The Fall of the Readers

by Django Wexler

  The younger women nodded and began herding their charges out. Another trio of sprites came down the stairs, swamp sprites whose muddy forms made a mess of the carpet, followed by the harpy girl Ephraster and her two young siblings. Alice waved them past, then charged up the stairs while they were clear for a moment.

  At the top, she met Coryptus, a bent-backed old man who walked with a cane and was practically covered in luxuriant purple mushrooms.

  “What are you waiting for?” Alice said.

  “Just making sure nobody gets left behind,” he said in a voice like a badly greased hinge. “Got to see to the little ones.”

  Alice nodded. “When you get to the library, find Magda. One of the apprentices is hurt, and she asked for your help.”

  “Nosy old biddy.” Coryptus sniffed. “Well, if she asked, I suppose I might be willing.”

  Alice didn’t have time for their rivalry. She ran up the stairs, while a few more creatures ran, slid, or flew past her before she got close to her own room. The other three apprentices were waiting, ushering the last of their charges toward the stairs.

  Dex—a little older than Alice, and tall with dark skin and frizzy hair that she tied back into a messy tail—was grinning broadly, in spite of the panic all around. As far as Alice could tell, Dex was utterly fearless, a trait that occasionally got her into serious trouble.

  Michael and Jen—who had served their master as a team and remained inseparable even after turning against him— made a good pair; Jen was ragged and wild, prone to rage, while Michael was prim and careful, with round metal glasses that made him look a bit like an owl.

  “Sister Alice!” Dex said. “We heard the alarm. Has something escaped the library?”

  Alice shook her head. “They’re coming overland, not through the portals. Is everyone off this floor?”

  Michael nodded. “One hundred three, I counted.”

  “It’s going to be a pain sorting them all out again when this is over,” Jen griped.

  “We can worry about that later,” Alice said. “You two go help Isaac get them into the library. I’m going to get a better look at what we’re up against.” She grimaced. “Find Emma too, and bring her with you.” The servant girl would stand by calmly as the house burned down, if no one ordered her to do otherwise.

  “I will accompany you,” Dex said. “To the balcony?”

  Alice nodded. Michael was already headed downstairs, and Jen followed. It was gratifying, in a way, that even the most headstrong of the apprentices was willing to follow Alice’s orders. I just wish I knew the right orders to give.

  She and Dex ran to the end of the hall, where a pair of double doors opened onto a seldom-used balcony facing the back garden and the library. The latch squealed as Alice tugged on it. With Spike’s strength, the rusty hinges moved with a reluctant groan, revealing a few feet of water-stained tile rimmed by a dangerously rotten wooden railing.

  Down below, a multicolored throng was streaming across the lawn. Alice saw Lool, the clockwork spider, her eight brass legs working like pistons and letting off frantic bursts of steam. Sprites, Enoki, and stranger creatures hurried across the grass.

  The two sunhawks were much larger now. She could see that they were bird-like—broad-winged and hook-beaked—with feathers ranging from pale yellow to dark red, covering them in rippling patterns that looked like flames. Their eyes glowed like the sun, and they were huge, the size of an elephant, each easily big enough to grab a human in its beak.

  One of them dove, wings folded tight, plummeting in silence toward the caravan of creatures on the lawn. Isaac was there, waving the line forward, and he hadn’t looked up. Alice gripped the railing and screamed a warning.

  Isaac spun and saw the danger just as the sunhawk leveled out of its dive. The light from its eyes flared to unbearable intensity and slashed out toward the ground, twin crackling beams of orange that traced a path through the surrounding forest toward the lawn. Everything they touched burst into flame as though it had been doused in gasoline, leaving a trail of trees blazing like torches. The line of destruction broke out onto the lawn, angling toward Isaac.

  Isaac stood his ground, even as the creatures behind him started to panic and flee. He brought his hand up and summoned a wall of swirling white snow out of thin air, which solidified rapidly into a frozen barrier. The flames met Isaac’s sheet of ice in a tremendous cloud of steam. When it cleared, Isaac and the fleeing creatures behind him were unharmed, the path of devastation continuing some distance beyond them and into the forest on the other side of the lawn.

  “Sister Alice!” Dex said. “They’ve seen us!”

  The second sunhawk dipped one wing, changing its angle, then went into a dive like the first. Lances of burning energy slashed from its eyes, cutting across the forest and aiming straight for the house. Grass exploded upward in great gouts of flame and flying earth.

  Nowhere to dodge up here. Alice grabbed Dex around the waist, concentrated Spike’s power, and jumped. With the dinosaur’s strength in her legs, she cleared the railing easily, describing a lazy arc toward the still-steaming turf where Isaac stood. Before impact, Alice wrapped herself in the Swarm thread, which lent her flesh a tough, rubbery quality that made her very hard to hurt. The combined strength and durability let her absorb the landing with a crouch. Dex, under her arm, gave a delighted laugh.

  Behind her there was a splintering crash and a roar of flame. The energy beams raked across the house, searing a dark track up one wall and along the shingles of the roof. The building was mostly stone, but small fires had started here and there.

  “Are you all right, Isaac?” Alice asked, while she set Dex back on her feet. “That was good thinking.”

  “Thanks,” Isaac said. His face was pale, and he looked a little shaky. “I wasn’t sure it was going to work.”

  Alice eyed the sunhawks, which were beating their wings hard over the forest to gain altitude for another dive. “Any chance you can do it again?”

  Isaac blew out a breath. “Maybe once more, but I’m not going to be good for much else. It takes a lot of power.”

  Alice nodded. “Better get everyone into the library, then. They’re not going to be able to burn that.” In addition to whatever magical protections Geryon had provided, the library was a stone fortress of a building with only a single small door.

  Isaac took a deep breath and ran across the blasted turf, pursuing a pack of panicky sprites who’d broken away from the line. Michael and Jen were still by the house, trying to convince a cowering group of Enoki to make the run across open ground to the safety of the library.

  “There’s still too many in the open,” Alice said. “We’re going to have to draw the sunhawks after us.”

  “I agree,” Dex said. Alice felt her tugging on her threads, and she was suddenly wrapped head to toe in silver armor, the power of the creature she called the caryatid. “How shall we get their attention?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  SUNHAWK DOWN

  ALICE STOOD ON THE library lawn, a five-foot spear in one hand, and stared up at the giant bird diving toward her faster than a freight locomotive. This may not be the best plan I’ve ever come up with . . .

  The spear was made of what Dex called moon-stuff, the product of one of her creatures. She could shape it into simple objects, and it was marvelously light and practically indestructible. With Spike’s strength behind her, Alice figured she could throw the thing quite a long way. Whether it would be far enough, she had no idea.

  The light from the sunhawk’s eyes, crackling and snapping like fireworks, turned the lawn into a morass of torn grass and flash-baked mud as it sliced toward the hurrying mob of creatures. The sunhawk was still several hundred feet off the ground, but Alice thought this was the best chance she was going to get. She pushed off, sprinting in huge, bounding steps, bringing the spear forward as hard as her magical
strength could drive it. The silvery weapon left her hand at a fantastic speed, screaming through the air in a high, fast arc.

  Too high, Alice saw, a pit opening in her stomach. The spear peaked above and behind the enormous bird before falling toward the forest. It got the sunhawk’s attention, however, and the creature swung around, beams of fire slashing toward Alice. Which means this worked, sort of.

  She wrapped the Swarm thread tightly around herself, and her body dissolved into a mass of furry black balls, each with two legs and a long, thin beak. It took a moment to adjust to her new point of view, seeing out of a hundred pairs of eyes two inches off the ground. But Alice’s control had improved enormously since her first tentative experiments, and it was no trouble at all for her to spread the swarmers out like an expanding starburst, depriving the sunhawk of its intended target.

  The sunhawk’s fire washed over where she’d been standing, and she felt a sharp burst of pain as several of the little creatures that made up her body were incinerated. I was right not to stand my ground. The sunhawks were fast, and the swarmers’ toughness offered little protection. She brought her myriad bodies back together, re-forming into human shape beside Dex and Isaac.

  “Ow.” She put her hand to her side. Damage to her transformed self didn’t leave wounds, but it took its toll in energy and pain. “That didn’t work.” And she was in her bare feet, as usual. Her shoes had probably just gone up in smoke.

  “You kept it away from the others,” Dex said as the sunhawk glided back out over the forest and began flapping upward again.

  “And I think you made the other one angry,” Isaac said. “Here it comes!”

  The second bird stooped in, ignoring the fleeing sprites and Enoki and coming straight for Alice. Isaac raised his hand, and once again snow fountained out of the ground, forming itself into a semi-circular shield around the three of them. The fiery rays sizzled across it, then passed overhead and on toward the house, where crackling explosions marked their progress. The snow burst outward into wisps and steam, and Isaac groaned and dropped to one knee.

  “I’m fine!” he said as Alice bent beside him. “Just . . . used up.” He gasped for breath. “Sorry.”

  Alice found her hands clenched in frustration as she watched the second sunhawk positioning itself for another attack. “We can’t get up to them! Dex, do you have anything that can fly?”

  Dex shook her armored head. “Sister Jennifer has a bird of prey, I believe, but it may not be large enough to harm these creatures.”

  Jen’s hawk! Alice had almost forgotten. She hadn’t seen the girl fight much, but she’d summoned a large bird when they’d gone up against the Ouroborean. The sunhawks were a lot larger. But maybe . . .

  “Dex, can you make a net out of moon-stuff?”

  Dex clapped her hands. “Brilliant as always, Sister Alice! I can. But it will take some time.”

  “Do it. I’ll find a way to distract them.”

  Alice sprinted toward the house, where Jen and Michael had finally coaxed the last of the refugee creatures out the door and were herding them across the lawn. Fire had taken hold, and even some of the stones had cracked. Part of the roof had caved in, and Alice could see tongues of flame licking up from underneath.

  Everything she owned was in there. Everything she’d brought from her former life, the rabbits and a few clothes and books, mementos that seemed almost alien to her now. Everything she’d been given or made for herself since coming here—

  Enough. The Infinite Prison and the other magical books were in Geryon’s suite, protected by powerful magical wards. Nothing that was really important would burn. Alice tore her eyes away from the growing conflagration and grabbed Jen.

  “Alice?” Jen looked over her shoulder at the sunhawks, who were coming around for another pass. “Is Isaac going to be able to keep them off—”

  “He can’t,” Alice said shortly. “Dex is working on something, but she needs time. If you transform into Avia, can you fly?”

  “Of course,” Jen said, then paled. “You want me to—”

  “Not to fight them,” Alice said. “They’re too big. How much can you carry?”

  “Not a lot,” Jen said. “Flying’s tricky.”

  She ought to be able to lift the net. The moon-stuff was lighter than silk. But it won’t be ready . . .

  “Can you carry me?” Alice blurted.

  Jen shook her head. “Avia’s a big bird, but you’re still way too heavy.”

  Alice ran through her alternate forms. Spike weighed a ton, the devilfish was big and couldn’t breathe air, and she couldn’t turn herself into fewer than fifty or sixty swarmers. The Dragon still wouldn’t respond, and—

  The tree-sprite! She ordinarily used its power to control plants, but the creature itself, without its bark armor, was a tiny thing. Alice wrapped its thread tight around herself and began to change, shrinking into the tiny, stick-limbed sprite, her skin turning the bright green of new growth.

  “How about this?” Alice said. As the sprite, her voice was high and mouse-like.

  “Maybe. Even if I can, what do you want me to do?”

  “The closer one! Get me onto its back,” Alice squeaked. “Then go over to Dex and help her with the other sunhawk. Hurry!”

  The sunhawks were both closing for another attack. Jen looked like she wanted to argue, but they were out of time. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, her body shifting and flowing like water. Her arms lengthened, becoming mighty wings, with a brown-and-gray pattern on their feathers. She flapped once, then settled on the ground, raptor’s eyes regarding Alice inquisitively.

  From the tree-sprite’s perspective, Alice was looking up at the bird, and she had a sudden empathy for a rabbit under the gaze of an eagle. At a motion of Jen’s beak, she stepped forward and grabbed one leg, the soft, downy feathers of the bird’s underbelly all around her. Alice’s stomach lurched as huge wings chopped the air, pulling them skyward.

  The first sunhawk’s blistering gaze licked out, blasting through the trees and cutting a swath across the lawn. The magical creatures fled before it, looking like scurrying ants from Alice’s increasingly elevated point of view. As the sunhawk shifted its fire from point to point, those ants began to vanish in the blaze of light, one by one. Alice’s throat went tight.

  “Jen!”

  She wasn’t sure if Jen heard her tiny voice, but she could see what was happening, and she redoubled her efforts. She pulled above the sunhawk and matched its dive. Soon she was directly over it, and Alice could see the long feathers of its wings, the huge muscles shifting underneath with every wingbeat.

  Convincing herself to let go, to fall, was harder than she’d expected. It was all well and good to know that she could probably use the Swarm to protect herself, but probably wasn’t definitely, and in any case the blurred, distant landscape triggered a primal terror that wasn’t susceptible to rational arguments. Grimly, Alice forced her tiny hands to open, and let the tree-sprite thread go as she tumbled toward the sunhawk.

  The change to human took only a moment, but that was nearly a moment too long. Alice hit the creature’s back before she’d settled into her real body, and only a reflexive grab kept her from sliding off. Its huge feathers were warm to the touch, and the flesh beneath them was positively hot. The sunhawk banked, irritated, and Alice hastily drew on Spike’s thread to give her strength, clinging with fingers and toes.

  I’ve distracted it, at least. The sunhawk was spiraling upward now, reducing the Library and its lawn to a tiny clearing in the green mass of the forest. Below, Alice could see the second sunhawk chasing a speck of brown and white—Jen.

  Wrapping herself in the Swarm’s rubbery skin, she began crawling forward. She’d landed close to the sunhawk’s tail, a few feet back from where the great wings beat in a steady rhythm. Its body was surprisingly scrawny under the feathers. It scre
eched at her, the first sound she’d heard it make, and pulled up sharply in the air, forcing her to hang on for dear life. Its head came around, trying to look over its shoulder and see what was irritating it.

  Another few seconds of crawling and she was atop its shoulder. Alice wrapped her arms around one wing, linking her hands together, and braced her feet against the creature’s back. It shrieked, and she dug in her heels, pulling the wing in the wrong direction with all of Spike’s immense strength.

  Something broke with a crunch. The sunhawk rolled over, tumbling out of the sky. Forest and clouds exchanged positions, over and over, and Alice fought back a wave of nausea. For the second time in a few minutes, she forced herself to let go, and pushed off the sunhawk into free fall. At the same time, she wrapped the Swarm thread around her as tight as it would go.

  A moment later, the forest around the Library was subjected to a brief, unseasonable rain of swarmers. The little black creatures had the consistency of tennis balls, and when they hit the ground they bounced, sometimes ricocheting off several trees before coming to a halt. It took Alice a few breaths to collect her thoughts, with her body spread throughout the woods. Several of her could see where the sunhawk had come down, tearing up quite a length of forest and starting even more fires. It was clearly not getting back up again.

  That’s one, Alice thought. Tiny black legs blurred, carrying her over the roots and stones, back toward the house.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BAIT

  ALICE REACHED THE LAWN and returned to human form. In the moment it took her to get her bearings, something screeched from the direction of the house, and a line of turf only a few feet away detonated with a roar. Instinct made Alice throw herself to the ground, rolling behind a hummock of disturbed earth and raising her head cautiously to see what was going on.

  The second sunhawk was on the ground beside the house, by the door to the kitchens. Or where that door had been, anyway—most of the wall had been smashed, and stones and rubble were everywhere. The huge bird moved awkwardly, and when she looked carefully, Alice could see silvery strands wrapped around its left wing, binding it tight to its side. Dex and Jen trapped it! With its wing pinned, the sunhawk couldn’t fly.