The Burning Page

‘The important stuff was further in,’ Zayanna said. ‘I didn’t see much of it, but there was a big open area, absolutely huge, and a pattern in the centre with a clock – and lots of stairs. One of the others did ask about it, but he never got an answer. But this bit here, where we are at the moment, was different then. It wasn’t so . . .’ She waved a hand. ‘So definite.’

Irene tried to work out what that meant. ‘Has this place become less chaotic since you were last here?’

‘Yes, that’s it exactly!’ Zayanna said. ‘It’s being much more stable now. I wonder why.’

Irene was also wondering why, among quite a number of other things: the most important and puzzling of which being why they were still safe. There was no sign of anyone chasing them so far, and the lack of alarms or pursuit was getting on her nerves. It made no sense for them to have been able to penetrate this place so easily. Paranoia suggested that Alberich was watching the entire place, could see every movement they made, and was merely waiting for the right moment to strike.

The problem with paranoia was that if you let it rule all your decisions, then you would miss some perfectly good opportunities. Irene reviewed her priorities. She’d identified Alberich’s hideout, and she knew his plan. The next step was to open a passage to reach the Library and bring back the metaphorical heavy artillery.

‘This will do as well as anywhere else,’ she said, more to herself than Zayanna. She walked along to the closest door and reached out to touch the handle, focusing her will. This was where things either went perfectly right or horribly wrong. ‘Open to the Library.’

The words in the Language shook the air, and the door trembled on its hinges. The wood of the frame creaked, bending and straining against itself, and Irene felt the connection forming. It sucked at her strength like an open wound, but it was there, practically within her grasp. Just a little further, just a little nearer . . .

All the doors in the room slammed open. The handle Irene was holding jerked loose from her hand. Zayanna pulled Irene back just before the door could hit her. The forming link was broken now, snapped like a piece of overstretched string. All the lights in the room flared up and then guttered to a dim glow. Irene had the impression of a dozen eyes turning themselves in her direction.

Nobody else had entered the room. Nobody at all. But a shadow drew itself across the wall in a dark stretch of overly-long limbs and a crooked neck, a shadow cast by a person who wasn’t there, and the sound of feet echoed from a long way away. Where the shadow touched them, the books turned white and green with decay, rotting where they stood on the shelves.

‘Ahhhhhhh . . .’ a voice whispered, thick and dank. ‘Now tell me, Ray, why is it that a thing’s always in the last place you look?’

‘The malice of inanimate objects,’ Irene answered. Her mouth was dry and the words stuck in her throat. From best-possible outcome to worst-case scenario, all in the space of a few seconds. She wanted to scream like a child that it wasn’t fair. ‘Is that Alberich?’

‘Who else would it be?’ The shadow reached out towards her, two-dimensional across the floor, its fingers lengthening into claws. Irene and Zayanna stepped hastily away from it. When the shadow drew back again, the wood of the floor was thick with mould.

‘You could be one of his servants.’ Irene’s mouth was running on automatic while she tried to think of a productive next step. There was always the tried-and-tested option of run away in any convenient direction, but common sense indicated that would be a short-term solution. She needed something better. ‘But if you are Alberich, then where are you? Where’s your body?’

‘Always so many questions, Ray.’ Alberich’s laughter dripped through the room as if it was a physical entity, mingling with the ticking of the distant clock. ‘It’s one of the things I like about you.’

‘And yet you hardly ever answer them.’

‘I can put myself into all sorts of containers. Skins, bodies, libraries . . .’ The shadow leaned away from the wall, spreading its arms across the floor towards Irene and Zayanna. The dark limbs curved around them on the floor to join at the far side, making a circle a few yards across, with Zayanna and Irene in the middle.

‘You took your time answering when I came knocking on your door.’ Irene mentally reviewed all the words in the Language that she knew for shadow. Though would Alberich have taken this form, if she could affect it? He knew the capabilities of the Language as well as she did. Probably even better.

‘It can take me a little while to focus. We’re almost at midnight, there’s hardly any time left for games. You two are like tiny moths, fluttering through my library and just as hard to catch.’ The shadows on the floor deepened, swirling closer to their feet. ‘But that ends here—’

Irene had been waiting for this. ‘Light, strong and clear!’ she shouted, shielding her eyes with her hand against the sudden dazzle, as all the lamps on the wall instantly blazed as bright as high noon.

But the shadow didn’t vanish. It was a black stain on the wall and floor, as flat and two-dimensional as dried ink, but it was still there, even in the multi-directional glare of the lamps. And it was still seeping towards them, only a foot away now. Alberich’s glutinous laughter dribbled from the walls again. ‘Silly child. Did you really suppose I wouldn’t think of that?’

Panic jump-started Irene’s imagination. So what if she was about to demand something impossible? That shadow was already impossible in the first place. She really hoped the universe agreed with her. ‘Floor, hold that bodiless shadow!’