Equal Rites Part 20

"The library?" said Mrs. Whitlow. "Aye don't think anyone cleans the library!" She looked genuinely puzzled.

"Why?" said Esk, "Doesn't it get dusty?"

"Well," said Mrs. Whitlow. She thought for a while. "Aye suppose it must do, since you come to mention it. Aye never really thought about it."

"You see, I've cleaned everywhere else," said Esk, sweetly.

"Yes," said Mrs. Whitlow, "You have, haven't you."

"Well, then."

"It's just that we've never-done it before," said Mrs. Whitlow, "but for the life of me, Aye can't think why."

"Well, then," said Esk.

"Ook?" said the Head Librarian, and backed away from Esk. But she had heard about him and had come prepared. She offered him a banana.

The orangutan reached out slowly and then s.n.a.t.c.hed it with a grin of triumph.

There may be universes where librarians.h.i.+p is considered a peaceful sort of occupation, and where the risks are limited to large volumes falling off the shelves on to one's head, but the keeper of a magic magic library is no job for the unwary. Spells have power, and merely writing them down and shoving them between covers doesn't do anything to reduce it. The stuff leaks. Books tend to react with one another, creating randomized magic with a mind of its own. Books of magic are usually chained to their shelves, but not to prevent them being stolen... library is no job for the unwary. Spells have power, and merely writing them down and shoving them between covers doesn't do anything to reduce it. The stuff leaks. Books tend to react with one another, creating randomized magic with a mind of its own. Books of magic are usually chained to their shelves, but not to prevent them being stolen...

One such accident had turned the librarian into an ape, since when he had resisted all attempts to turn him back, explaining in sign language that life as an orangutan was considerably better than life as a human being, because all the big philosophical questions resolved themselves into wondering where the next banana was coming from. Anyway, long arms and prehensile feet were ideal for dealing with high shelves.

Esk gave him the whole bunch of bananas and scurried away amongst the books before he could object.

Esk had never seen more than one book at a time and so the library was, for all she knew, just like any other library. True, it was a bit odd the way the floor seemed to become the wall in the distance, and there was something strange about the way the shelves played tricks on the eyes and seemed to twist through rather more dimensions than the normal three, and it was quite surprising to look up and see shelves on the ceiling, with the occasional student wandering unconcernedly among them.

The truth was that the presence of so much magic distorted the s.p.a.ce around it. Down in the stacks the very denim, or possibly flannelette, of the universe was tortured into very peculiar shapes. The millions of trapped words, unable to escape, bent reality around them.

It seemed logical to Esk that among all these books should be one that told you how to read all the others. She wasn't sure how to find it, but deep in her soul she felt it would probably have pictures of cheerful rabbits and happy kittens on the cover.

The library certainly wasn't silent. There was the occasional zip and sizzle of a magical discharge, and an octarine spark would flash from shelf to shelf. Chains clinked, faintly. And, of course, there was the faint rustle of thousands of pages in their leather-bound prisons.

Esk made sure no one was paying her any attention and pulled at the nearest volume. It sprang open in her hands, and she saw gloomily that there were the same unpleasant types of diagram that she had noticed in Simon's book. The writing was entirely unfamiliar, and she was glad about that-it would be horrible to know what all those letters, which seemed to be made up of ugly creatures doing complicated things to each other, actually meant. She forced the cover shut, even though the words seemed to be desperately pus.h.i.+ng back. There was a drawing of a creature on the front; it looked suspiciously like one of the things from the cold desert. It certainly didn't look like a happy kitten.

"Hallo! Esk, isn't it? H-how d-did you get h-here?"

It was Simon, standing there with a book under each arm. Esk blushed.

"Granny won't tell me," she said. "I think it's something to do with men and women."

Simon looked at her blankly. Then he grinned. Esk thought about the question a second time.

"I work here. I sweep up." She waved the staff in explanation.

"In here here?"

Esk stared at him. She felt alone, and lost, and more than a little betrayed. Everyone seemed to be busy living their own lives, except her. She would spend the rest of her her life cleaning up after wizards. It wasn't fair, and she'd had enough. life cleaning up after wizards. It wasn't fair, and she'd had enough.

"Actually I don't. Actually I'm learning to read so I can be a wizard."

The boy regarded her through his damp eyes for some seconds. Then he gently took the book out of Esk's hands and read its t.i.tle.

"Demonylogie Malyfycorum of Henchanse thee Unsaty-factory. How did you think you could learn to r-read this?"

"Um," said Esk, "Well, you just keep trying until you can, don't you? Like milking, or knitting, or..." Her voice faded away.

"I don't know about that. These books can be a bit, well, aggressive. If you d-don't be careful they start reading you you."

"What do you mean?"

"T-they ssss-"

"-say-" said Esk, automatically.

"-that there was once a wwww-"

"-wizard-"

"-who started to r-read the Necrotelecomnicon Necrotelecomnicon and let his m-mind wwwwww-" and let his m-mind wwwwww-"

"-wander-"

"-and next morning they f-found all his clothes on the chair and h-his hat on t-top of them and the b-book had-"

Esk put her fingers in her ears, but not too hard in case she missed anything.

"I don't want to know about it if it's horrid."

"-had a lot more pages a lot more pages."

Esk took her fingers out of her ears. "Was there anything on the pages?"

Simon nodded solemnly. "Yes. On every sssingle one of th-them there www-"

"No," said Esk. "I don't even want to imagine it. I thought reading was more peaceful than that, I mean, Granny read her Almanack Almanack every day and nothing ever happened to her." every day and nothing ever happened to her."

"I d-daresay ordinary tame www-"

"-words-"

"-are all right," Simon conceded, magnanimously.

"Are you absolutely certain?" said Esk.

"It's just that words can have power," said Simon, slotting the book firmly back on its shelf, where it rattled its chains at him. "And they do say the p-pen is mightier than the sss-"

"-sword," said Esk. "All right, but which would you rather be hit with?"

"Um, I d-don't think it's any use m-me t-telling you you shouldn't be in here, is it?" said the young wizard.

Esk gave this due consideration. "No," she said, "I don't think it is."

"I could send for the p-porters and have you t-taken away."

"Yes, but you won't."

"I just d-don't www-"

"-want-"

"-you to get hurt, you see. I r-really don't. This can b-be a ddddangerou-"

Esk caught a faint swirling in the air above his head. For a moment she saw them, the great gray shapes from the cold place. Watching. And in the calm of the Library, when the weight of magic was wearing the universe particularly thin, they had decided to Act.

Around her the muted rustling of the books rose to a desperate riffling of pages. Some of the more powerful books managed to jerk out of their shelves and swung, flapping madly, from the end of their chains. A huge grimoire plunged from its eyrie on the topmost shelf-tearing itself free of its chain in the process-and flopped away like a frightened chicken, scattering its pages behind it.

A magical wind blew away Esk's headscarf and her hair streamed out behind her. She saw Simon trying to steady himself against a bookshelf as books exploded around him. The air was thick and tasted of tin. It buzzed.

"They're trying to get in!" she screamed.

Simon's tortured face turned to her. A fear-crazed incunable hit him heavily in the small of the back and knocked him to the heaving floor before it bounced high over the shelves. Esk ducked as a flock of thesauri wheeled past, towing their shelf behind them, and scuttled on hands and knees toward him.

"That's what's making the books so frightened!" she shrieked in his ear. "Can't you see see them up there?" them up there?"

Simon mutely shook his head. A book burst its bindings over them, showering them in pages.

Horror can steal into the mind via all the senses. There's the sound of the little meaningful chuckle in the locked dark room, the sight of half a caterpillar in your forkful of salad, the curious smell from the lodger's bedroom, the taste of slug in the cauliflower cheese. Touch doesn't normally get a look-in.

But something happened to the floor under Esk's hands. She looked down, her face a rictus of horror, because the dusty floorboards suddenly felt gritty. And dry. And very, very cold.

There was fine silver sand between her fingers.

She grabbed the staff and, sheltering her eyes against the wind, waved it at the towering figures above her. It would have been nice to report that a searing flash of pure white fire cleansed the greasy air. It failed to materialize...

The staff twisted like a snake in her hand and caught Simon a crack on the side of the head.

The gray Things wavered and vanished.

Reality returned, and tried to pretend that it had never left. Silence settled like thick velvet, wave after wave of it. A heavy, echoing silence. A few books dropped heavily out of the air, feeling silly.

The floor under Esk's feet was undoubtedly wooden. She kicked it hard to make sure.

There was blood on the floor, and Simon lay very quietly in the center of it. Esk stared down at him, and then up at the still air, and then at the staff. It looked smug.

She was aware of distant voices and hurrying feet.

A hand like a fine leather glove slipped gently into hers and a voice behind said "Ook," very softly. She turned, and found herself staring down into the gentle, inner-tube face of the librarian. He put his finger to his lips in an unmistakable gesture and tugged gently at her hand.

"I've killed him!" she whispered.

The librarian shook his head, and tugged insistently.

"Ook," he explained, "Ook."

He dragged her reluctantly down a side alleyway in the maze of ancient shelving a few seconds before a party of senior wizards, drawn by the noise, rounded the corner.

"The books have been fighting again..."

"Oh no! It'll take ages to capture all the spells again, you know they go and find places to hide..."

"Who's that on the floor?"

There was a pause.

"He's knocked out. A shelf caught him, by the looks of it."

"Who is he?"

"That new lad. You know, the one they say has got a whole head full of brains?"

"If that shelf had been a bit closer we'd be able to see if they were right."

"You two, get him along to the infirmary. The rest of you better get these books rounded up. Where's the d.a.m.n librarian? He ought to know better than to let a Critical Ma.s.s build up."

Esk glanced sideways at the orangutan, who waggled his eyebrows at her. He pulled a dusty volume of gardening spells out of the shelves beside him, extracted a soft brown banana from the recess behind it, and ate it with the quiet relish of one who knows that whatever the problems are, they belong firmly to human beings.

She looked the other way, at the staff in her hand, and her lips went thin. She knew her grip hadn't slipped. The staff had lunged lunged at Simon, with murder in its heartwood. at Simon, with murder in its heartwood.

The boy lay on a hard bed in a narrow room, a cold towel folded across his forehead. Treatle and Cutangle watched him carefully.

"How long has it been?" said Cutangle.

Treatle shrugged. "Three days."

"And he hasn't come around once?"