The Wind Merchant (20 page)

“You know,” Ras said breathlessly, placing a hand on the thick marble column to steady himself after their ascent, “you don’t realize how little you move when your entire job revolves around a steering wheel and some buttons. You feel like you’re going everywhere…but you’re really not.” He looked up to the non-winded Callie. “Don’t give me that look.”

Callie just smiled as she walked through the threshold of the tall double-doors and into the foyer. Her shoes lightly echoed on the ornate tile floor and she stared up to the tall stained glass windows that failed to let any light through them. Frowning, she looked back to Ras. “I’m guessing when this thing was built, there weren’t skyscrapers next to it.”

Ras took a deep breath. “I think that’s a fair assessment.” He looked ahead of them to the rows upon rows of books. The vaulted ceiling in the foyer showed the beginnings of two more floors. He looked around nervously and felt exposed in the open even though nothing pointed to anyone taking a particular interest in them. “Where do we begin?”

Callie began walking into the maze of dark bookshelves and dusty tomes. “First stop: history.” She traced a finger along the guide at the end of one of the bookshelves. “2H, section 8.”

“Second floor?” Ras asked, craning his neck to the right in an attempt to read a few spines. “Why would they have cookbooks here?”

“Why not?” Callie shrugged, but her smile was permanently affixed. They continued deeper into the library, occasionally coming across a sparsely populated reading area until they reached a matched pair of spiral staircases.

 
Ras looked up to see they reached high above into a taller section of the library that seemed to climb a dozen floors, if not more. They walked to the stairwell, ascending each metal step in a corkscrew until they reached the second floor. Callie began looking around at the ends of the bookcases for their designations.

“Can I help you, miss?” an elderly gentleman pushing a metal book cart asked. He wore a frock bearing the library’s logo and smiled eagerly at the opportunity to be of service. “You have that look about you.”

“Do I look lost?” Callie asked. She looked down at the man’s name tag: Wilfrid.

“No, no, no. You look plenty at home, young miss. You just have the look of someone who’s ready to begin but might need to be pointed in the right direction, is all.” Wilfrid tried to comb down the wild white wisps of hair into something more streamlined, but failed.

Ras leaned in, “We should probably—”

“He’ll save us some time,” Callie said, still smiling. “Yes, I’m looking for a good book on the weapons the Elders used during the war.”

Wilfrid gave a soft chuckle. “Now that’s a first. And you, young sir?”

“I’ll have what she’s having,” Ras said, jutting a thumb at Callie.

“Two orders of military history, coming right up…if you’ll follow me,” Wilfrid said, spinning the cart with a squeaky wheel and disappeared down a set of aisles.

“I like him. He’s cute,” Callie said.

“Like a fox?”

“Hopefully not like a fox.” Callie walked toward Wilfrid, waving her hand for Ras to follow. They caught up with the old man momentarily, easily tracking the squeaky wheel.

“Now, I thought the University was on break. Did some sadistic professor give you an assignment for next term?” Wilfrid asked, raising a wispy white eyebrow.

“Oh, no, sir, just naturally curious,” Callie said.

He stopped the cart and turned to look at Callie. A grin spread wide. “Good on you. Now, you might find better luck learning about The Elders in the folklore section.” He reached out and pulled two red leather-bound books with golden edges on their pages. “But these are the crowd favorites on The Clockwork War. That should get you started while I go find something out of folklore.”
 

Callie graciously accepted the books, her hands trembling slightly as Wilfrid tottered off with his cart. Clutching the books to her chest, she half-skipped to an area with four stuffed chairs surrounding a table before plopping into the one facing the atrium. “Best idea ever.” She ran her hand over the cover that held the embossed title:
The War of Time, Volume I
. She looked down at the author’s name.

Dayus Ofanim.

“Ras?” Callie handed him Volume II as he approached. “How many Dayuses do you think there are?”

“Are or were?” Ras asked, inspecting his book as he sat in the chair left of Callie. “It might be him. He was in the middle of everything, after all.” Ras cracked the book open. “And now he makes eggs.”

“I tried asking Hal everything I could about the war while you were unconscious,” Callie said, “but maybe Dayus will be a bit more helpful.” She flipped to the first few pages. “Ooh, a first edition.”

“What am I looking for?” Ras asked.

“Most sources say the Great Overload didn’t happen until The Elders were shut into The Wild. Some say it was before that. I’d start with the last battle over Treding and see if the book mentions the city of Bogues erupting first,” Callie said, already half lost in her book.

Ras turned to the table of contents and ran a finger down to the last chapter. “
The Battle of Bogues
. Sounds promising.”

Callie looked up, eyes dancing with excitement. “There wasn’t a Battle of Bogues. The war ended after Treding.”

“Or did it?” Ras flipped toward the end of the book, fanning the paper until he hit the final chapter. The pages were blank.

Ras held up the open book to show Callie, who reached over and snatched it from him, flipped back a few pages to scan the passage about Treding, then forward to the blank pages.

She shut the book and inspected the binding. “The gilding on the paper is a different shade of gold. Someone actually went through the trouble to bind and paint it so nobody would notice the missing pages.”

“Hey, at least you know you’re on to something. We just need to figure out what happened in Bogues.”

The squeaky wheel announced Wilfrid’s imminent arrival. Callie shot up from her seat, rushing up to him with blank pages exposed.

“Well now, what’s this?” Wilfrid asked, examining the paper.

“Someone rebound blank pages here,” Callie said, offering the book.

Wilfrid took it, stacking it atop two other books. He then carefully placed his reading glasses atop his nose and furrowed his brow, inspecting it. “Perhaps it is a misprint. I can check with the front desk to see if we have another edition in the archives. My apologies,” Wilfrid said with a serious nod. “In the meanwhile, I’ve brought you a book on folklore from one of the territories closest to The Wild:
The Demons of Bogues
.” He offered a cotton-bound purple hardback. “And a children’s book.”

Callie looked at the illustrated cover Wilfrid still held. It showed two clockwork Elders, one with decidedly feminine features, and a smaller clockwork, all standing above the title. “
The Littlest Elder
?”

Wilfrid chuckled. “I’m afraid The Great Overload didn’t leave much time to…document the subject.” He placed
The War of Time, Volume II
in his cart and turned to head down to the front desk.

“What’d we get?”

Callie tucked
The War of Time, Volume I
underneath an arm and held up each book for Ras to see.

“I call the one with pictures,” Ras said.

The sound of footfalls clapping on tile echoed through the library. Ras and Callie turned their attention to the man in a Collective uniform running up to the information desk, arriving just before Wilfrid.

The man in uniform placed two stacks of posters with dark black print atop each.

“What does it say?” Callie asked. “My eyes aren’t the best.”

Ras squinted. “One says…wanted. The other…Oh no.”

“What?”

“Kidnapped.” He could only assume whose faces were sketched underneath. “We have to go, now.”

Before Wilfrid could study the posters, Ras pulled Callie into an unoccupied aisle. He heard a muffled sniffle beneath the hat and oversized green jacket, and he lifted the front brim of the bowler to see Callie’s wet eyes look up at him.

“What have I done?” she said in a whimper.

“You didn’t do anything.”

“Exactly. If I had laid everything out in front of my parents instead of just leaving—”

“You’d still be stuck in a basement in a sinking city,” Ras whispered. “Just look at where you are now.”

“I’m in the library I’ve always dreamed of but can’t enjoy because that sweet old man is probably going to realize who he was talking to any second now and we’ll be trapped.” She sniffled. “I’m sorry.”

“Let’s just add this to the list of places I’ll take you, sound good?”

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and nodded.

“We need to get to the first level. I doubt there are any exits from here up.” Ras led Callie to the spiral staircase and quickly descended and hid behind the nearest bookshelf.

Ras peeked out to see two security guards walking in from outside and setting up a post at the entrance. He ducked back into the aisle. “How about a very quick tour to see if there’s a back exit?” His eyes darted around as he tried to imagine a best course of action, and they fell on Callie. “Good call on the hat.”

They walked to the end of the aisle away from the entrance and information desk, then turned, following a side wall deeper into the building. Ras caught a glimpse of more security guards amassing around the information desk, taking flyers and studying them.

“So much for friendly librarians,” Ras said. He ducked low and looked ahead of him to see a set of tables for readers before the bookshelves resumed. The gap would leave them exposed.

There were a few readers scattered about the tables, so crawling underneath would surely alert the guards.

“Swap me jackets,” Ras whispered. Callie obliged and they swapped as quietly as possible. “And the hat.” Ras donned the hat, tucking all his hair underneath.

“I guess looking different is a start,” Callie said.

“I’ll walk across first. They’ll be trying to spot two people,” Ras said. “If I make it across unnoticed, wait a moment before you follow.”

“Wait, what do I do if they chase you?” she asked.

“I don’t know, throw a book at them or knock over a shelf.”

She looked at him like he had just asked her to skin a kitten with a dull spoon.

Ras picked a particularly large book off of the shelf and cracked it open. He began walking as casually as he could manage with his head down, checking to make sure that he at least held the book right side up, and pretended to read.
 

Heavy footsteps indicated the guards breaking off from the information desk, but Ras didn’t look up to give them a free glance at his face. Thankfully, none of the footfalls seemed to be heading toward him.

Making it across the open area, he placed the book on a nearby shelf. He looked back at Callie, who held a stern expression, gesturing something about taking a book off the shelf, and Ras realized she was getting onto him for misplacing the book. Ras did his best not to roll his eyes and motioned for her to cross over. She slowly made her way out to the open area but was only a few footsteps in when a guard shouted. Callie froze.

“Hey, stop her!” a voice from above shouted.

Ras ran over to Callie to grab her. He looked up to the balcony to see the guard wasn’t facing them at all.

A thunderous crash resounded and dust flew up from the opposite side of the room a good distance away. The crash was followed by another, then another. Ras watched the tops of one bookshelf after another topple in a cascade.

“All those books,” Callie murmured.

“Look at the front door,” Ras said, pointing as security guards filed in toward the commotion and away from the front door. “That’s our cue.”

Ras looked over and realized that the bookshelves would topple and eventually cut off their exit. It became a race to see if they could get back before the final bookcase fell, blocking their escape.

They darted back through the same aisle that led to the staircase as the crashing sound grew louder. At some point the cascade doubled in two directions and the toppling bookcases took a shortcut toward the front door.

“Run!” Ras shouted as they entered the foyer, joining into a mix of other frantic citizens. The increased frequency of the crashes concerned him as they still had two-hundred feet to clear and only three bookshelves left to outrun. Ras saw a book cart and began to push it.

The next to last bookshelf collided into the final one by the door. Ras shoved the cart forward as the final shelf toppled, and did so just in time. The bookcase crashed down on the metal box, and the remaining gap gave about three feet of clearance through which to escape.

Ras slid down to his hands and knees and began to crawl over a pile of books underneath the heavy bookshelf. The wheels on the cart snapped, dropping the shelf by half a foot. Ras flinched but scrambled out and spun around to offer a hand to Callie, who hesitated as the metal cart’s sides began to creak and bend.

“C’mon!” he shouted to Callie. She shook her head as the cart groaned. “Now or never.”

Clutching the books to her chest, she got down and began to crawl forward. Ras reached underneath and hauled her out just before the cart fully buckled and collapsed under the weight of the shelf, effectively blocking the entrance.

“What was that?” Callie asked weakly.

“Let’s let them sort that out,” he said, then pointed to her books. “Smart move on keeping those.”

“Oh no! I didn’t check these out,” she said. “I’m a criminal…”

Ras gently grabbed her shoulders and guided her away from the building. “I’m sure we’ll return them on the way back,” Ras said, perking up at the sound of sirens. “I doubt the police will be crosschecking the stamps in the books.”

They descended the marble staircase as quickly as their adrenaline-filled legs would carry them, catching up with the rest of the escapees and blending into the commotion as the
Derailleur
police arrived. The uniformed men seemed far more focused on whatever was going on inside the library.