Bookburners

by Max Gladstone

  But the most pressing new trait of the market was … the press of it. When Sal had first come, there had been space to breathe and mingle. Groups had kept a comfortable distance from one another. Not now. The crush was almost intolerable.

  Grace bent her head toward Sal. “Was it always this crowded?”

  “No.” Sal rubbed at the silver cross around her neck absently. “Not by a mile.”

  Grace frowned. “Rising tide. The market has more customers than it used to as magic gets stronger.” She moved on the balls of her feet, ready to spring into violence at any moment.

  Sal laid two fingers on her arm. “Relax, it’s safe enough in here. The Maitresse doesn’t let anything happen on her watch.”

  “I’m relaxed,” Grace said, even as she turned so she could keep tabs on the whole assembly at once. “How will we know who we’re looking for?”

  “We ask around?” Sal searched for a friendly face. Or a not-hostile one.

  The problem was solved for them. A voice boomed loud over the whispering courtyard: “Bookburners!”

  Heads turned their way. The whispers grew more intense, fueled by fresh gossip. The voice’s owner made his way over to them.

  The Swede was blond and tan, lanky, and dressed in a T-shirt and jeans that somehow seemed more expensive than any custom-tailored suit could have been. He wore mirrored sunglasses in the dusk. Sal thought he looked like nothing so much as the kind of douchebag who called himself a club promoter but actually lived off of the kindness of a series of short-lived girlfriends.

  He had an entourage: a few fashionable youths like himself, mostly hanging back; a graying woman with a sensible haircut and a skirt suit who looked like she could’ve walked out of an accounting office; and then there was the bear, ten feet tall with claws as long as Sal’s face and a thick pelt matted with food. It wore a bright red collar and leash, though the lead hung loose.

  Or maybe not a bear. Sal’s head ached as she squinted to try to focus better. The icy cross around her neck showed her a truer vision of the thing: a heap of stinking furs pinned together with knives. The empty space inside it buzzed faintly, as if it were filled with bees. Her fingers strayed toward her gun, strapped tight in its holster.

  Not that bullets would be very effective. The thing was probably a homunculus, or something like it—a magical construct that operated as if it were alive, and to an ordinary onlooker was indistinguishable from the real thing. She could see the bear and the not-bear at the same time, but by now the ache in her temples was familiar. She wondered how the Maitresse felt about a bear traipsing around the premises. It didn’t seem like something she’d ordinarily have tolerated.

  “You’re Asanti’s servants?” the Swede asked, abrupt. He spoke with the up-and-down singsong of Scandinavia, so he sounded less menacing than he might have intended.

  Grace pushed Sal behind her and glowered. “And you are?”

  The Swede raised an eyebrow. “Feisty, are you?” He circled around her, eyeing her with tremendous interest. “Mmm. Quite the interesting specimen. You don’t see something like that every day.” He turned to Sal. “How much for her?”

  “What?” Sal half-shook her head, certain she’d heard wrong.

  “I’m not for sale.” Grace’s voice was flat and dry.

  “You think you’re not,” said the Swede, “but everything is negotiable once the price gets high enough.”

  “She’s not for sale,” Sal repeated. “You must be Povel. Asanti sent us to finish your business.”

  He held his hands up in a pretense of being offended. “Oh, come now, don’t be too hasty! We hardly know one another, how can we conduct business together? Drink with me first! We have vodka, we have akvavit …”

  Sal shook her head. “We’re not here to party.”

  Povel sighed with showy disappointment, though his accountant’s lips quirked to the side in a half smile. “Bookburners! All matches and no fun. The only thing you care about is the book. Though I may still get a better offer! I should really spend some time mingling to see …”

  “Don’t you and Asanti have a contract?”

  “You wound me! The first night of the Market is not for completing business, it’s for friendship.” His youthful companions sniggered in their hands, well accustomed to this game.

  “If you don’t hand over the book,” Grace said, “we’d be happy to get it from you with our usual methods.”

  “Threats?” Povel pressed his palm to his chest in exaggerated horror. Behind him, the bear stood up on its hind legs; it was easily a dozen feet tall. “Whatever would the Maitresse think if she heard you?” Povel looked around in a show of agony that could have been rehearsed.

  As if on cue, the Maitresse arrived at Sal’s side. Or perhaps she had been there all along. She steered Sal away by an elbow. “Walk with me,” she said. She guided them away from the crowd and into the empty garden. It was thick with roses, or the shadows of them. There were no lights here, and the June air clung to Sal, moist and heavy.

  They followed a path of pale cobblestones between yew trees trained into an arch. There was a little clearing rounded by hedges, with a fountain in the center. Beside it was a stone bench carved of marble. The Maitresse sat upon it, leaving Sal and Grace standing. “You must understand,” the Maitresse said, “I have nothing but gratitude for your helping me during a difficult situation.” She turned her face to the stars, examining them impassively.

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming up,” Sal said.

  “You and me both,” Grace murmured.

  The fountain chuckled to itself. Sal resisted the urge to stare at the statue at its apex. In the absence of artificial light, she couldn’t see its shape clearly, but she couldn’t shake the idea that the thing was shifting its weight or making faces every time she turned away from it.

  “You have done me a favor,” the Maitresse said, “but that does not mean that you can demand repayment. That debt has been settled. No matter how fondly I look upon you, the rules of the Market Arcanum are the same for everyone. Do not think I will support you in a dispute with any of my other guests.”

  “We weren’t trying to pick a fight,” Grace said. “But we aren’t going to let anyone take advantage of us, either.”

  The Maitresse sighed. “Nonetheless.”

  She turned to them, and this time she was young and radiantly beautiful. She gave an impish smile. “We might still be friends,” said the maiden. “Just … not during the Market. You understand, don’t you?”

  Sal nodded, slowly. “Of course,” she said.

  “Thank you,” the Maitresse said. And then she was her ageless self again. She rose and glided away.

  Grace and Sal stayed in the garden a while longer, breathing in the heady June scents in companionable silence. “It’s going to be a long weekend, isn’t it?” Sal asked at last.

  “Longer than most.”

  And then Sal realized one more reason why the Market felt so different this time. It wasn’t just the newcomers; the Market had been full of wild characters before, too. But there was something missing: the Network. There hadn’t been a sign of a techno-cultist anywhere in the place. She felt a pang, something between regret and victory. She’d have to call her brother soon, and tell him she missed him.

  Of course, the Network had never been the only dangerous game in town. Sal and Grace would have to be on their guard. Just like always.

  3.

  Menchú prayed as he walked the streets of Rome. He sought out crowds to lose himself in. At other times he had found the divine in quiet and open places, but just now they reminded him of secrets and of death instead. Majesty was not a quality solely belonging to goodness.

  Better to be here among the press of humanity, the tang of sweat and the rumbling, crashing voices. If nothing else, it reminded him that he was not alone. It reminded him that he had a purpose.

  He slipped around a stroller between Hail Marys. He paused and let a Vespa pass in front of him wi
th the Our Father on his lips, though unvoiced. This was what he lived and fought for: the lovers lolling at the edge of a fountain, sharing a gelato. The lone photographer goggling at a stone pine. The flocks of jugglers in the square, doing their utmost to dazzle passing tourists out of their foreign money.

  A family flagged Menchú down: mother, father, son. “Photo?” the mother asked, handing him her smartphone. They waited for him in a well-studied pose, their hands reaching as if to drink from an otherwise unremarkable street fountain.

  Menchú raised the phone and took the shot. For a moment, the son’s eyes flashed pale. Menchú’s lungs could not bring in more air.

  No—no, it was not Hannah. Just a passing reflection from the flash. The boy looked not unlike the angel-child from Guatemala, but his eyes were brown. And if that long-ago boy were still alive, Menchú reflected, he would have been the father now, not the son.

  The family collected their phone from Menchú, cooing over the photo. Menchú allowed himself to be pushed onward in the crowd before they could even complete their effusive thanks.

  Hannah. Since San Lupino, she’d become a cage for the mind. Everywhere he looked he thought he heard a sharp voice, or saw her deadly eyes. If she was a demon—and he had no reason to believe she was anything else—then perhaps she could inhabit any body, in any place.

  She could be watching him now. She could have been watching him for years.

  Menchú shook his head. Pain was useful, but only to a point. He had to ignore the pain now, to think through his memories. He did not need to work out what Hannah was; that was irrelevant in anything except a purely academic sense, or perhaps a theological one. No, he had to work out what she was up to, and why. Why him. Why then, and why now. What was he meant to do? Was there even a purpose to his torment, or was he a mere plaything?

  The afternoon was hot. He wiped his forehead, his chin. He let the flow of people guide his steps. He tried to fix his head on the important facts of the situation. He was alive, and he had the power to protect the lives of others.

  What did Hannah want? He rolled her long-ago words around in his head. Let this be a lesson to you. He had concluded that this was a barb about hubris. But travel agent Hannah had seemed to think there was another moral there for him.

  He touched fingers to his rosary and began another round of Hail Marys. If he could see through the pain, maybe he could decipher what all of this meant.

  Surely it meant something. It had to. It had to.

  • • •

  Grace watched over Sal as she slept. Her hands were curled into fists, one knee kicked out of the blanket as if she were ready to flee at any moment.

  Grace could be sleeping, too, but her candle burned whether she was awake or not, and it seemed a waste to spend even more time with her eyes closed than she needed to. Instead she read by moonlight, or she tried to. It was harder than ever for her to concentrate and drown out the chaos of everything she thought and felt.

  There was a rustle from the curtains. Grace crossed to make sure the window was tightly shut. It was, just as she’d left it. When she inspected the street below, there was nothing to be found. Just pools of lamplight on cobbles, and the swift passage of clouds over the face of the moon.

  She stayed for a while, watchful, but nothing stirred.

  She returned to her book, or at least to watching her friend and colleague sleep. Sal hadn’t put Grace on the spot yet. But even during her waking hours, they weren’t speaking. Not about the Market Arcanum and the nonsense “mission” that Sal could have done alone. Not about why Grace had transferred to Team One, not that Fox seemed to have noticed, given how often she wound up back with her old team. Not about how Grace had thrown herself into the mouth of a sea serpent.

  Sal wanted to talk about it very badly. She was all expectant pauses and searching gazes, providing a place for Grace to volunteer information without Sal having to ask outright. That was too bad. Sal was simply going to have to suffer her curiosity.

  Grace heard a scratching from the walls and tensed again. It couldn’t be the wind in the trees; the ones lining the avenue were set far from the building. They couldn’t have reached the walls short of being uprooted by a tornado.

  Mice, perhaps, though she wouldn’t have thought the Maitresse would allow her guests to suffer from such an unhygienic state of affairs, off-premises or no. Certainly Grace hadn’t seen any signs of vermin in their otherwise spotless bed-and-breakfast. Not counting the invited attendees of the Market Arcanum.

  She thought she heard footsteps behind her, and whirled. There was nothing to see. She moved anyway, sprinting toward the source of the sound. Her fingers brushed empty air.

  Sal stirred in bed. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s nothing,” Grace said. But she wasn’t so sure. She stayed alert through the night, book in her lap, waiting for something that never came.

  • • •

  Sal marched up to the Swedish contingent bearing the tiny box of chess pieces. “Let’s get this done, Povel,” she said.

  “Not even a hello? No social graces at all? Asanti will be shocked when I tell her.”

  “Asanti already knows what Sal is like,” Grace said drily. “Trust me, she won’t be shocked.”

  “I don’t have to give you the book, you know,” said the Swede. He buffed his nails on his suede jacket. “It’s been in my family for generations. Perhaps I’ve decided that the sentimental attachment is too much and I cannot bear to part with it.”

  “The Maitresse doesn’t take kindly to broken deals,” Sal said.

  Povel laughed. “The Maitresse wouldn’t do anything to upset my grandfather, believe me.” Behind him, the bear yawned. Its teeth were yellow and very long.

  “It’s dangerous for you to have the book,” Sal said. “I’m sure you know that.”

  He looked at her pityingly. “And to think all you want to do with such history is burn it.”

  “We don’t actually burn the books,” Sal said. Her shoulders were growing tight. Don’t let him get on your nerves, she told herself. Don’t know why he’s trying to needle you, but he definitely is. “Are you ready to finish the deal or not?”

  Povel sighed theatrically. “Fine. Fine! Let me see the pieces. I’m not certain that I can trust Asanti to have found them for me. Or that you won’t try to cheat me!”

  Grace tensed again, looming bear or not.

  “Look for yourself.” Sal showed the Swede Asanti’s carefully wrapped bundle. “Enjoy it in good health?”

  Povel sniffed. “We’ll see. Open it.”

  Sal gritted her teeth and unwrapped the folds of velvet to show him. Povel bent to look, then pulled the chess pieces out of the box one at a time. He held them up to the moon, admiring them from every possible angle. “Can it be?” he breathed. “I never dreamed that Asanti would truly find them. They are exquisite!”

  “Well?” Grace held out her hand, palm up. “Where’s the book?”

  The Swede sniffed with distaste, then carefully nestled the chess pieces back into their case. “It is in a secure place,” he said. “I still need to verify the provenance of these pieces and make sure they are not a clever fabrication.” He reached to pull the box out of Sal’s hands.

  Sal tightened her grip. “Hold up. I’m not going to let you keep these without—”

  The Market went dark. This was no ordinary darkness from loss of power or blown-out candles; there were no shadows, no sound, no sense of motion. The moon and stars were snuffed out. Even the bright memory of light behind closed eyelids was gone. Sal heard a shriek, but distantly, as if the screamer had been muffled in a dozen quilts. Or perhaps her ears had.

  Sal tried to move, but either she couldn’t, or she couldn’t tell she had; she had no sense of where her body was in space. The darkness went on forever.

  When the world came back, three things had changed: Sal was chest-down on the ground, Grace standing over her with ready fists. The bear was howling over a pa
le and shaken Povel. And the box of chess pieces was gone.

  The market buzzed with frantic, frightened chatter.

  “What just happened here?” Sal asked.

  Povel’s gray-suited advisor glared at her. “We’ve been robbed,” she said.

  Grace scowled. “Are you trying to pull one over on us? We handed the goods over to you. Now give us the book. A deal is a deal.”

  “You handed over nothing! Who can say if those so-called pieces were anything but a brief illusion? I have no way to know, now that they are conveniently gone!” The Swede’s voice rose to a crescendo of indignation. “If you don’t get those pieces back for me, the deal is off! I won’t be taken advantage of. We all know Bookburners are thugs and swindlers, but I won’t have it!”

  “How do I know you didn’t just take them?” Sal demanded. “You were already trying to grab them from me. You could’ve just stuck them in your man-bag, or shoved them into the belly of your bear-thing friend over there.”

  The Swede drew himself tall. The bear stood to its full height behind him and roared. “How dare you,” Povel hissed. “How dare you insinuate that I would be so dishonorable as to—”

  Grace grinned and bounced on her toes, eyes fixed on the bear. “Do you want to play?”

  Fellow market-goers around them fell silent for a second time. Sal could practically see their ears grow three sizes. The Swede’s accountant or lawyer or whoever she was tapped on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.

  He shrugged her away. “I don’t care,” he snapped. “I don’t have to take this insult, no matter what that woman says.”

  The Maitresse glided over, crackling with rage and unspent power. The blackout had apparently caught her attention. “Of course, the Bookburners. I should have known I’d find you at the heart of this disturbance.”

  “We’ve been robbed,” Sal told her. “That’s against the rules, right?”