They were quite simple sendings, without any higher functions, but they loved their work. Lirael liked them too, because they didn’t require her to speak or ask her questions. She simply gave the appropriate books to the right sending, and it would take them away to its area and the proper shelf or store. Lirael was particularly good at recognizing which sending was which, a valuable skill since the embroidered signs on their cowled robes were often obscured with dust or had become unpicked and indecipherable. They didn’t have official names, 67
of Sun and moon only descriptions of their responsibilities. But most had nicknames, like Tad, who was in charge of Traveler’s Tales, A–D, or Stoney, who looked after the geology collection.
Lirael was just giving Tad a particularly large and unwieldy volume bound in leather stamped with a three-humped camel motif when the Watch messenger arrived. Lirael didn’t pay much attention to her at first, because she knew no ivory token would be given to her. Then she noticed that the messenger was stopping at every desk and speaking to every person, and a hum of whispered conversation was rising behind her. Lirael surreptitiously tucked her hair behind her ears and tried to listen. At first the murmur was indistinct, but as the messenger grew closer, Lirael caught the words “Fifteen Sixty-Eight” being repeated over and over again.
For a moment she was puzzled; then she realized that this must be what the Second Assistants had been talking about. The calling of one thousand five hundred sixty-eight Clayr to the Watch—an unprecedented concentration of the Sight.
It would also take nearly every librarian out the Library, Lirael calculated, giving her the perfect chance for a secret excursion. For the first time ever, Lirael watched the messenger’s distribution of tokens with excitement rather than with her usual depression and self-pity. Now she was wishing everyone else would get summoned to the Watch. Trying not to look too obvious, Lirael even wandered around the other side of the desk to see if anyone had been missed.
No one had. Lirael found it strangely hard to breathe as she waited to see if anyone would remember to tell her to do something—or not to. But none of the librarians with whom she usually worked were here. Imshi was not to be seen. Lirael guessed the messenger had met her on the way and had already given her a token.
She willed them all to go and started to sort her books with a concentrated ferocity, as if she didn’t care what happened around her. The sendings approved, moving faster themselves as each one took its stack of books and another moved into place.
Finally, the last bright waistcoat gleamed in the doorway and was gone. More than fifty librarians, disposed of in less than five minutes. Lirael smiled and put the last book down with a definite snap, disappointing the sending who was waiting for a full load.
Ten minutes later, to allow for stragglers, she headed down the main spiral. There was a door about a half mile down, well into the Old Levels, a particular favorite that she wanted to investigate first. It had a bright sunburst emblem upon its otherwise unremarkable wooden surface, a golden disc with rays that spread from top to bottom. Of course, there was also a red rope across it, secured at either end with wax seals bearing the book and sword symbol of the Chief Librarian.
Lirael had long since worked out how to deal with this particular annoyance. She drew a short piece of wire with two wooden handles from her waistcoat pocket and held it near her mouth. Then she spoke three Charter marks, a simple charm to heat metal. With the wire momentarily red-hot, she quickly sliced the seals away and hid them and the rope in a nearby hole in the passage wall, away from the light.
Then came the real test. Would the door open to her bracelet, or would it need the last two spells she couldn’t figure out?
Holding her wrist as she’d been taught, she waved her bracelet in front of the door. Emeralds flashed, breaking through the cloaking-spell she’d put upon them—and the door swung open without a sound.
Lirael stepped through, and the door slowly shut behind her. She found herself in a short corridor and was momentarily disoriented by the bright light at the other end. Surely this passage couldn’t lead outside? She was in the heart of the mountain, thousands of feet underground. Blinking against the light, she walked forward, one hand on the hilt of her dagger, the other one on the clockwork emergency mouse.
The corridor didn’t lead outside, but Lirael saw how she had been misled. It opened out into a vast chamber, bigger even than the Great Hall. Charter marks as bright as the sun shone in the distant ceiling, hundreds of feet above. A huge oak tree filled the center of the room, in full summer leaf, its spreading branches shading a serpentine pool. And everywhere, throughout the cavern, there were flowers. Red flowers. Lirael bent down and picked one, uncertain if it was some sort of illusion. But it was real enough. She felt no magic, just the crisp stalk under her fingers. A red daisy, in full bloom.
Lirael sniffed it, and sneezed as the pollen went up her nose. Only then did she realize how quiet it was. This huge cavern might mimic the outside world, but the air was too still. There was no breeze, and no sound. No birds, no bees happily at work amid the pollen. No small animals drinking at the pool. There was nothing living, save the flowers and the tree. And the lights above gave no warmth, unlike the sun. This place was the same temperature as the rest of the Clayr’s inhabited realm, and had the same mild humidity, from the moist heat distributed via the huge network of pipes that brought superheated water from the geysers and steam plumes far, far below.
Lovely as it was, it was a bit disappointing. Lirael wondered if this was all there was to find on her first expedition. Then she saw that there was another door—a latticed gate, 70
rather—on the far side of the cavern.
It took her ten minutes to walk across, longer than she would have thought. But she tried not to tread on too many flowers, and she gave the tree and the pool a very wide berth. Just in case.
The gate barred the way to another corridor, one that went into darkness rather than light. The gate, a simple metal grille, had the emblem of a silver moon upon it, rather than a sun. A crescent moon, with much sharper and longer points than could be considered usual or aesthetically pleasing.
Lirael looked through the gate to the passage beyond. For some reason it made her think about the whistle on her waistcoat, and things grabbing her arms. The whistle would be useless here anyway—and the mouse, too, Lirael suddenly realized, since there was no one currently in the Reading Room to hear its squeaked alarm.
But aside from unknown dangers, there was no obvious reason not to try the gate, at least. Lirael waved her arm, and once again the emeralds flashed, but the gate didn’t open. She let her hand fall, tucked her hair back out of her eyes and frowned. Clearly, this was a gate that answered only to the higher spells.
Then she heard a click, and the right-hand leaf of the gate slowly swung open—barely wide enough for Lirael to squeeze through. To make it harder, the crescent moon protruded into the open space, the sharp points level with where Lirael’s neck and groin would be.
She looked at the narrow way and thought about it. What if there were something horrible beyond? But then again, what did she have to lose? Fear and curiosity fought inside her for a moment. Curiosity won.
Acting on the latter impulse, Lirael took the mouse from her pocket and put it down amongst the flowers. If something did go wrong beyond the gate, she could scream out the activating Charter mark and off it would go, taking its own devious mouseways to the Reading Room. Even if it was too late to save Lirael, it might be a useful warning to the others. According to her superiors and co-workers, it was not uncommon for librarians to lay down their lives for the benefit of the Clayr as a whole, either in dangerous research, simple overwork, or action against previously unknown dangers discovered in the Library’s collection. Lirael believed this principle of self-sacrifice was particularly appropriate to herself, since the rest of the Clayr had the Sight and so needed to be alive much more than she did.
After placing the mouse, Lirael drew her dagger and slipped through the partly open gate. It was a very tight fit, and the moon’s points were razor sharp, but she got through without damage to herself or her clothes. It did not occur to her that a grown man or woman would not be able to pass.
The corridor was very dark, so Lirael spoke a simple Charter-spell for light, letting it flow into her dagger. Then she held the blade up in front of her like a lantern, only not as bright. Either she’d muffed the spell a little or something was damping it.
Besides being dark, the corridor, evidently not connected to the Clayr’s geothermal pipes, was also cold. Dust rose as Lirael walked, swirling around in strange patterns that Lirael thought might almost be Charter marks, ones she didn’t know.
Beyond the corridor, there was a small rectangular room.
Holding her dagger high, Lirael could see its shadowed corners, crawling with faint Charter marks that were so old, they’d almost lost their luminescence.
The whole room was afloat in magic—strange, ancient Charter Magic that she didn’t understand and was almost afraid of. The marks were remnants of some incredibly old spell, now senile and broken. Whatever the spell had once been, now it was no more than hundreds of disconnected marks, fading into the dust.
Enough remained of the spell to make Lirael even more uneasy. There were marks of binding and imprisonment floating there, of warding and warning. Even in its broken form, the spell was trying to fulfill its purpose.
Worse than that, Lirael realized that though the marks were very old, the spell had not simply faded, as she first thought. It had been broken only recently, within weeks, or perhaps months.
In the middle of the room, there was a low table of black, glassy stone, a single slab, reminiscent of an altar. It, too, was covered in the remnants of some mighty charm or spell. Charter marks washed across its smooth surface, forever seeking connection to some master Charter mark that would draw them all together. But that mark was no longer there.
There were seven small plinths on the table, lined up in a row. They were carved of some sort of luminous white bone, and all were empty save one. The third from the left had a small model or statuette upon it.
Lirael hesitated. She couldn’t quite make out what it was, but she didn’t want to get any closer. Not without knowing more about the spells that had been broken here.
She stood there for some time, watching the marks and listening. But nothing changed, and the room was totally silent.
One more step forward, Lirael reasoned, wouldn’t make a difference. She would see what was on the third plinth and then withdraw.
She stepped closer and raised her light.
As soon as her foot landed, she knew she’d made a mistake. The floor felt strange, unsteady under her. Then there was a terrible crack, and both feet suddenly went right through the panel of dark glass she had mistaken for more of the floor. Lirael fell forward, only just keeping hold of her dagger. Her left hand fell on the table, instinctively grabbing the statuette. Her knees hit the lip where glass met stone, sending a jarring pain through to her head. Her feet were stinging, cut by the glass.
She looked down and saw something worse than broken glass and cut feet, something that had her moving again instantly, regardless of any further damage the shards might do.
For the glass had been the cover of a long, coffin-like trench, and there was something lying in it. Something that at first looked like a sleeping, na**d woman. In the next horrified instant, Lirael saw that its forearms were as long as its legs, and bent backwards, with great claws on the ends, like those of a praying mantis. It opened its eyes, and they were silver fires, brighter and more terrible than anything Lirael had ever seen.
Even worse, there was the smell. The telltale metallic odor of Free Magic that left a sour taste in Lirael’s mouth and throat and made her stomach roil and heave.
Both creature and Lirael moved at the same time. Lirael threw herself back towards the corridor as the thing struck out with its awful, elongated claws. They missed, and the monster let out a shriek of annoyance that was completely inhuman, making Lirael run faster than she had ever run before, cut feet or not. Before the shriek had subsided, Lirael was squeezing through the gate, breathing in with such a panic that there were inches to spare. Beyond it, she turned and waved her bracelet, screaming out, “Shut! Shut!”
But the gate didn’t close, and the creature was suddenly there, one leg and hideous arm thrust through. For a moment Lirael thought it wouldn’t be able to pass the sharp points of the moon, but it suddenly thinned and grew taller, its body as malleable as soft clay. Its silver eyes sparkled, and it opened a mouth full of silver-spined teeth to lick its lips with a grey tongue that was striped yellow, like a leech.
Lirael didn’t stay to watch it. She forgot the emergency mouse. She forgot about staying away from the pool and the tree. She just ran in an absolutely straight line, crashing through the flowers, daisy petals exploding in a cloud around her. On and on she ran, thinking that at any moment a hooked claw would bring her down. She didn’t slow at the outer corridor, and slid to a stop only just in time to avoid smashing into the door. There, she waved her bracelet and slipped through before it opened more than a crack, stripping all the buttons from her waistcoat.
On the other side, she waved her bracelet again, watching the open doorway with the wide-eyed, sick anticipation of a calf watching an approaching wolf.
The door stopped opening and slowly began to close again. Lirael sighed and fell to her knees, feeling as if she were going to vomit. She shut her eyes for a moment—and heard a snick that was not the shutting of the door.
Her eyes flashed open, and she saw a curving, insectile hook, as long as her hand, thrust through a finger-width gap. Then another followed it—and the door began to open.
Lirael’s mouth went to her whistle, and its shrill cry echoed up and down the spiral. But there was no one to hear it, and when her hand went to the mouse pocket, it found a strange statuette of soft stone, not the familiar silver body of the mouse.