A. Hartley - Will Power

“But he killed the goblins,” I said. “No. He was a man. Tallish, slim. Not at all squat or heavy like most of the goblins I’ve seen.”

“A human accomplice, then,” said Sorrail. “A traitor. The goblins apparently came into the city in the back of a tradesman’s wagon. We found the wagon and its driver this morning. The goblins could not hope to hide long in the city after their mission was complete, but if the other attacker was a man, he could be anywhere and be quite undetected. I do not see what we could do to identify him.”

“Shouldn’t you be organizing the raiding party that goes back for Orgos and Mithos?” I said, tiring of this circular conversation.

Garnet turned and gave me a curious look, eyes narrowed and head cocked like he was straining to hear something a long way off. He opened his mouth vaguely as if he was going to say something but couldn’t find the words.

“Hell’s teeth!” I spat. “You call this beer?”

Dawn showed up like an old lover I’d never wanted to see again. With it came a letter. It lay on my breakfast tray alongside a tray of cunningly fashioned and utterly flavorless confectionary and some bland liquid which, I was assured, was “very nourishing.” I suspected it was made from some particularly nasty species of turnip. The letter came in a rich, creamy envelope bound with red ribbon and sealed with wax. My name was etched in copperplate, barely discernible beneath all the flourishes. It smelt odd. Perfumed.

“It would seem you have an admirer,” said Renthrette, idly. “How nice. You’ve always wanted one.”

I practiced my steely look on her but it bounced off as usual and broke against the wall. She smiled like a cat over a bowl of cream. Or, I suppose, a mouse.

The letter was written in a long, fine, curly print as if the world’s most aesthetically inclined spider had fallen in an ink well and become slightly drunk. I was about to peruse it when Renthrette, unable to sustain her pretense at superior disinterest, snatched it from me and began to read aloud. “ ‘My dear and most excellent Mr. Hawthorne-’ Whoever it is doesn’t know you very well,” Renthrette inserted, without pausing for breath.

“Just read the bloody thing,” I muttered. “I think we can manage without your editorials.”

She went on, her voice raised in mock passion. “ ‘I fear your aim be truer than my heart hath strength to fly, for I fall stricken at your conquering feet with my breast heaving. Take me up in your most valiant arms and save me, beloved William. Kiss my breathless lips back to life and I will live to serve and pleasure you. Love me as I love you and I will set the heavens with myriad stars to shed full daylight on your fair countenance though it were deepest night. Like Sytone in the play of old, I’ll burn with joy-’ ”

“Hold it!” I said. “The play of old? There are plays here, and no one told me? I was beginning to think Thrusia had the only theaters on the globe. Where can I find these plays?”

“Don’t you even want to know who it’s from?” said Renthrette, warming to the intrigue of the thing.

“Depends,” I said. “Does she give any more precise indication of how she intends to demonstrate this uncontrollable desire of hers? I mean, is it going to be all courtly verse, or do we get to, you know, mix our metaphors a bit?”

“Typical,” said Renthrette. “No. And it’s just signed ‘an admirer,’ anyway, so it looks like you’re stuck with the words.”

Nothing new there. But at least I had the words, and they could lead me to more interesting things. I leaned out into the corridor and flagged down the nearest guard. “You have a theater in this city?” I asked.

“A what?” said the guard.

“A place for plays. You know? Drama. A kind of entertainment where people act out stories.”

He put his head slightly on one side like a chicken that has been asked to lay a side of beef for a change, and then shook his head slowly.

“What about a public library of some sort?” I tried.

“Oh yes, sir,” he said, smiling proudly. “An extraordinary collection of our most ancient and modern manuscripts, I believe.”

Renthrette sighed pointedly. “Books are for people who can’t survive in reality,” she said. “And stories are just empty wastes of time.”

“Right, Renthrette,” I agreed absently. “Real men can’t read, I know. Go and kill something, will you? Cheer yourself up.”

The library was over by the city’s western wall, opposite the judicial courthouse. The two buildings gazed upon each other across a flagged square. They were, of course, elegant buildings fronted with white plastered columns whose capitals were discreetly brushed with gold and shone in the morning light. The square was empty and the series of turrets that surmounted the courthouse threw slightly austere, regular shadows across it. It was cold in the shadow and I was glad to pause for a moment on the sunlit side and admire the forum’s colonnade and the library’s great domed roof. It was still chilly, but the sky was clear and there was a brisk, invigorating quality to the air. I almost bounded up the marble steps and tried one of the doors, great oak things, almost black with age.

The latch clicked easily, but the door barely moved, though I put my whole weight upon it. I tried again and it scraped a few more inches and then juddered to a halt with a whine of protest. It wasn’t going any farther. I tried the other, but it was bolted down into the floor and was impervious to my efforts. I knocked loudly, but nothing happened. For a public library, it would have made a pretty good fortress.

I stood at the head of the stairs and looked out across the forum into the sun.

“So much for that,” I said aloud. Then I slowly descended the steps and began to cross the square. On a whim I swung across to the northern colonnade and began strolling along its stately length, vaguely pleased by the shelter from the breeze. Then I saw, straight ahead, just visible behind a series of stone benches that faced out into the square, a small door into the base of the law courts. Since these buildings had obviously been built to balance each other, probably at the same time, it struck me as at least possible that there might be a similar door into the library. I turned quickly and ran back, shaded by the roofed colonnade. At the far end, set in a little alcove so that it was virtually invisible from the forum, was a door about a third the size of the main entrance. I tried it.

It didn’t open. Irritably, I twisted the handle, and a reddish dust collected on my fist like dried blood. I did it again, more vigorously this time, and the rust flaked all the more. Something shifted in the mechanism and the handle gave a little more. With a glance over my shoulder and one last wrench, something inside snapped, there was a little cascade of orange which had once been metal, and the door shifted against my shoulder. Leaning my back against it and setting my feet to the jamb for leverage, I forced it open and it was the hinges’ turn to shower the stone floor with rust.

It was dark and cold inside and I had to push the door wider just to see where I was going. It was dry, but smelled unused, stale even. The corridor was narrow and, after only a few yards, turned sharply to the left. The light from the doorway was no use here and I stumbled and grazed my calves on the edge of a stone step. I felt with my hands: there were more steps ahead. Arms spread like a nervous chick poised to jump out of the nest for the first time, I ascended the stairs.