The Invisible Library (41 page)

Bradamant pursed her lips, then nodded. Perhaps she sympathized. Or perhaps she intended to blame every last bit of unauthorized exposure on Irene. She wiped her hands clean of dust and blood on
the battered skirts of her dress and flipped the book open. ‘The eighty-seventh story, yes. The Story of the Stone from the Tower of Babel.’

She breathed a deep sigh. ‘It’s here. Eighty-seventh of . . . eighty-eight?’

The silence hung in the room as they all considered that point. If it was unusual that an eighty-seventh story should exist, Irene thought, then what was the eighty-eighth doing there? Could
Bradamant have been given a mere indicator, as opposed to the true reason why the book was so important . . . ?

‘My German’s not very good,’ Kai said plaintively.

Bradamant gave a put-upon sigh. ‘
Once upon a time,
’ she began to translate, ‘
there lived a brother and a sister who both belonged to the same Library. Now this was a
strange library, for it held books from a thousand worlds, but lay outside all of them. And the brother and sister loved each other and worked together to find new books for their Library
. .
.’

‘No wonder your people didn’t want this one getting loose,’ Vale said with satisfaction.

Bradamant paused to raise her eyebrows at him before continuing. ‘
One day, the brother said to his sister, “Since this Library contains all books, does it contain the story of its
own founding?”
’

‘No,’ Irene said.

‘Surely it must,’ Kai said. ‘We probably just don’t have access to it yet.’

‘
If
you don’t mind,’ Bradamant said.

‘I beg your pardon,’ Kai said. Bradamant nodded coldly, and went on. ‘
“I suppose so,” the sister said. “But it would be unwise to seek it.”
“Why?” the brother asked. “Because of the nature of the Library’s secret,” the sister answered, “that we both wear branded upon our backs.”
’

‘It has the proper cadence for a Brothers Grimm story,’ Vale said helpfully. Irene felt her back itch.

‘
Now the brother had never troubled to look at the mark upon his back,
’ Bradamant went on. ‘
But that night he sought a mirror and read the writing on his skin, and
what he read there sent him mad. He left the Library then and he colluded with its enemies against it. But most of all he swore vengeance against his sister, for she had spoken the words that set
him on this path. A hundred years later, his sister returned to the Library following a quest that she had been set, and she was with child
.’

‘A hundred years?’ Vale said.

‘It can happen,’ Irene said. ‘If she’d been in an alternate where there was some way to slow ageing – high technology, or high sorcery. But the pregnancy would be
the problem—’

‘Yes, exactly,’ Bradamant said. ‘
And this caused great trouble, for there could be no birth nor death within the Library. Yet she feared to set foot outside it lest her
brother should find her. So in pain she begged them to cut open her belly and take the child out and they did so, and she was delivered of a child. They sewed up her belly with silver thread and
hid her among the deepest vaults for fear that her brother should seek her again
.’

Irene could feel her stomach clench inside her in cold fear, very slowly and deliberately. ‘So that’s why he wanted this book,’ she whispered. ‘It wasn’t because he
could use it to gain power over this world. It was because . . .’ She wasn’t sure how to say it. Because someone knew this about his secrets? If this was Grimm, then it would have been
written centuries ago. But time meant nothing in the depths of the Library, as long as someone stayed there. And Alberich was . . . well, nobody knew how old Alberich was. But how old would his
sister be? And was she still there?

‘A sister,’ Kai muttered. His eyes narrowed in thought. ‘And his sister’s child. How does it finish?’

‘That
is
how it finishes.’ Bradamant slapped the book shut, hesitated, then slid it back under Irene’s arm again. ‘There. Now we must be out of here at once. Mr
Vale, I hope we can rely on you . . .’

‘I don’t think it would do any good to make the matter public,’ Vale said wryly. ‘I am sure I can find someone to blame for all this – the Iron Brotherhood,
perhaps, or Lord Silver. He will be most unhappy to find himself without book, conclusion, or enemy.’ The thought made him smile. ‘But I would value the chance to speak with you all
again most highly.’

Irene pulled herself together. ‘That depends on our superiors.’ A nagging honesty pulled at her. ‘But . . . if we get the opportunity, I would like that too. But for the moment
– ’

‘Quite,’ Bradamant said. She walked across to the far door. ‘Kai, carry her if she can’t walk.’

‘Some brandy would have helped,’ Irene complained as Kai steered her across the slippery floor. She hoped that Vale wouldn’t get any stupid ideas about trying to pursue them
through the entrance. ‘And I’m quite capable of walking without being dragged.’

‘Allow me this small service,’ Kai growled in her ear. ‘After throwing me out and denying me the chance to protect you, and getting yourself quite this badly hurt, I must
insist
on it.’

Bradamant laid her hand on the door handle, murmuring in the Language, and the air shivered. The door swung open to show rows of shelves beyond.

‘They do tell us not to get into arguments that we can’t win,’ Irene whispered. She was weary now, and her hands were alive with pain.

They stepped through, and the door to the Library closed behind them.

The door swung shut behind them with a clang, iron-bound and solid. Someone had upgraded the warning posters in the Library room. They were all red ink and Gothic font now,
and, as her thoughts drifted, Irene wondered if they had been printed or hand-lettered.

‘Sit her down here,’ Bradamant instructed Kai, pulling command around her like a cloak. ‘I’ll go and fetch some help.’

‘Just a moment,’ Irene interrupted. She suspected that once Bradamant was out of here, she wouldn’t be back for quite a while, and there was something very important that she
wanted to say to her first.

‘You can barely stand,’ Bradamant said dismissively. ‘You need help.’

Kai looked round for a chair, found none, and carefully lowered her until she was sitting on the floor. ‘Irene, Bradamant’s right,’ he said in the patient tones that
sympathetic men use to hysterical women. ‘You’re hurt.’

‘Shut up,’ Irene said, and watched his mouth drop open at her rudeness. She was dizzy, and her hands felt as if she’d dipped them in molten barbed wire. But she had to get this
said before she lost the will to say it. ‘Bradamant. You cut in on my mission, drugged me and tried to steal my book, and generally broke quite a number of unwritten rules. True or
not?’

Bradamant looked down at her. As usual, even in tattered clothing, her posture was effortlessly elegant, and Irene felt even scruffier than usual, sprawled on the floor as she was. For a moment
Bradamant was silent. Then, finally, she said, ‘True enough.’

‘And?’

Bradamant shrugged. ‘I can apologize, but I hope you don’t expect me to say that I’m sorry.’

‘I expect nothing of the sort,’ Irene said carefully. ‘What I want . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘What I want is for us to stop despising each other quite so much. It’s a waste of time and effort.’

Bradamant raised her eyebrows. ‘My dear Irene, for me to despise you, I would have to bother to—’

‘Oh, please,’ Irene cut in. ‘You told me all about it, remember? You think I’m a spoilt brat and you’d be quite happy to have me fail publicly and obviously, even
if you’d rather not see me dead for it. You wouldn’t bother putting an insult like that together if you didn’t want it to sting.’ She saw the colour rising in
Bradamant’s cheeks. Kai’s supporting arm behind her was a comfort that helped her hold herself together. ‘I think what you want – what we both want – is to genuinely
serve the Library.’

‘Split infinitive,’ Bradamant spat.

‘Put it in your report,’ Irene said, tiredness dragging her down. ‘Just don’t waste time hating me any more, all right? And I’ll try to stop doing the same. Because
I don’t think it’s helping. I don’t think it’s helping either of us.’

‘Get that help now,’ Kai said sharply to Bradamant.

‘Please?’ Irene forced herself to look up and meet Bradamant’s eyes. ‘Think about it?’

‘I thought you wanted us to stop thinking about each other so much,’ Bradamant said coldly. She turned on her heel and walked away, skirts swishing.

Irene’s vision was narrowing, as Bradamant faded from view. ‘Think about it,’ she mumbled, the words thick and heavy in her mouth.

Kai’s fingers bit into her shoulder hard enough to make her refocus. ‘If you pass out on me now, I’m going to kill you,’ he said conversationally.

‘A bit counter-productive,’ Irene said.

‘It’d cheer me up like nothing else.’ He leaned in closer, his face inches away from hers. ‘You sent me away, you
sent me away
and you nearly got yourself killed.
Do you have any idea how stupid that was?’

Perhaps his control was slipping, because his skin was like blue-veined alabaster, and his hair seemed dark blue as well, so dark that it was nearly black. There was a deep fury in his eyes that
was a long way from human anger. It was about possessiveness, pride and a sort of ownership as well.

‘It worked,’ Irene said, managing to return his stare. His pupils weren’t human any longer either. They were slit like a snake’s, like that other dragon she’d met.
But the person behind them was more real to her than Silver and his apparent humanity. Or whatever had looked out at her from Alberich’s stolen skin. She wanted to find the words to tell him
as much. ‘We drove him out. Thank you.’

‘He endangered you!’ he broke in. ‘I shouldn’t have left any human alive in there!’

She could have thanked him for obeying or trusting her, or maybe because she could trust him. But for some reason, perhaps to divert him, she said, ‘For helping me save Vale’s life.
I like him.’

To her surprise, that made Kai turn aside and duck his head, a scarlet flush blossoming on those pale high-boned cheeks. The fingers digging into her shoulder relaxed their grip, and there was
something more human about his face. ‘He is a man to be valued,’ he muttered. ‘I am glad you approve of him as well.’

It might be a major concession for a dragon to admit he liked any human at all. ‘Right,’ she muttered. ‘Definitely. Could you get me some cotton?’ She realized that
she’d used the wrong word. ‘Coffee. I mean coffee. Bit dizzy.’

‘Stay still.’ How stupid of him; did he really think she was going to go running off somewhere? ‘Bradamant will get help.’

‘It’s just a flesh wound,’ she murmured, then darkness came down over her eyes and swallowed her up.

Light came back grudgingly, filtered through long window blinds. Irene was lying on a couch, her heavily bandaged hands neatly arranged in her lap. She was in one of the rooms
that overlooked the unknown city outside the Library walls. Someone had taken off her shoes and arranged the folds of her dress so that they covered her stockinged feet. That small thing, petty as
it was, allowed her to relax. There was only one person who’d go to that trouble.

‘Coppelia,’ she said, raising her head to look for her supervisor. The tension inside her uncurled a little. Coppelia had always been fair. She was other things as well, such as
sarcastic. And her level of expectations would challenge an Olympic high-jumper. But she could rely on Coppelia.

‘Clever girl.’ Coppelia was sitting in a high-backed chair near the couch. A portable desk covered her lap, stacked with hand-copied sheets of paper thick with the Language. She was
sitting so the light fell across her desk, but left her face and shoulders in shadow. She shifted, and her joints creaked. ‘Do you think you’re strong enough to give me a
report?’

Irene rubbed at her eyes with her forearm. ‘Could we have a little more light in here?’ The fluorescent panels in the ceiling were unlit, and the only meagre illumination came
through the blinds. It left the whole room feeling dim and unreal, like a black and white film, where bleakness was a deliberate part of the artistry.