Fable: The Balverine Order (Fable) (8 page)

James tried to stab forward with the sword, knowing that he was going to come up short. Which was why he was as surprised as anyone could have been when the beast fell forward and lay there, unmoving. Its body shuddered once and then exhaled its last. For a moment James thought it was some sort of trick and then realized the absurdity of that. What possible reason would the cat have for trying to fool them, presuming it was even capable of such sinister thinking? Thomas had been totally helpless.

Nevertheless, James picked up a hard, cold stone and threw it with all his strength at the unmoving cat.

It continued to unmove.

He looked up to Thomas. “How did you do that? How did you kill it?”

“Me? I thought you did it.”

James returned his short sword to its scabbard and crouched next to the animal. He saw something protruding from the base of the creature's skull. “What the hell—?” he said, and touched it gingerly. “It's a hilt.”

“Of a dagger?”

“Other than our hovel being mortgaged to one, that's the only kind of hilt I know.” He looked around nervously. “But where'd it come from? An invisible creature, maybe—?”

“I think it more likely that it was thrown.”

“By who?”

“Whom.”

“By whom?”

“Couldn't say.” He looked around, squinting, trying to see some evidence of anyone else around. There were enough shadows to hide a dozen knife-throwers, and if they were not of a mind to be spotted, then they were going to remain unseen. He called out, “Whoever you are, we're very grateful! If you want to come out so we can thank you properly . . . ?” His call received no reply. “Ooookay,” he said with a shrug after several moments of no response. Then he started to reach for the knife, but James grabbed him by the wrist, and said urgently, “No! Don't!”

Thomas gave him a quizzical look. “Why not?”

“What if pulling it out brings the creature back to life? What if it's supernatural in origin?”

“That's ridiculous.”

“More ridiculous than balverines?”

Thomas was about to toss off a dismissive reply, but then the wisdom of James's words sank in, and he withdrew his hand, nodding. “Okay, fair enough. I mean, it's not likely, but we can't be too careful. Come on.” And he clapped James on the shoulder. “Let's get up to Library before ...”

“Before what?”

“Before we find out that this one here”—and he touched the cat with his toe—“wasn't hunting alone.”

“Now you're the one with a fair point,” said James, and they quickly covered the remainder of the distance to the Library, both of them scrupulously watching the immediate vicinity lest another beast leap upon them.

 

 

THERE WAS BUT ONE LIBRARIAN PRESENT
when they arrived. Thomas expected that there was going to be some involved wrangling necessary to gain access to the Library, but he could not have been more wrong. “Knowledge,” said the Librarian, an elderly man with a thick white beard and disheveled hair, “should be free to all. You can take all your swords and war hammers and guns constructed by the hand of man, and none of them equals the power from information that a single book can provide you.”

Privately, Thomas was of the opinion that a book wouldn't have done them a great deal of good against the animal that had tried to devour them out on the stairs, but he was a guest there and felt that it would have been impolite to say anything. But he exchanged a glance with James and could see that his friend was thinking the exact same thing. They shared a brief smile, and then Thomas settled down to business.

He found a sizable tome labeled
Creatures and Grotesqueries
. The book was thick with dust, apparently not having been read in some time. When he opened it, the spine creaked with the weight of years of accumulated knowledge. And the smell of it! What was it about mustiness that caused it to smell like wisdom?

The pages were of far thicker paper than any of the books he had at home. Indeed, his old books seemed downright flimsy in comparison. He turned each page carefully, determined to make sure that he didn't tear any of them. When he reached the section labeled “balverines,” he lay the pages down as flat as he could and began reading.

James wandered aimlessly around the Library, looking in wonderment at the shelves upon shelves of books. The Librarian walked alongside him, watching him with a raised eyebrow. “Have you read all of these books?” said James after a time.

“What would be the fun in that?”

“I don't understand.”

The Librarian smiled through his dry and cracked lips. “The true joy of residing in this environment, day after day, is wondering what new bits of wisdom I might acquire in the process of perusing another volume in this vast and glorious collection of tomes.”

“All right,” James said cautiously, not sure that he really got it but deciding that if the Librarian knew what he was talking about, well, at least one of them did.

About an hour later he found Thomas hunched on the edge of his seat at a long table. There were now half a dozen books open to different sections, and Thomas's lips were moving softly as he read. “Well?” said James.

Thomas did not answer immediately, and when he did respond, it was in a voice hushed with awe. “It's amazing,” he said, “how limited my books were in their scope.”

“You're finding a lot about balverines here?”

“I'll say.” He dragged over one of the books he had set aside and flipped through some pages. “Did you ever hear of the balvorn?”

“Uh . . . no.”

“A monstrous beast of unknown origins. Fearsome beyond anything that anyone would have thought possible. Supposedly, in ancient times, it killed hundreds—maybe thousands—of people.”

“Until it was finally destroyed?” he said hopefully.

“Actually, there's no record of the balvorn ever being slain although one would hope that it would be long gone to dust by now.”

“One would hope that, yes.”

“However, its handiwork remains to this day. Apparently only one person ever survived the attack of the balvorn. It doesn't say how he managed to pull that off, but he might have been better off if he hadn't lived. Because his reward was to be transformed into a creature that was smaller, but no less vicious, than its progenitor. I'd read that they spawned others of their kind through their bite, but I'd never seen anything about this very first of the balverines. Apparently”—and he shook his head in disbelief—“there have been actual instances of people rounding up balverines and pitting them against each other in pits of battle. Which is kind of a problem since the balverines were just as likely to find a way to leap out of the pit and attack the audiences as they were each other.”

“What else?” In spite of himself, James was finding this information fascinating.

“Well”—and Thomas ran his finger along one of the lines of meticulously rendered print—“the most aggressive and dominant of the balverines are white balverines. Supposedly, the white balverines are people who were slain by balverines during a full moon, at midnight. Something about that combination seems particularly potent.” He started turning the pages of other books. “The book I'd really like to find here is something called the
Omnicron
. It appears to have a lot of detailed information about . . . well, about everything. I've checked the Library's files, and supposedly there's a copy here somewhere, but I went to where it should have been, and there's nothing there. I wonder if—”

“Wait ...” James leaned forward, looking at the book over Thomas's shoulder. “Go back to what you were saying before.”

“About what?”

“That balverines were once humans?”

“Well . . . yes. Why, what did you think?”

“I thought they were . . . I don't know. A separate race. So being a balverine is like having a disease?”

“I guess.”

James sat down, perplexity on his face. Thomas turned in his chair and looked at his friend. “James—?”

“That's just . . . it changes things.”

“Changes what things?”

“Well . . . if I were attacked by a balverine, I'd feel badly about killing it.”

“Why in the world—?”

“Because they didn't ask for it, Thomas. They didn't ask to be made over into those . . . those things. You said it's spread by the bite? So if I get bitten by one of them, and I'm changed into a balverine, people will hate and fear me. For all we know, the people that they were . . . they're still in there somewhere, trapped in their brains. Inside every balverine there could be a person trying to get out.”

“Perhaps several people if they feasted.”

Thomas slammed the book shut, causing dust to fly from it, and he was on his feet, facing James. “I don't give a damn, James. So they didn't ask to be that way. So what? Neither did nymphs or scorpions or hollow men or whatever else is out there that crawls or swims or flies. They are what they are, and any of them would just as soon kill me, so I sure as hell better not hesitate because otherwise they'll manage to do it. If you've got a problem with that, tell me now, because if you do, then maybe you should think about going back home.”

The air seemed to chill between the two of them. Thomas looked away first, dropping back down into his chair and turning his back pointedly to James.

James's jaw tightened. “Fine,” he said between clenched teeth, turned on his heel, and strode away.

And Thomas started to call after him, but then caught himself and went back to his reading.

 

 

JAMES STRODE THROUGH THE LIBRARY,
more agitated than he had ever been. Thomas had been the one constant in his life that was remotely worthwhile, but when his friend had lashed out at him that way, it was as if he didn't even recognize him. “Maybe he was possessed,” he said to himself sarcastically. It certainly would have explained a good deal, but he knew that wasn't the case. He felt as if he had seen a side of Thomas that he hadn't known about before. What else, he wondered, was Thomas hiding?

He turned the corner and discovered the Librarian seated at a table, studying a book. The Librarian looked up at him and took immediate note of his agitation. “Problem, young sir?”

“No problem. No problem at all.”

It was clear from the Librarian's look that he didn't believe that for a moment. “Tell me, young sir: Why are you here?”

“To learn about things. You know that.”

“Yes, but why? Young people nowadays”—and he made an expression of disgust—“have no interest simply in knowledge for its own sake. The deterioration of the human spirit is a truly tragic thing to witness for any who have a sense of history. That is all that Heroes are these days, I fear. History. Here”—and he tapped the book in front of him—“look at this.”

James hesitated. Something warned him against doing as the Librarian bade, but then he mentally scolded himself for such unseemly cravenness. It was an old man who just wanted to show him something in a book.
Are you determined to go through life jumping at shadows?

He leaned in and looked where the Librarian was indicating.

“Your friend reads of balverines, who live to the east, when they lived at all,” said the Librarian. “Of far more interest than monsters of the east are the Heroes of the east. Three formidable ones of true legend. Rather than obsessing about the worst that humanity has to offer, why not dwell upon the best?”

“How formidable were they?” said James, interested in spite of himself.

“I said the best, and I did not overstate. Balverines trembled in their presence, and hollow men bent to their will. Or so the legends claim,” he added with a shrug. “It is hard to say of a certainty because, well, people talk, and they can exaggerate. That is the nature of legends, after all.”

James was studying the texts. The Librarian was certainly right; page after page of text discussed their amazing accomplishments. In times of great crisis, people turned to these three Heroes to have their problems solved and their needs attended to, and apparently these Heroes never once let them down. Evidently, with their combined skills, they were capable of just about anything.

“It says here that nothing had ever defeated them,” said James. “Apparently they died peacefully, in their sleep. Hunh. Doesn't seem like much of a death for Heroes. Heroes should die in battle with their teeth sunk into the throats of their opponents.”

“And you would know this from personal experience?”

“Hardly,” James admitted. “I suppose it's easy for someone who isn't a Hero to decide how others should lead their lives, or end them.” He read further. “It says here they were each buried with some sort of weapon. Supposedly those weapons have great power—”

“And is that what your conspiracy is interested in?”

“What?” James, who had been bent over the texts, started to stand upright. “What are you talking ab—?”

Suddenly, the Librarian's hand was on the back of his head and slammed his skull down into the book, causing it to strike with such force that James thought the world was spinning around him. “Tell me!” snarled the Librarian in his ear, his voice no longer elderly. Instead, each word was crisp, the voice deep and resonant. “Do not think for a moment that you can fool me!”

“I . . . I don't understand! Fool you—?”

“Heading east, searching for balverines? What is your true mission?”