“Eat her right up. I got it, Flea, really I do.” He shook his head as if trying to dislodge the information I’d just dumped on him, getting up to pace back and forth in the room, raking his hands through his hair. “Anyway, where the fuck were you two as Gabe and I were marched off to our dooms?”
“In the stables. Gabe was stressed, wanted me to take the spark plugs from the bikes, so none of the furries tried to touch them. Wanted to make sure we would make a quick getaway if needed.”
There was a quick knock at the door. It would have to be our meals. “Yeah, well, let’s eat up because you two are coming with me to the library and then the Crown Prince’s.”
We picked at our food. I had that hollow feeling deep inside me that said I really needed to eat, but whatever it was I put in my mouth soon felt like glue; sticky and tasteless with a horrible consistency as I chewed. I forced down a couple of bites and then gave up. The guys were much the same, Natty’s ears flat against his skull. “Natty, I wouldn’t be upset if you wanted to go home. This has turned out to be a lot more drama than we anticipated.”
His eyes widened as if for a moment he considered it, but he shook his head, “No, I’m in until the bitter end. I hope you don’t think all of us here are like the prince.”
“No, of course not. We have powerful sociopaths in my world, too. Now, we’ve got to go up to the third floor to an outlet to the Galactic Library. Have we got any weapons left?”
“No, they cleared us out, even those I’d stashed in difficult to find spots. We could take these dinner knives,” Flea said, his face still impassive.
“Probably a bit obvious and they’ll just take them off us again.”
With that, we trooped up the stairs. I’d settled for an old pair of flared jeans that would be much easier to shuck off if I got caught in the same position. Easier to strip off of you too, my brain helpfully pointed out. I had to accept it; in the citadel, there probably wasn’t much I could do if anyone tried to assault me. I’d yelled at Tess for her blasé attitude, but it turned out I was just as unprepared for the reali
ty here. I was weak and vulnerable and so was Gabe, locked up wherever he was. I took a deep breath and kept putting one foot in front of the other until we came to the top of the stairs. It was all I could do right now.
The outlet, whatever it was, evidently took up the whole third floor as there was a small foyer and then a wall that ran from one side of the building to the other and a single door. There was a brass plaque that said something in a language I didn’t understand. I twisted the doorknob and walked in. “Whoa!” Flea and I looked at the massive room, our eyes not knowing where to rest, struggling to take it all in. The first part of the room was a small alcove with a counter running along its length and then it all got bigger, exponentially bigger. A long thin gangway ran from behind the counter off to a point in the distance so far I couldn’t see it. Around it was bookcase after bookcase of books. “How is that . . .?” I asked, moving over to the counter and looking up and down. The view showed bookcases going down hundreds of stories and looking up was the same view. This library was Tardis-like, somehow much, much bigger than the citadel we stood within.
“What the fuck?” Flea said.
“You ring the bell and a librarian will come,” Natty said. Of course, they would. I stepped up to the counter and rang the bell.
“Hello, my name is K’laaren and I will . . .” A strange blue-skinned humanoid person flickered into being behind the counter, like turning a TV on. They started what was obviously their usual spiel, then turned their plate sized silver eyes on us, frowning and tipping its head to one side. “I apologise, my translator is having some difficulties. Are you speaking Earthen English or Fauvian?”
“What’s Fauvian when it’s at home?” Flea asked.
“Of course, we’re speaking English,” I said. “It’s the only language I know how to speak.”
“You are speaking English right now,” the blue librarian said, “but before you were speaking Fauvian.”
“No, we weren’t,” I said.
“Ah, Ash, I’m not sure what’s going on, but you need to tell the librarian what you want and then they find the information for you,” Natty said.
“Yeah, I get that, but it is having difficulties understanding us.”
“That is inaccurate,” the librarian said, “I can understand all languages used in this universe, including many millions of lost languages. . . .”
“They are probably having difficulties because you keep swapping languages. Sometimes you speak properly and then you switch to this other weird noise,” Natty said.
“I’m not switching languages. I have no idea how to do that!” I snapped.
“Ah, a request,” the librarian said. Its huge shining eyes lost focus for a moment; then it snapped back to attention. “To your query: how could you be speaking in several different languages unwittingly? I have many possible explanations, but the most likely are as follows: you have been injected with a nano-translator without your knowledge, you have been infected with a multilingual virus, languages have been downloaded into your consciousness while you slept, you have been infected with a babel fish, you have had a spell cast on you, you have spontaneously developed the ability to—”
“Hang on,” I said, “what was the one with the spell?”
“Spells, translation: a spell which a magic user casts either over themselves or others to give them the ability to speak and understand and write, where applicable, a language they have not learned,” the librarian said. “Do you think this explanation the most likely?”
“Yeah, I mean, Nan was apparently a powerful witch,” I said.
“By Nan, do you mean Nan: title or Nan: first name?” the librarian said.
“Nan: title.”
“By this, you mean Nan, from the word Nana, a variation of the title grandmother. Your grandmother was a magic user. Her name, please?”