by Scott Lynch
“Uh,” said Laszlo, who’d wisely refreshed his limited knowledge of the library’s contents the previous night, “About ten million, sir. I think?”
“You think?” said Molnar. “I’ll believe that when further evidence is presented, but you are nearly correct. At a minimum, this collection consists of some ten million scrolls and bound volumes. The majority of which, Aspirant Bronzeclaw, are what?”
“Grimoires,” hissed the lizard. “Sir.”
“Correct. Grimoires, the personal references and notebooks of magicians from across all the known worlds, some more than four thousand years old. Some of them quite famous, or infamous. When the High University of Hazar was founded, Aspirant Vrana, what was the first initiative of the first administration?”
“A grimoire collection project, sir.”
“Correct. An effort to create the greatest magical library in existence, to unearth literally every scrap of arcane knowledge that could be retrieved from the places where those scraps had been abandoned, forgotten, or deliberately hidden. It took centuries. It was largely successful.”
Molnar turned and began moving down the central aisle between the tables and shelves where indexers worked, politely ignoring him. No doubt they’d heard this same lecture many times.
“Largely successful,” Molnar continued, “at creating one hell of a mess! Aspirant d’Courin, beyond what I have already told you, what is a grimoire?”
“Well, she began, seemingly taken aback by the question. “As you said, a magician’s personal reference. Details of spells, and experiments—“
“A catalog of a magician’s private obsessions,” said Molnar.
“I suppose, sir.”
“More personal than any article of clothing. More private than any diary. Every page stained with a sorcerer’s hidden character, their private demons, their wildest ambitions. Some magicians produce collections, others produce only a single book, but nearly all of them produce something before they die. Chances are the four of you will produce something, in your time. Some of you have certainly begun by now.”
Laszlo glanced around at the others, wondering. He had a few project journals, notes on the relatively simple magics he’d been able to grasp. Nothing that could yet be accused of showing any ambition. But Casimir, or Yvette? Who could know?
“Grimoires,” continued Molnar, “are firsthand witnesses to every triumph and every shame of their creators. They are left in laboratories, stored haphazardly next to untold powers, exposed to magical materials and energies for years. Their pages are saturated with arcane residues as well as deliberate sorceries. They are magical artifacts, uniquely infused with what can only be called the divine madness of individuals such as yourselves. They evolve, as many magical artifacts do, a faint quasi-intelligence. A distinct sort of low cunning that your run-of-the mill chair or rock or library book does not possess.
“Individually, this characteristic is usually harmless harmless. But when you take grimoires, powerful grimoires, from the hands and minds of powerful magicians, and you store them together by the hundreds, by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, by the millions…”
This last word was almost shouted, and Molnar’s arms were raised to the ceiling. His speech had lost the dry tones of lecture and acquired the dark passion of theatrical oration. Whatever Master Molnar might have thought of the aspirants entrusted to his care, he clearly harbored deep feelings about his work.
“You need thick walls,” he said, slowly, with a thin smile on his lips. “Thick walls, and rough librarians to guard them. Millions of grimoires, locked away together. Each one is a mote of quasi-intelligence, a speck of possibility, a particle of magic. Bring them together in a teeming library, in the stacks, and you have--”
“What?” said Laszlo, buying into the drama despite himself.
“Not a mind,” said Molnar, meeting his eyes like a carnival fortune-teller making a sales pitch. “Not quite a mind, not a focused intelligence. But a jungle! A jungle that dreams, and those dreams are currents of deadly strangeness. A truly Living Library. Within our power to contain, but well beyond our power to control.”
Molnar stopped beside a low table, on which were four reinforced leather satchels, each containing a single large book. Pinned to each satchel was a small pile of handwritten notes.
“A collection of thaumaturgical knowledge so vast and so deep,” said Molnar, “is far, far too useful a thing to give up merely because it has become a magical disaster area perfectly capable of killing anyone who enters it unprepared!”
Laszlo felt his sudden good cheer slinking away. His thoughts returned to some of the older aspirants he’d known, of their refusal to speak of their own fifth-year exams, of the ones that had been carried off to the infirmaries afterward. Zyn Caldor, with her neck swollen and full of gleaming black spines. Ardix, with the stump of his left hand leaking green blood. His new hand was iridium and whalebone, high art, but acquired after such pain! Then there were the rumors of disappearances—
“You aspirants have enthusiastically reaped the benefit of the library for several years now!” Molnar smiled and brushed a speck of imaginary dust from the cuirass of his librarian’s armor. His voice drew Laszlo back to the situation at hand. “You have filed your requests for certain volumes, and waited the days or weeks required for the library staff to fetch them out. Then, in the reading rooms, you have studied them in perfect comfort, because a grimoire safely removed from the Living Library is more or less just another book.
“The masters of the university, as one of their more commendable policies, have decreed that all aspirant magicians must learn to appreciate the sacrifices of the library staff that make this singular resource available. Before you can proceed to the more advanced studies of your final years, you are required to enter the Living Library, just once, to assist us in the return of a volume to its rightful place in the collection. That is all. That is the extent of your fifth-year exam. On the table beside me you will see four books in protective satchels. Take one, and handle it with care. Until those satchels are empty, your careers at the High University are in the balance.”
Lev passed the satchels out one by one. Laszlo received his and examined the little bundle of notes that came with it. Written in several different hands, they named the borrower of the grimoire as a third-year aspirant he didn’t know, and described the process of hunting the book down, with references to library sections, code phrases, and number sequences that Laszlo couldn’t understand.
“The library is so complex,” said Molnar, “and has grown so strange in its ways that physical surveillance of the collection has been impractical for centuries. We rely on the index enchantments, powerful processes of our most orderly magic, to give us the information that the indexers maintain here. From that information, we plan our expeditions, and map the best ways to go about fetching or returning an item from the stacks.”
“Master Molnar, sir, forgive me,” said Casimir. “Is that a focus for the index enchantments over there?”
Laszlo followed Casimir’s pointing hand, and in a deeper niche behind one of the little armories along the walls, he saw a recessed column of black glass, behind which soft pulses of blue light rose and fell.
“Just so,” said Molnar. “Either you’ve made pleasing use of the introductory materials, or that was a good guess.”
“It’s, ah, a sort of personal interest.” Casimir reached inside a belt pouch and took out a thick hunk of triangular crystal, like a prism with a milky white center. “May I leave this next to the focus while we’re in the stacks? It’s just a measuring device. It’ll give me a basic idea of how the index enchantments function. My family has a huge library, not magical, of course, but if I could create spells to organize it—”
“Ambition wedded to sloth,” said Molnar. “Never let it be said you failed to think like a true magician, Aspirant Vrana.”
“I won’t even have to think about it while we’re inside, sir. It woul
d mind itself, and I could pick it up on the way out.” Casimir was laying it on, Laszlo saw, with every ounce of obsequiousness he could conjure.
But what was he talking about? Personal project? Family library? Caz had never breathed a word of any such thing to him. While they came from very different worlds, they’d always gotten on excellently as chambers-mates, and Laszlo had thought there were no real secrets between them. Where had this sprung from?
“Of course, Vrana,” said Master Molnar. “We go to some trouble to maintain those enchantments, after all, and today is dedicated to appreciating our work.”
While Casimir hurried to emplace his little device near the glass column, Molnar beckoned the rest of them on toward another gate at the inner end of the Manticore Index. It was as tall and wide as the door they’d entered, but even more grimly functional—cold dark metal inscribed with geometric patterns and runes of warding.
“A gateway to the stacks,” said Molnar, “can only be opened by the personal keys of two librarians. I’ll be one of your guides today, and the other should have been here by—“
“I’m here, Master Librarian.”
In the popular imagination (which had, to this point, included Laszlo’s), female librarians were lithe, elegant warrior-acrobats out of some romantic legend. The woman now hurrying toward them through the Manticore Index was short, barely taller than Yvette, and sturdy as a concrete teapot, with broad hips and arms like a blacksmith’s. Her honey-colored hair was tied back in a short tail, and atop her black librarian’s armor she wore an unusual harness that carried a pair of swords crossed over her back. Her plump face was as abused as Molnar’s, and Laszlo had learned just enough in his hobby duels to take it all in (scars, stance, attitude) and decide that the woman was nobody he would have willingly trifled with.
“Aspirants,” said Molnar, “allow me to present Sword-Librarian Astriza Mezaros.”
As she moved past him, Laszlo noticed two things. First, the curious harness held not just her swords but a large book, buckled securely over her lower back beneath her scabbards. Second, she had a large quantity of fresh blood soaking the gauntlet on her left hand.
“Sorry to be late,” said Mezaros, “Came straight from the infirmary.”
“Indeed,” said Molnar, “and are you—“
“Oh, I’m fine. I’m not the one that got hit. It was Selucas. Aspirant from the early morning group.”
“Ahhhh. And will he recover?”
“Given a few weeks.” Mezaros grinned as she ran her eyes across the four aspirants. “Hard way to earn a passing grade, but a book returned while the carrier was unconscious is still a book returned.”
“Well, I’ve given them the lecture,” said Molnar. “Let’s proceed.”
“On it.” Mezaros reached down the front of her cuirass and drew out a key hanging on a chain. Molnar did the same, and each librarian took up a position beside the inner door. The walls before them rippled, and keyholes appeared where blank stone had been a moment before.
“Opening,” yelled Master Molnar.
“Opening,” chorused the indexers. Each of them dropped whatever they were working on and turned to face the inner door. One blue-robed woman hurried to the hallway door, checked it, and shouted, “Manticore Gate secure!”
“Opening,” repeated Molnar. “On three. One, two—“
The two librarians inserted their keys and turned them simultaneously. The inner door slid open, just as the outer one had, revealing an empty, metal-walled room lit by amber lanterns set in heavy iron cages.
Mezaros was the first one into the metal-walled chamber, holding up a hand to keep the aspirants back. She glanced around quickly, surveying walls, floors, and ceiling, and then she nodded.
“In,” said Molnar, herding the aspirants forward. He snapped his fingers, and with a flash of light he conjured a walking staff, a tall object of polished dark wood. It had few ornaments, but it was shod at both ends with iron, and that iron looked well-dented to Laszlo’s eyes.
Once the six of them were inside the metal-walled chamber, Molnar waved a hand over some innocuous portion of the wall, and the door behind them rumbled shut. Locking mechanisms engaged with an ominous series of echoing clicks.
“Begging your pardon, Master Molnar,” said Lev, “not to seem irresolute, for I am firmly committed to any course of action which will prevent me from having to return to my clan’s ancestral trade of scale-grooming, but merely as a point of personal curiosity, exactly how much danger are we reckoned to be in?”
“A good question,” said Molnar slyly. “We librarians have been asking it daily for more than a thousand years. Astriza, what can you tell the good aspirant?”
“I guard about a dozen fifth-year exams every spring,” said Mezaros. “As far as ease is concerned, the fastest trip I can remember was about two hours. The longest took a day and a half. You have the distinct disadvantage of not being trained librarians, and the dubious advantage of sheer numbers. Most books are returned by experienced professionals operating in pairs.”
“Librarian Mezaros,” said Lev, “I am fully prepared to spend a week here if required, but I was more concerned with the, ah, chance of ending the exam with a visit to the infirmary.”
“Aspirant Inappropriate Levity Bronzeclaw,” said Mezaros, “in here, I prefer to be called Astriza. Do me that favor, and I won’t use your full name every time I need to tell you to duck.”
“Ah, of course. Astriza.” The lizard bowed his head slightly. “Master Molnar, does that apply to you as—“
Molnar favored the entire group of aspirants with a look that clearly stated his first name, so far as they were and always would be concerned, was ‘Master.’
“As for what’s going to happen,”said the Sword-Librarian, “well, it might be nothing. It might be pretty brutal. I’ve never had anyone get killed under my watch, but it’s been a near thing. Look, I’m well past familiar with the infirmary myself. Had my right leg broken twice, right arm twice, left arm once, nose more times than I can count.”
“This is our routine,” said Molnar with grim pride. “I’ve been in coma twice. Both of my legs have been broken. I was blind for four months--”
“I was there for that,” said Astriza.
“She carried me out over her shoulders.” Molnar was beaming. “Only her second year as a librarian. She had a punctured lung! Yes, this place has done its very best to kill the pair of us. But the books were returned to the shelves.”
“Damn straight,” said Astriza. “Librarians always get the books back to the shelves. Always. And that’s what you browsers are here to learn by firsthand experience. If you listen to the Master Librarian and myself at all times, your chances of a happy return will be greatly improved. No further promises.”
“Past the inner door,” said Molnar, “your ordinary perceptions of time and distance will be taxed. Don’t trust them. Follow our lead, and for the love of all gods everywhere, stay close.”
Laszlo, who’d spent his years at the university comfortably surrounded by books of all sorts, now found himself staring down at his satchel-clad grimoire with a sense of real unease. He was knocked out of his reverie when Astriza set a hand on the satchel and gently pushed it down.
“That’s just one grimoire, Laszlo. Nothing to fear in a single drop of water, right?” She was grinning again. “It’s the ocean you need to worry about.”
Another series of clicks echoed throughout the chamber, and with a rumbling hiss the final door to the library stacks slid open before them.
*****
“It doesn’t seem possible,” said Yvette, taking the words right out of Laszlo’s mouth.
Row upon row of tall bookcases stretched into the distance, but the more Laszlo strained to see down the aisles between those shelves, the more they seemed to curve, to turn upon themselves, to become a knotted labyrinth leading away into darkness. Gods, the place was vast, the ceiling was hundreds of feet above them, the outer walls were so d
istant they faded into mist.
“This place has weather!” said Laszlo.
“All kinds,” said Astriza, peering around. Once everyone was through the door, she used her key to lock it behind them. No elaborate ceremony here, Laszlo noted. No dance with dual locks. Escaping or sealing off the interior of the library could be done in an instant from this side.
“And it doesn’t fit,” said Yvette. “Inside the cube, I mean. This place is much too big. Or is that just—“
“No, it’s not just an illusion. At least not as we understand the term,” said Molnar. “This place was orderly once. Pure, sane geometries. But after the collection was installed the change began. By the time the old librarians tried to do something, it was too late. Individual books are happy to come and go, but when they tried to remove large numbers at once, the library got angry.”
“What happened?” said Casimir.
“Suffice to say that in the thousand years since, it has been our strictest policy to never, ever make the library angry again.”
As Laszlo’s senses adjusted to the place, more and more details leapt out at him. It really had the aspect of a jungle, a tangled forest of shelves and drawers and columns and railed balconies, as though the Living Library had somehow reached out across time and space and raided other buildings for components that suited its whims. Dark galleries branched off like caves, baroque structures grew out of the mists and shadows, a sort of cancer-architecture that had no business standing upright. Yet it did, under gray clouds that occasionally pulsed with faint eldritch light. The cool air was ripe with the thousand odors of old books and preservatives, and other things—hot metal, musty earth, wet fur, old blood. Ever so faint, ever so unnerving.
The two librarians pulled a pair of small lanterns from a locker beside the gate, and tossed them into the air after muttering brief incantations. The lanterns glowed softly red, and hovered unobtrusively just above the party.
“Ground rules,” said Astriza. “Nothing in here is friendly. If any sort of something should try any sort of anything, defend yourself and your classmates. However, you must avoid damaging the books.”