by Garth Nix
Lirael looked up from the dagger and saw Imshi waiting expectantly, a quill in her hand, hovering above the huge leather-bound ledger that was chained to the desk at the front of the Robing Room.
“The number,” said Imshi. “On the blade.”
“Oh,” said Lirael. She angled the blade till the Charter marks faded out and she could see the bare metal, and the letter and number etched there by conventional means.
“L2713,” Lirael called out; then she slid the dagger home into the scabbard. Imshi wrote the number down, re-inked the quill, and passed it to Lirael to sign.
There in the ledger, in between ruled lines of red ink, was Lirael’s name, the date, her position as Third Assistant Librarian, and a list of all the things she’d been given, neatly written by Imshi. Lirael scanned the list, but didn’t sign.
“It says a key, here,” she said cautiously, tipping up the quill so an incipient blob of ink didn’t fall on the paper.
“Oh, a key!” exclaimed Imshi. “I wrote it down and then I forgot!”
She went over to one of the cupboards on the wall, opened it, and rummaged around inside. Finally, she pulled out a broad silver bracelet set with emeralds, the match of the one on her own wrist. Unlocking it, she clasped it around Lirael’s right wrist.
“You’ll have to go back to the Chief to have the spell in-side woken up,” explained Imshi, showing Lirael how two of the seven emeralds on her own bracelet swarmed with bright Charter marks. “Depending on your work and post, it will then open all the appropriate doors.”
“Thanks,” said Lirael briefly. She could feel the spell in the silver, Charter marks hiding deep within the metal, waiting to flow into the emeralds. There were actually seven spells, she could tell, one for each emerald. But she didn’t know how they could be brought to the surface and made to work. This particular magic was beyond her.
Nor was she much wiser ten minutes later, when Vancelle took her wrist and quickly cast a spell that neither was spoken nor had any other obvious marks, signed or drawn. Whatever it was, the spell lit up only one emerald, leaving the other six dark. That, said Vancelle, was enough to open the common doors, which was more than enough for a new Third Assistant Librarian.
It took Lirael three months to work out how to wake the next four spells in her bracelet, though the secret of the sixth and seventh remained beyond her. But she didn’t wake the extra spells at once, taking another month to create an illusion of the bracelet as it was supposed to be, that would sit over her own and hide the glow of the additional emeralds.
It was mainly curiosity that set her to working out the key spells. Originally she didn’t plan to wake them, and intended to treat her discovery purely as an intellectual exercise. But there were so many interesting doors, hatches, gates, grilles, and locks that she couldn’t help but wonder what was behind them. Once the spells in the bracelet were active, she found it very difficult not to think of using them.
Her daily work also led her into temptation. While there were Charter sendings to do much of the manual labor, ferrying materials to and from the Main Reading Room and the individual studies of scholars, all the checking, recording, and indexing was done by people. Generally, the junior librarians. There were also very special or dangerous items that had to be fetched in person, or even by large parties of armed librarians. Not that Lirael got to go on any of these exciting expeditions to the Old Levels. Nor would she, till she attained the red waistcoat of a Second Assistant, which usually took at least three years.
But in the course of her regular duties, she often passed interesting-looking corridors sealed off with red rope, or doors that beckoned to her, almost saying, “How can you walk past me every day and not want to go in?”
Without exception, any vaguely interesting portal was locked, beyond the original key spell and the sole glowing emerald of Lirael’s bracelet.
Aside from the inaccessibility of the interesting parts, the Great Library met most of Lirael’s hopes. She was given a small study of her own. Barely wider than her outstretched arms, it contained nothing but a narrow desk, a chair, and several shelves. But it was a refuge, somewhere she would be left alone, secure from Aunt Kirrith’s intrusions. It was meant for quiet study, in Lirael’s case, of the set texts of the beginning librarian: The Librarian’s Rules, Basic Bibliography, and The Large Yellow Book: Simple Spells for Third Assistant Librarians. It had taken her only a month to learn everything she needed to from those volumes.
So she quietly “borrowed” any book she could get her hands on, like The Black Book of Bibliomancy, carelessly left off a returning list by a Deputy Librarian. And she spent a great deal of time analyzing the spells in her bracelet, slowly finding her way through the complex chains of Charter marks to find the activating symbols.
Lirael had been driven by curiosity at first, and by the sense of satisfaction she gained from working out magic that was supposed to be beyond her. But somewhere along the way, Lirael realized that she enjoyed learning Charter Magic for its own sake. And when she was learning marks and putting them together into spells, she completely forgot about her troubles and forgot about not having the Sight.
Learning to be a real Charter Mage also gave her something to do, when all the other librarians or her fellows from the Hall of Youth were engaged in more social activities.
The other librarians, particularly the dozen or so Third Assistants, had tried to be friendly at first. But they were all older than Lirael, and they all had the Sight. Lirael felt she had nothing to talk about or share with them, so she stayed silent, hiding behind her hair. After a while, they stopped inviting her to sit with them at lunch, or to play a game of tabore in the afternoon, or to gossip about their elders over sweet wine in the evening.
So Lirael was once again alone among company. She told herself that she preferred it, but she couldn’t deny the pang in her heart when she saw laughing groups of young Clayr, so effortlessly talking and enjoying one another’s friendship.
It was even worse when whole groups were called to join the Nine Day Watch, as happened more and more frequently during Lirael’s first few months of work. Lirael would be stacking books in the Reading Room, or writing in one of the registers, when a Watch messenger would come in, bearing the ivory tokens that summoned the recipient to the Observatory. Sometimes dozens of the Clayr in the huge, domed Reading Room would each receive a token. They would smile, curse, grimace, or take it stoically; then there would be a flurry of activity as they all stopped work, drawing back their chairs, locking away books and papers in their desk drawers, or returning them to shelves or sorting tables before trooping out the doors en masse.
At first Lirael was surprised that so many were called, and she was even more surprised when some of them returned only hours or days later, instead of the usual nine days that gave the Watch its name. She initially thought it must be some peculiarity of the librarians, that so many were called at once and not for the full term. But she didn’t feel like asking anyone about it, so it was some time before she got some sort of answer, when she overheard two Second Assistant Librarians in the Binding Room.
“It’s all very well to have a Ninety-Eight. But to go on to a Hundred and Ninety-Six and on up to yesterday’s Seven Hundred and Eighty-Four is quite ridiculous,” said one of the Second Assistants. “I mean we did all fit in the Observatory. But now there’s talk of a Fifteen Sixty-Eight! That’ll be nearly everybody, I should think—and making the Watch bigger doesn’t seem to make it work any better than the usual Forty-Nine. I couldn’t tell the difference.”
“I don’t mind, myself,” replied the other Second Assistant as she carefully applied glue to the binding of a broken-backed book. “It makes a change from here, and at least it’s over quicker with a larger Watch. But it is tedious when we have to try to focus where we can’t See anything. Why don’t the high-ups just admit that no one can See anything around that stupid lake and leave it at that?”
“Because it’s not so simp
le,” interrupted a stern-voiced Deputy, bearing down on them like a huge white cat on two plump mice. “All the possible futures are connected. Not being able to See where futures begin is a significant problem. You should know that, and you also should know not to talk about the business of the Watch!”
The last sentence was said with a general glare about the room. But Lirael, even half-hidden behind a huge press, felt it was particularly aimed at her. After all, everybody else in the room was a full Clayr and eligible to be a member of the Nine Day Watch.
Her cheeks burnt with embarrassment and shame as she threw all her strength into turning the great bronze handles of the screw, tightening the press. Talk slowly resumed around her, but she ignored it, concentrating only on her task.
But that was the moment when she resolved to wake the dormant magic in her bracelet, and use the spell she’d made to hide the glow of the additional emeralds.
She might not be able to join the Watch in the Observatory, but she would explore the Library.
Chapter Seven
Beyond the Doors
Even after she woke the extra spells in her bracelet, Lirael found it hard to explore the areas formerly closed to her. There was always too much work, or there were too many other librarians around. After the first two heart-thumping moments of near-discovery in front of forbidden doors, Lirael decided to put off her exploration until there were fewer people around or she could more easily escape from work.
Her first real chance came almost five months after she had donned the yellow waistcoat of a Third Assistant. She was in the Reading Room, sorting books to be returned by the sendings, who gathered close around her, their ghostly, Charter-etched hands the only visible part of their shrouded forms. They were quite simple sendings, without any higher functions, but they loved their work. Lirael liked them too, because they didn’t require her to speak or ask her questions. She simply gave the appropriate books to the right sending, and it would take them away to its area and the proper shelf or store.
Lirael was particularly good at recognizing which sending was which, a valuable skill since the embroidered signs on their cowled robes were often obscured with dust or had become unpicked and indecipherable. They didn’t have official names, only descriptions of their responsibilities. But most had nicknames, like Tad, who was in charge of Traveler’s Tales, A–D, or Stoney, who looked after the geology collection.
Lirael was just giving Tad a particularly large and unwieldy volume bound in leather stamped with a three-humped camel motif when the Watch messenger arrived. Lirael didn’t pay much attention to her at first, because she knew no ivory token would be given to her. Then she noticed that the messenger was stopping at every desk and speaking to every person, and a hum of whispered conversation was rising behind her. Lirael surreptitiously tucked her hair behind her ears and tried to listen. At first the murmur was indistinct, but as the messenger grew closer, Lirael caught the words “Fifteen Sixty-Eight” being repeated over and over again.
For a moment she was puzzled; then she realized that this must be what the Second Assistants had been talking about. The calling of one thousand five hundred sixty-eight Clayr to the Watch—an unprecedented concentration of the Sight.
It would also take nearly every librarian out the Library, Lirael calculated, giving her the perfect chance for a secret excursion. For the first time ever, Lirael watched the messenger’s distribution of tokens with excitement rather than with her usual depression and self-pity. Now she was wishing everyone else would get summoned to the Watch. Trying not to look too obvious, Lirael even wandered around the other side of the desk to see if anyone had been missed.
No one had. Lirael found it strangely hard to breathe as she waited to see if anyone would remember to tell her to do something—or not to. But none of the librarians with whom she usually worked were here. Imshi was not to be seen. Lirael guessed the messenger had met her on the way and had already given her a token.
She willed them all to go and started to sort her books with a concentrated ferocity, as if she didn’t care what happened around her. The sendings approved, moving faster themselves as each one took its stack of books and another moved into place.
Finally, the last bright waistcoat gleamed in the doorway and was gone. More than fifty librarians, disposed of in less than five minutes. Lirael smiled and put the last book down with a definite snap, disappointing the sending who was waiting for a full load.
Ten minutes later, to allow for stragglers, she headed down the main spiral. There was a door about a half mile down, well into the Old Levels, a particular favorite that she wanted to investigate first. It had a bright sunburst emblem upon its otherwise unremarkable wooden surface, a golden disc with rays that spread from top to bottom. Of course, there was also a red rope across it, secured at either end with wax seals bearing the book and sword symbol of the Chief Librarian.
Lirael had long since worked out how to deal with this particular annoyance. She drew a short piece of wire with two wooden handles from her waistcoat pocket and held it near her mouth. Then she spoke three Charter marks, a simple charm to heat metal. With the wire momentarily red-hot, she quickly sliced the seals away and hid them and the rope in a nearby hole in the passage wall, away from the light.
Then came the real test. Would the door open to her bracelet, or would it need the last two spells she couldn’t figure out?
Holding her wrist as she’d been taught, she waved her bracelet in front of the door. Emeralds flashed, breaking through the cloaking-spell she’d put upon them—and the door swung open without a sound.
Lirael stepped through, and the door slowly shut behind her. She found herself in a short corridor and was momentarily disoriented by the bright light at the other end. Surely this passage couldn’t lead outside? She was in the heart of the mountain, thousands of feet underground. Blinking against the light, she walked forward, one hand on the hilt of her dagger, the other one on the clockwork emergency mouse.
The corridor didn’t lead outside, but Lirael saw how she had been misled. It opened out into a vast chamber, bigger even than the Great Hall. Charter marks as bright as the sun shone in the distant ceiling, hundreds of feet above. A huge oak tree filled the center of the room, in full summer leaf, its spreading branches shading a serpentine pool. And everywhere, throughout the cavern, there were flowers. Red flowers. Lirael bent down and picked one, uncertain if it was some sort of illusion. But it was real enough. She felt no magic, just the crisp stalk under her fingers. A red daisy, in full bloom.
Lirael sniffed it, and sneezed as the pollen went up her nose. Only then did she realize how quiet it was. This huge cavern might mimic the outside world, but the air was too still. There was no breeze, and no sound. No birds, no bees happily at work amid the pollen. No small animals drinking at the pool. There was nothing living, save the flowers and the tree. And the lights above gave no warmth, unlike the sun. This place was the same temperature as the rest of the Clayr’s inhabited realm, and had the same mild humidity, from the moist heat distributed via the huge network of pipes that brought superheated water from the geysers and steam plumes far, far below.
Lovely as it was, it was a bit disappointing. Lirael wondered if this was all there was to find on her first expedition. Then she saw that there was another door—a latticed gate, rather—on the far side of the cavern.
It took her ten minutes to walk across, longer than she would have thought. But she tried not to tread on too many flowers, and she gave the tree and the pool a very wide berth. Just in case.
The gate barred the way to another corridor, one that went into darkness rather than light. The gate, a simple metal grille, had the emblem of a silver moon upon it, rather than a sun. A crescent moon, with much sharper and longer points than could be considered usual or aesthetically pleasing.
Lirael looked through the gate to the passage beyond. For some reason it made her think about the whistle on her waistcoat, and things grabbing her arms. Th
e whistle would be useless here anyway—and the mouse, too, Lirael suddenly realized, since there was no one currently in the Reading Room to hear its squeaked alarm.
But aside from unknown dangers, there was no obvious reason not to try the gate, at least. Lirael waved her arm, and once again the emeralds flashed, but the gate didn’t open. She let her hand fall, tucked her hair back out of her eyes and frowned. Clearly, this was a gate that answered only to the higher spells.
Then she heard a click, and the right-hand leaf of the gate slowly swung open—barely wide enough for Lirael to squeeze through. To make it harder, the crescent moon protruded into the open space, the sharp points level with where Lirael’s neck and groin would be.
She looked at the narrow way and thought about it. What if there were something horrible beyond? But then again, what did she have to lose? Fear and curiosity fought inside her for a moment. Curiosity won.
Acting on the latter impulse, Lirael took the mouse from her pocket and put it down amongst the flowers. If something did go wrong beyond the gate, she could scream out the activating Charter mark and off it would go, taking its own devious mouseways to the Reading Room. Even if it was too late to save Lirael, it might be a useful warning to the others. According to her superiors and co-workers, it was not uncommon for librarians to lay down their lives for the benefit of the Clayr as a whole, either in dangerous research, simple overwork, or action against previously unknown dangers discovered in the Library’s collection. Lirael believed this principle of self-sacrifice was particularly appropriate to herself, since the rest of the Clayr had the Sight and so needed to be alive much more than she did.
