The Library of Shadows

40

The moment Jon realized Katherina was present in the room and was trying to communicate with him, he was overwhelmed by memories. Images of them together kept turning up in his thoughts and were impossible for him to ignore. He remembered that they had been happy, that he had felt happier than ever before, and slowly a desire began to emerge to find his way back to that joyful state. The reading continued, but he was using less time on charging the text so he had the reserves to think back. What was it that had separated them?

In his mind he pictured the test at the school when he had sent her away so that she wouldn't be harmed. The helplessness he had felt then resurfaced; with a jolt, he remembered Poul Holt reading to him for the first time, and how he had at last surrendered.

It was as if he were awaking from a nightmare.

What was it he was in the process of doing here?

Jon tried to stop the reading, but he couldn't. Someone was holding him in place, just as Katherina had done when she demonstrated her powers as a receiver for the first time in Libri di Luca. One of the people was Patrick Vedel, he could feel that, but he wasn't the only one. All Jon could do was keep reading, but he became more aware of how he was accentuating the text.

The main character was still in the cemetery. He had begun his soliloquy to the black headstone in front of him. Jon let greyish black clouds drift in over the valley where the cemetery lay, and the stones around him assumed a raw and filthy appearance. He could feel the weight of the earth beneath the main character, dark and damp, filled with worms ploughing their way through the mould under the grass.

Jon's attention was caught by a patch of greyish fog off to his right. He stared at the phenomenon. So far he'd had total control over the scene; he knew the shape of every single headstone, knew how each blade of grass lay and how it moved. But this grey fog he was unable to steer. It changed, growing denser in some areas, dissolving in others, and soon he could distinguish the outline of a person. He tried to make the wind blow the figure away, but it stood firm and became more and more solid. A ghost? The setting fit, but there were no ghosts in the text, and this was not something that he himself was adding.

It started out as a hazy human shape, but the molecules suddenly rearranged themselves and with one stroke the figure became as solid as a statue. The details of the face were the last to fall into place, and then there was no longer any doubt in his mind.

Jon had never considered the possibility that he, as the Lector, might be part of the scene he controlled. He had regarded his role as that of an outsider who influenced the presentation in the same way a film editor does at the editing table. When he saw this manifestation of Remer, Jon realized that he himself had to be somewhere in the world framed by the text. He was unable to glance down at himself to confirm this personally, but it seemed clear to him that the moment when the energy discharges began was the moment he had crossed the threshold and entered the space of the story. That explained the feeling he had had of being liberated from his physical body.

Remer's appearance meant the reactivation had worked, and that he had now acquired some of the same powers Jon possessed.

The Remer figure seemed to be looking about. His eyes didn't move but his face kept turning to take in the world in which he found himself. When his gaze fell on Jon, or rather on the place where the image of Jon stood, the Remer figure stopped moving. His lips, which were still colourless, formed into a smile.

A mixture of fear and anger welled up inside Jon. He had to stop Remer from getting any stronger, no matter what it took. Mentally he clenched his hands into fists and put all the force he could muster into the effects. The colours became so saturated that the scene looked like a computer-generated reconstruction, with razor-sharp edges and a clarity even the best monitor couldn't reproduce. By aiming all his focus on the area surrounding Remer's figure, Jon tried to erase him by enhancing the intensity of everything else.

Remer's facial features became distorted and the details of the figure slowly began to blur, as if he were a statue made of sand in a strong wind. The surface seemed to dissolve into atoms that were stretched out like the tail of a comet, pulling away from the figure; the smile dangled from the back of the head until it was one long streak, and the connection between the body and its limbs faded more and more. An eerie lament issued from the haze, a sound that seemed to come from a throat that didn't belong to the animal kingdom.

Jon exerted himself even more, but he could feel he wouldn't be able to maintain the intensity much longer. The figure had been reduced to half-size, with its molecules pulled into a long streamer behind it, but Jon couldn't penetrate to its core to erase it permanently.

Slowly Jon felt his concentration weaken. The colours and sharp outlines around him disappeared. The sound emitted by the figure changed, becoming an angry snarl, and Remer's figure began building itself anew, as if it were on rewind. Soon the figure was back to human form, with its features even sharper than before.

'Campelli,' panted Remer's voice after his body was reconstructed. 'Impressive trick, but not a very nice way to welcome a friend.'

In shock, Katherina took a couple of steps back.

A violent spark had leaped from Jon to Remer, hovering between them and growing in thickness and intensity. Remer's body shook for a moment and seemed to shrink in on itself, but at no point did he lift his eyes from the book he was reading.

Panic had broken out among the participants. Some were trying to escape by running for the door, but in the confusion a number of people fell, tripping up those who were behind them. That caused others to flee by jumping over the railing to the terrace below. Still others crawled along the floor or tried to seek protection along the walls or next to the pillars.

Remer's expression was contorted with pain, but he still kept reading, practically doubled up over the book, as if he wanted to protect it with his body.

There were still about a hundred people standing around the dais and taking part in the ritual, either by reading or by supporting the readers. Most of them kept casting anxious glances at Remer and Jon before they once again returned to the text.

It smelled as if something was burning, and the air was charged with electricity, which made the hairs stand up on Katherina's arms.

The spark between Jon and Remer seemed pale. It started very slowly to move at a calmer and calmer tempo, diminishing in size and luminosity. At the same time Remer began to straighten up, and the expression of pain vanished from his face.

Completely new sparks surrounded two other Lectors. Those who were standing too close leaped away, screaming with pain, while some people fainted on the spot. Others in the vicinity moved aside or ran off. A great noise erupted from those who were reading and from others who were talking or screaming and trying to get away. Accompanying everything was an angry hissing from the sparks.

Katherina cautiously backed further away from the podium as she tried to maintain her support for Jon and also take a look around. The others had to turn up soon. It was too late to stop the reactivation, but they needed to do everything they could to limit it. She reached a pillar and pressed her back against it. More Lectors ran past her, headed for the exit. Terror shone in their eyes. She tried to shut everything else out and focus on supporting Jon.

One of the Lectors, the latest to be reactivated, collapsed with a shriek. It happened without warning. He'd shown no signs of weakness or pain before he passed out, and Katherina had the feeling the same thing could have happened to anyone in the crowd.

On either side of Remer two new clouds had appeared. They had human shape, but were not yet fully formed.

Remer smiled.

Jon noticed another jolt in the images, a signal from Katherina which he took to be a warning. He sensed her support grow and he gathered all his forces. The cloud cover became pitch-black and the wind raged through the cemetery. Headstones toppled, pulling up the earth, which was whirled through the air in little tornadoes.

Maybe he couldn't fool Remer again, but the two new arrivals were in for a surprise. Before they were fully formed, Jon ratcheted up all the effects surrounding the figures. He wanted to make them disappear, remove them from the story, erase them like the misprints they were. They started to dissolve. One of them vanished almost instantly, whirled away in one of the tornadoes like smoke into an exhaust vent. The other stood its ground.

Remer was no longer smiling. He looked first at his companion and then at Jon.

Suddenly the headstone next to Jon changed shape, and in fright he lost his concentration. Before his eyes the granite liquefied and the stone changed from a rectangular shape into a cross.

Jon looked about in confusion. More changes were occurring all around him. Railings appeared, the vegetation shot up in some places and vanished in others. The sky grew lighter and the wind subsided.

'This is amazing!' shouted Remer with delight, stretching his arms up in the air.

The figure next to him was now fully formed, and Jon recognized him as one of the Lectors he had greeted in the foyer. The new arrival looked around in astonishment. Behind him three more hazy figures appeared.

Remer laughed. 'You don't have a chance, Campelli,' he shouted. 'Give up.'

'Why?' replied Jon. 'You've already got what you need.'

'True enough. But we still have room for a man like you in the Order.' He threw out his arms. 'Just look what we can accomplish together.'

'You duped me,' snarled Jon. 'Forced me to betray my own people.'

'You had it in you already, Campelli. I just brought it into the light.'

The three figures behind him were gradually becoming more solid.

'And pushed everything else into the dark,' said Jon. 'Katherina, the bookshop, my family. You made me forget my own family, Remer.'

'It won't do you any good to dwell on the past,' said Remer with annoyance. 'Even your father would have realized that. He would have loved being able to step into the story and change things the way we now can.'

'But you never gave him a chance,' Jon pointed out. 'You killed him.'

Remer shrugged. 'It was necessary,' he said. 'We would never have been able to turn him.'

Jon felt anger welling up inside him. With a flash of light the clouds overhead once again turned pitch-black, and lightning shot across the sky with an angry crash.

Remer cast an uneasy glance at the clouds.

'Who did it?' asked Jon through clenched teeth.

'What difference does it make?'

'Who killed my father?' shouted Jon, accompanied by yet another crash of thunder overhead.

'Patrick Vedel, the receiver,' replied Remer indifferently. 'It was necessary.'

'Patrick Vedel,' repeated Jon. It wasn't more than an hour ago that they were sitting side by side in the car on their way to the library. His anger grew stronger, and he knew that Vedel could feel it, because the hand he felt on his shoulder seemed to lose its hold for a moment, but then gripped even harder. Vedel was still keeping Jon inside the story, and he was wise to do so.

'Luca found out about our activities down here,' Remer went on. 'I think he realized he was out of his depth.'

'My father was here?' asked Jon. The idea that Luca would put so much distance between himself and the bookshop seemed unlikely.

'He could have been a good detective,' Remer acknowledged. 'Just like you, but even so I think he was shocked.' Remer shook his head. 'A man struck by panic could do anything. He had to be stopped.'

'So you killed him.'

'He might have gone to the authorities. That would have been equally bad for your little girlfriend and her reading buddies. It wouldn't have benefited any Lectors, any of us.'

The three figures behind Remer had assumed their final form and stood there looking about in amazement. One of them was Poul Holt.

Remer smiled. 'So, Campelli, what's it going to be?'

Katherina gasped for breath. The air in the reading room seemed to be getting heavier by the minute and the smoke was tearing at her lungs. Big sparks kept reaching out and making contact with the overhead beams, the pillars and other random objects. Some struck fleeing Lectors who were flung to the ground and either lay where they fell or tried to crawl away.

The energy in the room was stronger now than when they had arrived. At first it had seemed like an eiderdown settling over the space, but now it had changed character and felt like a rushing river, violent, roaring and overpowering.

Katherina had positioned herself next to a pillar so she could see both Jon and Remer. In the flow of images coming from Jon, she had caught a glimpse of a red-haired man. She recognized him as one of the men who had chased her through the marketplace, and judging by the emotions Jon attributed to the images, the red-haired man wasn't exactly a friend of his either. The accompanying anger was enormous, and when brief picture sequences of Luca got mixed in, she understood why.

The red-haired man was the receiver who had killed Luca.

Jon's concentration weakened due to his anger, and Katherina had to set aside her own fury to help him. Even though it pained her to do so, she muted the emotions in the pictures of Luca and instead supported the story as best she could. Slowly Jon regained his focus and began working his way through the text. She couldn't tell exactly what was happening in the place where he found himself, but something was certainly going on that went far beyond the words and sentences of the text, as if each letter of the alphabet was a landscape in and of itself.

Katherina moved closer to the podium and Jon. She didn't cover much ground, but she felt better being slightly nearer to him. Nothing was visible on his face – no emotions or expressions she could interpret.

She felt the hood of her robe being tugged from her head. A hand landed on her shoulder and slowly she turned around. In front of her stood the red-haired man, the man Jon had just pointed out as Luca's murderer.

'You shouldn't be here. You must have taken a wrong turn somewhere,' he said with a triumphant smile.

Katherina's heart pounded and she couldn't breathe. Without the protection of her hood she felt helpless. It was a hundred against one, and there was no place for her to flee. She had failed.

'You'd better come with me,' said the red-haired man.

The pictures of him she'd received from Jon popped up again, but now they were coloured by her own rage.

Katherina took a deep breath.

With a violent shove she sent the man toppling backwards. He staggered a few steps before he fell on his back with a yelp. Several people standing close turned towards Katherina with shouts of surprise. She started screaming as loud as she could and pushing at those who were nearest. The first participants moved away in fright, but she kept running into people and yanking at everyone she could reach. She managed to grab some of the books and tore them out of the hands of the astonished owners, hurling them as far away as she could. There was no chance that anyone would come to her aid, but she could at least break the concentration of the crowd, maybe long enough so that Jon could stop the reading.

The people around her began to understand what was going on, and more and more hands reached out for Katherina. She repeatedly tore herself free, but the crowd was getting rougher and rougher, and agitated voices were pelting her with words in many languages. She fought back as best she could, but then someone shoved a book at her face and stopped her shouts.

A voice cut through the noise. It was one of the hooded guards, pushing his way through the excited participants and speaking to them in an authoritative tone. He got Katherina in an armlock and one by one the others retreated. The guard ushered Katherina towards the door. The Lectors moved aside, glaring at her as they did. Almost everyone was watching the commotion while Jon still continued to read, as did a number of other Lectors close to the podium who appeared not to have noticed a thing. Desperation surged inside of Katherina, and she almost didn't have the strength to stay on her feet, but the guard ruthlessly pulled her along. When they had nearly reached the door, she made one last effort to tear herself away, but the guard merely tightened his grip.

'Take it easy, damn it,' he whispered in unmistakable Danish. 'It's me, Mehmet.'