looking up there?” said Neoma, resting a hand on the butt of her pistol.

  “Bad,” said Frederick, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. “We were too late to save the whole Gothic romance section. A squad of library assistants got some of the funnier Zardonian joke books to safety, but every collection from Advanced Magical Practice all the way down to Unnatural History has been wiped. There’s nothing left.”

  “This all sounds very serious,” said Suzy’s mom. “Suzy, I thought you said this library wasn’t dangerous.”

  “Mom, please!” Suzy scowled, but saw that the guards had their plasma rifles trained on the book. It was enough to make her pause. “Actually, what is going on?” she asked.

  Now that he was no longer holding the book, Frederick seemed a little calmer. “Right,” he said. “Yes. Hello, Suzy. Good to see you again.” He gave a shaky smile, and for the first time, she saw the bags under his eyes. He looked exhausted. “This is the oldest book in the Ivory Tower’s collection. In fact, it’s been here for as long as the tower has existed, even though it doesn’t actually belong to us.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Wilmot.

  “According to the records, it was loaned to us just after the founding of the Union.”

  “But that was thousands of years ago!” said Wilmot.

  “Hundreds of thousands,” said Gertrude. Dorothy nodded vigorously in agreement. “It was a very long-term loan,” said Frederick. “But it finally expired this morning, so now the book’s overdue.”

  “So you need the Express to take it back where it came from?” said Suzy.

  “That’s right,” said Frederick. “Except that we don’t know where that is.”

  Suzy shrugged. “Don’t your records tell you?”

  “You don’t understand,” said Frederick. “Nobody knows where it is. It’s from an Impossible Place that’s been missing for almost as long as the book’s been with us.”

  Suzy looked at him in confusion. “But if there’s no one to return the book to, why return it at all?”

  “Because we really don’t want to keep it,” said Neoma.

  “Excuse me!” said a nervous voice. They all turned to see a library assistant, an awkward-looking boy with the face and russet fur of an Irish setter, stumble out of an archway across the atrium. His arms were laden with books. “I took these biographies down to the east storage room but it was already full, so I was wondering—”

  “Get them out of here, Jim-Jim!” shouted Gertrude. “Quickly!”

  Startled, Jim-Jim jumped and lost his grip on the books, which tumbled to the floor. “Oh no!” he yelped. “I’m sorry!”

  Neoma snapped her fingers, and the two Lunar Guards who had accompanied Frederick snapped to attention. “Help him,” she said. “Before—”

  “It’s too late,” exclaimed Mr. Trellis. “Look!�
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  A black liquid was seeping from between the fallen books’ pages and onto the floor. Suzy thought it must be ink, until it began evaporating into tendrils of smoke, which swirled and crawled through the air toward the desk.

  “What’s happening?” said Suzy’s dad, dragging Suzy and her mom clear. The tendrils snaked toward the old black book and squirmed their way in between its pages. “What are those things?”

  “They’re words,” said Frederick, with a weary resignation. “From the biographies that Jim-Jim was carrying.” Jim-Jim gave a sorrowful whine and laid his ears flat against his head.

  “I’m so sorry!” he moaned. “I didn’t know you’d brought the book down already!”

  Suzy broke free of her dad’s grip and jogged over to the fallen biographies. She picked one up and leafed through the pages. Every single one of them was blank. She picked up a second volume and found the same thing.

  “The other book drained them,” said Wilmot, looking over her shoulder. “It sucked the words right off their pages.”

  Frederick nodded gravely. “It started as soon as the loan period expired, and we can’t find any way to stop it.”

  Suzy looked at the piles of blank books heaped up around the atrium. “You mean all those books…?”

  Frederick nodded. “We lost almost a million volumes before we even realized what was happening.”

  Suzy thought of the thousands of miles of bookshelves that filled the tower, and the countless words that had rested on them. The book had drained almost every single one of them, and without the help of the Express and her crew, it would probably finish off whatever was left. The written records of whole worlds, scrubbed clean in a matter of hours.

  “Why is this happening?” she asked, tossing the empty biography down and returning to the desk.