The Burning Page

‘Substitute brute force for caution.’ Irene had a nasty feeling that trying to use the Language directly on the barrier might set off some sort of trap. It was the logical thing to set up, if one was expecting Librarian intrusions. And there would no doubt be alarms. But if she could hit fast enough, and hard enough, then perhaps that would work. She stepped back and focused. ‘Bricks from the walls on either side of me, smash open the brick wall blocking that doorway!’

Using the Language in a higher-chaos world had benefits and drawbacks. On the positive side, the Language worked more easily and more powerfully. But on the negative side, Irene had to sacrifice a corresponding amount of energy. It was like shoving a weighted trolley downhill: once it started to roll, it really went. But it was that much harder to steer or stop, and the first shove came at a cost.

The walls on either side groaned. Moss and dust fell from them as they shuddered in place, pattering down on the narrow passage where Irene and Zayanna stood. Then, with a rolling thunder of crashes, bricks flew through the air like bullets, slamming into the wall that filled the doorway. The first few shattered on it, but the successive pounding impacts of brick after brick drove cracks into the wall. Powdered cement drifted down and mingled with red brick-dust in a choking cloud that made both Irene and Zayanna cover their faces.

It took half a minute of constant pounding for the wall filling the door to crumble. Finally, a brick went through it like a bullet through a pane of glass, leaving cracks in all directions; then more followed, widening the gap and landing on the other side of the doorway with booming thuds that echoed over the crashing of brickwork. More and more bricks zoomed through, till the doorway was denuded of its barrier, with only fragments of cement and broken brick lining it like the edge of a jigsaw. Finally they stopped.

‘Now!’ Irene coughed, her voice betraying her in the dusty air. She caught Zayanna’s arm and dragged her forward, stumbling over fragments of brick to the doorway. Fear caught at her, trying to slow her pace. What if she’d made a mistake? What if passing through would mean instant and horrific death? What if Alberich was waiting on the other side?

Well, if he was, he’d just received a faceful of bricks. She gritted her teeth and pulled Zayanna along with her, stepping through the doorway.

Nothing went boom or splat. Irene was still alive and moving freely. She decided to call her mission a total success so far.

The room on the other side was unexpectedly large. Globes of crystal on the distant walls cast a pale light, which filtered down through the clouds of brick dust to illuminate shelves of books. The floor under Irene’s feet was dark wood, aged and polished. The place could easily have been a room from the Library itself. She guessed that was the point. In the distance, a clock was ticking, a low steady pulse of noise in the heavy silence.

There were three passageways leading out of the room. ‘Which one do we want?’ Irene asked Zayanna.

‘No idea, darling,’ Zayanna said. ‘Pick one at random?’

Irene tossed a mental coin and chose the right-hand passage. It opened almost immediately into a smaller room: this one had floor-level exits, but also a curving oak staircase which went up through the ceiling and down through the floor. Again, the walls were covered with bookshelves.

She managed to resist the temptation to examine them, reminding herself that the priority was getting away from the entrance before any security came. But several rooms later (two to the left, up one, three to the right, forward two) she finally gave way and paused for just a moment to look at the titles. She frowned at what she saw. ‘These don’t make any sense. They’re not in any language I know. They’re in the English alphabet, but I don’t recognize it. Zayanna, do you know what language this is?’

Irene pulled out one of the thick volumes for Zayanna to inspect. It was bound in dark-blue leather and was heavy in her hands, and while the pages seemed clean and stable enough, there was an after-smell that made Irene wrinkle her nose. It wasn’t quite a proper stink that could be pointed to and complained about. It was the sort of faint odour that might come from a piece of decaying food somewhere in one’s home, which couldn’t be precisely tracked down, but which would slowly infiltrate the entire place. It suggested unwholesomeness.

Zayanna gave the book a cursory glance. ‘Nothing I know, darling. Perhaps it’s code?’

Irene scanned a few more books, but they all contained the same jumbles of letters. They weren’t in the Language. They weren’t in any language Irene knew, either. She wasn’t even sure they were in a proper language at all. ‘Is this a real library,’ she said, her voice quiet in the echoing room, ‘or is this just the stageset of a library?’

‘Does it make a difference?’

‘I don’t know.’ But one worrying thought in particular nagged at Irene. If this wasn’t a real library – if all the books it contained were simply garbage – then would she actually be able to create a passage from it to the Library itself, to fetch help? That would be singularly unhelpful.

‘This place is like a beehive,’ she said. ‘It’s three-dimensional.’

‘Buildings usually are,’ Zayanna pointed out.

‘I mean, in the sense that all the rooms we’ve been through so far have exits up and down, as well as on the same level,’ Irene explained. ‘And all the rooms we’ve been through so far seem to be more or less the same. Was it that way when you were here?’