Of course. A Language was far more than the spoken word, after all.
She clamped her hands shut around the squirming bird, and fell to her knees. She could hear herself screaming in agony as the thing sliced into her palm and fingers, but it seemed somehow distant. The impossibilities around her were far more real and visceral than the pain. She dimly wondered if she was destroying her hand. Again. But set against her life, or her sanity, then the choice was clear.
Through her tangled, cobwebbed hair she saw Alberich raise his hand, perhaps to call up more horrors or deliver the death-blow.
Alberich could have stopped her if she’d tried to speak. He ignored it when she drove the squirming bird into the soupy wood of the floor, as she scraped it along to create a long, blood-filled cut. He merely laughed as more debris came raining down on her shoulders from the now-unstable ceiling. But she needed an excuse to explain her actions. Something he would expect her to try.
Irene raised both hands, pointing the bloody glass bird at him. ‘Floor!’ she screamed in the Language. ‘Swallow Alberich!’
The heaving mass of rotten wood surged round his feet, but he remained above it as if walking on water. ‘Let’s try that the other way around, shall we?’ he laughed at her. ‘Go down and drown in it!’
She was already on her knees. She felt the wood slurp upwards around her legs like thick mud, sliding up to her thighs. It didn’t soak through the skirts of her gown like water, but pressed against her like hungry lips. She had a moment of panic – what would happen if her idea didn’t work? She let herself scream and, driven by the energy of that terror, sliced the glass bird into the remaining floor. And again and again, as she sank further into the wood, as if she were trying to save herself. Her blood spattered onto the scored lines, as the wood closed around her waist. The bird’s marks stood clear in the slowly oozing floor. Maybe because it was written in the Language, or just because it had to work or she was worse than dead.
‘Beg me and I’ll save you,’ Alberich said gleefully. ‘Beg me and I’ll make you my favoured student, my own sweet child – ’
The cobwebbing covered her eyes now. She was working blind.
But some things she knew even in the dark.
‘No,’ she said, and cut the final line into place. The symbol representing the Library itself showed clearly in the rippling wood between them.
The Library didn’t arrive like a roaring dragon or waves of chaos. But there was a light in the room that hadn’t been there before, more penetrating and clearer than the fluttering gaslamps. The spiderwebs that had clung to her face and shoulders flaked away as fine dust. The Library’s authority pulsed through the room in a steady whisper, like pages turned in slow motion, and stability followed. The floor was now firm where Irene knelt on it, and the glass in her hand was sharp, but it wasn’t a living bird. The light even muted the horror of Alberich’s form, turning it to something seen as if through dull glass, retreating further and further away . . .
He was actually slowly withdrawing. The Library’s presence was driving him back, and though its touch felt welcoming to her, like a feeling of home, it was forcing Alberich away. And if the sounds he was making were any judge, his expulsion was pure agony.
He hadn’t quite finished with her yet, though. Blackness flared in his eyes and his open mouth. ‘You call this a victory, Ray?’
And then his back touched the wall, and he started moving through it. The wall thinned to translucency around him as he struggled, partly immersed, like amber around a prehistoric insect.
Then, as they watched, Alberich’s back arched, and he screamed – but this was on a different scale than anything they’d heard so far. Irene felt her heart lurch in unwanted sympathy as she saw the punishment that he was suffering – Alberich was crucified between the reality of the Library and the barrier that Kai had created outside, a squirming thing of chaos trapped between two surfaces of reality.
Irene realized that she hadn’t the remotest idea what would happen next. She didn’t know. She didn’t care as long as it got him away from here. There was no place for that sort of unreality in this world. It was abhorrent. What had he done to himself to become this? What sort of bargains had he struck?
‘Release me . . .’ Alberich choked out. Blood drooled from his mouth. ‘You can’t trust the dragons – they’ll turn on you as well – release me and I’ll tell you.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Bradamant spat. She was pulling herself up off the floor, her gown in shreds, leaning on the wreckage of a chair to support herself. ‘Do you really think we’d let you go now?’
Thank you for so helpfully stating the obvious, Irene thought, but managed to keep it to herself. She simply shook her head. A slow-burning flame of something that might be hope was kindling inside her. What they’d done had hurt Alberich. It had frightened him.
They might actually win.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d assumed they’d already lost.
‘You’ll regret this,’ Alberich whispered in the Language.
The light increased, and he decreased in proportion, fading back and away from them like a disappearing stain. His last scream rang through the room, shattering the remaining glass and throwing books from the shelves.
Irene caught a last glimpse of his face, a human face livid with rage, as he vanished.
‘Irene!’ Bradamant was suddenly there and she’d lost a few moments of time. She’d been watching Alberich vanish and now Bradamant had an arm round her shoulder and was making her sit down. Vale – hadn’t Vale been unconscious? – was fussing over her hands. ‘Irene, listen, I promise I won’t take it,’ Bradamant was saying. ‘I will give you my word in the Language right now, if you like, and Vale is here too as witness. If you let go of that book it will make it a lot easier for us to take care of your hands. Irene, please, listen to me, say something to me here . . .’
The door burst open. Again. ‘Irene!’ That was Kai shouting. Irene could only hope that no civilians were close enough to hear it. ‘Bradamant! What have you done to her?’
Plus ten for genuine concern for my welfare, Irene decided, minus several thousand for perception.
‘Please,’ Vale said wearily. ‘It was that Alberich person. Your plan worked perfectly, but I’m afraid that Miss Winters is in shock. If you would just help us persuade her to relax, so that we can bandage her hands – I have some brandy here.’
‘Don’t waste that on my hands,’ Irene mumbled. She hadn’t even realized that she’d picked the book up. She let Bradamant ease the book out from under her arm. ‘I need a drink.’
‘Miss Winters!’ Vale exclaimed.
‘Make that two healthy drinks. I’m in shock. Give me brandy.’
‘But your hands,’ Vale protested. ‘They need immediate care.’
Irene didn’t want to look, but she forced herself. There were deep cuts across both palms and the insides of her fingers. Flaps of skin hung loose, and she thought she could see bone. She looked away before she embarrassed herself by throwing up. The skirt of her dress was wet with her blood. She must be in shock, or it would be hurting even more than it already did. She’d never hurt herself this badly. She wasn’t even sure if it could be fixed. ‘There are people in the Library who can deal with this,’ she said firmly, desperately praying that she wasn’t lying to herself. Her words came spilling out, quick and professional, a distraction from the reality of her hands. She could hear the forced lightness of her tone. Her speech sounded as if it was coming to her from a great distance, like the chirping of little birds very far away. ‘Mr Vale, thank you for your assistance, and I’m sorry that you were dragged into this. Bradamant, please can you check the door – the inner door, the Library ingress – for any traps?’
‘I don’t think there could be any alien influences, after you invoked the Library inside this place,’ Bradamant said gently.
‘Oh.’ She must be more in shock than she’d thought. ‘All right, then. Kai, ple
ase help me stand.’
Kai slipped an arm around her, helping her to her feet. Under other circumstances she might have been more careful about leaning on him, but at the moment it really didn’t seem that important. So she was leaning on him. She was injured. He was her colleague. It was only sensible.
His clothing was disarranged, but still there. So turning into a dragon didn’t mean that you lost all your clothing. This seemed unduly significant, and she filed it away so she could ask questions later. ‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked in an undertone.
‘I think it’s best that we’re out of here before any questions need answering.’ That piece of wisdom was drilled into all Librarians very early on.
‘Ahem.’ Vale brushed at the trickle of blood on his collar, rather pointlessly, considering his generally dishevelled state. ‘While I am willing to abet Singh in, well, covering this up, I would also be interested in finding out more about this. Before you go, Miss Winters, all of you . . . can you tell me about the last story in that book?’
Bradamant opened her mouth, and the first word was obviously going to be No, and so were all the rest of them.
Irene held up one hand to stop her. ‘Mr Vale, are you sure that you want us reporting to our superiors that you read it? Whatever it is?’
‘I find it hard to believe that they will assume I didn’t read it,’ Vale said drily.
That was true enough. ‘I suppose there’s no reason why you shouldn’t look over our shoulders as we check that it’s the right book,’ Irene said slowly. She cast a quick glance at Kai, but he had enough sense to keep his mouth shut and not mention they’d already done so. ‘Bradamant, you said to check the eighty-seventh story, correct?’ She indicated the book, now in Bradamant’s possession. ‘I would open it myself, but my hands – ’
Bradamant pursed her lips, then nodded. Perhaps she sympathized. Or perhaps she intended to blame every last bit of unauthorized exposure on Irene. She wiped her hands clean of dust and blood on the battered skirts of her dress and flipped the book open. ‘The eighty-seventh story, yes. The Story of the Stone from the Tower of Babel.’
She breathed a deep sigh. ‘It’s here. Eighty-seventh of . . . eighty-eight?’
The silence hung in the room as they all considered that point. If it was unusual that an eighty-seventh story should exist, Irene thought, then what was the eighty-eighth doing there? Could Bradamant have been given a mere indicator, as opposed to the true reason why the book was so important . . . ?
‘My German’s not very good,’ Kai said plaintively.
Bradamant gave a put-upon sigh. ‘Once upon a time,’ she began to translate, ‘there lived a brother and a sister who both belonged to the same Library. Now this was a strange library, for it held books from a thousand worlds, but lay outside all of them. And the brother and sister loved each other and worked together to find new books for their Library . . .’
‘No wonder your people didn’t want this one getting loose,’ Vale said with satisfaction.
Bradamant paused to raise her eyebrows at him before continuing. ‘One day, the brother said to his sister, “Since this Library contains all books, does it contain the story of its own founding?”’
‘No,’ Irene said.
‘Surely it must,’ Kai said. ‘We probably just don’t have access to it yet.’
‘If you don’t mind,’ Bradamant said.
‘I beg your pardon,’ Kai said. Bradamant nodded coldly, and went on. ‘“I suppose so,” the sister said. “But it would be unwise to seek it.” “Why?” the brother asked. “Because of the nature of the Library’s secret,” the sister answered, “that we both wear branded upon our backs.”’
‘It has the proper cadence for a Brothers Grimm story,’ Vale said helpfully. Irene felt her back itch.
‘Now the brother had never troubled to look at the mark upon his back,’ Bradamant went on. ‘But that night he sought a mirror and read the writing on his skin, and what he read there sent him mad. He left the Library then and he colluded with its enemies against it. But most of all he swore vengeance against his sister, for she had spoken the words that set him on this path. A hundred years later, his sister returned to the Library following a quest that she had been set, and she was with child.’
‘A hundred years?’ Vale said.
‘It can happen,’ Irene said. ‘If she’d been in an alternate where there was some way to slow ageing – high technology, or high sorcery. But the pregnancy would be the problem—’
‘Yes, exactly,’ Bradamant said. ‘And this caused great trouble, for there could be no birth nor death within the Library. Yet she feared to set foot outside it lest her brother should find her. So in pain she begged them to cut open her belly and take the child out and they did so, and she was delivered of a child. They sewed up her belly with silver thread and hid her among the deepest vaults for fear that her brother should seek her again.’
Irene could feel her stomach clench inside her in cold fear, very slowly and deliberately. ‘So that’s why he wanted this book,’ she whispered. ‘It wasn’t because he could use it to gain power over this world. It was because . . .’ She wasn’t sure how to say it. Because someone knew this about his secrets? If this was Grimm, then it would have been written centuries ago. But time meant nothing in the depths of the Library, as long as someone stayed there. And Alberich was . . . well, nobody knew how old Alberich was. But how old would his sister be? And was she still there?
‘A sister,’ Kai muttered. His eyes narrowed in thought. ‘And his sister’s child. How does it finish?’
‘That is how it finishes.’ Bradamant slapped the book shut, hesitated, then slid it back under Irene’s arm again. ‘There. Now we must be out of here at once. Mr Vale, I hope we can rely on you . . .’
‘I don’t think it would do any good to make the matter public,’ Vale said wryly. ‘I am sure I can find someone to blame for all this – the Iron Brotherhood, perhaps, or Lord Silver. He will be most unhappy to find himself without book, conclusion, or enemy.’ The thought made him smile. ‘But I would value the chance to speak with you all again most highly.’
Irene pulled herself together. ‘That depends on our superiors.’ A nagging honesty pulled at her. ‘But . . . if we get the opportunity, I would like that too. But for the moment – ’
‘Quite,’ Bradamant said. She walked across to the far door. ‘Kai, carry her if she can’t walk.’
‘Some brandy would have helped,’ Irene complained as Kai steered her across the slippery floor. She hoped that Vale wouldn’t get any stupid ideas about trying to pursue them through the entrance. ‘And I’m quite capable of walking without being dragged.’
‘Allow me this small service,’ Kai growled in her ear. ‘After throwing me out and denying me the chance to protect you, and getting yourself quite this badly hurt, I must insist on it.’
Bradamant laid her hand on the door handle, murmuring in the Language, and the air shivered. The door swung open to show rows of shelves beyond.
‘They do tell us not to get into arguments that we can’t win,’ Irene whispered. She was weary now, and her hands were alive with pain.
They stepped through, and the door to the Library closed behind them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The door swung shut behind them with a clang, iron-bound and solid. Someone had upgraded the warning posters in the Library room. They were all red ink and Gothic font now, and, as her thoughts drifted, Irene wondered if they had been printed or hand-lettered.
‘Sit her down here,’ Bradamant instructed Kai, pulling command around her like a cloak. ‘I’ll go and fetch some help.’
‘Just a moment,’ Irene interrupted. She suspected that once Bradamant was out of here, she wouldn’t be back for quite a while, and there was something very important that she wanted to say to her first.
‘You can barely stand,’ Bradamant said dismissively. ‘You need help.’
Kai looked round for a chair, f
ound none, and carefully lowered her until she was sitting on the floor. ‘Irene, Bradamant’s right,’ he said in the patient tones that sympathetic men use to hysterical women. ‘You’re hurt.’
‘Shut up,’ Irene said, and watched his mouth drop open at her rudeness. She was dizzy, and her hands felt as if she’d dipped them in molten barbed wire. But she had to get this said before she lost the will to say it. ‘Bradamant. You cut in on my mission, drugged me and tried to steal my book, and generally broke quite a number of unwritten rules. True or not?’
Bradamant looked down at her. As usual, even in tattered clothing, her posture was effortlessly elegant, and Irene felt even scruffier than usual, sprawled on the floor as she was. For a moment Bradamant was silent. Then, finally, she said, ‘True enough.’
‘And?’
Bradamant shrugged. ‘I can apologize, but I hope you don’t expect me to say that I’m sorry.’
‘I expect nothing of the sort,’ Irene said carefully. ‘What I want . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘What I want is for us to stop despising each other quite so much. It’s a waste of time and effort.’
Bradamant raised her eyebrows. ‘My dear Irene, for me to despise you, I would have to bother to—’
‘Oh, please,’ Irene cut in. ‘You told me all about it, remember? You think I’m a spoilt brat and you’d be quite happy to have me fail publicly and obviously, even if you’d rather not see me dead for it. You wouldn’t bother putting an insult like that together if you didn’t want it to sting.’ She saw the colour rising in Bradamant’s cheeks. Kai’s supporting arm behind her was a comfort that helped her hold herself together. ‘I think what you want – what we both want – is to genuinely serve the Library.’
‘Split infinitive,’ Bradamant spat.
‘Put it in your report,’ Irene said, tiredness dragging her down. ‘Just don’t waste time hating me any more, all right? And I’ll try to stop doing the same. Because I don’t think it’s helping. I don’t think it’s helping either of us.’
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