Journey to the Library [The Library Saga]

by Amy Cross

  "Where the hell else am I gonna go?" he asks.

  Picking my way through the debris from Kiran's sledgehammer attack on the wall, I finally reach Table and look down to see that she hasn't written a word.

  "We don't have much time," I say, hoping to give her some encouragement. "If you need some help -"

  "I don't," she says firmly.

  "But if -"

  "Maybe you should focus on your own book," she snaps, looking up at me with dark eyes. "Leave me to work on mine."

  I pause for a moment. "It just doesn't look as if you're getting very far," I say eventually. "I've kind of finished mine -"

  "Good for you," she spits.

  "I know it can be hard -"

  "I've got nothing to write," she says, throwing the book against a nearby shelf. "The old husk was right about me."

  "I'm sure he wasn't," I reply. "Everyone has a soul."

  "Everyone's born with a soul," she mutters, "but sometimes..." She pauses. "I don't know how things work where you come from, Alice, but here in the Library souls are valuable things. I was very young when I..."

  I wait for her to finish.

  She wipes her eyes.

  "When you what?" I ask eventually.

  "I was a kid," she continues. "Six years old, to be precise. My family had nothing. I mean, less than nothing. We were eating dirt off the ground. Mud, stones, anything to make us feel full, even if we knew it was probably going to kill us eventually. My father was long gone, and my mother had to look after my little brother all day, so I used to head out each day, desperately looking for food to bring home. On a good trip, I might find some kind of rotting carcass, but most of the time I just came home with more mud."

  "I didn't know things could be so bad here," I reply, sitting next to her.

  "One day I came across this guy," she says, staring straight ahead with a bitter look in her eyes. "He had these bags over his shoulder, and I could smell from a hundred paces away that they were full of food. Really great stuff, you know? Like fresh meat and vegetables... I would have killed for that food." She pauses. "I tried to kill for that food, actually, but he fought me off. I thought he was gonna cut my throat, but instead he offered me a deal. Somehow, it was as if he knew all about me, and about my family, so he told me I could have everything in his bags, and he also promised that things would start to look up. He said there were seeds in one of the bags that'd grow really well, even in the barren soil of our little aisle."

  "So he gave you the food?" I ask.

  "Don't be so naive," she replies darkly. "He wanted something in return... Everyone always wants something in return around this place." She pauses again. "He demanded my soul. All of it, for eternity. Not just a scrap, like the old guy down here. He said he wanted to drain every last ounce of my soul. That was his price."

  We sit in silence for a moment.

  "Did you -"

  "Of course I did," she spits. "I was starving! I had nothing but stones and mud in my belly! I agreed without hesitation, and then he just handed me the bags. He didn't put his hands on me, didn't even touch me. He just gave me the bags, told me how to plant the seeds, and said I should hurry back to my family before it was too late. I didn't stop to think about what was happening. I just turned and ran. That night, we ate well for the first time in years, and the next morning I planted the seeds, just the way he'd told me. But I could already tell... Something was wrong. Something was missing. And although I tried to ignore it, over the next few days I could feel this emptiness growing inside my body, filling out the spaces where something else used to be."

  I wait for her to continue.

  "It was probably all in your head," I say eventually, hoping to cheer her up. "You believed what the guy told you -"

  "You really don't know what you're talking about," she replies, interrupting me. "Anyway, I learned to live without a soul. Once my family had enough to eat and the plants were growing properly, I decided to head off and travel for a while. I knew my family would be okay, and I was just taking up space and food. Part of me wanted to find the guy and try to cut a deal to get my soul back, but I figured that I couldn't risk sending my family back to poverty..." She pauses. "So here I am, and I don't have any soul left to give today. Hopefully you and the little guy will be allowed to leave, but I guess I'm gonna be stuck here forever."

  "Don't say that," I reply, trying to think of a way to make her feel better.

  "It's okay," she says firmly, with a kind of steely resolve. "I actually kinda feel like maybe it'll be okay. After all, a tomb's the right place for someone without a soul." She glances over at the torch. "You should hurry. That thing'll be dead soon. Everything burns out eventually."

  "We can try to light another," I point out.

  "With what?" she asks. "I guarantee you, the books down here won't burn." She smiles sadly. "Go and get ready," she adds. "Just make sure you don't give away too much of your soul to this guy, okay? Only give him a taste, nothing more. Believe me, you'll regret it if you go too far."

  I want to argue with her, to make her realize that she's wrong, but to be honest, I feel as if she knows what she's talking about. There's a kind of emptiness in her eyes, and I guess that maybe, in this insane world, I don't really understand very much about how things work. Where I come from, you can't just hand your soul over, but things seem to be very different in the Library. Still, I can't leave Table behind. For one thing, it wouldn't be right after everything she's done for me, and for another, I need her to help me find my parents. There has to be a way to get her out of this tomb, even if she thinks she doesn't have a soul.

  Thomas Never

  "Halt!" one of the Grandapams shouts, advancing toward us while the others hang back. With a sword in one hand, this Grandapam looks like he means business, and he seems totally fearless as he gets closer and closer. "As fugitives of the Grandapam Council, you're commanded to immediately stop and face the Grand Marshal himself!"

  "Maybe later?" Carstairs says innocently. "We're rather busy right now..."

  "There will be no 'later' for either of you," the Grandapam insists, raising his sword as he gets to within a couple of feet of us. "The Grand Marshal has ordered that you must not leave this place before you have explained yourselves to him. If you refuse, we've been authorized to use extreme force, even if it means that you don't live long enough to reach the gallows."

  "Right," Carstairs mutters, looking over his shoulder to check that the other Grandapams are still here. "I see. Well, this seems like a tight spot, doesn't it?"

  "You also risk being charged with a number of crimes related to your escape," the Grandapam continues. "Three of our unit were killed as you recklessly tried to flee from justice."

  "Killed?" I say, looking up at Carstairs. "You didn't tell me you killed any of them."

  "Well, I didn't," he mutters awkwardly. "Not really. I mean, they died, but it wasn't my fault."

  "What's it to be?" the Grandapam asks, stepping even closer. "Are you going to submit like honorable men, or do you prefer to fight and die like cowards?"

  "I'm really not sure," Carstairs replies. "Can we have time to think it over? I don't suppose there's a third option, is there?"

  "Silence!" the Grandapam shouts, raising his sword as if he's preparing to strike. "There will be no more -" Before he can finish, however, he suddenly lets out a gasp of pain and steps back, as if some unseen force is pulling on his arm. "Release me!" he shouts, struggling to get free before his whole body is lifted into the air and then slammed against a nearby shelf, at which point he slumps down onto the muddy ground.

  "Did you do that?" I ask, turning to Carstairs.

  "Me?" He pauses, looking shocked and ashen-faced. "Yes?" he adds timidly, even though it's clear that he's lying.

  "Seize them!" one of the other Grandapams shouts, before they all start charging at us from both directions.

  "Oh dear!" Carstairs shouts, putting his fingers in his ears seconds before an almighty
crashing sound sends every single one of the Grandapams slamming into the shelves.

  "What are you doing?" I shout at Carstairs as the Grandapams collapse into two heaps.

  "Just keep your head down!" he shouts back, grabbing my arm and pulling me closer.

  I turn and watch as one of the Grandapams struggles to his feet; despite a sudden gale that has started to blow along the aisle, the Grandapam manages to draw his sword, at which point he grabs hold of a nearby shelf and starts hauling himself closer to us. For a moment, it seems as if he might actually get to us, but at the last moment one of the shelves suddenly lurches out and slams into his chest with a sickening crunch before tipping him down to the ground. One of his colleagues tries to help him, but a whole shelf's worth of books comes flying down, as if the Library itself is trying to defend us from the attack.

  A little further along the aisle, some of the Grandapams are trying to retreat, but more shelves are crashing down on them, and one Grandapam has clearly been badly hurt, with blood pouring from a wound in his neck.

  "Stop it!" I shout, turning to Carstairs. "They're trying to run away! You don't need to kill them!"

  Ignoring me, he seems to be trying to cover his face with his cape, as if he can't stand to watch the Grandapams being slaughtered. Looking back along the aisle, I stare wide-eyed as one of them is lifted into the air and then slammed repeatedly against the ground; a little further along, another Grandapam has been decapitated by one of the shelves; further still, several bodies are piled up, their blood seeping into the mud.

  I don't know how long the carnage lasts. It might be a few minutes, or just a few seconds, but time seems to stand still until suddenly I feel something brushing against my arm, turning I realize that there's nothing there, but a moment later I'm yanked up into the air and thrown at a nearby shelf with such force that I black out for a few seconds; when I wake up, I'm being slammed into another shelf, and I swear I can feel my whole body juddering with the force of the blow.

  "Stop!" Carstairs shouts, grabbing my foot from below. "He's with me! Don't hurt him!"

  Barely able to remain conscious, I look down and see Carstairs staring up at me with pure terror in his eyes.

  "Please!" he shouts, as if he's got no control over the situation. "He's my friend!"

  Hearing a growing, hissing noise in my ear, I turn and look up, and for a fraction of a second I swear I see a face in the wind, glaring down at me; before I can really focus on its features, however, I'm tossed against a shelf before finally I'm allowed to fall, landing in a crumpled heal on the muddy ground.

  "Are you okay?" Carstairs asks breathlessly, kneeling next to me. "Thomas, say something!"

  "What was that?" I whisper, as a sharp pain shoots up my right arm.

  "I told you to leave him alone!" he shouts, looking up at the sky; at the same time, the wind dies down as suddenly as it arrived. "I told you he was with me," Carstairs continues. "Why don't you ever listen to me?"

  "What happened?" I ask, sitting up and wincing as I realize that my right arm is fractured, maybe even broken. Looking along the aisle, I see a pile of dead Grandapams; looking the other way, I see more of the same. Whatever happened just now, it killed every last one of them.

  "We have to get moving," Carstairs says hurriedly, grabbing my arm and trying to pull me to my feet.

  "Stop!" I shout, pulling away. "I think it's broken," I add, looking down at my hand and realizing that I can barely move my fingers.

  "There'll be time to fix it later," he continues, grabbing my other arm. "Thomas, please, we have to get out of here as quickly as possible. There'll be more Grandapams soon, and I don't want anyone else to die today. Not on my account."

  "What was that thing?" I ask as I get to my feet and start limping along the aisle with him. "It was almost as if the air around us was alive."

  "Never mind," he mutters. "Just keep walking."

  "Tell me," I say firmly, trying to fight the pain in my arm. I wait for an answer, but Carstairs is clearly hoping that I'll just give up. "It wasn't you, was it?" I add after a moment. "It was magic, or it was like magic, but you weren't in control." Again, I wait for an answer, but again he seems to be very deliberately trying not to tell me the truth. "Carstairs," I continue, "if there's -"

  "I told you I couldn't perform magic," he says suddenly as he leads me along another aisle. "I was telling the truth. I've always told you the truth, Thomas. But just because I can't use magic, that doesn't mean others can't, and sometimes they do it around me. They only do it to protect me, but occasionally it all goes a little too far."

  "What do -"

  "The Angel," he adds.

  "What about the Angel?"

  "The Angel uses magic to protect me," he continues, yanking me around the next corner and along another aisle. He glances over his shoulder, as if he's still worried that more Grandapams might turn up at any moment. "Every time I get into trouble," he adds, turning to me, "the Angel intervenes. Usually it's not as dramatic and lethal as today, but sometimes it's even worse. The point is, I want to avoid it as much as possible, so let's just keep going before more of those poor creatures make the mistake of attacking us, okay?"

  "But why?" I ask, trying to understand Carstairs' relationship with the Angel. "And how? Isn't the Angel miles away?"

  "The Angel is everywhere," he replies. "Sometimes, I even think -"

  Before he can finish, more Grandapams appear ahead of us, and this time the Marshal is with them.

  "No," Carstairs says as we come to a halt and the Grandapams march toward us. "Please no. Not now. Not again. I can't handle any more bloodshed..."

  Alice Never

  "I wasn't really sure what you wanted," I say, watching as the old man slowly turns the pages in the thin book I wrote. "I did the best I could manage, though. I wrote about my life. I guess it's not really very interesting, but at least I didn't make stuff up. It's the real me."

  I stand in silence for a moment, as the light from the dwindling torch continues to die. There can only be a few minutes left before it burns out entirely, and the thought of being down here in the darkness is too horrific to contemplate. As each second ticks past, all I can think about is that somewhere out there in the vastness of the Library, my parents - if they're still alive - are getting further and further away. If I don't find a way out of this place soon, I might never be able to track them down, and then I'll be stuck here for the rest of my life.

  "You have the kind of soul I have never tasted before," the old man says after a moment, running his hands across the pages. "I have encountered humans in the past, of course, but never one whose soul burns with such ferocity. I will take great pleasure in going over the words you've written." He sets the book down, before picking up Nodby's. "And this," he continues, opening the cover, "is also, in its own way, quite unusual."

  "I used to be a tadpole," Nodby says cautiously. "I don't really remember my childhood too well..."

  "Nevertheless," the old man continues, turning the pages, "you have left a little of your soul in these lines. Not a great deal, but then not every meal has to be a feast." He closes the book and sets it down. "But there are only two books here, and there are three of you. Could it be that the last of you has, indeed, no soul?"

  "Let's get this over with," Table says firmly. "They did what you asked, so you're going to let them free, right?"

  "The arrangement was for all three of you to offer a little of your souls," he replies calmly. "You all leave together, or you all stay together."

  "Let them go," she continues, "and I'll stay."

  "But what good are you," he asks, "if you have no soul? I have no use for you at all. You're just an empty, hollow vessel."

  "She does have a soul," I tell him.

  "Then where is her book?" he asks with a faint smile.

  "Here," I say, holding up the book that I've been keeping behind my back so far.

  "It's empty," Table adds, casting me a dark glance. "I had no s
oul to give."

  "It's not empty," I reply, opening the cover to reveal pages of scrawled text. "It's all in here. There's more soul in her book than in mine, than in Nodby's, than in anyone's."

  "I didn't write that!" Table says, unable to hide the shock in her voice.

  "I know," I continue, placing the book on the table and sliding it over to the old man. "I did." I turn to her. "You didn't believe you had a soul, but I knew that wasn't true so I waited until you gave up and then I wrote your book for you."

  "Each must write their own words," the old man says, picking up the book and looking through its pages. "Then again, this volume is particularly rich. I'm not sure that I have ever tasted a soul that has been given form by anyone other than its owner."

  "You can't give away a part of my soul," Table hisses. "Even if I had any to give, which I don't!"

  "When you told me about how you gave away your soul to save your family," I reply, "I could tell you still had something left. Maybe you did give it away, but it's come back; maybe it's different now, after what you had to go through, and maybe you can't see it yourself, but I saw it and so I wrote it down, and..." I turn to the old man. "It doesn't matter who wrote the words," I continue, hoping that he might see things my way. "What matters is whether or not there's any of her soul in that book, and there is. I know you can feel it. I saw her soul, so I took a piece and put it in words for you." I glance at Table. "Sorry," I whisper.

  "We'll talk about this later," she mutters darkly.

  "I will accept this," the old man says after a moment. "It is different to any book in my collection, and I will take great pleasure in going through its pages." He pauses. "It had not occurred to me that a soul could grow back once it had been given away, but perhaps, even after all these years, there are still things for even the wisest of us to learn."