by A J Hackwith
The Unwritten Wing, already invaded by vines and letters of the Unsaid, now had to make room for the whole of humanity. The contents of a dozen wings crowded a single space, and the entire wing had begun to shiver with an unreal quality. Books and art, poems and poets, fans and phantoms, crowded the space. The air was thick with dust and webs of dreams. Words and whispers and weaves warred for territory. Between the nearest stacks of books a wandering song seeped down, thick like golden honey.
The librarians had sequestered themselves in a far corner of the wing’s lobby, somehow beating out vines and craftwork and sentient poetry by force of will alone. Brevity had procured a mismatched set of chairs and arranged it around a study table that was not quite large enough for the task. The work surface was scarred with centuries of inkblots, repair nicks, and phantom rings from countless careless teacups. The librarians were, inevitably, a fractious bunch. The wisp-like librarian from the Tantarus refused to keep her feet off the table, even when Shelob’s librarian, a dour golem named Anik, threatened to pull her off by her hair. Jannah’s librarian was an academic swathed in brightly colored robes that positively could not keep the peace with Xi, the inkblot from Xian’s Unlearned Wing. Nour, the librarian from Duat’s Poetry Wing, carried a smoking pipe, and occasional wreaths of heather fogged around their stork head, painting the entire scene in a dreamlike haze that left the taste of dates on the tongue. Xibala’s librarian appeared to be drinking a chalice of mist. It felt more like a mad tea party than a conference.
“So the way I see it, the best chance of survival we’ve got is to stick together.” Brevity was outlining, for the tenth time, the events that had brought them to this unprecedented, crowded place. Claire studiously tuned it out, not needing to hear a retelling of the destruction of the Arcane Wing. Or her many failures before that: the ink, Andras, the list went on.
It was easier, instead, to study the librarians’ reactions to the news. Bjorn had heard it before, and instead intently sipped from his mug—tea? coffee? mead? the contents were uncertain at this distance—with a focus he usually reserved only for ale. The trio of spirits looked bored, but then, nonhuman librarians were always an unreadable bunch. The curators who had once been flesh and blood varied. Jannah’s young man, with skin several shades richer than Claire’s, took notes intensely in a small notebook. The scholar next to him—Indralok, maybe?—was folded in so many layers of ink-blotted fabric that the only distinguishing feature was the deep, growing furrow of their thin eyebrows.
“We all appreciate the efforts of the Unwritten Wing and understand the threat. However, I would like to discuss alternatives to your plan.” A woman older than Claire, with laugh lines highlighting her plump cheeks and a pencil stuck in the twists of her curly silver hair, cleared her throat as she spoke up. Claire tried to place her, using what she knew of the other Library wings. Summerlands, maybe. She could recall some wing there relating to verse. She’d never bothered herself with much thought for the other wings, as librarian. Perhaps if she had, none of them would be in the room now.
Brevity hesitated. “There’s so much to do—”
“The Unwritten Wing can’t expect to be made de facto leader,” Nour objected. They puffed at a reed pipe. “There are procedures for this form of congress.”
“Procedures?” Brevity echoed with a crestfallen expression.
It was inevitable; it was exhausting. Claire knew the arguments were a reflexive demonstration of rhetoric. The wings of the Library would ally with one another, if only because they had no other choice. But Claire also saw the hard truth under the skin and sinew of philosophical debate; the other librarians were not Hell’s librarians. The majority tended to wings in paradises, or realms of neutral enough morality to be benign. Few had curatorship over artifacts that resisted them; none had ever learned how to fight, every moment, in a realm covetous of their existence. They would ally, but it would be Hell’s librarians doing the heavy lifting.
Well, Hell’s librarian, and Claire. If Claire was no longer an official librarian, then she wasn’t obliged to form a consensus with the table of scholars. She withdrew by inches, waiting until Brevity was involved in a passionate debate with the Duat librarian before slipping away. It was an easy thing to drift to the wall of card catalog drawers. She’d hidden it under “TIGERS; origin stories.” She emptied the drawer of its hidden contents and turned for the open arms of the stacks.
She felt eyes on her as she passed the table. Let them think she was a disgraced librarian; let them think she was a traitor or, worse, an idiot. There was more to libraries than keeping books; there was community outreach. Libraries needed allies, and Claire knew just the devil they needed.
28
RAMI
Scrawled and underlined with a heavy hand, a stand-alone entry:
Demons!!
Librarian Ibukun of Ise, 983 CE
I agree with this sentiment entirely.
Librarian Yoon Ji-Han, 1809 CE
In Rami’s experience—his very lengthy experience—any building develops a personality over time. The Library in Hell was no different. Not a soul, not precisely; that was too loaded a term for any era. But anything was capable of a little sentience if shown enough time and love and hate. Rami had observed how the Unwritten Wing glimmered when Brevity was delighted, or how the Arcane Wing struggled to polish up its gothic edges to meet Claire’s standards. How even when it had been burning to ashes around them, the Arcane Wing had delivered its curator to safety.
Libraries and their stewards existed in a confounding equilibrium that was strange even for the vast wonders of the afterlife. Which was why, when the shelves appeared to sigh dust motes into the air without moving, when a book fell off its stack of its own volition, when the Unwritten Wing appeared to stir, just slightly, around him, Rami’s gaze went first to Brevity, then to Claire.
Brevity remained pinned behind the librarian’s desk, deep in what appeared to be a lengthy explanation of interactive narratives to a rather disapproving pile of robes.
Claire was skulking away from the card catalog. That would be Rami’s cue.
He caught sight of her near the Gothics section. (A brass plate helpfully indicated: subgenre: gothic antiheroes. Someone had crossed it out on the plate and scribbled in “assholes” below it.) He followed her for a long way, farther into the stacks than he’d had cause to go in a while. When he realized where she was going, he sped up.
She barely slowed down when he fell in line. Rami had no difficulty keeping up, and asked with the mildest interest, “What is your plan, then?”
They approached a shuttered section. Claire barely slowed to throw open the barrier and step through. The smell of smoke and tarred remains of books remained in this aisle. The section where Claire’s books had been housed, and where Andras had burned them. Even the Library carried scars.
Her chin inched up and he could practically see the denial brewing, so he added, “It’s me, Claire.”
He stopped. It was a considered gesture. Once Claire would have barreled on, glad to be rid of any pesky help, but once was not now. Claire’s momentum carried her a couple of steps to the end of the aisle before she stuttered to a stop. She appeared to debate something to herself before turning.
“I’m going to release Andras,” she said with a steeled kind of calm.
He could see the item she carried in her hand now. Recognized the wicked curve of blade beneath a heavy wrap of linen and leather. Andras’s dagger, the weapon made a prison when the Library had bound him into it. He regretted, again, not chucking it into the void between realms when he had the chance.
“Why, in all Heaven and Hell, would you do that?” he asked, begging for an answer. That was the maddening thing about Claire; she always had one.
“The Arcane Wing is lost; the librarians will talk themselves to death before deciding on a course of action—believe me, I know.
Our best hope for a vacant realm is gone. And all the while, Malphas simply cinches the noose tighter and waits for us to strangle ourselves with it.”
“You think inviting a demon who tried to kill us all into that mix will somehow make that better?”
“I think it may be the only thing that can,” Claire said quietly, too quietly. “Even if we succeed, even if we unite the libraries and find a realm and find a spare god wandering around and figure out what the hell a gatekeeper is . . .” She caught her hand trembling and gripped a fist over top of it. “Even if we do all that, we are still left with a war with Hell, a realm that will not let us go without a fight. I’m tired of fighting, so tired of fighting, aren’t you?”
“Despair is no option,” Rami said quietly. “Not for us.”
“No.” Claire’s fragile calm shattered with a sudden laugh. “Would that it were. No, despair is not our business here. But fighting dirty and calling in a ringer is.”
“Andras would destroy us all.”
“Not,” Claire said calmly, “if I promise to give him exactly what he wants.”
Andras had wanted the Unwritten Wing, all the restless, malleable souls of stories he could devour and trade to fuel his own vendetta against Hell. He’d been willing to sell out the Library for it, to sell out Claire for it. Rami knew, because he’d been the angel Andras had tried to sell them to.
He hadn’t taken the deal; Uriel had.
But Claire wouldn’t give Andras the Library. Rami had come too far to believe that. She’d been willing to risk total obliteration rather than give up the Unwritten Wing.
Claire held herself taut, as if preparing for a blow. She expected Rami to think the worst of her, because she had been honed to accept the worst of everyone else. She was a cynic, their Claire.
But despite that cynicism, she’d told him anyway. She would see this story through, damn the expectations, damn the cost. That—that was why Rami had followed the strange dead woman literally into Hell. She flinched when he let out a long breath. “I don’t like this. Surely we can find some other way.”
Claire nodded, and for a moment Rami clutched at relief. Yes, she understood. Yes, she had not lost her senses. Yes, there was an alternate solution to the problem at hand.
But then he remembered that agreement had never meant compliance in Claire’s worldview.
Her wrist twitched into a wide arc. She let go of the dagger and sent it hurtling to the burnt floor with all her strength. Rami supposed such abuse wouldn’t have dented a sturdy dagger in the mortal world; physics and metal alloy would have prevailed. But in the afterlife, intention was more powerful than gravity. The blade hit the floorboard hilt first, and the stone eye set into the grip shattered. Fragments of the tiger-stripe jewel turned to brown and amber stardust in midair, clearly rising from the ash that littered the floor. The floorboards beneath their feet groaned in something like a scream.
The ghost of soot and kerosene that had hung in the air sweetened into a sharp, invasive bouquet of anise and iron. What little light remained in the burnt annex seemed to dip, then swell, painting shadows on Claire’s resigned face. She was no longer looking at Rami, all her attention focused on the gemstone dust that swirled at their feet. If he’d wanted, she’d left him a wide-open avenue to strike, to at least disable her and drag her away from the maelstrom building in front of them. She might have even thanked him for it.
But Rami had watched Claire grow from a woman who ruthlessly smothered and hid from her demons to a woman willing to walk through fire to save one for a cause she found worthy.
The whirlwind had picked up; metallic fragments started to coalesce into the outline of something human. Or something that pretended to be. Starbursts shuddered where fragments collided and stuck, gradually building mass. The ambient light swelled. Each piece of glittering dust appeared to cast a shadow, and it was from that shadow that something new stepped into the wing.
Rami kept his sword drawn and directed it at the demon in his view.
A well-heeled dress shoe, polished to a void black sheen, stepped out of the shadows, followed by impeccably tailored trousers and an expensive vest and coat just slightly too extravagant to look old-fashioned. The demon that stepped into the annex was not much taller than Claire, and gray and narrow with a scholarly air. But he pulsed with a vitalness that was at odds with the soot and decay surrounding him. A gaze the color of spoiled gold took in his new surroundings, and Andras tilted his chin as if amused.
“Hello, pup,” he said.
“Andras.” Claire drew still and tall. A chill whispered over Rami’s spine. Like this, cold and resolved and ready, she reminded Rami of something eternal. It was, in Rami’s most private thoughts, something sacred. The comparison was so apt that it was a sin he couldn’t feel sorry for. Claire’s ice cracked. “You are intelligent enough to not do anything foolish, yes?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I did move against you. That didn’t prove to be a wise investment.” Andras inclined his head with a paternal look that sent Rami’s skin crawling. “But I have wits enough about me to not confront a Watcher unarmed. How long has it been?”
“A little over a year, by the mortal clock,” Claire said. “Not nearly long enough.”
“A year?” Andras removed imaginary dust from his cuff as he surveyed the ruinous aisle of ash. “I thought you would have tidied up more in that time.”
Some things are not so easily fixed, Rami thought. But Claire was wise enough not to grant Andras that indication of power. She inclined her head. “I prefer to preserve it. You never know when rubbish will be useful in the future.”
“Did you just call me trash, pup?” A delighted laugh sounded wrong as a rusted hinge coming from Andras. “Oh, Claire, I have missed you.”
“How curious that I have not,” Claire deadpanned. She made an impatient gesture. “If your curiosity is satisfied, I am here to make you an offer.”
“My curiosity is never satisfied—where would the entertainment be in that? But do go on.”
“I have trapped your soul in a device of your own making, Andras. I need not explain to you how it works. This is not a negotiation. Should you turn down my offer—or even consider the thought of betraying me again—I can blink and lock you right back in.”
“Is that any way to treat an old friend?”
“I really couldn’t care less.”
“Now, that’s not true.”
“Perhaps not,” Claire said. “In fact I care a great deal. If I had my care, you’d have been handed over to suffer the eternal suffering of Malphas’s idea of justice long ago. I’d want to watch you suffer, but I know suffering is what demons enjoy most, so instead I would want to watch you flail. Helplessness, Andras, is what I would wish upon you. A complete and utter helplessness and a failing of power that strikes what you cherish the most. A scenario where you gain ambitions only to watch them be ripped away from you, piece by piece, with the thorough knowledge that nothing you can ever do will ever change the outcome. That is the hell I would wish on you, Andras.”
Andras was quiet for a long moment. “Oh, pup.” He finally drew in an emotional breath. “You make me so proud.”
The muscle in Claire’s jaw twitched, and Rami thought he might have to intercede. But as ever, Claire marshaled her will. She smoothed her hand over her hips, as if straightening the skirts she no longer wore. “But I will go on unsatisfied in that desire, provided you and I come to an agreement faithfully.”
“Why in the world would we do that?” Andras was entirely amused now. He sauntered forward a step and had to be reminded of Rami’s presence when he raised his sword to stop him short. “And whyever would you trust me again?”
“I won’t. But I’ll settle for a reasonable confidence in your behavior,” Claire said, unmoving. She met Andras’s eyes. “Because only I am able to give you exactly what you want.”
“Would you stop me?” Claire carelessly turned her attention from Andras to Rami. When she did so, she flinched, then stowed it away swiftly. Rami realized he’d tilted the tip of his sword toward her. Aghast, he pointed it at Andras again.
“That’s not what I mean. You can’t strike a deal with one of his kind.”
“Mark that we are made of the same material, Watcher. If mine is a little more honest about it.” Andras watched the exchange, amused. “Any perfidious capacity is in you as well.”
“Demon,” Rami growled. Claire stayed him with a touch at his elbow.
“I know what we are all capable of, sinner and saint. And, more important, I know what you want.”
This last statement caught Andras’s attention. “Do you, now?”
“I do, and it is in my power to grant, if we can reach an accord.”
“And how do you propose we do that? I, after all, am not the one threatening imprisonment despite claims of good faith.”
“A simple trade. You help me secure court approval for the Library’s independence, and I help you secure your heart’s desire.”
“Which is? I regret to inform you my aspirations are no longer set on the Unwritten Wing, dear.”
“Regaining your rightful place in Hell’s court.” Claire paused, as if to savor the surprised silence, before smiling thinly at her former mentor. “You were a count of some kind, if I recall?”
“Duke,” Andras corrected coldly.
