by Tim Pratt
“Or mix wine and liquor, and get a nasty headache the next day?”
The guard chuckled. “Exactly. The books are a bit like that. Put the wrong magical books together, and they might feed on each other, or fight each other, or suck all the air out of the room, or who knows what. My partner has all manner of wands and crystals and such to measure the magic and keep things from going bad. Besides, we can’t just open up the gate and let you wander back there. The wards prevent people from passing through, and we only deactivate them during shift changes or emergencies. We’ll pass the book through a slot in the gate, and you can be on your way. My partner will make sure your prize has a good home.”
Rodrick’s heart sank. How was the Specialist going to get into the stacks?
“How’s it coming there?” the guard called to the Specialist.
“Just about ready,” said the Specialist, and then he opened up the metal box. Great gouts of white smoke poured out, and something inside began to howl.
27
A SPECIAL COLLECTION
Rodrick spun around, hand going to the sword at his waist, and the guard leapt back and swore.
The Specialist backed away from the box, holding up his hands as if to ward off an attack. The horror on his face was so convincing it made Rodrick nervous; maybe the old man was better at acting than he let on. Rodrick hoped so.
The Specialist whimpered. “No … oh no, it’s waking up! The wards have failed. We’re doomed—we’re dead.” He looked at the guard, wild-eyed. “Get help!” He had to shout to be heard over the howling. Light began to flash from the open box in bright pulses.
The guard swore and rushed to the gate, pounding on the metal. A much older man with a hedgerow of a beard appeared on the other side. “What’s all this commotion?” he bellowed.
“A new book!” the guard screamed. “It’s active!”
The gate flashed blue, brightly, and then went dark, and the iron door swung open. The spellcasting guard hurried out, moving toward the Specialist. “What are we dealing with here?”
The first guard stood beside Rodrick, looking at the box, scowling. “Magic. I hate it.”
The Specialist cast a meaningful glance toward Rodrick. “I’m not sure, but it’s certainly loud, isn’t it?”
Oh. In case things get … loud. That was what the Specialist had said. Rodrick grabbed the guard’s hand, the ring’s tiny needle piercing his flesh. The guard looked at him strangely for a moment, swayed, and then fell.
Rodrick shrieked and pointed at the fallen man. “What happened? Did the book kill him? Is he dead?”
The spellcaster looked around in alarm, raising his hands to do something arcane, and the Specialist stuck him in the side of the neck with a needle. The spellcaster stumbled, sank to his knees, and collapsed on the floor.
The Specialist reached into the box, and the screaming stopped abruptly. He waved tendrils of white vapor away from his face. “They should be asleep long enough for us to finish our business.”
Rodrick shuddered. “You might have warned me about the screaming.”
“Oh, it’s just a little charm I had laid on the book, to make it howl and smoke and flash when touched in a particular place. If you’d known about it, you might not have reacted so strongly. Your surprise was very convincing.”
“Because it was genuine.” Rodrick let his tone turn sour. “It was a neat contingency plan. Well done luring the spellcaster out of the cage. You might have discussed the idea with me, though.”
“I wasn’t sure what we would encounter here, but I thought it best to have a distraction available, just in case. I didn’t want you to think I doubted your plan. It would have worked, if not for the warded gate and their protocols.”
“You’re so considerate.”
The Specialist took the now non-screaming book out of the box and tucked it under his arm. They went to the gate, and looked into the stacks. Shelves and shelves of books and scrolls stretched into the dark. Some of the scrolls rustled, like birds, and there was a dull pink glow from somewhere deep in the stacks. If he listened closely, Rodrick thought he could hear something like breathing. Rodrick had seen the thakur’s library in Jalmeray, and while this wasn’t nearly as grand, the concentrated magic here was even more impressive in its way.
The Specialist rubbed his hands together and went among the shelves, scanning the rows of books with his sharp eyes. Rodrick followed, a bit reluctantly. Books shouldn’t make scuttling noises. “Is this going to take long? Those men won’t be unconscious forever.”
“Mine will be out longer than yours. I only gave you my second-best sleeping potion.” The Specialist gazed upon the shelves with the sort of acquisitive look Rodrick reserved for wine, women, and wealthy fools. “I wish I could fill the wheelbarrow with books, but I’ll have to make my selections more carefully. Fortunately the old guard in Cheliax gave me a partial inventory…” He plucked a slim volume from the shelf, then vanished into the dark, having a conversation with himself.
Rodrick went back to the front, checking on the slumbering guards. He and the Specialist could still possibly get out of this without being hunted by crusaders afterward. He looked through the slot in the main door, but didn’t see Eldra anywhere out there. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to, not unless she wanted him to.
He paced around the front room, thinking about Hrym, trying not to think about Hrym, and then thinking about Hrym some more.
After about ten minutes, the Specialist returned with an armload of books and scrolls. Rodrick opened the front door, closed it, and opened it again—the prearranged signal—and Eldra appeared from the shadow of a neighboring building. She opened a satchel as she approached, the Specialist placed the books and scrolls inside, and she darted back to the darkness. The whole exchange took rather less than a minute, and Rodrick closed the door again.
“Will anyone notice the missing books?” Rodrick asked. “We might be able to squirm out of this, but if they notice the theft…”
“Doubtful, though there are periodic inventories that come at random intervals. Unless we’re extraordinarily unlucky, there’s no reason to think anyone will notice right away.”
“You found a home for the fake book, too?”
“It’s not fake. It’s a real book. A book of recipes for assorted puddings with a charm of random screaming laid on it, yes, but a book nonetheless.”
“Can we wake them up?” Rodrick said. “Or at least one of them?”
The Specialist nodded. “The one who doesn’t know as much about magic, I think.”
“Just a minute.” Rodrick lowered himself to the floor beside the other guard and took up a sprawling pose.
The Specialist knelt, opened the lid of a small vial, and held it under the slumbering guard’s nose for a moment, then tucked it away.
The guard sat up with a jolt, as if electrified, hand going to his sword. “What happened?”
“The book.” Rodrick raised himself up on one elbow, affecting vast weariness. “It woke up, and knocked all of us unconscious except for my friend here. I guess he managed to quiet it down.”
The Specialist slammed closed the gate, and it flashed blue again, the wards reactivated. “I took the liberty of calculating a safe location and putting the book away,” he said. “I know it’s not my place to do so, but I thought it best to lock the foul thing away behind the wards.”
The guard got to his feet, prompting Rodrick to follow suit, then looked at the spellcaster. “Is he…?”
The spellcaster snorted, rolled over, and then began to snore.
“Should wake up in a moment, I expect,” Rodrick said. “He was standing closer to the book, so I think he got the worst of the effects.”
“I was behind him,” the Specialist explained. “Shielded from whatever power the book unleashed. That gave me time to renew the wards. We’re lucky the orcs didn’t use the book against us on the battlefield. Perhaps it’s too hard to control.”
“Magic.”
The guard looked like he wanted to spit, but then thought better of it. “We’ll have to alert our superiors, fill out an incident report … I hate it when things like this happen.” He frowned. “Hold on, though.” He pointed at the Specialist. “You, hold out your arms. You were unobserved for at least a few minutes. No offense, but I need to search you.”
The Specialist nodded affably. “Naturally. There are books back there that could convince someone to take them out, even against their will.”
The guard thoroughly patted down the Specialist, then glanced at Rodrick, and said, “Sorry, but…”
“Oh, I understand.” Rodrick said.
After the guard finished checking Rodrick for hidden scrolls, he opened up the metal box, which was half full of sand. He drew a knife and poked at the sand, stirring it around thoroughly, then nodded, satisfied. “Good enough. I guess if you were thieves you would have run away while I was unconscious anyway.”
Rodrick adored people with linear, straightforward minds. The rank and file of military life seemed to suit such souls. “We need to report back to our commanding officer,” Rodrick said. “We’ll have to fill out some reports of our own, I’m afraid.”
“That’s military life,” the guard agreed, and Rodrick let himself relax. He’d been afraid the man would insist they remain here for an investigation, but apparently the guard was convinced they were fellow crusaders, and thus beyond suspicion.
“Do you need us to send help?” the Specialist said.
The guard shook his head. “This location isn’t widely known. You can’t go mentioning it to just anyone. We’ve got magical protocols in place for contacting our supervisor. They might have some questions for you if there’s an inquiry, but they can reach you through the usual channels.”
“What I said about this being a nice, quiet posting?” Rodrick said. “I take it back.”
“Ha. Let me know if you’d like a turn guarding the cage. I’ll put in a good word for you.” The guard checked the view through the door’s slot to make sure there was no one lurking, then unbolted the door and waved them out.
As they strolled away from the library, Rodrick turned his mind to their next problem: how to rescue Hrym. He had the Specialist and Eldra, and the element of surprise, since Prinn probably thought they were dead … but any plan necessarily involved infiltrating the Bastion of Justice—a daunting prospect. Rodrick was hoping inspiration would strike, but so far, inspiration had missed badly.
They walked a block, then abandoned the wheelbarrow and the metal box in an alley where it was likely to be welcomed as salvage by the locals, and continued on to their basement lair.
They found Eldra sitting on her cot, glaring at the satchel of books, which she’d shoved into the corner farthest away from her. “Something in that sack whispered to me, and called me by the nickname my mother gave me. No one’s called me that since I was a girl.”
The Specialist nodded. “Yes. I’m not surprised. Some of those volumes are very treacherous. They want you to read them. There’s a reason they’re locked up. I wouldn’t trust them with anyone other than myself.” He went to the satchel, rooted around inside, and removed a book bound in leather so black it almost hurt to look at it. “Did we intend to storm the Bastion tonight, or can I do a bit of research first?”
“I, ah … don’t have all the details of our approach worked out yet,” Rodrick said. “We could use a night to rest, too, I’m sure.”
“Mmm.” The Specialist was already ignoring him, sitting on the edge of the cot, peering into the pages.
“What’s that book?” Eldra said. “Should I be worried?”
“No, no. It’s just a bestiary, of sorts. I’m interested in, ah … exotic animals.”
Rodrick wondered what sort of bestiary would be locked up in the Interdicted Library, and decided he didn’t want to think about it.
While the Specialist mumbled to himself and occasionally jotted notes, Rodrick and Eldra sat on crates against the far wall, sharing bread and cheese and the single bottle of wine that Rodrick felt he could safely allow himself without risking a debilitating hangover.
“The problem is getting into the Bastion without being noticed,” he said.
Eldra nodded. “Which is difficult, since it’s a fortress.”
“We could just brazen it out. We’re not entirely unknown there. What if we simply stroll up to the gates?”
“Last time we walked in without an escort, we were ringed with steel and crossbows in moments, and promptly escorted to Temple. I don’t really want to see Temple again, especially now that Temple isn’t Temple.”
Rodrick nodded, conceding the point. “Then there must be another way in. There are tunnels, aren’t there, underneath the place, leading in and out and all over the city?”
“Probably, but we don’t know how to get into them or where they go, and crawling around in the depths beneath the Bastion, without guide or map, sounds like a good way to get lost. The place is probably full of traps and other nastiness, too, knowing Temple.”
“Yes. Probably.” Rodrick put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands and thought as hard as he could. He could imagine ways to get into the Bastion, but ways to get in undetected, and creep around until he found Hrym, and get out again? Ideas for that were in short supply.
“You could just … move on.” Eldra’s voice was kind. “Hrym is a good sort—I don’t know a lot of talking swords, I admit, but it’s hard to imagine one better. But…”
“You said you’d help me.”
She nodded. “I did, and I will. If you come up with a plan, I’ll do my part. I have great faith in your problem-solving skills. You’ve shown wit, and cunning, and ingenuity today, and I concede you’re every bit the tactician Merihim was. But if it looks like you’re going to die in the course of your plan, I don’t intend to stay there and die with you. I can’t imagine the Specialist does, either.”
“A certain amount of risk is inevitable, Eldra.”
She nodded. “Of course. But a good planner takes steps to mitigate that risk. If your only idea is ‘try to find a tunnel and hope for the best’ … I won’t be comfortable taking part.”
“I think I can do better than that.” He slumped further. “At least, I hope so. If only we had someone who knows the Bastion, who could tell us its secrets. We could try to gather intelligence, but how long would that take?”
“Longer than I want to spend in Vellumis,” Eldra said.
“It’s a shame we don’t have Bannerman anymore,” Rodrick said.
Eldra nodded. “For a tool of our jailers, he wasn’t such a bad sort.”
“What? Bannerman?” The Specialist looked up from his book. “Did you say you wanted Bannerman?”
“I want lots of things,” Rodrick said. “The ability to turn invisible and pass through walls. An army of my own. Prinn’s head in a box. But, yes, I’d add Bannerman to that list.”
“Mmm. It’s possible to turn invisible and pass through walls, of course, though probably a bit outside the reach of our current circumstances.” The Specialist coughed into his hand. “But, if you like, we could go and get Bannerman.”
28
A RESCUE
“Are you saying you know where Bannerman is?” Eldra said.
The Specialist nodded. “Certainly. I’ve always been a light sleeper, and it’s even worse as I get older. I heard Prinn and Merihim drag Bannerman and Zumani away that night. Merihim carried a rucksack full of food and water, and Prinn carried one man over each shoulder. A remarkable feat of strength, I thought at the time, though it’s less remarkable now that I know he’s an undead monster. I followed them, naturally, at a discreet distance. They took their prisoners a mile or so through the woods, to the remains of an old stone fortification, and when they emerged some time later, they were without their burdens. I hurried back to camp and went to sleep.”
Rodrick rubbed his temples. “You knew where they were. You knew. Why didn’t you tell us
when Merihim sprang her ridiculous plan on us?”
The Specialist cocked his head. “To what end? If I’d said, ‘I know where they’re being held captive,’ don’t you think Prinn would have popped out of the trees and killed me then and there? Besides, I was curious as to whether or not Merihim’s plan would work. I reasoned that, even if it failed, Merihim would be the one immediately punished. In that case, I could give the information about Bannerman’s whereabouts to Temple, and gain her favor. Once Prinn revealed himself to be a totenmaske, however, the subject was moot.”
“You were just going to leave them to starve to death?” Eldra said.
The Specialist shook his head. “No. Before I left town, I was going to leave an anonymous note outside one of the barracks houses, letting them know where to look. Merihim left them enough water for a week, and food for longer than that. I considered freeing them myself, on my way out of the country, but…”
“Bannerman would have tried to take you into custody. Hmm. He might do that to us, if we save him.”
“We do outnumber him,” Eldra pointed out. “We’d also be negotiating from a position of strength, which is to say, he’s chained up in some fort, and he doesn’t want to be, and we could let him out. Once we tell him what Prinn did to Temple, how Prinn has become Temple, I think he’ll have other things on his mind besides forcing us to become servants of Lastwall again.”
Rodrick nodded. “He would be a formidable addition to the team, even apart from his knowledge of the inner workings of the Bastion. He’s a tough fighter.” Rodrick allowed himself a grin. “I’ve been thinking, what we’re lacking so far is pure brute force muscle.”
* * *
The Specialist went out at dawn and acquired four horses, somehow. They were running low on funds, but apparently the Specialist had acquired one “relatively harmless” volume “of merely historical interest” from the Interdicted Library, and sold it to a buyer he’d lined up ahead of time. The resulting money wasn’t a king’s ransom, but after deducting the cost of the horses, he divided up the remaining coin and doled it out equally, as recompense for their help with the heist. Even though it was rather more silver than gold, Rodrick was still delighted to get some material gain out of his criminal activity. He’d almost forgotten what that felt like.