The Library of Shadows

by Mikkel Birkegaard

  After clearing his throat, Jon began to read.

  The instant Jon started his reading, he noticed a warm, trembling sensation, as if he'd been lowered into a tub of warm water. He was received and enveloped by forces that everyone was using to help him, to support him and carry him, wherever he wanted to go. The restless energy of the book seemed to merge with the massive discharge from the library itself, and the whole thing was further enhanced by the receivers who were present. He recognized the support of Patrick Vedel like a heavy hand on his shoulder, a little more insistent than during the practice sessions, but that was probably just his nerves.

  Jon started off at a slow, even pace to make it easier for the Lectors to fall into step, and when the transmitters surrounding the dais joined in with the reading, he sensed another spike of energy. With Remer and Holt he had discussed how the seance should proceed and what phases they should pass through in order to ensure the greatest benefit. It was important not to press too hard in the beginning, to take his time to get into the rhythm of the text and focus his thoughts. That was easier said than done. Catching sight of someone whom he thought was Katherina in the teeming audience had upset his concentration. Was it really her, or was his imagination running away with him? He didn't say anything to Remer as they exchanged places.

  When Jon first stood behind the podium, he couldn't locate Katherina again. She was no longer in the same place. He couldn't decide whether that was reassuring or more worrisome.

  The scene Jon read took place in a cemetery. The text was wonderfully composed, which made it easy to read the section aloud, and he had many opportunities to colour the situation as he pleased. Having read through the section before, he was familiar with the setting and knew what sort of mood he wanted to evoke. It was a sunny day and the main character was visiting the grave of his wife and daughter who had been killed in a car accident.

  Jon concentrated on the scene, and before his eyes the reading room in Alexandria slowly faded away to become the peaceful setting of the cemetery. The pillars were transformed into beech trees standing along the cemetery walls, and members of the Order turned into the countless gravestones all around him. A warm breeze wafted past, with a scent of spring. The rays of the sun were splintered by the many carved stones and the branches of the trees, and they cast angular shadows across the ground. Jon noticed that he had reached the point where time suddenly seemed to have slowed to a crawl, and that gave him the opportunity to influence the scene as he saw fit, enhancing it to whatever degree he liked.

  The main character placed a bouquet of flowers on the grave of his beloved wife and knelt down before the headstone. The grass was damp and soaked his trousers, but he didn't pay any attention. The wind seemed to pick up, and the leaves in the crowns of the trees rustled as the branches swayed.

  The widower reached out and placed his hand on the headstone.

  The scene shifted as abruptly as a flash of lightning, and Jon accentuated the clarity and speed as much as he dared. They were riding in a car – the main character, his wife and daughter – on their way home in the darkness of night. The couple were quarrelling. The child was crying. Without warning a pair of blinding headlamps appeared before the windscreen; the sound of metal buckling and glass shattering did not drown out the screams coming from the back seat. Lights and images shifted in quick succession as the car spun round and the passengers and everything else inside were jumbled together.

  Back to the cemetery.

  Jon wondered if he might have pressed too hard. Even though he was keeping to the prescribed level, the shift might have been too violent for some. The cemetery was peaceful and very, very quiet in comparison to the flashback scene inside the car. The enclosed, claustrophobic feeling was replaced by the cemetery's wide-open space. Jon started letting dark clouds appear on the horizon. The wind grew even stronger, and the leaves swirled up and were blown across the ground.

  He noticed a little jolt in the scene, as if a single image had been clipped out of a strip of film. He took it to be a signal from a receiver, but not just any receiver. It could only be coming from Katherina – he could tell.

  The moment Jon read the flashback scene, a brilliant blue spark leaped out and crept up his black robe like a snake, only to leap to the nearest light fixture many metres overhead. Those who were standing closest took a step back in alarm, and a worried murmur arose. Remer raised his arms to make a reassuring gesture.

  'It's okay,' he said loudly. 'This is what we've been waiting for.'

  The uneasiness died down and the transmitters who had stopped reading resumed, though with a certain hesitation. Katherina could see that many people were looking anxiously around, and for safety's sake some moved further away from the dais.

  Jon continued to read, undaunted, without taking any notice of what was happening around him. His voice was calm, composed and enticing as he presented the story. This seemed to soothe the audience, even as small sparks flickered over his robe.

  Katherina looked around feverishly. What had happened to the others? If Mehmet and Henning didn't turn up soon and stop the ritual, the reactivation would become a reality. She could feel it. The whole atmosphere around her was smouldering with energy, the flames of the candles had begun to flicker even though there was no wind inside the reading room and she thought that it suddenly felt colder. Katherina had no doubt that something was about to happen. The question was: what?

  The people in the audience who weren't reading stared as if mesmerized by the phenomenon before them. With so many receivers present, and all of them pulling in the same direction, there was nothing Katherina could do. She sensed that Jon's performance was being carried forward on a wave, partly by the library's ancient forces, partly by the support of both transmitters and receivers. To go against the flow here would be like trying to stop a tsunami with a paper bag.

  Katherina closed her eyes. The only thing she could do was let herself be carried along, so she focused on Jon's presentation. There was a feeling she recalled from their training sessions, which now seemed an eternity ago. He had a special way of accentuating what he presented, a very special pulse of energy that she would recognize no matter where it occurred. She noticed how most of the receivers had already tuned in to precisely that pulse and were supporting its every beat.

  Maybe she shouldn't try to stop him?

  She opened her eyes and looked up at the podium. Jon's body stood as motionless as a statue, and only the sound of his voice and the movement of his lips revealed he was even conscious. His robe was like a canvas on which the sparks briefly formed complicated patterns, and Katherina began to see a connection between the frequency of the patterns and the pulse of Jon's energy. By focusing on both what she saw and on the powers, Katherina picked up a sense of the rhythm and could quickly predict where the next discharge would occur. She took a deep breath and waited.

  With great mental exertion she shoved Jon's next pulse one notch higher. She noticed an enormous leap in the energy and a violent electrical discharge instantly shot out from Jon's body to one of the lamps hanging overhead. Sparks flew at the impact and drifted down over the audience like glowing snowflakes.

  People standing around Katherina instinctively moved back. A few ran away, but most remained there, transfixed by the phenomenon occurring before them and by the irresistible force of the story. They couldn't have left the room if they tried, and they paid no attention to what was happening around them.

  In the torrent of images coming from Jon, Katherina suddenly received a glimpse of herself.

  It was like a picture from a slide show that was tossed into the scene, almost too brief to catch, but she was positive it was her. Jon had sensed that she was present, and it had broken his concentration. She instantly focused all her powers on loading those same images, and more of them began to appear. Images of them in Libri di Luca, in Kortmann's garden, together in bed, and a glimpse of her in profile against the window of a car. Katherina didn't hes
itate to enhance the emotions of longing, love and security in the fragments that turned up.

  It didn't take long before she sensed a response. Slowly the images appeared again, filled with a warmth and ardour that was coming from Jon, not her. She could feel tears running down her cheeks. Had she managed to reach him?

  Maybe it was wishful thinking, but she seemed to see a change in Jon's posture. It looked as if he was trying to turn his head but was being held back.

  Katherina took a step forward, but stopped abruptly.

  Remer had changed position. His body was more erect than before, almost frozen solid, and he was staring down at the text without blinking even once. It was as if he no longer had any sense of where he was or what was happening around him. But what frightened Katherina most were the dark little sparks flickering over his white robe.

  40

  The moment Jon realized Katherina was present in the room and was trying to communicate with him, he was overwhelmed by memories. Images of them together kept turning up in his thoughts and were impossible for him to ignore. He remembered that they had been happy, that he had felt happier than ever before, and slowly a desire began to emerge to find his way back to that joyful state. The reading continued, but he was using less time on charging the text so he had the reserves to think back. What was it that had separated them?

  In his mind he pictured the test at the school when he had sent her away so that she wouldn't be harmed. The helplessness he had felt then resurfaced; with a jolt, he remembered Poul Holt reading to him for the first time, and how he had at last surrendered.

  It was as if he were awaking from a nightmare.

  What was it he was in the process of doing here?

  Jon tried to stop the reading, but he couldn't. Someone was holding him in place, just as Katherina had done when she demonstrated her powers as a receiver for the first time in Libri di Luca. One of the people was Patrick Vedel, he could feel that, but he wasn't the only one. All Jon could do was keep reading, but he became more aware of how he was accentuating the text.

  The main character was still in the cemetery. He had begun his soliloquy to the black headstone in front of him. Jon let greyish black clouds drift in over the valley where the cemetery lay, and the stones around him assumed a raw and filthy appearance. He could feel the weight of the earth beneath the main character, dark and damp, filled with worms ploughing their way through the mould under the grass.

  Jon's attention was caught by a patch of greyish fog off to his right. He stared at the phenomenon. So far he'd had total control over the scene; he knew the shape of every single headstone, knew how each blade of grass lay and how it moved. But this grey fog he was unable to steer. It changed, growing denser in some areas, dissolving in others, and soon he could distinguish the outline of a person. He tried to make the wind blow the figure away, but it stood firm and became more and more solid. A ghost? The setting fit, but there were no ghosts in the text, and this was not something that he himself was adding.

  It started out as a hazy human shape, but the molecules suddenly rearranged themselves and with one stroke the figure became as solid as a statue. The details of the face were the last to fall into place, and then there was no longer any doubt in his mind.

  Jon had never considered the possibility that he, as the Lector, might be part of the scene he controlled. He had regarded his role as that of an outsider who influenced the presentation in the same way a film editor does at the editing table. When he saw this manifestation of Remer, Jon realized that he himself had to be somewhere in the world framed by the text. He was unable to glance down at himself to confirm this personally, but it seemed clear to him that the moment when the energy discharges began was the moment he had crossed the threshold and entered the space of the story. That explained the feeling he had had of being liberated from his physical body.

  Remer's appearance meant the reactivation had worked, and that he had now acquired some of the same powers Jon possessed.

  The Remer figure seemed to be looking about. His eyes didn't move but his face kept turning to take in the world in which he found himself. When his gaze fell on Jon, or rather on the place where the image of Jon stood, the Remer figure stopped moving. His lips, which were still colourless, formed into a smile.

  A mixture of fear and anger welled up inside Jon. He had to stop Remer from getting any stronger, no matter what it took. Mentally he clenched his hands into fists and put all the force he could muster into the effects. The colours became so saturated that the scene looked like a computer-generated reconstruction, with razor-sharp edges and a clarity even the best monitor couldn't reproduce. By aiming all his focus on the area surrounding Remer's figure, Jon tried to erase him by enhancing the intensity of everything else.

  Remer's facial features became distorted and the details of the figure slowly began to blur, as if he were a statue made of sand in a strong wind. The surface seemed to dissolve into atoms that were stretched out like the tail of a comet, pulling away from the figure; the smile dangled from the back of the head until it was one long streak, and the connection between the body and its limbs faded more and more. An eerie lament issued from the haze, a sound that seemed to come from a throat that didn't belong to the animal kingdom.

  Jon exerted himself even more, but he could feel he wouldn't be able to maintain the intensity much longer. The figure had been reduced to half-size, with its molecules pulled into a long streamer behind it, but Jon couldn't penetrate to its core to erase it permanently.

  Slowly Jon felt his concentration weaken. The colours and sharp outlines around him disappeared. The sound emitted by the figure changed, becoming an angry snarl, and Remer's figure began building itself anew, as if it were on rewind. Soon the figure was back to human form, with its features even sharper than before.

  'Campelli,' panted Remer's voice after his body was reconstructed. 'Impressive trick, but not a very nice way to welcome a friend.'

  In shock, Katherina took a couple of steps back.

  A violent spark had leaped from Jon to Remer, hovering between them and growing in thickness and intensity. Remer's body shook for a moment and seemed to shrink in on itself, but at no point did he lift his eyes from the book he was reading.

  Panic had broken out among the participants. Some were trying to escape by running for the door, but in the confusion a number of people fell, tripping up those who were behind them. That caused others to flee by jumping over the railing to the terrace below. Still others crawled along the floor or tried to seek protection along the walls or next to the pillars.

  Remer's expression was contorted with pain, but he still kept reading, practically doubled up over the book, as if he wanted to protect it with his body.

  There were still about a hundred people standing around the dais and taking part in the ritual, either by reading or by supporting the readers. Most of them kept casting anxious glances at Remer and Jon before they once again returned to the text.

  It smelled as if something was burning, and the air was charged with electricity, which made the hairs stand up on Katherina's arms.

  The spark between Jon and Remer seemed pale. It started very slowly to move at a calmer and calmer tempo, diminishing in size and luminosity. At the same time Remer began to straighten up, and the expression of pain vanished from his face.

  Completely new sparks surrounded two other Lectors. Those who were standing too close leaped away, screaming with pain, while some people fainted on the spot. Others in the vicinity moved aside or ran off. A great noise erupted from those who were reading and from others who were talking or screaming and trying to get away. Accompanying everything was an angry hissing from the sparks.

  Katherina cautiously backed further away from the podium as she tried to maintain her support for Jon and also take a look around. The others had to turn up soon. It was too late to stop the reactivation, but they needed to do everything they could to limit it. She reached a pillar and pressed her back a
gainst it. More Lectors ran past her, headed for the exit. Terror shone in their eyes. She tried to shut everything else out and focus on supporting Jon.

  One of the Lectors, the latest to be reactivated, collapsed with a shriek. It happened without warning. He'd shown no signs of weakness or pain before he passed out, and Katherina had the feeling the same thing could have happened to anyone in the crowd.

  On either side of Remer two new clouds had appeared. They had human shape, but were not yet fully formed.

  Remer smiled.

  Jon noticed another jolt in the images, a signal from Katherina which he took to be a warning. He sensed her support grow and he gathered all his forces. The cloud cover became pitch-black and the wind raged through the cemetery. Headstones toppled, pulling up the earth, which was whirled through the air in little tornadoes.

  Maybe he couldn't fool Remer again, but the two new arrivals were in for a surprise. Before they were fully formed, Jon ratcheted up all the effects surrounding the figures. He wanted to make them disappear, remove them from the story, erase them like the misprints they were. They started to dissolve. One of them vanished almost instantly, whirled away in one of the tornadoes like smoke into an exhaust vent. The other stood its ground.

  Remer was no longer smiling. He looked first at his companion and then at Jon.

  Suddenly the headstone next to Jon changed shape, and in fright he lost his concentration. Before his eyes the granite liquefied and the stone changed from a rectangular shape into a cross.

  Jon looked about in confusion. More changes were occurring all around him. Railings appeared, the vegetation shot up in some places and vanished in others. The sky grew lighter and the wind subsided.

  'This is amazing!' shouted Remer with delight, stretching his arms up in the air.

  The figure next to him was now fully formed, and Jon recognized him as one of the Lectors he had greeted in the foyer. The new arrival looked around in astonishment. Behind him three more hazy figures appeared.