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

“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 small 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 in unison. 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 every inch of the 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 that 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 aspirants about a dozen times each year,” said Mezaros. “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.”

“As for what’s going to happen, 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’ve spent months in 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 a 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 on her shoulders.” Molnar was beaming. “Only her second year as a Librarian. 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 other 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 takes an ocean to drown yourself.”

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 away into the distance, but the farther 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. And gods, the place was vast, the ceiling was hundreds of feet above them, the outer walls were so distant they faded into mist…

“This place has weather!” said Laszlo.

“All kinds,” said Astriza, peering around. Once all six of them were through the door, she used her key to lock it shut behind them.

“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 was 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 a soft 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.”

“I can only wonder,” said Lev, “does the library not realize that we are returning books to their proper places? Should that not buy us some measure of safety?”

“We believe it understands what we’re doing, on some level,” said Molnar. “And we’re quite certain that, regardless of what it understands, it simply can’t help itself. Now, let’s start with your book, Aspirant D’Courin. Hand me the notes.”

Molnar and Astriza read the notes, muttering together, while the aspirants kept an uneasy lookout. After a few moments, Molnar raised his hand and sketched an ideogram of red light in the air. Strange sparks moved within the glowing lines, and the two Librarians studied these intently.