by A J Hackwith
Claire listened, but there were only the constant far-off rumbles. “No. What do you— Hero?”
Hero lurched toward the arch.
Claire, for once, found herself being the one to have to jog to catch up with him and his long legs. “Hold on a moment! We need to be cau—”
Hero reached the doorway and turned his face to the strange light. The torch fell from his hand, then guttered on the stone. Claire burst forward to face whatever new monster waited.
Springtime.
In their hallway, it was dark and chill in the dead, forgotten realm of the afterlife. But across the threshold in front of them, grass burst from the stones and slowly faded into a thick forest carpet. It swelled with fat moss and large-leafed bushes before giving way to the paving stones of a tidy cottage.
It was a forgettable construction, squat and consisting of conveniently stacked stones and aging wood. The hovel was barely taller than Hero, but one look at the blue-painted door and swept pavers said it was well loved. Flowers of an almost lurid variety burst from boxes by the steps, and smoke rose lazily from the chimney.
“Croak End,” Hero breathed. “That’s . . . that’s impossible.”
“What is this?” Claire felt unease and kept her toes away from the patches of false sunlight.
“That’s home.” Hero’s pronouncement left a cold shock in her stomach. Claire returned her attention to the tranquil little scene in front of her. “My . . . my story.”
“That can’t be. Your book is here. It’s likely a trick of the realm,” Claire warned. She frowned as she watched a rabbit munch on the grass nearest the threshold. It twitched its ears as if it’d heard her insult. “I had expected a castle for you, the way you talked.”
A strange, soft smile broke out on Hero’s face. His eyes never left the arch. “Humble beginnings,” he murmured. “Castles came later. This is where I grew up. Or next door to it. My place was smaller. Not nearly as nice. My neighbor . . .”
Hero broke off with a gasp as movement stirred at one edge of the arch. He stumbled a step toward the threshold. A lithe young man in dark leathers emerged from the trees, startling the rabbit. He walked with easy, rolling strides, a simple bow slung over one shoulder. His hair was longish and braided, the end of a mahogany plait tickling at his collarbone. He seemed to be whistling to himself, though Claire could hear nothing of the tune.
“Owen.” Hero’s face warmed beatifically as he watched him. “Owen! We grew up together. He was always there, even when . . .” He paused, looking troubled as he considered it. “How had I forgotten about him?”
Her alarm grew louder with Hero’s excitement. Claire clasped his elbow, trying to draw his attention. She could feel the tremor of tension in it. “It’s a story, Hero. He’s not really there—none of this is. It’s got to be a trap. Come away from there.”
“He hasn’t cut his hair yet. He still has that ratty old bag,” Hero muttered fondly, not even hearing Claire. His face softened as he watched the hunter shuck what appeared to be his day’s catch onto the porch and kick mud from his boots. “And still poaching. I warned him about that. I always said he would get us both—”
He stopped, all color draining from his face. Claire grew concerned. “What?”
“They killed him.” Hero said it levelly, but the words were rimmed in hot rage. His jaw worked as his gaze—never on Claire—turned anguished. Rage set into the curl of his lip and turned his delicate features sharp, cruel. “He stood by me, always protected me, and they killed him. Your precious heroes killed him. And I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
Claire gripped Hero’s wrist. “It’s a story, Hero. A story. Look at me. Think this through.”
“It’s not happened yet. I could stop it. I can—” He reached out a hand toward the arch.
Claire knocked his arm down as she stepped in front of him. Only her hands firmly on his chest kept him from brushing past her. “Listen to me, Hero. You have to listen. This is just a story, a vision, a trick. Block it out. I know it hurts, but it’s not real—”
Her shoulder blades slammed into the stone wall behind her and forced the air from her chest. Hero had his arm pressed against her throat. His snarl veered between broken and burning. “You can’t see anything past your precious books! We’re all just objects to you. This isn’t a story. He isn’t a trope. It is real. Owen is real—they are all real. Real to me, real to everyone who loved us. Don’t you dare . . .”
“Hero—I was . . . I didn’t mean you’re not—you’re—” Claire struggled to get back the breath that had been knocked out of her, but the muscled vise at her throat presented a challenge. “It’s a trick. Hero, you need to stop and think. You need to listen to me, and you need to listen to me right now. Please.”
Claire shifted. Hero looked down and saw Claire’s hand clenched on the hilt of the sword at his hip. Truthfully, Claire’s fingers were numb, and the scabbard was in the way. She doubted she could do any harm at this angle, but she met Hero’s gaze as he looked back up. She swallowed hard and repeated the only word that was making it through his panic. “Please.”
Claire’s hand began to cramp up. She didn’t dare move, didn’t dare speak again. The moment felt stretched and fragile. Then something broke. A raw emotion flickered over his eyes, then was gone. Hero sagged and drew back.
Claire wobbled a moment, then sank halfway down the wall to breathe. When she looked up, Hero had his back to her, was silhouetted against the dappled sunlight streaming through the arch. The hunter, Owen, had retreated inside the cabin. Hero stared sightlessly at the front door, the smoke curling in the clear, white-blue sky.
“I could have saved him. I could have saved all of them. I could have fixed it this time. I could have—”
Claire feared for a moment that he’d take that final stride across the threshold and disappear into sunlight despite himself. But in the end, his shoulders crumpled. Hero’s gaze fell to the floor, and he jerked away as if it burned. “Sorry, Owen.”
He took a stiff, halting step. Paused just long enough to offer Claire a hand. Claire took it, pulling herself up on unsteady feet. They shared no glances this time. They said nothing more.
They walked. Drawing out of the light and continuing into the permanent shadows of the labyrinth.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
THEY ENCOUNTERED NO MORE doors, no more possible futures. When they finally stumbled on another set of stairs, they took it and found themselves back in the dust-swirled ruins where they had begun. Twilight cast long shadows over the tops of the stones, cooling the air in the labyrinth quickly. Hero had left his torch behind, and without Claire’s supplies, they were soon plodding down paths in the dark.
Once they’d cleared the stairs, words came more easily. The farther they walked into the dark halls, the closer Hero and Claire drifted to each other. Words were harsh, stiff things between them, sparking like stones, but they walked, arms brushing together, in silence. The unnatural quiet of a world halfway to not there.
When they stumbled into the last dead end in a series of wrong left turns, Claire shook her head and slumped against a corner. “Let’s just rest here for the night.” Even immortal souls could get tired. Humans in the afterlife ate and slept, not because their bodies needed it, but because their sanity did.
“Dead end. How apt.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
Hero grimaced and glanced around, as if looking for wood to make camp, but when nothing but hard earth and stone appeared, he sighed and slid down the opposite wall. Nervous hands, without a task to busy them, played over his knees.
“You should have seen the castle,” Hero finally said.
Claire tensed, uncertain where his thoughts were taking him. Her mind flashed on the cabin in the woods and the handsome boy with the bow, and she opted for a neutral answer. “Is that so?”
“A rags-to-riches aristocrat, then?”
“Not quite. Rebellion is easy. Being clever, striking out where it hurt . . . I was good at that, as you might expect. We were so virtuous, so confident in our rightness. Being right is easy, but then ruling is . . . complicated.” Hero looked thoughtful before reverting to the shrug that Claire had begun to recognize as carefully crafted carelessness. “I prefer the term ‘philosopher king.’”
“Of course you do.” Claire’s lips curled into a smile. “What possible motivation could you have to be a villain with a life like that?”
“I never felt like the villain. We were overthrowing a corrupt system, me and Owen. We were going to fix everything. And then he was killed, and I didn’t want revolution; I just wanted revenge. And then . . . you turn around one day and realize you have a kingdom that hates you, no matter what you try to do. You begin to hate them a little too.” Hero quieted for a long moment. “I thought I could change it for the better, you know. Make her see the truth of it, see what a world she was wasting.”
He wasn’t speaking of Owen anymore. Claire didn’t have to ask what “her” Hero referred to. For an unwritten book, there would only ever be one “her” or “him.” The one who’d failed to let him live. Claire half expected him to say more, but the topic of his own book seemed to unsettle him. His gaze went distant and lost at some point over Claire’s shoulder.
Watching him withdraw, Claire became aware of a muted, sympathetic twist in her chest. And then, to her surprise, some of her own grief began to thaw. She’d be a hypocrite to dismiss it now. She studied him for a long moment. “Your author must have thought of you often.”
Dark green eyes blinked, and Hero returned from his thoughts in a daze. “Why do you say that?”
Lightness felt wrong in a place like this, so she offered a shrug instead. “There’s a lot of things that can wake up a book. But one theory is books are pulled awake by their author’s dreams—believe me, I know how that can go wrong. But to wake up and take shape like you did, to escape despite the Library’s precautions and find her so fast. You’re just so”—Claire made a vague twirl of her hand—“alive.”
“I much prefer it to the alternative.” Hero rubbed the space between his eyes. “Not that it’s done me much good.”
“Yes, well . . . Women of a tender age don’t take to sudden breakups well.” Claire suppressed a smile. “If you weren’t a villain in her brain before, you certainly are now.”
He dropped his head to his knees and a dry chuckle rumbled in his chest before seeming to stutter and trip over itself. He looked up, alarmed. “Is that how it works? Did I— Was I fated to inspire my own author to make me a—”
Claire saw the gears threaten to spin off the tracks in his brain, and she couldn’t suppress the laughter that bubbled out. Hero stopped with a startled look, which only made Claire laugh more until she was drained. Too exhausted to be stern.
“Oh, Hero.” She shook her head. “Even the Library doesn’t know how stories are made. Or not made, in our case. Try to put together who you are, why you are . . . Well, that’s the path of madness.”
“I’m glad you find my existential crisis so entertaining, warden.” Hero’s voice was arch, but it was softened by the curve of his lips.
They fell into a tentative truce of quiet. The chill of the stone wall was seeping into her spine, and Claire shifted, trying to find a comfortable spot. It was going to be a long night. There was a glimmer as Hero’s eyes tracked her fidgeting.
“Do characters forget themselves, warden?”
“You should know better than anyone.”
“Not from damage, I mean. Can characters forget their stories for good?”
“What a curious question . . .” Claire frowned in his direction in the dark. “Why do you ask?”
Hero seemed to chew on his answer a moment. “When I—when we— Oh, bother, it’s annoying containing multitudes. I used to be part of the whole, speak for the whole book. I was the book. All of us, all our dreams, fears . . . even the bratty, idiotic heroes. But that’s begun to fade. I can’t feel the others anymore. I’m beginning to feel more and more . . . singular.”
Alone. Hero’s voice quieted as he said it, his eyes closed, as if he could dismiss the conversation through sleep if it became too uncomfortable.
He was afraid, Claire realized with a start. It must be a disquieting feeling, being alone in your own head for the first time. “You’re still a character tied to a book, but you’re also becoming an individual. Exposed to things other than your story, you may be changing from how you were written. It’s one of the reasons the Library quiets the characters that wake up.”
“Except damsels.”
“Except the occasional damsel, yes. But only after their author is already dead and gone, and there’s no risk of damaging a potential book,” Claire allowed. “They change, grow. . . . The damsels become people. I used to think only damsels did that, but you’re proving that wrong. There’s more to every one of us than what our story intends.”
Hero’s eyes slit open. “Is that why you defended me back there? You think you’ve tamed yourself a villain?”
“Not in the slightest.” Claire smiled as she made out the unwritten man’s startled expression in the dark. “It just doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter? What, in the philosophical ‘we’re all damned anyway’ sense?”
Claire shook her head. “Stories are, at the most basic level, how we make sense of the world. It doesn’t do to forget that sometimes heroes fail you when you need them the most. Sometimes you throw your lot in with villains. Neither Heaven nor Hell is very happy with us right now.” Claire leaned her head back. The weariness hit her all at once as she looked up at the strange configuration of stars that peeked through the ruins. They twinkled red and purple, she realized. Nothing was familiar in this place. “Whatever you are, your story’s still unwritten.”
Again, silence. She thought he’d nodded off, but then Hero spoke up quietly.
“Claire.”
“What now?”
“You’re not expecting a happy ending here, are you.” His words were a statement rather than a question.
The breath staggered in Claire’s throat. She kept her eyes closed. “No. Not since the ghostlights went out.” And not since Leto. There were things Claire still couldn’t say. “Maybe it ends well for the Library, if it’s still standing. Stop Andras, protect the Library. That’s what I intend to guarantee. But for me, no.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Indeed.”
Hero seemed to consider. “I don’t think I’m going to like mocking a different librarian. Maybe I’ll run away again.”
“You’ll do no such thing. Sleep.”
Whether Hero slept or not, he didn’t speak again. Claire listened to the far-off groans, felt the chill stone beneath her cheek, and almost regretted the silence. Almost asked Hero to start chattering again. But she didn’t, and eventually she slept and dreamed as she knew she would. Of bronze scales and red stories, and remembered books turned to forgotten graves.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
DIM LIGHT PEEKED UNDER her eyelids. Claire woke up tasting dust and ozone on her tongue. The weird nontaste, nonsmell of a dead world. The sun hadn’t quite crested the tall labyrinth walls yet, leaving everything in the half-baked purple of dawn. The dead end was empty. That caused a shrill of panic, but when she turned her head, she saw Hero striding back down the passage.
Claire wiped a hand over her cheek. “What time is it?”
“Absolutely no idea,” Hero chirped,
and shrugged. “You only slept for a couple hours. I figured you needed it.”
“You didn’t sleep?”
“The accommodations were a little sparse for my tastes. Soon as it started to get light, I took the opportunity to scout out the next intersection. Followed left to another dead end, so I suspect we can be rebels and go right without ruining your glorious left-handed strategy.”
Claire took in Hero’s appearance. His clothes were filthy. She suspected hers were as well. His aristocratic coat hung open, having lost a couple buttons somewhere between Valhalla and the literally godforsaken maze they found themselves in. He sported scratches on his hands and a welt on his cheek from their headlong tumult through the catacombs. He looked weary but approached none of the exhaustion and hopeless dread that Claire felt. Stories were always resilient in their own ways.
Authors, not so much. Claire still felt half-dead as she dragged a hand over her face. “You shouldn’t have wandered off alone. There’s something else in here with us. We heard it last night.”
Hero stopped in front of her. “Concerned for my safety, warden? I’m touched.”
“Merely concerned you’ll attract the beast to me. Or take a wild hair to run off again. Not sure I have the energy to chase you, to be honest.” But Claire said it with a weak smile. Hero offered his hand, and she allowed him to yank her to her feet.
“Perhaps breakfast will improve your mood. Slice of diabetes?” Hero opened his hand and offered her one of the tiny snack cakes that she’d seen him trying with Leto in the Mdina kitchen. It was perfectly preserved in cellophane, if a bit squished.
“We’ve been on the run for our souls, and you’ve been hiding cakes on your person?”
“What? It’s not as if anyone else thought to pack provisions.” Hero took offense. He began to close his hand, but Claire snatched the treat before he could withdraw it. She tore the wrapper and crumpled the cellophane into her pocket.
“I thought you hated sugar,” Claire mumbled around a mouthful of frosting, to which Hero shrugged.