Swords & Dark Magic

by Jonathan Strahan; Lou Anders

  Laszlo threw himself at Lev’s back and strained against the lizard’s overpowering bulk and momentum for a few desperate seconds. Just as he realized that he was about to get bowled over, Casimir appeared out of the whirling confusion and added his weight to Laszlo’s. Heaving with all their might, the two human aspirants managed to help Lev finally force himself flat to the ground, where they sprawled on top of him.

  Actinic light flared. Molnar and Astriza, leaning into the terrible wind together, had placed their hands on Molnar’s staff and wrought some sort of spell. The brutal gray cyclone parted before them like the bow-shock of a swift-sailing ship, and the dazed aspirants behind them were released from the choking grip of the page-storm. Not a moment too soon, in fact, for the storm had caught up the jagged copper and glass fragments of the broken lanterns, sharper claws than any it had possessed before. Once, twice, three times it lashed out with these new weapons, rattling against the invisible barrier, but the sorcery of the Librarians held firm. It seemed to Laszlo that a note of frustration entered the wail of the thing around them.

  Tense moments passed. The papers continued to snap and twirl above them, and the winds still wailed madly, but after a short while the worst of the page-storm seemed to be spent. Glass and metal fragments rained around them like discarded toys, and the whole screaming mess fluttered on down the aisle, leaving a slowly falling haze of upflung dust in its wake. Coughing and sneezing, Laszlo and his companions stumbled shakily to their feet, while the noise and chaos of the indoor cyclone faded into the distant mist and darkness.

  “My thanks, humans,” said Lev hoarsely. “My clan’s ancestral trade of scale-grooming is beginning to acquire a certain tint of nostalgia in my thoughts.”

  “Don’t mention it,” coughed Laszlo. “What the hell was that?”

  “Believe it or not, that was a book,” said Astriza.

  “A forcibly unbound grimoire,” said Molnar, dusting off his armor. “The creatures and forces in here occasionally destroy books by accident. And sometimes, when a truly ancient grimoire bound with particularly powerful spells is torn apart, it doesn’t want to stop being a book. It becomes a focus for the library’s unconscious anger. A book without spine or covers is like an unquiet spirit without mortal form. Whatever’s left of it holds itself together out of sheer resentment, roaming without purpose, lashing out at whatever crosses its path.”

  “Like my face,” said Laszlo, suddenly aware of hot, stinging pains across his cheeks and forehead. “Ow, gods.”

  “Paper cuts,” said Casimir, grinning. “Won’t be impressing any beautiful women with those scars, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, I’m impressed,” muttered Yvette, pressing her fingertips gingerly against her own face. “You just let those things whirl around as they please, Master Molnar?”

  “They never attack other books. And they uproot or destroy a number of the library’s smaller vermin. You might compare them to forest fires in the outside world—ugly, but perhaps ultimately beneficial to the cycle of existence.”

  “Pity about the lamps, though,” said Yvette.

  “Ah. Yes,” said Molnar. He tapped the head of his staff, and a ball of flickering red light sprang from it, fainter than that of the lost lamps but adequate to dispel the gloom. “Aspirants, use the empty book satchel. Pick up all the lantern fragments you can see. The library has a sufficient quantity of disorder that we need not import any.”

  While the aspirants tended their cuts and scoured the vicinity for lantern parts, Astriza glanced around, consulted some sort of amulet chained around her wrist, and whistled appreciatively. “Hey, here’s a stroke of luck.” She moved over to a bookcase nestled against the outer library wall, slid Lev’s grimoire into an empty spot, and backed away cautiously. “Two down. You four are halfway to your sixth year.”

  “Aspirant Vrana,” said Molnar, “I believe we’ll find a home for your book not a stone’s throw along the outer wall, at sixty-one Manticore Northwest. And then we’ll have just one more delivery before we can speed the four of you on your way, back to the carefree world of making requests from the comfort of the reading rooms.”

  “No need to hurry on my account,” said Casimir, stretching lazily. His cloak and armor were back in near perfect order. “I’m having a lovely time. And I’m sure the best is yet to come.”

  It was a bit more than a stone’s throw, thought Laszlo, unless you discarded the human arm as a reference and went in for something like a trebuchet. Along the aisle they moved, past section after section of books that were, as Master Molnar had promised, completely unharmed by the passage of the unbound grimoire. The mist crept back in around them, and the two Librarians fussed and muttered over their guidance spells as they walked. Eventually, they arrived at what Molnar claimed was sixty-one Manticore Northwest, a cluster of shelves under a particularly heavy overhanging stone balcony.

  “Ta-daaaaaa,” cried Astriza as she backed away from the shelf once she had successfully replaced Casimir’s book. “You see, children, some returns are boring. And in here, boring is beautiful.”

  “Help me!” cried a faint voice from somewhere off to Laszlo’s right, in the dark forest of bookcases leading away to the unseen heart of the library.

  “Not to mention damned rare.” Astriza moved out into the aisle with Molnar, scanning the shelves and shadows surrounding the party. “Who’s out there?”

  “Help me!” The voice was soft and hoarse. There was no telling whether or not it came from the throat of a thinking creature.

  “Someone from another book-return team?” asked Yvette.

  “I’d know,” said Molnar. “More likely it’s a trick. We’ll investigate, but very, very cautiously.”

  As though it were a response to the Master Librarian’s words, a book came sailing out of the darkened stacks. The two Librarians ducked, and, after bouncing off the floor once, the book wound up at Yvette’s feet. She nudged it with the tip of a boot and then, satisfied that it was genuine, picked it up and examined the cover.

  “What is it?” said Molnar.

  “Annotated Commentaries on the Mysteries of the Worm,” said Yvette. “I don’t know if that means anything special—”

  “An-no-tated,” hissed a voice from the darkness. There was a strange snort of satisfaction. “New!”

  “Commentaries,” hissed another. “New, new!”

  “Hells!” Molnar turned to the aspirants and lowered his voice to a whisper. “A trick, after all! Vocabuvores again. Keep your voices down, use simple words. We’ve just given them food. Could be a group as large as the last one.”

  “Mysteries,” groaned one of the creatures. “New!” A series of wet snapping and bubbling noises followed. Laszlo shuddered, remembering the rapid growth of the thing that had tried to jump him earlier, and his sword was in his hand in an instant.

  “New words,” chanted a chorus of voices that deepened even as they spoke. “New words, new words!” It sounded like at least a dozen of the things were out there, and beneath their voices was the crackling and bubbling, as though cauldrons of fat were on the boil…many cauldrons.

  “All you, give new words.” A deeper, harsher voice than the others, more commanding. “All you, except BOY. Boy that KILL with spell! Him we kill! Others give new words!”

  “Him we kill,” chanted the chorus. “Others give new words!”

  “No way,” whispered Astriza. “No gods-damned way!”

  “It’s the same band of vocabuvores,” whispered Molnar. “They’ve actually followed us. Merciful gods, they’re learning to overcome their instincts. We’ve got to destroy them!”

  “We sure as hell can’t let them pass this behavior on to others,” whispered Astriza, nodding grimly. “Just as Master Molnar said, clamp your mouths shut. Let your swords and spells do the talking. If—”

  Whatever she was about to say, Laszlo never found out. Growling, panting, gibbering, screeching, the vocabuvores surged out of the darkness, over bookcases an
d out of aisles, into the wan circle of red light cast by Molnar’s staff. Nor were they the small-framed creatures of the previous attack—most had grown to the size of wolves. Their bodies had elongated, their limbs had knotted with thick strands of ropy muscle, and their claws had become slaughterhouse implements. Some had acquired plates of chitinous armor, while others had sacks of flab hanging off them like pendulous tumors. They came by the dozens, in an arc that closed on Laszlo and his companions like a set of jaws.

  The first to strike on either side was Casimir, who uttered a syllable so harsh that Laszlo reeled just to hear it. His ears rang, and a bitter metallic taste filled his mouth. It was a death-weaving, true dread sorcery, the sort of thing that Laszlo had never imagined himself even daring to study, and the closest of the vocabuvores paid for its enthusiasm by receiving the full brunt of the spell. Its skin literally peeled itself from the bones and muscles beneath, a ragged wet leathery flower tearing open and blowing away. And, an instant later, the muscles followed, then the bones and the glistening internal organs; the creature exploded layer by layer. But there were many more behind it, and as the fight began in earnest, Laszlo found himself praying silently that words of command, which were so much babble to non-magicians, couldn’t nourish the creatures.

  Snarling they came, eyes like black hollows, mouths like gaping pits, and in an instant Laszlo’s awareness of the battle narrowed to those claws that were meant to shred his armor, those fangs that were meant to sink into his flesh. Darting and dodging, he fought the wildest duel of his career, his centuries-old steel punching through quivering vocabuvore flesh. They died, sure enough, but there were many to replace the dead, rank on writhing rank, pushing forward to grasp and tear at him.

  “New words,” the creatures croaked, as he slashed at bulging throats and slammed his heavy hilt down on monstrous skulls. The things vomited fountains of reeking gore when they died, soaking his cloak and breeches, but he barely noticed as he gave ground step by step, backing away from the press of falling bodies as new combatants continually scrambled to take their places.

  As Laszlo fought on, he managed to catch glimpses of what was happening around him. Molnar and Astriza fought back to back, the Master Librarian’s staff sweeping before him in powerful arcs. As for Astriza, her curved blades were broader and heavier than Laszlo’s—no stabbing and dancing for her. When she swung, limbs flew, and vocabuvores were laid open guts to groins. He admired her power, and that admiration nearly became a fatal distraction.

  “NEW WORD!” screeched one of the vocabuvores, seizing him by his mantle and forcing him down to his knees. It pried and scraped at his leather neck-guard, salivating. The thing’s breath was unbelievable, like a dead animal soaked in sewage and garlic wine. Was that what the digestion of words smelled like? “NEW WORD!”

  “Die,” Laszlo muttered, swatting the thing’s hands away just long enough to drive his sword up and into the orbless pit of its left eye. It demonstrated immediate comprehension of the new word by sliding down the front of his armor, claws scrabbling at him in a useless final reflex. Laszlo stumbled up, kicked the corpse away, and freed his blade to face the next one…and the next one…

  Working in a similar vein was Lev Bronzeclaw, forgoing his mediocre magic in order to leap about and bring his natural weaponry into play just a few feet to Laszlo’s left. Some foes he lashed with his heavy tail, sending them sprawling. Others he seized with his upper limbs and held firmly while his blindingly fast kicks sunk claws into guts. Furious, inexorable, he scythed vocabuvores in half and spilled their steaming bowels as though the creatures were fruits in the grasp of some devilish mechanical pulping machine.

  Casimir and Yvette, meanwhile, had put their backs to a bookshelf and were plying their sorceries in tandem against a chaotic, flailing press of attackers. Yvette had conjured another one of her invisible barriers and was moving it back and forth like a tower shield, absorbing vocabuvore attacks with it and then slamming them backward. Casimir, grinning wildly, was methodically unleashing his killing spells at the creatures Yvette knocked off-balance, consuming them in flashing pillars of blue flame. The oily black smoke from these fires swirled across the battle and made Laszlo gag.

  Still, they seemed to be making progress—there could only be so many vocabuvores, and Laszlo began to feel a curious exaltation as the ranks of their brutish foes thinned. Just a few more for him, a few more for the Librarians, a few more for Lev, and the fight was all but—

  “KILL BOY,” roared the commanding vocabuvore, the deep-voiced one that had launched the attack moments earlier. At last it joined the fight proper, bounding out of the bookcases, twice the size of any of its brethren, more like a pallid gray bear than anything else. “Kill boy with spells! Kill girl!”

  Heeding the call, the surviving vocabuvores abandoned all other opponents and dove toward Casimir and Yvette, forcing the two aspirants back against the shelf under the desperate press of their new surge. Laszlo and Lev, caught off guard by the instant withdrawal of their remaining foes, stumbled clumsily into one another.

  The huge vocabuvore charged across the aisle, and Astriza and Molnar moved to intercept it. Laszlo watched in disbelief as they were simply shoved over by stiff smacks from the creature’s massive forelimbs. It even carried one of Astriza’s blades away with it, embedded in a sack of oozing gristle along its right side, without visible effect. It dove into the bookcases behind the one Casimir and Yvette were standing against, and disappeared momentarily from sight.

  The smaller survivors had pinned Yvette between the shelf and her shield; like an insect under glass, she was being crushed behind her own magic. Having neutralized her protection, they finally seized Casmir’s arms, interfering with his ability to cast spells. Pushing frantically past the smoldering shells of their dead comrades, they seemed to have abandoned any hope of new words in exchange for a last act of vengeance against Casimir.

  But there were only a bare dozen left, and Laszlo and Lev had regained their balance. Moving in unison, they charged through the smoke and blood to fall on the rear of the pack of surviving vocabuvores. There they slew unopposed, and if only they could slay fast enough…claws and sword sang out together, ten. And again, eight, and again, six…

  Yvette’s shield buckled at last, and she and Casimir slid sideways with vocabuvore claws at their throats. But now there were only half a dozen, and then there were four, then two. A triumphant moment later, Laszlo, gasping for breath, grabbed the last of the creatures by the back of its leathery neck and hauled it off his chambers-mate. Laszlo drove his sword into the vocabuvore’s back, transfixing it through whatever approximation of a heart it possessed, and flung it down to join the rest of its dead brood.

  “Thanks,” coughed Casimir, reaching over to help Yvette sit up. Other than a near-total drenching with the nauseating contents of dead vocabuvores, the two of them seemed to have escaped the worst possibilities.

  “Big one,” gasped Yvette. “Find the big one, kill it quickly—”

  At that precise instant, the big one struck the bookcase from behind, heaving it over directly on top of them, a sudden rain of books followed by a heavy dark blur that slammed Casimir and Yvette out of sight beneath it. Laszlo stumbled back in shock as the huge vocabuvore stepped onto the tumbled bookcase, stomping its feet like a jungle predator gloating over a fresh kill.

  “Casimir,” Laszlo screamed. “Yvette!”

  “No,” cried Master Molnar, lurching back to his feet. “No! Proper nouns are the most powerful words of all!”

  Alas, what was said could not be unsaid. The flesh of the last vocabuvore rippled as though a hundred burrowing things were about to erupt from within, but the expression on its baleful face was sheer ecstasy. New masses of flesh billowed forth, new cords of muscle and sinew wormed their way out of thin air, new rows of shark-like teeth rose gleaming in the black pit of the thing’s mouth. In a moment, it had gained several feet of height and girth, and the top of its head was now no
t far below the stones that floored the gallery above.

  With a foot far weightier than before, the thing stomped the bookcase again, splintering the ancient wood. Lev flung his mighty scarlet-scaled bulk against the creature without hesitation, but it had already eclipsed his strength. It caught him in midair, turned, and flung him spinning head-over-tail into Molnar and Astriza. Still dull from their earlier clubbing, the two librarians failed spectacularly to duck, and four hundred pounds of whirling reptilian aspirant took them down hard.

  That left Laszlo, facing the creature all alone, gore-slick sword shaking in his hand, with sorcerous powers about adequate, on his best day, to heat a cup of tea.

  “Oh, shit,” he muttered.

  “Known,” chuckled the creature. Its voice was now a bass rumble, deep as oncoming thunder. “Now will kill boy. Now EASY.”

  “Uh,” said Laszlo, scanning the smoke-swirled area for any surprise, any advantage, any unused weapon. While it was flattering to imagine himself charging in and dispatching the thing with his sword, the treatment it had given Lev was not at all encouraging in that respect. He flicked his gaze from the bookshelves to the ceiling—and then it hit him, a sensation that would have been familiar to any aspirant ever graduated from the High University. The inherent magic of all undergraduates—the magic of the last minute. The power to embrace any solution, no matter how insane or desperate.

  “No,” he yelled. “No! Spare boy!”

  “Kill boy,” roared the creature, no more scintillating a conversationalist for all its physical changes.

  “No.” Laszlo tossed his sword aside and beckoned to the vocabuvore. “Spare boy. I will give new words!”

  “I kill boy, then you give new words!”

  “No. Spare boy. I will give many new words. I will give all my words.”

  “No,” howled Lev. “No, you can’t—”

  “Trust me,” said Laszlo. He picked a book out of the mess at his feet and waved it at the vocabuvore. “Come here. I’ll read to you!”