Books & Bone

by Victoria Corva

  ‘Sorry, I’m not quite following.’ Smythe blinked at her blearily through the dusty lenses of his glasses. ‘Only woke up a moment ago, you know. Usually, I’m quite sharp, and — nevermind.’ He flushed. ‘Are you suggesting we ask the Lich about therianthropy?’

  The Lich couldn’t see, not really. It was a pattern of behaviours: the most powerful necromancer in living memory, stuck on rails.

  She was quick. She was sneaky. And this time, she would be prepared.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Ree locked her eyes to Smythe’s. ‘I’m suggesting we raid his library.’

  ‘Oh.’ Smythe opened his mouth, then closed it again. ‘Well.’

  I hate the way this kingdom has been carved up, each man willingly locking himself into his own cage. It seems everyone has their own suite of rooms, their own tower, their own little box to shit in.

  It is better than the world above, of course. The King Below understands us far better than any of them ever could.

  But a cage is still a cage, and all I want is to leap from the mountain and let my wings carry me into the sky.

  My work for the King keeps me too busy for that of late.

  ~from the journal of Wylandriah Witch-feather

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE LIBRARY OF THE LICH

  Ree approached the broad doors that led to the archive room. She glanced over her shoulder at Smythe, who was adjusting his glasses interestedly. ‘Help me open this?’

  ‘Certainly!’

  Ree pulled the key from around her neck; it turned in the lock with a satisfying ‘clunk’ as the bolt slid free.

  She started to push, and Smythe started talking. ‘You know, even a leaner fellow like myself can move quite a bit of weight if correctly applied. The trick, you see, is to push with your shoulders, like so —’

  Ree glared at him. With Smythe lecturing, most of the pushing had been left to her, and the door was barely moving.

  ‘— and studies have found that strength is as much in technique as it is muscle mass, which is why the ancient — the ancient, um —’ He seemed to catch her look and quailed a bit. ‘I’ll just push, then, shall I?’

  The door slid open just far enough for Ree to slip in. ‘Wait here, don’t let anyone in.’

  ‘Oh. Certainly. The watchman! A most important role. Except — how exactly am I meant to stop someone? Ree?’

  Ree took a moment to draw in a long, dusty breath. She loved it here in the cool, dry archive room. She’d spent hours here when she’d been training as Emberlon’s assistant, sitting on the hard stone floor, encircled by record cards. The only disturbance for hours was Emberlon coming to check on her and nodding his approval as he looked over her work.

  She hurried to the wall where her maps were scrolled and filed. She scanned down the rack for the correct sector, and slid it carefully into her satchel.

  It had been here, in this dusty, airless room, that she had first discovered a love of order, of putting everything in its place. It had been that love of order that had first made her curious about the Lich’s wing.

  ‘What about the far eastern tunnels?’ she’d asked.

  Emberlon had set aside the borrower’s record he’d been flicking through. ‘You’ll have to repeat that.’

  ‘The far eastern tunnels. We have records of the libraries in the eastern tunnels, but isn’t there a whole wing beyond that? There must be libraries there. Why don’t we have records?’

  She remembered Emberlon’s heavy sigh. ‘Even necromancers know there are some things better left undisturbed. Whatever is there, it’s not for us.’

  And she’d felt a burning desire to go, to see, to document. But it was the Lich, and with her parents’ warnings ringing in her ears and a lifetime of cultivated fear, she had resisted. She had mapped nearly all of the crypt’s sectors, towers, tunnels and tombs, but the Lich’s wing beyond the eastern tunnels, she’d left well alone.

  But she’d never had cause to go. Now she did. With Smythe’s carefully sketched notes, she knew there was more to find there.

  She was smart, she was careful, and she knew the Lich’s behaviour. If she didn’t get in its way, it would never know she was there. Smythe had managed to do it, after all.

  When she got back outside, she was surprised to find Smythe quiet. He avoided her eyes, mostly staring at the floor.

  ‘I got the map.’ She said the words haltingly. It was weird to be filling the silence; silence never usually existed around Smythe. When he didn’t react, she continued, ‘I don’t know how far in the library will be, or where, but it should take us two days to get to the other side of the tunnels, where the Lich’s wing begins.’

  Still nothing.

  Ree cast around for something that might encourage him. ‘I imagine it will be very old. It’s about a day’s travel from the embalming room where I found you. It might be —’

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’ Smythe looked up, his lips pressed tightly, his eyes determined behind his glasses.

  His expression did not bode well. ‘... Oh?’

  He ran a hand through his curls. ‘That Lich fellow almost killed us before, didn’t he? Seems jolly rash to go knocking on his front door.’

  Ree crossed her arms. ‘Nobody’s going to be knocking on anything. It’ll be safe, Smythe. If we don’t get in the Lich’s way, then it won’t hurt us.’ It sounded like a hollow reassurance, even to her own ears. The Lich had almost killed them both already. ‘You’ve already been there, and you were fine! While you were there, anyway …’

  Smythe scuffed his shoes in the dirt. ‘I’m sorry to make a fuss — I understand the theory. It’s just — that curse — it wasn’t, um, pleasant.’ He stared at the ground again, shoulders hunched. ‘I’d rather — I mean, if at all possible — I’d rather not get cursed again. And — and it seems to me that this fellow must be exceptionally powerful. Everyone — even Andomerys, even your father — seems afraid of him.’

  Ree’s chest tightened at his words. She knew the risks. She’d barely gone a month in her life without being reminded of them, but this could be her only chance. She thought of her father, determined to force her onto his path. She thought of the feeling of magic prickling her skin — real, tangible power. She couldn’t give it up.

  ‘I’ll go alone.’ She adjusted the strap of her satchel to avoid meeting his eyes. ‘Tell Emberlon to scry for me if I’m not back in a week.’ She walked away.

  ‘What? Festering rats!’ He ran to intercept her, raising his hands. ‘I never intended for you to go alone. I’m — it’s just —’ He rubbed his neck. ‘I must admit to a certain amount of — well, fear.’ His cheeks darkening. ‘But I would never ask you to go alone. Not after everything you’ve done for me.’

  Ree felt heat creeping up her neck. She wasn’t used to being thanked. It made her more than a little uncomfortable. ‘You saved me, I saved you. We’re even.’

  ‘Not even slightly.’ There was a spark to his gaze. ‘You helped — you’re always so —’ He shook his head, looking even more flushed than before. ‘I’m going with you.’

  Ree smiled and looked at the floor. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Smythe clapped his hands together. ‘Now that that’s sorted, shall we collect Larry and head off?’

  When Ree gave him a quizzical look, he explained, ‘I don’t like to think of the poor fellow, moping about town. He seems to rather enjoy excursions out into the tunnels, don’t you think?’

  As it happened, Larry was with Usther, who was thrilled to be rid of him and too absorbed in her own work to question where they were going with packed satchels and a borrowed minion.

  ‘He’s been ruining everything,’ she said, eyeing Larry despairingly. ‘Every time I chalk down a spell diagram he comes blundering over to muck it up. And I tried locking him outside, but he goes positively wild, howling and rattling the door like a great tantruming infant.’ She glared at him. ‘Take him.’

  So Ree and Smythe set off with Lar
ry in tow. Though they frequently had to help him up walls or along narrow paths, or right him when he lost his balance and toppled over, Ree was secretly glad to have him. She hadn’t forgotten when she and Smythe had last faced the Lich. Useless though Larry might be, he’d distracted it for a crucial moment. And maybe he’d do so again, if they needed it. Given he appeared to be functionally immortal, she wasn’t too concerned about what the Lich might do to him.

  She and Smythe walked through rooms filled with sleeping dead. Ree showed Smythe how to calm them if disturbed, while Smythe studied the chambers with wide eyes and fingers that twitched to make notes. They spent the night locked in an embalming room, sleeping on thin bedrolls on the floor while Larry pounded on the door. He couldn’t be counted on not to chew on them while they slept.

  ‘I suppose tomorrow, it’s the Lich’s wing,’ Smythe whispered. He hesitated, then: ‘I hope you won’t think less of me, but — I’m still scared.’

  ‘We’ll be ready,’ she said, but what she wanted to say was: I’m scared too.

  The next day, they stood at the edge of the eastern tunnels. Ree held a map in her hands. ‘This is it,’ she said. She hoped he couldn’t hear the tremble in her voice. ‘This is where the map ends. This passage should lead us right into the Lich’s wing of the crypt.’

  The passage was long, dark, cold. It seemed to Ree almost foggy; luminous lichen grew in this part of the crypt, lending the charred stone an eerie glow.

  Ree took a long, steadying breath. ‘Avoid its line of sight. Put out your torch at the first sign of trouble.’

  Smythe hesitated. ‘Actually — sorry, I’d quite forgotten — we shouldn’t need to worry about that.’ He put out his torch and after a moment, his eyes took on a familiar pale glow. ‘I had Usther teach me the darksight ritual last week.’ He shifted from one foot to the other. ‘How, uh, how do I look?’

  It took Ree a moment to gather her words. He looked, here in the darkness, with his eyes aglow and his face half-shadowed, like a practitioner. If not for the gleam of his glasses, she might not have recognised him.

  Larry bumped into her shoulder. She found her voice. ‘Like an undead creature,’ she said, straight-faced. When he laughed, she smiled in return, though she wasn’t quite sure what to think.

  Together, they walked into the Lich’s wing.

  For a long time, there was nothing. Empty rooms, empty tombs. Rows and rows of shelves that had clearly once held bodies, now empty. It was like the crypt had been picked clean; everything of use had been taken away, everything else had been destroyed. They found little but splintered wood and shattered stone. Even Larry seemed subdued. He trailed a long way behind them, making hardly a groan.

  ‘Hold on a moment … I remember this!’ Smythe pushed up his glasses, looking around at the bare brick walls and cobbled floor. He went to the wall and brushed away a layer of dirt and cobwebs. ‘Not brown brick — red!’

  Ree’s hand went to her collarbone. She felt brittle with hope. ‘The tableau?’

  ‘Let’s see, I came down here from … and then there was the statue … and then — this way!’ In his excitement, he took her hand and towed her down the corridor and around the corner, and then down a narrow path with walls of rough-hewn stone speckled with luminous lichen like stars in the sky. Ree didn’t pull away. The ease with which he took her hand shocked her, but not unpleasantly.

  When he stopped, she bumped into his shoulder. He smelled of iron and mountain water and floral soap. Horrified to know that, she sprang back, releasing his hand.

  ‘This is it,’ he said, gazing up at the wall. And then Ree turned and all awkwardness slipped away, eclipsed by the biggest discovery of her life.

  She was winded with awe. Smythe’s sketch had seemed detailed to her at the time, but she had been utterly unprepared for the reality. The mage stared down at her with a wild gleam in her eyes. Blue stripes adorned her cheeks, shining lapis compared to the sparkling rubies of her hood and robe. Her eyes were hard with a cat-like gleam, bright against the jewel-brown of her skin. The animals around her were larger than life and so artfully depicted that they appeared almost to move as Ree watched. Bears with onyx claws, foxes with jade-red fur, and above her, a grey hawk with glittering hematite feathers and luminous eyes. A king looked down on her, his hands spread in a benevolent blessing, his eyes the inky black of a practitioner, his crown iron and twisted like thorns. But though the king’s authority was clear in his positioning, he was a smaller figure, eclipsed by the power and presence of the sparkling mage and her many forms.

  Ree rested her hand against the mage’s open palm. Cold stone, and yet the touch invigorated her. This was it. This was really it. Definitive proof not only that therianthropes existed, but that they were venerated by the culture that built this wing of the crypt.

  Her gaze fixed on the mage’s hard stare. Confident and cold. Someone who never had to spend the night shivering in a tower attic. Someone nobody would dare cross.

  ‘I’m going to be like you,’ she whispered, hand against hand.

  ‘What?’

  She reluctantly withdrew her hand.

  ‘Ree, what were you —’

  ‘We should study it properly,’ she said. ‘Fill out your notes, make sure we haven’t missed anything. This is not something to rush.’

  ‘The discovery of the century!’ Smythe pushed up his glasses then fumbled with his pack. ‘And to think — likely, she’s buried here. We know nothing of therianthrope culture or rituals — we could learn so much from how her body is entombed!’

  Somehow, the words struck her with disappointment. Seeing this tableau had filled her with hope. Its discovery made therianthropy real and current, gave truth to her life’s work. But it was still something locked in the past — this mage, like everything in her world, was dead and buried.

  ‘Think — this doesn’t have to be the end of her knowledge. Her story, as it were.’ He spoke as if he’d read Ree’s mind, his thoughts running along the same tracks. ‘If we find her body, I can summon her soul. We can ask her — well, anything!’

  ‘Anything,’ Ree said, hope filling her. ‘We could find out the therianskin creation ritual — could get her to sing the songs!’

  ‘Everything you ever wanted to know!’ Smythe beamed at her. ‘You can have all the knowledge of a great therianthrope as if she’d taught it to you herself! We’ll have to be careful how we time, it, of course, but …’

  As he continued, Ree’s hopes fell. Soul summoning was a cruel school of necromancy — perhaps even crueller than curses. To be trapped in that body in excruciating agony, forced to answer questions … the therianthrope would hate her. And it could damage her soul, even extinguish it.

  She wasn’t sure that was something she could do. Maybe it was the influence of her mother, or maybe it was the way the bone pits and mass graves had always discomfited her, but she was naturally repulsed by the idea.

  Repulsed, and just a tiny bit tempted.

  ‘Let’s keep searching,’ she said, trying to push away that line of thinking. ‘If this is here, who knows what else we might find.’

  But as they resumed their exploration, it was without any sparkling discoveries. A return to the frustration of barren walls and empty rooms.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Smythe said when they came to yet another empty room. It had clearly once held a sarcophagus, now empty. No treasures lined the shelves, no tapestries hung on the walls. ‘How can everything just be — you know, gone? Poof!’ He wiggled his fingers at the sarcophagus. ‘As if nothing was ever there. As if it were just a stone crate someone left lying around.’

  ‘Over-fishing,’ said Ree, a little absently. She was trying to think about the construction in this part of the crypt. They were getting nowhere with this particular passage — they needed to branch off if they could. She carried the memory of the tableau in her heart like a torch. They would find something. They had to.

  ‘Sorry — did you just say “fishing�
��?’

  ‘It’s what they call it when a necromancer uses up the natural resources of a tomb. You know, corpses, curses, that sort of thing.’ She ran her hand down the wall and looked at the thick coating of dust. Surely not even the Lich had been here in a long time. ‘It’s been overfished. It’s usually applied to city practitioners who’ve tapped out the local graveyard. Resources aren’t an issue in a crypt of this size.’

  ‘But this Lich is a very old chap — old enough to have, what, used up all the bodies?’

  Ree motioned him to follow her out of the room. ‘Evidently.’

  ‘Used them doing what, exactly?’

  Ree flashed him a look. ‘You’re the necromancer.’

  Smythe cleared his throat. ‘Ah. Yes. So I am. Uh — let’s just carry on then, shall we?’

  More empty rooms. The torch in her heart dimmed; Ree started to despair of them finding anything at all. The Lich wasn’t really human any more — what if it didn’t really do anything? What if it just floated around these empty halls like a spectre? Disappointment was a tight fist in her belly. She’d been so certain that a necromancer so old and so powerful must have what they wanted, especially after the tableau.

  She was about to tell Smythe to turn back when he waved frantically at her.

  ‘Over here!’ How anyone could whisper so loudly, Ree had no idea.

  She padded to the other side of the door he was peering through. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Him.’

  Ree took a steadying breath and peered through the doorway. A balcony over-looked a long room, stacked with shelves on every wall. The Lich drifted across the room, a thick tome in its hands.

  It was the most normal thing she’d ever seen it do. Somehow, it only made it seem more dangerous. She was in the Lich’s lair, its home territory. For all she’d assured Smythe that the Lich’s behaviour was predictable, she began to doubt exactly how much she could predict.