The Library of the Unwritten

by A J Hackwith

  “Whoa, our own hero. The damsels are gonna freak.” Brevity clapped, only a little awed. “We can’t keep calling him that. Hero. Can we?”

  Claire shrugged. “Fine. He can rename himself when he comes out of shock. I thought ‘Janitor’ had a nice ring.”

  The hero shook his head, subdued. “This isn’t happening. . . .”

  Claire let that go. It was probably best to let the man work it out for himself. He quite possibly had eternity to do so. “Brev, if you can hold the fort here, I’ve got an errand I need to run. Leto, I’d like you to come along.” The teenager jumped up from where he had been lingering at the edge of the group, twisting his hands together. “You proved so useful before.”

  Brevity’s brow knitted. “You just got back. What now?”

  “The Watcher’s scrap did not belong to the hero’s book. I need to run it past the Arcanist to be certain before I explain more than that.” Claire cast a glance toward the restorations room. “But there might be more than one book missing.”

  8

  LETO

  The demons have been petitioning for borrowing rights again. The log says they waited a whole three centuries before trying again. This time they got a minor duke on their side.

  I know scavengers when I hear them. The Unwritten Wing holds a delicate balance in Hell: neither vassal to nor clearly apart. It’s the nature of books that keeps us here, but it’s the nature of books that the devils want. They want anything that tastes of mortal mind. An unwritten book is nothing but pure potential, and a soul’s potential is power down here. Power, naturally, is all the creatures of Hell care about. They’d descend on the shelves like a swarm of locusts if we let them.

  Librarian Ibukun of Ise, 786 CE

  A SOUND, MORE GRAVEL than snore, grated from the sleeping gargoyle as they passed the bookcase. Leto gave it a wide berth as he struggled to keep up with the librarian’s long strides. Hell’s hallways passed in a blur, and Leto had long ago given up keeping track of the path they were taking. He decided to stick to the basics. “Where are we going?”

  “The Arcane Wing. The Arcanist, Andras, is a colleague and old friend.” The bag holding the page scrap crinkled between Claire’s pinched fingers, as if she was afraid it would escape. She accelerated down a wide flight of stairs and forced Leto to speed up again.

  “Arcanist. He’s some kinda wizard?” Leto asked.

  “Not quite. He curates the Arcane Wing. It’s part of the Library. The Unwritten Wing is larger and stores the unwritten works, and the Arcane Wing contains . . . curiosities.”

  “Like a museum?”

  Claire shook her head. “Libraries traditionally housed a cabinet of curiosities; I suppose that is why the Arcane Wing exists here as well. It houses arcane artifacts—prophecies, spell books, monkey claws, and soul gems. That kind of nonsense. Things that gain power on Earth become . . . slippery. Slippery and dangerous. They tend to fall through the cracks of reality and end up here, where we can contain them. It’s the Arcanist’s job to do that, and fetch the dangerous stuff. Messy job, one I’m glad I don’t have. Books are much more straightforward.”

  “So he’s your boss?”

  Claire’s chuckle was not entirely warm. “I’m sure he’d like to think so, since he’s been here forever, but no. The Unwritten Wing and the Arcane Wing are allied.”

  “Allied?” Leto frowned. “Against what?”

  The question made Claire slow. Leto had to careen into a pillar to avoid running into her. Claire seemed to consider before giving him a serious answer. “Against everything. As long as there have been places like libraries—places attempting to preserve and curate—there have been forces attempting to acquire. The Library makes for a very juicy target for the demons of Hell, even though they’re supposedly our hosts.”

  That made no sense. “But they’re just books,” he blurted before he could worry about insulting the librarian.

  Claire didn’t seem prone to taking offense. She just chuckled. It was a dry, crackling laugh that made her sound older than she looked. “They may be just books to you, Leto, but these are unwritten books. Pure potential. They’re the stuff of something demons don’t have: imagination. That’s the stuff of humans. The power to create. Down here, that’s a decisive power. There are factions here in Hell that would love nothing more than to eat the books whole, for a momentary burst of power. If the Arcane Wing and the Library didn’t work together to present a united front, the books would have been burned long ago.”

  Yet another thing Leto might have known, should have known, had he been the demon he was supposed to be. Instead, he was a stupid human asking stupid questions. He could even fail at damnation, and now he was in Hell, surrounded by shadows containing dangers he didn’t even know existed. His arms felt chilled. He wrapped them around his middle. He couldn’t remember the source of self-loathing that welled up in his throat, but the bitter taste coated his tongue.

  They wound their way across a dark foyer. The wide amber floor was dusty and bare and seemed to swallow up the light. Claire halted them before a set of thick bronze doors. The grillwork was cast with figures so encrusted with age and grime that Leto couldn’t make them out. Claire’s hand hesitated above the handle. “Andras is a friend—he won’t harm you—but just one rule: don’t touch anything.”

  “O-okay?”

  “Andras won’t harm us. But the Arcane Wing . . .” If the smile Claire gave him was meant to be reassuring, she sucked at it. “The Arcane Wing is . . . different.”

  “Different? Like, compared to the Unwritten Wing or . . .” Leto trailed off as Claire shoved the door open.

  The air was chilled and clotted with dust. The first impression Leto had, as he breathed in stale air, was of the shadowy neglect of an abandoned museum vault or perhaps a disreputable pawnshop. A cabinet of curiosities, Claire had said. It was an accurate description of the place. Dozens of dusty little boxes lined black wood shelves, punctuated by puddles of shadowy fabric, twisted figures in discolored ivory, a bowl rimmed with sharp teeth and filled with tiny seeds that sparkled like bloody rubies. Some artifacts were left in open air; others were inexplicably bound with chains behind glass. All were stacked and piled with no discernible logic. A staccato grackling noise came from the far wall, and the cold iron bars of a tall stack of cages filled with ravens cast menacing lines of shadow across the floor.

  The Arcane Wing was smaller than the Unwritten Wing, and colder. Shadows stretched and reached farther than they should have. There was just enough light to define the shapes of the darkness, not drive it away. Sound pooled and dribbled in murmurs that sounded the way goose bumps felt. It was a palace to shadows and acid ambition.

  Unfazed, Claire rapped on a scarred countertop with her knuckles. “Andy? You about?”

  The black birds increased in volume as something thudded in the back recesses of the collection. “Is that a pup I hear? No one else is cheeky enough to use that name.” The voice was as rugged and distinguished as the gentleman that followed it.

  A gentleman with demonic features: sharply pointed ears, and eyes an unnatural shade of liquid gold that set Leto on edge. Leto had the fleeting impression of a tiger caged and pacing. He shivered, blinked once; then the tiger shrank to a house cat. Andras was not an intimidating figure. He was a hair shorter than Leto, and he wore an old-fashioned evergreen doublet studded with glittering brooches and topped with a black satin sash. His hands were folded politely, burdened with silver rings. His hair was a short ruff of charcoal streaked with lines of gold. He glimmered and gleamed attentively in all the ways his wing glowered and gloomed.

  “My dear librarian.” A smile sprang into place on Andras’s lips as he swept across the floor to greet them. Andras touched Claire’s cheek and turned it this way and that. His hand looked pale and faded against her teak skin. “You are working too hard, pup. You look thin.”

&nbs
p; It was the first time Leto had seen anyone touch the prickly librarian—even Brevity seemed to respect Claire’s personal space. But the Arcanist swept in with familiarity, and to Leto’s great surprise, Claire simply shrugged off the hand. “A trip upstairs does that.”

  “Of course. Dreadful place. I don’t know why you don’t just send your assistants.”

  Claire chuckled. “Some of us prefer to do things ourselves.”

  “Of course. I taught you no less; shame I don’t heed my own lessons. Speaking of assistants . . .” He turned his attention to Leto, and his gaze was sharp enough to bring a trickle of acidic sweat to Leto’s neck. Andras’s lip curled in a smile to reveal a pointed tooth as he studied him. Polite, but exacting as a scalpel. Leto felt dissected, and foolish to have ever believed himself to be a demon or any creature related to someone with that kind of keen gaze.

  Claire nudged Leto forward with a grand wave. “Leto, meet Andras, Hell’s Arcanist and former Duke of the East Infernal Duchy. Andras, this is Leto, my . . . assistant, I suppose.”

  Leto’s stomach did a swooping kind of flip at the introduction. It was a startling warmth, distracting him momentarily from the vague sense of dread that Andras imparted. “Uh, pleased to meet you, sir.”

  “I haven’t seen you about before.” Andras gave Leto a shrewd squint. “What legion are you, son?”

  Leto stuttered out of reflex, but Claire saved him. “He’s human. Made a demon down here for his penance.” She gave a not-unkind squeeze where she kept hold of Leto’s shoulder. “And he’s been instrumental in finding something that I believe you might have an interest in.”

  “A human, now? Fancy that.” Andras tapped his lip. “I assumed you had business. You were never one for small talk. What can I do for you, my dear?”

  Claire raised the bag that held the scrap and upended it with care on a nearby table. “I ran across something I was hoping you could identify.”

  Andras brightened and wiped his fingertips on a pocket square before approaching the table. He snapped his fingers, and a globe of light appeared over his head, bobbing softly and reminding Leto of summer fireflies. “What gift do you have for me today?”

  Claire made an impatient motion. “Do you recognize it? It seemed like something of yours.”

  “It’s not an unwritten book—I can certainly verify that. It seems . . .” Andras stilled and flicked his gaze, suddenly sharp and suspicious, between them. “Where did you get this?”

  “Leto palmed it off an angel that was trying to kill us. He said he was Ramiel, if you’re familiar with the tales. An entirely unpleasant man, absent manners, and present one very sharp sword. He seemed under the impression we had something of his.”

  “Ramiel.” Andras was quiet for a long moment, hands hovering over the scrap. “He’s on the hunt for this?”

  “And quite insistent that we knew what the hell he was talking about.” Claire frowned. “It is from a book?”

  Andras had returned to staring at the scrap. “Intriguing.”

  “Yes, so intriguing, in fact, I thought I’d visit my dear old friend because I was under the impression that he would assist more than ask questions,” Claire grumbled as the old demon didn’t look up. “Well?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Andras.” Claire rubbed her brow. “I’ve been bled, nearly skewered, and mostly drowned today. Words, please.”

  The demon shook his head, and a thought moved across his expression. It was a thought with teeth, but then it was gone. Andras smiled again. “It’s . . . a very rare piece.”

  “I gathered as much, considering it tried to blow my circuits when I touched it.” Leto let out a startled noise, but Claire waved him off. “What is it?”

  “It has the markers of a piece that shouldn’t exist.” Andras’s eyes drifted back to the scrap. “The Codex Gigas. Have you heard of it?”

  “Codex Gigas. The . . . giant book?”

  “Apt translation, given the original book’s size, but it’s also known as ‘the Devil’s Bible.’”

  Claire raised her brows. “You have my attention.”

  Andras’s fingertips danced away from the bit of paper every time he attempted to touch it, as if it burned. “A curious piece of antiquary history, to hear the humans tell it. Some sordid drama about a medieval monk signing a deal with the devil to create a holy tome in a single night.”

  “What nonsense.”

  “Of course. No proper demon would bother with a trivial deal such as that.” Andras shrugged. “But there was a book created, and Lucifer claims ownership himself.”

  Claire frowned. “Lucifer . . . wrote a book? Impossible. Demons don’t create books.”

  “They don’t write books.” Andras held up a finger. His voice took on a teaching tone. “This wasn’t a story; it was an artifact. A container. It takes a lot of power to hold a realm like Hell as long as Lucifer has. Power burns out a god as much as a mortal. The oldest beings have been known to siphon off bits of themselves over the years, stash bits of themselves here and there. To remain sane. To hedge their bets. The more innocuous the piece, the better.” Andras made a vague gesture to the curios around them. “Something like that should be here, by all rights. But I suppose he didn’t trust my predecessors with it. Rather insulting that he thought Earth was safer.”

  Claire’s brow furrowed. “That does sound . . . eccentric. Even for him.”

  “Highly. I always suspected it wasn’t just mere power he was hiding away in that thing. Perhaps a secret, a key, something he didn’t trust to keep on himself for some reason. Something to be kept far away from the realm. Tantalizing mystery, isn’t it?”

  “You think everything is secrets and conspiracy, Andy.”

  “That’s because everything is, pup. And you do know I dislike that nickname.”

  Claire smiled. “Almost as much as I dislike being called ‘pup.’”

  “Quite so,” Andras said with an odd tilt of fondness. “In any case, this codex, it stayed unnoticed on Earth for centuries. Then, out of the blue, Lucifer called his Arcanist and librarian to him—our predecessors—and ordered them to retrieve the book and replace it with a mundane replica.” The old demon’s lip curled with a strong distaste. Leto began to see where Claire might have gotten her opinion of the ruler of Hell. “Something must have spooked him.”

  Leto found the whole conversation alarming, and unease finally began to work its way into the nervous tap of Claire’s fingers on the counter.

  “Why wasn’t I made aware of any of this?” she asked.

  “Why would you be? It’s a perfectly written book. Not one of your delicate unwritten things,” Andras said. “As I understand it, the book was retrieved during some mortal uprising. A fire made a convenient cover. Our agents replaced it with a harmless mundane copy in the chaos. It disappeared after that—who knows what our benevolent dictator did with it?”

  “Not everything got recovered, though,” Leto said. When Andras frowned at him as if just remembering his presence, Leto nodded to the table.

  “Well . . . yes. There might have been complications,” Andras said. “They replaced the book as it was . . . but humans say that precisely ten pages might have gone missing in the fire. We thought it was just the replica that was damaged.”

  “Ten pages. Of a book made of Hell stuff. Did anyone bother to check the original before handing it over?”

  Andras’s lips thinned. “The records don’t precisely say so.”

  “And you’ve not pursued it, gone after these pages?”

  Andras snorted. “I’m not daft. I proposed the idea decades ago once I ran across the discrepancy. But I was ordered not to. Forbidden. A decree from our great ruler himself. And no further investigation into the book was condoned. Whatever it is, whatever it was, Lucifer didn’t trust anyone looking into it.”

  It didn’t mak
e sense. Leto found himself chewing a hole in his lip as he tried to follow. “If it was so important, why would he risk . . . ?”

  Andras gave an elegant shrug. “The whole affair went down before my inglorious downfall. Long before I became Arcanist. I was still a duke then. It was all done rather hush-hush, and the court didn’t hear about it until much later. One of your predecessors was the one who retrieved it. If anyone has covered up a failure, it was him.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Leto saw Claire flinch. The color drained from her cheeks. “Predecessor . . . You mean Librarian Gregor.”

  “No, no. More than a few back. This would have been”—Andras gave a dismissive wave at the whole idea of time—“the barbarian. Beard. Loud type. Drunk. Stuck around forever. What’s his name? I can’t keep your people straight.”

  The tension in Claire’s shoulders eased by inches. It was the second time Leto noticed her strange aversion to her predecessor. “Bjorn? Bjorn the Bard. He had the longest tenure, spanning the Middle Ages. Two before Gregor.”

  “Sounds about right. Your wing’s history in any case, not mine.”

  Claire and Andras fell into warring scowls. Little as Leto knew, he had a sinking feeling that worse news was yet to come. It appeared the librarian agreed with him as she shook her head. “If it’s resurfaced, we can’t just leave a thing like that floating around.”

  Andras watched Claire warily. “An order is an order, pup.”

  “At the very least, we can report this latest appearance and reopen the investigation. Blood and ink, Andras. Angels are involved, for goodness’ sake. This isn’t time for politics.”

  Andras shook his head. “It’s not wise. Not without more information to justify approaching the court.”

  “Information that we can’t get until it’s sanctioned. Which it’s not,” Claire said flatly. “Information he doesn’t want the court to hear in the first place.”

  “That is how Hell works.”