The Ninja Librarians: Sword in the Stacks

by Jen Swann Downey

  “I’m not, and I’ll hold on to you very tightly. Now, move.”

  She led him through the Biblioteca Marciana, onto the Middle Shelf, and into the flooded corridor. As they splashed through the ankle-deep water, Dorrie tried to sort out her plan, her heart thunking madly. They climbed the little flight of steps and gained the whitewashed corridor. At the black door, Dorrie reached for the knob but Mr. Biggs held her back, his eyes narrowed.

  Dorrie swallowed nervously. Had she betrayed too much eagerness? Had she seemed too willing? Mr. Biggs pressed his ear against the door, listening for a moment, and then kicked it open, his gaze sweeping the room.

  Dorrie pointed at the skeleton’s closet across the room. “The Athens archway is through there.”

  Roughly, Mr. Biggs hurried her toward it. Dorrie tried not to tense, tried not to reveal she planned on doing anything other than exactly what Mr. Biggs told her to do.

  Again, he listened at the door, and again satisfied no one was on the other side, he flung it open. With its customary clatter of bones, the skeleton hurtled forward on its track, chains dragging. Snarling, Mr. Biggs slashed at the skeleton with his sword. As ribs showered to the ground, Dorrie wrenched herself free from Mr. Biggs’s grasp and, darting beneath his arm, tore the heavy sack from his hand. He lunged after her, his fingers catching in her hair. Thinking only of the shortest path to the spinning wall, Dorrie launched herself onto and over the couch, kicking over the candelabra on the way.

  Turning back, Dorrie saw Mr. Biggs duck as the chandelier plummeted toward him, but he didn’t stop, and she had to swerve out of her intended path or risk being grabbed. Leaping off the table, he landed in front of the portrait himself, cutting her off.

  “Oh, you’ll pay for that,” he said, his eyes gleaming slits.

  One menacing footstep at a time, he began to approach her. Dorrie stumbled backward, clutching the sack and upsetting a clock, a chair, and finally the elephant leg, sending its collection of weapons crashing to the ground. Her back hit the unyielding edge of the table behind the sofa.

  A terrible, humorless smile spread across Mr. Biggs’s face. His sword raised, he took a step toward her. Only a great booming cacophony of notes wheezing from the organ made Mr. Biggs pause. He spun to face the unseen player. It was Darling, her long scaly body draped over the keys. Her tail thrashed.

  For a moment, Mr. Biggs seemed to lose his focus staring at his old pet. Dorrie, eying her own sword among the spilled weapons, dove for it.

  Furious, Mr. Biggs snapped his head back around and crouched. Before he could spring at Dorrie, another mournful blast sounded from the organ, and the vast trapdoor between Dorrie and Mr. Biggs dropped out of sight. The bottomless pit yawned. Dorrie was left windmilling on its edge, her toes hanging over its edge, the sack of Vox Mortis vials in her hand swinging wildly. She regained her balance.

  For the first time since she’d met him, Dorrie saw alarm in Mr. Biggs’s eyes. Breathing hard, she regained her balance. “Stay where you are,” she cried, her breath coming in snatches as Mr. Biggs edged to the left. “Or I’ll drop them in.”

  Darling growled as if egging Dorrie on.

  Mr. Biggs looked of two minds on the matter.

  “I’ll drop every one!” Dorrie shouted.

  After staring at her for another moment, Mr. Biggs lifted his hands as if to signal defeat. “Well, well, well. Look who’s clawed her way into the catbird seat! What do you plan to do with your upper hand? Leverage a Vox Mortis vial for yourself out of the deal? So you can make some for yourself, perhaps?”

  Dorrie stared at him, horrified and shocked at the thought. “I never want it anywhere near me again.”

  “Words, words,” said Mr. Biggs, his cold, piercing eyes pinning Dorrie’s. “No one who has tasted Vox Mortis, and enjoyed the power it bestows, can walk away from it. And you only know the half of what it can do.”

  Dorrie hesitated, feeling darkly enchanted, the enormous weight of the sack dangling over the pit making her arm shake. She glanced at her thumbnail. The black stain was entirely gone.

  “Oh, I can assure you,” said Mr. Biggs, his nostrils dilating. “I can sense the presence of Vox Mortis, and you have now been deserted, my friend.”

  Dorrie fought off a disturbing rush of panic and sorrow. Her old fears about her power being the source of her value to the lybrarians thickened in her. She stared at the sack. Her hand wobbled, setting it swinging.

  “You don’t have to fling them into the abyss,” Mr. Biggs said quickly. “You can bring them back to your people, with me as your prisoner and one in your pocket for you to have always. How would that sound?”

  Slowly, Dorrie raised her head. She relived the agonizing moment on the sailboat when Mr. Biggs had used fear to twist her truth and had distilled her silence into Vox Mortis. “Terrible,” whispered Dorrie. She opened her hand.

  “No!” Mr. Biggs howled, lunging for the sack as it plummeted downward and nearly falling into the pit himself. Another blast sounded from the organ, and with the same speed as it had appeared, the pit vanished.

  Mr. Biggs smashed the floor with his fist and then straightened up, his eyes glittering. Behind him, the toads on the shelf grinned from left and right. “You poisonous little dwarf,” he spat out.

  Dorrie quaked as he gave the blade in his massive hand a spin. “The question now is: How will I kill you?”

  Dorrie, every limb trembling, saw a chance. One chance. One absurdly small chance. She raised her rapier, trying to breathe, trying to choose not to do fear’s bidding and throw Mr. Biggs the sack of vials.

  Mr. Biggs shifted his weight to his back foot with ominous deliberation.

  Dorrie did the same.

  His gaze shifted from her eyes to her heart as he lifted his blade. “You should have chosen a real sword.”

  Dorrie doubted she could manage one parry. As he drew back his arm, she didn’t wait to find out but sent the tip of the rapier hurtling forward, not toward Mr. Biggs as he expected but at the ugly brass toad to his right. This time, she expected nothing, waiting only as time slowed again to see if the hours she’d practiced would be enough. The tip struck the toad’s eye true. As Mr. Biggs thrust his sword toward Dorrie’s chest, the wall jerked around, and he lost his footing. His blade hissed harmlessly past Dorrie’s shoulder, and Mr. Biggs fell to the ground. He gave out a cry of fury and pain as the turning wall wedged him in the gap, imprisoning the top half of him on Francesco’s landing and the bottom in the Scooby-Doo Library.

  Hearing running footsteps outside the black door, Dorrie turned, rapier still aloft, just in time to see it fly open. Ebba, Millie, and Marcus pounded into the room.

  “Are you all right?” Marcus asked as he sprinted toward her, his soaked chiton dripping.

  Ebba’s eyes bulged. “Is that Mr. Biggs?”

  “What happened?” cried Millie.

  Dorrie grinned faintly at them, relieved and exhausted. She lowered her sword. Her knees buckled. “I found the Vox Mortis vials.”

  Chapter 26

  Something to Sing about

  The next few days passed in a dreamy sort of daze for Dorrie. Every meal, tedious chore, and loll in front of the Apprentice Attics fire was shot through with the sublime pleasure of knowing that Mr. Biggs and the Vox Mortis vials were now safe in Petrarch’s Library.

  At first, the Lybrariad hadn’t been at all sure where the vials had gone. Then a report had come in. While sleeping in her little bedroom off the Bodleian Library’s main reading room, the elderly lybrarian-in-training from Dorrie’s principles practicum had nearly lost consciousness when the sack of vials had shot out of an air vent in the wall over her bed and hit her in the head.

  Dorrie had been happy to hear that her teeth, which had only just been repaired after the aurochs incident, had survived intact.

  When Dorrie, Marcus, Millie, and Ebba
had sat down in Hypatia’s office with the staff lybrarians to tell them what had happened in Athens and on the Hura and finally in the Scooby-Doo Library, they had listened raptly, the Archivist beaming and Savi looking quietly proud.

  Dorrie got to hear again about how when she hadn’t shown up to meet Ebba as planned, Ebba had grown increasingly worried and about how she’d finally remembered Timotheuss’ trial. Thinking Dorrie might have gone to the Tyre Archway, Ebba arrived there just as Jalileh and Marcus were returning to the Hura. He had scrawled a note explaining that Mr. Biggs and Dorrie could be in Petrarch’s Library and slapped it up against the invisible barrier. Ebba had sounded the alarm, and a massive search had begun. A Tyre keyhand eventually arrived to pull Marcus back into Petrarch’s Library. Marcus, Ebba, and Millie had decided to search the tunnel and the Scooby-Doo Library for Dorrie, sure that no one else would think to do it.

  “It appears,” said Hypatia, “the Cave of the Black-Fingered Skeleton has been in active use by the Foundation for close to five thousand years, and the plates on those walls have been used as an address book of sorts. Lady Whitcomb, Baron Flageletti, and Count Sieciech all received letters, hundreds of years apart, inviting them to become allies of the Foundation. The Foundation must have installed agents in the cave early on from its foothold in ancient Egypt—agents who passed on the secret of the cave and instructions for continuing the mailings to new younger agents and so on through the years.”

  “But why would they do it?” asked Dorrie. “What would be in it for them?”

  Hypatia shook her head. “Gold? Threats? Promises of glory in an afterlife or a future Foundation empire?”

  “A lifetime supply of chocolate?” suggested Marcus.

  Hypatia smiled. “We don’t yet know.”

  “So who was going to pick up the Vox Mortis vials from Critius’s house?” asked Ebba. “And in what century?”

  “That point has occupied us greatly,” said Hypatia, glancing at Master Francesco. “We do not yet have an answer, but it’s possible the Foundation may have seeded another chain of hereditary operatives charged with receiving and distributing the vials in particular times and places.”

  “And what about the scrap of a letter Ebba found?” Dorrie asked, her eyes turning to the Archivist, hardly daring to hope.

  The Archivist’s eyes glowed.

  “I believe the words addressed to Count Sieciech do indeed say the same thing as the first bit of the letter etched into that plate in the cave.” His voice shook a little with what Dorrie took to be barely suppressed excitement. “Not every letter is represented, but it’s enough to begin working on a true translation.”

  Dorrie grinned at him.

  “We are grateful for the Archivist’s persistence,” said Hypatia. “And to you for the great courage and presence of mind you showed in Athens and while Mr. Biggs held you prisoner.”

  Dorrie felt her face grow pleasantly warm.

  Hypatia folded her hands. “So the effect of the Vox Mortis has at last worn off?”

  Uneasiness filled Dorrie. “That’s what Mr. Biggs said.” She showed Hypatia her whitened thumbnail and waiting for someone to suggest that the offer of her apprenticeship needed to be reviewed or rethought or just outright rescinded.

  “Well, that’s a relief!” said Francesco, startling Dorrie. “Perhaps now you can settle down to your training, and I won’t have to worry about the next archway you’ll find a reason to leap through.”

  Dorrie released her breath and shared a surprising, if brief, smile with him.

  In the days following the staff meeting, Dorrie, Marcus, Ebba, and Millie had to repeat the story of what had happened in Timbuktu and Athens and the Scooby-Doo Library many times, first to the library’s Board of Directors, then to a gathering of keyhands, and finally to every single apprentice in the place. Dorrie hadn’t minded, but she didn’t share everything. Only Ebba and Savi heard about her moment of temptation as she dangled the sack of vials over the pit.

  Ebba had hugged her and said she could understand being sad about letting go of such a tremendous ability.

  When she’d met Savi for a lesson in the courtyard, he’d squeezed her shoulder and told her to stop being so hard on herself and then insisted on her explaining to him again, in rhyming couplets, how wonderfully the practice sword he had picked out for Dorrie had served her.

  “Now,” said Savi. “I think you’ve earned that duel you’ve been aching for all quarter.”

  “Really?” Dorrie asked, grabbing up her rapier. A thought crossed her mind. “This isn’t a bribe because you already know that next quarter, I’m going to be apprenticed to Lybrarian Della Porta while you’re away in China or Ethiopia, is it?”

  “Ah.” Savi lowered his own blade. “Well, that was the plan, but I’m afraid Lybrarian Della Porta has been suspended for taking actions unbecoming to a lybrarian. Unfortunately, you’ll have to make do with me instead.”

  Grinning, Dorrie tried her first thrust, which Savi parried. “Miserable. Simply miserable,” he said, the corners of his mouth upturned. “Allez!”

  The day after Mr. Biggs’s capture, Mistress Wu had announced with great pleasure at breakfast that the annual Autumn Sing would be held on the last day of the quarter up in the Old Field, which lay near the top of Petrarch’s Library. “Bring blankets and chairs if you’d like, but anything you take up to the Old Field must be brought back down at the end of the night. Last year, some enterprising apprentices managed to bring up an eight-foot-long sofa, which is still there, providing shelter and nourishment for countless field mice and possibly some larger creatures. No field needs more than one couch.”

  There was stifled laughter around the apprentices’ table and some finger-pointing.

  The Autumn Sing was held on a beautiful starry night. Dorrie was crushed with about half the other apprentices on the couch Mistress Wu had complained about. From there, she had a beautiful view of the snapping fire and, in the far distance, the glinting sea that no longer filled her with dread. One after another, various lybrarians had risen to sing. Mistress Lovelace surprised them by singing a bawdy tavern song, and Fatima and Marcus performed one of the songs that had made them all their money in the Inky Pot, to great applause from the apprentices and Fedya.

  Fedya had sent up great plates of baklava to be enjoyed with the cocoa and hot spiced cider, but Dorrie passed the plate along, still uncertain. One of the Sumerian lybrarians had just finished a haunting wordless tune full of aches and aspirations when Marcus returned to the couch after getting his third cup of cocoa.

  Dorrie made room for him. He sat and promptly snatched more than his share of the blanket. “Hey!” Mathilde protested from farther down the couch.

  “Sorry, not sorry,” said Marcus. “Hero coming through.”

  Mathilde yanked the blanket back in her direction.

  “Yeah,” said Kenzo. “If Marcus hadn’t made Dorrie go to Athens, she would never have found Mr. Biggs or the vials there, and he would have kept digging through old Critius’s ruins till he got to where he wanted to put the vials, and then they would have been spread all over time and all over the world, and—”

  Millie interrupted his praise song. “I can’t believe you actually managed to get Timotheus off the hook,” she said to Marcus.

  “Uh. Thank you?” he replied, looking around his feet for the box of marshmallows.

  “No, really,” said Dorrie, who realized suddenly that Marcus had said very little about his success since their day in Athens, other than that Timotheus had been found innocent.

  “What can I say?” said Marcus. “I went extemporaneous.”

  “Extempa-what?” said Kenzo.

  “He made it up as he went along,” explained Fatima.

  “Did Aristotle give you the evil eye after the trial?” Dorrie asked.

  Ebba sniffed. “Or did he have to hurr
y off to murder a baby dolphin?”

  “Actually, he came over and talked to me.”

  “Really?” said Ebba.

  “So what’d he say?” Dorrie asked.

  Dorrie was surprised to see Marcus look embarrassed. “Oh, just stuff.”

  “Like what?” she pressed.

  “That I made some good points. Like I’d changed his mind about whether it was just of him to bring charges against Timotheus.”

  “Wow,” Dorrie said. “That’s a big deal!” She looked across the fire to where she had seen Egeria and Bang sitting with friends earlier. She lowered her voice. “So did you tell Egeria yet?”

  “Uh, not really.” Marcus craned his neck to look farther down the couch. “There better be some marshmallows left!” he bellowed.

  Dorrie and Ebba exchanged looks, eyebrows raised, as Marcus caught the box that Amo threw.

  Dorrie nudged Marcus again. “You’re not going to tell her, are you?” she said, not able to help looking smug at her realization. “Because you did end up caring what happened to Timotheus. You really did do all that fundraising and research and oration-practicing for him, not to impress Egeria.”

  “Well, not at first,” Marcus said, horrified. “And quit knocking my cocoa arm. And quit talking about it!”

  “Hey,” Ebba said, pulling out True Spine-Tingling Ghost Stories from around the World. “Anybody want to hear me read ‘The Cave of the Black-Fingered Skeleton’ out loud?”

  There was a chorus of groans. Only Millie raised her hand.

  “Oh, that reminds me!” said Fatima, burrowing in her satchel. “I can’t believe I forgot to give you this.” She pulled out a newspaper. “Something else you should read.”

  Ebba took it. “The Times.”

  Quickly, getting in each other’s way, Dorrie and Ebba began to turn the thin pages, looking, hoping, dreading…and suddenly, there it was. On page eight. To the left was a letter signed with Lord Cromer’s name. To the right, another letter took up several columns. “‘Ten Reasons Why Women Should Not Get the Vote’ by Annie Knox,” Dorrie read breathlessly.