The Forbidden Library

by Django Wexler

A brief inspection of the walls had turned up a brick that had cracked in half, and from the loose section Alice had broken off a vaguely wedge-shaped fragment. With this she attacked the mortar around some of the bricks beside the doorway, at about head-height. Her tool was crude, but the mortar was so old, wet, and rotten that some of the bricks were loose to begin with. After a little bit of work, she managed to lever a couple out of their sockets, and went to work on another pair a little farther down.

  “If you’re planning to tunnel through the wall,” Ashes said, looking on curiously, “I don’t think it’s going to help.”

  Alice ignored him. When she’d pulled out two more bricks, she tossed them aside and clambered up onto the wall, using the spaces she’d made as hand- and footholds. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but she was able to climb a good four feet off the ground, without any immediate danger of losing her grip. She dropped back to the floor, wincing at the pain in her abused feet, and shrugged out of the cotton nightshirt with its shredded sleeves and stains. The shift she wore underneath was thin, and the air here was chilly enough to make her shiver. She climbed up onto the edge of the basin and tested the water with one finger. It was frigidly cold.

  Gritting her teeth, she thrust the shirt into the water and spread it over the grille at the bottom of the basin. The suction held it in place, but just to be sure, she retrieved a couple of the bricks and dropped them on top. Water was escaping through a few tears in the fabric, but not enough to balance the flow from the pipe, and the water in the basin was already rising fast. Ashes looked on, aghast.

  “Come on,” Alice said. “You’re going to have to sit on my shoulder.”

  “I should say so,” the cat said, hurrying to her side. She lifted him up as the water reached the edge of the basin and spilled out onto the floor. Alice perched him on her shoulder and then, feeling the frigid water lapping around her feet, turned to the door.

  This was the hard part. The banging on the door had not relented, and when she put her hand on the inner latch she could feel it vibrate with each impact. She spent a moment mentally rehearsing what she had to do, while Ashes balanced precariously on her shoulder, the pinpricks of his claws digging through her shift.

  “Right,” she said aloud. “Here goes nothing.”

  She pushed the latch and gave the door a tug, pulling it inward a fraction of an inch. Almost immediately the swarmers on the other side pushed forward, shoving the portal open and spilling into the room with triumphant quirks while a flood of water flowed around their legs and into the corridor. Alice jumped for her handholds on the wall, felt her fingers slip on the wet brick for a heart-stopping moment, and managed to hang on by digging her nails into the mortar. She risked a look down—the door was half-open now, and more and more of the little black creatures came into the room, carpeting the floor until it was a seething, quirking mass of swarmers. The ones closest to her started to jump for her exposed feet, but they couldn’t quite get the height they needed to reach her, and their beaks rasped against the brickwork.

  “I don’t mean to be a bother,” Ashes said, his claws now gripping tight enough to draw beads of blood, “but I fail to see how this has helped.”

  “Hang on,” Alice said.

  “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.”

  The water pouring out of the basin was now flowing into the corridor in a steady stream. The edge of the door was only a foot away, but it still required all of Alice’s courage to reach out to it, endangering her precarious position by shifting her weight. A bit of mortar crunched under one foot, and she stopped breathing, but she didn’t slip free. Her fingertips found the door and pushed. Slowly at first, hinges protesting, the door started to close. The swarmers in its path quirked indignantly and pressed into the room, climbing atop the living carpet of their fellows. Alice pushed harder, and the door swung shut with a resounding boom and a click from the latch.

  The iron door wasn’t quite watertight, but it was the next best thing. The flood that had been escaping into the corridor now had nowhere to go, and within moments Alice could see the water level in the little room rising. Inch by inch, the frigid stream spilled over the lip of the basin and started to climb up the walls.

  Ashes eyed it balefully. “Do you think they float?”

  “No,” Alice said. “I picked one up earlier, and they’re much too dense.”

  The rising water covered the swarmers’ legs now. The living carpet writhed, trying to escape, and more and more of them threw themselves at the brickwork by her feet. A few even managed to find scrabbling holds, digging their beaks into the mortar, but they couldn’t hang on for more than a few seconds before falling back into the mass.

  “We used to have rats in the house,” Alice said, staring at the bricks a few inches in front of her face. “They would put traps down, but sometimes they wouldn’t work properly, and the poor things would still be alive. Father would have the servants take them outside and drown them in the rain barrel.” She swallowed hard. “I always felt sorry for them.”

  “Better them than us,” Ashes said. The water was now at least a foot high, covering the swarmers, but it still boiled with the swarmers’ struggle to escape. “You realize it is going to be us in a few minutes?”

  “I’ll open the door and let the water out,” Alice said.

  Ashes thought about the geometry of that for a moment. “And where will I be standing when this happens, pray?”

  “Cats can swim, can’t they?”

  “I’ve never had occasion to find out! Besides, I’m only half cat.”

  “It’ll be a learning experience, then.”

  “I absolutely refuse!”

  “You’ve got a couple of minutes to think of another plan, then.”

  They waited in silence as the water rose. The surface no longer boiled, but Alice wasn’t sure if that meant the swarmers had drowned, or if they were just too deep underwater. To be safe she gave it until the rising tide was nearly at her toes.

  “Have you thought of anything?”

  “I’m still thinking,” Ashes said desperately.

  “Too late.” Alice drew in a breath and dropped off her handhold.

  She had learned to swim in the beaches along Long Island, on summer vacations and visits to her parents’ friends. The Atlantic was always cold, even on a sunny day, but this was something else entirely. It hit her like a punch to the gut, driving the air from her lungs. She managed to kick enough to keep off the bottom—the thought of putting a foot down among the mass of drowned swarmers turned her stomach—and fumbled for the latch on the door. Behind her, Ashes had taken a flying leap from her shoulder, tried to get a hold on the brickwork, and ended up in the water anyway. He paddled desperately, shrieking incoherently.

  Alice tried to work the latch, but her fingers had gone instantly numb. Her hands felt as though they were encased in blocks of ice. She pressed down with the palm of her hand and gave the handle a hard tug, but the door didn’t so much as budge. Sudden realization dawned.

  “Too much water on this side.” Her teeth were chattering. “I can’t . . . open it . . . too heavy . . .”

  Ashes didn’t hear, or didn’t answer. Alice pushed weakly away from the door, in the direction of the basin. If she could remove the nightshirt, the water might start to drain—not fast enough, she suspected, but it was all she could think of. But the cold was in her now, stealing along her limbs and clutching icy fingers through her chest. Her legs felt like they’d been strapped to concrete blocks, and keeping her head above water was all she could manage. Presently, even that seemed impossible. Her jaw was so tightly locked, she thought her teeth would shatter, and her arms had gone completely numb. She tried to paddle, but only managed a weak thrashing. There was a stinging pain from the wound in her cheek as it went below the surface.

  She wondered if her father had felt like this as the Gideon ca
me apart around him. She could see him, clinging to a rail as the ship slipped below the waves. She couldn’t breathe.

  Something shifted, as though a hole had opened in the floor and the water was streaming out, sucking Alice down with it. But the water wasn’t moving, only Alice, and she was moving not down but away, in a direction perpendicular to the usual three dimensions. She felt something strain, and then snap—

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE WIZARD OF THE LIBRARY

  SHE OPENED HER EYES to the familiar flicker of gaslight.

  She was in a bed, under thick covers, soft and heavy and above all, warm. It felt wonderful, and for a while she simply luxuriated in the sensation. She was wearing a fresh nightgown, and someone had attended to her cuts and scrapes. Her hands and feet were wound with linen, and a bandage was affixed to her cheek with sticking plaster.

  The room was not one she recognized, but by the rich décor she guessed it was somewhere in Geryon’s private suite. Bookcases lined the walls, and a fire glowed from a small hearth. A high-backed armchair had been positioned beside the bed, as though someone had been sitting beside her.

  Alice lay back, covers pulled up to her chin, and savored the warmth and the simple sensation of being alive. After being nearly devoured, drowned, frozen, and stabbed, she was content to let matters take their course for a while.

  As it happened, she didn’t have long to wait. The wood-paneled door opened to reveal Geryon himself, carrying a steaming mug in both hands. He padded across the room in his carpet slippers, looking just as he had when she’d first seen him, in ratty clothing and old-fashioned whiskers, but something indefinable had changed. The way he moved carried a sense of purpose, of power, and the air fairly crackled as he passed.

  “I see that you’re awake,” he said, setting the mug on the nightstand. He settled himself in the chair beside the bed and gave a brief smile. “I can only imagine you’re very confused.”

  “You’re a wizard,” she said flatly. He raised one eyebrow, and she shook her head violently. “You’re a wizard, and you’ve got a magical library, and if you try to tell me that I’ve been . . . ill, or hallucinating, or anything like that, I swear I’m going to scream. That was not a fever-dream.”

  “I wouldn’t insult your intelligence with the suggestion.” Geryon stroked his whiskers.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just—I wasn’t sure if you would—”

  “It’s all right.” Geryon settled back in the chair. “As for ‘wizard,’ I have certainly been called such a thing. Also a sorcerer, a magi, a saint, and a devil. Among ourselves, we tend to use the term ‘Reader’ for those who have the gift. It is a little more . . . accurate.”

  “Ashes said something like that,” Alice said. She paused. There were a thousand questions that leaped immediately to mind, but one shouldered the others aside. “Do you know what happened to my father?”

  Geryon pursed his lips. “I’m afraid that is a long story, and not a pleasant one.”

  “Please. I have to know.” Alice looked away from his face, almost afraid to ask. “Is he really dead?”

  “I . . . do not know.” Something of Alice’s feelings must have shown on her face, because Geryon sighed and shook his head. “Oh, I don’t wish to give you false hope. He is dead, almost certainly. All I meant is that the manner of his death might not be that which was reported to the world.”

  Alice’s throat was suddenly tight. “What really happened?”

  “To understand that, you must understand a little bit about Readers.” He glanced at the mug on the nightstand. “You should drink that before it goes cold, by the way.”

  “Why?” Alice eyed it suspiciously. “Is it a potion?”

  Geryon chuckled and shook his head. Alice picked up the mug and took a sniff, then a cautious sip. It was cocoa, thick and sweet.

  “There aren’t many of us,” Geryon went on. “Readers, I mean. The talent is a rare thing, and of those who have it, the vast majority go through their whole lives without ever realizing their potential. There are perhaps two dozen fully trained Readers in the entire world. Most of them, I’m sorry to say, prefer things this way, and to them any talented newcomer is either a prize to be possessed or a threat to be eliminated.”

  “You mean me, don’t you?” Alice said.

  Geryon nodded. “You have the potential to be a great Reader, Alice. Perhaps the greatest of the age, with the right training. Unfortunately, this puts you in danger. Ever since you were a little girl, I have been doing my best to protect you.”

  “Why?” Alice said. “Are you really my uncle?”

  “It would be more accurate to say that I am your great-great-great-grandfather, although it’s possible I have left out a generation somewhere. At times the records are a bit muddled. Nevertheless, I make a point of looking after my family. I am a sentimental man, in my fashion.”

  “But . . .” She wanted to say “That’s impossible,” but realized how foolish it would sound. Instead she took a sip from the cocoa. “Was my father a Reader? Did he know about any of this?”

  “He was not a Reader himself, that is for certain. The gift runs in families, but only fitfully, and it will often skip several generations. As for how much he knew, I’m not certain. What I do know is that my efforts to keep you secret eventually failed, and one of my . . . colleagues, another Reader . . . learned of your potential. I believe this person contacted your father.”

  “I saw something like that.” Alice swallowed hard. “Why would he go off and leave me behind after that?”

  “Again, I can only speculate. Maybe your father thought he could draw attention away from you by leaving, and he may have succeeded. My guess is that this other Reader took your father from the Gideon and sank it to cover himself. When I heard what had happened, I realized I had to bring you here at once.”

  “Then he could still be alive,” Alice blurted. “My father. If someone took him . . .”

  Geryon closed his eyes. He looked weary, and somehow ancient beyond the years that showed on his face. “I don’t pretend to know for certain. But I do know the nature of my fellow Readers, and they are not the sort of people who would keep a tool around when it had lost its value. We are, I’m afraid to say, a rather callous fraternity.”

  “All right.” She squirreled the idea away for later examination. “Why bring me here and not tell me any of this? You must have known I would find out eventually!”

  “I thought you might,” Geryon said. “Although you have not had as gentle an introduction as I had hoped for.”

  Alice bristled. “You might have warned me.”

  “I believe I did,” Geryon said mildly. “Simply having the talent is not enough. I brought you here in part to find out what kind of person you were. Some minds—most minds, I should say, most of humanity—are so closed to the idea of the supernatural that they wrap themselves in a blanket of normality, and when anything leaks through they make up little stories to explain it. ‘I was dreaming,’ say, or ‘I imagined it all.’ If you confront such a mind with incontrovertible proof, there is always the risk that it will simply crack.” Geryon spread his hands. “I had no wish to bring you here simply to drive you mad.”

  “Are you sure you haven’t?” Alice said, a bit testily. Privately, though, she was relieved to discover that Geryon had known all along she would sneak into the library. In a way, it meant that she hadn’t really broken the rules after all.

  Geryon smiled. “Quite sure,” he said.

  Alice paused, considering. “What about Emma, and Mr. Black and the others? Are they . . .”

  “Readers? No. They are my servants, as they claimed to be.”

  “And they know about all this?”

  Geryon nodded. “Don’t blame them for not letting you in on the secret. I gave them very strict instructions. If you’re angry, be angry with me.”


  “I don’t think I’m angry,” Alice said, examining her own feelings with mild curiosity. “But what happens now?”

  Geryon’s face was suddenly grave. “Now,” he said, “you have a choice to make.”

  “Choice?” The mug of cocoa was empty. Alice set it aside and gripped the blanket a little tighter. “What kind of choice?”

  “A Reader’s life is a dangerous one, for herself and everyone around her.” Geryon scratched his whiskers. “It is not, truthfully, a life I would wish on anyone, and I will not force it on you. But neither can I leave you untrained and helpless, blundering about with the power to open doors and no idea what lies behind them.”

  “It doesn’t sound like I have a choice,” Alice said. “If I have the talent, I have it, like it or not.”

  “Not necessarily. I could erase your memories of what happened, and ensure you never stumbled onto the secret again. Your life would go on as before, and you would always have a place here. I would make certain that you were happy.”

  Alice felt her skin crawl. “You mean you’d cut my skull open and fool around in my brain?”

  “In a manner of speaking. But you would feel no pain, I assure you. It is the only chance for a normal life you have left.”

  Alice closed her eyes. It ought to sound attractive, she guessed. If I could just forget about all of this, forget everything and just be a normal girl . . .

  But this was the way the world was. It was deeper and stranger and scarier than she’d ever imagined, but it was real. To forget, to give up now, would just be giving in to her fear. And Alice’s father hadn’t raised her to give up.

  You’ll be afraid, he’d told her once. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. The important thing is what you do about it.

  “What’s the other choice?”

  “You become my apprentice,” Geryon said. “You work here, and I train you until you’re ready to defend yourself.”

  “How long will that be?”

  “Years. Maybe decades. And even when you’re trained, you’ll be a Reader, with all the dangers that implies. The mundane world will be closed to you forever.” He shook his head. “I know you did not ask for this, and I know it must be difficult for you. But there is no other way, I promise you.”