Worldsoul

Twenty-Eight

Mercy woke, sweating, in her own bed. She was disinclined to put the whole thing down to a dream and when Perra leaped in through the open window, Mercy asked the ka.

“It was not a dream,” Perra said. The ka frowned. “I do not like being put to sleep.”

“Who the hell was she? I’ve heard of something like that before but I can’t pin it down. And why did she rescue us?” Although Mercy was glad that she had.

“I can’t answer your questions.”

Mercy flung back the blankets. “I’d better get in to work.”

Having checked up on Benjaya, now safely back at his post, and given her report, Mercy spent the rest of that day in the Library. She was restless and tired, but not displeased to have an afternoon to herself. She roamed the Library with the ka at her heels, uncertain as to what she was searching for. Perhaps it wasn’t anything in particular, just a sense of dislocation. The appearance of that rift in the air, apparent to Perra but not to anyone else, had disconcerted her. Knowing where it led was even more unsettling. She wanted to know what the hell else was breaching the Library’s defences. Once, it had seemed impregnable, now it felt more like a leaky colander.

They took it systematically, top-down. The upper floors held the oldest texts, being perhaps paradoxically, the easiest to defend. The cellars were too easy to breach, to burrow and worm into. Hence the heights, in which Mercy now stood.

On this top-most floor, there were no books. Instead, there was a collection of astronomical and weather-reading equipment: astrolabes at one end, where a dome could be opened to the night skies, wind and rain gauges at the other. The dome had not been an original feature of the library of Alexandria, but added later: maybe it had added itself, which was the way things usually worked in Worldsoul. You could wake in the morning to find a whole new block, the city re-arranging itself around the incomer and then settling back into place as though the addition had always been there. But the observatory dome had been in place long enough for Mercy to take it for granted. They searched anyway, Perra scanning the air like a hound tracing a scent.

“I can’t see anything. Only songs.” The ka’s small face was wistful.

“Songs?”

“Songs of stars. Songs of clouds.”

Research left its traces, Mercy knew. She felt a brief envy. “Sounds nice.”

“Mm,” the ka said. But there was nothing sinister here. As they headed down the stairs, Mercy glanced out of the long windows towards the Court. Its dark roofs glistened with recent rain; the golden spell-vanes turned in the sea wind. Unfinished business. She wondered if this search of the Library wasn’t just putting off a confrontation with Deed.

Deed, who still had a vial of her blood.

Deed, the Abbot General of the entire Court. You couldn’t just walk in and start flinging accusations.

Downstairs, the light faded abruptly as they entered the upper stacks. This was where Mercy had first encountered the disir, the place of the oldest texts. The rift that had let them into the world of ice was now closed, according to Perra.

“It would be helpful,” the ka said, “if you could see this for yourself.”

Mercy looked curiously at the ka. It was unusual for a spirit, even one as benign as Perra, to offer a secret freely. “You can teach me to do that?”

The ka leaped up onto an empty shelf, so that they were at eye height. “I can. Close your eyes.”

After a second’s hesitation, Mercy did so. She felt a feather-light touch on her forehead, between her brows. The sigil marked there burned cold for a moment, making her gasp. Then the ka was through the ward.

Flashback. She was standing in the great chamber at the Heart of the Library, in front of the Skein. The woman who stood in front of her was holding a sash, of black, white, and grey silk.

This binds you to the Library. If you accept it, then you belong to this place, you are tied and indentured for the rest of your life, unless we choose to sever you. Is this your choice?

And Mercy, seventeen years old but feeling very grown-up, had said, “Yes. Yes, I accept.”

A touch on her forehead, as Beheverah of the Skein reached out an ivory hand and inscribed the first warding sigil between her brows, the sigil that she would have to re-administer every day of her life from now on.

Unless she retired and left the Order entirely, but then, Librarians tended not to do that.

Mercy blinked. It was as though she had grown an inch, and could see a different world around her. The stacks shimmered with magic-she was used to that, and she could see small cracks and chinks in the field of blue, with tiny lightning strikes and fizzes of electricity, as though insects were being fried around the texts. The spellwards, trying to hold back leaks in a sieve. Perra’s impassive golden gaze was fixed on her face.

“I think it’s worked,” Mercy said. “Whatever it was.”

“Let’s see what else you can see,” the ka replied.

Plenty of small cracks, but when she mentioned it to Perra, the ka said that these had always been there.

“What if they widen?”

“Then you have a problem. This sort of magic can only be contained with great difficulty. Even the Skein found it hard. And perhaps inadvisable.”

“Inadavisable?”

“Magic is like pressure. Damming it up can be problematic.”

“Perra, how do you know so much about the Library?”

But the ka only blinked.

The upper stacks were relatively clear. Mercy did not, however, hold out much hope. What if there were breaks which the ka couldn’t see? She was thorough nonetheless, taking each floor in turn until she glanced at her watch and saw that it was close to five o’clock. The Library was huge, that was the trouble, and they’d only done three floors, out of eleven. At six, she decided, she would go out to a café, snatch some food, then come back in and work through the night if necessary.

It was, however, on the fourth floor that they discovered a major break. Like the one upstairs, it was a vertical crack in the air. Here, however, the breeze that filtered through it was hot, and smelled of spices.

“Where’s it coming from?” Nerren stood in front of it. She was, she told Mercy, able to feel the breeze, but not see the break.

“I don’t know. And thanks for coming upstairs so quickly, by the way. How are you feeling?”

Nerren grimaced. “I get nightmares, I don’t mind telling you. But I’m all right.”

Mercy recognised this as a Librarian’s ‘all right.’ The sort that would have civilians gibbering under the bed. “Good,” was all that she said.

“The smell’s familiar, though.”

“Is it?”

Nerren nodded. “Reminds me of being a kid. It used to smell like this down at the shore-there was a market, where they offloaded the spice cargos.” She closed her eyes. “Cinnamon, nutmeg, sandalwood… ”

“Sounds lovely.”

“See-” Nerren said, and for a moment, Mercy could: the island shore, a rich intensity of colour, the mounds of spices on the market stalls and the clipper unloading against a sunset sky.

“I’d forgotten you’re a visualiser.”

“Not everyone’s receptive.”

Mercy smiled. “You miss the Southern Quarter?”

“Yeah, but my life’s with the Library.” She sighed. “Let’s hope it lasts.”

“Anyway, it might be a nice one, but we’ve still got a rift.”