Chương 52: 52 Loop 2, Part 6

Sleep showed up that night, for once. A nice change of pace from the last three times I had tried to take a nap. But then it took me somewhere I didn't want to go. Even in my sleep, I was not free. Thane stood in front of the dragon with his wand up, the whole dining hall airborne behind him. Then the spell failed, and the breath came down. And he died. His wand dropped. And Frost was face down in the grass, and the grass didn't care. Finn was screaming on top of her.

And then the dragon came at Finn, and I was too far away to stop it. Obliterated. Then my uncle murdered a man. The hand was still pointing. The head bounced away. Image after brutal image attacked me constantly. My one break, my one respite from the horrors of the world, and I wasn't even free there. Something yanked on my chest. I woke up with my heart going like I'd sprinted somewhere—which was insulting, because I hated sprinting. The gold thread through my sternum pulled once, hard.

The Froll had restarted its attack. Fuck me. Never enough time for anything. The other couch was empty. I lay there and let the images fade away. I really needed to talk about this shit with someone before I went crazy. Finn entered the room from the open door and approached the couch a few seconds later.

"Oh, you're awake. I was just coming to get you," he said, eyeing me warily.

"You were right."

"About which part?"

"About all of it." He didn't sound happy.

"He moved through the hallways, checking every room, leaving them in disarray. Then he stood around like an idiot for an hour, waiting. Checked his watch a thousand times. And then he left. Did you enjoy your nap, you smug bastard?"

"You know I did. Just add it to the tally." I sat up. My neck lodged a formal complaint.

"How's the total looking?"

"I'm not keeping a tally."

"You know you are." He is keeping a tally, Flag offered. He counted it twice. I heard him.

"Thanks, buddy." I stood and stretched until something popped. My mana bar had climbed back into a comfortable green while I slept, which was the most productive thing that had happened in the past three hours. Vex included.

"Come on," I said.

"Our next stop is to see a talking book."

"Uh, a what?"

"You heard me." - Just like last time, the corridors fought us for a while. I took a wrong turn that hadn't been a wrong turn last time, then doubled back until we found the passage I had been looking for. How rude. The Keeper didn't remember me, clearly. Which meant she was starting fresh, I thought. That, or she was being vindictive.

"You're lost," Finn said.

"I'm not lost. I am in the middle of some calibrations." And then we heard the most startling noise in the entire fucking library. The pitter-patter of knuckles on stone, somewhere behind us. The Frollarts had caught our scent.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing serious. Just some Frollarts."

"What the fuck? Frollarts? There's Frollarts here?"

"Yeah, what's the big deal?"

"Um, they can swarm and eat us."

"Oh, come on, you big baby." I canceled [Stride] and then cast [Float] three times in a row. Because, honestly, we just needed to be able to get above the Frollarts. Once we did, they wouldn't be a danger at all.

"Whoa, what the fuck, man?"" Laz, I'm flying! I'm flying again!" Flag's celebration was drowned out by the pitter-patter of knuckles as they multiplied behind us.

"Flag. Stop." He immediately stopped talking. The first of them came around the corner in a wall of pale blue. Knee high, with their fat bodies and malformed brows furrowed with purpose. Their tiny, bandaged fists slapped on stone. Somehow, in that short time, thirty of them had crowded around the end of the tunnel, with more and more pouring out of gaps that should not have fit a small cat. Their mouths dropped open, and the murdered-kettle shriek started up. Which, for all we knew, was a happy sound for them.

"Oh, no."

"Yep. Looks like we're gonna have to deal with this crap because the two of you couldn't be quiet." Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Oh, no."

"You said that already." I noticed that Flag was being as still as a statue. Good for you, buddy. Finn raised his wand and threw a ward across the corridor in between us. A pane of green light snapped into place, barricading it wall to wall. As soon as it clicked into place with a loud cork-popping sound, the Frollarts started clambering over each other. And in less than ten seconds, Finn's very nice ward had a brightly blue pyramid pressed against it. Dozens of hands slapping the light.

"It's holding," Finn said, a little panic in his voice.

"It's holding for now. But they're gonna punch the ward until it stops existing. It's, like, their entire hobby."

"Then do something, asshole." I was already doing something. I pointed my wand in front of the ward and cast [Slick]. One of my favorite spells. The floor under the bottom row went sideways, and physics did the rest. The pyramid came down in the most satisfying chain of collisions I had ever caused on purpose. Each one took two or three of his friends with him all the way down. I threw a second [Slick] behind the first to extend their little sliding rink, and they started bouncing this way and that.

"They're like bowling balls," Finn said.

"Very bad ones, but still."

"Yeah. You turned them into fucking bowling balls." Finn canceled his ward, and we drifted over the pile, up and out of reach of the flailing knuckles. And then I felt a subtle shift in the passages of the library. A new one opened ahead of us exactly when we needed it, closing behind us immediately after. Stone ground against stone, somewhere out of sight. And dead ends stopped being dead ends.

"The corridor's moving," he whispered.

"It's like… it's guiding us."

"She is guiding us. The Keeper. She'll steer us the rest of the way now that she's watching."

"The… the Keeper? Who's that?" But I didn't answer him. Instead, I just kept flying through the air. The route she built us was longer than it needed to be. But at the very least, it kept the Frollarts away. Which was weird. Last time, it had taken her so much longer to guide us her way. But eventually, the corridor turned once more, and the study door was there. But so were the Frollarts. Somehow, a cluster of them stood ahead of us at the threshold, where the invisible barrier sat waiting to murder them.

"Why aren't they going in?" Finn whispered.

"There's a ward on the threshold. It kills them if they try to go in." I raised my voice at the doorway, because manners were free, and frying the Frollarts would require a lot more effort than a nice question.

"Would you mind clearing the porch, please?" The walls on either side of the corridor slid open. The hallway mountained until Frollarts spilled sideways into the new passages like water down a slide. Less than a minute later, we clambered on through the door. The study hadn't changed in the intervening time travel. And despite Vex's morning, he had dismantled the room in the same exact way. And just like last time, instead of being on the shelf, the Keeper had moved herself to the desk.

She was in a clear space among scattered papers. Finn immediately walked toward the book, and of course, it vanished. It took him a couple of minutes, but he figured it out the same way I had. By taking a step back, stepping forward, moving around, and then realizing there was a spell cast on the book.

"Stop harassing her," I said."'Her'? That means you personified it? You've got to stop personifying inanimate objects."

"And you've got to stop being so personist."

"That's not a word."

"The mannequin by the doorway is a friend of mine. Do you mind letting him across the threshold?" I said to her.

"He's my golem, not a Frollart or a dungeon monster." The Keeper was quiet for a long moment. And then she answered. [Subtitle] rendered every word perfectly, but she was loud enough to hear anyway.

"I have no control over the threshold. But it should only reject the creatures of the dungeon. Nothing else." There was a pause.

"He may enter." Flag came in on his careful legs. They clacked against the stone now that [Silence] had worn off. He looked around the study and said, "This is a very nice room. I like it."

"Thank you," the book said. Finn leaned on the shelf in the middle of the room—the one that had originally contained the Keeper—and put his hands against his head. I understood. It was the weirdest fucking day of his life, and it kept setting new records.

"You know what I am," the voice said to me. The pages shivered and opened, and she said, " [Float]." I felt the mana leave her, and then the book rose off the desk and came over to me. She stood there, midair, at the height of my shoulder.

"Most visitors need a demonstration first. But you spoke to me as if you had already been introduced."

"Hm. I'm quick on the uptake. And besides, I noticed you moving around."

"However do you mean?"

"I cast [Wideview]. Doesn't everybody?" The pages fluttered as if she were lost in thought, but before she could speak, I continued.

"So, what do you want me to call you?" And she replied, "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." Hearing it again, the second time, it was just as much of an exhausting and daunting task to sit through as anything I'd ever heard.

"Okay," I flippantly told her.

"I'm going to call you 'Keeper.'""You walked my corridors like a man reading a map," she said.

"You knew how the threshold worked before ever seeing it in action. And you knew I would speak back to you before I ever did. Interesting. But a book keeps many secrets. I know when not to ask. Especially because I suspect the answer you'd give me would be a lie." Finn nodded enthusiastically.

"You can't trust a word this guy says." I ignored him and continued.

"It wouldn't be a lie. But it would be a no."

"Then we understand each other." The book drifted a slow circle around me, and on her way past, she paused for half a second. Right where the gold thread ran down through the floor.

"You must want something, if you've come to me and know who I am," she said.

"Everybody who approaches me does. It is the main reason why I employ the hiding spell."

"I do. I want two things. I want use of your workshops, especially the kitchen. And I would like the safe route down to the Lost Library."

"That is a considerable list of things."

"It comes with a payment as soon as I save my uncle, I promise." I nodded at my mannequin.

"We both know there's a workshop on this floor, full of empty constructs. So if you meet my demands, I will bring you a body. And install you in the golem myself." The book froze, midair, completely still. As if this had been the last thing she expected to hear.

"Are you really offering me a body?"