Chapter 37
Bravery doesn’t enter into it. The reason you face your fears is to stop them jumping you from behind.
The Lives of Lestal Crow , by Lestal Erris Crow
CHAPTER 37
Evar
Escapes!” Evar sank into his fighting stance, knife in hand. At his side Clovis readied her sword.
A ripple of panic ran through the humans, and disturbing shapes appeared fleetingly in the black mist steaming from the crack.
Frowning, Yute walked slowly towards the shadows.
“Master!” Meelan hurried after the man, though whether to wrestle him back or just stand by his side Evar couldn’t tell. Either way it was brave if he didn’t understand the threat and foolhardy if he did.
Yute raised one hand to warn Meelan back. The other he reached out towards the mist. “I never thought to see the library’s blood. This place was not built to crack, and yet something has cracked it.”
Evar realised that he was understanding Yute. More than that, he couldn’t tell what tongue the man was speaking. His meaning was simply given up, as if he could whistle and achieve the same effect. “It makes enemies,” Evar warned. “It hunts your fears and becomes them.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” Yute glanced back at him. “I’m terrified of cocktail parties, awkward silences, and catching leprosy. I doubt it will become any of those.” He moved his hand as if trying to conduct the black haze before him. “More realistically I would say that the blood would take whatever strong emotions you have and knit them around any other ideas that happen to be close at hand.” He circled his fingers and the mist directly before him swirled, condensing into a black sphere. A click of his fingers and the ball flowed into a bunch of black flowers on black stems. “Colours are more difficult... apparently.” He pressed his lips into a thin line, concentrating. Another click and the flowers became an odd-looking weapon. “My old umbrella,” Yute explained. “It was black anyway.”
Arpix joined the deputy and peered at the mist. Although physically all he shared with Yute was a narrow frame, both held such a similar bookishness about them that in that moment Evar could imagine them father and son.
Evar lowered his knife and straightened up. “I’ve been running from my own fears my whole life?”
Yute looked back, raising white eyebrows. The umbrella dissolved into mist.
“Didn’t you just tell me as much?”
“Yes... but I didn’t know the Escapes could be other things. Good things.”
The librarian bent to examine the crack, his frown returning. “Most fears could have been good things before we let them harden into what they are.”
“Leprosy?” Kerrol came up behind Evar.
“ Most . Cocktail parties I might have embraced and become a people person and led a happier life. If I’d turned more enemies into friends, perhaps I could have persuaded our king to find a peace with the canith. But this”—he reached towards the mist again—“this is a tool, and like any tool it can be both a weapon and a danger to those who wield it if they don’t properly understand its use.” The mist seemed to have reached its limit, extending about five feet above the crack before dissipating into nothing. Narrow at the point where the ground released it, blooming wider as it climbed. It held no odour and put no taste into the air.
“It’s a weapon.” Clovis approached, the humans parting before her.
“It’s dangerous,” Yute acknowledged. “It shouldn’t be here. There have been intermittent leaks from some of the mechanisms for a while, but the structure of the library itself has never cracked. Until now.”
“Do you know where Livira is?” Evar felt ashamed that it had taken him this long to ask. “Is she alive?” A thought struck him, but Arpix beat him to asking:
“Can Wentworth find her?”
“So many questions.” Yute counted them off on white fingers. “No. I hope so. And yes.” He looked for the cat. “Wentworth has never not been able to find something I wanted. The main question is whether you’re able to follow him to it or not. Or if he can bring it back.”
A commotion at the rear of the gathered humans drew Evar’s attention from the conversation. A small group was approaching the chamber corner along one of the many aisles that opened onto it, a patrol of some sort perhaps. Meelan gave a shout of recognition and ran towards them. For a moment Evar thought that Livira had returned, summoned by her name and the fact of his need for her. He started forward too. But Meelan’s run ended in the embrace of one of the two young females in the group of humans.
Evar watched the pair embrace. They had their arms around each other, hugging very tightly. The woman was of a similar height to Meelan, hair long, brown, and curling, where his was short and black, clothes more colourful than any of the other humans’.
“Brother and sister,” Kerrol said. “Not a mating couple.”
Arpix, overhearing them, snorted. “Yes. She’s his sister, Leetar.”
Yute came up behind them, calling his people away from the crack which ran across the aisle, appearing from beneath one set of shelves and vanishing beneath those on the other side. “Let’s keep our distance. We will need to relocate as I believe it would be inadvisable to sleep near to such a crack. Specifically, to dream near it.”
He set a hand to Arpix’s shoulder. “We could try following Wentworth to Livira but first I need to know how you evaded the skeer.”
“Oh.” Arpix went across to Clovis and with a boldness that made Evar and Kerrol suck in their breath, anticipating at the very least a slap that would put him on the floor, he reached into her weapons bag and drew out the orb. “This pushes them away. We found it under the Arthran Plateau.” He looked slightly embarrassed. “After being trapped there for four years.”
Yute nodded absently as if four years were a trifle. He took the iron ball into his hands and turned it over and over, as if looking for some maker’s mark. “Ganar work, I think.”
“That’s... a strange coincidence,” Arpix said, and he spoke briefly about the automaton several chambers back and the much larger one that had also chased the canith. He finished by taking back the orb when Yute handed it to him, saying, “I didn’t know the ganar had this sort of technology. I thought they were quite a simple species?”
Yute raised a single eyebrow at that, seeming surprised and perhaps a little disappointed in his protégé. “They came from the moons, Arpix!”
Arpix nodded, chastened. “I suppose that would take more than a long ladder.”
“The ganar are part of our unfortunate cycle. They have been masters of ships that sailed from Attamast and landed on our shores. They have been slaves. And they have been all things between.
“The automata are a curious phenomenon. Unlike most such constructs in the library they have never served as guides or aided in the curation of books in any way. Whilst functioning they defend their existence. They’re actively aggressive to humans or canith that go near them, but I’ve never heard of one giving chase before. And all the ones close to Crath City were destroyed in the early years of the establishment of that cycle’s library complex. The large one Evar and his siblings encountered may have moved in after the fire. Generally, they stay where they are.”
Arpix handed the orb back to Clovis before turning to face Yute again. “But what are they for? What are they doing?”
“I always believed they were hunting someone,” Yute said.
“Hunting?” Arpix looked puzzled. “But you said they just stop where they are. For decades at a time from what Evar described. Longer maybe.”
“A hunt in the library is a hunt through time. You’re no more likely to find the person you’re looking for in one chamber than the next. So, the best policy might be just to stay where you are and wait for them to come to you.”
“But they chased us,” Evar said. “They chased me . Why would steel monsters in the shape of ganar have been hunting me for centuries? That makes no sense!”
Yute shrugged. “That I couldn’t tell you. But you used the Exchange and there are many, many dangers associated with that. It sounds as if you’ve made an enemy who has also had access to the Exchange and has seeded hunters across the years, all looking for some manner of revenge.”
Evar shook his head. “I went to Attamast. That’s the only time I’ve even seen ganar. But I was a ghost. I couldn’t have been there for more than a minute. I couldn’t touch anything and none of them saw me.”
“You would be surprised who can see who.” Yute’s pink eyes seemed focused on the space between Arpix and Evar, the angle suggesting a child might be standing there. “The most important thing if you ever see a ghost is never to speak to them. That can lead to a world of pain.” He made a dismissive motion with his fingers and turned away.
“Why would a ganar orb stop a ganar automaton?” Evar asked, remembering how hot the thing had got, how close—it felt—to breaking.
Yute shook his head. “That’s like saying why would a human defence stop a human attack? They’re not one people. Even if you consider a particular time, their kind will divide into nations, religions, races. And if there’s nothing else to fight, and sometimes even if there is, they will fight each other.”
Evar had to accept that. His study of various canith histories with Mayland had shown him that his own kind had fought endless bloody wars between different factions, often when the only real point of dispute was which leader should prevail over which.
“Livira, then! Wentworth can guide us. We don’t have to worry about skeer.” He looked around. “Is this all of you? I remember more...”
“There are more.” Yute became grave. “Several more patrols. But they’re out there to help us evade the larger group. I just spoke about how ganar will fall to fighting among themselves as humans will. The group I led from the fire has split into two factions. It turned out that King Oanold was among those who escaped the city into the library. When he first came to the Exchange he was disguised as a duchess. He unveiled his true identity later in my absence. There was... bloodshed.” The librarian shook his head in sorrow.
The red-haired older human who always seemed to be barking complaints looked up sharply at the mention of Oanold and moved in closer, but it was Neera, Livira’s friend from the Dust with the long, lustrous hair, who spoke up. Although she seemed to be following Yute’s side of the conversation, her words made little sense to Evar. He picked out a few here and there amid the flow. Yute supplied the young woman’s meaning.
“She’s saying that King Oanold refused to believe either the limits of my and Wentworth’s ability to supply food, or the facts of the defeat we had left behind us. Even the fire appeared to be something he’d minimised in his mind. He considered our departure precipitous. He demanded more food and a return to his city at the time he left it. Both those things were and are not possible. I showed him to the centre circle and explained how it could sustain us all, but he believed that to be a lie and declared himself ready to torture me and anyone he thought I might care about until what he wished to happen happened. It was only due to luck, and the sacrifice of several good people, that we escaped him.”
“And Wentworth,” Neera said. Evar understood that bit. He was sure the cat had played a role in Yute’s people being able to win free.
“We have been avoiding them for several weeks now,” Yute concluded. “They send out patrols and sadly several of our people have been captured, but they mainly stick to the centre. Morally, it would be right to offer them the chance to leave with us. Also, I can’t leave behind the people he took prisoner.”
Clovis huffed. “This king would demand the orb.” She slapped the bag holding it. “I might have to kill a lot of them to change his mind.”
“Is it so important which of us holds it?” Yute asked gently.
Clovis opened her mouth wide, displaying the full serrated array of her teeth. “Yes.”
“We can come back for them,” Evar said, anxious not to delay the search for Livira. “We can move faster with a smaller group. Scout the way for those who might be too weak for anything but the shortest route. We can’t leave the library by the canith door or the human door. If we go out into the world the skeer can beat the orb. At least the fliers can. We need to find an exit far from here.”
Arpix finished translating him for the others. Some of those from Livira’s settlement spoke of a friend called Gevin and another named Katrin. One city man was very animated when talking about Katrin. None of them were happy about leaving them behind. It seemed they didn’t trust their king to treat his prisoners well.
Yute nodded and listened. “I understand, my friends. But if we go to the centre with the canith there will be a battle. We’ve seen what happens when the king’s soldiers meet canith. Many will die. Katrin and Gevin might well be casualties too. And if we go without the canith, Oanold will take us into his custody. If we don’t have the orb to give him he will likely just repeat his original, impossible demands. Though it’s possible that these weeks spent surviving on the centre circle’s gift will have softened their resolve. In any event, I do not think Mistress Clovis will hand us the orb to take to him by ourselves. Something I cannot fault her for.”
The decision required some toing and froing, with Arpix working to smooth fears and deal with complaints. However, within the hour, the group was ready to leave. They were to search for an exit from the library. One that lay sufficiently distant from any skeer nests. Also, they were to look for Livira.
Yute knew of an exit that humans could open, but it lay more than two hundred miles away. Arpix and several others seemed surprised by the existence of any such door, though most were just daunted by the length of the journey. Since Yute could navigate to this remote entrance it was agreed that they start by asking Wentworth to find Livira. If the route the cat led them on diverged too much from Yute’s path they would have to choose between them, and an exit seemed the most popular choice—though Evar already knew that if Wentworth continued to lead, he would continue to follow.
“Of course,” said Yute, “if Livira is in the future, Wentworth will lead us to the nearest door into the Exchange. And even if one has been left unattended by an assistant, it would be highly inadvisable to go through it.”
“You led hundreds of people through the Exchange,” Evar countered.
“The alternative was that they suffocate or burn alive,” Yute said. “It was not a wise decision. It was a... human one.” He went to one knee and held out a hand as if it might contain some morsel of food. “Wentworth!”
The cat did not appear.
Yute looked up. “Volente is much more obliging.” He called again, “Wentworth!”
Salamonda came forward. She had around her waist a torn sheet as a kind of apron. Evar had noticed it before and always wondered if it was an example of fashion. The older woman made a clucking noise and stamped her foot. “Wentworth, you come here right now if you know what’s good for you!”
The cat strolled into view as if he just happened to be passing.
Yute shook his head and stood up. “I’ve fed that cat for well over six hundred years.”
Salamonda bent to scratch the cat’s neck. “We need to find Livira.”
Wentworth sat down, extended a hind leg across his body, reaching for the ceiling, toes splayed, and began to lick his furry thigh.
Evar exchanged a glance with Arpix. Jella opened her mouth and said nothing. Meelan asked the question: “Does this mean she’s—”
Wentworth abandoned his grooming without warning and started to amble off towards the shelves.
“He’s found her.” Yute looked more confused than relieved.
“That’s good, no?” Evar looked between Yute and the cat’s retreating rear end, ready to follow.
“It... is.” Yute nodded. “But look where he’s headed.”
“In Livira’s direction?”
“He leads where you can follow. If he was heading to one of the doors he would go this way, that way, that way, or this way.” With each option Yute indicted the direction of the chamber’s four exits. None of those directions was Wentworth’s. The cat was heading directly towards the middle of the chamber.
“Livira’s in the same room as us?” Evar started to follow the cat, disbelieving, while at the same time willing him to go faster.
Clovis took his arm. Not in her normal way—as if it were a wrestling match and she needed a lever to throw him—but in a manner she had rarely used. “This could be bad, brother.”
“Bad?”
“You can’t smell it?” She lifted her head and sniffed deeply. “I’ve been smelling it ever since we arrived.”
And Evar could smell it. Even without drawing another breath. The scent that had hung in the air, faint but persistent. He’d just been too focused on everything else to acknowledge it.
Blood. Old blood. Fresh blood. Blood and excrement. Lots of both.