A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

The images of a dead Leto, a wounded Beatrice, paper corpses and ink blood, swept through her. Claire twisted and ran from the dead end, down the path toward the rumbling bellows that echoed from the center of the labyrinth. Ghosts at her back, monsters ahead.

THE HOWLING GREW LOUDER until Claire could feel the vibration jostling the organs in her chest. The air felt like it opened up, walls widening at the next intersection. She slowed as she turned the corner.

The endless dirt paths of the labyrinth fell away to a wide, paved courtyard, each cobblestone dotted with a jade symbol in stone. Half-finished pillars rose every few yards like shattered bones, forming a loose ring around an otherwise barren space. Ragged flags of saffron yellow hung limp from the tops. It was approaching what passed for day here, and the sun throttled down, heating the stones and dwarfing the shadow of the beast that hunkered in the center of the yard.

Claire didn’t realize its true size until the creature rose from the stones and began to pace.

Shaggy hair hung off massive shoulders that appeared mostly human until they ran up to meet a monstrous head. Horns thick as oaks arched out from both sides of its skull. They glowed a deep, blackened red. The beast’s head was turned away, but even from afar, Claire could tell that its features were gnarled with muscle, and hairs as stiff as needles.

The minotaur skulked past one of the pillars, knocking great blocks aside. It had to be twice the size of the giant Hero had faced in Valhalla.

But what drew her attention, what made Claire take a step away from the wall, was the large iron key that swung from a ratty leather strap around its neck. There was no door in sight, but Claire had read enough fairy tales to know what it unlocked.

The beast halted and sniffed the air, giving a great roar as it turned. A familiar roar. “ABANDON ALL HOPE, ye who enter here! Beyond me lies the city of woe. Before me waits—”

“Walter?” Claire stepped forward before considering the wisdom of her actions.

“An’ no mercy will you… ah, oh. Oh.”

The minotaur swung its head around. It was a strange, bull-like face, crisscrossed with old scars and tumorous clefts. One eye was milky red in its socket, but the other one lit up with recognition, and there was a familiar set to his bulbous chin. “Hullo there, Miss Claire. You really shouldn’t be here.”

“A situation I’m trying to correct as quickly as possible, I assure you.” Claire felt relief like a kind of giddiness. She approached the Walter minotaur—Waltertaur?—carefully. “It’s really you, isn’t it? What on earth are you doing here?”

“I’m the gatekeeper. My duty is to guard the gates.” Walter puffed up before tapping his knuckles together abashedly. “All gates.”

Claire frowned. “The gates of every realm? But I didn’t see you in Valhalla.”

“Sure you did! Ah, apologies to Hero next time you see ’im, please?”

Claire squinted. She saw no similarity to the giant in the ring when she and Hero had faced the trial to enter Valhalla. He’d been quite thoroughly Viking and wielded…

“Widowbane!” Claire remembered the overlarge maul now, glittering with the same shadowy red of the minotaur’s horns and Walter’s teeth. “You were the bludgeon. You never told me.”

The Walter minotaur nodded. “That was me. Well. Part of me. One of me. An aspect. I don’t like talkin’ about it, precisely. It gets all rather higgledy-piggledy.”

“It does indeed.” Claire paused as a thought occurred to her. “You’re the gatekeeper. You’re every gatekeeper. Does that make you—”

“Death,” Walter said quietly. His gaze gentled and he rubbed his neck, a gesture familiar enough to make Claire’s heart ache. “Some call me that, yeah. I always rather liked ‘Walter.’”

“Oh.” Claire chewed on her cheek. She’d entered the labyrinth expecting to find death and here he was. And he’d been her friend all along. No matter how far she ran, she couldn’t escape the feeling of a story. “Regardless… I am very glad to see you, Walter. I need transport back to Hell, immediately. There’s an emergency.”

“I see. Ah, then may I just see your ghostlight, ma’am?”

Claire drew out the cold wax candle from her pocket. It was just as dead as Leto’s lighter had been. The tiny stub was crumpled on one side from having been wedged against her hip as she slept.

Walter bent nearly in half to lean his one working eye over it. His face was solemn as he looked back up. “Yer a mortal soul out without a ghostlight, Miss Claire.”

“I am.” Her fingers curled protectively around the cold piece of wax and stuffed it back into her skirts. At the bottom of the pocket, her fingertips grazed some bits of paper that whispered to her, but she left them there for now.

“That’s a mighty shame.” Walter took a step back from Claire, and pity was a strange twist on his ageless face. “See, I’m supposed t’ eat any regular folk that pass through here. It’s kinda why I’m here.”

“Now, wait one moment, Walter. You know I’m the librarian—”

“And you shouldn’t be here without a proper ghostlight. Makes you a lost soul, ma’am.” Walter began rolling his shoulders.

“I’m not anything of the sort! I had a light. There were extenuating circumstances.” Claire took a step back. Walter might be Death, but she couldn’t quite believe that the Walter she knew would attack her—in any realm. But he appeared to be preparing to do just that. “Can you at least tell me what is supposed to happen here?”

“Well. Screamin’ and bleedin’ mostly.” Walter paused. “I try to eat you, you try to fight, and then you try to run. It don’t work out. Your soul gets swallowed and feeds the realm.”

“This place has a rather concerning preoccupation with devouring souls,” Claire grumbled, rather than feel the flutter of nerves at the way Walter stretched. “Your realm’s god dies, and you all turn carrion? No, I suppose it’d be cannibals, since you don’t wait until a lady is done with her own soul first.”

Walter had the grace to look abashed. “I didnae exactly write the rules, ma’am. I hope ye know this is rather off-putting for me too.”

“Yes. Well, eating your colleague is a bit of a faux pas.”

“Yeh could just turn around and go back into the labyrinth.”

“I’m afraid not. There are pressing matters elsewhere,” Claire said. “Besides, it’s dull, and I didn’t bring a thing to read.”

Walter’s shoulders dropped. “Then I’m afraid I gotta eat you.”

Claire reached for any question to make Walter pause in his warm-up. “What happens if I win?”

“Huh. Well, no one does that.”

“But if I did?”

“If you did… well, you get to claim a boon, I suppose. In the old days, yeh got to reincarnate on Earth as a kitty cat. But I don’t think I got the mojo to do that anymore.”

“Good. I rather mistrust cats.” Claire considered. “What’s your secret?”

“Ma’am?”

“Oh, come, now. I’m an unwritten author, and this whole blighted thing feels like a tale. I know how stories go. Every monster at the center of the labyrinth has a hidden weakness. A trick for the hero to find.”

“Oh.” Walter was flummoxed. “No one’s just come out and asked that before.”

“But you do have one?”

“Well. Yes.” Walter mulled it over. “I’m not sure I can just tell you like that.”

Claire tilted her head. “Is there a rule against it?”

“Well… no.” Walter’s face lit up, pleased, as he gave his full attention to it. “My eye.”

Claire inspected both the brown eye fixed on her and the milky white orb opposite it. “Your eye? What? I am supposed to hit you there?”