The Forbidden Library

by David Alastair Hayden

  Millennia passed. The sun turned red. The world grew cold. Then someone of power came to the island, a Kaiaru she had known in the distant past: Ooloolarra. She took pity and tried to free Hannya from the blade, but she too failed, even with the mark now diminished.

  “I wish to build my Grand Library here,” Ooloolarra said.

  “Do whatever you wish,” Hannya replied. “I do not care.”

  Her existence became nothing but darkness and suffocation and the endless awareness of both. And yet she could feel the world, whispering to her as a dream, as it aged and iced over. The sea stopped crashing against the shore. The gulls stopped crying. Time ceased to have any meaning to her. The Keepers came and they did nothing for her, never even making an attempt.

  And then one day, Naruwakiru called on Kaiwen Earth-Mother, and her … now his … cries resonated through the earth and even into the Shadowland. And Hannya heard them like a trumpet blaring a note of hope. She awakened from her stupor. And she knew, beyond any doubt, that Naruwakiru would come to the blade again. How the Storm Dragon had returned, she did not know and did not care. He was back. He would come to her. She would kill him. She would have her revenge. That was all that mattered. Not freedom. That had lost all meaning to her. Only a single death mattered: Naruwakiru’s. And she was certain that she could manage it, despite the binding. She’d prepared herself, imagining what she’d do a million times, should this day ever come.

  *****

  Turesobei became himself again, his awareness slamming back into his brain as if pounded in by a hammer. Panting … overwhelmed … he laughed … he screamed … he burst into tears … he sang … he whimpered … he curled up into a tiny ball, muttering, rocking himself.

  Hannya loomed over him, laughing.

  “And to think, we have only just begun, Naruwakiru, and already you are breaking.”

  *****

  He became aware of himself again. Darkness spread through his mind. Pain through his body. How much time had passed? Minutes? Hours? He faded in and out of himself. At times he saw himself through her eyes, as if he’d already left the world and his spirit had drifted into her. Tendrils of her shadows wrapped around his throat, squeezing ever so gently. A fourth trip through Hannya’s worst moments would kill him. The last time, though he remembered little of it, she had taken him deep into her past, before she came to Okoro.

  He was dying. He thought of all the ones he’d loved. He wished he could see them one last time. He thought of Iniru’s last words to him.

  There was one choice left to him.

  The Storm Dragon.

  He opened the channel.

  Chapter 53

  As the Mark of the Storm Dragon blazed bright on Turesobei’s cheek, the power of Naruwakiru poured into him. The tendril of shadow around his neck snapped away. Lightning fired up from the floor and through his spine. Thunder boomed in the chamber. The walls shook. The floor cracked. The last of the cedar beams fell from the ceiling.

  Turesobei’s eyes blazed with electric fire. Wings of mist unfurled from his back. His body began to change, flesh becoming compressed storm cloud, his bones turning into ice. He stood, still human for a few more moments. Howling winds circled him. Sparks danced along his limbs.

  He snarled at Hannya and she cackled with joy.

  “Oh, this is so much better,” the Earth Dragon said, her veins of volcanic energy pulsing. “The wait has almost been worth it. I will defeat you in your dragon form.”

  Turesobei heaved a bolt of lightning. The shadows that made Hannya’s body parted and the bolt passed through harmlessly. Then, unexpectedly, the lightning diverted its course. Hannya screamed as the bolt struck the storm mark on Fangthorn’s hilt and was absorbed into the blade. “Nooo!”

  Though he was changing rapidly, Turesobei wasn’t the dragon, not yet. And now he had a plan to avoid that fate, but he had to move fast. In a few more moments he would fully expand into his dragon form. Possibly forever since he wasn’t a Kaiaru like Hannya who’d spent years mastering the power within.

  Hannya rocketed toward him, but Turesobei fired another bolt through her. When the bolt contacted the sword, Hannya cried out and drew away. Body shifting, face elongating, Turesobei charged forward and dove onto the marble block. He unleashed the most intense burst of storm energy he could muster and grabbed the sword, placing his hand directly onto the Mark of the Storm Dragon.

  “Return to the blade!” he commanded.

  With a tremendous thunderclap and a flash of blinding light, Hannya’s form dissipated. The blast cracked the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.

  Dust rained down on him.

  Dust … onto his human body … He was free from the Storm Dragon. He gasped in pain. He wasn’t free from the wound on his chest, though, and the vigor given to him by the storm energy was fading fast.

  The blade vibrated and hummed like a tuning fork, but Hannya was silent … for now at least. The black-steel sword had soaked up the excess storm energy just as it had once drawn in her earth energy. The blade had saved him from becoming the Storm Dragon.

  Shaking, he drew the black blade from the stone as easily as if he were drawing it from a sheathe. He flipped the sword to view both sides of the broad, symmetrical blade. No one made two-handed longswords like this anymore, not from any material. It was an ancient Tengba Ren design he’d seen only in pictures. The Chonda Clan’s white-steel swords, over a thousand years old, were of a newer, smaller design than this one.

  The binding runes blazed with blue-white fire and suddenly he realized something. In the visions, he had watched Tepebono repeatedly fail to break them because he had to first undo the powerful Mark of the Storm Dragon on the hilt. Only the Storm Dragon could do that. Which meant Turesobei could do it. And though he had no idea how to cast bindings this complex and powerful, thanks to Tepebono he knew the commands to break them. Turesobei could free Hannya and trade her freedom for cooperation.

  Though he wasn’t certain why that was necessary. She was bound and could be commanded. That had been Naruwakiru’s plan for her, yet Ooloolarra had told him he needed Hannya’s willing cooperation. There was something else to this. Did Ooloolarra think he couldn’t command Hannya because he wasn’t Kaiaru? Or because he’d have to become the Storm Dragon to make the commands work? Or was it because that binding had weakened over the years? Hannya could free herself partly from the sword on her own now after all. Maybe commanding her to do something she strongly resisted could no longer be managed.

  The blade stopped vibrating. And then he felt Hannya clouding his thoughts, trying to influence him through the blade, through the connections they had made in his Shadowland nightmare and through the visions she had imposed on him. She would attack him with the visions of her torment again. She wasn’t through fighting him in any way she could. The power he’d blasted her with and the command he’d spoken had restrained her physical manifestation, though probably not for much longer.

  “Do we have to do this?” he asked. “If I have to command you to cooperate, I will.”

  Her voice entered his mind through the sword. “Go ahead and try. Do you think Amasan hid me here for no reason? You were always so arrogant, Naruwakiru. Even at your strongest, you would have had to fight me for control every moment you wielded me. And these bindings have grown weak over the last thirteen millennia.”

  “I don’t want to make you do anything.” He couldn’t constantly call on enough kenja to control her anyway. He’d end up tapping the storm sigil and then he’d end up being the Storm Dragon for good. Or he’d go to sleep one night and get eaten by a dragon. “Look, we can work together. We are not enemies.”

  “You are Naruwakiru reborn. And I will have my revenge!”

  “I’m not Naruwakiru!”

  “I am not a fool. You are Kaiaru and you have the Storm Dragon’s power. I will not fall for your tricks.”

  Turesobei sighed. “I am Chonda Lu’s … heir … in some special way that makes people think
I’m actually a Kaiaru. But I’m not. And I am definitely not Naruwakiru. She was my enemy, too. She tried to conquer me. I split her heart with a white-steel sword, something Amasan and Tepebono couldn’t or were unwilling to do. When the power released, I absorbed most of it … and survived, somehow. I kept Naruwakiru from returning. So you could show a little appreciation for that.”

  “Lies. I know what you are, and I know why you came here. You want to enter the Nexus.”

  “Yes, but not because I want to free the Blood King. In fact, I’m scared to go there. I’m scared that I might accidentally free him. Even more now that I’ve seen him in action. But going to the Nexus is the only way for me to get my friends … my family … back home and to save my clan. Look, I’m sorry your life stunk, but it wasn’t my fault. And for the record, Naruwakiru is the cause of most of my troubles these days.”

  Hannya started to disagree again, but he stopped her and said, “You know what? I’m sick of arguing with you. You’ve been steeping in bitterness and rage so long that I think you’ve gone half mad. So let’s solve this once and for all. I’m going to let you into my mind. I’m going to give you access to my thoughts, to my memories. That way you can see who I really am. Go on. Merge your mind with mine. Have a taste of my suffering.”

  Hannya paused and the sword hummed for a few moments. “You would risk a one-way connection between us?”

  “I’ll take that risk because once you know who I am, we won’t be enemies anymore.”

  Boy, he really hoped he knew what he was doing. He’d barely broken free of the visions she’d imposed on him. If he let her into his mind and she decided to take over … he’d likely never get her out.

  Turesobei sat down on the slab and, taking his hand off the storm mark on the hilt, placed the blade in his lap. He let go of any sense of command he had over her, took deep breaths, and opened his mind. Enter and see who I really am.

  Two thin tendrils of shadow emerged from the blade, latched onto his hands, climbed up his arms and neck, and then attached themselves to his temples. Hannya’s consciousness flowed into his mind, probing tentatively at first. He didn’t even try to keep her out of his most intimate thoughts. It was all or nothing if he wanted this to work.

  His eyes rolled back into his head and vertigo swamped him. Everything went dark as she raced through his thoughts and memories so fast he couldn’t follow. And then suddenly she was out and he had a throbbing headache.

  “You … didn’t … take … long,” he gasped.

  “I didn’t need to know everything about you,” she said. “I don’t care about the spells you studied when you were eight or how you like your tea.”

  “So … did you learn anything … useful? Like maybe … I’m not your enemy?”

  “You are not Naruwakiru reborn,” Hannya replied. “And you are not exactly Chonda Lu either.”

  “Told you.”

  “You are his inheritant.”

  His brain started to go a little fuzzy. “I’m a what?”

  “A Kaiaru inheritant. That means …”

  He slumped back but kept the sword in his hand, not daring to let go. Not a word of the rest of what she said made it through to him.

  “Interesting how the magic works on you.”

  “Yeah, fascinating.” He’d caught his breath, the headache had calmed somewhat, and he only now noticed that the shadow tendrils had withdrawn back into Fangthorn. “So, you also learned that I’m a boy who has a girlfriend and two fiancés, one of them dying and the other maddened with dark power. That I love my family, my friends, and my clan, and I’m always throwing myself into terrible situations to sacrifice myself to help them.”

  “I did learn all that … and more.”

  “Great, so I hope you’re finished torturing me, because we can help each other.” He took a deep breath and braced himself. “Once you get me into my world, I will free you.”

  “You must free me when you reach the Nexus, or we do not have a deal.”

  He sighed. One problem at a time. “Fine. We will do it then.”

  “Are you certain you can?”

  He nodded. “I’m going to let you back out of the sword now, freely. Though I’d prefer to face your human form. I want to talk to you.”

  Turesobei bravely spoke a command. Shadows poured out from the sword and swirled into the form of a slender zaboko woman with night-black skin, prominent cheekbones, a gossamer dress of smoke that hid very little, and the ghost of a ruby kavaru below her navel. The real kavaru was on the pommel of the sword in his hands. Her deep-set eyes, long nails, and sharp teeth were fiery red, and sparkling vermillion hair cascaded wildly down her back.

  Hannya looked at herself and ran her hands along her body. “I have not taken this form in so long I’d nearly forgotten it. Why did you want to face me this way?”

  Because he thought it might make her more human, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. “Because this way we can meet sort of as equals. I cannot face you in my dragon form.”

  “Because you would permanently become the Storm Dragon if you did. You have had the dreams, you have become the dragon, and yet still you do not embrace it.”

  “You’ve seen my memories. You must understand why.”

  “I understand why you do not want to lose yourself, yes. But I do not understand why you have not tried to master the Storm Dragon. You do not have to make the dragon form primary. I didn’t do that for centuries.”

  “I haven’t had time.”

  “Time is not your problem. Fear is your problem.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You fear what you do not understand.”

  “I faced the Storm Dragon in my dreams before I came here.”

  “You may have seen the power, but that is not enough. If you understood the Storm Dragon, and I mean truly understood it in the way you understand that the sky is blue and water is wet and that you are who you are, then you could learn to wield the energy. But perhaps you do not know who you are yet. You are still a child.”

  “I’m not a child. I’m …” Was he really an adult? He should be. For all the responsibilities he bore, he deserved to be. But he also felt like he hadn’t yet become who he was supposed to be. Like he was unfinished … a half-carved statue.

  “The sooner you figure it out,” she said, “the better for you and your companions.”

  “So,” he said, wanting to move on to more urgent things. “I free you in exchange for you getting me into the Nexus and helping me get back home. Do we have a deal?”

  “We have a deal.”

  “You can return with me to Okoro, if you wish, though I guess we have a Hannya already in my world, bound into the sword.”

  “I do not think it is a good idea to have two identical beings in the same world. I will find another realm, one where another me does not exist. That seems safest.”

  “I will free you once we’re in the Nexus, and I’ll free the version of you in my world from the sword. As soon as I get the chance. I swear.”

  “I would be grateful for that, but you may find it difficult. Amasan and Tepebono placed spells on the island to make it nearly impossible to find, even for one such as you. Those spells are still active in your time.”

  Hannya stared at him with her flaming eyes. “Despite everything I just put you through, you don’t bare the slightest drop of anger toward me. I expected to find it in you, but it was not there.”

  “I’m not happy about it, no. But why would I be angry at you? You lashed out. Understandably given what you endured. I would’ve done the same.”

  “No, Chonda Turesobei, you would not have. And that is why I shall trust you. I will get you into the Nexus.”

  Chapter 54

  Adrenaline depleted, Turesobei slumped down and put his back against the slab. His head was swimming and pounding. The wound on his chest — it was like the flame was still burning. The pain was becoming unbearable. He had nothing left in him. He was never going to make
it back up those steps.

  “Perhaps you should heal yourself,” Hannya suggested.

  “I can’t,” he said. “The last traces of the storm energy I summoned have left me. I’m wounded and exhausted. And you nearly killed me, you know. After the Keeper of Scrolls burned me with his stupid magic fire.”

  She knelt beside him. “If you will allow me then …”

  “You can cast a healing spell?”

  “I am a Kaiaru,” she replied indignantly. “Becoming a dragon doesn’t take that away from you.”

  “When did you last use a spell?”

  “Ages ago. The binding prevented me from casting. But I assure you I know how. Kaiaru have nearly perfect memory. All you have to do is give me permission.”

  “I’d rather not have a healing spell go bad on me.”

  “As you wish,” Hannya replied. “If you prefer, you could draw energy from me, using the blade, and then do the spell yourself. You could substitute my power for your internal kenja to trigger the spell.”

  Turesobei swooned, his eyes fluttering.

  “If you can manage not to collapse before then …”

  Turesobei gripped the hilt. “I can. I’ve done it before using the Mark of the Storm Dragon.”

  Nodding, he gripped the blade by the hilt and opened a channel, tapping the power within the blade to supplant his own internal kenja. Hannya was strong, and her kenja was a roiling mix of earth, shadow, and fire kenja. Her power emanated from the depths of the earth, so that made sense. For a moment he feared he would become like her, but of course that wouldn’t happen. She was right. He was scared of the dragon.

  Along with raw power, darkness and rage flowed into him. To cast a healing spell he needed calm, positive energy. This wouldn’t do. A voice pressed against his mind. He allowed her to speak to him telepathically.