Christopher Golden - Tears of the Furies

"Wonderful," Ceridwen whispered to herself. She could recall long hours spent here on the occasions when she had come back to the mortal world — what her people called the Blight — with Arthur.

Yet the immediacy of their situation beckoned. She turned to leave, but even as she did so, she caught sight of another figure moving across the balcony on the second story. It was only a glimpse, as he moved into one of the many alcoves of bookshelves, but there was no mistaking the leathery skin and small, sharp horns.

Ceridwen went softly up the stairs to the second floor and moved around the circumference of the room, along the balustrade, to the alcove where he had disappeared. Danny Ferrick had his back to her and wore small silver headphones. She knew that music somehow came from such things but she could not see its source. The demon boy nodded along in time with the rhythm and had not noticed Ceridwen’s arrival. For several moments she watched him curiously as he withdrew certain volumes from the shelves and perused them. Conan Doyle had one of the most extraordinary libraries in the world, replete not only with the summary accumulation of human wisdom, but with the secrets of the occult as well. The true histories of the world. Revelations of ancient societies. Lost worlds. Other dimensions. Many of the books in the library were unique and thought to have been lost at the time of the burning of the library of Alexandria.

A young man with an interest in the supernatural could learn a great deal in this hall.

She tapped him on the shoulder. "Danny."

"Fuck!" he snarled, spinning to face her and backing away at the same time. Fright and aggression warred in his eyes, and then he saw who had disturbed him, and he let out a long breath, relaxing into his sagging, teenager posture.

"You wear the face of his enemy and yet still call upon the man-god of your parents’ religion?" Ceridwen asked.

The demon boy leaned back and gazed up at the sunlight streaming in through the windows in the ceiling high above. He waved a clawed hand. "Well, He hasn’t struck me with lightning yet, so either He isn’t listening or I’m getting the benefit of the doubt. My guess is, you don’t get judged on your gene pool, but how you swim in it."

"I am amazed at how often I have no idea what you’re talking about."

Danny looked at her and shook his head. "Damn. You and everyone else around here. Squire’s the only one who doesn’t give me that confused look, and that’s because he’s more of a kid than I am. If he’s got a mom somewhere, I got a feeling she’s pretty horrified. Maybe that’s why we get along."

"You do yourself a disservice, Daniel. You have earned the respect and fondness of every resident of this house. Dr. Graves in particular."

The teenager shrugged. "He’s cool. You’ve all been pretty much all right by me. Except maybe Mr. Doyle. I don’t think he likes me very much."

He gazed over the edge of the balustrade, down at the first floor, and he said it carelessly. But Ceridwen could see in his eyes that he did care, quite a bit.

"You might be surprised. I think Arthur fears for you, Danny. That is the concern you see in him."

The demon boy did not respond to that. He appeared to think it over a moment and then only nodded, keeping his own counsel. At length he walked past her and started perusing the shelves again, but halfheartedly, including her in his observations.

"This is a pretty amazing place, isn’t it? I mean, it’s so giant I have a hard time figuring out how it fits inside the house. From the inside it seems big enough that there shouldn’t be room for anything else. No bedrooms, no parlors, no dining room. It’s weird. Maybe it’s an optical illusion or something."

Ceridwen smiled. "Something like that."

Danny had begun to run his fingers along a line of books, reading the titles silently to himself, but at her response he paused and regarded her.

"No. Uh uh. Don’t do that. I know that tone of voice. Okay, so there’s stuff I don’t know. I’m a moron. Well, un-idiot me. Fill me in. What’s the secret of this place?"

She lost her smile. "You’re right, of course. You are young, but you’ve earned the right not to be treated as a child. My apologies."

Danny grinned. "Well, you don’t have to be so fucking serious about it."

The mischief in the boy’s eyes was contagious. Ceridwen found herself laughing softly along with him. As they spoke their voices echoed in the vast chamber. She gestured upward.

"You are correct. It is much too large to fit inside Arthur’s house. The truth is that it isn’t inside the house at all. It’s… elsewhere. And the door is just a door that leads to that elsewhere. If you were to go up through that skylight, it wouldn’t be Boston unfolding around you."

"Where are we, then?" Danny asked, sounding more than a little concerned.

Ceridwen considered a moment before replying. "I don’t know. I also don’t know how the library is summoned. Sometimes it is here, and sometimes it isn’t. The doors appear wherever they like in the house. The library is only available when it is needed, even if your need is only for pleasant distraction, for there are storybooks in here as well."

As she spoke, the two of them strolled along the second floor balcony. Ceridwen held her staff in one hand and ran her fingers over the smooth mahogany of the balustrade with the other. She could not help admiring the simple luxury of the great library. Danny kept moving along the shelves. They momentarily came to another, far larger alcove, set into the wall. There was an identical alcove on each floor of the library. The books here had a certain scent to them… a kind of wild, musty odor. Some of them were bound in leather as ancient as Eve herself, others in materials that could only be found in Faerie, or in other worlds.

Danny slid one of the books from the shelf, a heavy, dusty tome with a weathered cover and a lock that fell away at his touch. He began to lift the cover.

"Stop!" Ceridwen shouted, lunging for him and swatting the book from his hands with a swing of her staff. She watched breathlessly for a moment as it tumbled to the floor and slammed closed upon impact.

"What the hell?" Danny demanded.

"This section," she said, gesturing with her staff toward that wide alcove, fingers of blue fire shooting from the ice sphere atop it to touch the rest of this particular collection on the first, third, and fourth floors. "This is the bestiary. And it is off-limits to you."

"Why?" The boy was clearly angry. He crossed his arms. "Is the old man afraid I’ll do something stupid? Or something evil?"

Ceridwen flinched. So that was what the boy thought? That Arthur believed he would cleave eventually unto his father’s demonic nature. Well, and perhaps it was so, but only time would tell.

"Neither, Daniel," she said. "Do you know what those books contain?"

He rolled his eyes. "Hello? You wouldn’t let me open one to find out. But from the titles, I’m guessing Monster 101. Bestiary, right? So pictures of giants, vampires, goblins, trolls, all that kind of stuff. Big deal. Why are they off limits?"?Ceridwen frowned. "They are indeed full of monsters."

"They’re pictures!"

"Yes," she agreed. "But sometimes they get loose."

The boy stared at her with wide eyes. Ceridwen only nodded in confirmation and took him by the arm to lead him down the stairs to the first floor. As she escorted him out into the hallway and then toward the front of the house, she lowered her voice.

"We must move along, now. Arthur will be expecting us. Off to Greece, he said?"

"Yeah," Danny agreed. "Some island of lesbians."

Ceridwen arched one thin eyebrow. "I believe it is called Lesbos."

"Okay. That’s not nearly as much fun, but okay."