Bookworm Read online

  The massive stone doors opened for her as she approached, recognising her magical signature as one who was allowed access. Successive Grand Sorcerers hadn’t been inclined to place all their faith in the statues, no matter how many enchantments had been used to make them obedient and invincible guardians. The Great Library was protected with layer after layer of defensive spells, some bluntly obvious to even the merest of magicians, some so subtle and deadly that any would-be thief would have no opportunity to realise that they were there until it was far too late. Even the Peerless School, a building designed to contain magical accidents caused by trainee sorcerers, was less well defended than the Library. But then, the magical knowledge stored within the stone walls was the source of the Empire’s power. It could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.

  Inside, the cool dry air left her feeling uncomfortably sweaty as she ran through the corridors, feeling them twisting and turning around her. The interior of the building lay within a pocket dimension, making it literally bigger on the inside than on the outside. Elaine had been told that the Great Library was actually alive, at least on some level, but she’d never been able to sense any governing presence. Perhaps it was just too subtle for her senses to detect, or perhaps it didn’t talk to mere humans. The Great Library had outlasted both of the Necromantic Wars and many other conflicts besides.

  The corridors straightened out suddenly and she found herself in the foyer. It was a luxuriously decorated room, covered with paintings of librarians through the ages, but there was no mistaking its purpose. Not everyone could be allowed access to the Great Library, or all of the collections housed within its walls. Students from the Peerless School, Senior Wizards, the Regency Council...they had access. Everyone else had to apply to the Head Librarian and convince her that they deserved to enter the Great Library. One day, Elaine told herself, she’d be in that position of power. It was an oddly cheerless thought.

  “Elaine,” a stern voice said. Elaine froze, and then tried to calm herself. “What have I told you about being late?”

  Elaine held back several different answers and did her best to look contrite. “I’m sorry, Miss Prim,” she said. “The roads were crowded today.”

  Miss Prim glowered at her. She was a tall woman, old enough to be Elaine’s grandmother – and a slave, bound to the Great Library. From the rumours Elaine had heard, Miss Prim – not her real name, but one foisted on her by the Grand Sorcerer – had been one of the more successful would-be thieves who tried to steal books from the Library. After she’d been caught red-handed, she’d been enslaved – and, as punishment, assigned to the Library she’d tried to rob. The spell binding her wouldn’t allow her to leave, or to do a bad job.

  “We are going to have to do something about your lateness, my girl,” Miss Prim said, severely. Her voice had a knack for cutting through to the heart of any issue. “It really is quite unacceptable. The demand on our services has been rising over the last few months...”

  As the Grand Sorcerer prepares to meet the gods, Elaine thought, sourly. Every Senior Wizard in the world would be considering their own bid to become Grand Sorcerer. They’d be studying, brushing up on their spells – and making contacts with other wizards and even the mundane community. Power was a drug to many wizards and the position of Grand Sorcerer was the most powerful position in the world.

  “...And so I expect better from you,” Miss Prim concluded. “Consider yourself lucky that we are no longer in the habit of beating our inferiors. I suggest that you go get yourself suitably presentable for doing your job. You’re going to be assisting some of the very best wizards in the city.”

  Elaine nodded as she walked through the foyer and into the small office behind the desk. The Great Library had a dozen reading rooms and a hundred different open collections, but few of the visitors would be interested in books they could buy for themselves. No, they’d be interested in the restricted volumes, the ones kept firmly under lock and key. Some of them would even try to convince her to retrieve books from the Black Vault, despite the Grand Sorcerer’s edict forbidding access without permission from the Regency Council. Elaine found herself silently praying that none of them would be foolish enough to turn nasty if she had to refuse their demands. The Great Library itself took care of any troublemakers, but the effects had an unpleasant tendency to spill over onto unsuspecting bystanders.

  She donned the grey smock worn by library staff and took a moment to check her hair. There were a dozen other assistants in the Library at any one time, scattered through the reading rooms and at helpdesks. Despite herself, Elaine knew that the job was important – and it required a special class of person, someone who could be trusted not to abuse the access granted to them by the Library. In her case, it hardly mattered how many forbidden tomes she read, whatever the rules said. She simply didn’t have the power to utilise many of the spells other wizards used daily, let alone dark spells that hadn’t been used since the Necromantic Wars.

  “Room Thirteen,” Miss Prim said, when Elaine emerged from the office. “Daphne’s on the desk, but she needs help finding material. Too many wizards up there and they’re getting impatient.”

  “Yes, Miss Prim,” Elaine said. She turned and walked down the corridor. Sometimes, the corridors shifted, seemingly at random, but this time the Library seemed inclined to remain still. Room Thirteen was larger than the foyer, with a handful of desks manned by grumpy wizards reading older books and making notes. A small line of wizards stood in front of the main desk, waiting impatiently for their turn. Elaine walked around the desk and looked up at the first in line – and realised, too late, that it was someone she already knew.

  “Frogeye,” a delighted voice said. “How nice to see you again.”

  Elaine wanted to sink into the floor. Of all the people who had to visit the Great Library – and who she had to serve personally – it just had to be Millicent. The one person she’d met whom she never wanted to see again.

  Wonderful, she thought, bitterly. This day just keeps getting better and better.

  Chapter Two

  “Millicent,” Elaine said. “I...”

  “I am absolutely delighted to see you, Frogeye,” Millicent said. She ran one hand through her long blonde hair, calling attention to the shamefully tight white shirt she was wearing. “This...girl wasn’t going to give me what I wanted.”

  Elaine winced, inwardly. Millicent, blonde, beautiful and with a magical pedigree as long as her arm, had decided to hate her from the day that Elaine had been accepted to the Peerless School. A young orphan girl couldn’t help Millicent with her carefully-planned career, so Millicent had felt free to pick on Elaine for five years of hell. Elaine remembered – she couldn’t forget – days when she’d discovered that someone had stolen her supplies, trapped her wand and scribbled on her books. And the week she’d spent as a frog after Millicent had decided to practice her transfiguration on an unsuspecting victim. No wonder Daphne had been uncooperative. Millicent had a remarkable talent for irritating people.

  “Here,” Millicent said, thrusting a sheet of paper at Elaine. “I want these books, now.”

  Elaine scanned the list, wishing that she was strong enough to stand up to Millicent. But Millicent only respected magical power and good breeding and Elaine had neither. No one knew who her parents had been, or why they’d chosen to abandon their daughter, but Millicent hadn’t hesitated to draw a possible conclusion. Illegitimate children were still regarded as shameful, even ones who showed signs of magical power. And Elaine’s power had never been significant enough to convince her unknown parents to change their minds.

  “You want all of these books?” Elaine asked, in surprise. None of them were on the prohibited list for a fully-qualified sorceress, but they were all alarmingly close to the line. Some of them had only been one vote from being added to the Black Vault. “Do you have...?”

  Millicent grinned as she produced a scroll and passed it over to Elaine. “My aunt, Lady Light Spin
ner, the next Grand Sorcerer, was kind enough to grant me permission to study how I liked,” she said. “Now hop to it, Frogeye, or you’ll be hopping around for the rest of the day.”

  Elaine rebelled the only way she could, by studying the parchment carefully. Lady Light Spinner was known to her, although she hadn’t realised that Millicent was actually her niece – but then, the family ties between the senior wizards were often confusing. And she did have the authority to permit Millicent to study any tome outside the Black Vault itself. Elaine checked the magical seal, doing her best to ignore Millicent’s twitching wand arm, and then passed it back to her tormentor. Maybe she could take longer than she would normally have done to locate all the books.

  “It seems to be in order,” she said, blandly. “Why don’t you take a seat and wait while I go find the books?”

  “I’m in Room Fourteen,” Millicent said, flatly. “Bring them to me there. I shall have others ready for you to find by then.”

  She swept out of the reading room, leaving Elaine staring after her in helpless rage. Millicent had always been a bitch, but then she’d had the breeding and magical power to back it up. She hadn’t even been significantly punished after the frog incident, even though the Administrator himself had lectured her in front of the entire school. A less well-connected girl might well have been expelled, or forced to serve as the test subject for junior potions. Shaking her head, she picked up the list and skimmed through it again. Some of the items on the list were definitely not books she wanted Millicent to read.

  But there was no choice. Leaving Daphne behind in the reading room, she stepped into the office and through the hanging mirror on the wall. Like most magical buildings, the Great Library had a reflection within the mirrors, an alternate dimension that could only be accessed by its staff. Elaine felt her head swim as she entered the mirror world and looked around. Great stacks of books lay everywhere, some covered with dust that suggested they hadn’t been touched for a thousand years. There were some books, Elaine knew, that hadn’t been opened even during the worst days of the Necromantic Wars. Miss Prim had told her that the sorcerers of those days had feared the secrets within the books far more than they’d feared the Witch-King and his armies of undead servants.

  Where the mundane world had the reading rooms and other compartments for the staff, the mirrored world had endless rooms of books. Elaine picked up the list, selected the first title, and concentrated, allowing the magic in the Great Library to guide her to the book. It had been stuffed into a nearby room and buried under a pile of other dusty tomes, as if the last user had taken care to hide it from casual view. Only the staff – and the senior wizards – were permitted access to the mirrored dimension, and the magic in the Library made it impossible to hide anything permanently, but someone had definitely tried to conceal it. Elaine glanced at the title as she pulled it out from its hiding place, shaking her head. A tome on ways to boost one’s own power reserves by uniting with other magicians was the last thing Millicent should have needed. Elaine knew, to her everlasting regret, that Millicent had power to spare. And why would her aunt have given her permission to read the books anyway?

  She mulled over the question as she found the other books on the list. One of them was on transfiguration, ways to maintain a change long enough for reality to catch up with the spell, while another was on ways to brew complicated potions. Two of the books were written in a language that had been dead and gone for a thousand years, although a simple translation spell would allow Millicent to read them. And one of them talked about bargains that could be made with the gods. Elaine smiled savagely as she added that one to the growing pile of books. There were enough cautionary tales about magicians who tried to bargain with the gods to make her hope that was what Millicent had in mind. But then, Millicent was good at avoiding blame for her actions. Maybe she’d manage to charm the gods too.

  One of the books was out already, according to the Library. It was a strange book, one that discussed ways to tame magical creatures like werewolves and mermaids, at least according to Millicent’s notes. Elaine suspected that it was actually something far darker. They’d learned about potions that could be made by someone with access to werewolf fur, or mermaid scales, potions that were quite definitely on the forbidden list. But Millicent would have to wait for it, she told herself as she walked back towards the mirror. There were strict rules against disturbing one patron because another wanted a book.

  The mirror flickered around her as she stepped back into the normal world, carrying the books with her. Millicent had said that she would be in Room Fourteen, naturally. Room Fourteen was normally reserved for senior wizards and while Millicent didn’t count as a senior wizard, no one was likely to argue with Lady Light Spinner’s favourite niece. The door opened as Elaine approached, spying Millicent seated on one of the comfortable chairs and reading through one of the older catalogues. They dated back to the time before one of the first librarians had designed the spells that automatically updated the catalogues when a book was added to the Library’s stock. No book was ever allowed to leave the Great Library, even one that had been thoroughly disproved by later research. The very thought was blasphemous.

  “There’s an article in Alchemical Monthly about a new version of Luminous Potion,” Millicent said, in an almost friendly tone. And then she reverted to form. “But you wouldn’t care about that, would you? Your potion skills were non-existent.”

  Elaine ignored her as best she could. Millicent was right, of course. Elaine hadn’t had great success with potions, although surprisingly few students became Potion Masters. It required skill, patience and innate talent, all traits that Elaine lacked. But she’d managed to master enough potions to pass her exams, even if she hadn’t made any of them since she’d left the Peerless School. Even the potions designed to help with female issues were easier – and safer – to buy from a local apothecary.

  But she was a good librarian. “Your books,” she said, shortly. “I’m afraid that one of them is currently out on loan to one of the other readers, but I’ll pick it up for you when it is returned.”

  Surprisingly, Millicent didn’t choose to make an issue of it. “Leave them here, Frogeye,” she said, taking the first book from the stack and blowing off the dust. “And here’s the next list.”

  Elaine sighed. “I’ll go find them for you,” she said, wearily.

  “Hop to it,” Millicent said. She chuckled, as if she hadn’t been making the same joke for three years. “I’ll let you know when I need you.”

  She kept Elaine busy for nearly an hour before Miss Prim finally arrived and ordered Elaine to deal with someone else. Elaine, relieved, spent the rest of the morning in a different part of the Library, dealing with customers who all seemed to want to brush up on their spells and studies of ancient magic. Maybe it did make a certain kind of sense, she resolved, after finding yet another pile of books. The Grand Sorcerer was dying, after all. Millicent had mentioned that her aunt would be the next Grand Sorceress, suggesting that Lady Light Spinner definitely intended to try to compete herself. Elaine couldn’t think of that as anything other than bad news. If Millicent was unbearable now, what would she be like if her aunt became the Grand Sorceress?

  The question nagged at her mind as she took a break and then walked down to the workroom below the main Library. Miss Prim kept her staff moving from position to position, ensuring that they had the experience to take on any role at a moment’s notice. Elaine had been told to start examining a new consignment of books that had been left to the Library, but she hadn’t had time to start on it for several days. It was a relief to finally have a chance to get to work on the boxes. This was real librarianship.

  Every magician in the world – and everyone who fancied themselves a magician – collected books on magic. There were thousands of copies of some common spellbooks, along with books on theory and books on creatures that had been touched by magic. None of them were on the prohibited index, although it was
n’t unknown for a long-lost copy of a prohibited book to emerge when a dead would-be magician’s collection was examined. Some of the books had been very dangerous, only prevented from causing harm by the fact that their owner barely had enough magic to light a candle. According to Miss Prim, several copies of Shade’s Darkest Shadow had only been found when the boxes of books had been opened in the Great Library. Elaine knew better than to doubt her.

  She’d run through the standard curse and hex detection spells when the boxes had arrived in the Great Library, but she ran through them again before she picked up the first box and deposited it on her worktable. Nothing showed up as dangerous, which didn’t mean anything; it was easy enough to conceal a hex from most of the detection spells. Elaine braced herself and muttered an incantation under her breath. The spells that bound the box together came apart, allowing her to remove the wood and stack it up neatly in one corner. Inside, a small pile of books awaited her attention. She paused, long enough to enjoy the thrill of not knowing what she’d find inside the box, and then picked up the first book. It was disappointing. Common Magic was a standard reference work for students, but even Elaine had long since surpassed it.

  Shaking her head, she reached for the notes that recorded where the books had come from and skimmed through them. Duke Gama, the younger brother of King Hildebrand, had fancied himself a magician, like many of the younger nobility. No real power, according to the notes, but that hadn’t stopped him buying up every magical book he could lay his hands on. Some of the less scrupulous traders had probably enriched themselves at his expense, Elaine realised, as she pulled up a pair of books that were known hoaxes. Duke Gama hadn’t had the experience or magic to tell when someone was trying to con him into buying worthless parchment. Elaine put the two books to one side, marked for disposal. The Great Library’s laws against not throwing out books didn’t apply to books of false spells and non-existent powers. No wonder Duke Gama hadn’t achieved anything when he’d tried to work magic.