Journey to the Library [The Library Saga] Read online

  They waited.

  And waited.

  Slowly, midnight fog rolled across the village green.

  All was still.

  All was silent.

  The explosion didn't come.

  "Did he pull up?" asked a voice tentatively.

  As the men emerged from their hiding places and took cautious, halting steps toward the edge of the grass, they still expected a sudden, catastrophic explosion. Time seemed to be standing still, but the trajectory of the damaged plane had been so severe, none of them could think of any way in which the pilot might have been able to save his machine. And yet, as the seconds ticked past, it became increasingly clear that somehow the plane must have righted itself at the last moment.

  Either that, or...

  "It disappeared," said one of the men.

  "Don't talk daft," replied another.

  "Then where is it?"

  "It's out there," the first man said, his voice betrayed the huge amount of doubt in his mind. "It must have... landed."

  "At high speed?" asked another voice.

  "Aye."

  "At a forty-five degree angle to the ground?"

  "Well, aye."

  "With its engines dead?"

  They stood in silence for a few minutes. They all knew that such a thing was completely impossible, but no-one wanted to be the first to give voice to such concerns. Each of them was hoping that suddenly this moment of confusion would be brought to an abrupt halt by a realization, by the arrival of a logical explanation.

  They waited.

  Nothing.

  "Then where the heck is it?" asked someone eventually.

  It took a moment, but gradually the men began to make their way across the green. No-one said much; they were all concerned about the crashing fighter that had seemingly just vanished right before their eyes. They wandered through the fog, each of them locked into private contemplation of the events that had just occurred. Before them, the grass of the village green was entirely undisturbed, and the trees on the far side showed no evidence of any impact. Tall oaks that had been growing for centuries, the trees presented a daunting barrier for any plane attempting to pull up from a deep dive, and it seemed impossible that any pilot could have accomplished such a feat.

  "Must have pulled her out of it," said one of the men as he reached the edge of the grass.

  "Couldn't have done," said another. "Not at that speed and angle."

  "Then where is he?" asked another. "Go on, where've you hidden him? How'd a ruddy great Spitfire manage to crash without anyone noticing?"

  Once again, silence descended upon the men. Finally, one by one, they began to look up at the dark sky. It was as if, for one brief moment, a damaged plane had been hurtling straight down toward them, only to vanish into thin air just before it hit the ground. No-one could explain what had happened, and if there had been just a handful of witnesses, the whole thing could have been safely forgotten. However, there were a dozen men on the village green that night, all wandering through the fog with their faces turned to the heavens, all wondering what could possibly have happened to the plane.

  It was as if the damn thing had suddenly ceased to exist, or gone elsewhere. One thing was certain, though: wherever it had landed, it was nowhere to be seen.

  Many years later

  Alice Never

  "Stop snoring!" a voice shouts, accompanied by a painful kick in the shins.

  Startled, I stumble forward through the darkness and bump into a large wooden shelf. Steadying myself, I turn and see that Nodby has stopped to glare at me, while Table hasn't even stopped to look back at us. Moonlight is streaming down from above, picking out the shelves and their books in a cold white haze, and far in the distance there's the sound of some kind of creature, howling all alone.

  "You were snoring," Nodby continues, fixing me with a determined stare from behind the bars that surround his little box. "Loudly."

  "I was walking," I say, struggling to work out what happened.

  "You were nodding off," he replies. "You were stumbling alone with your eyes closed, and that was fine, but then you started snoring. I tried to nudge you out of it, but you just got louder and louder until there was nothing else to be done. Noise attracts predators, so give it a rest."

  "Can't we stop for a while?" I ask, watching as Table continues to walk along the aisle, getting further and further from us. "We've been walking for hours. Doesn't she ever need to sleep?"

  "We'll sleep when we're safe," Nodby says, starting to shuffle his way after Table. "You humans have no stamina! Everything's so circadian with you. It's no wonder you've never progressed much as a species. We've got a long way to go yet, and I don't know about you, but I've got no intention of sitting around and waiting for something to come along and turn me into its next meal."

  "You make it sound like this place is dangerous," I say nervously, hoping against hope that he'll reassure me to the contrary.

  "I'm just warning you," he says darkly. "The whole Library is dangerous for a human, but some parts are worse than others. We definitely need to keep moving."

  Figuring that a little motion might help me to stay awake, I hurry after Nodby and quickly overtake him, before coming up behind Table. She seems to radiate a powerful aura of anger, as if she's daring me to try speaking to her. At the same time, I can't just blindly follow her all night. My parents are somewhere in this place, and right now I have no idea if Table's actually going to help me find them, or if she's just leading me further and further away.

  "I don't mean to complain," I start to say, "but -"

  "We can't sleep," she replies, glancing at me with tired, ringed eyes. "Not yet."

  "So when?" I ask.

  "Later."

  "Aren't you tired?"

  She doesn't reply immediately, and I can tell that she's annoyed by my questions. When she finally answers, her voice sounds more weary than ever. "This is the Library," she says firmly, with the careful tone of someone explaining a difficult concept to a child, "and we really can't just stop and go to sleep whenever and wherever we feel like it."

  "Because of predators?" I ask.

  "Among other things."

  "But isn't there a hotel or something?"

  "There are inns and hostels," she replies, "but not for many miles, and anyway, we wouldn't be safe there. Word travels fast in this place, especially in certain quarters. We wouldn't make it until dawn."

  "But it's so cold -"

  "Boo hoo," she says with clinical dispassion. "So you're cold. So what? You should have been better prepared for the journey."

  "I wasn't planning on a journey at all," I point out.

  She sniffs, as if she finds me completely unimpressive.

  "Do you think those creatures are going to come and try to re-capture us?" I ask, glancing over my shoulder but seeing nothing behind us apart from Nodby's small, jostling box with his legs sticking out the sides, propelling him along in our wake.

  "Those lazy things?" Table asks. "Hell, no. If they were our only problem, I'd drop to my knees and praise the Lord right here and now."

  "Then what?" I ask. "Bookworms?"

  "Bookworms?"

  "I don't know," I reply, trying to hide my exasperation. "We're in a library, right? A really, really big library, and as far as I know, libraries aren't particularly dangerous places. Not where I live, anyway. So what exactly are we hurrying away from?" I wait for her to reply, but after a moment I realize that she seems to view my questions as unworthy of a response. "I get it," I mutter eventually. "It's dangerous here. I believe you. I just don't understand why, and I don't see why you can't be more open with me. My parents are here somewhere, and they might be alone. I need to find them."

  "You have no idea what you're talking about," she replies, as we reach a junction and she finally stops. For a moment, she seems unsure as to which way we should go next; after a moment, however, she strides off confidently along another corridor, leaving me with no opti
on but to follow. "You're a human," she continues eventually, "and the Library really isn't a place where humans tend to last long. If I were you, and I'm very glad I'm not, but if I were you -" She stops and turns to me, and I almost clatter straight into her. "I'd pay attention to any help I'm offered, even if it means walking all night and getting a little tired."

  "But where are we going?" I ask, feeling as if Table is being needlessly evasive with her answers. "Can't you at least tell me that? I need to find my parents -"

  "You can't find your parents if you're dead," she replies. "If we stop, if we rest, if we even slow down for too long..." She pauses, and after a moment I realize that she's looking not at me but past me, as if she expects that someone or something is going to catch up to us at any moment.

  "What are you scared of?" I ask, hoping to maybe get an honest answer for once.

  "I'm not scared of anything," she says firmly.

  "But something's following us," I reply, seeing the fear in her eyes. "Or... maybe it's just following you."

  "Might I remind you," she says, "that you're the one who insisted that we left that place back there. It was one of the few safe spots in the whole Library, and I was quite happy with my life."

  "You were a table," I point out.

  "I was a very good table," she replies, stepping closer until her face is just a few inches from my own, almost as if she's trying to intimidate me. "I was firm, I didn't wobble, and I never complained. I was a damn good table, and I was useful. I was safe. If it wasn't for you, I'd still be there and I wouldn't be having to hurry through the darkened aisles. As it is, I need you to stop bothering me and just try to keep up, or I swear -"

  I wait for her to finish, but she seems to have caught herself just in time.

  "You swear what?" I ask.

  "I'll leave you behind," she says, staring at me with ferocity in her eyes. "You'll be a lost little human, desperately roaming the Library with no help, no map and no chance. There are things here, terrible things that you can't even imagine, and I promise you, sooner or later you'll end up in something's belly. So your best bet would be to just shut up and accept the help that I'm very graciously offering."

  "And you'll help me find my parents?" I reply. "Once the sun comes up, I don't need to keep following you, but can you at least help me get in touch with someone who might know something? Is there some kind of police force here, or a government, or..." My voice trails off as I realize that I'm hopefully out of my depth.

  "There's no police in the Library," she replies. "Not really, anyway. There are certainly some people who've taken it upon themselves to order people about and set rules, but they're purely in it for their own gain. If you really want to find your parents, I'm afraid there's no Lost Property office where someone might have taken them." She pauses. "Stick with me. I'll do what I can."

  "But if -"

  "I said I'll do what I can," she replies firmly. "On the off-chance that they're still in one piece, I'll try to help you find Mommy and Daddy. Until then, stop bugging me and let me focus on keeping us alive."

  I want to tell her where to shove her help, but the truth is, I know she's right. This whole place seems so strange and alien, I don't have a clue what I'd do if Table left me alone. As she turns and continues her way along the aisle, I realize that I'm going to have to put up with her rudeness, at least until I can find my family. The thought of being all alone in this place fills me with terror, and that wolf, howling in the distance, seems to be just a little closer. I'm probably imagining things, but then again, God only knows what might be around the next corner.

  "Come on," Nodby says, hurrying past me. "It won't be sunrise for a few more hours, so we need to get going."

  "Sure," I mutter, as a blast of wind rushes along the aisle, whistling through the cracks in the shelves. I just hope that I can't find my parents sooner rather than later, and I pray that Thomas isn't in this horrific place. "Isn't this aisle sloping upwards?" I add, convinced that we seem to be climbing a hill between the shelves.

  "Of course," Nodby replies, as Table stops up ahead of us. "The Library's not all flat, you know. It goes up and down, just like anywhere else. Besides, you're about to get one of the most famous views in the whole land."

  As we reach Table, I realize that we're on the very crest of a large hill, with the aisle sweeping down the other side before us. In the distance, shimmering in the moonlight, there's something large and thick, wending its way through what appears to be a darkened valley.

  "What is that?" I ask, momentarily transfixed by the view.

  "What do you think it is?" Table asks, with a hint of amusement in her voice. "You really are lost, aren't you? If we keep going at our current pace, we'll be down there by dawn, and that's when we can really start to think about resting."

  "But where?" I ask, watching as faint ripples of light dance in the darkness.

  "One of the great wonders of the seven worlds," she continues, "and our ticket to safety. You might not be aware of it right now, human, but we're just a few miles from the source of all life, and one of the busiest and most crowded places any living being has ever visited. The great river of the Library, running for thousands of miles between vast, open shelves."

  "And why are we here?" I reply. "Are my parents by the river?"

  "I have no idea," she says, slapping me on the back with such force that I inadvertently take a step forward. "But we're here for a pretty obvious reason." She pauses, before starting to walk past me and down the side of the hill.

  "A boat," Nodby says after a moment.

  I look down at him.

  "We're here to take a boat," he adds, before shuffling on ahead of me.

  Staring at the moonlit river down at the bottom of the valley, I can't help but wonder what sights are hidden by the darkness of night. I can still hear the occasional howls of a wolf somewhere behind us, but now I'm starting to become aware of sounds coming from the water: bells ringing; voices calling out; the occasional crash of God-knows-what. After a moment, realizing that I'm getting left behind, I start to hurry after Table and Nodby.

  Thomas Never

  Opening my eyes, I stare straight up for a moment and try to tell myself that the whole thing was a dream. I didn't get into a car crash, and I didn't end up in some kind of huge library, and I didn't meet some kind of whacked-out old wannabe-wizard who persuaded me to try sleeping on a shelf, and I didn't -

  "Time to get up," says a voice nearby. "Thomas! We have to get moving!"

  Turning, I see that it's all true. Carstairs is standing a few meters away, brushing creases out of his bright-blue cloak, and his rickety old cart is leaning a little further along the aisle. Blinking a couple of times, I start to sit up and immediately bang my head on the underside of the shelf directly above where I've been sleeping; my body aches all over and I don't think I got more than a few snatched periods of sleep during the night. Still, we've got to get moving.

  "Chop chop," Carstairs says with a haughty, slightly strained laugh. "It doesn't do to linger, you know. Lingering promotes lethargy, and lethargy promotes idleness, and idleness promotes damnably poor form all round. If you let the body slow down, the mind soon follows."

  Taking a deep breath, I try to summon the energy to climb down from the shelf, but I'm still exhausted after everything that happened last night.

  "We're going to get a little more oomph in our steps," he continues, as he opens the side of his cart and rearranges some of the jewelry inside. "There's a long journey ahead, and we can't allow ourselves to falter, now can we?" He glances over at me. "If there's one thing I learned in the army, it's that the best approach to a tough job is just to buckle down and get on with it. Don't sit around thinking about everything you've got to go. Damn well get up and start moving. Pardon my language, obviously, but I feel it's a point that merits some tough talking."

  "You were in the army?" I ask, finding it hard to believe that this tall, thin, rather fanciful man could ever have e
ven attempted a military career.

  "Damn straight," he replies with a grin as he closes the cart back up.

  "Seriously?" I continue, climbing down from the shelf. "Sorry, you just don't strike me as the soldiering type."

  "Well, I was," he says. "Still am, in a way. That kind of life never really leaves you. I was part of the..." He pauses, and a frown crosses his face. "Well, it doesn't matter what I was. What matters is that I learned some damn fine lessons."

  I watch him for a moment, and it's clear that he's feeling uncomfortable.

  "Don't mind me," he mutters, grabbing the handles that he uses to pull the cart. "Just a bit of a headache, that's all. It'll pass."

  "What did you do in the army?" I ask.

  "Do?" He pauses. "Well, I was..." Another pause, and it's clear that he's struggling to remember. "Look," he says finally, with a nervous grin, "it was a long time ago, and one must never spend too much of one's life thinking about the past. The time for nostalgia is when we're in our bath-chairs. Right now, we have a job to do, and that job is finding your parents. They won't thank us if we spend too much time yacking and end up missing them. Shan't we perhaps get cracking?"

  "Do you know where we're going to look?" I reply.

  "I've got a few very strong ideas," he says with a determined grin. "Humans aren't so common around these parts, so there are really only a couple of places they might have been taken. I'm quite sure they aren't just bumming around on their own recognizance, so someone must have taken them under their wing, perhaps even literally. But if you're looking for them, I suppose they must also be looking for you."

  "I suppose so," I say cautiously.

  "And if that's the case," he continues, starting to pull his cart along the aisle, "then they've probably found someone wise and noble to lead them to the nearest city, just as you've done." He smiles. "Humans aren't very commonplace in the Library, Thomas, so there'll be gossip about them. And if we want gossip, we have to get to a place where there are people. The market wasn't much use, because there hadn't been time for word to spread, but by the time we get to the next city, I'm certain the whole place will be alive with talk about a bunch of humans wandering the place. That's when we're going to get the information we're after."