Swords & Dark Magic

by Jonathan Strahan; Lou Anders

  “Book of words…” the creature hissed. It took a step forward.

  “Yes. Many books, new words. Come to me, and they’re yours.”

  “New words!” Another step. The creature was off the bookcase now, towering over him. Ropy strands of hot saliva tumbled from the corners of its mouth…good gods, Laszlo thought, he’d really made it hungry.

  “Occultation!” he said, by way of a test.

  The creature growled with pleasure, shuddering, and more mass boiled out of its grotesque frame. The change was not as severe as that caused by proper nouns, but it was still obvious. The vocabuvore’s head moved an inch closer to the ceiling. Laszlo took a deep breath, and then began shouting as rapidly as he could:

  “Fuliginous! Occluded! Uh, canticle! Portmanteau! Tea cozy!” He racked his mind. He needed obscure words, complex words, words unlikely to have been uttered by cautious librarians prowling the stacks. “Indeterminate! Mendacious! Vestibule! Tits, testicles, aluminum, heliotrope, narcolepsy!”

  The vocabuvore panted in pleasure, gorging itself on the stream of fresh words. Its stomach doubled in size, tripled, becoming a sack of flab that could have supplied fat for ten thousand candles. Inch by inch, it surged outward and upward. Its head bumped into the stone ceiling and it glanced up, as though realizing for the first time just how cramped its quarters were.

  “Adamant,” cried Laszlo, backing away from the creature’s limbs, now as thick as tree trunks. “Resolute, unyielding, unwavering, reckless, irresponsible, foolhardy!”

  “Noooo,” yowled the creature, clearly recognizing its predicament and struggling to fight down the throes of ecstasy from its unprecedented feast. Its unfolding masses of new flesh were wedging it more and more firmly in place between the floor and the heavy stones of the overhead gallery, sorcery-laid stones that had stood fast for more than a thousand years. “Stop, stop, stop!”

  “Engorgement,” shouted Laszlo, almost dancing with excitement. “Avarice! Rapaciousness! Corpulence! Superabundance! Comeuppance!”

  “Nggggggh,” the vocabuvore, now elephant-sized, shrieked in a deafening voice. It pushed against the overhead surface with hands six or seven feet across. To no avail—its head bent sideways at an unnatural angle until its spine, still growing, finally snapped against the terrible pressure of floor and ceiling. The huge arms fell to the ground with a thud that jarred Laszlo’s teeth, and a veritable waterfall of dark blood began to pour from the corner of the thing’s slack mouth.

  Not stopping to admire this still-twitching flesh edifice, Laszlo ran around it, reaching the collapsed bookcase just as Lev did. Working together, they managed to heave it up, disgorging a flow of books that slid out around their ankles. Laszlo grinned uncontrollably when Casimir and Yvette pushed themselves shakily up to their hands and knees. Lev pulled Yvette off the ground and she tumbled into his arms, laughing, while Laszlo heaved Casimir up.

  “I apologize,” said Caz, “for every word I’ve ever criticized in every dissertation you’ve ever scribbled.”

  “Tonight we will get drunk,” yelled Lev. The big lizard’s friendly slap between Laszlo’s shoulder blades almost knocked him into the spot previously occupied by Yvette. “In your human fashion, without forethought, in strange neighborhoods that will yield anecdotes for future mortification—”

  “Master Molnar!” said Yvette. In an instant, the four aspirants had turned and come to attention like nervous students of arms.

  Molnar and Astriza were supporting each other gingerly, sharing Molnar’s staff as a sort of fifth leg. Each had received a thoroughly bloody nose, and Molnar’s left eye was swelling shut under livid bruises.

  “My deepest apologies,” hissed Lev. “I fear that I have done you some injury—”

  “Hardly your fault, Aspirant Bronzeclaw,” said Molnar. “You merely served as an involuntary projectile.”

  Laszlo felt the exhilaration of the fight draining from him, and the familiar sensations of tired limbs and fresh bruises took its place. Everyone seemed able to stand on their own two feet, and everyone was a mess. Torn cloaks, slashed armor, bent scabbards, myriad cuts and welts—all of it under a thorough coating of black vocabuvore blood, still warm and sopping. Even Casimir—No, thought Laszlo, the bastard had done it again. He was as disgusting as anyone, but somewhere, between blinks, he’d reassumed his mantle of sly contentment.

  “Nicely done, Laszlo,” said Astriza. “Personally, I’m glad Lev bowled me over. If I’d been on my feet when you offered to feed that thing new words, I’d have tried to punch your lights out. My compliments on fast thinking.”

  “Agreed,” said Molnar. “That was the most singular entanglement I’ve seen in all my years of minding student book-return expeditions. All of you did fine work, fine work putting down a real threat.”

  “And importing a fair amount of new disorder to the stacks,” said Yvette. Laszlo followed her gaze around the site of the battle. Between the sprawled tribe of slain vocabuvores, the rivers of blood, the haze of thaumaturgical smoke, and the smashed shelf, sixty-one Manticore Northwest looked worse than all of them put together.

  “My report will describe the carnage as ‘regretfully unavoidable,’” said Master Molnar with a smile. “Besides, we’ve cleaned up messes before. Everything here will be back in place before the end of the day.”

  Laszlo imagined that he could actually feel his spirits sag. Spend all day in here, cleaning up? Even with magic, it would take hours, and gods knew what else might jump them while they worked. Evidently, his face betrayed his feelings, for Molnar and Astriza laughed in unison.

  “Though not because of anything you four will be doing,” said Molnar. “Putting a section back into operation after a major incident is Librarian’s work. You four are finished here. I believe you get the idea, and I’m passing you all.”

  “But my book,” said Laszlo. “It—”

  “There’ll be more aspirants tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. You’ve done your part,” said Molnar. “Aspirant Bronzeclaw’s suggestion is a sensible one, and I believe you deserve to carry it out as soon as possible. Retrieve your personal equipment, and let’s get back to daylight.”

  If the blue-robed functionaries in the Manticore Index were alarmed to see the six of them return drenched in gore, they certainly didn’t show it. The aspirants tossed their book-satchels and lantern fragments aside, and began to loosen or remove gloves, neck-guards, cloaks, and amulets. Laszlo released some of the buckles on his cuirass and sighed with pleasure.

  “Shall we meet in an hour?” said Lev. “At the eastern commons, after we’ve had a chance to, ah, thoroughly bathe?”

  “Make it two,” said Yvette. “Your people don’t have any hair to deal with.”

  “We were in there for four hours,” said Casimir, glancing at a wall clock. “I scarcely believe it.”

  “Well, time slows down when everything around you is trying to kill you,” said Astriza. “Master Molnar, do you want me to put together a team to work on the mess in Manticore Northwest?”

  “Yes, notify all the night staff. I’ll be back to lead it myself. I should only require a few hours.” He gestured at his left eye, now swollen shut. “I’ll be at the infirmary.”

  “Of course. And the, ah…”

  “Indeed.” Molnar sighed. “You don’t mind taking care of it, if—”

  “Yes, if,” said Astriza. “I’ll take care of all the details. Get that eye looked at, sir.”

  “We all leaving together?” said Yvette.

  “I need to grab my impression device,” said Casimir, pointing to the glass niche that housed a focus for the index enchantments. “And, ah, study it for a few moments. You don’t need to wait around for my sake. I’ll meet you later.”

  “Farewell, then,” said Lev. He and Yvette left the Manticore Index together.

  “Well, my boys, you did some bold work in there,” said Molnar, staring at Laszlo and Casimir with his good eye. Suddenly he seemed much
older to Laszlo, old and tired. “I would hope…that boldness and wisdom will always go hand in hand for the pair of you.”

  “Thank you, Master Molnar,” said Casimir. “That’s very kind of you.”

  Molnar seemed to wait an uncommon length of time before he nodded, but nod he did, and then he walked out of the room after Lev and Yvette.

  “You staying too, Laz?” Casimir had peeled off his bloody gauntlets and rubbed his hands clean. “You don’t need to, really.”

  “It’s okay,” said Laszlo, curious once again about Casimir’s pet project. “I can stand to be a reeking mess for a few extra minutes.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  While Casimir began to fiddle with his white crystal, Astriza conjured several documents out of letters that floated in the air before her. “You two take as long as you need,” she said distractedly. “I’ve got a pile of work orders to put together.”

  Casimir reached into a belt pouch, drew out a small container of greasy white paint, and began to quickly sketch designs on the floor in front of the pulsing glass column. Laszlo frowned as he studied the symbols—he recognized some of them, variations on warding and focusing sigils that any first-year aspirant could use to contain or redirect magical energy. But these were far more complex, like combinations of notes that any student could puzzle out but only a virtuoso could actually play. Compared to Laszlo, Casimir was such a virtuoso.

  “Caz,” said Laszlo, “what exactly are you doing?”

  “Graduating early.” Casimir finished his design at last, a lattice of arcane symbols so advanced and tight-woven that Laszlo’s eyes crossed as he tried to puzzle it out. As a final touch, Casimir drew a simple white circle around himself—the traditional basis for any protective magical ward.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m sorry, Laszlo. You’ve been a good chambers-mate. I wish you’d just left with the rest.” Casimir smiled at him sadly, and there was something new and alien in his manner—condescension. Dismissal. He’d always been pompous and cocksure, but gods, he’d never looked at Laszlo like this. With pity, as though he were a favorite pet about to be thrown out of the house.

  “Caz, this isn’t funny.”

  “If you were more sensitive, I think you’d have already understood. But I know you can’t feel it like I do. Yvette felt it. But she’s like the rest of you, sewn up in all the little damn rules you make for yourselves to paint timidity as a virtue.”

  “Felt what—”

  “The magic in this place. The currents. Hell, an ocean of power, fermenting for a thousand years, lashing out at random like some headless animal. And all they can do with it is keep it bottled up and hope it doesn’t bite them too sharply. It needs a will, Laszlo! It needs a mind to guide it, to wrestle it down, to put it to constructive use.”

  “You’re kidding.” Laszlo’s mouth was suddenly dry. “This is a finals-week joke, Caz. You’re kidding.”

  “No.” Casimir gestured at the glass focus. “It’s all here already, everything necessary. If you’d had any ambition at all you would have seen the hints in the introductory materials. The index enchantments are like a nervous system, in touch with everything, and they can be used to communicate with everything. I’m going to bend this place, Laz. Bend it around my finger and make it something new.”

  “It’ll kill you!”

  “It could win.” Casimir flashed his teeth, a grin as predatory as any worn by the vocabuvores that had tried to devour him less than an hour before. “But so what? I graduate with honors, I go back to my people, and what then? Fighting demons, writing books, advising ministers? To hell with it. In the long run I’m still a footnote. But if I can seize this, rule this, that’s more power than ten thousand lifetimes of dutiful slavery.”

  “Aspirant Vrana,” said Astriza. She had come up behind Laszlo, so quietly that he hadn’t heard her approach. “Casimir. Is something the matter?”

  “On the contrary, Librarian Mezaros. Everything is better than ever.”

  “Casimir,” she said, “I’ve been listening. I strongly urge you to reconsider this course of action, before—”

  “Before what? Before I do what you people should have done a thousand years ago when this place bucked the harness? Stay back, Librarian, or I’ll weave a death for you before your spells can touch me. Look on the bright side…anything is possible once this is done. The University and I will have to reach…an accommodation.”

  “What about me, Caz?” Laszlo threw his tattered cloak aside and placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Would you slay me, too?”

  “Interesting question, Laszlo. Would you really pull that thing on me?”

  “Five years! I thought we were friends!” The sword came out in a silver blur, and Laszlo shook with fury.

  “You could have gone on thinking that if you’d just left me alone for a few minutes. I already said I was sorry.”

  “Step out of the circle, Casimir. Step out, or decide which one of us you have time to kill before we can reach you.”

  “Laszlo, even for someone as mildly magical as yourself, you disappoint me. I said I checked your sword personally this morning, didn’t I?”

  Casimir snapped his fingers, and Laszlo’s sword wrenched itself from his grasp so quickly that it scraped the skin from most of his knuckles. Animated by magical force, it whirled in the air and thrust itself firmly against Laszlo’s throat. He gasped—the razor-edge that had slashed vocabuvore flesh like wet parchment was pressed firmly against his windpipe, and a modicum of added pressure would drive it in.

  “Now,” shouted Casimir, “Indexers, out! If anyone else comes in, if I am interfered with, or knocked unconscious or by any means further annoyed, my enchantment on that sword will slice this aspirant’s head off.”

  The blue-robed Indexers withdrew from the room hastily, and the heavy door clanged shut behind them.

  “Astriza,” said Casimir, “somewhere in this room is the master index book, the one updated by the enchantments. Bring it to me now.”

  “Casimir,” said the Librarian, “it’s still not too late for you to—”

  “How will you write up Laszlo’s death in your report? ‘Regretfully unavoidable’? Bring me the damn book.”

  “As you wish,” she said coldly. She moved to a nearby table, and returned with a thick volume, two feet high and nearly as wide.

  “Simply hand it over,” said Casimir. “Don’t touch the warding paint.”

  She complied, and Casimir ran his right hand over the cover of the awkwardly large volume, cradling it against his chest with his left arm.

  “Well, then, Laszlo,” he said. “This is it. All the information collected by the index enchantments is sorted in the master books like this one. My little alterations will reverse the process, making this a focus for me to reshape all this chaos to my own liking.”

  “Casimir,” said Laszlo, “please—”

  “Hoist a few for me tonight if you live through whatever happens next. I’m moving past such things.”

  He flipped the book open, and a pale silvery glow rippled up from the pages he selected. Casimir took a deep breath, raised his right hand, and began to intone the words of a spell.

  Things happened very fast then. Astriza moved, but not against Casimir—instead she hit Laszlo, taking him completely by surprise with an elbow to the chest. As he toppled backward, she darted her right arm past his face, slamming her leather-armored limb against Laszlo’s blade before it could shift positions to follow him. The sword fought furiously, but Astriza caught the hilt in her other hand, and with all of her strength managed to lever it into a stack of encyclopedias, where it stuck, quivering furiously.

  At the same instant, Casimir started screaming.

  Laszlo sat up, rubbing his chest, shocked to find his throat uncut, and he was just in time to see the thing that erupted out of the master index book, though it took his mind a moment to properly assemble the details. The silvery glow o
f the pages brightened and flickered, like a magical portal opening, for that was exactly what it was—a portal opening horizontally like a hatch rather than vertically like a door.

  Through it came a gleaming, segmented black thing nearly as wide as the book itself, something like a man-sized centipede, and uncannily fast. In an instant it had sunk half a dozen hooked foreclaws into Casimir’s neck and cheeks, and then came the screams, the most horrible Laszlo had ever heard. Casimir lost his grip on the book, but it didn’t matter—the massive volume floated in midair of its own accord while the new arrival did its gruesome work.

  With Casimir’s head gripped firmly in its larger claws, it extended dozens of narrower pink appendages from its underside, a writhing carpet of hollow, fleshy needles. These plunged into Casimir’s eyes, his face, his mouth and neck, and only bare trickles of blood slid from the holes they bored, for the thing began to pulse and buzz rhythmically, sucking fluid and soft tissue from the body of the once-handsome aspirant. The screams choked to a halt, for Casimir had nothing left to scream with.

  Laszlo whirled away from this and lost what was left of his long-ago breakfast. By the time he managed to wipe his mouth and stumble to his feet at last, the affair was finished. The book creature released Casimir’s desiccated corpse, its features utterly destroyed, a weirdly sagging and empty thing that hung nearly hollow on its bones and crumpled to the ground. The segmented monster withdrew, and the book slammed shut with a sound like a thunderclap.

  “Caz,” whispered Laszlo, astonished to find his eyes moistening. “Gods, Caz, why?”

  “Master Molnar hoped he wouldn’t try it,” said Astriza. She scuffed the white circle with the tip of a boot and reached out to grab the master index book from where it floated in midair. “I said he showed all the classic signs. It’s not always pleasant being right.”

  “The book was a trap,” said Laszlo.

  “Well, the whole thing was a trap, Laszlo. We know perfectly well what sort of hints we drop in the introductory materials, and what a powerful sorcerer could theoretically attempt to do with the index enchantments.”