The Forbidden Library

by Django Wexler

  At the other end, one root-tip began to grow, stretching down into the settling avalanche with single-minded purpose. It burrowed into the cloud of dust, snaking around and beneath the boulders, which rocked and shifted as the Dragon struggled. Alice could only sense the creature as a vague warmth, and then as a hard, scaly presence as the root slid along the side of its pinned snout.

  Grow, Alice urged. Grow, grow, grow. The tree itself was rapidly wilting, leaves turning yellow and falling away as Alice diverted its energy to fuel the one berserk root.

  The Dragon shifted, but the mass of rock pinned it in place. All it could move was its tail, but that would be enough, eventually. Alice heard a crunch as a boulder came free, then another. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the root, guiding it by sense of touch down the Dragon’s body, curling around the thick neck in front of the first pair of shoulders, wrapping around it once, twice, and then curling over and about itself in a living parody of a hangman’s noose.

  The root began to thicken, changing from a pale tendril to the solid, bark-skinned limb of a mature tree. She could feel, through the tree, the Dragon’s attempts to struggle, but the root held on with patient vegetable strength, and the huge creature couldn’t get any of its legs free to claw its way out.

  For a moment, the contest hung in the balance, the Dragon struggling to draw breath, the dying tree tightening its grip, notch by remorseless notch, even as the rest of its body collapsed. Alice found herself holding her own breath, teeth clenched, fists closed so tight, her fingernails were four points of pain against her palms.

  “Well played, child,” the Dragon said, voice unimpeded by the vine wrapped around its throat. “But we both know it’s not going to be enough.”

  Alice held on for all she was worth.

  “Then,” she growled, “I’ll think of something else.”

  A deep, rumbling laugh echoed through her mind. “You still claim to have come here by accident?”

  “I told you,” Alice said. “No one sent me.”

  “Fierce. Small, but fierce.” A long moment passed. “Perhaps my sister has gotten more than she bargained for. In which case, there may be a chance . . .”

  The Dragon’s voice echoed hollowly around the inside of Alice’s head.

  “Very well,” it said. “I submit.”

  No sooner had it said the words than the world began to dissolve around them. The sky went gray, then black, and the rocks underfoot fuzzed out into a gray mist and disappeared. It was like looking through a camera as it lost focus, but for sound and touch and smell as well as vision. For a moment, Alice felt like she was falling, alone in an infinite void. Then reality snapped into being all around her, and she was lying on her back on the dusty floor of the library, next to Isaac, one hand still gripping the cover of the ancient leather-bound book.

  A last echo of the Dragon’s voice buzzed at the back of her mind.

  “And I will be interested, little sister, to see what you can do . . .”

  She took a deep breath, inhaling half a pound of dust, and regretted it immediately. A coughing fit turned her on her side and doubled her over, raising more dust all around her. Some instinct made her keep ahold of the book, which she clutched to her stomach like a drowning man grabbing a rope.

  Alice could hear Isaac coughing as well, and as she brought her spasming lungs under control she realized he was hiccupping and laughing too, all at once. When Alice had regained sufficient breath to sit up, she found him lying on his back, the rent and torn remnants of his coat spread beneath him, with tears of laughter squeezing out onto his cheeks.

  “You did it,” he said, when he caught sight of her, followed by a word she didn’t understand. “You really did it. The Dragon.”

  “You helped,” Alice said.

  “Only after you convinced me not to lay down and die.” Isaac sat up, rubbing his eyes with the sleeves of his coat, which left dark stains of dirty grit across his cheeks. “I would have . . . I don’t know. I didn’t think it was possible.”

  “Neither did I,” Alice said truthfully. “But my father always said there’s no percentage in hanging about.”

  They fell into silence. Isaac’s eyes went to the book, which Alice still clutched tightly to her chest. He looked away, sighed, and rolled to his feet, groaning like he’d aged sixty years. Alice levered herself up with one hand, unwilling to release the book even for a moment. Her feet—bare again, she noticed—swept up the dust of the library floor.

  Behind them was the table, still bearing the hurricane lamp. Above it, faint and spectral, Alice could see the wraith-like Siren, and a faint hint of her music still pervaded the air. Isaac found the other lamp lying where he’d dropped it in their scuffle. He picked it up and made a futile attempt to pat the dust off his trousers.

  “Well?” Alice said. “What now?”

  “I’ll go back to my master,” Isaac said. “I haven’t got the book, but I have got the Dragon. That ought to count for something.” He hesitated. “You’ve got it too, haven’t you?”

  Alice felt around at the back of her mind. There were three threads there now—the silver one belonging to the Swarm, the wooden tendril of the tree-sprite, and another, black and shining like obsidian. Even without touching it, she could feel it thrumming with power. Taking hold of it sent a thrill through her essence, like licking a live battery, but when she gave it a tentative tug, it barely shifted.

  “We were both in the book when it submitted to us,” Isaac said. “I don’t think I’ll have the power to use it if I live a thousand years.” He sounded a little in awe. “But . . .”

  Alice was silent. She could feel Isaac, she realized, feel his touch on the thread. It ran through both of them, and back to the book she clutched under her arm. It wasn’t a connection of minds, or even voices; just a sense of contact, like sitting side by side on a bench with their hands intertwined. She found herself smiling, a little inanely, and realized he was doing the same.

  “And you?” Isaac said. “What will you do?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “I know I didn’t tell you . . . the whole truth,” he said. “But I meant what I said about Geryon. He’s the worst of the Readers. All the other old ones hate him, even more than they do each other.”

  “He took me in,” Alice said. “He didn’t have to.”

  “If he did, then there’s something in it for him. And Ending is just as bad. You can’t trust either of them.”

  “Even if you’re right,” Alice said, “which I don’t admit, what can I do?”

  “I don’t know.” Isaac shook his head. “Be careful.”

  This, Alice thought, was not the most helpful advice she had ever received. But she tried to take it in the spirit it was meant. “I will.”

  “All right.” Isaac looked around. “I’d better go. I don’t know how much longer Siren’s power will last.”

  Alice nodded, a little uncertainly. She felt like there was something else she ought to say, but she didn’t know how to say it, or even what it was.

  Isaac took a step toward her, putting them nearly face-to-face. Alice’s fingers curled around the edges of the book, drawing it tighter against her side, and she fought her automatic urge to back away. Isaac’s face was a mess, scratched, bruised, and smudged, but looked at up close she thought it wasn’t a bad face, all things considered.

  “Alice?” he said, very quietly.

  Her voice was barely a whisper. “Yes?”

  He leaned in and kissed her. His lips were dry, and tasted of gritty stone and dust. Alice’s fingers curled so hard against the book that they ached, and after a moment or two she closed her eyes.

  It seemed like an age before he pulled away. Her lips tingled, as though he’d passed along an electric charge.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, with a lopsided grin. “It�
�s part of the spell.”

  Alice had a single moment to be furious before the music of the Siren rose all around her, a quiescent orchestra building to an unexpected crescendo. As her mind drifted away on that exquisite, all-encompassing melody, the last thing she felt were his hands on hers, gently tugging the book from her slackening fingers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  A BIT OF BLACKMAIL

  I THINK HE’S STILL TRYING to figure out what happened,” Ashes said. “And who to blame.”

  “Who can there be to blame besides himself?” Alice said.

  “This may come as a shock to you,” the cat drawled, “but while Geryon has many sterling qualities, accepting blame is not one of them. I think he would like to blame Mother, but he can’t quite figure out how.”

  “I just hope he doesn’t take it into his head to blame me,” Alice said.

  “I think you’re off the hook,” said Ashes, rolling onto his back and batting playfully at nothing. “Blaming you would be like admitting that the great and powerful Master Geryon needs a little apprentice girl to defend his domain, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how he would feel about that.”

  Alice fell silent, leaning against a bookshelf and watching the dust dance and sparkle in the light of the hurricane lamp. They were in the relatively well-ordered part of the library, out of sight of Mr. Wurms’ table. Alice was supposed to be retrieving a particular volume for the scholar, but she’d found her mind wandering.

  It had been a week since the break-in. Alice had awoken back in her bed in the house, and had stayed there for twenty-four hours, bruised and exhausted. During that time, according to Ashes, Geryon had shut everyone up in their rooms and ransacked the entire estate with a pack of vicious creatures at his heel. He’d discovered the rogue book that had given Isaac a way in and had a long talk with Ending, then stomped back into the house as unsatisfied as ever.

  Alice, on waking, had given him an abbreviated version of her story. She’d left out any mention of friendship or cooperation with Isaac—not that he deserved any protection, she thought, cheeks burning—and said only that she’d woken up to find everyone under the Siren’s spell, had chased the thief, and ended up inside the Dragon’s book. This last had given Geryon pause, and he’d spent a long time examining her afterward.

  After that there had been no more talk of erasing her memory. Life had gone back to normal, or what passed for normal under the circumstances.

  “It’s not here,” Alice said to Ashes, dragging her finger along the spines of a shelf’s worth of books. It came away gray with dust. “I’ll go and check the other side.”

  Ashes was still sprawled on a shelf, all four legs in the air. His tail twitched aimlessly, and he directed a lengthy yawn at Alice.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll be right here.”

  There was a gap in the shelves a little farther on, and Alice slipped through into the next aisle, then counted bookcases until she found the one opposite where she’d been looking. It was stacked full of dusty volumes, and she sighed and knelt down to start looking at the bottom.

  A moment later, she felt the odd twisting sensation of the library shifting around her. Alice straightened up slowly, keeping her eyes on the shelf.

  “I was wondering when you’d turn up,” she said.

  The sound from behind her was halfway between a chuckle and a purr.

  “Oh, Alice, Alice,” Ending said. “I hope you’re not angry with me.”

  “I have every right to be. You lied to Isaac, and you lied to me.”

  “Now, that’s not fair.” Alice could hear the feline smile in Ending’s voice. “I told you both you could have the book. I could hardly be lying to both of you.”

  “Unless you planned to turn it over to Geryon all along.”

  “Believe me when I say that was the last thing I wanted.” Ending heaved a rumbling sigh. “You must understand our position, Alice. I—and all my kind, my brothers and sisters—are bound to serve the Readers. They hold tremendous power over us, and we cannot defy them openly. So we are forced to meddle and scheme in the shadows, out of sight.”

  “You once told me you did that because it was your nature,” Alice said.

  “When you are as old as I am,” Ending said, “one’s nature is largely a product of habit.”

  Alice turned around. There was an alcove in the shelves that hadn’t been there before, deep in shadow, and all that her lantern was able to pick out was a pair of slitted yellow eyes.

  “You said ‘brothers and sisters,’” Alice said. “And when I spoke to the Dragon, he talked about his sister. Did he mean you?”

  “If he was angry, I’m afraid he did,” Ending said. “He was one who refused to serve, long ago, and was thrown in a prison-book for his troubles. He blames me and the others for not coming to his aid.” Ending cocked her head. “He is, I think, a bit mad. Who wouldn’t be, after so many years alone? But I have tried to care for him as best I could, and make sure none of the Readers had a chance to bind him.”

  But he called me . . . Alice shook her head. Ending’s soft purr of a voice was beguiling, and she had to keep reminding herself that she couldn’t trust her. Best not to tell her everything.

  Instead she said, “But now this Anaxomander has the book, and the Dragon ended up bound to me.”

  “Far from the worst of all possible outcomes,” Ending said. “Anaxomander is weak, compared to Geryon. I doubt he will dare a confrontation with my brother soon. As for you . . .” There was a gleam of light on sharp, ivory-white teeth as Ending smiled. “I have hopes that you have it in you to be better than the others.”

  Alice felt a little flush of pride, and berated herself for it. “Be that as it may,” she said, “you still owe me. I want your help with Vespidian.”

  “Whatever I can do, of course,” Ending murmured. “But without the book . . .”

  “No one knows it was stolen except for me and Geryon. And you and Ashes, I suppose. But Mr. Black doesn’t know, and that means as far as Vespidian is concerned, Geryon still has it. And that means we still have a chance.”

  Alice paused in front of the door to the basement steps, took a deep breath, and rapped loudly.

  “Mr. Black!” she said. “I’m coming in.”

  The last time she’d been here, she and Isaac had crept down the stairs, dreading every creak. Now Alice marched down as if she owned the place, doing her best to ignore the fluttering in her stomach.

  Mr. Black was crouching in front of a squat round furnace, orange light flooding through a grilled window and painting the room with twisting shadows. Alice could feel the blast of heat even from the door. She cleared her throat conspicuously.

  Slowly, the huge man got to his feet and turned around. His jaw worked from side to side, rustling his bushy black beard.

  “I didn’t think I’d see you in here again for a while,” he said. “Awful bold, if you ask me.”

  “I wanted to talk to you,” Alice said.

  “But I don’t care to talk to you,” Mr. Black said. “So get out, while you’re still able.”

  “I know you’ve been working with Vespidian,” Alice said, as calmly as she was able. “I know you tried to sell him the Dragon. And I know you told him where to find me.”

  There was a long pause. Something in the furnace popped with a shower of sparks.

  “That’s a dangerous thing to say,” Mr. Black rumbled. “If you know so much, why haven’t you gone to the master? Unless you don’t think he’d take your word over mine.” He smiled, showing blackened teeth.

  “He wouldn’t have to take my word for it,” Alice said. She swallowed hard. This was the crucial piece. “I still have the map we used to find the Dragon. If I give that to him, and he started looking into where it came from . . .”

  Bingo. The narrowing of Mr. Black’s eyes was al
l she needed to see. His breath rasped, and a tiny curl of smoke oozed from one nostril and lost itself in his beard.

  “Let’s say that’s the case,” he said, after an obvious effort to master himself. “I ain’t admitting anything, but let’s say you’re right. Why would you do a foolish thing like coming down here to tell me about it?” He balled his hands into fists. “After all, a man you’ve backed into a corner is a dangerous man indeed.”

  Alice forced herself to stand her ground and fixed him with her most withering stare.

  “I bound the Dragon, Mr. Black,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  Mr. Black’s lip twitched, but he’d lost, and he knew it.

  “Besides,” Alice continued. “I need you to do something for me.”

  Another long silence. Finally he shifted his gaze to glare over her head and muttered, “What sort of thing?”

  “You must have a way of getting in touch with Vespidian. I want you to set up a meeting, in the library. Tell him I can get him the Dragon book, and I’m willing to make a deal.”

  Mr. Black met her gaze again. “If you turn that little flying rat over to Geryon, it’s as good as turning me in.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Alice said. “I just have some questions of my own for him.”

  One huge hand came up and scratched the bristly black hair on his chin as Mr. Black pondered.

  “So that’s it?” Mr. Black said darkly. “Just send him a message?”

  “More or less. And I need you to answer one more question . . .”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  VESPIDIAN

  THE PLACE ALICE HAD chosen for her meeting with Vespidian was a cluster of shelves that, according to Ending, hosted a portal-book to a world of endless forests and vicious, six-armed monkeys. On the library side, the book’s atmosphere had leaked out, creating a humid tropical air. A huge banyan tree dominated the circle of shelves, with the book nestled somewhere in its upper branches. Vines webbed it together with half a dozen smaller trees, creating an interlocking network of tendrils and creepers.