by P. D. Kalnay
“No,” I lied. An explosion came from the library, cutting through the drone of falling water. “We’d better hurry.”
Falan wanted to come too, but somebody had to stay with our boat and gear. It seemed likely that a means of transportation and supplies would soon become more valuable in the immediate area. He shuttled us across the lake and left us on the beach below Bookston.
The giant crab monster made it over the bridge long before we climbed the steep, twisting trail through the jungle. Ivy had arrow on string and I had the Arath held at the ready as we stepped back through the little gate connecting town and jungle. The last time we’d walked the main street of Bookston it had had been empty. Bright banners and strange decorations lined the street, and based on the litter, it looked as if we’d missed a good party.
The morning after, a less than festive atmosphere filled the town, and though the sun shone brightly above, there was nothing cheery about the place. Several of the buildings along the main drag were reduced to rubble.
So much screaming came from every direction that it provided us with no clear path to follow. I feared that Vraith had released more than one monster from the dungeons. At the south end of the road, the outer bridge gates lay on the ground, torn from their hinges. I was about to ask Ivy if she could sense the crab monster’s location when she spun around. A bus-sized crustacean burst through the wall of a tavern behind us, six doors down. The stone wall exploded across the street before sharp pincers and a bulbous, plate-covered body followed. An Anubean woman thrashed briefly in one claw before it closed, slicing her in two.
Its entire body was encased in a thick, spiny, and dark purple shell. Hard, clawed feet, sharp pincers, and mandibles all clicked loudly as it moved. Clearly visible, in the light of day, it still made me think of crabs, though it didn’t walk sideways. I’d never liked crab because of the work involved in getting at the meat, but I was ready to crack some shell.
Bulbous eyes on the ends of stalks turned my way as I sprinted up the main street of Bookston. The monster scuttled to the middle of the road and raised its pincers in anticipation. I gathered columns of air under my wings to leap into the sky, ready to reign down destruction.
I faltered when the thing spoke.
“Little fae,” it said.
The voice was mostly hiss and it stretched the words out several times longer than normal. Still, it startled me, and my surprise caused me to hesitate in the middle of my attack. The downside to any jumping attack is the commitment involved. Mr. Ryan taught me that the high flying kicks included in some martial arts were suitable for show only, because once you left your feet—you were committed. My wind magic made course corrections possible, but only by a little over short distances.
A set of canoe sized pincers snapped shut with a deafening bang. I pushed myself sideways at the last instant narrowly avoiding the crushing attack, but I was too close to avoid being struck by the backswing that followed. I flew sideways into a wall before landing in a heap. Then I scrambled to find my feet and tried to shake the dizziness from my head. A few stars still swirled in front of my eyes when I heard the drum beat of hard and heavy feet pounding across the street to join me.
Ivy gave me the time I needed to recover and saved me, again. A black arrow flew down the road, split the shell of the monster, and sank in up to its blue and white fletchings. I decided that the expensive imperial style arrow was well worth its purchase price when the monster stopped. A breathy scream that sounded like a punctured balloon rose from mandibles while the pincers attempted to get a grip on Ivy’s arrow. The eyes swayed wildly on their stocks.
None looked at me.
I made a less dramatic second leap, closing the distance, and then fell from the sky, hammer-first. The Arath shattered the thick back shell like it was delicate porcelain—a hundred cracks spread wide from the point of impact. Everything inside must have been reduced to jelly because it only took the one hit, and minus a little twitching, the fight was finished. It was nice having my hammer back. After a brief, failed try at extracting Ivy’s arrow we turned our attention to the library.
Explosions rang out with distressing regularity across the river.
More screams followed us as we left Bookston, making me feel like I was abandoning the townsfolk though I’d met none of them. Even more action was ongoing back at the library and while I couldn’t do anything to Vraith myself, I hoped Ivy might introduce him to a swarm of deadly magical bees. As I ran across the bridge, I realised that I hated Vraith Stormshadow in a deep visceral way that was out of proportion to the few minutes I’d spent in his company. It might have been because he’d pushed Ivy off the bridge, but I thought there was more to it.
It wasn’t the time for introspection.
***
We solved the mystery of what had overcome the library’s magical anti-fire protections right after we scrambled over the remains of the second, inner gate. A humming sound approached, the sound grew louder, and then a red and black wasp-like creature the size of a bald eagle flew from a smoke-filled archway up ahead. Each segment of the insect’s abdomen glowed with the same whitish yellow light that the library’s lamps emitted. Even as that thought occurred, the enormous insect alighted on a chandelier above the entrance hall. The light fixture held nine of the glowing glass tubes.
A second later, the first tube exploded and a writhing larva fell to the floor in front of us. Wings, legs, and distinguishable body parts formed in a few heartbeats amid a hissing sound like frying bacon. I thought I knew what we looked at—Ivy beat me to the punch.
“They’re fire wisps!” she shouted. “All the lamps are fire wisp larvae!”
Another of the glass tubes exploded and another larva fell to the floor. I didn’t know exactly how many larva lamps the library contained. It wasn’t less than ten thousand. The first larva had already grown from reading light to mature wisp, and following tentative wing flapping, it came straight for us.
I reacted instinctively. My hammer blurred into motion and I swatted the monster bug from the air as quickly as Ivy could yell, “NO!”
That wisp didn’t even slow the Arath. It exploded in hot flash of fire and smoke, leaving nothing behind but a stinky smell, which contained hints of both honey and sulfur. The wisp on the chandelier forgot about freeing its relations and turned its attention towards us. Then I heard the buzzing wings of countless more wisps—coming our way.
Ivy tugged on my arm, “We must run!”
The original wisp was literally on fire. I didn’t speak wisp, but I’d heard angry bees before and understood what the mad humming meant. Ivy ran for a wide set of stairs to the right of the hall, and I followed. We’d only made it up a few steps when more wisps than I could count arrived. The enraged swarm came from every other doorway leading off the entrance hall. They swirled like a blizzard of fiery death, and flammable liquid that might have been saliva dripped from the insects, burning pockmarks into the polished stone floor. We stood at the edge of an angry, sentient, magical wildfire. My shield and hammer wouldn’t even make a dent in the swarm before Ivy and I were ash.
In desperation, I tried to summon my wind magic, to push them back and buy us time to run. My gut said that fighting fire with fire was an expression that didn’t apply to our situation, so I didn’t consider using my petrathen abilities.
My efforts to summon the winds didn’t even stir up a breeze. I’d grown so confident in my abilities that I simply couldn’t believe it. Ivy had warned me we’d grow weaker away from our truest place (in my case Knight’s Haven), that we’d require more recovery time, and that our abilities would become unreliable. It hadn’t been a big issue for me… until then.
A swirling crimson mass of death flew towards the stairwell.
A smaller, golden swarm met them halfway.
Ivy hadn’t even bothered to pull an arrow from her quiver. Her face wore an expression of intense concentration, and her necklace shone with a pure golden glow. I turned back t
o see the first bees meet the first of the wisps in a dozen little explosions to match the one I’d caused.
The swarm grew even louder and I’m not ashamed to admit I was terrified. Ivy’s bees were small and fast and they tore through the wisps, concentrating the swarm in a tighter, hotter cluster.
“We must run!” Ivy shouted again.
She headed up the stairwell without waiting to see if I followed. Behind us the dull explosions continued and the sweet sulphur stink became overwhelming. We made it up the stairs and away from the swarm, but as we ran along the wide hallway, leading to the Hall of the Thousand Scholars, we choked on the smoke that filled the library. Most of the doorways along that hall displayed tongues of orange flame, which, while not magical, remained entirely deadly.
Ahead of the living quarters, the hallway opened on one side as it passed above the largest space in the entire library, the Alencha. Dula said it was the heart of Anukdun in the days when more scholars lived there. The Alencha had once been a venue for active debate and the place where library scholars had answered many of the big questions facing the First World. Nobody had occupied the amphitheatre when Ivy and I passed by on our first day in the library or any of the other times I’d passed above it on the way to Dula’s rooms.
Now, it seemed almost crowded—mainly with bodies, but a few combatants still fought on below us as we ran past. Atop a dais, where for uncounted millennia the greatest minds in the world had given dissertations, stood the Supreme Scholar. His robes were stained with soot and blood, and he looked extra tiny, standing alone against insurmountable opposition. The staff in his hand dealt fiery destruction to the dark shadows surrounding him, but those same enemies stood on the corpses of the other scholars who’d already fallen.
I didn’t recognise the creatures, but they were black as night in a room lit by sunshine from the windows above and the light of a hundred fire wisp larvae still safely restrained in glass. The carcasses of different monsters, I assumed recently released from the dungeons, lay mixed with the robed bodies of dead scholars.
The Alencha marked the last stand of Anukdun.
Nine shadowy shapes that stood taller than ogres, surrounded the tiny man. They were lightning fast despite their size, and blast after blast from the crimson staff failed to find a target. I was about to call out to Ivy, telling her we must stop and lend a hand when one of the things leapt onto the Supreme Scholar from behind, captured his arms, and tore them from his shoulders in a spray of blood. I kept quiet instead; there was no one left to help.
Victorious howls filled the debating floor as the others took turns tearing the Supreme Scholar into smaller pieces. Then the howling stopped. Ivy and I had made it only halfway around the mezzanine. Nine faceless, shadow shrouded heads looked up, and the one who’d killed the Supreme Scholar pointed at us. We were three stories up, but if they were decent jumpers…
I looked to Ivy. Her focus was elsewhere.
“Ivy,” I began. She raised a hand to shush me without looking my way. “We have to run faster.”
She moved to the railing instead. The creatures raced across the amphitheatre—towards us. It was absolutely not the time to stand still. The doors to the Hall of the Thousand Scholars stood closed up ahead. They were intact and a pair of heavy statues flanked them on the far side which I planned to push over to slow pursuit. How we’d get out with the only entrance blocked? No idea.
“Ivy!”
She raised her empty hand, “Wait.”
The nine shadows had almost reached us. Given the way they moved, I didn’t doubt that they could leap up to our level.
A crapload of windows shattered above the hall as thousands of enraged fire wisps tore into the space above us, in pursuit of Ivy’s bees. The creatures below stopped in their tracks as the golden bees led the wisps down into their midst. Then the first wisps exploded. The shadow things swung desperately, destroying more of the burning insects.
That was a mistake.
“Jack, we must flee!” Ivy shouted.
“We have to get Dula,” I said. “He’ll be asleep in his room. That’s all on us.”
Ivy looked torn as her bees returned, unnoticed to her throat, “Yes, we must try.”
I pulled her into motion. Howls, the hum of wings, and the heat of flame marked our flight. Everything not currently burning soon would be. The inferno was way beyond the tipping point, I didn’t want to wait to see who came out on top in the new battle raging below, and there was one thing I knew for certain…
The Great Library of Anukdun was lost.
Chapter 33 – Flight of the Phoenix
We made it through the doors and into the Hall of the Thousand Scholars, and I pushed the statues over and in front of them. That might slow pursuit—briefly. Smoke filled the central gallery and flames licked out from a handful of open doorways. Compared to what we’d passed it seemed almost serene. There was no sound other than the crackling of fire punctuated by an occasional popping noise.
“We must collect Dula and flee,” Ivy said.
She ran for the nearest stairs, and I followed. We were out of breath and gasping from the smoke by the time we reached the seventh level. The smoke had grown thicker during our climb.
Ivy pointed to the main entrance, “Jack!”
A wall of flame blocked the doorway. Crap. Dula was a sound sleeper at the best of times. First, I knocked on his door with the Arath. I did it gently, but you’d never have guessed from the boom the hammer produced. Then, I decided to just knock it down.
Dula opened the door ahead of my next swing. His face wore a mixed expression of surprise and sleepy confusion.
“What’s going–” he stammered.
“No time,” I interrupted, pushing him back into his quarters. “We have to get out of here.”
Ivy followed us in and shut the door.
“The library is burning,” I said. “We came to warn you, but now we’re trapped.”
“What about the Masters’ Door,” Ivy said.
She pointed to the red door on the far wall.
“I told you, I can’t open it,” Dula said. “Only a Master of Anukdun can open those doors.”
“Maybe this will do it.” I hefted the hammer.
Dula’s eyes went wide, “Is that the Arath?”
“Yes, but we don’t have time to catch you up on the details. Everything under us is already on fire.”
“Follow me,” Dula shouted.
He didn’t wait to see if we would obey before returning to the smoke-filled landing outside his quarters and dashing off towards the nearest stairwell. I looked to Ivy, who shrugged, and then we gave chase. Dula led us three levels up to the top of the hall right under the stained glass dome. The smoke was thicker up there. I could barely see my hand in front of my face.
“We’re going the wrong way,” I half shouted and half coughed.
Dula pointed to a door, “Open this.”
“What?”
“Open it!”
I pushed past and tried the handle, half falling through the doorway in surprise. Nobody followed me.
“Come on,” I said.
“Permission,” Ivy shouted. Tears ran down her cheeks.
Oh, right!
“I grant you permission to enter.”
Dula followed Ivy inside and shut out the smoke. I looked around at a sitting room like Dula’s, but a whole lot fancier.
The nagging sensation I’d felt several times since coming to Anukdun grew stronger, and now I knew what caused it.
“This was Marielain Blackhammer’s room. He was a vested scholar and a Master of the library,” Dula said. “Until I saw the Arath–”
“No time for any of that,” Ivy said. “The library burns! Jack, try the other door.”
“In a second,” I said, searching the room. “I know you’re in here. Show yourself.”
“Yes, Master,” a squeaky voice said.
A shimmering blur appeared in the middle of the room before r
evealing a silver mechanical spider. It looked nothing like One, Two, or Three, but it felt exactly the same.
“What is–” Ivy began.
“Introductions later,” I reminded her. “This place is coming down.”
Besides, I knew Marielain Blackhammer, how he thought, and what kind of guy he’d been. Learning he was scholar of the Library of Anukdun was the last missing piece to a mystery over which I hadn’t realised I’d been puzzling. He’d never mentioned that fact in any of the journal entries I’d listened to. First things first. I tried the Masters’ Door, and it opened without a hitch, but I was sure it would. Smoke-free passageways led off in either direction.
“Do you know the shortest route to the Hall of Machines?” I asked the knee-high spider.
“Yes, Master.”
“The mechanical bird: can I fly it, and do you know how it works?”
“Possibly, and yes, Master.”
Old Marielain remained predictable, millennia later, or maybe we were just more alike than I’d wanted to believe. “Lead us there.”
“Yes, Master.”
My companions wasted no time with pointless questions as we chased after the metal arachnid. It led us through the back ways of the library. Ways reserved only for the elite of the elite. Thankfully, those ways constituted shortcuts, since the stink of smoke grew as we ran. One end of the Hall of Machines was engulfed in flame by the time we arrived. Luckily, it wasn’t the end with the flying machines.
Now that I knew the way, I ran beside the metal spider. It kept pace with my long legs, scurrying beside me. Ivy and Dula brought up the rear.
It was the first opportunity we’d had to converse since leaving Marielain’s old rooms. “Why did you say, possibly?”
“The golden phoenix has never flown, Master.”
My plan was rapidly falling apart, “Can it fly?”
“All records suggest it should, Master.”
“Then why wasn’t it ever flown?” Who’d build something like that and not try it?
We’d just reached the mechanical bird, when something sizable exploded behind us.