For Want of a Library

The red leather flaked under his finger. Creases natural to the leather had become canyons forced apart by the cold. The cracks and divides had spread across the cover of the book. What a shame. It was his own fault, Verin chided himself. One thing worth keeping in this frozen waste, and he had wrecked it. He didn't have the discipline to keep it tucked under his mattress. Instead he carried it in his pocket.   Lint stuck to the edges of the pages. This is not how you keep a book in good condition. The biting voice in Verin's head was right, like always. Each piece of lint needed to be removed. The white crisp pages had faded too. It was so disheartening.   Verin's muscles tensed. The wave of cringe started in his clenched fists. His forearms bulged and shoulders shook to hold back the mind blurring guilt. Teeth grit and his eyes watered because he held them closed so tight. The wooden surface of his workstation erupted as shards scattered from the force of his fist's impact.   "Verin, are you cold? "   "What?" His eyelids released their death grip and he studied his untouched workstation.   "You shivered." For a brief moment his eyes flickered up at her.   "No." Verin's eyes diverted from her. Her attention was like the sun. He had felt the sun when he was young. Too much to look at directly but the warmth it sent out communicated its intensity.   "No, you're not cold?" Her skin rippled with her emotions. Everyone's skin did, except for Verin's. And, they used to be brighter, until his mom moved them to Krasiv Avaya.   "No." Verin realized after working for months at the shop, the wood of his workstation had dulled like the ripples.   "Verin, Glain forgive us! You haven't filed any of the screws. Our shift is done in fifteen minutes!"   "I don't care." He could not file anything until he dealt with the leather on his book cover.   "No, we talked about that. You don't say that around me." Her emotion flared. Verin winced and the workstation table stuttered across the floor as he backed into it.   "Look Verin, we have gone over this so many times. You have emotions in there even if no one can see it. Put your book away and get yourself together."   The damp cold of the metal file seeped into Verin's hand as he ran it over each helical ridge of the screw. Verin gasped imagining the screw converting rotational motion into linear movement. Every simple screw he filed held vast secrets of the universe. With all the metal shavings that fell to the ground, it seemed he controlled the weather of this small part of the world with the motion of his hand.   "Verin, put your book away!"   Footsteps of the inspector tapped their warning out in the hall. The clattering waterfall of screws being dumped into the inspector's pickup bin got louder with each workshop he interrogated.   "Ah, Verin and Polly. My two misfits. Already two demerits this week. Will it be a third?" The thrill in the inspector 's voice erupted in patterns across his skin. He expected their imminent failure.   "Sir, look, we are working with, uh, a disadvantage." Polly's emotion conveyed her frustration.   The rain of screws began as a trickle then a deluge as Verin filled the inspector's bin.   "You will have to come back with another bin for Polly's, but our shift is done so we are leaving." The leather on Verin's backpack strap was fairing about as well as his book cover. He needed to deal with that. The outside door required a shove to get the cold to release it. That wasn't his problem to fix.   Polly's silence through the hall to the door continued as they crunched out on the snow. Her silence dominated today's walk more than most. That was worth a look. She had been waiting for that look. "How did you get so many done?"   "I think everyone else is slowing down."     The rhythm of the workshops settled back into place the next day. Outside the wind howled and whipped snow around forming drifts. Polly's file ground against a screw as Verin drug his feet along the floor. The snow never melted except on shoes. Verin felt it was the world judging him. Polly suggested science. Body heat melted the snow. But, it didn't seem right that his shoes were always wet.   The baskets of screws towered over his head. He took a handful and let them clatter on the workshop table. As the screws rolled in tiny circles he made his own circle toward Polly. Metal filings had an odd smell and the smell changed from day to day.   Polly would say it was the humidity or maybe the type of metal they worked on that day. Verin's mind whirled at the possibilities, what if they were mirrors? Mirrors of the emotions in the workshop.   Once, on a sunny day before they moved here he walked with his mom in the Queen's garden in Pavlohra. The apple blossoms filled the air with sweet joy and curiosity. Verin breathed the blossoms scent in deep.   Polly had her questions queued up. "So you think we are slowing down? Like in your book?"   "I don't know." Verin's snapped back into the workshop, his shoulders hung forward. It sounded like a conspiracy theory when she said it out loud.   "I remember the spellcasters outside the library could slow down the monsters attacking them." Polly's emotion rippled in an elaborate pattern. Adamant, she was adamant. He had read about that pattern. She listened to the stories more than Verin thought.   Verin slipped into his habit of correcting her about details in the stories. "They weren't just spellcasters, they were the librarians. They kept the stories sorted and protected the storytellers in the library."   "Verin, don't you see, the slowness," Polly's sentence was interrupted as two Collectors entered the workshop.   Collectors don't speak as they work. They move with a vile certainty and speed. Long arms with unnatural strength tear families apart and rip through communities. Polly's screams didn't slow them as they each took one of her arms and extracted her from her seat.   Verin bowed his head, clenching his eyes shut. The ripples on her skin coalesced into arcane runes like the librarians. Whispering under her breath the magic released at her command. Lightning struck each Collector, burning and blistering each one's skin until they collapsed to the floor.   Verin opened his eyes to see Polly being taken out the door unable to resist the Collectors. Why didn't she defender herself? He could see it was possible, but the things he see's don't become real.   Her ear splitting scream down the hall snapped Verin's into action. The cold iron of the file wrapped around the Collectors' necks and carved ridges as Verin spun around them. The two Collectors had Polly between them, their hands hovering over her head with a foul wispy energy jumping between them and Polly.   The Collectors fell to the ground, their blood poured onto the hall's tattered tile. Blood bubbled and popped as the wispy energy of their spell latched onto their own evaporating lifeforce.   Polly rolled around in his arms unconscious as he ran home, but he didn't want her feet to get wet and she had to find some place to hide. Glain's Collectors would hunt her down. They were drawn to individuals with spikes of pure emotion. They harvested the brightest. Then Verin recognized, he did this. He piqued her curiosity. The librarian in his book said curiosity was the most powerful emotion, even more so than hate and anger.   The wind bit into his skin. The worst it had ever been. He pulled his cloak over Polly to protect her. The road got slick as Verin ran. He hopped side-to-side to help keep his balance. The water behind him froze into a shiny path of ice after he passed. Drifts of snow blew up into the air forming funnels that followed him. He kept ahead of it all and slid into the door at his house.   "Mom! Mom! Open the door. I need help."   Verin looked down the street for anyone that might be following them. Snow fell all around him. The latch of the door's lock turned slow but in time with the flakes of snow floating to the ground. Everything around him seemed to slow down.   "What is all this racket? Verin? What are you doing home?" Verin's body twisted back toward the door. His cloak fell back with relief that he made it home.   Verin's mom spotted Polly. "Has there been an accident, bring her in!"   "No, no mom. Collectors came for her."   "Oh, for the love of Glain! Verin, what did you do!? You can't bring her here!"   "We need to hide her. She won't wake up." Verin paced back and forth in the entryway.   "You can't bring her here! All we have is given by Glain."   Verin hurried to the guest room in the back of the house. He laid her on the bed then knelt down beside her.   Tears ran down his mom's face as she rushed into the street. She had to calm down. She saw the dark blood. It was all over her son. The Collector's blood was dark like that. She had to calm down. That was the only thing she could do.   Sure enough two Collectors came down the street, following the icy trail Verin had left. They spotted the woman waving her arms at them and approached in earnest.   "She's in there! Please, my son and I had nothing to do with her. She controlled him. Don't take my son."   Verin saw his mom's foot slip on the ice as she tried to keep up with the Collectors circling her. Their necks arched over her as she laid on the ground. They were predators deciding who would strike first.   "No, no. The one you want is in the back of the house." Verin's heart shattered as he watched the betrayal from the door. One of the Collector's hovering over her sent out wispy tendrils that latched onto his mom. The other Collector raced toward him, snow kicking up in funnel clouds behind it. The Collector came at Verin with a great speed and dodged at the last minute to get around him and into the house. Verin kicked out. Material split and wood cracked as the Collector crashed through furniture. Plaster dust filled the air. The Collector shook its shoulders and brushed off its cloak.   Its growl was meant to keep Verin in his spot while it bolted toward the back of the house. The guest room's door slammed shut. But, Verin launched himself into the door, splintering it into the room. The Collectors arm swept through Polly as Verin leapt over the bed and the Collector's head crushed between foot and dresser.   Polly exhaled, one last time, the apple blossoms faded. The sun's warmth turned cold.     Miles outside of Krasiv Avaya the snow became a wading pool. Running slowed to a walk then became a slog. It took every ounce of power to lug one leg after the other though the deep snow. His slow, wet feet no longer melted the snow, they too were frozen. Thick piles of snow covered the trees. Ice and frost formed long tendrils off any surface. The wilderness had no roads, there were no people, no help. Every breath, every stomp, every sound was dampened by the insulating layer of snow. He had stopped shivering an hour ago.   Utter silenced reigned over the terrain when Verin stopped. He laid down in the snow embracing the silence. His eyes drooped. Their weight pushing down and down. The silence was peace.   Peace and warmth. The crackle of the fire roared in the background like a symphony until smoke burned Verin's nose.   His arm slipped as he shot up. Wet grass hit his face when he went back down. The nearby fire warmed his body until he was ready to try again. Stones kept the fire under control and elevated it from melting snow. He stood and took in his surroundings. His tracks led to the fire but no other tracks met up with his. A pile of wood had been stacked beside the fire but no axe laid on the ground.   In his pocket his book had come with him through the entire adventure. He flipped through the dry pages, one small victory.   The fire burned warmer than anything he had felt. At least anything since moving to Krasiv Avaya. Something was wrong with that place. Everything froze and slowed. Except him. He had been faster than the Collectors.   Far outside the city his thoughts came at a easier pace. Inside the cursed city his brain had been stuck breathing through a straw. Each thought by the fire felt robust. His inner voice didn't have to yell and chide to be heard. The fire offered a simple exchange, keep it going and it would dry his clothes. Each log on the fire drove more and more water out of his clothes. Ice on his face and hair melted. He enjoyed the smoky warmth but longed for Polly's guiding attention.   After the last log had burned through on the fire, he pulled out his book. The stories of the Autumn Library of the House of Lavani had kept him dreaming but he needed heat now. His hand brushed over the old leather cover one last time. He closed his eyes and tossed the book into the fire. He imagined the dry pages burst into flames. The fire, rejuvenated for a short time, would die out just as fast, but he didn't feel any heat.   The shadow on the far side of the fire stood up and grabbed the book before it hit any flame. Verin stumbled back when he opened his eyes. What was this unholy creature!? It sat down with his book and began turning the pages.   Verin got down on his knees. "Are you here to take my soul?"   The shadow continued flipping through the pages, mimicking reading. It folded the corner of a page and closed the book. Viren shuddered at the thought of folding one of the pages.   The shadowy creature stood up and walked around to Verin, leaving the confines of the shadow cast by the dimming fire. Verin's legs weren't working enough to keep moving around the fire and away from the shadow. The book landed on the ground in front of Verin.   "Don't do that to a book!" Verin slipped back into the corrective tone he used with Polly. Mud and dirt filled the cracks of the leather. He used the edge of his cloak to clean the worst of it. Then opened the book to undo the folded corner.   The shadow turned the page to the other side. The one she wanted Verin to see and pointed to the second paragraph.  

Black tendrils of smoke gathered over the fallen warrior. A figure emerged from the behind the wisps of smoke. Oversized black armor with three inch spikes covered the body of the emerging figure. She was not much taller than a ten year old child. The blue glow faded from tattoos on her hands and neck as she collapsed next to the body.

 

The armor her friend wore faded with death. His broken body would be left for worms, scavengers, or the hulking beast hunting them. The library dispatched ten of the Shadow Guard as decoys. They needed to keep the invader busy until the library could move. They needed to make it to the Highland Defense.

 

They had faced many foes but this was by far the worst. It could smell their fear and amplify it. It could hide almost as good as them. It could see through their illusions. Three of her unit fell on the first engagement. Dorian and Felt were caught in a poisonous spray. Morgan got smashed into a tree as the beast whipped its tail. The beast was large enough that she did not get a complete view of it before she teleported away.

 

She knew how to respond, as did the others that remained, scatter - hide - pause - attack.

  The shadow, Polly, pointed North, toward the Highland Defense.