by Ren Ryder
Bell cracked an enormous, bloody yawn and landed on my head, settling down like a bird in its nest. “Don’t be a scaredy-cat. Let’s check it out.”
“That’s what I was going to do, no need to rush me,” I grumbled.
“Uh-huh,” Bell said, then filled the air with her tinkling laughter.
Holding my breath, I strode up to the colossal double-wide doors and only then realized I’d never seen them shut before. The Grand Library was an open boast to the world of New London’s greatness, it was open to visitors all hours of the day no matter the Season. I scratched the stubble on my chin and cast a look back at Fin, who was standing with arms crossed over his chest while his eyes tracked my movements.
My eyes burned and I forced a yawn back down my throat in a bid to shove off the thought of sleep a bit longer. I rapped my knuckles against the oak several times in short succession, then looped my fingers through my belt and waited. Bell was already asleep; I could hear her snoring.
A small door, the lines and joins invisible a moment before, opened a smidge to reveal the wary eye of a person inside.
“Come in.”
I shared a look with Fin. He shrugged, and I took that to mean he was either unaware of how weird this was, or he knew and just didn’t care.
With some reservations, I said, “Okay, we’re coming in.”
I stepped through the doorway, and Fin followed in right behind me. The musty scent of dry vellum and dust flooded my nostrils, and I sneezed. It was darker inside, none of the floor lamps looked to be burning. My heart pounded in my chest and alarm bells started ringing in my mind. The doorman pulled the door closed and latched it tight, sharp bands of iron snapping into place with heavy finality.
I flinched when the doorman smacked my hand away as I reached for the pommel of my sword. The quick precision of the blow caught me off guard, and I just shook out my stinging hand, staring dumbly. In the same beat, a sea of disembodied hands lit shaded gas lamps and trained the beams of light on us.
“None of that. Keep your hands where I can see them. No funny business,” the doorman said.
Fin shuffled forward, his meaty hands clenched into fists, a look of righteous anger stretching across his face. “What is this? We've done nothing wrong. We just want to go home to our families!” Wisps of crimson mana started burning off the ogreish man, and the natural stone jewelry adorning his body began to glow.
A sharp edge creeped into the doorman’s voice. “Whatever it is you’re about to do, don’t even think about it, big guy, else my men will shoot you so full of lead that your family won’t be able to recognize you.”
Now that I knew to look for them, I counted near a score of gleaming barrels trained on the two of us. My stomach clenched and the memory of pain danced across my belly where I’d been shot. Fin wouldn’t have known about the deadly nature of the threat before us. I put a restraining hand on one of his fists, met his eyes with serious intent, and shook my head slowly.
“That’s right, take it easy. No sudden moves. You want to make it home to your families, I suggest you play nice with us.”
“Who are you people?” I asked, throwing my voice across the chamber, refusing to be cowed into submission.
“First I’d like to know what the two of you were doing wandering the streets of New London at night past curfew.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Curfew? What’re you talking about? I’ve never heard of any curfew.”
“Right, sure you haven’t,” the man in charge chuckled. “You see, me and my men are here to protect the knowledge and valuables on display in the Grand Library. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Because you’re simple passersby,” A note of sarcastic disdain entered the man’s voice.
The accusation was clear.
They don’t seem like average guards. Imperial soldiers, maybe?
I didn’t bite. “That’s right. Me and my friend here just arrived in the city, otherwise we would have respected the curfew.”
The soldier strode across the room, passed the line of sentinels, and rustled around in the darkness. He appeared again dragging a wooden chair across the stone floor, his eyes trained on us the whole time. He spun it around and straddled it backwards, his arms on the chair-back and chin resting on his hands, grinning in a disarming way that was at complete odds with the oppressive menace filling the room.
Now that he was in front of us and situated in a cone of light, I got a good look at the man in charge. He was a wiry, muscular man with a splash of spiky blond hair and a well-manicured mustache and goatee. Instead of metal armaments he was clad in a leather breastplate and greaves. A translucent aura surrounded him, lending him an otherworldly glow that pointed to some kind of potent personal magic.
“You’re aware of the weapons ban in the city, no? A civvy carrying a sword, that alone would land you in the pits for a month. You want me to arrange that now, or are you ready to talk?”
Fin growled. “We don’t owe this man anything, Kal. Let’s break out of this situation.”
I held up a hand while I tried to think about what game this guy was playing. “Let’s not be hasty, we should try and talk things out first.”
The commander picked at his teeth, looking calm and collected despite the looming danger. “Big guy, you better listen to your friend. I don’t care how strong you are, you’ll go down under a volley of focused fire.”
I was erring on the side of caution, and not just because I was staring down the barrel of a gun. I was a known vigilante in these parts, and these soldiers were tied to the imperial palace. They either didn’t recognize me or didn’t have orders to kill me on sight, which, in either case, was reassuring. It was in my best interest to talk things out, rather than fly off the handle and leave a trail of blood behind us like Fin wanted to.
I looked over to see Fin grinding his teeth, his cheeks flushed red. “I’ll find my family with or without you, one way or another.”
Waves of crimson mana poured out of Fin, and I watched the berserker’s rage light up in his eyes. If Fin went on a rampage, there wasn’t much I could do to stop him.
Fin was driving us towards a lose-lose scenario.
“Let’s cut the crap, shall we? I don’t know who you’re affiliated with, but I know magic when I see it. You aren’t ordinary travelers in from the countryside, that’s for certain.”
That complicated things. I assumed Duke Regulus Maddox and his involvement with Ouroboros was the full extent of the Royal Quarter’s dealings with New London’s magical community. Was the emperor another player with independent goals, or were they in bed with the Duke? I wished I could dig for more info, but the situation was tenuous enough without revealing myself as Specter.
My body flooded with adrenaline. I could feel my blood pulsing through me, and it was an effort to keep up an outward appearance of calm.
The casual way he outed Fin’s use of magic was shocking enough that Fin’s anger dissipated along with the mana he’d brought to bear. “What do you know about it?” Fin asked, his body language standoffish, but at least he was communicating.
The man in charge gave us a cocksure grin. “You think we didn’t see you take down those vamps, just the two of you? Who, or maybe I should be asking, what, are you?”
Fin sniffed and shook his head side-to-side, then stretched out a hand to the sitting man. “I’m Fin Macool, and I’m just a simple man that will do anything to get home to his family. I’m human.”
The lead soldier chuckled. “And all I want is the warmth of a woman and a good night’s rest, but here we are. Ever since monsters started coming out of the woodwork, I can’t catch a break.”
A round of laughter passed through the ring of soldiers around us.
The man in charge stared at Fin’s hand for a moment before rising to his feet and meeting the big guy halfway. “Fin Macool, well met. I’m Neil, sub-captain with the enforcers of the imperial guard, and these trigger-happy friends of mine soldie
rs loyal to the crown lent to my command for this special circumstance. The way you took down those two vamps was very impressive. Will you heed the call of duty and devote your life to the emperor, blood and bone? The enforcers could use a man like you.”
I gulped. I’d never heard of the imperial guard being stationed anywhere but in the Royal Quarter, let alone the nigh-mythical enforcers that were said to act solely for the emperor. I noted the distinct lack of recognition I received, but then, standing beside Fin while drained of power, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
“No, I don’t think I will,” Fin said, his tone harsh and grating.
“Douse those lights,” Neil ordered, then called, “Oliver, light her up!”
The hooded lamps were extinguished all at once. For a moment we were suspended in darkness, then a chorus of sparks cascaded across the chamber, lighting a series of gas lamps interspersed high up on the walls.
With the light out of my eyes and the interior of the Grand Library well-illuminated, I was able to get a good look at the force arrayed in a semicircle around us for the first time. Some forty imperial guards in purple and gold-trimmed armor faced us down, their body language rigid with killing intent. Many of them carried swords or spears alongside the blackpowder pistols trained on us. The elite imperial guard looked nothing like the corrupted Watch.
“You four, grab those vamps bodies and bring them to headquarters for the doctor to examine, then report to captain Reid.”
The guards threw out a two-fingered salute to the sub-captain and said in unison, “Sir yes sir!”
Four of the imperial guards broke off without a word to see to the task. A fifth rushed ahead and unlatched the door, let the four guards outside, then secured the door again behind them, taking up position beside the entryway.
Neil studied Fin and I for a long moment before saying, “The rest of you, back to your posts.”
The imperial guards shuffled in place.
“Sir?” one asked.
“That’s an order,” Neil ground out the words like he was biting nails.
“Yes, sub-captain.”
The well-armed and armored imperial guards took off in all directions, presumably to return to their posts all over the Grand Library. I tracked as many of them as I could as they went, trying to ascertain the general array of guards in case we had to leave by force. Maybe half of the imperial guards climbed spiral staircases to the upper levels, so I had to assume they had some presence on each of the fourteen floors.
I craned my neck back to look up. Gigantic square sections of thick semi-transparent glass allowed me to see into the floors above. There must be a hidden gas line serving the various lamps with a continuous supply of fuel, because the whole Grand Library was alight with warm lamplight.
Fourteen floors spanning a square block of space packed high with volumes, tomes, and scrolls from different cultures and societies across the world. There was plundered knowledge from across the high seas, returned in the bloody cargo holds of great warships. Antiquities and precious artifacts stolen from tribes across the globe were presented in protected enclosures. Thousands of years of culture gathered in this place by generations of conquests by the empire.
With the Grand Library lit up from the inside, it was hard not to imagine the blood and toil that must have been gone into aggregating so much of the world’s knowledge in one place. Maybe it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that a special force had been assigned to guard it during a citywide curfew.
Neil snapped his fingers in my face. “Your eyes are best served paying attention to me, Kal.” There was a dangerous glint in Neil’s slate-gray eyes that shredded my exhaustion and made my heart pound in my chest.
I jerked back, tripped, and fell flat on my ass.
The enforcer had moved so fast and silent that I hadn’t even processed the danger until it was too late. I could feel his unsheathed bloodlust pressing down on me, cold and sharp as a blade. Looking at the matching long-barrel flintlock pistols strapped to his chest and the thin rapier belted to the man’s slim waist, I understood Neil’s threat for what it was, a warning.
Fin grabbed a fistful of my cloak and pulled me back up to my feet.
“Thanks,” I muttered, then dusted myself off as I tried to rid myself of some of the embarrassment I felt.
Fin grunted.
“Did you know,” Neil began, speaking as if ours was a casual chat between friends, “the emperor empowers enforcers to do whatever we will with heretics and dissidents.”
“That’s nice, but why tell us?” I asked.
“I’m not sure you’re aware… the church has a long history of disdain for witchcraft, you see, but the magical community can get by so long as there isn’t an imperial edict handed down to, say… burn all heretics. And considering the existence of magic isn’t formally recognized by the crown, the average person can go about their business in blissful ignorance.”
“Magic isn’t supposed to exist, is that right?” Fin asked, his curiosity showing.
I furrowed my brows. “Again, I don’t see what this has to do with us.”
"This crisis may cause a paradigm shift in how magic is handled by the crown. That could be very, very bad for you. So you see, your best bet is to work with me, not against me— unless you want to experience the full might of the imperial empire bearing down on you,” Neil said, then shrugged.
The enforcer invaded my personal space. I smoothed out my facial expressions and schooled my body to return to my command.
Neil took my hand in both of his and shook up and down forcefully. With the in he’d made, he stared down at my right arm with obvious fascination. “These scars on your wrists are fascinating. How did you get them?”
My chest constricted painfully and a swarm of butterflies passed through my stomach. I swallowed and did everything in my power to ensure the tremor I felt starting up in my jaw didn’t transfer to my hands.
Grimacing, I said, “In my youth I was an indentured servant, and when I tried to run away, I was put in shackles as punishment in order to remind me that I had not earned my right to freedom.”
That was a lie, of course.
“An object lesson in respect for ones station in life, how quaint. How do you feel about your onetime masters?” Neil asked, a sharp glint showing behind the front-facing curiosity.
Glowing with translucent power, Neil moved with inhuman speed to press something into the palms of our hands. Watching him move that way for the first time, I felt like I was in slow motion. If he had wanted to, he could have dealt the two of us deathblows.
I shivered.
“Take these tokens. Look for when the sun is highest in the sky on the day of the New Year’s Festival, only then will the token grant you entry into the Arcanium. Whether or not you join the enforcers, if you have more than a drop of magic in you, you must gain the Arcanium’s stamp of approval, or else the enforcers can’t allow you to roam free.”
“Arcanium? What’s that, why have I never heard of it?” I asked, dumbfounded.
Neil shrugged. “The Arcanium is the empire’s best-kept secret and it’s invite-only, that’s why. Trust me, you want to be invited. The alternative isn’t pretty.”
I was fed up with this conversation.
“Look, can we just table,” I waved my hands around to indicate our little powwow that had gone on for far longer than I could bear, “whatever this is, for the morning? We traveled a long way and gave up a lot to get here. I just want to lay down and get a few hours of sleep. I don’t care if you keep us under guard or lock and key, just give me a break here. I’ll be a much better conversation partner on the morrow, that’s for sure.”
With a few more back and forth pieces of conversation that went in one ear and out the other, I convinced the sub-captain to bar us inside a small storeroom on the first floor that would remain guarded while we were inside. Our situation was probably more volatile than I cared to admit, but I was too tired and spent from galavanting
across the Otherworld to worry about how my first encounter upon my return to New London was going. I could worry about the way Neil’s token was burning hot against the skin on the inside of my palm later.
Chapter Two
Heart-pounding adrenaline washed away the cobwebs of sleep clinging to my mind. I cracked my eyes open and stared at the wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling above. A thunderous crash made me jolt upright in alarm and hit my forehead on a low-hanging shelf in the cramped storeroom. Placing my palms on the floor, I swiveled my body underneath me, knocking a broom to the ground with a harsh clank.
I winced.
Two emerald pools emerged in the darkness, staring at me. “You’re awake,” Fin said.
I cleared my throat. “I’m awake,” I confirmed. “What’s going on out there?”
Fin shrugged. “Whatever it is, it isn’t our problem.”
“I’m not sure I agree…” I trailed off.
I shifted my attention to the storeroom’s door, trying to peer through its cracks to get a look at what was going on outside it. The imperial guard set outside the door shifted, the lines of his body full of nervous tension. Whatever caused that crash, our jailer was on guard because of it.
“Time to leave?” Fin asked, making a mockery of the small space with his huge body as he shook out his limbs.
Closing my eyes, I expanded my mind outwards until I bumped up against swirling vortexes of horrible, warped, stitched-together energies. Brushing up against them felt like dragging dagger-sharp nails across a chalkboard, and I shuttered my senses against the sensation. Shivering with revulsion, I caught Fin’s attention and shook my head from side-to-side.
“What is it? More vampires?”
I chewed on my lip. “No, not vampires. A different breed of trouble, worse somehow.”
Fin cracked his neck and rose on his feet. He had to bend his back and neck to keep from hitting the beams above.
“Good,” Fin said.
“How is that good?” I asked.
Fin grunted. “That enforcer, Neil, is the only person that might be able to stop us from leaving, and he’ll be distracted now.”
