Chương 27: 27 loop 1 part 7

Behind me, knuckles clattered on the floor. Through [Wideview], I saw seventeen Frollarts filling the narrow corridor in a shuffling, snapping line. Their bony shapes bumped against each other as much as the walls. More knuckles echoed from farther back. The rest were coming. I pressed the latch. The door opened inward, and I went through because the alternative was standing in a corridor full of Frollarts. And that was not an alternative at all. The room was dark.

My marble pushed the shadows back enough to see stone walls, a low ceiling, and not much else. I turned to pull the door shut. I didn't have to. The Frollarts had stopped. They crowded the threshold, bumping into each other, shoulders pressing against shoulders. Their wide mouths were open. That awful murdered-kettle shriek came out of several at once, filling the corridor with noise. But not a single one of them crossed. It was as if there was an invisible ward right in front of me.

The lead Frollart, the biggest of the group, leaned forward. Its knuckles inched past the line where the corridor stone met the wood of the room, and then it disintegrated. The Frollart died. What the fuck? I stood in the doorway watching them. Their shrieking settled into something lower and grinding, like the tea kettle had run out of water. The relief hit me, but then it was immediately replaced by the understanding that I should probably be afraid of this room. The door drifted shut on its own, and I jumped.

I wasn't afraid. The noise just shocked me, that was all. The latch caught with a soft click. The room was the same one Vex had searched earlier. I recognized the layout before I'd taken two steps inside. The proportions were intimate. More like a study than a library room, and the low ceiling made my marble's light fill the space easily. There were shelves on every wall, and a shelf in the center of the room crowded with books.

The desk against the far wall still had its drawers hanging open where Vex had left them. But for all the dust and strange gravity outside, this room was clean. The room felt almost lived in. The desk had a reading lamp with a toggle-bulb enchantment. The chair behind it was pushed back from the desk, angled away. Papers were scattered haphazardly across the surface—and on the floor from where Vex had messed with them. I could recognize Corwen's shorthand through [Wideview]. He had been working here regularly.

Whatever my uncle had been doing in the restricted levels, this was where he sat down to do it. The shelves nearest the desk were organized differently from the rest of the room, like he'd imposed his own system over the Library's. Colored spines lined the other shelves. Dozens upon dozens of green, blue, dark red books. But the nearest—the center shelf—was different. There were three green spines, two blue, evenly spaced, and a gap where a sixth book should have been. The damn thing had disappeared again.

Or had it? In the center of my uncle's desk, in a clear space among the scattered papers, sat something that hadn't been there when Vex searched. A single book, with dark blue-green leather. There wasn't a title on the spine or cover, but I didn't need one to know which book it was. The tether pulsed beyond the door, out through the corridor, and back towards the staircase. Or at least, I assumed, from the distance. For a moment, I considered leaving the room to go find it.

But curiosity was getting the better of me. I didn't think the Frollarts would come to this part of the library, not after what happened to the one that tried to cross the threshold. Besides, the room was comforting. It smelled like old paper and cold tea. Like my uncle. I glanced towards the door and the golden tether for a moment. I hesitated. The curiosity won out. I looked towards the book and approached the desk. Of course, that was when the book vanished. One step, it was there, and the next, it was gone.

A clear space on the desk sat empty, as if nothing had ever happened. I stopped moving. I stood there. Sometimes the laziest approach was the easiest approach. And I could've just waited and see if a problem resolved itself. Most problems did, if you gave them long enough. I yawned. Then, I took two steps back. The book reappeared. I didn't even bother testing it. I knew what would happen if I stepped forward again. The book would be gone. The trigger was likely proximity.

Which explained why it had disappeared when Vex got close, and why it was now disappearing when I got close. But it didn't explain how it had made its way from the bookshelf to the desk as if someone had been reading it. I thought for a moment about how it could have traveled, but there were too many answers to narrow it down, and it wasn't worth the effort yet. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. I tossed my lit marble at the book.

It bounced off the air where the book should have been. The impact was solid. The marble rolled across the desk and came to rest against a stack of papers. The book stayed invisible, but the light cast shadows. So the physical object was still present. The enchantment was visual only, and not a very good one at that. That was fine. I didn't want to be seen by a lot of things, either, so I could hardly judge.

Given the relative safety of the room, my low mana, the fact that the book didn't want to be found, and the fact that it was starting to get later than I'd planned on staying, now was the perfect time for a nap. To be clear, I decided to rest because I had just been chased through a shifting library by a horde of idiots. And I was fucking tired. If the book wanted to be alone, it could be alone. And if it didn't, I'd deal with that after my nap. A man had to have his priorities straight.

Mine had always been impeccable. The floor was stone and cold. Of course it was. Every floor in this place was either stone and cold or wet and cold. I'd already spent over a year at a school built by people who believed human comfort was a moral failing. I shrugged off my robe, folded it into a rectangle that was too thin to be a real pillow, and put it under my head. The stone pressed into my right shoulder blade and hip. I shifted. It pressed into my left shoulder blade and hip.

I ran the numbers because I didn't mind mana math. My pool was 370, but [Soul Tether] had 92 of that, leaving me 278 usable. I'd burned through [Stop], two [Move] casts, [Silence], plus whatever the Frollart chase had cost me in panic casting I was choosing not to audit. [Wideview] and [Subtitle] each had about four hours remaining. But sleep would regenerate mana at 25% per hour. So even a short rest would give me a meaningful chunk back.

If I meditated, I'd get 50% back per hour and only need to stop for two hours. But meditation required sitting upright and concentrating, and my body was done with both. Sleep it was. I closed my eyes. Through [Wideview], I confirmed I was far enough from the desk that the book wasn't hiding. It sat there on the dark wood—visible, patient, and apparently content to coexist now that I had stopped bothering it. I understood. I was also content when people stopped bothering me. The room was quiet.

The Frollarts had stopped shrieking. And the cold stone was almost tolerable. I slept. I woke up and immediately regretted it. The floor had not gotten softer, and my neck had found a new angle to complain about. To top it all off, my right arm was numb from the shoulder down. I lay there for a moment, blinking at the ceiling. Running a quick check on my mana. I wasn't full. But the pool had climbed back to something I could work with. Almost 75%. The book was still on the desk.

I stared at it for a few moments, trying to see if it would sneak away. But it remained exactly where I'd left it. I sat up, pulled my robe back on, and looked at the desk. Despite my nap, I'd been doing my best to pay attention to the book the entire time I'd been lying down. It hadn't moved. I was beginning to wonder if, even though it disappeared, maybe I could still interact with it. It was time to test the theory.

I stood up, my body lodging several formal objections—including my neck, which let out a horrifying crick. But I overruled everything, crossed the room in four steps with a hand out, and grabbed the cover. The leather was warm under my fingers, which felt odd. Books left in cold rooms did not stay warm. And then [Soul Sense] activated, and I felt it. There was a soul inside the book. I lifted my hand off the book like the leather had burned me. The voice was calm and controlled.

And pitched at just the volume where I could hear it without straining. [Subtitle] had fired the instant it spoke, rendering the words in clean text at the edge of my vision. The text hung there as the words filled the air. Don't pull so hard. You are touching the part of me that still bleeds. I looked at the book. My hand was still raised where I'd pulled it back. I lowered it.

"You're a talking book," I said. The voice went quiet for a full five seconds.

"No," the voice said.

"I am not."

"You're a book. You're on a desk, and you just spoke. That means you're a talking book. I don't make the rules."

"You were touching a book. You were also touching a desk. Am I a talking desk?"

"The desk hasn't said anything yet. Give it time, though. I met a flagstone with a lot to say. Desks could be next." The book let out a long-suffering sigh.

"I am not a book. I am a consciousness bound to a physical medium through a process involving soul architecture and enchantment that predates your school and your nation."

"So you're not a book. You're a soul in a book."

"That is a reduction, but not an inaccurate one."

"And the soul is centered on the book. I can see that much. So… talking book." She started to respond and I raised a hand.

"I meant no offense. What should I call you?"

"I am The Bound Keeper and Eternal Custodian of the Therumian Royal Collection, Warden of the Living Archive, Sentinel of the Fourth Threshold, She Who Holds the Index of All That Was Gathered, and I have held that title since before you were born." I counted on my fingers.

"That's thirty-one words. I'm gonna need something a little shorter."

"The title is how I am referred to."

"Work it down. Please give me a name. Two syllables or fewer."

"You are remarkably persistent for someone who would rather be sleeping on my floor."

"Persistence is easy when the alternative is thirty-one words every time I want your attention." The voice went quiet. She was considering, not offended. There was a difference, and I'd learned to tell them apart because people went quiet around me a lot.

"You are not what I expected," she said finally.

"Your uncle described you differently."