The God of Lost Words

by A J Hackwith

  “Shut uuuup.” Brevity’s outburst startled everyone. She made a dramatic show of flopping back in her chair. “Heck and Hades, boss, you know none of us are doing that. We can’t do that; we can’t just abandon the books like that.” Brevity paused, pinning Claire with an uncharacteristically stern look. “You would never do that. And you know it.”

  Wouldn’t she? Brevity sounded so certain. It was a kindness. Claire sifted through the burst of gratitude and doubt. There was some time, at some point in the past, when she would have. It was exactly the kind of abandonment and escape she’d planned with her own main character, Beatrice, wasn’t it? And even after then . . . given a guilt-free excuse to walk away. To escape the Library. To choose freedom. She couldn’t say for sure that she wouldn’t have taken it.

  But now . . . now.

  “I suppose I wouldn’t,” Claire said. “But I am honest when I say I don’t know what option that leaves us instead.”

  “Besides pointless heroism,” Hero muttered.

  “No. No more martyrs,” Rami said with a heavy look at the rest of the room.

  “Hell would not accept a single sacrifice anyway.” Claire spared a glance for Brevity. She appeared distracted, dragging her thumb over the edge of the logbook pages with a rhythmic thrrrrrp sound. Claire considered leaving it there. Simple, agreeable, unsaid. Unfortunately she had lost that right, lost the assumption of good, humane intentions over her checkered history with the Library. She had to say it, for herself. Claire sighed. “But the books here have souls, in some way. They’re . . . they’re individuals. I brought them to this point, whether they were my books or not, whether I’m librarian or not.” She felt the weight of Brevity’s sudden attention on her. “Whether librarian or not. I can’t walk away.”

  “People are not a cause,” Hero said, almost to himself. “You admit that you’re granting stories personhood?”

  “I am not in a position to grant anything. We should not be in the business of arbitrating the worthiness of souls,” Claire said harshly. They were all facing her with encouraging looks. She frowned. “Don’t you dare try to give me a gold star and a pat on the head for finally wrapping my brain around the obvious and performing the bare minimum of humanity.”

  Hero shrugged. “Sure, but you won’t be half as fun to mock now.”

  Claire’s frown deepened, and Rami was the first to return to the point at hand. “Is moving the books an option? Does every Library have the ability to relocate as the Unsaid Wing did?”

  Claire shook her head. “Libraries tend to take on the nature of their charges and their librarians. The Unsaid Wing is full of letters and secrets—those are never meant to stay in one place. The Unwritten Wing is more staid.”

  “A place meant for waiting, eternally,” Hero said, and Claire nodded.

  “Brevity can confer with Echo, of course . . .” Claire paused. It appeared Brev still wasn’t listening. “But the Unwritten Wing was never made to move. Books only leave by means of their human authors via muses—normally.” Claire was reasonably sure that Hero didn’t even require eye contact for that remark.

  “Humans . . .” A tenor in Brevity’s voice made Claire turn. She still had that faraway look. Her gaze was simultaneously on the logbook and beyond it. Then her chin snapped up. “But that’s what humans do. That’s it.”

  “What?” Claire couldn’t help her skepticism. The memory of Probity’s accusations was still too fresh in her mind. “What do humans do, besides burn and destroy?”

  “Rebel,” Brevity breathed, more animated every moment. She drummed her palms on the book in front of her with emphasis. “It’s all right here. Create and rebel. What’s more human than that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know: cruelty over superficial differences, sticking flags in things, frozen yogurt, performative gender roles, war . . .” Hero counted off on his fingers.

  Claire was well practiced at ignoring Hero by now. She tilted her head at Brevity. “I don’t understand.”

  “What is frozen yogurt?” Rami asked in a fascinated tone.

  “Oh! Poppaea.” The connections fired in Claire’s brain all at once. She stared as Brevity’s smile grew. A chill shot up Claire’s neck as the idea took hold. She glanced down at the giant weight of the Librarian’s Log in Brevity’s hands. “You’re talking about the story of Librarian Poppaea Julia.”

  Brevity nodded.

  “That’s . . . devious and suicidal.” Hero tilted his head. “I love it.”

  “Um.” Rami cleared his throat. “Not all of us have been thoroughly versed in the history of the librarians.”

  “Librarian Poppaea was the most interesting one of the lot. Present company excluded,” Hero explained. “She was a delightful librarian’s librarian during the—what? Early Roman? Or after? It’s all Greek to me. She got the idea in her head to defy Lucifer himself and contest the Library’s place in Hell. Her entries are incredibly cagey about it. A full-on rebellion. Against everyone.” Hero practically clapped his hands. “She failed, of course. Set off the whole Dark Ages—”

  “She did not set off anything. And really, Dark Ages, Hero? That’s an outmoded view of history that lacks any nuance.” Claire sniffed, despite the blatant fact that he’d learned the history from her.

  “Point is, she was frightfully clever and makes even our own dear Claire look like a teacher’s pet in comparison.” Hero waved away any pesky details. “She appeared to believe the Library should be sovereign of its own realm.”

  “Maybe she was right,” Brevity ventured slowly. “Would any of this have happened if the Library was free from Hell—and free from anywhere, really? Would this have happened if we—the Library, all of us—worked together?”

  Hero was always eager for a bloody revolution, but Claire caught the way words like “freedom” and “cooperation” began to catch Rami’s interest. She shook her head. “The point is, she failed. She failed, she disappeared, and the Unwritten Wing was rudderless for a century. We have no reason to think an attempt now would end any different.”

  “Unless we avoided her mistakes,” Hero suggested.

  “We don’t even know what she did.” Claire gestured to the desk. “The Librarian’s Log doesn’t say. As I recall from the official chronicle, she talks about challenging Hell and establishing a new realm and gets all very vague and ominous and then it just . . . ends. I’ve never found anything specific about how she did it. Unless the log has deigned to reveal something more to you, Brev?”

  She could see by the way Brevity’s smile fell that it hadn’t.

  “We could ask the books,” Hero insisted. “Obviously they were here to witness it.”

  “Not necessarily.” The hope seemed to be deflating out of Brevity as she spoke, and Claire felt a deep stab of guilt. “Something happened to the Library after Poppaea failed. I don’t know if any books were lost, but I’ve never seen a book wake up that would have witnessed that time. Books that old either don’t know anything or just . . . don’t wake up.”

  “And it would be too dangerous to try to wake them,” Claire said.

  “As you would know,” Hero said cheerily.

  “Who else would know?” Rami asked, before Claire could entirely murder Hero with her eyes.

  “No one that would talk to us,” Brevity said after a long pause. She sank down in her seat behind the desk. Her fingers plucked listlessly at the scars on her forearms. Her blue skin was rough there, with a thin thread of black barely visible between puckered bits of skin. The aftermath of their encounter with the unresolved ink of lost stories. Claire thought of the Dust Wing again and shuddered. She could still almost taste the air clogged with regret and death.

  . . . Death.

  It was a particularly foolish idea that she had just then. Really, Hero-like in its ridiculous scale. But as she watched Brevity fold in on herself, the idea stuck like a sliver and
started to grow. Claire let out a long sigh. “Actually, there may be someone who knows and who might talk to us.”

  Brevity looked up, hope so easily returning to her. Claire wished she had that skill. “Who? Who can we talk to?”

  13

  BREVITY

  No one will read these words, will they? So I can admit it here. I considered Malphas a friend. She reminded me of my own grandmother, spinning me tales of Ariadne before bed. Grandmother carried a wicked blade too, and she never asked me when I was to be married. In any case, that’s why I had my guard down. I told her about my idea, my dream. To build the Library a realm of its very own, a place for souls that don’t belong anywhere else.

  I only came to my senses when she asked, eyes like covetous gems, why. Why would human souls be drawn to such a thing as a library?

  I forget the nonsense answer I gave her, but I knew those were not the eyes of my friend. I should make a contingency, just in case.

  Librarian Poppaea Julia, 48 BCE

  The transport office had always been located relatively near the Library. It made sense—muses came and went, and perhaps originally the idea had been to have Death keep a close eye on the independent part of Hell stuffed to the gills with tempting mortal souls. Brevity walked beside Claire with a tension rising in the silence. This had been her idea. They were going to talk to Death because of her idea.

  She’d always liked Walter—Brevity generally found something to adore in everyone she met. But since muses didn’t typically die, she understood Walter’s role only as a vague construct. Sure, she understood that Walter was part of a universal constant called Death—there were many Walters in a way, in every realm and in every world. But in practice, Walter had just been their gatekeeper. The gentle giant with a dust rag and an ill-fitting suit who Brevity waved to on her way in and out of the realm.

  But Brevity had become acquainted with death during her time in the Library. She’d become a scholar of it, a death anthropologist. She had held the hands of damsels—friends—as the story of their life had wilted away. She’d fumbled to help Claire over the grieving and loss of her own past. She’d seen how the wrong kind of death had haunted Leto. She’d feared for the lives of those she loved over and over again, and realized how fragile and fleeting and white-hot real mortal lives were. Even in Hell. Perhaps especially in Hell.

  Brevity had begun to have an inkling of what Death threatened, and what it promised. And now they needed answers that only that unpredictable question mark could provide.

  Claire’s step didn’t hesitate when they reached the archway with three interlocking wheels carved above it. She descended the steps lightly and seemed no more bothered than she’d be on any errand. It was a lie. Brevity could understand that much. If Brevity had become acquainted with Death, then Claire had befriended it. Out of necessity, out of loneliness, out of spite.

  If Claire could face this with calm, then so could Brevity. She straightened her shoulders and hurried down the stairs after Claire’s retreating shadow.

  Walter’s office was a reassuring constant, at least. The stairs emptied out into a muddled curio of a room, stacked with glass jars of varying sizes and shapes containing even more varied worlds. There was a perpetual film of puttering and time that clung to every surface, a sepia-toned filter to the world. But Brevity’s favorite part was, as always, the colors.

  Bits of light escaped each jar, like steam rising off a fresh cup of tea. Never as plentiful and vivid as the colors that bubbled and burbled inside the jars, nor as questing and reaching as the tendrils from a book, but faint trail signs of worlds yet to be explored. Walter had left a single jar out on the counter, and a misty curlicue of saffron dribbled onto the counter. It took some doing to resist reaching out to touch it and to turn the jar to see what faraway realm was reaching back.

  But that wasn’t why they were here. Nothing so joyous. Claire stopped an appropriate distance from the counter and peered past it into the gloom. Brevity had to stand on her tiptoes. Claire cleared her throat. “Hey-ho, shop. Walter, are you about?”

  A shadow moved farther back, and Brevity quickly knew it was Walter because it didn’t grow any smaller as he approached the light. Walter shrugged between shelves, emerging shoulders first. He was surprisingly agile for an individual in possession of boulder-like shoulders and hands as big as Brevity’s torso. It added a gentleness to his demeanor that Brevity always suspected was cultivated, which just made her even more fond of him.

  “Miss Claire! Miss Brevity!” Walter always seemed pleased to see them, but his brows dipped in an uncharacteristic line of worry. His voice was always a bit like a nightmare that was fond of you, and concern was ill fitted to it.

  “So you’ve heard the news,” Claire surmised.

  “The missin’ hallways and the like were sure to spread gossip, ma’am,” Walter said with an apologetic dip of his head. “I’m just glad to see you and Miss Brev in one piece.”

  “Whole, hale, souls relatively intact.” Claire straightened. “We came to seek your advice on staying that way.”

  The floorboards couldn’t help but groan as Walter fidgeted from foot to foot. Claire tilted her head, studying him a moment before precisely folding her hands on top of the counter. “Or did Malphas already get here before us? Perhaps to fume and fury and order you against helping us?”

  “She is terribly terrifying when she gets in a state, ma’am.” Walter studied the scar-studded knuckles of his big hands. “You ruffled her over quite good this time.”

  “I thought Death, above all, was sovereign from the petty squabbles of realms.” Claire could be awfully terrifying herself when she wanted to be. Brevity hopped up to the counter to defuse the accusation.

  “She’s locking kids in cages,” she said with her voice at a level for scandal and gossip. “It ain’t right.”

  “If only it was just the demons to blame for that,” Claire said. “But Hell can’t borrow anything man didn’t create.”

  “I’m in a bit of a predicament, ma’am,” Walter said, apparently still wrestling with Claire’s original question. “I don’t answer to no one, y’see, but I’m not supposed to pick favorites either. Did that once. Didn’t go well, no, sir. Did not go well . . .”

  “Mortal lives are at stake—it’s not as if you can recuse yourself!” Claire would badger Death, if needs called for it. Brevity attempted to nudge Claire with her foot, to no effect.

  “Malphas isn’t an easy person to say no to,” Brevity said. “Shoulda seen her face when Claire protected Hero from her.”

  “Not the pretty young gent!” Walter looked horrified. One had to wonder what criteria there were for Death to find you pretty, but Brevity supposed if anyone could manage it, Hero would.

  “Hero’s okay,” Brevity reassured him. “But Malphas burned the Arcane Wing.”

  “The Unwritten Wing is next, to be certain,” Claire said grimly, then lifted her brows. “We have run out of diplomatic options. I suspect you understand why.”

  “The souls kerfuffle, yeah.” Walter appeared to look around the counter for papers to shuffle sheepishly, but there were none. He settled for fussing with the ragged cuffs of his suit. “I’m awful glad you got that ink off, but I told ye that you wouldn’t like the answers none.”

  “You did.” Claire inclined her chin. “But now I need more answers, whether I like them or not. You were here when Librarian Poppaea attempted to declare the Unwritten Wing sovereign.”

  Instead of surprise, a grimace roiled across Walter’s face, as if he’d been expecting it. “Course I was, ma’am. But I can’t—”

  “You know, then.” Claire leaned forward like a dog on the hunt. “How did she do it, Walter? What was Poppaea aiming to create?”

  Walter’s eyes were not much more than sunken black holes swirled with red, but he managed to make the voids look sorrowful. “Miss Po
ppaea lost, though.”

  “She said she’d claim a home for the books, to take the Library back from its host realm.” Claire was not one to be diverted from an inquiry. “How? Can a new realm really be created? That’s not possible, is it?”

  “It’s—” Walter caught himself and grimaced. “Ma’am, please.”

  “There has to be a way, or Poppaea wouldn’t have attempted it,” Claire said, more to herself than to either of them. By her side, Brevity could practically see the gears turning, bearings falling into place. She could feel the lockup and free fall when Claire’s resolve kicked in. It was a terrifying kind of calm, like the stillness one felt before taking a plunge from a great height. “And if there is a way, you have to be the one to know it. Please, Walter. Tell me.”

  “Miss Claire—”

  “Walter.”

  “I don’t want to watch another war!” Walter jolted to his full height all at once. His head nearly reached the distant rafters. Even Claire startled. His fists were opening and closing at his sides. Could Death panic? The jars on the shelves nearest them began a low, tremorous rattle. “Rebellion near destroyed the Unwritten Wing once. Ma’am, please—”

  “Submission will absolutely destroy the Unwritten Wing now.” Claire’s voice was low. Even if no less resolved, she knew when to be gentle with the facts. “Malphas will not rest until she knows the secret of the books. And once she does, every story dreamed of humankind will be forfeit.”

  “No one can survive without stories,” Brevity whispered. Certainty came to her then. That was the fact. Though she’d suggested the idea of resisting Hell, exhaustion and fear hadn’t let her believe it. She was a muse. She didn’t want a war, a fight, a struggle, which would surely result in more destruction, not creation. But the depth of what was at stake drowned her doubts all at once. “If we don’t do this, Hell will control the narrative.”