On the positive side, Irene reassured herself, he must be feeling more composed if he was back to calling her Miss Winters. She shrugged as obviously as she could, gesturing soothingly. It is all under control, she mouthed back.
Vale didn’t look as if he believed her, which was a shame, because she was now sure that things actually were back under control. To the extent that the three of them weren’t about to drown, at least.
No, the real problem was something else entirely. Now she was sure what Kai really was. A river-spirit might have changed himself to water to save them, and a nature-spirit of some other type might have cajoled or persuaded the river to help them, but only one sort of being would give orders to a river.
Kai was a dragon. What the hell was she supposed to do about that?
And he’d chosen to reveal himself in order to save them. Not himself: he would presumably have managed quite comfortably on his own. But them. Her and Vale. It was a commitment on Kai’s part that made her worry whether she would be able to answer it. She didn’t like commitments to other people. They could get . . . messy.
The tumbling rush of the current veered towards the far bank, and then lifted the three of them out of the water itself, rising in an arc of dark water. They were placed on the dockside, deposited as lightly as driftwood. A couple of beggars who’d been nursing their hands over a small fire just sat there, looking at the three of them numbly as the water sloshed over the pavement and ebbed back to the river again.
A curl of the river still held itself aloft, curving towards where Kai stood. It wasn’t quite like a serpent: the head had features something like a human and something like a dragon (yes, that again). There was also something of the lion, mane wet and draggled with weeds and dirt. Its eyes gleamed yellow as fog lamps, burning under heavy brows. This spirit was as polluted as the water itself, its body entwined with fragments of garbage and long streaks of filth. A heavy smell of oil and weed clung to it, wafting thickly along the dock.
Kai faced it and gave a small, precise inclination of his head. ‘Your service is acknowledged,’ he said firmly. ‘Return with my thanks and the thanks of my family.’
The river-spirit bowed its head in a long fluctuation that rippled along its body, then reared up and crashed back into the river in a spray of black water. The eyes were the last thing to vanish beneath the surface of the river, disappearing slowly rather than simply closing, visible for a long moment under the dark water.
Vale took a step forward. ‘What was that?’ he demanded, shocked. ‘What did you do? What is it that you have brought into my London, sir?’
Kai turned with a snarl, his eyes an inhuman shade of blue, as fierce and dangerous as gas flames. ‘What it was, sir, was—’
‘Was under my orders,’ Irene said, stepping between them. She couldn’t allow this to degenerate into a shouting match. And more than that, she could sense something archaic and furious within Kai, the dragon under the human skin now very close to the surface. She had to divert it now, give him familiar channels to work in, and give Vale a target – herself – who he simply couldn’t shout down without shattering his own rules of custom and propriety. She regarded Vale firmly, refusing to show him an inch of fear or terror or even, she hoped, nervousness. ‘I have promised you more information, sir, and you shall have it, but I suggest we return to your lodgings first. Mr Strongrock acted on my instructions to protect and save us all.’ It was a fairly small lie, really only a half-lie as lies went, because Kai had certainly known she would want him to protect all of them. ‘And this is no time for us to be arguing, when we are all fighting a greater enemy.’
Vale regarded her for a moment, then granted her a small nod, nearly the mirror-image of Kai’s own salutation to the river-spirit. ‘Very well, Miss Winters. We shall return to my lodgings. I can only have faith in you, I suppose, as I have done before.’
That stung. As no doubt it was meant to. She smiled as sweetly as she could, then turned to Kai. ‘We can talk later,’ she said softly, ‘or we can talk now, but either way, I know what you are, and it doesn’t matter.’
‘You think very highly of yourself,’ Kai answered, equally quietly, but far more deadly, ‘if you believe that it doesn’t matter.’
This was very different to handling Vale. There she had needed to hide her fear to convince him to wait for information. Here, with Kai, she needed to show her control and dispassion or, she could feel it in her bones, she would lose him to his true nature.
She couldn’t afford that. She had a responsibility to the Library. And she had a responsibility to him.
‘Are you still my student?’ she asked him directly. ‘Am I still your mentor?’ Nothing more than that. The bond of loyalty, and the bond of trust. Anything else was something that they would have to work out later.
He looked at her, and something inhuman seethed behind his eyes. ‘Do you think you can command me?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and she spoke in the Language.
The word hung in the air between them. Then Kai closed his eyes, and reopened them, and now they were a human blue, sharp but no longer alien. ‘Then I believe I am still under your orders,’ he said, and he managed a very small smile.
‘Miss Winters, Mr Strongrock, over here!’ Vale called. He had walked to where the dock ended and the houses began, and had somehow managed to conjure up a carriage. As Irene followed Kai across to the carriage, struggling with her soaked skirts and cloak, she couldn’t help but notice that Kai was perfectly dry. It didn’t seem fair. But it was a comforting, small thing on which to concentrate. She could be aggravated by something simple, rather than floundering in terror at what she had just faced down.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘I would appreciate that explanation, Miss Winters,’ Vale said as he refilled their teacups.
There had been hot baths and bandaging of injuries. Even Kai, untouched by the dirty water of the Thames, needed to clean himself after the exertions of the reception and its accompanying alligator blood. As for Vale and Irene, they were soaked and filthy. The driver had been muttering audibly about getting his carriage cleaned, even after a very generous tip from Vale.
Irene would gladly have soaked for a few more hours, but she hadn’t felt it safe to leave Vale and Kai alone to talk for too long. Kai’s temper was still touchy, and Vale might ask a question that was more dangerous than he realized. With a virtuous feeling of self-sacrifice, she’d dragged herself out of the hip-bath that she’d been allotted, wrapped herself up in the heavy flannel dressing-gown Vale had lent her, turbaned her hair in a towel, and gone out to join the others in Vale’s study for tea and interrogation.
(She hadn’t asked why Vale had a spare woman’s dressing-gown in his wardrobe. Presumably specifically for female victims of crime who’d had a drenching. However, she didn’t think it belonged to any close female associate of Vale’s. For one thing, it clearly hadn’t been used for months, and for another, any female trying to be flirtatious would not choose a dressing-gown made of heavy flannel. For a third thing, Vale hadn’t offered her any other female clothing. And Vale hadn’t given her the sort of attention that even the politest of men might give a soaked wet woman in dripping clothing. He’d bustled her off towards the hot tub as briskly as the matron from her old boarding school. Not that she wanted him to give her that sort of attention, anyhow . . .)
Irene sipped her tea. Milk. Two lumps of sugar – suitable for people suffering from shock. ‘I should warn you that it is a little, ah, far-fetched,’ she said, trying to think how best to explain it, or failing all else, lie about it.
Vale shrugged. His dressing-gown was red and black silk. His hair was still damp, combed into position and gleaming darkly in the light from the lamps. ‘I can hardly object until I have heard it.’ Somewhere amidst the confusion he had found time to rearrange his books, after the disorder which Irene had inflicted on them, and neat piles of half-sorted literature sat around his chair like patient children.
‘Mr Strongrock and I are agents of a library,’ Irene started. ‘It is often known as the Invisible Library among those who have heard of it, as it’s hidden from most.’
‘A reasonable enough name,’ Vale granted. ‘Where is it based? I would hardly think that it could be London.’ Since I have never heard of it, he didn’t bother to add.
‘Ah. Now this would be the implausible bit,’ Irene said. ‘Are you familiar with the concept of alternate worlds?’
Vale put down his cup, his regard assessing rather than outright disbelieving. ‘The theory has been mooted by some of the more metaphysically inclined philosophers and scientists. While I do not necessarily believe in it, I must admit that it has a certain quality of inherent satisfaction. That is, to coin a phrase – it “makes sense” that possible fulcrum points in history have created alternate worlds where things might have been different.’
Irene nodded. That way of looking at it would do for the moment. ‘I and Mr Strongrock are agents of a library which exists between the alternate worlds. Our task is to collect books for the Library from all those worlds, to preserve them.’ She glanced meaningfully at his crowded bookshelves. ‘You must admit that to a keen reader – like yourself, or like me – that also would “make sense”.’
‘Mm. Your argument would appeal to any bibliophile, Miss Winters. Should I take it that you are here in pursuit of a particular book?’
Irene nodded again. ‘The copy of Grimm that Lord Wyndham had before his death. But it seems that we aren’t the only people after it.’
Vale hesitated for a long moment. ‘Very well. I can postulate an interdimensional library hunting down rare books. I can accept the agents of that library having unusual powers.’ He glanced at Kai. ‘Once one accepts the basic concept as possible, today’s events become – well, not entirely inexplicable. I have a great many questions, but one query in particular intrigues me, and I trust that you can give me a solid answer to it. Why should you be looking for Grimm’s Fairy Tales? Why not the latest scientific advances?’
Irene smiled. This part had always warmed her somewhere deep inside. She leaned forward in turn, putting her cup down. ‘Mr Vale, while all the alternate worlds exist, and while they may have different metaphysical laws, their physical laws are the same. Iron is iron, radium is radium, gunpowder is gunpowder, and if you drop an object, it will fall according to the law of gravity. Scientific discoveries are the same across the alternates, and while they are no doubt important, we don’t value them as we do creative work. There may be a hundred brothers Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm in a hundred different worlds, and each time they may have written a different set of fairy tales. That’s where our interest lies.’
Vale blinked. ‘But in that case, you could import the discoveries from other worlds! You could bring more than simply fiction – new technologies, new wonders of science. Have you no concept of the good you could do for these – ’ he remembered himself – ‘hypothetical alternate worlds.’
‘Wouldn’t work,’ Kai said, staring at his tea.
‘What my colleague is trying to say,’ Irene said patiently, ‘is that, while it has been tried, firstly, the Library does not care to make itself public. Secondly, we cannot introduce material for which there is no support infrastructure. This is what would happen if we tried to bring in discoveries that your current science didn’t support, and as a result the discovery wouldn’t take root. It would probably be written off as a fake in short order. Also, please consider. What would be the dangers facing a person attempting to introduce entirely new scientific knowledge to this world? To this country?’
Vale nodded slowly, his expression bitter. ‘I take your point,’ he said. He didn’t sound convinced, though.
‘And lastly,’ Irene said, a little embarrassed that she had to point it out, ‘all of us who are sealed to the Library are people who have chosen this way of life because we loved books. None of us wanted to save worlds. I mean, not that we object to saving worlds . . .’ She shrugged, picking up her teacup again. ‘We want books. We love books. We live with books. Someone who joined the Library just so that they could try to use the Library to benefit their own world . . . well, I suppose it would be ethical, but it isn’t the purpose of the Library.’
‘Then what is the purpose of the Library?’ Vale asked.
‘To save books,’ Irene said firmly. The words were so automatic that she didn’t even need to think about them. She’d spent all her life with the idea. But they had never sounded hollow to her before. She made herself focus on the familiar justification. ‘To save created works. In time, if their original alternate loses them, we can give them back copies, so that they aren’t lost. And in the meantime, the Library exists and endures.’
‘So why did Alberich leave?’ Vale asked.
Irene swallowed. She hadn’t expected him to get to that point quite that fast. The little that she knew about Alberich was bad enough that she had been happy to write him off as a myth. She didn’t really want to think of him as a real person with potentially terrifying motivations. Then she blinked. ‘Wait. How did you know that?’
Vale waved a hand dismissively. ‘Simple enough. The fellow is clearly a deserter from your own organization. Given what I know about it from you, his possible motives are either personal advantage, or he has overarching principles that conflict with your own stated mission – which is to save books and not interfere in the workings of other worlds. But if it were a question of personal advantage, why bother to hunt down and assassinate other Librarians? If he wanted money, fame or adventure, presumably other Librarians wouldn’t get in his way, as long as he didn’t obstruct your searches for specific books. And what specific book would be that important to him, if he were pursuing personal gain? So perhaps he has a larger plan, one that requires your non-interference. This would require him to be motivated by personal power or have some goal which he believes is more important than your Library’s search for books. Your own response confirms this – why else would Library agents feel such a sense of dread towards a mere rogue agent?’
Irene reminded herself bitterly not to underestimate Vale again. She also ignored Kai, who was twiddling his fingers in his lap with an air of smug unconcern. Fine. I suppose I should be glad his mood’s improving. ‘Alberich left the Library a while ago,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I lack the clearance for full information on why.’ Or any information beyond the bare minimum.
‘So – this Alberich is a continual threat. Has he crossed your path before?’
Irene shook her head. ‘No. Thank heavens. I had heard about him, of course, everyone hears about him—’
‘Even I’d heard about him,’ Kai put in, not very helpfully.
‘Kai is my junior,’ Irene said before Vale could ask for clarification of that statement. ‘And I know that the idea of an evil rogue Librarian must sound like some kind of rumour. The sort of rumour which gets passed down through the years to frighten the novices. But there were stories about things happening to people one actually knew.’
‘Things?’ Vale asked.
‘People dying,’ Irene said bluntly. ‘With pieces of them being sent back.’
Kai started. ‘Was that why Dominic—’ he began, then stopped a fraction too late.
‘I don’t know,’ Irene said. She turned to Vale again. ‘What Kai is trying to say is that the Librarian who was supposed to be stationed locally, in this alternate world, has apparently been killed and mutilated. We found out just before I triggered the trap I mentioned – a trap set using chaos forces. These – forces – are something that Alberich uses.’ She couldn’t keep the distaste
out of her voice.
Vale nodded. ‘So chaos . . . Is that what we would term “magic”?’
Irene tried to think how to explain it. She’d been planning to sidestep this part as much as possible, given Vale’s apparent dislike of magic. ‘Not exactly. According to our cosmological model – ’ there, that was tactful and avoided saying, this is how things really work – ‘there are lawful and chaotic forces active in all worlds. Sometimes they take on a physical form, appearing as entities – or personifications of law or disorder if you like. The lawful forces support reason and natural laws. The chaotic forces support impossibility, and things that are blatantly irrational or disorderly. For example, dragons are lawful forces and the Fae support chaos. Fact versus fiction, if you like.’
Vale stiffened like a hound catching the scent. ‘So Lord Silver is a supporter of chaos itself?’
Irene nodded. ‘This alternate is strongly affected by chaos. Silver is certainly at least one of the lesser Fae, who are usually confined inside a single alternate. I don’t know if he is one of the greater ones, but I sincerely hope not. Such creatures even have the power to move between worlds. But they have nothing to do with the Library.’ She wanted to make this extremely clear. ‘We do not associate with them.’
‘Except when obtaining party invitations,’ Vale said drily.
‘I want that book,’ Irene said flatly. ‘So does he, it seems. And so does Alberich. I need to know who has it. If Silver or Alberich already had it, they wouldn’t be looking for it. Once I have it, Mr Strongrock and I will be out of this alternate and won’t need to bother you again.’
Vale nodded. ‘Very well.’ Again there was the feeling of a confrontation being postponed until he had sufficient ammunition. Perhaps he wanted to bring her to justice as well. Or perhaps he simply wanted to visit the Library. ‘So, tell me,’ he went on, ‘when was the Librarian stationed here murdered, where, and how?’
Irene glanced at Kai. ‘Well, it must have been somewhere between yesterday afternoon and this morning, because we first met him yesterday afternoon when we came through from the Library proper. The entrance is in the British Library,’ she added, a little reluctantly.
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