Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

“Moderately.”

“I don’t mean to lecture, magician, but sooner or later you should probably start using, you know, magic to smooth out your little inconveniences.”

“You’re a lot more confident with practical use than I am.”

“Theory’s a wading pool, Laz. You’ve got to come out into deep water sooner or later.” Casimir grinned, and slapped Laszlo on the back. “You’re gonna see that today, I promise. Let’s get your kit together so they don’t start without us.”

Laszlo pulled on a pair of fingerless leather gauntlets, the sort peculiar to the profession of magicians intending to go in harm’s way. With Casimir’s oversight, he filled the sheathes on his belt and boots with half a dozen stilettos, then strapped or tied on no fewer than fourteen auspicious charms and protective wards. Some of these he’d crafted himself; the rest had been begged or temporarily stolen from friends. His sable cloak and mantle, lined in aspirant gray, settled lastly and awkwardly over the creaking, clinking mass he’d become.

“Oh damn,” Laszlo muttered after he’d adjusted his cloak, “where did I set my—”

“Sword,” said Casimir, holding it out in both hands. Laszlo’s wire-hilted rapier was his pride and joy, an elegant old thing held together by mage-smithery through three centuries of duties not always ceremonial. It was an heirloom of his diminished family, the only valuable item his parents had been able to bequeath him when his mild sorcerous aptitude had won him a standard nine-year scholarship to the university. “Checked it myself.”

Laszlo buckled the scabbard into his belt and covered it with his cloak. The armor still left him feeling vaguely ridiculous, but at least he trusted his steel. Thus protected, layered head-to-toe in leather, enchantments, and weapons, he was at last ready for the final challenge each fifth-year student faced if they wanted to return for a sixth.

Today, Laszlo Jazera would return a library book.

The Living Library of Hazar was visible from anywhere in the city, a vast onyx cube that hung in the sky like a square moon, directly over the towers of the university’s western campus. Laszlo and Casimir hurried out of their dorm and into the actual shadow of the library, a darkness that bisected Hazar as the sun rose toward noon and was eclipsed by the cube.

There was no teleportation between campuses for students. Few creatures in the universe are lazier than magicians with studies to keep them busy indoors, and the masters of the university ensured that aspirants would preserve at least some measure of physical virtue by forcing them to scuttle around like ordinary folk. Scuttle was precisely what Laszlo and Casimir needed to do, in undignified haste, in order to reach the library for their noon appointment. Across the heart of Hazar they sped.

Hazar! The City of Distractions, the most perfect mechanism ever evolved for snaring the attention of young people like the two cloaked aspirants! The High University, a power beyond governments, sat at the nexus of gates to fifty known worlds, and took in the students of eight thinking species. Hazar existed not just to serve the university’s practical needs, but to sift heroic quantities of valuables out of the student body by catering to its less practical desires.

Laszlo and Casimir passed whorehouses, gambling dens, fighting pits, freak shows, pet shops, concert halls, and private clubs. There were restaurants serving a hundred cuisines, and bars serving a thousand liquors, teas, dusts, smokes, and spells. Bars more than anything—bars on top of bars, bars next to bars, bars within bars. A bar for every student, a different bar for every day of the nine years most would spend in Hazar, yet Laszlo and Casimir somehow managed to ignore them all. On any other day, that would have required heroic effort, but it was exams week, and the dread magic of the last minute was in the air.

At the center of the eastern university campus, five hundred feet beneath the dark cube, was a tiny green bordered with waterfalls. No direct physical access to the Living Library was allowed, for several reasons. Instead, a single tall silver pillar stood in the middle of the grass. Without stopping to catch his breath after arrival, Laszlo placed the bare fingers of his right hand against the pillar and muttered, “Laszlo Jazera, fifth year, reporting to Master Molnar of the—”

Between blinks it was done. The grass beneath his boots became hard tile, the waterfalls became dark wood paneling on high walls and ceilings. He was in a lobby the size of a manor house, and the cool, dry air was rich with the musty scent of library stacks. There was daylight shining in from above, but it was tamed by enchanted glass and fell on the hall with the gentle amber color of a good ale. Laszlo shook his head to clear a momentary sensation of vertigo, and an instant later Casimir appeared just beside him.

“Ha! Not late yet,” said Casimir, pointing to a tasteful wall clock where tiny blue spheres of light floated over the symbols that indicated seven minutes to noon. “We won’t be early enough to shove our noses up old Molnar’s ass like eager little slaves, but we won’t technically be tardy. Come on. Which gate?”

“Ahhh, Manticore.”

Casimir all but dragged Laszlo to the right, down the long circular hallway that ringed the innards of the library. Past the Wyvern Gate they hurried, past the Chimaera Gate, past the reading rooms, past a steady stream of fellow aspirants, many of them armed and girded for the very same errand they were on. Laszlo picked up instantly on the general atmosphere of nervous tension, as sensitive as a prey animal in the middle of a spooked herd. Final exams were out there, prowling, waiting to tear the weak and sickly out of the mass.

On the clock outside the gate to the Manticore Wing of the library, the little blue flame was just floating past the symbol for high noon when Laszlo and Casimir skidded to a halt before a single tall figure.

“I see you two aspirants have chosen to favor us with a dramatic last-minute arrival,” said the man. “I was not aware this was to be a drama exam.”

“Yes, Master Molnar. Apologies, Master Molnar,” said Laszlo and Casimir in unison.

Hargus Molnar, Master Librarian, had a face that would have been at home in a gallery of military statues, among dead conquerors casting their permanent scowls down across the centuries. Lean and sinewy, with close-cropped gray hair and a dozen visible scars, he wore a use-seasoned suit of black leather and silvery mail. Etched on his cuirass was a stylized scroll, symbol of the Living Library, surmounted by the phrase Auvidestes, Gerani, Molokare . The words were Alaurin, the formal language of scholars, and they formed the motto of the Librarians:

RETRIEVE. RETURN. SURVIVE.

“May I presume,” said Molnar, sparing neither aspirant the very excellent disdainful stare he’d cultivated over decades of practice, “that you have familiarized yourselves with the introductory materials that were provided to you last month?”

“Yes, Master Molnar. Both of us,” said Casimir. Laszlo was pleased to see that Casimir’s swagger had prudently evaporated for the moment.

“Good.” Molnar spread his fingers and words of white fire appeared in the air before him, neatly organized paragraphs floating vertically in the space between Laszlo’s forehead and navel. “This is your Statement of Intent; namely, that you wish to enter the Living Library directly as part of an academic requirement. I’ll need your sorcerer’s marks here .”

Laszlo reached out to touch the letters where Molnar indicated, feeling a warm tingle on his fingertips. He closed his eyes and visualized his First Secret Name, part of his private identity as a wizard, a word-symbol that could leave an indelible imprint of his personality without actually revealing itself to anyone else. This might seem like a neat trick, but when all was said and done, it was mostly used for occasional bits of magical paperwork and for bar tabs.