The Burning Page

She couldn’t remember ever having been summoned to an emergency meeting like this before. She couldn’t recall ever hearing about an emergency meeting like this before.

In Library terminology, ‘junction’ meant an intersection of passages where there was also a delivery chute to the central distributing area. They were plentiful throughout the Library, making it easy to drop off new books and get back to your assigned world. Transfer shifts were rarer. They were temporary creations arranged by a senior Librarian, which near-instantaneously transported a target from one point in the Library to another. They were also rather uncomfortable. If transfer shifts had been established throughout the Library to a central point, then this suggested a huge expenditure of energy.

The nearest junction was a few corridors away. An ominous light leaked in through the diamond-paned windows, and the sky outside crawled with clouds above an empty sea of high-peaked roofs. The floor in this section of the Library was black marble, smooth underfoot, with shadowy reflections of the crammed bookshelves, the high windows, and Irene herself as she hurried along.

A transfer-shift cupboard stood waiting at the junction. It looked like a battered normal cupboard, approximately six feet high and just large enough to hold two people – or, more usually, one person and a stack of books. The front had been engraved with a pattern of ravens and writing desks, and when Irene touched the wood, it hummed with restrained energy.

She stepped inside and closed the cupboard door. ‘Necessity,’ she said in the darkness.

The cupboard jolted sideways, and Irene was flung against the wall before she could brace herself. She’d travelled by transfer shifts a few times before, but this was rougher than usual. The pressure held her pinned against the wall like an aeroplane passenger during a particularly vertical take-off. Unseen winds dragged at her hair, and the air was scented with ozone and dust.

With a thump it stopped.

Irene took a moment to recover her balance, then opened the cupboard door and stepped out.

The room she was standing in was all polished plastic and metal railings. It didn’t look genuinely high-tech, but more like some fictional image of the future based on inadequate information, and it contained too many ramps and balconies. The ceiling was several storeys above her head, roofed with concentric panes of glass that looked out at the same ominous sky as before. Other wooden cabinets resembling the one she’d emerged from stood along the walls, incongruous in the pseudo-futuristic ambience.

A knot of people had gathered in front of the large metal door in the far wall. The door was closed. The people were arguing. Clearly they were Librarians. (Not that anyone else could have been here, but the arguing made it certain.)

Irene approached the group. Their assortment of clothing was as varied as their ages, races and genders. The only real constant was something you’d only see if assessing a wide variety of Librarians for comparison. It was a certain quality of age and experience to the eyes, which went beyond the merely physical, and which was why Irene never looked too closely into her own eyes in a mirror.

‘Is this the emergency meeting?’ she asked the nearest person, a middle-aged woman in a high-waisted gauze dress, with gloves sheathing her arms from finger to armpit. ‘Or are we just waiting for it?’

‘Just waiting,’ the woman said. Her accent was vaguely German. ‘Apparently they’re doing it in half-hourly sessions. Next one is in five minutes.’

‘Do you know what’s going on?’

The woman shook her head. ‘No, nor does anyone out here, though Gwydion over there—’ She gestured at a sallow man with greying hair and black robes. ‘He said there was a problem with the permanent Library gate in one world that he visited.’

Irene felt something congeal in her stomach. ‘Yes,’ she said, keeping her voice casual. ‘I had a problem myself with a Traverse yesterday.’

Other Librarians were turning to look at her. ‘Share,’ said a young-looking woman with short pink hair, in fluorescent leathers that emphasized her figure. ‘You got something on this?’

‘I was trying to pass through a gate back to the Library,’ Irene said. ‘When I opened it, in the usual way, there was some sort of chaos interference and it went up in flames. I couldn’t put it out with the Language, and I had to leave by another route.’

Gwydion had wandered over and was nodding. ‘Much as yours is my own tale, save that I came to find the portal aflame, without knowledge of whence came the fire or how it fixed upon it. Darkly the taint of chaos lay upon it, fierce the abhorrence which it held to the Library’s nature. If aught can be said to make this matter clear, then may our elders do so.’

‘Well, my gate was just fine,’ said the pink-haired woman. ‘Though it was from an order-slanted world. You two – were those worlds chaos ones? You think this could be some new kind of infestation?’

Gwydion was nodding slowly, but Irene had to shake her head. ‘No, the one I came from was more order-aspected. The gate where I’m usually stationed was working properly, though. And that place is indeed more chaos-aspected.’

‘No proof, then,’ the pink-haired woman said.

‘Hardly enough evidence to judge by,’ another man said. He smoothed the sleeves of his long blue silk robes nervously. ‘If our superiors have more—’

‘Excuse me,’ a woman said quietly as he spoke, addressing Irene. ‘You wouldn’t be called Irene, would you? Librarian-in-Residence to B-395? I think I’ve heard about you.’