by Amy Cross
I hesitate, before turning to Cygnus of Althuria and carefully putting the tick back in place. I watch as the tick scurries across the scarred flesh, and then as it reattaches itself.
Cygnus lets out a low groan, and then he shudders slightly.
I wait.
“Are you okay?” I ask cautiously.
“That was... an unpleasant experience,” Cromer says, speaking once again through Cygnus. “Another few seconds, and I would have been part of him when he died. Already, I could feel his spirit ebbing away, and there was something else...” He pauses, staring straight ahead for a moment. “I heard the screams in his mind,” he adds finally, “and I felt as if sharp fingernails were slicing against the insides of his body, dragging him out, dragging him down to...”
“Down to where?” I whisper.
“I've never believed in an afterlife before,” he replies, turning to me, “but as I was lifted off that man, I could feel his soul being dragged to eternal damnation.”
“Enough of this foolish talk!” Tom snaps. “There's no afterlife, there's only this life, and we're wasting time by sitting around here. This horse is ours for the taking. Now, are you two going to get on your feet, or do I have to deliver Rinth to the citadel alone?”
Chapter Seven
“So,” I say later, as we continue to walk along the aisle, “about this horse...”
Glancing to my left, I watch for a moment as the horse walks alongside us, and then I look up at Tom. He insisted on getting the first chance to ride, on account of his tired legs. I'd kind of hoped to get up there myself, seeing as how my right leg is still really painful, but I guess I shouldn't complain.
“Is it just a horse?” I ask.
“What does it look like?” Tom replies.
“It looks like a horse.”
“Then that's probably what it is.”
“Okay, but things seem a little different here,” I point out. “Can this horse talk?”
“Can horses usually talk?”
“Not where I come from.”
“A horse is a horse.”
“Of course, but -”
“So what's your point, Alexandra?”
“You can call me Alex,” I tell him. “I guess I'm just wondering whether horses here can talk or fly or do any other weird stuff. I mean, other animals and creatures can talk here.”
“Like what?” he asks, with a hint of incredulity in his voice.
I look up at him for a moment, but I figure it might seem rude if I use him as an example.
“You certainly have some funny ideas, Alexandra,” he continues. “Now, onto a more important matter. Does anyone else smell bacon?”
“As a matter of fact,” I say, realizing that he's right, “I do. Do you have bacon here?”
“It's coming from the next aisle over,” Cromer says. “I noticed signs of activity earlier. Most likely there's a traveling community that's set up in there for a while. That happens quite a lot out here away from the major cities. They're probably heading from one place to another, and they need somewhere to bed down for the night.”
“Didn't you say that we need to stop for the night?” I ask, turning to Tom.
“Yes, but... What's your point?”
“Can't we ask to stop with them?” I continue. “I mean, I guess it might seem rude, but we could ask nicely and they totally might be friendly!” As soon as those words have left my mouth, I worry that I might sound hopelessly naive, but then Cromer stops and Tom's horse comes to a halt, and even Rinth seems to have listened to what I just said. “Is that the worst idea ever?” I ask. “I mean... they have bacon...”
“That food certainly does smell good,” Tom admits, with a hint of longing in his voice, and after a moment we both turn to look at Cromer.
Judging by the expression on his face, he's extremely skeptical.
“We have no idea who we might end up meeting,” he says firmly. “The Great Library is a wondrous place, but it is by no means safe. When we settle for the night, we must do so alone, because we can only trust one another. For all we know, that next aisle is filled with the most vile, villainous creatures that ever existed and -”
Suddenly a tattered ball rolls into view, from around the corner at the next junction. A moment later, a young guy, about my age, runs after the ball. He freezes as soon as he sees us, and that he's been seen by us.
***
“Of course,” the boy's mother Salima says as she hands me a bowl of bacon stew, “have as much as you want. We're always happy to share.”
“Thank you,” I reply, as my stomach rumbles. I don't want to seem desperate, but I'm absolutely starving. “This smells so good!”
She smiles as she goes to serve Cromer. I wait until she's out of earshot, and then I turn to Tom.
“So,” I whisper, “when you say bacon, what exactly do you mean?”
“Are you trying to beat your own record for stupid questions?”
“I'm just wondering what bacon actually is here.”
“Well, it's from pigs.”
“It is?” I feel a rush of relief as I grab a spoon and taste some of the stew. Frankly, it's even better than I expected.
“What's wrong?” Tom mutters. “Don't you have tree pigs where you come from?”
I swallow, and then I turn to him. Did he just say...
“I can't eat if I'm being peppered with questions,” he adds. “I hope you won't be offended, Alexandra, if I go and eat elsewhere.”
With that, he turns and walks off along the aisle, past the makeshift campfire that Salima and her family have set up. He sits on the other side of the campfire, alone, and I really have to focus on reminding myself not to take offense. Then again, I guess he has a lot on his mind, so I sit cross-legged and start eating more of the soup, while telling myself to not think too hard about what a 'tree pig' might actually look like. At least this tastes like bacon, and I don't think I've eaten in almost twenty-four hours. The sun is already starting to set on my first full day in this place.
“Where are you from?” a voice asks.
Turning, I see the boy sitting nearby, watching me.
“I'm from...” I pause, trying to work out exactly how to explain in terms that he'll understand. “Earth?”
“I was right!” he says excitedly. “You're human!”
“I guess so.”
“That's one of the worlds I've always wanted to visit the most,” he explains. “I'm not even the first person in my family to meet a human, either. According to the legends, my great great many times great grandfather met a human once. Well, she turned out not to be quite human, but she'd spent a lot of time in the human world, even if she turned out to be a book!”
“She turned out to be a what?” I ask, before shrugging. “Maybe I shouldn't be surprised.”
“My ancestor was a great soldier,” he continues, setting his bowl aside and getting to his feet. He grabs a stick from near the fire and starts swishing it through the air. “He was in the Soldiers of Tea! His name was Vanguard, and everyone was terrified of him because he was so brave and strong!”
“He was, huh?” I say, unable to hide a faint smile. This kid certainly seems enthusiastic.
“One day I'm going to be just like him!”
“I wouldn't bet against it.”
“Christian, put that down and eat your dinner,” his father Merk says. “I don't want you taking anyone's eye out!”
“Sorry,” he says, setting the stick back on the ground and sitting down again, closer to me this time. “So how did you end up here, in the Great Library?”
“I'm not so sure,” I tell him. “One minute I was going out to get a book, the next I was lost in this place, and then the sun came up this morning and...”
My voice trails off as I realize that, with night starting to fall, I really have been here now for a whole day. No matter how you spin the facts, I'm going to be in deep trouble when I finally get home, and Mum and Dad must be out of their minds
with worry. Even when I get home, I don't know how I'm going to be able to make them believe me when I try to explain where I've been. One of the last things I said to Mum, just as she was going out with Dad, was that I might as well run away from home. What if she thinks that's what happened? What if she thinks I left because I don't love them? What if she thinks I really have run away to develop a smack habit?
I can feel tears welling in my eyes.
“So how are you going to get home?” Christian asks.
“I don't quite know. I will, though. I'll find a way.”
“But how can you -”
“I just will!” I say firmly. “I know it, I can feel it. I'm going to get home!”
As those words leave my lips, however, I realize how hollow they sound. I don't feel confident at all. In fact, I'm worried that I'm going to end up stuck in this stupid place forever.
“Are those people going to help you?” Christian asks. “The grasshopper and the big man and the...”
“The walking Christmas tree decoration?” I reply, looking past him and seeing that Rinth is sitting next to Cromer and trying to eat soup. To say that the process is messy would be an understatement, and parts of her white hair are now stained brown. At the same time, she has her left hand held out and she's constantly clicking her fingers, causing little sparks to appear in the air. I think I can hear her muttering, so I guess she's annoyed about something. “Yeah, I think so. I hope so. Right now, they're my best shot.”
“I heard something once,” he says, “but... I don't know if you want to know it.”
“Shoot.”
“I heard that it's really hard to slip from the human world into this world,” he says cautiously, “but... I heard it's even harder, almost impossible, to go the other way.”
“I'll find a way,” I tell him.
“But if you don't, will -”
“I will!” I say firmly, before realizing that perhaps I'm being a little short-tempered. After all, Christian's only saying what I've been thinking. “I don't know how, but I just will, okay? No matter how long it takes me, I will find a way to get back to my family.” I can hear the desperation in my own voice, a kind of fear that suggests – even to me – that I have doubts. “I can't be stuck here forever. I just can't.”
“We're going to Mapoor,” Christian tells me, “because that's where there's still some decent work. They have rice fields there.”
“Rice fields?” I pause, trying to imagine what that must look like. “In aisles like this one?”
“Of course. There's nowhere here without aisles.”
“Nowhere? Come on, the whole planet can't just be filled with library shelves.”
“Oh, but it is,” he explains.
“What about the seas?”
“There are shelves there too.”
“What about mountains?”
“Some of the shelves are so high above sea level, the books freeze!”
“That sounds impractical,” I tell him.
“We're also going to Mapoor because of all the fighting,” he tells me. “My older brother was kidnapped and forced to join Darvill's army. If we stay around here, the same thing will happen to me, and soldiers in Darvill's army aren't treated very well. And if you refuse to go with them, they take you anyway and they kill your family. Last time, I was too young for them to be interested, but that was a few years ago. Now they'd take me for sure.”
“They'd really just drag you away from your family?” I ask, shocked by the idea.
“Does that kind of thing not happen where you're from?”
“No! I mean, maybe in some parts of it, but not in London.”
“You're lucky,” he tells me. “I can understand why you want to get back there so desperately.”
“I guess I didn't realize how lucky,” I reply. “This Great Library place has kinda blown my mind. Sometimes I have difficulty believing that it's real. I've seen so many things over the past day that blow my mind. I keep wondering whether I'm going to suddenly wake up and find that it's all been a dream.”
“Me too,” he says, with a faint smile, before taking a pocket knife and leaning over to start scratching into the wood of the nearest shelf. “That's why sometimes I do this. Just to prove to myself that everything's real and solid.”
I watch as he carves out his name, and then he hands the knife to me.
“Oh,” I say, “I don't know that I should be -”
“What's wrong?” he asks with a faint smile. “Worried that it'll feel even more real?”
I hesitate, and then – after looking around to make sure that nobody's watching us – I start carving my own name just beneath his.
“I feel like such a vandal,” I mutter, and then I sit back and look at my handiwork.
“Anything else?” Christian asks. “Does it feel more real now?”
I pause for a moment, before looking past him. Nearby, Tom has settled onto a shelf to sleep, while Rinth has set her bowl aside and is now focusing on clicking her fingers. Those weird little sparks are still appearing, and some of them linger in the air for a few seconds. A little further on, Cromer is talking to Christian's parents.
“Yeah,” I say finally, with a hint of fear in my chest. “Right now, it all feels very real.”
***
Suddenly opening my eyes, I realize that I must have finally fallen asleep. Merk and Salima let me borrow a blanket, so I'm not too cold, and I'm strangely actually not too uncomfortable on this shelf. Tom assured me that this part of the library isn't as dangerous as the area where I arrived twenty-four hours ago, so eventually we all settled down to try to get some rest.
I listen for a moment, and I guess everyone's still out for the count, so I lean out from the shelf and look up at the vast, starry night sky.
I've never been any good at constellations, but I'm pretty sure that there's nothing up there right now that any human could possibly recognize. I'm so far from home, and I can't help wondering what Mum and Dad are going through right now. I guess the police will be involved, and there might even be a campaign to find me. That's going to be so embarrassing when I eventually get home, although right now I'd happily take any embarrassment if it meant that I could see my family again. I guess I just have to trust and hope that Tom and Cromer will be able to figure out a way for me to get back to London.
Suddenly hearing a crunching sound in the distance, I turn and look back along the aisle. A moment later I hear the sound again, as if somebody's out there in the darkness. I look at the sleeping figures on the other shelves, and I quickly count them and see that everyone's present and correct. As I turn and hear yet another crunch, I realize that there must be someone else out there.
And then I hear voices, whispering and getting closer.
Scrambling out from the shelf, I try to tell myself to stay calm as I limp over to where Tom is sleeping. I nudge his shoulder, but he doesn't wake, not at first, so I have to nudge him again.
“What?” he gasps, clearly startled as he starts to sit up. “Mother, it couldn't have been me! I already shed that part of my shell!”
“There's someone here,” I whisper.
He turns to me, but I can tell that he's still not quite awake.
“Along the aisle,” I continue. “I heard footsteps, and I know I didn't imagine them!”
“There are always a few noises here and there,” he says with a sigh, “especially at night. That doesn't mean -”
Before he can finish, a brief rustling sound causes him to lean out and look along the aisle. I can immediately tell that he heard the sound, and after a moment he turns back to me.
“Listen very carefully,” he whispers. “Cromer is on the next shelf along. You need to go and wake him right now, do you understand?”
“But -”
“I'm a grasshopper and you're a human!” he hisses. “We're no match for anything that might be coming this way, as your bad leg proves! Now wake Cromer up before it's too late!”
Realizing that he has a point, I creep along to the next shelf, where I find that Cromer has somehow – and rather impossibly – wedged himself into the small space. He's flat on his back, and snoring slightly, and at first he doesn't respond when I nudge his shoulder. I try again, still with no luck, and then I reach over and gently tickle the little tick on the side of his neck.
“Woah!” he gasps, suddenly opening his eyes. “Mother, I never -”
“There's someone here,” I whisper, clamping a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet. “We've got company!”
He pauses, and then I move my hand away. After a moment, he starts climbing out from the shelf. His armor clanks loudly, and the others are beginning to wake up all around us. As we look along the aisle, I see only darkness, but I know I heard movement. Sure enough, a few seconds later, muffled voices indicate that several unseen figures are still heading this way.
“Merk,” Cromer says firmly, as he takes a step forward, “can you get that fire started again?”
Merk scrambles forward and produces a small bottle from his pocket. He pulls out the stopper, and then he pours a few drops onto the fire's remaining embers. In an instant, flames roar back to life, bringing light to the aisle, and I see four armored figures coming this way along the aisle, wearing armor that's strangely familiar.
“More of Darvill's men,” Cromer sneers. “Everyone, get behind me!”
Chapter Eight
Darvill's soldiers scream as they rush at us with raised swords.
“Fall back!” Cromer yells, pulling one of his swords from its sheath as he prepares to meet the charge.
“Do exactly what he says!” Tom stammers, rushing past us all. “He's the big one! Let him do the fighting!”
Before I have a chance to react, I hear the sound of swords crashing together, and I turn to see that all four soldiers are attacking Cromer at once. To be fair, Cromer's big enough to almost single-handedly block the aisle, and he towers over the soldiers as he expertly deflects their blows. They keep coming at him, however, and I watch with a growing sense of horror as one of them ducks down and starts mercilessly hacking at Cromer's left leg in an attempt to crack through the armor.
