“Wards keep things out and hold things in. I need something powerful. A spell that can do both if necessary. Something that doesn’t require ritual or the participation of many. Something that can be wielded by a single mage and that can raise any ward or break one.”
“One invoked on the sly that won’t garner attention until too late,” Manaran added with an enigmatic look.
“That would be a benefit, yes.”
It was honesty in that Gharek had told Manaran exactly what he needed from him, just not why. He’d dance that dance if the librarian requested it of him.
More silence passed as the other man studied him, then Siora, who remained quiet beside him. “Have you been to the Maesor?” he asked suddenly, that same grizzled eyebrow quirking upward as Siora started. “I thought so,” he said before Gharek could answer. “The market is a grave now. I lost two koops to whatever hunter is terrorizing its streets. A third one barely managed to make it back to tell the tale. I don’t think he’s slept a full night since without the help of a sleeping draft.”
Like the vendors in the Maesor, the royal library hired koops to find and recover rare books and manuscripts while others, such as private collectors, employed them to find equally rare magicalartifacts. They were valued for their skills and most of all for their discretion. Koopman had hired out an army of koops to his clients, thus the name by which he was known to them.
The Maesor was a risky place to do business, both for the nature of its market and the laws against sorcery that made dealing with it in any way, shape, or form an invitation to one’s own execution. Even then, those who worked for the library faced fewer risks than others because Herself and her enforcers bent the rules when it came to the library and conveniently turned a blind eye. Sorcery was outlawed, but it thrived in the Empire, just behind closed doors, in the shadows, and in the whisper of transactions exchanged in secret.
“We were in the market,” he told Manaran. “Whatever you do, don’t send any more of your people in there. What hunts those empty streets and awaits prey is powerful and without mercy.”
Manaran scowled. “You shouldn’t have gone in there. You’re lucky you got out at all. The Maesor squats on the boundary between worlds. It has always been as strange as Midrigar, though not so malevolent—until now. You were lucky.”
While he couldn’t risk telling the librarian of Zaredis and his plans for stealing the Windcry, he could reveal some details for why they needed a grimoire or some other spellbook to help them. Manaran might be even more motivated to help. “Ghosts aren’t so lucky,” he said. “Siora is a shade speaker. A true one. Something in Midrigar is literally devouring the spirits of the dead and is now reaching for the living. The creatures in the Maesor either do its bidding or are manifestations of the same entity.”
Siora added her voice to his persuasion. “My father’s spirit lingers in this realm. I want to protect him and others as well fromwhatever this abomination is. I fear if it’s ignored, it will only grow stronger and more ravenous, and it won’t stop with just the dead.”
Manaran’s gaze drifted to the open window where the view showed a landscape of rooftops and the shadow of the palace in the haze of a summer’s day. Gharek was sure the old man saw none of the scenery but instead some inner place spooling across his mind’s eye. His gaze abruptly snapped back to Gharek. “Why are you suddenly playing hero instead of villain, lad?”
Because my daughter’s life is at risk. Because we’re all at risk and no one should meet whatever end those unfortunates—ghosts and living people—had suffered.He could only base his certainty on instincts that screamed he run when caught in the throes of a malevolent bewitchment, knowing that end would surely redefine what horror meant.
He answered truthfully, avoiding the trap of believing just because Manaran was aged, he was easy to fool. “There’s nothing heroic about my motivation. We’ve seen what the ghost-eater can do, felt its sorcery, watched its power grow and stretch beyond the wards of Midrigar and now into the Maesor. And it will find a way through the gates. Of that I have no doubt. Whatever tear in the fabric separating worlds that allows the Maesor to exist, it’s also allowing something through that hungers and is never satiated, that doesn’t belong to this world.”
His answer must have satisfied Manaran because he reached inside his robes and produced a ring of keys. “Come with me,” he said.
For all that he’d taken his time shuffling to open the door at Gharek’s knock, he descended the stairs with surprising speed. Once on the ground floor again, they followed him into a maze ofshort corridors lined with towering shelves behind the main hall where the visitors and students mingled.
While the top floor might have been the venerable, if sweltering, sanctuary reserved for the master librarians to study and research in serenity, this part was a hive of activity, with scribes rushing to and fro like foraging bees. They halted long enough to salute Manaran as he passed before rushing off to complete their tasks. None questioned him or his two guests as they traveled through the maze to reach a set of three doors. Manaran unlocked the middle one, gesturing for Gharek to grab an oil lamp and follow him inside.
Once in, he closed the door and Gharek held up the lamp to reveal wall-to-wall shelves stuffed with scrolls. Unlike the hallways on the top floor and Manaran’s chamber itself, this one was neat and orderly, boasting a table in its center and chairs on either side. Blank parchment sat neatly stacked next to two full ink pots and a row of quills laid out precisely next to each other.
Manaran gestured to the tableau. “Use what you need. The scrolls and books in here deal with sorcery, the shelf there”—he pointed to the tallest one spanning the room’s back wall—“focuses on wards. Start there. They might be of some use, though you’ll need a sorcerer to actually work any spell, and you may have a hard time finding an authentic one. After a century of persecution, most are reluctant to reveal their talents, even now with Herself good and dead.”
“I may know someone,” Gharek said. Or at least knew of him, remembering Zaredis’s imported mage.
Manaran’s lips twitched. “Of course you do. I’ll give you an hour. There’s ink and parchment there if you wish to copy anything.Don’t even try stealing the books. They’re more heavily warded than a virgin’s bedchamber. All of Domora will know the moment you cross the threshold that you’ve taken something from the library.”
“Noted.”
Manaran handed Gharek the door’s key. “Again, you have one hour. It’s all I can give you before someone gets curious, so make the best of it.” He strode out of the room, all traces of enfeebled grandfatherly type gone. They overheard him order the scribes to leave his guests in peace until he returned. After witnessing their deference to him, Gharek doubted anyone would defy his command.
He turned to Siora, who was already crouched in front of the lowest row of scrolls to pull them from their slots. “You said you can read. How fast?”
She eyed him over her shoulder, face grim. “Not fast enough to go through these books for the information you need.” She gestured to the ink pots. “I’ve a clear hand though and am quick enough with a quill.”
He joined her and began pulling scrolls from the upper shelves, careful not to crush or bend them, gentle with the more fragile ones that felt like powder held together by prayer, ancient parchment whose contents might be completely faded thanks to time and age. With any luck, the knowledge they needed rested on pages not on the verge of disintegrating.
“That will work,” he said. “I’ll give you the pages I want copied. We’ll be lucky to walk out of here with five at most, but it’s better than nothing, and Zaredis should be satisfied with what we give him when we go back.”
It was a daunting task, one he doubted with each unfurling ofa scroll would yield the results they needed in so little time. Siora scribbled constantly as he either dictated some bit of spellwork or note he though Zaredis and Rurian might use in breaking the wards protecting the Windcry. The hour sped by on winged feet, and he wanted to punch his fist into the wall from sheer frustration when Manaran knocked to signal their time was up.
“Did you find something useful?” He followed Gharek into the room and closed the door behind him.
Gharek shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. There’s a great deal to sift through and ten lifetimes needed to do it. It doesn’t help that I’m not a sorcerer to know specifically what to look for.”