by Amy Cross
“We have to help him!” I say, turning first to Tom and then to Merk and Salima.
Suddenly Christian rushes forward, and Merk only just manages to pull him back in time.
“You're not going anywhere near them!” Merk says firmly. “You're too young to fight!”
Along the aisle, Cromer lets out a load roar as he slams one of the soldiers into a shelf. The soldier slumps down to the ground, clearly unconscious, and at the same time his sword falls from his hand and clatters closer to the fire. I look around for a moment, and then I scurry forward and grab the sword before retreating to join the others.
“You shouldn't have done that!” Tom snaps.
“Give it to me!” Christian says, reaching out to try to take the sword from me.
Suddenly one of the other soldiers slips between Cromer's legs and rushes at us. I don't have time to think, I simply raise the sword and swing it in his general direction. I miss him, of course, and his sword comes perilously close to slicing straight through my face. I slam against the shelf, winding myself slightly, but I manage to swing the sword again, and this time his swords comes up to block me.
“I'm sword-fighting!” I stammer, too shocked to really believe what's happening. “I'm actually -”
The soldier shuts me up by throwing himself at me, sending me thudding into the shelf. This time I let go of the sword and it drops to the ground. As the soldier swings to attack me again, I duck out of the way and turn to run, only for my injured right leg to buckle. I drop down to the ground, and then I turn just as Christian grabs the sword and turns to block the soldier.
“No!” Merk shouts. “Christian, don't!”
Raising the sword, Christian swings at the soldier, hitting his shoulder. The blade doesn't penetrate the armor, of course, and the soldier lets out a satisfied grunt as he slams Christian into the shelf and rips the sword from his hand.
“Not bad for a piddly little thing,” the soldier sneers as Christian struggles to get free. “You might make a pretty good recruit in the -”
“Let go of him!” Merk yells, rushing forward. “Get your hands off my son!”
“You should be proud,” the soldier replies, shoving Christian aside and then turning as Merk reaches him. “Your boy's going to be useful some day. Unlike you.”
With that, he grabs Merk's shoulder and pulls him closer, while driving the sword deep into his chest with such force that the bloodied tip immediately bursts out from between his shoulder blades. Merk lets out a pained gasp, and Salima screams as the soldier tilts the sword and pushes Merk down to the ground. Christian lunges at the man again, only to get knocked back, and then Salima rushes forward and drops to her knees next to her injured husband.
“And you're the mother, yes?” the soldier says, stepping over to her and raising his sword again. “Looks like you need to take a leaf out of your husband's book!”
I rush at him, but I'm too late. The soldier slices the sword straight into Salima's throat, almost decapitating her, and blood erupts from her mouth as the blade is then pulled out. Salima falls lifelessly on top of her husband, and Christian screams as he once again tries to help his parents, only for the soldier to grab him by the throat and force him face-down into the dirt.
“You'll be coming with me,” he sneers, before looking over at Rinth, “and so will you. Darvill's offering five hundred coins to anyone who can deliver you into his hands. With that many coins, I can buy my way out of service and set up a whole new life for myself!”
He lets go of Christian and steps over to Rinth, who pulls back. And then, as soon as the soldier reaches out and grabs Rinth, a crackling electrical charge strikes his armor and forces a cry from his lips. Stumbling back, the soldier slams into the nearest shelf and drops to the ground, clearly stunned, as I hear two screams over my shoulder and turn to see that Cromer has finished with the other soldiers, all three of whom are now strewn between the shelves.
Storming over to join us, Cromer grabs the fourth soldier by the throat and hauls him up, and then he slams him head-first into the nearest shelf with such strength that I'm pretty sure the man's neck snaps instantly. Cromer lets go of him, and then – as the dead man falls to the floor – we all turn and see that Christian is standing wide-eyed and open-mouthed, staring in absolute horror at the sight of his parents' corpses.
I rush over and check, but both Salima and Merk are dead.
“It's okay,” I stammer, even though I know this situation is very far from okay. I look into Christian's eyes, and I see sheer anguish. “It's going to be okay, I promise,” I continue, still desperately trying to find some way to make everything better. “There'll be a way to bring them back. I mean, come on, there has to be a way to do that. In a place like this...”
My voice trails off as I turn and look back at Cromer, and then I see Tom and Rinth stepping closer. As soon as I see the expression on Tom's face, I know that I'm wrong. Slowly, I turn back to Christian, and I see tears welling in his eyes as he stares in shock at his parents. He seems frozen in place.
“Don't look,” I say, getting to my feet and stepping over to him. I try to force him to turn away, but he resists. “Please, just don't look. It won't help.”
“Those were Darvill's men,” Cromer says darkly. “Just a routine patrol, as far as I can tell. I guess we were just unlucky that they happened upon us, but obviously Darvill's still just as determined as ever to find Rinth. We shouldn't have stopped for the night, we should have kept moving. We need to go. Now!”
“You mustn't look,” I tell Christian again, watching his face as I try to figure out how to help. There are still tears in his eyes, but they haven't broken yet and run down his face. His bottom lip is trembling, but he's not crying. It's as if he's still trying to bottle everything up. “It's all going to be okay,” I add, stupidly. “I...”
My voice trails off.
He looks at me for a moment, and then suddenly he pushes me away. Grabbing one of the fallen swords, he storms over to the soldier who killed his parents, and then he raises the sword up and brings it crashing down against the dead man's armor.
I reach out to stop him, but then he swings the sword again and I have to pull back. I can only watch as he hits the armor again and again, as if he's trying to crack it open and get to the man within, as if somehow he's trying to get revenge for what just happened. And then, just as I open my mouth to try to say something that might help, he lets out an agonized scream as he hits the corpse again. He just keeps striking the armor, causing it to clang loudly each time, as the fire begins to slowly die and the light fades. Finally we're left with only moonlight, but Christian is still crying out as he attacks the dead man.
“We have to go,” Cromer tells him, “and you're coming with us.”
“No!” Christian screams, hitting the corpse with the sword yet again.
“We can't leave you here alone,” Cromer continues. “We'll bury your parents and -”
“No!”
“We can't wait forever. If we don't get to the citadel soon, all of this will have been in vain. Do you understand that?”
“No! This is all my fault!”
Sighing, Cromer steps up behind him and grabs him, lifting him up while simultaneously forcing him to drop the sword.
“Let go of me!” Christian shouts, struggling wildly. “It's my fault! Let me go! I should have saved them!”
***
“I don't know what to do,” I say to Cromer a few hours later, as we walk along an aisle. The sun is beginning to rise on my second day in the Great Library, bringing some much-needed warmth. “He seems almost catatonic. How can we help him?”
Glancing over my shoulder, I see that Christian is still bringing up the rear of our little group. He's even fallen behind Tom, who – once again – has insisted that his bad knees mean he must ride on the horse.
“There's nothing you can do,” Cromer replies, keeping his voice low. “He just saw his parents murdered in front of him, and he feel
s a great responsibility for their loss. I only wish that I could have dispatched those soldiers more quickly, so that perhaps things would have worked out differently.”
“It's not your fault,” I tell him.
“There were only four of them, and they were not exactly great warriors. A proper fighter would have had them down in half the time, but my skills are as yet unrefined.”
I look up at the little tick on the side of his neck. Sometimes it's so hard to remember that that's who I'm really talking to.
“I think you did pretty well,” I reply, “considering... I mean, you jumped straight into action. That's brave.”
“I wasn't brave,” he says. “I've tried being brave so many times, but I'm always so scared. I've tried faking it until I make it, and all that business, but I seem to be stuck at a certain level.”
“You fight even though you're scared,” I point out. “That seems pretty brave to me.”
Dropping back a little, I soon find myself walking alongside the horse. Looking up, I see Tom riding high. He's been pretty quiet since we buried Christian's parents, and I can't help thinking that he must have a lot on his mind. I'm fairly sure he knows a lot more than he's admitted so far, about this Darvill guy and maybe even about how I'm going to get home. I guess I'm worried that he's been giving me false hope, and that he knows it's impossible for me to get back to London.
“You're staring at me,” he says after a moment.
“Sorry,” I reply, “it's just -”
“Did nobody ever tell you that it's rude to stare?”
“You have a lot of the same phrases here.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Like, just now Cromer talked about faking it until he makes it,” I continue, “and that's not the first time someone's spoken in a way that, well, reminds me of home. If this Great Library is really so far from my world, then I don't quite understand how there can also be these weird similarities.”
“There have been certain moments of cross-contamination,” he replies, sounding none too impressed. Not just here, either. Humans have a well-deserved reputation for showing up in places where they don't belong.”
“We do?”
“It's said that wherever one goes in all the many worlds, one is bound to eventually run into a human. Or, failing that, at least evidence that a human blundered through there at some point in the past.” He glances down at me. “Have you ever heard of the Flay Fields?”
“Nope.”
“The Flay Fields are a vast and forbidding world filled with the most deadly creatures imaginable. Few living creatures have ever lasted more than a matter of minutes in such an unforgiving atmosphere, but some time ago a group of brave Grandapams journeyed to the heart of the Flay Fields, to the core beyond the walls of fire, beyond the Curlicue of Death, even beyond the icy hornets. They went to the most inhospitable place known to all of civilization, they thought they were the first to get there, but do you know what they discovered next to the Altar of Grigorous itself?”
“No...” I say cautiously.
“A backpack,” he says, his voice dripping with disdain, “a half-drunk mug of tea, and a receipt for something called a... meal deal.”
“Huh,” I reply, unable to stifle a faint smile. “Sounds like someone from my world got there first.”
“Most likely by accident,” he explains, “and most likely they didn't last very long, but it's true... If there's a portal or a secret passageway between worlds, a human will always fall through sooner rather than later. As your very presence here attests.”
“Sorry about that.”
He lets out a theatrical sigh.
We walk on for a moment, and then I let myself slow down a little. Rinth walks past me, and for a moment I consider trying to say something to her, but in truth I really don't understand what she is. She just seems to bumble around, following us wherever we go and occasionally bumping into things. The others seem convinced that she's somehow going to save us, and it's not really my place to second guess them, but right now Rinth really isn't very convincing as any kind of savior. She's still clicking her fingers, and those sparks are getting a little more stable.
“So what are you doing?” I ask her finally.
Her fur shifts, and I think she might have heard me.
“You've been doing that a lot,” I continue, watching the sparks, “and -”
Before I can finish, one of the sparks briefly becomes much larger than the others, and I see something in its center. Maybe I'm going crazy, but I thought I spotted something dark with lots of lights. Of course, the spark is already gone, and the next few are nowhere near as large.
“You're practicing something, right?” I ask. “What exactly are your powers?”
She looks forward again as she creates more of the sparks, but it's pretty clear that either she won't or she can't explain it all to me. A long white hair falls away from her, but she doesn't seem to care. I drop back a little further, until I'm walking next to Christian.
“Hey,” I say cautiously, “I just -”
“Leave me alone,” he says, not even looking at me.
“I just wanted to -”
“And I told you, leave me alone!” he snaps, storming off ahead.
“Sorry,” I mutter, realizing that I probably could have handled that situation better.
Suddenly I realize that Cromer has stopped up ahead, and that the shelves in this aisle suddenly dip down, as if we've reached the crest of a hill. That doesn't make much sense to me right now, but I'm getting pretty used to that feeling, so I hurry to catch up to the others and finally I find myself looking out at the most bizarre thing I've ever seen in all my life.
“Is this real?” I whisper, as I use a hand to shield my eyes from the brightness of the rising sun.
“Oh, it's real,” Tom says. “It's also a massive problem.”
The shelves dip down, running along the rocky ground and then disappearing beneath the surface of what looks to be a vast ocean. Sunlight is glittering on the beautiful blue surface, and I can see shelves and aisles all around, leading down into the water. Seabirds are flying overhead, and about five or six miles out, away from the coast, there stands a large, tall citadel with imposing gray walls.
“Is that where we're trying to get to?” I ask.
“It is indeed,” Cromer says. “So, what are you guys like at swimming?”
Chapter Nine
Standing at the edge of the water, I look down and see that the shelves really do extend under the surface. I guess I assumed that there must be some kind of illusion, but I can just about make out books resting on those shelves, apparently surviving perfectly well even though they're underwater. There are even some little silvery fish swimming around, and I can't help wondering how the books don't just get soggy and end up being destroyed.
“Questions?”
Turning, I see that Tom has come over to join me.
“A billion,” I tell him.
“As I suspected.” He crouches down and dips a hand into the water, and then he licks his fingers. “Salty. Is the seawater salty where you come from, too?”
I nod.
“You're probably wondering how this all works,” he continues, “what with so many books being underwater. The truth is, it's a rather impractical solution that requires the attention of divers. I don't know how the books survive, they just do, and I suppose one must simply be really sure that one wants to read anything that's down there.” He gets to his feet. “After all, now that the diving librarians are gone, Joths don't come cheap.”
“You have to pay them?”
“The Joths cornered the market years ago,” he explains. “They used to be river traders, but times changed and they adapted.” Using a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, he looks both ways along the shore. “I would have thought we might see one here, but he or she can't be too far away. And we might very well need their help if we're to make it over to that citadel.”
Look
ing past him, I see that Cromer has waded out quite far into the water, and he's now submerged all the way up to his neck. Rinth, meanwhile, keeps trying to follow, but small sparks shoot out from the ends of her hair every time she dares get too close to the water's edge. Another hair falls from her, too, but I guess she's at no risk of going bald.
“I don't think she's going to be able to swim,” I point out.
“No, neither do I,” Tom says with a sigh, “which is why I suspect we have only one option. We need a Joth.”
***
“Are you sure we're going the right way?” I ask, after we've spent a couple of hours walking along the shore. We've had to wade a little way out, so that we can more easily clamber over the tops of the descending shelves. Fortunately, there's a fair amount of sand in-between, although Rinth still sparks and hisses every time she touches the water. “It's not that I'm doubting anyone,” I continue. “I just don't see any sign that there's anyone around.”
“There isn't,” Cromer replies, setting the pace up ahead, “yet.”
“So what -”
“There will be a Joth eventually.”
“How can you be sure?”
“There's always a Joth near water,” he explains. “They feel safer at the shore.”
“That place looks impenetrable,” I say, looking out toward the distant citadel. “I guess they built it out there because they didn't want too many visitors, and they seem to have picked a good spot. There doesn't even seem to be any way up those sheer cliff faces.”
“There'll be a way,” Cromer says. “There always is.”
“I guess,” I reply, as we make our way up to the top of a sandbank, stepping over the top part of another shelf that has dipped down into the water, “but -”
“There!” Cromer says, just as I see that there's a boat ahead, a little way from the shore, with what looks like a blue-skinned woman sitting on one end. “I told you there'd be a Joth around here somewhere!”