A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

The courtyard became a crossroads.

“But no signposts. Which one?” Claire muttered. The orb responded by pulsing brightly and Claire nearly dropped it in surprise. When she brought it back to her eye, she saw that the doors were colored now. Each gate now held a door front decorated with unique lines and painted one of a multitude of colors, more than she would have believed existed.

She considered the one in the wall nearest her. It was ivory with metal inlay, every detail gilded. A flock of chubby-cheeked infants frolicked across it, each bearing wings and a golden horn, while some frankly terrifying figures watched from above, borne up by greater wings. Claire could guess the destination for that one, and she chuckled as she stepped back.

Hell would be easy to find. But she couldn’t just drop into the Library in the middle of an invasion and expect a solution to present itself. Claire pivoted as she considered the gallery of pathways around her, a tickle of a plan beginning to form in her head.

HELL WAS A SERIES of hallways.

It was monotonous and maddening, and Rami still couldn’t believe it. The door had been open. The old paths into Hell, paths Rami hadn’t walked since he’d abandoned Lucifer’s upstart rebellion so long ago, had still been open. The way between worlds had still risen to appear when Rami willed it. No tricks, no force, no begging needed.

It was as if Hell had been waiting for him. In the eons, ages, millennia since then, Lucifer hadn’t shut him out. Uriel’s mad plan had turned out to be right. For some reason, even as a Watcher presumably working for Heaven, Rami was welcome in Hell.

The prospect, and the possible reasons why, disturbed him deeply.

Leto, however, experienced no such concerns. The boy brightened up considerably once they’d reached these interminable hallways. He behaved as if he wanted nothing more than to hug each pillar they passed.

Thankfully, he kept his arms at his sides and carefully walked in the center of the hall, per their agreement. Leto was a purified soul, and if he could stay that way, he could still pass the Gates. But souls were grasping things. The slightest encounter with the wrong influence here could corrupt and damn him all over again. Just walking the grounds was dangerous enough, and Rami had insisted that the boy stay two steps behind him when trouble presented itself and touch nothing besides the floor beneath his feet.

He allowed Leto to take the lead once they passed the trials of the anguished in the outer ring and approached the Library. The boy appeared to have blossomed, rather than being drained from his trials; he glowed. His ears stayed rounded and his skin stayed youthful and warm. He toyed with his messy coils of hair absently. How had it been possible that Rami had ever mistaken him for a demon? Leto hummed a tuneless pop song under his breath as he guided Rami past hallways drenched in the sunsets of alien stars, down grand staircases falling into disrepair, through ballrooms that still contained the last strains of music.

They encountered no one, which just set Rami more on edge. It was very quiet for an invasion. Either they were quite late, and the battle was done, or the opposition had been so weak as not to warrant a defense. Neither possibility boded well for the Library. It left Rami considering what he would do should they even reach the doors.

He was so busy chasing these thoughts around his head, he nearly ran into Leto. The teenager was frowning at a large alcove. A low, empty platform grounded the otherwise empty space, and it was this platform that seemed to concern him.

“The gargoyle should be here,” Leto said.

“A gargoyle?”

“Well, a headache in the form of a gargoyle. I really should have asked its name….” Leto trailed off as he looked down the hallway. “Oh! There he is!”

The teenager took off toward a large form that stood frozen at the far end of the hall. A chill of alarm shot up Rami’s back, and his hand drifted to his sword as he ran. “Leto! Stop!”

He caught up with Leto as he stumbled to a stop near the unmoving form. It was a statue of dull, jagged stone and with a great head and wings that brushed the hallway’s tall ceiling. It appeared to be caught in midattack, arms and wings extended, muscles bunched. It didn’t move but still seemed to shift and twitch, never quite fully in focus. When Rami cautiously circled the statue to inspect its face, a disorienting pulse of pain bloomed in his head.

Rami looked away with a wince. “This is your gargoyle?”

“Yes. But when I knew him, he moved around more….” Leto’s brow furrowed in concern. He reached his fingers out toward one frozen wing before catching himself. “Something’s wrong with him.”

“Perhaps he’s best left as he is.”

Leto shoved his hands in his pockets and paced around, then back up as if to get a better view. On his third step backward, the air crackled a warning. Rami’s shout was too slow.

Violet light filled the hall and shot at Leto’s back. The next moment, the teenager flew across the marble floor, and the light briefly coalesced into a wall before fading away.

Leto crumpled against a wall. Rami felt relief when he let out a breathy groan as he reached him. “Are you all right?”

“For the record, I did not touch anything. I swear.” Leto accepted help sitting upright, and he rubbed his shoulder with a wince. “What was that?”

“A ward.” Rami stood and approached the space where the wall had formed.

“That’s good, right? That means Andras and the other bad guys haven’t gotten in yet.”

“No.” Rami inspected the air. He brought out his sword and held it just over the space. Black and violet light arced between his blade and the ward, though it didn’t shock again. He sighed and put his blade away. “This is a temporary ward. Strong but hastily formed, not tied to anything. It isn’t anchored to the Library.”

Leto’s face fell as he looked down the hall. Beyond the invisible ward, they could see the great double doors that Rami assumed led to the Library. Muffled shouts and thuds could just barely be heard. But a full-scale resistance, a successful resistance, should have been much louder, producing sounds of fighting that could be heard even at this distance. Rami worried what they would find. They could be merely walking into an enemy encampment.

“So how do we get past it?” Leto asked.

“We can’t.” Rami stepped back to inspect the lines of power that were just visible now, crisscrossed through the air. “I said it was hasty, not that it was weak. Whoever constructed it has got something powerful feeding it, supplying energy. We would need something even stronger to disrupt it, even for a moment. We would need nothing short of a miracle to bring it down.”

“I might be able to manage that.” A voice came from down the hall. “But you’re not setting foot in my Library.”

Rami’s sword came to his hand as he pivoted, low in front of Leto to shield the human soul from whatever was coming.

But down the hall was a familiar figure. Claire was in a filthy state, braids wild and skirts torn, brown skin dusted with grit and something redder, but her glare was as fierce as ever.