CHAPTER 39 #2
And anger. It surprised Emma to find how much it mattered.
They weren’t her books. But the Library stood for everything the University was.
Or what it ought to have been. Because the place she studied shouldn’t have been about the Turnbulls, or money, or tradition.
Or inner circle after inner circle that only a few people got invited into.
This building, and these books, were what it ought to have meant. Knowledge, free for anyone who came in.
But it would all burn so easily. All that polished wood; the paper kept carefully bone-dry. The whole Library could go up in an instant. There would be nothing left to save. Someone ought to stop them.
But there was no one. The Library was deserted. The nightfolk were at their Midsummer revels. The mortals were sipping champagne in punts, gazing at the fireworks over the St. Dunstan’s ball. There was only her.
Emma saw Nat across the aisle, hiding behind a bookcase.
She heard Julia’s breathing beside her. Her first duty was to her friends.
She was the only one with the cunning and claws to get them all out.
There was barely half a room to cross. The Boar on patrol was not even looking.
They might just be able to get away safely. All they had to do was keep quiet.
There was a shattering crash. With the urgency of a shivering Labrador, Jasper had squeezed his way into Nat’s hiding spot, tipping the whole bookcase over in the process.
The guard turned, yelled, raised his hands.
The bookcase landed on top of him. There was the crack of a severed neck. His poleax clattered to the ground.
Emma heard the first shout of alarm. Boars spilled into the central aisle, a tide of them, more than Emma had yet seen. Boots crunching in formation, file upon file of sharpened tusks and weapons scarred with use.
Eyes telegraphing murder at Jasper, Nat worked quickly to topple the next bookcases onto the coming soldiers.
Emma shoved Julia behind her. “Help Hugo and run for it—I’ll get the others out.”
“Of course you will.” With a fond smile, Julia tucked Emma’s hair back into place, out of her eyes. “You’ve become quite the hero while you were away, haven’t you?”
Emma watched her go, thinking hard. She needed to get the Boars to fall back enough that she could get the remaining mortals past them. She had to act as a distraction.
Emma leapt, a whirlwind of shadow and claws.
The Boars were far more powerful, and she was afraid of them.
But she was faster. She landed quick shallow scratches, which bled nastily.
The world became a maelstrom of screams and bodies.
Emma saw Hugo sling Richard over one shoulder like a grain sack.
He and Julia reached the far door and ran through.
They’d be able to lock themselves into the military room.
The Boar in front of her backed away in horror. She followed his gaze over her shoulder.
“Night above,” she said blankly.
In the center of the reading room, one Boar after another swayed and gently toppled over, like windblown meadow flowers.
They were doing so because their heads had been sliced clean by the cobra-like progress of a poleax.
At the other end of the weapon, Venetia’s teeth were bared in a grim smile.
Her pale hair was spattered with red, and shreds hung from her ball gown.
As Venetia beheaded another Boar, Emma saw Jasper scrabble through the door. With a final vicious thrust, Venetia flung the poleax down and sprinted out after him. Emma hoped Nat had already gone. She looked around for him, but saw no sign of long legs or skinny shoulders.
Something caught her feet, and she tripped. When her eyes came back into focus, a Boar was already standing over her. She wheezed up at him. He raised his sword high with both hands, ready to bring it down into her heart.
A metal spike went straight through his throat.
The Boar’s sword clanged to the floor. Scrambling to avoid the spray of blood, Emma pushed herself backward, rasping and coughing. She collided with something and looked up to find Nat’s upside-down face peering at her. He looked rather green.
“Thank you,” wheezed Emma, resting her head against his knees for a moment.
Nat lowered the blood-tipped spear and helped her stand.
A Boar reared up in their path, a battle-ax in each hand. Emma ducked under one raised ax arm, whipping Nat after her. Long arms flailing, he managed to score the spear along the Boar’s thighs to the back of its knees.
“Oh God—sorry—well, not sorry, but—”
It dropped forward with a howl of agony, its hamstrings severed and dripping. It was enough to get them to the door. Emma pushed Nat through.
Then a cry rolled through the reading room.
She turned, horror-struck. The Librarian stood over a pile of ancient books, screaming at the Boars.
All alone, and they were closing in around him, but he kept roaring in their faces.
She shoved the door shut on Nat and ran for the old man. She could drag him out.
But something hit her across the middle. A wall of muscle. The stink of old leather and blood. She looked up, and a Boar grabbed her by the throat.
A patch of darkness was moving outside the Library. The keen-eyed might have spied a skulk of hooded figures within.
“Were those the—” said a shadow.
A second shadow pulled it back from sight of the doors. “The Boars, yes. Quiet, foolish girl, or you’ll have them on us.”
“But what’d Emma be doing here? I thought she’d go—”
“I am trying,” gritted a third voice, “to maintain a tracking spell. Could you stop talking?”
“Sorry, love. But if the tracker’s leading us here, are we sure the thief we’re following is Emma?”
“The ward spells on my deathsleep jar don’t make mistakes, fox girl,” the second shadow growled. “Emma’s traces were all over them. We may have found her bag in the gardens—though the Night only knows why she’d drop it there—but the trail carries on here.”
A crash echoed from the Library, followed by guttural roars. The shadows flinched as one. “Boars in the Library,” the second shadow continued, sounding shaken. “They were forbidden to enter centuries ago. And the City would never allow them to destroy its books. I fear—”
There came a splintering crack from deep within the Library, and a howling scream.
Saskia ripped away her cloaking shadows. “Emma’s in there. We have to help her.”
But Nancy pulled her back, pointing a silent finger. Boars stood at attention before the doors, pikes sharp against the sky. The outlines of tusks and weapons glinted behind every window.
The Sister gathered the fox maidens around her. “We must tell the Night City. The Boars chose a clever time for whatever devilment this is. With the Court so wrapped up in the Midsummer revels, it’s the Night’s own chance that no one’s heard what’s going on.”
“We can’t interrupt the revels. They’ll string us all up.”
“We have to try. Hurry, to the Court.”
Saskia’s mouth was set in a mulish line. “And leave Emma alone here?”
“We must. If Emma is inside, the best way to help her is to bring assistance. We must trust that she is clever and strong enough to hold out until it comes.”
The Boar flung her like a rag doll. Emma barely had time to register that she was flying through the air. To throw her hands around her head—
Her body skidded across the stone floor. The air exploded from her lungs. All she could make were little squeaky gasps.
When her eyes came back into focus, the Boar was already standing over her.
“Look, a little fox.”
Above her was a cliff face of chest crossed by gold bandoliers. Small, cold eyes stared down. Eyes she had seen before, on a dais. In a ballroom.
“Come to join our game?”
Emma’s eyes flicked round at the surrounding soldiers, then back to the Boar commander. “I am a citizen. The Night City wouldn’t want you to hurt me.”
Squealing laughter ran around the room.
“You think we answer to the Night City now, little fox? No, we think it is time for stronger leadership. The City has forgotten how to respect power. Look at this Library. One of its great centers of magic, left empty and open for any to seize? Careless. Yet the City and its Court are too wrapped up in their Midsummer revels this night to notice. They choose to debauch themselves blind: We choose to take our chance. For once this Library burns, the City will be weak. And then there will be a new rule. Our rule.”
She heard satisfaction warm the grating voice. “We will make things right. We will bring order. True discipline.”
Emma imagined a world ruled by Boars, and shuddered.
Two soldiers dragged the Librarian across the floor and cast him down next to Emma. She felt for his hand. The old man was shaking.
“You cannot do this.” His pale eyes blazed up at the Boar. “You cannot destroy these books.”
The Boar commander picked one book off a stack and squeezed. Taloned nails punctured the leather binding.
“Oh yes,” he said, “I believe we can.”
He tossed the book backward. It hit the bonfire with a sizzle.
And the air exploded. The shiver knocked Emma flat on her back. She gathered the Librarian to her, trying to shield him. A snarl shook the timbers of the bookcases. Whispers cascaded out: a hissing torrent of rage.
It was not something behind the shelves: It was the shelves. At the first contact of book to flame, the Library had come to life. And it was furious.
The Boar commander, leering overhead, was yanked back. He fell on his stomach, scrabbling at the floor.
Emma pushed herself up. Snakes of darkness had him by the ankles, dragging him into the shadows between the stacks. Emma saw blood well around the shadows’ grip, as though they bit into the flesh. The Boar screamed, high and horrible.
Emma had been right, earlier. The Library darkness was thicker than usual.
Now she saw it leaking from the space between books: a living tide of hungry fingers sliding across the floor.
Emma pulled the Librarian closer, but the darkness did not touch them.
It only nosed at their feet and streamed on.
Around the ankles of the Boars it went, like living shackles. The reading room echoed with their howls. The dark closed over the bonfire, snuffing it with the snap of a fist bursting a bird’s heart. And then the floor shuddered.
The Boars began to sink. Stone sucked greedily at their legs, their shoulders, as the Library pulled them down.
The flagstones closed up as the last tusk disappeared.
Emma rolled to her side and pressed her ear to the floor.
Far below, as if encased in several tons of stone, she heard their screams.
In the silence that remained, Emma lay stunned. She wanted to laugh, or cry, and she couldn’t tell which.
“Are they—”
“Trapped. Most horribly.” The Librarian smiled with dreamy malevolence.
“The Library will hold the Boars until the City comes to take them for punishment. And the punishment will be grave indeed, for those who have violated the Night City’s most holy place, destroyed its books, and broken the bonds of their agreement. ”
“That was—Did you know the Library could do that?”
“This Library is capable of many things. I am not sure if even the City knows how well it is able to defend itself, if ever it needs to.” The Librarian patted the side of a bookcase as lovingly as if it were the flank of a favorite horse. “It is all done now. All is well.”
Emma choked, burying her face in his brocaded front.
“There, child, there,” the Librarian soothed.
Emma found herself sobbing an incoherent string of words into the Librarian’s shoulder: about Richard, and rose gardens, and knives held at her throat. All the while, a knotted hand stroked her hair. Eventually, the sobs slowed. The Librarian’s words began to sink in. All was well.
Something struck her, and she looked up. “My friends, the mortals. They don’t know. I must go tell them.”
“Go, then, child.” She helped the Librarian to his feet. He looked at the mess ruefully. “I must take what care I can of the books before my sister arrives. She will wish my full attention to scold me for running into danger.”
So Emma left him and slipped past the remains of the bonfire. Past the splintered bookcases and the charred books scattered across the flagstones, and into the silence of the Library. It was over. They were all safe. The mortals were safe.
A bitter note crept into the sweet. There was no more fighting to do, which meant it was time for the worlds to separate again. It was time to say goodbye.