Will Power

by A. J. Hartley

  The search of the city (surprise, surprise) turned up nothing. The assassin, unlike the goblins who had caught me first, had come and gone with all the noise and fuss of a ground fog, the kind you don’t see forming till you can’t find the floor anymore. I hadn’t expected him to leave any grist for the investigator’s mill: no carelessly dropped letters with names and addresses, no passing witness who felt sure he’d seen him somewhere before, no distinctive jewelry left at the scene. He had vanished from the White City’s immaculate streets like the flame of a quenched candle, and if there hadn’t been a little stack of dead goblins a few blocks from the palace, I doubt Sorrail would have given my tale much credence.

  But there was, and he did. He came back to our rooms dressed in his military tunic and his face was grave and pensive.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said, running his hand thoughtfully through his hair.

  “I already did,” I said.

  “Once more, please,” he said. His voice was tired, but his eyes were still keen and alert. I began the story again, casually, bored with it already. Gaspar, apparently one of the king’s closest advisers despite his part-time appearance as a dandified courtly love poet, took notes and looked as gray as his suit. Renthrette sharpened her knife carefully. Garnet yawned.

  “And that’s all you remember?” said Sorrail, as I concluded.

  “No,” I said. “I forgot to tell you that he said his name was Albert and he came from a village just north of . . .”

  “Will,” said Renthrette, barely looking up.

  “Sorry,” I said. “A joke. Yes, that’s all I remember.”

  “What about his voice?” Sorrail continued, ignoring that last piece of stupidity.

  “Urbane,” I said. “No accent to speak of. Smooth, you know? Almost oily but not in a bad way. Precise, like the sound of a very finely made crossbow slide. Probably not the voice of a very young man, but I couldn’t say for sure. Not a voice I knew, I’d say. So that ought to really narrow down the possibilities.”

  “Would you recognize the man again if you saw him?” said Sorrail.

  “No,” I said. “I told you: I didn’t see his face and we really never got that close. Barely on speaking terms really. A nodding acquaintance, you know. Not a mate, exactly. . . .”

  “Will,” Renthrette warned.

  “Sorry. I’m just getting tired of this. I really need to sleep and I never did get my beer.”

  Sorrail called a guard and muttered to him. The guard paused fractionally longer than he should have and Sorrail raised an eyebrow in that do-you-have-a-problem-private? way that commanding officers have. Five minutes later the guard came back with a tankard of what looked remarkably like beer. For me.

  And at this unexpected delight, something struck me. “Hold it,” I said, rising thoughtfully. “One of the goblins said something.”

  “I thought they spoke in their own language when they weren’t speaking to you,” said Sorrail.

  “They did,” I agreed. “But when the first goblin fell, one of the others said something that sounded like it wasn’t one of their words. It sounded different. Like regular Thrusian or whatever you call it here. And I think it was connected to the appearance of the hooded assassin. Something ‘claw.’ An adjective, then claw.” I thought frantically. I had begun to pace the room, hands to my temples. “Claw,” I repeated. “Something-claw. Pale!” I said suddenly, snapping my fingers. “That was it, I think. Pale claw. I’m almost sure.”

  “Sounds like a name to me,” said Garnet, regaining interest.

  “Yes,” said Sorrail, hesitating thoughtfully. “But I do not know how we begin to find who it belongs to. Moreover, if Pale Claw is the killer’s name, then the goblins recognized him. He must have been one of their agents, and I do not know how we would find such a man.”

  “But he killed the goblins,” I said. “No. He was a man. Tallish, slim. Not at all squat or heavy like most of the goblins I’ve seen.”

  “A human accomplice, then,” said Sorrail. “A traitor. The goblins apparently came into the city in the back of a tradesman’s wagon. We found the wagon and its driver this morning. The goblins could not hope to hide long in the city after their mission was complete, but if the other attacker was a man, he could be anywhere and be quite undetected. I do not see what we could do to identify him.”

  “Shouldn’t you be organizing the raiding party that goes back for Orgos and Mithos?” I said, tiring of this circular conversation.

  Garnet turned and gave me a curious look, eyes narrowed and head cocked like he was straining to hear something a long way off. He opened his mouth vaguely as if he was going to say something but couldn’t find the words.

  “Hell’s teeth!” I spat. “You call this beer?”

  Dawn showed up like an old lover I’d never wanted to see again. With it came a letter. It lay on my breakfast tray alongside a tray of cunningly fashioned and utterly flavorless confectionary and some bland liquid which, I was assured, was “very nourishing.” I suspected it was made from some particularly nasty species of turnip. The letter came in a rich, creamy envelope bound with red ribbon and sealed with wax. My name was etched in copperplate, barely discernible beneath all the flourishes. It smelt odd. Perfumed.

  “It would seem you have an admirer,” said Renthrette, idly. “How nice. You’ve always wanted one.”

  I practiced my steely look on her but it bounced off as usual and broke against the wall. She smiled like a cat over a bowl of cream. Or, I suppose, a mouse.

  The letter was written in a long, fine, curly print as if the world’s most aesthetically inclined spider had fallen in an ink well and become slightly drunk. I was about to peruse it when Renthrette, unable to sustain her pretense at superior disinterest, snatched it from me and began to read aloud. “ ‘My dear and most excellent Mr. Hawthorne—’ Whoever it is doesn’t know you very well,” Renthrette inserted, without pausing for breath.

  “Just read the bloody thing,” I muttered. “I think we can manage without your editorials.”

  She went on, her voice raised in mock passion. “ ‘I fear your aim be truer than my heart hath strength to fly, for I fall stricken at your conquering feet with my breast heaving. Take me up in your most valiant arms and save me, beloved William. Kiss my breathless lips back to life and I will live to serve and pleasure you. Love me as I love you and I will set the heavens with myriad stars to shed full daylight on your fair countenance though it were deepest night. Like Sytone in the play of old, I’ll burn with joy—’ ”

  “Hold it!” I said. “The play of old? There are plays here, and no one told me? I was beginning to think Thrusia had the only theaters on the globe. Where can I find these plays?”

  “Don’t you even want to know who it’s from?” said Renthrette, warming to the intrigue of the thing.

  “Depends,” I said. “Does she give any more precise indication of how she intends to demonstrate this uncontrollable desire of hers? I mean, is it going to be all courtly verse, or do we get to, you know, mix our metaphors a bit?”

  “Typical,” said Renthrette. “No. And it’s just signed ‘an admirer,’ anyway, so it looks like you’re stuck with the words.”

  Nothing new there. But at least I had the words, and they could lead me to more interesting things. I leaned out into the corridor and flagged down the nearest guard. “You have a theater in this city?” I asked.

  “A what?” said the guard.

  “A place for plays. You know? Drama. A kind of entertainment where people act out stories.”

  He put his head slightly on one side like a chicken that has been asked to lay a side of beef for a change, and then shook his head slowly.

  “What about a public library of some sort?” I tried.

  “Oh yes, sir,” he said, smiling proudly. “An extraordinary collection of our most ancient and modern manuscripts, I believe.”

  Renthrette sighed pointedly. “Books are for people who can’t survive in reality,
” she said. “And stories are just empty wastes of time.”

  “Right, Renthrette,” I agreed absently. “Real men can’t read, I know. Go and kill something, will you? Cheer yourself up.”

  The library was over by the city’s western wall, opposite the judicial courthouse. The two buildings gazed upon each other across a flagged square. They were, of course, elegant buildings fronted with white plastered columns whose capitals were discreetly brushed with gold and shone in the morning light. The square was empty and the series of turrets that surmounted the courthouse threw slightly austere, regular shadows across it. It was cold in the shadow and I was glad to pause for a moment on the sunlit side and admire the forum’s colonnade and the library’s great domed roof. It was still chilly, but the sky was clear and there was a brisk, invigorating quality to the air. I almost bounded up the marble steps and tried one of the doors, great oak things, almost black with age.

  The latch clicked easily, but the door barely moved, though I put my whole weight upon it. I tried again and it scraped a few more inches and then juddered to a halt with a whine of protest. It wasn’t going any farther. I tried the other, but it was bolted down into the floor and was impervious to my efforts. I knocked loudly, but nothing happened. For a public library, it would have made a pretty good fortress.

  I stood at the head of the stairs and looked out across the forum into the sun.

  “So much for that,” I said aloud. Then I slowly descended the steps and began to cross the square. On a whim I swung across to the northern colonnade and began strolling along its stately length, vaguely pleased by the shelter from the breeze. Then I saw, straight ahead, just visible behind a series of stone benches that faced out into the square, a small door into the base of the law courts. Since these buildings had obviously been built to balance each other, probably at the same time, it struck me as at least possible that there might be a similar door into the library. I turned quickly and ran back, shaded by the roofed colonnade. At the far end, set in a little alcove so that it was virtually invisible from the forum, was a door about a third the size of the main entrance. I tried it.

  It didn’t open. Irritably, I twisted the handle, and a reddish dust collected on my fist like dried blood. I did it again, more vigorously this time, and the rust flaked all the more. Something shifted in the mechanism and the handle gave a little more. With a glance over my shoulder and one last wrench, something inside snapped, there was a little cascade of orange which had once been metal, and the door shifted against my shoulder. Leaning my back against it and setting my feet to the jamb for leverage, I forced it open and it was the hinges’ turn to shower the stone floor with rust.

  It was dark and cold inside and I had to push the door wider just to see where I was going. It was dry, but smelled unused, stale even. The corridor was narrow and, after only a few yards, turned sharply to the left. The light from the doorway was no use here and I stumbled and grazed my calves on the edge of a stone step. I felt with my hands: there were more steps ahead. Arms spread like a nervous chick poised to jump out of the nest for the first time, I ascended the stairs.

  Different people have different passions, and you only have to find the right one to make them behave irrationally. My passions were few and fairly straightforward: food, drink (especially beer), money (not that I ever had any), women (likewise), books in all forms, and plays in particular. My days as an adventurer had brought me most of these, though when adventuring gave you anything you could be fairly sure that it would turn out to have a heavily muscled swordsman attached. I didn’t like creeping around in dark corridors, but if there was reading matter as well as light at the end of the tunnel, I’d give it a go. If the seven-foot-tall, sword-wielding custodian was out to lunch, so much the better.

  At the top of the stairs my fingertips found vertical wooden boards, a cold metal ring, and a keyhole through which nothing could be seen. I fumbled with the ring and, actually trying to be quiet for the first time since I had broken in, turned it till the door clicked. Unlocked, I thought, pleased with myself, and pushed. It shuddered and gave slightly, but there was clearly something solid against it on the other side. I tried again. No joy.

  The trouble with passion is that it can make you singleminded to the point of stupidity. Perhaps that is why I found myself sprinting up the stairs and throwing myself in a shoulder-cracking thud against the door. The door burst open, the table on the other side turned over and crashed to the floor, and I followed suit, landing on my side in a heap of parchment. As things quieted and I began squeezing my collarbone tentatively, an inkwell which had been catapulted off the table rolled quietly away, leaving a thin black trail on the parquet floor.

  After a moment of silence, I rolled over onto my back and found myself bathed in a chill, gray light. It came from the dome directly above, which was translucent, and glowed with a soft radiance, pale and easy on the eyes. It was stone, I think, and was supported with darker buttresses that arched up into the center like ribs, but it lit the entire building like a vast lantern with a paper shade. And all around me, on great lurching shelves, at the ends of sliding ladders, stacked into the very dome itself, were books. It was like stumbling onto a lake of cool, crystal water after three weeks in the desert. It broke over me like a crash of triumphal music.

  I had never seen anything like it.

  Half-delirious, I rolled over and onto my feet, sprang to the nearest wall of spines, and plucked one out.

  “A Rhetorical Method for Schoolmasters,” I read aloud, delightedly. The one next to it was Tharnast’s Rules of Logic, and beside that, A Discourse on the Structures of Grammar for the Edification of the Scholar, with a revised appendix on Practical Syntax in Rustic Dialect. Things of beauty, all. I returned them to the stacks, barely able to contain a giggle of excitement, and began to pace the dim corridors of shelves, scouring their contents with my head tipped on one side and grinning like a child accidentally locked in a pantry full of cake, trifle, and cookies.

  It wasn’t that I had been starved of reading matter, but books showed up only rarely in the life of an adventurer, and even the library in the Hide back in Stavis tended toward the practical. If you were into siege tactics, herbal remedies, and how to turn a hairpin into a lock pick, that was the place for you. Lisha, Mithos, and Co. were, but while I will read such stuff in the absence of an alternative, I want books to pull me out of reality, not to plunge me into it, hairpin and broadsword at the ready. In Stavis, and indeed throughout Thrusia, the Empire had made books few and far between. Literacy is dangerous, and they had taken pains to discourage it. When they closed the theaters as similarly dangerous, they also impounded and destroyed whatever playbooks could be found. Then poetry, being considered frivolous, obscure, and, in some cases, lewd, was added to the list. Bonfires on street corners became a regular sight, enthusiastic young corporals standing over them full of the spirit of victory and righteousness. It had been some time since I had curled up with a good book; so long, in fact, that the “good book” category was now easily broad enough to include A Rhetorical Method for Schoolmasters.

  It didn’t need to be. After only a minute or two, I came upon a table piled high with huge tomes bound with cloth and stiffened with sheets of a board so heavy it took two hands to open them. A catalog. There, in minute, handwritten but perfectly legible print were the titles, authors, genres, and other details about the library’s twenty-five thousand plus volumes. Each record was lettered and numbered to correspond with an area, stack, and shelf. In moments I had oriented myself and was gazing raptly at a ten-foot-high wall of irregular books and manuscripts, some bound with leather and etched with gold leaf, others mere jumbles of papers stitched together or folded into parchment covers, all qualified by a plate halfway up the wall which read, simply, DRAMA.

  I shut my eyes and chose one, found a stained, ancient desk with a leather-covered chair in a dark recess between the stacks, and sat quite still and silent for two hours. The sun rose high ov
er the dome and the soft effervescence grew, though I barely noticed it, so totally immersed was I in the world whose pages I turned—less hungrily now, but with a sense of peaceful joy spreading through me like the light in the dome. And though, like the starving man who rejoices over a stale crust, I would have been happy with anything, it was good stuff. Very good, in fact. It was romance: not in the sense of a love story—though that was an element of it—but a romance of the epic variety, dark forces propelling the play toward tragedy and the hand of some providential power pulling everything back from the brink of chaos and destruction, into comic resolution, victory, marriage, and the reuniting of sundered families and friends. Romance is the most painful kind of drama because it announces so clearly that only through art can such horrors be averted, such discord turned to harmony. The end is always joyful, but touched with a galling pathos that reminds the audience that in the world we inhabit, the treacherous survive; the grandfather never recovers his sanity; the fleeing virgin, instead of encountering her long lost brother in the forest, falls prey to bandits, rapists, and murderers. Painful, romance is, and hard to pull off. A badly written romance is, at best, predictably tedious, at worst, laughable and embarrassing. This was neither. The characters were carefully drawn with distinct voices and personalities. The plot was deftly woven, turning artfully in on itself like a serpent, balancing thematic unity and clever surprises. The whole had a lyric ease, a grace of diction, a flowing, intricate, spellbinding beauty that pulled me in so that the rest of the world was forgotten.

  It was all the more striking, then, when I found myself pricking up my ears and glancing hurriedly about. I had heard something, could hear it still. It was distant and small, but regular, now slowing, not far from the door I had entered. As it stuttered into stillness, I realized what it was: the inkwell I had upset and left on the floor. Someone had kicked it.

  I remained motionless for a second, then rose, quiet as I could, lifting my chair so it would not scrape on the floor. Then I listened. Nothing. Whoever, or whatever, had been over there, was intending to be silent. This bothered me. I drew my belt knife and took a long, incredibly slow, step toward the closest stacks, easing my foot down and rolling my weight from heel to toe soundlessly. Then another step, and I was against a bank of shelves about ten feet high. I moved sideways toward the central area where the great indexes were, eyes flashing from the north to the south ends of the narrow book-lined alley. Then I waited, still several yards from the edge of the stacks, and listened. Nothing.