by Scott Lynch
“Paper cuts,” said Casimir, grinning. “Won’t be earning any free drinks with the story of those scars, I’m afraid.”
“Never had a paper cut inside my nose before,” muttered Yvette, wiping away a thin line of blood that had trickled into the dust above her lips. “You just let those things whirl around as they please, Master Molnar?”
“They never attack other books. And they uproot or destroy a number of the library’s smaller vermin. You might compare them to forest fires in the outside world—best avoided, but ultimately beneficial to the cycle of existence.”
“Pity about the lamps, though,” said Yvette.
“Ah. Yes,” said Molnar. He tapped the head of his staff, and a ball of flickering red light sprang from it, fainter than that of the lost lamps but adequate to dispel the gloom. “We do go through a lot of those. Aspirants, use the empty book satchel. Pick up all the lantern fragments you can see. The library has a sufficient quantity of disorder that we need not import any.”
While the aspirants tended their cuts and scoured the vicinity for lantern parts, Astriza glanced around, consulted some sort of amulet chained around her wrist, and whistled appreciatively. “Hey, here’s a stroke of luck.” She moved over to a bookcase nestled against the outer library wall, slid Lev’s grimoire into an empty spot, and backed away cautiously. “Two down. You four are halfway to your sixth year.”
“Aspirant Vrana,” said Molnar, “I believe we’ll have to travel some distance to place your book, in the outer wall of Phoenix Northwest. It will be a trudge, but every step brings us closer to the moment we can speed the four of you back to the carefree world of making requests from the comfort of the reading rooms and taking us for granted.”
“No need to hurry on my account,” said Casimir, stretching lazily. His cloak and armor were back in near perfect order. “I’m having a lovely time. And I’m sure the best is yet to come.”
*****
Along the aisle they moved, past section after section of books that were, as Master Molnar had promised, completely unharmed by the passage of the unbound grimoire. At the ragged edge of Manticore Northwest it seemed to Laszlo that they began to climb. The sensation was intermittent and elusive, for when he studied the tiled hallways between the closest shelves they appeared relatively flat. Only when he turned around and peered into the gloom behind Master Molnar did the world seem to tilt, and the mist-shrouded sections where the unbound grimoire had attacked them seemed not only distant but lower, so that if he leaned in that direction he might inevitably fall over and roll helplessly back the way they’d come.
A sharp jab to his ribs ended this reflection.
“Sorry,” said Yvette. “But you were staring at nothing with your jaw coming slowly unhinged. I can’t imagine it was for a healthy reason.”
“Up and down seem to be dressing alike, as far as my brain is concerned,” muttered Laszlo.
“It’s the Phoenix stacks,” said Master Molnar. “Each section of the library has a certain flavor to its strangeness, just as every sea-coast has a different scent on its breeze. I would recommend meditative exercises, but they would diminish your awareness of more acute hazards.”
“You’re making me feel very vulnerable, Master Molnar.”
“Good.”
On they went, and the mists gradually receded in their footsteps. The air warmed, and the scents of strange spices hung thicker in the air. The shadows did not recede. If anything, the shelves in this section were set like crooked stones in a mortar of deep velvety darkness that gnawed at Master Molnar’s guide-light, as though sampling its taste and pondering a bigger bite.
Specks of emerald and silver light glimmered and vanished in the shadows. Funeral fireflies, thought Laszlo, cold and joyless.
Astriza, at the fore of their little column, knelt and brought them to a halt with an upraised hand. Something was moving a few dozen paces ahead, a dark translucence that drifted, spinning, across the path between the shelves and then merged with the darkness, before slowly twirling back out into the meager light.
It looked like the ghost of a bookshelf, dancing with an unseen partner.
“Bibliosomnia,” whispered Molnar.
“The books are really dreaming?” said Laszlo. “I thought that was just sort of a striking turn of phrase.”
“Some books are always dreaming,” said Molnar. “Not all the dreams are powerful enough to be seen, though.”
“Is it a danger to us?” said Lev.
“If it’s in here, it’s a danger to us.” Astriza rose and took a cautious step forward. “Follow me slowly. Try not to call attention to yourselves.”
Imitating her movements, they advanced, like chaperoned children, through whatever it was books dreamed of. The sound of rustling pages was around them, like the fluttering of wings in an aviary. The dark ephemeral shape that had danced across their path, Laszlo saw, was indeed a distorted projection of a bookshelf, nor was it alone. Dream-shelves by the dozens rose out of the shadows, spinning in lonely orbits around them, drifting in their stately dances. Now and then there were glimpses of tall objects, sinuously branching, looming behind the shelves— trees.
“Dreaming of home,” whispered Yvette, “and childhood. Just as we do.”
A hissing sound arose somewhere in front of Astriza and grew steadily louder. New visions appeared with it, dark columns of fluid a yard wide, splashing from above and blasting gouts of steam from the tiled path. Laszlo was startled by the sensation of real heat and moisture blowing past his face.
“On your guard!” hissed Astriza, but the aspirants, already enveloped in unidentifiably aromatic steam, needed little warning. They ducked and weaved as gouts of dream-fluid dashed down and splashed sizzling heat in all directions. Laszlo bit back a scream as something scalding soaked through his boots.
Fortunately, this was an emergency his undergraduate years had honed him for. A thousand castings of his beer-chilling spell paid off in one snap of his fingers, and cooling energies surged from his knees down to his toes. He sucked air through his teeth in relief. Casimir, shaking dream-fluid from his cloak, crooked an eyebrow at him.
“Practical magic! A miracle!”
“Whenever anyone hands you a bottle of warm white wine,” whispered Laszlo, “call upon my power.”
The bombardment of dark fluids passed them, the steam faded, and even the stains of liquid on the path shrank away with the rapidity of melting dream-stuff. Only the memory of heat remained vivid for Laszlo.
“Not all dreams are good ones,” said Master Molnar, herding the aspirants back into line. “Also, consider trying to avoid spilling hot drinks on a grimoire. Some traumatic resentment may linger.”
No more tangible dreams assailed them, and they trudged on, once more against that sensation of ascending to height. The dreams that drifted around them became abstract, all hazy lines and indecipherable symbols, occasionally interrupted by the sounds of pages being turned or leatherbound spines creaking open. Astriza conjured her guidance spells and poked fussily at them before demanding Casimir’s book.
“My Life and the Implications of Rigid Nonconformity, by Eron Kryndar,” she said after examining it. “Thirty Phoenix North. Which is right here, but the shelf in question is… something less than right here.” She uttered a chain of imprecations, most of which Laszlo missed, but the ones he did catch seemed anatomically improbable, as bookshelves did not generally possess the orifices requisite for her suggestions. At last she craned her neck, looked straight up, and pointed.
Laszlo had to squint, but eventually he discerned the small dark shapes of bookshelves against the cloud-shrouded vaults and shadowed murals of the ceiling, fifty yards overhead, or perhaps a hundred. It was impossible to tell.
“Is it some illusion?” said Lev. “Some aspect of the book-dreams?”
“A fair guess,” said Astriza, “but that wouldn’t fool the catalog enchantments. No, those shelves have decided they’re simply happier floating arou
nd up there for some reason. No worries. Time for our little friend here to rejoin them.”
She whistled up a spell, quite literally, shaping a melody with her lips that caught the book with invisible force and impelled it upward. All went well until the halfway point of the flight, when there was a flash of motion and a sound like the crack of a whip. Astriza dodged nearly too fast for Laszlo’s eyes to follow, but the loud flat smack of book against stone beside her told the story. My Life and the Implications of Rigid Nonconformity did not want to rejoin its rightful shelves, and had reversed its course back toward the Sword-Librarian with potentially deadly force.
Master Molnar darted forward and seized the grimoire, which was still flopping and jittering about. He wrapped it in his cloak.
“Perhaps we might try the sorcery together,” he said.
The librarians did. The grimoire responded by snapping open and unleashing a rain of crackling blue levinbolts upon them and their unfortunate aspirants. When all the scampering, wailing, burning, counter-magic, and harsh language subsided, Molnar was standing atop the book to hold it down.
“Remedial reserve status, I think.” The book shifted beneath him, buzzing angrily, but he managed to keep it pinned. Smoke was rising from his armor and his walking stick. “I’ll file the notes when we’re done.”
Astriza nodded and produced a length of silver chain from which padlocks hung like berries on a metal vine. She and Molnar trussed the grimoire tightly, and with every passage of chain around it the book grew less agitated. When they snapped the final padlock, all signs of rebellion were quelled. Astriza whistled again, and at last the book vanished smoothly into the darkness overhead, reshelved in one of the levitating stacks.
“Some books get ideas every now and then,” said Master Molnar. “Twenty or thirty years in the remedial reserve usually restores their spirit of cooperation. We’re not so foolish as to expect our books to be well-behaved when they’re at home. All we require is that they come and go from the proper shelf with a bit of dignity. Now, the map, please. And the notes from your book, Aspirant Jazera.”
Astriza knelt to allow Molnar to consult the book strapped to her back. Afterward, they sifted through the instructions that had been pinned to Laszlo’s satchel. Finally, they shook hands.
“Our final errand of the day,” said Master Molnar, “will take us nearly straight back the way we came, once more to Manticore Northwest. Your feet will be sore, your heads will be nearly as empty as they were this morning, but your hearts will be lighter, for you’ll be free until your sixth years start. Onward! Every book goes back, or nobody goes home alive!”
*****
Laszlo had presumed that a downhill walk would be easier, but they didn’t receive one. Instead, the sensation of marching upwards neatly reversed and reasserted itself on their return, so it seemed the distant Manticore stacks hung almost as far overhead as the floating shelves had. Laszlo tried to keep his eyes on his feet, and never dared to glance back until the mists of the Manticore section crept in around them, and the shrouded passages between the shelves were no more or less uneven than usual.
The two librarians fussed and muttered over their guidance spells as they walked. Eventually, they arrived at what Molnar claimed was sixty-one Manticore Northwest, a cluster of shelves under a particularly heavy overhanging stone balcony.
“Secrets of Tsarepheth and the Singing Towers, author unknown,” read Astriza before she braced herself and warily slid the book into an empty spot on a shelf at knee-level.
The entire group watched expectantly.
Nothing happened.
“Ta-daaaaaa!” cried Astriza as she sprang back from the shelf. “You see, children, some returns are boring! In here, boredom is beautiful.”
“Help me!” cried a faint voice from somewhere off to Laszlo’s right, in the dark forest of bookcases leading away to the unseen heart of the library.
“Not to mention frustratingly rare.” Astriza moved out into the aisle with Molnar, scanning the shelves and shadows surrounding the party. “Identify yourself!”
“Help me!” The voice was soft and hoarse. There was no telling whether or not it came from the throat of a thinking creature.
“Someone from another book-return team?” asked Yvette.
“I’d know,” said Molnar. “More likely it’s a trick. We must investigate, but we’ll do so very cautiously.”
As though in response to the Master Librarian’s words, a book came sailing out of the darkened stacks. The two librarians ducked, and after bouncing off the floor once the book wound up at Yvette’s feet. She nudged it with the tip of a boot and then, satisfied that it was genuine, picked it up and examined the cover.
“What is it?” said Molnar.
“Annotated Commentaries on the Mysteries of the Worm,” said Yvette. “I don’t know if that means anything special—“
“An-no-tated,” hissed a voice from the darkness. There was a strange snort of satisfaction. “New!”
“Commentaries,” hissed another. “New, new!”
“Hells!” Molnar turned to the aspirants and lowered his voice. “A trick. Vocabuvores again, and we’ve just given them food!”
“Mysteries,” groaned one of the creatures. “New!” A series of wet snapping and bubbling noises followed. Laszlo shuddered, remembering the rapid growth of the thing that had tried to jump him earlier, and his sword found its way to his hand by pure reflex.
“New words,” chanted a chorus of voices that deepened even as they spoke. “New words, new words!” It sounded like at least a dozen of the things were out there, and beneath their voices Laszlo heard crackling and bubbling, as though cauldrons of fat were on the boil. Many cauldrons.
“All you, give new words!” A deeper, harsher voice than the others, more commanding. “All you, except BOY. Boy that kill with spell! Him we kill! Others give new words!”
“Him we kill,” chanted the chorus. “Others give new words!”
“No,” whispered Astriza. “This shouldn’t be possible.”
“It’s the same band of vocabuvores,” whispered Molnar. “They’ve actually followed us. Merciful gods, they’re learning new behavior. We’ve got to destroy them!”
“We sure as hell can’t let them teach others how to roam.” Astriza nodded grimly. “Let your swords and spells do the talking, aspirants. If—“
Whatever she was about to say, Laszlo never found out. Growling, panting, gibbering, screeching, the vocabuvores surged out of the darkness, over bookcases and out of aisles, into the wan circle of light cast by Molnar’s staff. Nor were they the small-framed creatures of the previous attack— most had grown to the size of wolves. Their bodies had elongated, their limbs had knotted with thick strands of ropy muscle, and their claws had become slaughterhouse implements. Some had acquired plates of chitinous armor, while others had sacks of flab hanging off them like pendulous tumors. They came by the dozens, in an arc that closed on Laszlo and his companions like a set of jaws.
The first to strike on either side was Casimir, who uttered a syllable so harsh that Laszlo reeled just to hear it. It was a death-weaving, dread sorcery, the sort of thing that Laszlo had never imagined himself even daring to study. The closest of the vocabuvores paid for its enthusiasm by receiving the full brunt of Caz’s spell. Its skin literally peeled itself from the bones and muscles beneath, a ragged wet leathery flower tearing open and blowing away. And instant later the muscles followed, then the bones and the glistening internal organs; the creature exploded in layers. But there were many more behind it, and they did not seem to be afraid of even a gory death.
Snarling they came, eyes like black hollows, mouths like gaping pits, and in an instant Laszlo’s awareness of the battle narrowed to those claws that were meant to shred his armor, those fangs that were meant to sink into his flesh. At last his curious hobby paid life-or-death dividends. Darting and dodging, he fought the wildest duel of his career, his centuries-old steel punching through vocabu
vore flesh. They fell away screaming, sure enough, but there were many to replace the slain, rank on writhing rank, pushing forward to grasp and tear at him.
“New words,” the creatures croaked, as he slashed at bulging throats and slammed his heavy hilt down on monstrous skulls. The things vomited fountains of reeking gore when they died, soaking his cloak and breeches, but he barely noticed as he gave ground step by step, backing away from the press of falling bodies as new combatants continually scrambled to take their places.
While Laszlo fought on, he managed to catch glimpses of what was happening around him. Molnar and Astriza fought back to back, the Master Librarian’s staff sweeping before him in powerful arcs. As for Astriza, her curved blades were broader and heavier than Laszlo’s— no stabbing and dancing for her. When she swung, limbs flew, and vocabuvores were opened from necks to groins. He admired her power, and that admiration nearly became a fatal distraction.
“NEW WORD!” screeched one of the vocabuvores, seizing him by his mantle and forcing him down to his knees. It pried and scraped at his leather neck-guard, salivating. The thing’s breath was unbelievable, like a dead animal soaked in sewage and garlic wine. Was that what the digestion of words smelled like? “NEW WORD!”
“Die,” Laszlo muttered, swatting the thing’s hands away just long enough to drive his sword up and into the orbless pit of its left eye. It demonstrated immediate comprehension of the new word by sliding down the front of his armor, claws scrabbling at him in a useless final reflex. Laszlo stumbled up, kicked the corpse away, and freed his blade to face the next one… and the next one…
Working in a similar vein was Lev Bronzeclaw, forgoing his mediocre magic in order to leap about and bring his natural weaponry into play just a few feet to Laszlo’s left. Some foes he knocked sprawling with lashes of his heavy tail. Others he seized with his upper limbs and held firmly while his blindingly fast kicks sunk claws into guts. Furious, inexorable, he scythed vocabuvores in half and spilled their steaming bowels as though the creatures were fruits in the grasp of some devilish pulping machine.