The Library at Mount Char

by Scott Hawkins

  “That’s sort of a long story.”

  “This is real?” Erwin asked. His voice was flat, unemotional. His eyes flickered back and forth between her face and the gun in her hands. “It’s not a trick?”

  “I don’t do tricks.” She took a step back, out of range.

  “Put it back!” Steve said. “Turn it on! We’ll all—turn it back on!”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “Jesus Christ, Carolyn! You’ve got to! We’ll…everybody…we’ll freeze!”

  “Not immediately,” she said. “I talked it over with Peter once. The atmosphere acts like a blanket. The residual heat will fade, eventually, but we’ve got some time.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  She considered. “Are you hungry? I’m starving. We’ve got some time to kill. I know a good Mexican place down the road. The guacamole is—”

  “I’m not interested in any goddamn tacos, Carolyn!”

  “Oh, c’mon. It’s really good.”

  “Look, I’m sick of this crap. Right now I want you to—”

  “Get me some guacamole and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  Steve, red-faced, drew in his breath to yell something else…then shut his mouth with an audible click of his teeth. “You will? Anything?”

  She nodded. “Yup.”

  “OK,” Steve said. “Yeah.”

  Carolyn turned back to Erwin. “We’re going to take your car.”

  Erwin raised an eyebrow. He stood about six-two, Steve judged, and was in fantastic physical shape. He remembered the way the big cop had withered under his glare.

  Carolyn, pistol in hand, raised her eyebrows. She smiled pleasantly.

  “Keys are in it,” Erwin said.

  “Money,” Steve said. “Did you bring the duffel bag?”

  “What? Oh. No, sorry. I gave it to the cabdriver.”

  “To the cabdriver? All three hundred twenty-seven thousand?”

  She shrugged. “I felt kind of sad for him. They ate some of his fingers.”

  “Wait, what? Who ate—” He broke off. “On second thought, never mind. I don’t want to know.” Steve rubbed his forehead, then looked at Erwin. “Have you got any money?”

  Erwin raised both eyebrows this time. But then he shrugged and rummaged through his wallet. He handed over three twenties, a five, and a couple of ones. “That’s all my cash. You want my AmEx, too?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Thank you, Erwin,” Carolyn said. “You’ve been very helpful.” Steve opened the Taurus’s back door and patted the seat with his hand. Naga hesitated, then jumped in. Carolyn took the passenger seat. When Steve put the Ford in gear she said, “Wait.”

  Her HK was identical to the one she had given Steve. She thumbed the lever to drop the magazine out of it, then jacked the slide back, ejecting the round in the chamber. She clicked the loose round back into the magazine, then turned to Steve. “How do I make the window go down?”

  Steve pointed at a button on the door. When the window was down she waved Erwin over. “Here,” she said. She handed him the empty pistol, butt first. “For protection. There’s a lot of crazy people out tonight. Be careful.”

  “Ain’t much good without bullets,” Erwin observed.

  “I’ll set the magazine on the sidewalk at the bottom of the hill.”

  Erwin nodded. “Thanks.”

  When they were a little ways out of the parking lot, Steve pulled into a turn lane and stopped. Carolyn laid the magazine next to a streetlight and waved at Erwin. Erwin waved back.

  “What was that all about?”

  “He seems nice.” She gave him a vague smile.

  Steve knew that she was lying again.

  VI

  To Steve’s irritation, Carolyn was right. The guacamole really was excellent.

  The restaurant she liked turned out to be Monsieur Taco, which was in the same strip mall as the vet. Carolyn had insisted that they go there, that particular restaurant and no other, even though the parking lot was still boiling with cops. She said it wouldn’t be a problem. Steve had a bad moment when the big cop that Erwin had humiliated looked their way, but nothing came of it. Steve parked in back, and Carolyn rumbled something to Naga. She rumbled back and curled up in the backseat to go to sleep.

  The place was weirdly upscale for strip-mall Mexican—among other things, there were valets and a doorman. Steve parked himself, though—Naga was sleeping in the backseat, and he didn’t think that would go over very well. He was also worried that the fact his butt was visible through a hole in his crusty sweatpants might be a problem. But the closest anyone came to giving them trouble was the maître d’. His right arm was in a cast, and he apparently remembered Carolyn from an earlier visit. When she asked for a table for two, he screamed and bolted for the door.

  Steve gave Carolyn a what-the-fuck look.

  “Hmm? Oh. We came here a couple weeks ago. David doesn’t understand about money. When he started to walk out without paying that guy grabbed him, and…” She trailed off.

  “Wackiness ensued. Got it.”

  They ended up seating themselves at the bar.

  Steve didn’t think he could eat, but Carolyn insisted he try the lobster tacos. While they were waiting he drank a half pitcher of margaritas, which cooled him out some. By the time the food was actually in front of him he had rediscovered his appetite. Carolyn, however, only managed a couple of bites.

  “I hate to admit it, but this actually is fantastic.” Steve munched a chip and pushed the guacamole bowl an inch or two closer to her. She ate a chip or two, but only pushed her dinner around on the plate. “Something wrong? I thought you said you were starving.”

  “I am, but my stomach’s a little upset.” She shrugged. “Nerves, maybe. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  “Hmm. You said you’d answer questions?”

  “Sure. Might as well. We’ve got time to kill, and it’ll take my mind off…other stuff. Ask me whatever you want.”

  The restaurant was starting to fill up. An elderly woman in a mink stole eyed Carolyn’s leg warmers and Steve’s bloody concert shirt, then did something haughty with her face. Steve waved at her Queen Elizabeth—style, wrist only, and gave her a big toothy grin. She scurried away. “Hmm. Where to start?” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Can you really talk to Naga? Like, I mean, really?”

  “I can, yeah. Animal languages are their own specialty, but I get by. My pronunciation isn’t as good as Michael’s.”

  “How did you guys learn that?”

  “Father figured it out. He took notes.”

  “Notes on talking to lions?”

  “That, yes. Other animals too. Everything that has a language, really.”

  “That must have taken him a while.”

  “A hundred years or so for the first couple of species, I think. Less once he got the hang of it.” Then, seeing the look on Steve’s face, “He’s very old, you see. And he stayed busy. Languages are really the least of it.” She sighed. “Really. The very least of it. Trust me on this.”

  “Like how old are we talking about?”

  “No one’s really sure. At least sixty thousand years. Probably a lot more. But the question isn’t really meaningful. He spent a lot of his life in the Library. Time is different there.”

  “I see,” Steve said, slowly. “And is that where you’re from too? The Library?”

  “What? Well…yes and no. I was born in…Cleveland, I think? Someplace that starts with a c, anyway.” She gave a small, sad smile. “But…yeah. I guess I am from the Library.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I’m not sure I do either, honestly. I mean, I know what he did to us, but I really don’t have any idea why.”

  “Who?”

  “Father.”

  “Your dad?”

  She shook her head. “That’s just what we call him. He wasn’t my biological father. I’m not sure that would even be possible. No
one really knows what he is.”

  “So…what? He’s, like, an alien?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe? But I don’t think so. But I don’t think he’s human, either. Originally, I mean. The world’s a lot different now than it was in the third age. There probably weren’t any people when he was born.”

  “ ‘Third age’?”

  “This age, the age of Father’s rule, is the fourth. Before Father, creation was ruled by something else. It was darker then. By all accounts it was a worse time. That’s the world Father was born into, the one he conquered.”

  “I don’t—”

  She fluttered her hand, as if waving away a distraction. “How Father started doesn’t really matter.”

  “Then what does?” Steve asked, irritated. She made him feel like a child.

  He was obscurely pleased when she took this question seriously, wrinkling her brow as she thought about how to answer. “He’s smart,” she said finally. “That’s the key. I think it all flowed from that.” She looked at him. “This is just speculation, you understand. I don’t really know.”

  “Welcome to my world.”

  She frowned.

  “Sorry. Go on, please. I’m interested.”

  She nodded, peered down into her club soda. “OK. This first part I’m fairly sure of. Imagine someone like Isaac Newton, a once-in-history genius. Maybe human, maybe not so much. All that matters about him is that he’s really, really smart. That and the fact that he was born into a terrible time, probably worse than you can imagine. Something like hell, except real. It was ruled by a thing called the Emperor.”

  “With you so far.”

  “Good. Here’s where I start guessing. In the Library there are twelve catalogs—but the first one, the white catalog, is medicine. I think that might be significant. Maybe Father started out as whatever passed for a doctor in those days. Father stumbled over something that was very useful for repair—a plant, a potion, whatever. Somehow he figured out how to stretch out his life, to buy himself time. And he used that time to learn more, live longer. Eventually he was satisfied that he could live as long as he wanted, heal whatever wounds came up. After that…he used that time to teach himself other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well…the second catalog is war. I think that might not be a coincidence, either. Father is crafty. I imagine he was quiet at first, planning, arranging things, gathering his power. How do you guys say? ‘Flying under the radar.’ Then, eventually, when he was ready”—she tapped the bar with one lacquered fingernail—“he turned his attention to the author of his misery. He understood, I think. The only real escape from hell is to conquer it. He had allies—Nobununga was a key player, and someone named Mithraganhi. They’re the only ones who knew for sure what happened, and they aren’t talking.”

  “The three of them killed him? This Emperor guy?”

  “Well…I doubt Father let him off that easy. But yeah, they usurped him.”

  “OK. Then what?”

  “I don’t know. The records are lost. But one way or another, the third age ended. There were other battles after that, betrayals, wars. Enemies rose and fell. The Duke, Q-33 North, others. Eventually Father grew powerful enough that no one could challenge him.”

  “So where do you come in? Collective ‘you,’ I mean. You and David and the rest.”

  She took a sip of her club soda. “Sixty thousand years later, give or take. Twenty-three years ago. It was late summer. I was maybe eight or nine when they…well. That was when he adopted us.” She considered. “Or maybe ‘adopted’ isn’t the right word. We were more like his apprentices.”

  “Then what…” Steve trailed off. The TV behind the bar was tuned to CNN. During dinner the coverage had centered on the sun’s mysterious absence—what was up with that?—but now, evidently, there was Breaking News.

  Wolf Blitzer, looking dazed, was talking over some grainy camcorder footage taken from the sidewalk in front of the White House. A section of the wrought-iron fence around the front lawn was broken away. There was a bare, bloody footprint on the sidewalk next to the body—unconscious or dead—of a teenage boy. The camera looked up. In the background, the East Wing of the White House was in an uncontrolled blaze. Talons of fire thirty feet long clawed at the night sky. Wolf Blitzer was saying things like “catastrophic loss of life,” and “constitutional order of succession.”

  “Fuuuuck me,” Steve said softly.

  The images were grainy, and whoever was holding the camera wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping it steady. Even so, Steve could make out a man in the middle distance, silhouetted against the fire. He carried a long stick that flashed yellow when the light caught it right. And…oh. Oh, wow.

  The puffy bit at his midsection could only have been a tutu.

  Steve ordered a tequila.

  Carolyn followed his gaze. Seeing what was on TV, she nodded. “Are you about done? We’ll need to head out soon.”

  “I guess,” Steve said, distracted.

  Carolyn got up and disappeared into the ladies’ room. Now Wolf Blitzer was doing a live interview with a lawyer type who’d seen the attack on the White House. The lawyer, mildly hysterical, kept running his fingers through his thinning hair and repeating “He killed three guys, man! Three of ’em! Messed ’em alllll up!” Every so often Blitzer would nod, gravely but encouragingly. While they were talking, someone blew up the Capitol Building. Shrapnel from the blast—it might have been an office chair—ripped off the hysterical guy’s left arm. The overpressure knocked Wolf Blitzer on his ass. A second later Erin Burnett cut to a recorded interview with a soccer mom in Maryland who had seen something “bigger than an elephant” walking down the side of the interstate.

  The bartender refilled Steve’s tequila without asking and poured one for himself.

  “You ready?” Carolyn said.

  “Yeah—I mean no. Or maybe. I guess. Do we have another minute? I just…” He nodded at the tequila.

  “OK. But hurry.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He knocked off half the tequila at a gulp. “Did you have something to do with that?”

  On TV, the woman who had seen the elephant thing held up her hand. Her eyes rolled back in her head. She was screaming. The skin of her arm was pitch-black, as if it had been dipped in ink, and something was wrong with her fingers—they quivered, not like fingers at all anymore. They looked to Steve like tentacles.

  “Not really. Well…indirectly. It comes from Barry O’Shea, or maybe one of his people. They’re very contagious.”

  “Who? Contagious? What?”

  “She’s got a—it’s called a reality virus. It’s not actually that dangerous, it just looks bad. The tentacles act like, umm, antennas, sort of. They make her receptive to the underthoughts. If she lets it go untreated she could get possessed.”

  “Possessed? You mean, like, by demons? That kind of possessed?”

  “What? No.” Carolyn laughed. For one horrifying moment Steve thought she might pinch his cheek. “There’s no such thing, Steve.”

  “What, then?”

  “Silent Ones. They’re pure thought, but they manifest as big lumbering things, sort of silver. They’re a relic of the third age. They can’t be killed, but the sun’s wide-spectrum radiation was deep enough to make them inert. With it gone, Barry’s decided it’s time to make his move. Does that make sense?”

  Steve just looked at her. “No. No, it really doesn’t.”

  “Well…don’t worry about it. When things settle down I’ll sort that part out. Barry is a lightweight.” She nodded at the tentacle woman. “Anyway, there’s an easy cure.”

  “An easy cure for having your fingers turn into monster hands?”

  “Well…easyish. The best thing, obviously, is just don’t touch him in the first place.”

  “Oh, obviously.”

  “Don’t worry so much, Steve. People will adjust.”

  “Adjust to what, exactly? I still don’t understand what all t
his is about.”

  “It’s about the Library,” Carolyn said. “Right now the only thing that matters is who takes control of Father’s Library.”

  “Library? Who gives a damn about a library?”

  Carolyn rolled her eyes. “Americans.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve seen a little of what we can do—Lisa, me, David. What did you think?”

  Steve swallowed. “Some of it was…yeah, it was pretty amazing.”

  Carolyn’s face was bathed in the red light of the bar lamps, but her eyes were dark. “What you’ve seen is nothing, Steve. Parlor tricks. For all intents and purposes, the power of the Library is infinite. Tonight we’re going to settle who inherits control of reality.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said.”

  “Carolyn…that’s just crazy. I know you can do some weird stuff, but—”

  She held up her hand. “We can argue later. But right now we need to go.”

  “Go where, exactly?”

  “Garrison Oaks,” she said.

  “Why would we do that? I just got away from there. It was the exact opposite of fun. And why the hell did you send me in there in the first pl—”

  “Later. Now I have to meet David. He’ll be done with Erwin soon.”

  “Erwin? David’s with Erwin?”

  She nodded. “Erwin was trying for an ambush. If we don’t hurry, David will kill him.”

  “When you say ‘meet David,’ what exactly do you mean? Are you…you’re not, like, conspiring with that guy, are you?”

  She didn’t answer. Try as he would, she would say nothing else.

  INTERLUDE IV

  SORE, AND IN NEED OF COMFORT

  I

  Carolyn died about five years after the bonfire of the bull. It happened at the very end of winter, during that six weeks or so when the breeze still blows cold but the forest nights are filled with the yowls of rutting cats. She was sixteen or seventeen then.

  Mostly when people are resurrected they sleep for a while, but Carolyn came back to life like a match flaring at midnight. There were hands on her; she was being touched. She snapped out, caught hold of someone’s hair, pulled herself in to bite.