The Library at Mount Char

by Scott Hawkins

  “He can talk?” Peter said.

  “What’s reissak ayrial?” said Alicia.

  “It means ‘the denial that shreds,’ ” Carolyn said. “Shh! I want to watch.”

  Nobununga took another step.

  “He is immune,” Alicia said, hope rising in her voice. “I knew it. It looks like we’re going to go home after—”

  “Look,” Carolyn said.

  Three steps past the stop sign marking the first intersection, Nobununga paused. He lifted one massive paw. Carolyn, whose vision was very good, saw that he was trembling.

  Nobununga turned again to Michael. Now tears of blood dripped from his green eyes, ran down his muzzle.

  “No!” Michael screamed, then said something in the language of tigers. He set off running.

  “Michael!” Carolyn screamed in her turn, “No!” She watched, transfixed with dread, as Michael sprinted toward Garrison Oaks. She had thought she was ready for what came next, the things she had to do, but…

  Not Michael. Not yet.

  She set off after him. She was quick—Carolyn was quicker than any of them except David—but Michael was far ahead. She scrambled down the steep bluff, almost falling. But by the time she reached the asphalt, Michael was across the road.

  “No!”

  Michael covered the twenty feet or so between the road and the Garrison Oaks sign too fast for Carolyn to intercept. Momentum carried him another eight feet or so beyond that.

  “No!”

  Then he fell as if he had been shot in the brain. He lay very still.

  “Michael!” Carolyn screamed again, real anguish in her voice. She flashed on the day he had come back from the ocean to visit her, his skinny arms golden tan, the salt smell of his skin. A gold BMW bore down on her, coming fast, horn wailing. She shrieked back at it, teeth bared, apelike. The driver swerved onto the shoulder, not quite losing control, then sped off in a spray of gravel. She covered the hundred feet between her and Michael in a matter of seconds, sprinted past the boundary and, precisely as Michael had done—she hoped, anyway—fell flat on her face on the concrete.

  But where Michael only lay still, Carolyn rose up.

  She lifted herself onto her elbows, her knees. Her nose was broken. Blood streamed down her face from gashes in her nose and cheek. She crawled one step forward, then another. Her motion was spastic, halting, as if her nerves were no longer firing properly. She thought it was a good performance. Her twitches were indistinguishable from the real thing, and had the side benefit of camouflaging the completely genuine tremble in her fingertips.

  A third step. Two more and Michael’s ankle was in reach.

  She grabbed him by the ankle, then vomited up a flood of lemon soda and egg. When she had a good grip she turned and began moving back toward the main road, dragging Michael after her.

  Inch by inch, she muscled the two of them to safety. Just outside the iron gate, right where the effects stopped, she flopped onto her belly, exhausted. A moment later Peter and Alicia approached, slow and cautious.

  “Are you OK?” Alicia asked.

  Carolyn rolled over on her belly and dry heaved a couple of times. Her face was covered in blood. “I will be, I think,” she said. “Michael…?”

  Michael coughed, gagged.

  “Turn him…turn him on his side. So he doesn’t choke.” They did. Michael coughed some more, spat out blood.

  “We need to get him to Jennifer,” Carolyn said. She wiped blood from her eyes with one trembling finger. “What about Nobununga? Where is—”

  Peter, looking off in the distance, was shaking his head. “He made it about a block and a half before he fell over. He’s lying on his side. For a while his chest was heaving but”—he glanced down at Carolyn—“…not anymore.”

  Carolyn squeezed her eyes shut. “Ebn el sharmoota!” she said in Arabic. Then, “Fuck! Neik! Merde! Poopy-goddamn-cacka!” She rolled over on her side and pushed herself up to a sitting position. She squinted down the block and saw that Peter was right. Not so much as a twitch. She suppressed a chilly little smile. “Even if I could get in that deep, which I don’t think I can, he’s too heavy for me,” she said. “I couldn’t move him. Not alone.”

  Peter was looking at her with something between admiration and horror. “Is there a word that means ‘brave’ and ‘stupid’ at the same time?”

  “There is,” she said, “lots of them.” A little irked by Peter’s implied jab, she considered explaining how the American word “wussy” might be applied to him. She didn’t, though. It would have been counterproductive. Instead she crawled over to Michael and checked his pulse with her fingertips. At her touch his eyelids fluttered. “Carolyn? Carolyn, where’s—”

  He read the answer from her eyes, then moaned. His mouth worked, but nothing came out. His grief was too deep for words.

  “Shhh,” she said, stroking his hair. “Shhh, Michael. Shhhh.” It was all she could think to say.

  V

  An hour or so later, it became clear Michael was going to be OK—physically, at any rate. His heart was broken. He wept the guileless, unaffected tears of a small child. Carolyn wanted to get somewhere a little less exposed—being by the road made her nervous—so together they helped Michael climb the steps that led to the clearing of the bull. But instead of making for the bull itself, they went into the woods. That was Michael’s true home.

  Not far away a stream flowed over a small cliff, burbling pleasantly. Carolyn remembered the spot from her summer with Isha and Asha. Better still, you couldn’t see the neighborhood from there, couldn’t see Nobununga’s body. The three of them helped Michael to it—he couldn’t quite walk under his own power. There they lay him down by the stream to rest.

  Perhaps misunderstanding, Peter and Alicia left the two of them alone.

  Carolyn and Michael were not lovers. They had tried to be, once, when they were—what?—in their early twenties? That was about a decade ago, though it seemed longer. She thought that night must have been her idea, though she couldn’t imagine what she might have been thinking. She had never had any real interest in sex that she could remember, certainly not after the thing with David. Had that one night been some symptom of her desperation, or maybe simple loneliness? She didn’t know.

  One night when the others were away she seduced him, sort of. Or at least tried to. It ended badly. For reasons she never completely understood, Michael was unable to perform. He wanted to, she could tell that from the way he kissed her, the hungry way he pawed at her once he understood what she was about. But no matter what she did, his penis stayed limp in her hands, and even her mouth. After a long, awkward time of trying Michael pushed her away, very gently. That night they slept by the same fire, but did not touch. She woke in the night and heard him crying out in his sleep. He left before dawn the next day. After that she saw him less and less.

  They were still friendly, though, if not precisely close. They bore each other no grudges, and protected each other when they could. Among the Pelapi that counted for a lot. Carolyn held him in her lap all through that autumn afternoon, saying things like “I’m so very sorry” and “I know the two of you were friends.” The words felt like ashes in her mouth. She knew every word that had ever been spoken, but she could think of nothing to say that might ease his grief. All she could do was wipe away his tears with the tips of her fingers.

  Shortly before sunset, Michael rose. He washed his face in the creek, stood, called out to Peter and Alicia. They came a few minutes later. Both of them were flushed, and Alicia’s robe was on inside out.

  “Nobununga said something, before he left.” Michael was sometimes childlike, but he was not weak. His voice had grown calm, controlled, despite his grief. “You all need to hear this.”

  “We’re so sorry, Michael,” Alicia began, and reached out to him.

  He waved her away. “All of you know that Nobununga is—was—more than he appears, yes? He is ancient. He is wise. He told me that he understood what w
as going on here. He said that Father would let no harm come to him. It seems now that he was wrong about that part”—he gestured back at the neighborhood—“but, even so, we would be foolish to discount his other thoughts.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He knew what it was,” Michael said. “The thing keeping us out. He has seen such before. They were used in the third age. They are called reissak ayrial.”

  “Yeah, we heard him say that. What is it?”

  “It means ‘the denial that shreds,’ ” Carolyn said.

  “Yeah, Carolyn,” Peter said. “But what is it?”

  Carolyn shrugged, thinking of “heart coals.”

  “Poetic license?”

  “I know,” Alicia said.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t going to say anything. It’s part of my catalog.” Alicia’s catalog was the far future.

  “Well, then don’t—” Peter began.

  She put her hand on his arm. “It’s OK. Really. This reissak is happening today.”

  “What do you know about it?” Carolyn said. “That you can tell us, I mean.”

  “Well…” Alicia considered. “Not much in terms of technical detail. I couldn’t make one. But I know it’s sort of a perimeter-defense mechanism. Basically, it’s a sphere anchored in the plane of regret. There’s some sort of token associated with it—”

  “Token?” Peter said. “Like what?”

  “It could be anything. The token needs to be an actual physical object, but all it really is, is an anchor. The closer you get to the token, the more powerful the effects are.”

  “That fits,” Carolyn said. Her voice was meditative.

  “Wait. It gets better. There’s also a trigger.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s something about a person that brings the reissak ayrial into focus.”

  “Like what?”

  “The trigger would be something internal—an emotion, an experience, a memory…” Alicia shrugged. “Something like that. The people who share it feel the effects of the reissak ayrial. For everyone else, it’s like it doesn’t exist.”

  Peter considered. “That fits too,” he said.

  “Who among us would know how to make such a thing?” Carolyn asked. “David?”

  “Nooo…no. Not David. The reissak has defense applications, obviously, but it’s not like a spear or something. It’s pretty complex.”

  Carolyn gave her a suspicious look. “You say in the future these things are pretty common. Are they maybe for sale, or…something? If you wanted one, how hard would it have been to—”

  “It wasn’t me!” Alicia said. “And no. You have to alter the shape of spacetime locally—space and time. It’s very customized. You can’t just pick one up at the market, even in the future.”

  Carolyn continued to look at her.

  “Come on, Carolyn,” Peter said. “We know it’s not—”

  “Yeah, OK,” Carolyn said. “I guess I’m inclined to believe you.” When the barrier—the reissak ayrial—first came up, they had all tested themselves against it. Alicia came away with massive internal hemorrhaging. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but within a day or so she was one big bruise. She stayed that way for weeks. Whatever the trigger was, it worked on her.

  “If not David, who, then?” Peter asked.

  Alicia gave him a sympathetic look. “I hate to say it, dear, but the likeliest candidate is, well…you?”

  “Me? Alicia, come on, you know that—”

  Alicia held up her hand. “I know this. Carolyn and Michael may not.” She turned to them. “The reissak is mostly a mathematical construct.” As such it would be part of Peter’s catalog. “Sorry, dear.”

  “Guys, I’ve never even heard of such a thing,” Peter said. “You can either believe me or not, but—”

  “It’s all right,” Carolyn said, holding up a hand. “I remember. I believe you.” On the day the reissak was first set, the day that Father disappeared, Peter made it two steps beyond the sign and began to smoke. By the time he came back out, his skin was already blistering.

  “Who, then?” Peter asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Carolyn said, “but I have an idea. This trigger you were talking about—is there any way to know what it is?”

  “None that I know of. Why?”

  “Well,” Carolyn said, “it occurs to me that the dead ones still get packages delivered most days. Also, there’s always somebody driving in to deliver those big round cheese-bread things that David’s fond of.”

  “Pizza?” Peter said. “I like that too. It’s a good point. If the reissak worked on Americans, there’d be piles of them dead in the street by now.”

  “Yeah,” Carolyn said. “That crossed my mind as well. You said that the token can be anything, but the field of effect is a sphere. If that’s the case, we can just map the outline of the effects and we’ll know pretty much where the token is. Right?”

  Peter was grinning. “And if we know where it is—”

  “We can find someone to move it,” Alicia finished. She was grinning. “Carolyn, you’re a genius! Library, here we come.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s a little early to start celebrating. Among other things, we still need an American. Do you guys know anybody?”

  They shook their heads in unison. “That’s going to have to be on you, Carolyn. None of us even speaks the language.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “OK. Fair enough. I’ll come up with something. Also there are the sentinels to think about.”

  They plotted together until well after dark. Carolyn pretended to resist at first, but eventually she let them convince her that David would have to be involved as well.

  INTERLUDE II

  UZAN-IYA

  I

  By the third year of her apprenticeship, Carolyn had mostly forgotten the outside world. Most of the others supplemented their studies with outings, or at least vacations. Michael went to the woods or the ocean. David killed scores of men on every continent. Margaret followed them down to the forgotten lands. Jennifer called some of them back.

  Carolyn’s studies did not require travel. Native speakers were brought to her when she needed practice, and after the summer with Isha and Asha she no longer cared to take vacations. So her world was only the Library, her studies the only escape. She spent her childhood in a circle of golden lamplight, bounded on all sides by teetering stacks of books; folios; dusty, crumbling parchment. One day when she was about eleven years old—in calendar terms, at least—it occurred to her that she no longer remembered what her actual parents looked like. Time was different in the Library.

  She lost track of the exact count of languages she was fluent in at around fifty—trophies were never her thing—but she thought that whatever the count was, it was probably pretty high. One of the more challenging was the language of the Atul, a tribe of the Himalayan steppe that had died out about six thousand years ago. The Atul had been linguistically isolated. Their grammar was nearly impenetrable, and they had some exotic cultural norms. One such was the notion of uzan-iya, which was what they called the moment when an innocent heart first contemplated the act of murder. To the Atul, the crime itself was secondary to this initial corruption. Carolyn found that idea—and its implications—fascinating. She was turning this over in her mind one dry summer afternoon when she realized, with a bit of irritation, that her stomach was rumbling. When had she last eaten? The day before? The day before that?

  She went down to the larder, but it was bare. She called out for Peter, whose catalog included the preparation of food. No answer. She walked to the front door and went out into Garrison Oaks.

  Jennifer was sitting on the porch, studying. “Hey, Carolyn! Good to see you outside for a change.”

  “Is there any food?”

  Jennifer laughed. “Driven out by hunger? I might have known. Yeah, I think some of the dead ones got a grocery dump last week.”

  “Which ones?”
<
br />   “Third house down.”

  “Thanks. Want me to get you anything?”

  “Nah, I’m good. But”—Jennifer looked up and down the street furtively—“you might want to swing by my room tonight.”

  “Why, what’s up?”

  “Michael brought this back from his last trip.” She held up a little baggie with green leaves in it.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s called marijuana. Supposedly if you smoke it, it makes you feel good. We’re going to try it tonight.”

  Carolyn considered. “Can’t. I’ve got a test tomorrow.” The last time she missed a question, Father gave her ten lashes.

  “Oh, OK. Next time?”

  “Love to.” Carolyn paused. “You might ask Margaret, though. I think she could use a little fun.” Margaret was no longer screaming herself awake every night, which was a relief, but she’d developed a nervous giggle that was at least as bad.

  Jennifer made a sour face. “I’ll ask.” She didn’t sound happy about it.

  “What’s the problem? You two used to be buddies.”

  “Margaret stinks, Carolyn. And she and I haven’t hung out in ages. You really need to get out of your room more.”

  “Oh.” Come to think of it, Margaret actually had smelled pretty bad the last couple of times Carolyn had seen her. “Well…it’s not really her fault.”

  “No. It’s not. But she still stinks.”

  Carolyn’s stomach rumbled, audible to both of them. “I’ve got to go get something to eat,” she said apologetically. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  She hurried off down the street. The houses of Garrison Oaks belonged to Father now, as did the things that lived in them. Most of the homes had dead ones inside as camouflage. These were what remained of the children’s actual parents, and some other neighbors who hadn’t been vaporized on Adoption Day. Carolyn wasn’t entirely sure how they had been transformed into dead ones, but she had a guess.

  For a year or so Father had been murdering Margaret two or three times a week. He did this in various ways. The first time he snuck up behind her with an ax at dinner, startling everyone, not least Margaret herself. After that it was gunshots, poison, hanging, whatever. Sometimes it was a surprise, sometimes not. Another time Father pierced her heart with a stiletto, but only after telling her what he would do, setting the knife before her on a silver tray, and letting her contemplate it for three full days and nights. Carolyn would have supposed that the ax would be the worse of the two, but Margaret seemed to take that one in stride. After a day or so of looking at the knife, though, she started to do that giggle of hers. And after that, she never really stopped. Carolyn sighed. Poor Margaret.