The Invisible Library (2 page)

The audience of boys, ranging from eleven to seventeen years old, hung on her every word. A couple of juniors set their chins pugnaciously, clearly imagining that they themselves would have been
ready for such an event. They would undoubtedly have knocked the intruder unconscious then and there.

‘He was a very tall man,’ Irene said helpfully. ‘And he was all dressed in black, but something was muffled round his face so that I couldn’t see it properly. And he had
something under one arm, all wrapped in canvas. And then the alarm went off, and I screamed for help, but he went running down the corridor and escaped through the window.’ She pointed at the
clearly open window, an obvious – perhaps too obvious? – escape route for any hypothetical thief. ‘And then these young gentlemen came along, just after he’d escaped.’
She nodded to the first two arrivals, who looked smug.

The master nodded. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘Jenkins! Palmwaite! Take charge of the House and have everyone get back to preparing for chapel. Salter, Bryce, come and inventory the
room with me. We must establish what was taken.’

There were muffled noises of protest from the milling crowd of boys, who clearly wanted to leap out of the window and pursue the thief – or, possibly, go down to the ground floor and
then
pursue the thief without leaping out of a second-floor window. But nobody actually tried that.

Irene cursed inwardly. A large-scale attempted pursuit of a non-existent intruder would have confused matters nicely.

‘You,’ the master said, turning to Irene. ‘Go downstairs to the kitchen and have some tea, woman. It must have been an unpleasant experience for you.’ Was that a flash of
genuine concern in his eyes? Or was it something more suspicious? She’d done her best to leave a false trail, but the fact remained that she
was
the only person in the vicinity, and
something had just been stolen. Most of the masters round here ignored the servants, but this one might be the unfortunate exception to the rule. ‘Hold yourself ready in case we need to
question you further.’

‘Of course, sir,’ Irene said, bobbing a little curtsey. She picked up the mop and bucket, and pushed through the crowd of boys, heading for the stairs, taking care not to walk
suspiciously fast.

She’d need two minutes to get to the kitchen to dump the mop and bucket. Another minute to get out of the House. Five more minutes – three minutes at a run – to get to the
school library. She would be cutting it fine.

The kitchen was already bustling when she got there, with the house maids preparing kettles of post-chapel porridge. The housekeeper, butler and cook were playing cards, and no one had bothered
to investigate the alarms from upstairs.

‘Something the matter, Meredith?’ the housekeeper enquired as Irene entered.

‘Just the young gentlemen being their usual selves, ma’am,’ Irene answered. ‘I think it’s one of the other Houses playing some sort of prank on them. With your
permission, may I step out to the washroom to get myself cleaned up?’ She indicated the dirty wash-water stains on her grey uniform dress and her apron.

‘Be sure not to take too long,’ the housekeeper said. ‘You’ll be sweeping out the dormitories while the young gentlemen are in chapel.’

Irene nodded humbly, and left the kitchen. Still no alarm from upstairs. Good. She quietly opened the boarding house door, stepping outside.

The boarding houses were in a row along the main avenue, with a central quadrangle holding the chapel, the assembly hall and – most importantly to her purposes – the school library.
Turquine House was the second along, which meant there was just one house to pass, preferably without drawing attention. Not run. She mustn’t run yet. If anyone saw her running, it would only
attract suspicion. Just walk, nice and calmly, as if she were simply running an errand.

She managed a whole ten yards.

A window flew up behind her in Turquine House, and the master who’d spoken to her earlier leaned out. He pointed at her. ‘Thief!
Thief!
’

Irene picked up her skirts and ran. Gravel crunched under her feet, and the first drops of rain slapped against her face. She came level with the next boarding house, Bruce House, and for a
moment she considered abandoning her arranged escape plan and simply ducking into there in order to break her trail and slow down pursuit. But common sense pointed out that it wouldn’t work
for more than a few minutes –

The whistling screech from behind warned her just in time. She dived to the ground, throwing herself into a roll, as the gargoyle came screaming down, its stone claws extended and clutching for
her. It missed, and struggled to pull out of its dive, its heavy wings sawing at the air as it laboured to gain height. Another one had swooped from the roof of Turquine’s, and was circling
to reach a suitable angle of attack.

This was one of those moments, Irene reflected bitterly, when it would be wonderful to be a necromancer, or a wizard, or someone who could manipulate the magical forces of the world and
blast
annoying gargoyles out of the sky
. She’d done her best to avoid attention, keep her cover, and not endanger bratty little boys who left mud all over the floor and didn’t bother to
hang up their cloaks. What had it got her? A swarm of attacking gargoyles – well, only two gargoyles so far, but still – and probably a mass assault by pupils and masters within a few
minutes. So much for the rewards of virtue.

She quickly reviewed what she knew about the gargoyles. There was one on the roof of each boarding house. They were even listed in the boarding school prospectus as a guarantee of student safety
– ANY KIDNAPPERS WILL BE TORN TO BLOODY RAGS BY OUR PROFESSIONALLY MAINTAINED HISTORICAL ARTEFACTS! Though after working here for several months, she thought the pupils themselves were much
more lethal to possible kidnappers.

On the positive side (one must always look for the positive side) the gargoyles were extremely showy, but not actually that
effective
over a short space of ground. On the negative side,
running in a straight line to escape would make her a beautiful moving target. But getting back to the positives, the gargoyles were made of granite, as lovingly described in the prospectus, unlike
anything else within earshot.

This would need careful timing. Luckily the gargoyles weren’t particularly intelligent so they would be focused on capturing her, not on wondering why she was standing conveniently
still.

She took a deep breath.

The first gargoyle reached suitable swooping altitude. It called to the other gargoyle in a carrying screech, and then the two of them dropped towards her together, their wings spread in wide,
dark traceries against the sky.

Irene screamed, at the top of her voice, ‘
Granite, be stone and lie still!
’

The Language always worked well when it was instructing things to be what they naturally were, or to do what they naturally wanted to do. Stone
wanted
to be inert and solid. Her command
only reinforced the natural order of things. It was therefore the perfect antidote to the unnatural magic keeping stone gargoyles in flight.

The gargoyles stiffened mid-stoop, their wings freezing in place, and overshot her easily. One thumped squarely into the ground, pounding out a crater for itself, while the other came in at more
of an angle. It ploughed a wide groove along the nicely smoothed gravel path, before colliding with one of the stately lime trees bordering the avenue. Leaves rained down on it.

There was no time for her to pause and feel smug, so she ran.

Then the howling started. It was either hellhounds or teenagers, and she suspected the former. They’d been in the prospectus, too. The prospectus had been very helpful about the
school’s security precautions. If she ever had to come back here again, perhaps she could sell her services as a security consultant. Under a pseudonym, of course.

A sudden burst of red light sent her shadow leaping down the avenue ahead of her, and proved the hellhound theory. Right. She’d planned for hellhounds. She could plan for
organized
magic, even if she couldn’t perform it. She just had to stay calm and cool and collected
and get to the fire hydrant ahead before they caught up with her
.

Among its modern conveniences, the school included running water and precautions against fire. Which meant fire hydrants spaced along the main avenue. The one that lay between her and the school
library was twenty yards away.

Ten yards. She could hear pounding paws behind her, throwing up gravel in a rattle of ferocious speed. She didn’t look.

Five yards. Something panted
just behind her
.

She threw herself at the hydrant, an unimpressive black stub of metal barely two feet high. But as she did, a heavy scorching weight collided with her back, slamming her to the ground and
pinning her there. She wrenched her head round enough to see the huge dog-like creature crouching on top of her. It wasn’t quite burning her, not yet, but its body was as hot as a banked
stove. And she knew, if it wanted to, it could get much,
much
hotter. Its eyes were vicious coals in its flaming head, and when it opened its mouth, baring ragged teeth, a line of searing
drool dripped across the back of her neck.
Go on, try it,
it seemed to be saying.
Just try something. Give me an excuse.

‘
Hydrant, burst!
’ Irene screamed.

The hellhound opened its jaws wider in lazy warning.

The hydrant exploded at approximately knee level. Fragments of twisted iron went spraying out in all directions with the first intense burst of water. Irene was torn between thinking
Thank
goodness I’m on the ground
and
That’s what comes of sloppy vocabulary and word choice
. A bit of metal sheared through the air a few inches above her nose and slapped into the
hellhound almost casually, sending it cartwheeling backwards with a howl of pain.

It took Irene a moment to pull her wits together and scramble to her feet. The water should slow the hellhounds and douse their fires for a while, but she didn’t have any other backup
plans. And she still had to get to the school library. Her dress wet and her shoes soaked through, she broke into a stagger, then into a run.

The library doors were made of heavy studded wood, and when she yanked them open, warm lantern-light spilled out over her.
Making you a target for anyone looking in your direction
, her
sense of self-preservation pointed out. She stumbled into the vestibule and swung the heavy door closed, but there was only one large lock on the door, and no key. But then again, she didn’t
need one.

She leaned over and murmured in the Language, ‘
Lock on the library door, lock yourself shut.
’

The sound of tumblers moving into the locked position was very satisfying. Especially when the next noise, a couple of seconds later, was the heavy thud of hellhound hitting the door on the
other side.

‘What’s going on there?’ an annoyed voice called from deeper inside the library.

Irene had scouted out the place earlier, with a duster and wax polish as an alibi. Directly ahead were the non-fiction stacks, shelves full of books on everything from astrology to
Zoroastrianism. And to the right, there was a small office where books were stored for mending. More importantly, the office had a
door
she could use to get out of here and that was what she
needed.

There was another thump from behind her. The main door shivered slightly under attack, but stood firm.

She didn’t bother replying to the voice she’d heard. Instead she brushed the gravel from her clothing, forcing herself to calmness. The atmosphere of the place soothed her
automatically; the rich lantern lights, the sheer
scent
of paper and leather, and the fact that everywhere she looked, there were books, books, beautiful books.

Another thump from the outer door, and the sound of raised angry voices. All right, perhaps she shouldn’t relax
too
much.

She stood in front of the closed office door, taking a deep breath.

‘
Open to the Library,
’ she said, giving the word
Library
its full value in the Language, and felt the tattoo scrawled across her back shift and writhe as the link was
established. There was the usual flurrying moment of awareness and pressure, as though something huge and unimaginable was riffling through the pages of her mind. It always lasted just that little
bit too long to bear, and then the door shuddered under her hand and opened.

A sudden burst of noise indicated that her pursuers had managed to enter. She spared a moment to regret that she hadn’t had time to grab any other books, and quickly stepped through. As
the latch clicked shut behind her, it re-established itself as part of the world she’d left behind. However many times they might open it now, it would only ever reveal the office to which it
originally belonged. They would never be able to follow her here.

She was in the Library. Not just any library, but THE Library.

High shelves rose on either side, too high and full of books for her to see what lay beyond. The narrow gap in front of her was barely wide enough to squeeze through. Her shoes left wet prints
in the dust behind her, and she stepped over three sets of abandoned notes as she edged towards the lit area in the distance. The only sounds were a vague, half-audible creaking somewhere to her
left, irregular and uncertain as the slow oscillations of a child’s swing.

The cramped space abruptly opened out into a wider wood-panelled room, with a wooden floor. She glanced around, but couldn’t identify it offhand. The books on the shelves were printed, and
some of them looked more modern than any from the alternate that she had just left, but that in itself proved nothing. The large centre table and chairs were covered with dust, just like the floor,
and the computer sitting on the table was silent. A single lantern hung from the ceiling, with a white crystal burning brilliantly in the centre. In the far wall, a bow window looked out over a
gaslamp-lit night-time street, and a wind tugged at the tree branches, making them silently bend and sway.