11

Mismiyer

The mist was of such thickness that Caspar was hardly ever sure where he was actually going.

Sometimes he’d find himself face to face with the solid bars of a wrought-iron fence, other times hooded figures would materialize in front and disappear shortly after.

Strange figures laughed and danced in the streets, fading in and out through the clouds, finding elation at the bottom of a bottle of Mismiyer spirits.

This is what he imagined the afterlife to be. A confusing mass of nothing with the souls of the lost trapped between worlds.

He liked keeping close to the walls; strong, dark stone made to keep the Broken Sea’s winds and waves at bay.

He only knew where he was going because of the great, black blob shape of Sethel’s robe in the fog.

Kathiya only existed intermittently. Otherwise, she seemed to be completely in her element, weaving in and out of the crowd, always able to find her way back to the group, and never tripping over the uneven cobbles.

It would have been much worse and disorienting, but Ves’sa was always there to push him along. Reassuring, if not a little constraining.

‘Where the hell are we going now?’ Caspar yelled into the fog.

‘We’re going to the library!’ Ludgar yelled back from somewhere deeper.

‘... Why?’

‘I need to know things!’

‘About what?’ he said with hesitation.

‘What we’re going to do next!’

‘What? You don’t know already?’ He shouted at either Ludgar or a lamppost.

‘Relax, kid,’ he said, suddenly materializing from the other direction. ‘I’ve got some idea, I just need to fill in the details, that’s all.’

‘How in god’s name would we find any of that at a library?’

‘Believe me, this library holds something that’s worth far more than any coin, gem, or treasure,’ Sethel said, from somewhere in his ominous blob.

‘What’s that?’

‘Knowledge greater than anything you have seen.’

The fog let up just a touch, and he could make out the structure forming in the distance. It dwarfed all others considerably in both size and style, maintaining architecture most castles would be jealous of. More arches and flying buttresses than anything he had seen outside of the palace district of Orrick.

It looked far more like a church than a library.

The doors alone stood within mighty arches and must be as tall as at least five people. He wondered how many trees they sacrificed in its creation.

They built a much smaller normal sized door into the body of the much larger one. Opening something that gargantuan was probably far too much effort.

Within, they met the creeping darkness that always seems to hang around the wall sconces of ancient buildings.

An avian scratched away behind the counter at the centre of the room, quill feathers bouncing left and right. Hidden under a robe, her white beak poked out. She was a type of corvid, and even the shutting of the door didn’t break her from her work.

Ludgar approached and before he could even get a word out, she held up a finger and continued her writings.

Ludgar leaned on the counter, waiting for her to finish.

Another entered, face hidden behind a high collar and under a top hat. He passed and their eyes met briefly. Another canid. He’d never met a hound that was so well groomed and clean, not in person anyway.

He passed in front and handed an envelope to the librarian. He lacked a tail. How strange.

Behind them, a knight stood sentry in full plate, adorned with a fine, deep blue surcoat trimmed in silver, with a white four-pointed star emblazoned on the front.

‘By the gods,’ Caspar attempted whispering, but his excitement was getting the better of him. ‘That’s a Knight of the Starcrest!’

‘A what?’ Kathiya asked, pushing his head down in a bid to contain his excitement.

‘They’re knights who hold a sacred oath to protect all manner of knowledge!’ Sethel,’ he said, not even bothering to whisper anymore, ‘you were at the University of Vesterwys! Surely you must have met them!’

‘I certainly have. These tin plated automatons refused my entry into the alchemical lab on the grounds of it being ”closed for the night.” Power hungry tyrants.’

The hound and the librarian began speaking at length, and Ludgar’s frustration was gradually growing more and more visible with each passing second.

‘Hey!’ Ludgar shouted, slamming his fist against the table. ‘I was here first!’

The knight began making their way forward, but the hound held up his hand, and he stopped.

‘I apologize, but all appointments must be made in advance with the Librarians. I must ask that you…’ He stopped and gave Ludgar a very quizzical look. ‘What is your name?’

‘Why?’ Ludgar asked back.

The hound began chuckling, removing his hat and holding it to his chest. ‘Oh dear me, I sometimes can’t tell.’ He tapped at his forehead, as though he was trying to dislodge some information. ‘What’s the word I’m looking for? Is this irony or coincidence?’

‘This is a library.’

His jovial laughter dropped like a lead weight in a river. ‘You’re Ludgar, aren’t you?’

Ludgar felt the need to rest his hand on the hilt of his blade. ‘Depends who’s asking.’

‘You’re a poor liar.’

‘I’m good when I prepare, can you give me, like, five minutes?’

‘Please, don’t get the wrong impression,’ he said once he noticed where Ludgar’s hand was resting. ‘We certainly don’t want to cause any trouble. That incident with the… product, shall we say, ended up being most fortuitous for us.’

‘Sorry, but who are you?’

‘Ah, forgive me. I got ahead of myself.’ He gave a slight bow. ‘My name is Thaun. I represent the White Serpents. Come, please,’ he said, gesturing to some door at the distant end of the hallway. ‘Let us talk business somewhere more private.’

‘Why not?’ Said Ludgar as his hand left his blade. ‘Always ready to talk business.’ He was about to leave before someone grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

‘Are you sure?’ Kathiya asked, hushed into his ear. ‘Odds are he’s going to kill you!’

He was kind of hoping he would. He had already psyched himself up for it. ‘Well, I’d like to see him try.’

‘Please, allow the others entry to the library on my behalf. We have much to discuss.’

Kathiya watched them leave, unsure what to make of the situation, when the slender figure of Sethel loomed towards her.

‘Serendipity.’

‘... What?’

‘That’s the word he was looking for.’

Sethel was skipping past the shelves, exclaiming every strange title that he came across, like he opened some lost bag and found it heaving with gold. Who knows where Caspar had gone, and Ves’sa was perched on top of one of the dizzyingly high bookshelves.

She had seen trees almost as tall as these before. Back when she was a child and her father took her hunting. Great eldarwoods so tall it made her head spin. Here it was mostly paper, so she guessed it was a different type of forest now.

Her mind flicked back to Ludgar, how open he was to taking such stupid risks. They seemed to end up working out. Was she too cautious?

‘Look at this! A catalogue from Starhaven!’ He was almost visibly drooling at the book that sat in the glass display.

‘Anything good in there?’ She asked out of politeness, but dreading the answer.

‘Goodness no! It’s a furniture catalogue. Of course there’s nothing interesting. But it’s from the lost city of Starhaven! The City of Dreams! How did they get a catalogue from Starhaven?’ Sethel tried taking out the book, but a librarian slapped his hand away and gave him a pair of gloves. He accepted, but only begrudgingly. More for the lack of trust than for being forced into gloves. Sethel struck Kathiya as the kind of person who would rather see a child harmed than a book.

‘An entire city,’ he said, muttering to himself as he turned the pages with the care of a mother with a newborn. ‘The greatest advances in magical study, and they just disappear. The land falls to ruin and mystery, and the city just leaves. What I would give to find such a place.’

She had no idea what the big deal was. Sethel was behaving like a kid in the sweet shop and the owners had just left. They were just books.

She wandered amongst the rising shelves packed tight with volumes of things she had never heard of and in languages she had never seen. Some were bound in leather, beautifully etched they wouldn’t be out of place in the office of the Archmagister, some just appeared to be bundles of paper held together with a bit of string.

She must have wandered too far and turned a corner to find something wreathed in shadow perusing the collections. Out of instinct, she held back, hiding around the corner of one of the bookcases.

She peered round to get a better look. He bore a cloak of such astute darkness that light couldn’t even make out the creases or where it rippled as he shifted. It may as well have been made of pure midnight. The ends were tattered and frayed, but shifted constantly, like the way tongues of flame do.

It wore a hat that sat upon a wide brim, and as it turned, she saw its face. Or lack thereof, as he was wearing a mask in the shape of a corvid, with large dark eyes that reflected the world around them, and a beak riveted with studs of silvery metal.

‘There’s no need to hide,’ he said in a soft and gentle voice that still managed to create an echo. ‘We’re both creatures of the shadows, it seems.’

‘You know I’m a shadow weaver?’ she said, stepping out from behind the bookshelf.

‘Yes. Self-taught and inexperienced, but there.’ With unsettling silence, he slithered up to her. Their face only inches apart, her face reflected in the glassy, dark holes he called eyes. ‘Recent too. You appear younger than you let on.’

‘I’m old enough.’ She stepped back and regained her space.

He chuckled and stepped back too. ‘I’m sure you are, I’m sure you are. It is no concern of mine, not that it matters, I am merely here to collect.’

‘You’re a librarian, then?’

‘Not exactly. We share the same role, but for different purposes. They collect for coin and control. I do it for something greater.’

She always wondered what it was like, fighting for something greater than just yourself. She never really considered that there even was something greater.

‘Still, they have their uses.’

‘In old, dusty books?’

‘The knowledge contained within these can be greater than any treasure. What the world was, is, and will be all hinges on what is contained within these books.’

He took her by the hand, a fine rich leather glove, meeting her scuffed and tattered one with the fingers missing. He pressed something into her palm. Small and disc shaped.

‘If you ever want to learn the true ways of the shadows, come find me. I’ll show you something to fight for greater than any amount of coin.’

She looked at the object. It was in fact a coin, but of no make and belonged to no country she had seen before. And she had seen plenty of strange coins. It bore a symbol etched into its metal: wings enclosing on a blade, surrounded by fire.

She looked back up, ready to ask what it meant.

He was gone.

Naught left but a book in his place: The Lost History of King Horic.

A Knight of the Starcrest walked by on a patrol, so she put the book back on the shelf. She had no interest in history, anyway.