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His use of the Language had come without a change in tone or expression, and Irene was caught by surprise as the stair that she was standing on flowed up and round her shoes, writhing to her ankles. Chagrin bit at her as she realized she’d been distracted by the conversation. By the promise of books and secrets. What better bait? No doubt she could unloose the bindings as easily as Alberich had invoked them, but that would give him enough time to do something worse.
The clock hammered away and the air seemed to shiver with a growing power and tension. More torn pages drifted through the air, floating by like huge moths.
‘It won’t hurt,’ Alberich said, in a tone that pretended reassurance, but his eyes were full of that cruel amusement she’d seen earlier.
‘What won’t?’ There had to be an answer. She had to save the Library. Save the books. Save herself.
‘Chaos. There’s a point when the body either accepts it or destroys itself. Mine accepted it. And look what I can do!’ He stretched his arms out in a gesture that embraced the clock, the twisted staircases, the mad library. ‘You will join me or you will die. Tell me, Ray, isn’t it a relief to come to the end of choices? To know the game’s over? You can relax now. Stop being your parents’ tool.’
He spoke fluidly, with the grand indulgence of a man enjoying his words, but his eyes were on her throughout. He was waiting for her to use the Language to try to either free herself or kill him.
Irene took a deep breath. Why not just say yes for the moment? common sense suggested. Buy time. Tell Alberich some of what he wants to know. Get his trust. Be practical. You said to Bradamant earlier that there was no point in just getting yourself killed.
And the books here were unique, the fruit of all Alberich’s years of theft. Surely anything was worth it to save them? Even if it meant selling herself into slavery and betraying the Library . . .
No. This was a question of priorities, she realized. These books here were a priority. Her own life was a priority. But the Library, all the other Librarians, and all the books there were the biggest priority of all.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It is a relief. Paper! BURN!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Irene’s shout echoed through the maze of stairways. The books went up like tiny novas, blazing like the hearts of stars. There was no hesitation, no slow kindling at the edges or catching by degrees. They burned as if they were glad to burn. The drifting pages caught fire as well, wafting through the air with a sudden new energy, and the surrounding bookshelves shook with the force of the concussion as their contents flamed up where they stood.
The clock gave one last jarring tick, and stopped.
‘No!’ Alberich shrieked. He was looking at her as if she was the criminal, the aberrant, the lunatic. ‘Fires, go out!’
For a moment Irene feared that he might succeed in extinguishing the flames. But they seemed to rise up with a new fury as he named them in the Language. She remembered her own attempts to put out the fire when she and Kai had been trapped by the broken gate. Perhaps it was due to the mixture of chaos and Language. Perhaps it was the power of Alberich’s own working, turned against him.
Perhaps she should get out of range before he turned his attention back to her.
‘Metal, release my shoes!’ she hissed, and stepped free as the stair retracted its clasp on her feet.
The scroll next to her was withering to ashes inside its cage. It had been a unique document, the lone copy of a story that only existed in one world. And now she’d destroyed it, and hundreds of others too. She’d felt embarrassment before in her life over quite a number of things – petty things, social errors, lack of politeness, moments of stupidity – but she’d rarely known true shame until now.
She tried to push that to the back of her mind, and mostly succeeded, looking around for somewhere to run towards. The prospects were minimal, and getting worse. Fire was spreading out in a great circle, leaping from bookcase to bookcase. Burning pages carried the flames with them like a contagion. High shelves were beginning to lean and topple as their underpinnings scorched and charred away. For the moment she settled on getting away from Alberich. He was still shouting at the flames and at the clock, as if sheer volume could somehow compel them to obedience. She scurried along the walkway, the remains of her skirts fluttering in the rising heat. Choosing stairs at random, she ran around the outside of the network of steps, looking for a way out.
The clock was silent now, and so was Alberich. The only noise was the growing roar of the flames, and the ringing of steps on the metal stairs. Smoke sifted through the air in white coils – thin for the moment, but growing.
‘Book-burner!’ The sheer fury and betrayal in Alberich’s voice made Irene cringe in renewed shame. It wasn’t the fact that he was saying it, but rather that it echoed her own thoughts. A part of her – a very stupid, senseless part – even felt that death would be an appropriate punishment for what she’d just done. ‘Ray, you are going to suffer for this!’
As threats went, it wasn’t the most specific or blood-curdling that had ever been thrown at Irene, but the fury and malice behind it gave her even more incentive to run. Unfortunately she’d come to a corner of the structure, and the only options now were up or down. Down put her on ground level and maybe gave her a chance to escape, if she could somehow find a way out through the burning, collapsing bookshelves. It would also give Alberich a clear advantage of height, to call down obstructions and maledictions on her with the Language. Up . . . well, there wasn’t anywhere in particular to go, once she’d headed ‘up’. She’d be trapped. Unless maybe she could form a bridge of books in the way that Alberich had earlier?
And falling from a height is one of the quickest and easiest available ways to die, a cold little thread of despair pointed out. Just for the record.
She was not going to lose hope. She was not going to give up.
‘Smoke, choke that woman!’ Alberich’s voice rang out.
The pale wisps of smoke solidified, massing together as they flooded towards Irene’s face.
‘Air, blow that smoke away from me!’ she gabbled.
The first tendril of smoke touched her face and flickered across her lips, and more gathered behind it, flowing around her and up to her mouth. A quick gust of wind scattered the smoke and let her breathe, but there was no real definition or permanence to the moving air. The tendrils of smog began to gather again, and she fled up the stairway, holding a tattered shred of skirt fabric across her nose and mouth.
She passed another of the caged books. It was charred to ashes now, and a thick column of dark, greasy smoke rose from its corpse. It was getting harder to breathe – not just because of the smoke that Alberich had commanded against her, but because of all the other smoke in the air. It wound through the metal stairs like ribbons, and rose in billowing clouds towards the distant ceiling high above. It was impossible to see Alberich now.
Surely this was any Librarian’s hell, full of burning books and smoke and fire. She would have run onwards, but there was nowhere to run to now.
