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CONTENTS
THE STUDENT LIBRARIAN’S HANDBOOK
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
FIRST INTERLUDE - KAI IMPRISONED
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
SECOND INTERLUDE - KAI IN THE TOWER
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SECRETS FROM THE LIBRARY
IRENE’S TOP FIVE BOOK HEISTS
LEGENDS OF THE LIBRARY
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
THE STUDENT LIBRARIAN’S HANDBOOK
Excerpt taken from Briefing Document on Orientation Amongst Various Worlds
Section 2.1, version 4.13
Author: Coppelia; editor: Kostchei;
reviewers: Gervase and Ntikuma
For authorized personnel only
INTRODUCTION
By now you will have passed basic training, and will either be working in the field with a more experienced Librarian or be preparing to do so. This confidential document is a more in-depth examination of the Library’s position towards both Fae and dragons. It will help you understand why we remain unaffiliated with either side.
THE FAE - THEIR ORIENTATION TOWARDS CHAOS AND THEIR POWERS
You will be aware of the dangers that the Fae present to humanity. They receive their nourishment from emotional interactions with humans, feeding off us in this way. And they perceive everyone other than themselves, both humans and indeed other Fae, as mere participants - fulfilling background roles - in their own personal stories. And here we have an interesting feedback loop. The more dramatic they can make their personal stories (for example, playing the role of villain, rogue or hero), the more power a Fae can gain. And the more powerful they are, the more stereotypical this role-playing behaviour becomes. As a result of all this, a Fae’s viewpoint will grow correspondingly more sociopathic1 over time.
In terms of other dangers, the Fae display powers ranging from the ability to clothe themselves in a basic glamour (in order to affect human perceptions of them) to the capacity to emotionally manipulate those around them. In addition, powerful Fae occasionally display specific magical or physical powers, depending on the personal archetype or stereotype they have chosen to adopt.
THE FAE - THEIR WORLDS
The known worlds are ranged on a spectrum from order to chaos. And the further we journey into the worlds affected by chaos, the more Fae can be found there. In chaos-affected worlds, there is of course the risk of humans being open to chaos contamination. This may affect a Librarian’s powers or even prevent them re-entering the Library. In such worlds where Fae dominate, humanity forms a background cast. Their roles range from pets to food, and they are seen as props for the psychodramas, romances or vendettas indulged in by the Fae around them - these Fae being contaminated with chaos, body and soul. Individual or weaker Fae may be able to interact with single Librarians on a relatively ‘human’ level. The more powerful ones either won’t want to or won’t be capable of doing this. Beware of forming alliances if apparently friendly overtures are made, as they will still have very Fae motivations.
FAE OR DRAGONS - PROS AND CONS
So, you might ask, why don’t we ally ourselves outright with the dragons? They stand for order, just as the Fae stand for chaos. They represent reality, in the same way that the Fae embrace and are empowered by concepts of fiction and unreality. As such, the dragons esteem the ‘real’ and the physical world above all else, having little patience with matters of the imagination. So why shouldn’t we want to embrace2 physical reality? The answer is that, in their own way, the dragons are just as biased and nonhuman in their viewpoint as the Fae.
DRAGONS - THEIR ORIENTATION TOWARDS ORDER AND THEIR POWERS
Dragons may represent the physical world - the world we can touch, if you like - but physical reality is not kind.3 It is raw, brutal and merciless. Dragons’ powers are grounded in the physical realm: they can control the weather, the tides, the earth, and so on. Dragons are also highly practical in their thinking, and see little need for discussions about democracy, human self-determination or other such fantasies - when they consider themselves demonstrably the most powerful creatures around. They believe they automatically have the right to rule by this token. So in the worlds where a high degree of order is present, the dragons do rule, either openly or behind the scenes.
THE LIBRARY - HOW IT MAINTAINS BALANCE
Through connections via its doors to multiple alternate worlds - connections forged by harvesting key books from these worlds - the Library helps maintain the balance. Its links with worlds prevent them from drifting too fast in the direction of chaos or order, and a reasonably stable environment for humans is possible somewhere in the middle.4 Junior Librarians may be heavily penalized if they are seen to be making unauthorized pacts with the Fae. This is especially the case if these are seen to undermine the Library’s all-important neutrality - which must be preserved at all costs. It should be stressed that we aren’t here in order to make judgements about what is ‘best for humanity’. Humanity should be left to make its own decisions. The purpose of the Library is to preserve humanity from either absolute reality or absolute unreality.
And you will do this by collecting nominated books, to maintain the balance.
PROLOGUE
The London air was full of smog and filth. Kai’s senses were better than those of a human, though he tried not to be too self-indulgent about it. But even he couldn’t see down a dark alley any better than the average Londoner. And even native Londoners walked carefully in the narrow streets behind King’s Cross Station.
But where crime flourished, so too did detectives. And he was here to meet Peregrine Vale, friend and fighter of crime.
He paused to inspect a pawnbroker’s window, trying to gauge the street behind him. While he couldn’t see anyone specifically following him, there was something in the air that set him on edge, a foretaste of danger. But there were very few humans who could challenge a dragon, even in h
is human form, and he didn’t expect to meet any of them in the back-alleys here.
Vale was in a warehouse just round the corner. Almost there, and then Kai could find out what kind of assistance Vale needed with his case.
And then someone screamed nearby. It was a woman’s scream, genuinely terrified, cut off in the middle with a coughing yelp. Kai turned abruptly, peering into the swirling fog. Two men and a woman were huddled at one end of a particularly dank passageway. The woman had her arms pinned behind her back by one aggressor, while the other was drawing back his fist to strike again.
‘Let her go,’ Kai said calmly. He could handle two humans easily enough. Even if they were werewolves, they weren’t a significant danger. But this would make him late.
‘Back off,’ one of the men snarled, turning away from the woman to face him. ‘This isn’t none of your business, nor your part of town neither.’
‘It’s my business if I choose to make it my business.’ Kai advanced down the alley towards the group, automatically assessing them as his father’s arms-masters had trained him to. The men were muscular in the shoulders, well built, but both showed signs of a paunch and dissipation. He could take them, just as he’d taken others of their kind a few days before.
The free man advanced towards him, fists up in a crude boxer’s stance. He was lighter on his feet than Kai had expected, but not fast enough. He bluffed with his right fist, then tried a straight left at Kai’s jaw. Kai side-stepped, slammed his hand sideways into the man’s kidneys, kicked him in the back of the knee to take him off-balance and ran his head into the wall. The man went down.
‘Now don’t be like that,’ the other man said, backing deeper into the alley and holding the woman in front of him like a shield. Panic was starting to show in his eyes. ‘You just walk away and nobody gets hurt …’
‘You just let go of that woman,’ Kai corrected him, ‘and you don’t get hurt.’ He walked forward, considering his openings. A dodge to the side and a strike to the man’s neck might be the least risky option for the woman, and yet—
‘Now,’ a voice said from above.
Doors slammed open on either side of him and behind him, and at the same moment something fell from above, tumbling down towards him in a knot of shadows. Kai dived to one side on instinct, but then there were too many men in the alley with him. A dozen of them, the combat-trained part of his mind noted, and more behind those open doors. He had no room to dodge and it looked like a trap. They didn’t even hang back and let other people take the first blows, in the normal manner of thugs. They came charging in, most of them bare-handed, but a couple with knuckledusters or small weighted saps.
He had to get back and out. There was no shame to it. Part of a warrior’s training was acknowledging superior force and reacting appropriately. An arm came around his neck from behind. He grabbed it, went down on one knee and flung the man over his head and into the ones closing in on him. Staying low, he pivoted, bringing a foot round and scything another combatant’s feet from under him. He used the momentum to turn and rise. Four men were between him and the way out. Four obstacles to remove.
Vale’s case must be important to warrant this sort of interference.
Kai noted the coils of the net, which had barely missed him, tangled on the street. It was a nasty piece of work, with metal woven into the ropes. Curious. Why go to this trouble to snare him personally? If they had already caught Vale, they would regret it.
He slammed an elbow backwards, feeling the jolt as it connected with a chin, and started forward at a swinging run. At least one of the men in front of him should back away …
He didn’t expect them to all come at him at once, like a sudden human tidal wave. He struck high for a throat, and then low to a groin - disabling blows. But they weren’t going down. They felt the pain, they grunted, they staggered, but they were still in his path.
A blow took him across the back of the head in a sudden burst of pain, and his attempted nerve-strike lost its force as he went down on one knee. He knew that he was a sitting target, but for that moment his muscles wouldn’t respond.
Another man hit him in the face. He spat blood.
A man behind him threw himself on top of Kai, bringing him down to the filthy pavement. Kai struggled for breath, sparks still dancing in his vision. He could feel pure fury running in his veins now. How dare these humans assault him like this?
There was no room in him for fear. It was not possible that this scum could win.
He felt his natural body assert itself, his hands becoming claws, scales beginning to trace their way across his skin, as his true nature rose with that fury. He would call up the river against them, he would scour them from this London, he would make them pay for this insolence.
Across London, he felt the Thames and all its tributaries stir in response to his anger. He might be the least and youngest of his father’s sons, but he was still a dragon of the royal house. With an uncoiling shove he thrust backwards, forcing the thug from his back and away, and pushed himself up, teeth bared in a snarl.
More bodies hit him and took him down, heavy hands pinning his wrists to the pavement. His claws left marks in it as he struggled for leverage. For the first time he felt a prickle of doubt. Perhaps it would be wiser to fully take on his true form, one that they could not possibly restrain. It would alert all London that a dragon walked in their midst, but if he should lose …
A hand snarled itself in his hair, pulling his head back, and he felt cold metal snap shut around his neck. And now abruptly there was the ferocious, electric tang of Fae magic in the air, locked around him, binding him. He cried out in sudden shock as the distant rivers faded and were gone from his senses, as his fingers, now purely human, scraped against the concrete.
‘That should do it.’ That cold voice was the first time that anyone had spoken during the whole attack, and it was the last thing Kai heard. There was one final blow to his head, and then he surrendered to unconsciousness.
CHAPTER ONE
The night before …
It was a pity about the poison in her wine glass, Irene reflected. The underground room was hot, and a glass of chilled wine would have been refreshing.
She hadn’t needed Kai’s murmur from behind her shoulder. She’d been watching the crow-masked man in the mirror. His real name was Charles Melancourt, and they’d both been hunting for the same book for the last few weeks. He was the agent for a Russian buyer. Irene was an agent for the Library. They’d both run into each other often enough while investigating the same sources, and he had certainly recognized her in spite of her mask, just as she had recognized him.
The bidding finished for the current item, a set of gold-plated dice with rubies as the points, and there was a gentle ripple of applause. Everyone was masked, even the waiters carrying round the trays of food and wine. This auction wasn’t exactly illegal, but it was certainly dubious. The patrons included eccentrics, the very rich and a large number of people who had lawyers just to prove how absolutely not guilty they were. (Of anything.) Ether-lamps burned on the walls, casting a white glare on the room. It made the beading on the expensive dresses and military decorations glitter as much as the items on auction. She’d recognized some of London’s Fae too, behind their masks. But Lord Silver, their unofficial leader, wasn’t present - a fact for which she was extremely grateful.
Irene had gained entrance with Vale’s help. It didn’t hurt to be a personal friend of London’s greatest detective. In return she’d promised to make sure that she and Kai were out of the place before midnight, before a scheduled police raid happened. A promise she intended to keep. She’d spent the last few months in this alternate world building a cover identity as a freelance translator, and having a criminal record would be inconvenient.
‘Next item,’ the auctioneer droned. ‘One copy of Abraham or “Bram” Stoker’s La Sorciere, based on the book of the same name by Jules Michelet. We are sure that our guests don’t need to be reminde
d that this book was banned by the British Government. And the Church denounced it on the grounds of public indecency and heresy. No doubt it’ll provide the buyer with something entertaining to read, ha-ha.’ Her laugh lacked anything resembling humour. ‘Sold as part of an anonymous estate. Bidding starts at one thousand pounds. Do I hear any bids?’
Irene raised her hand. So did Melancourt.
‘Lady in the black domino, one thousand pounds,’ the auctioneer intoned.
‘One thousand five hundred!’ Melancourt called out.
So he was going to go for big jumps, rather than take it up by stages. Fair enough. At least they seemed to be the only people interested in this lot. ‘Two thousand,’ Irene said clearly.
‘Two thousand five hundred!’ Melancourt declared.
That got a few whispers from the other bidders. The book was rare, but not hugely so. Certain museums had copies, so Irene was being comparatively virtuous in buying the tome at an underworld auction. She could have stolen it, after all. The thought made her smile. ‘Three thousand.’
‘Five thousand!’ The sudden jump in price made the room fall silent. People were looking at Irene to see what she would do.
Kai leaned over her shoulder. True to his cover as bodyguard, he’d been standing throughout, refusing food and drinks, and keeping watch on the carpet-bag with their assurance of payment. ‘We could let him win this, and then visit him later,’ he murmured.
‘Too risky,’ Irene whispered back. She picked up the glass of wine from the tray he was holding, raising it to her lips, and couldn’t mistake the sudden tension in Melancourt’s posture. Yes, this had been from him. She’d thought so.
‘Wine, boil,’ she murmured in the Language, and quickly set it down again as the glass heated up under her fingers. The wine was already bubbling, and it overflowed onto the tray, hissing and steaming as it evaporated. Kai’s hands tensed, but he held the tray steady.
The silence had deepened. Irene broke it. ‘Ten thousand,’ she said casually.
Melancourt brought his fist down on his thigh with a curse.
The Masked City Page 1
