Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery

They came at last to one of the outer walls of the library, where the air was clammy with a mist that swirled more thickly than ever before. Railed galleries loomed above them, utterly lightless, and Astriza waved the party far clear of the spiral staircases and ladders that led up into those silent spaces.

“Not much farther,” she said. “And Casimir’s book goes somewhere pretty close after this. If we get lucky, we might just—”

“Get down,” hissed Molnar.

Astriza was down on one knee in a flash, swords out, and the aspirants followed her example. Laszlo knelt and drew his sword. Only Molnar remained on his feet.

The quality of the mist had changed. A breeze was stirring, growing more and more powerful as Laszlo watched. Down the long, dark aisle before them the skin-chilling current came, and with it a fluttering, rustling sound, like clothes rippling on a drying line. A swirling, nebulous shape appeared, and the mist surged and parted before it. As it came nearer, Laszlo saw that it was a mass of papers, a column of book pages, hundreds of them, whirling on a tight axis like a tornado.

“No,” shouted Molnar as Casimir raised his hands to begin a spell. “Don’t harm it! Protect yourselves, but don’t fight back or the library will—”

His words were drowned out as the tumbling mass of pages washed over them and its sound increased tenfold. Laszlo was buffeted with winds like a dozen invisible fists—his cloak streamed out behind him as though he were in free-fall, and a cloud of dust and grime torn from the surfaces nearby filled the air as a stinging miasma. He barely managed to fumble his sword safely back into his scabbard as he sought the floor. Just above him, the red lanterns were slammed against a stone balcony and shattered to fragments.

From out of the wailing wind there came a screech like knives drawn over slate. Through slitted eyes, Laszlo saw that Lev was losing his balance and sliding backward. Laszlo realized that Lev’s torso, wider than any human’s, was catching the wind like a sail despite the lizard’s efforts to sink his claws into the tile floor.

Laszlo threw himself at Lev’s back and strained against the lizard’s overpowering bulk and momentum for a few desperate seconds. Just as he realized that he was about to get bowled over, Casimir appeared out of the whirling confusion and added his weight to Laszlo’s. Heaving with all their might, the two human aspirants managed to help Lev finally force himself flat to the ground, where they sprawled on top of him.

Actinic light flared. Molnar and Astriza, leaning into the terrible wind together, had placed their hands on Molnar’s staff and wrought some sort of spell. The brutal gray cyclone parted before them like the bow-shock of a swift-sailing ship, and the dazed aspirants behind them were released from the choking grip of the page-storm. Not a moment too soon, in fact, for the storm had caught up the jagged copper and glass fragments of the broken lanterns, sharper claws than any it had possessed before. Once, twice, three times it lashed out with these new weapons, rattling against the invisible barrier, but the sorcery of the Librarians held firm. It seemed to Laszlo that a note of frustration entered the wail of the thing around them.

Tense moments passed. The papers continued to snap and twirl above them, and the winds still wailed madly, but after a short while the worst of the page-storm seemed to be spent. Glass and metal fragments rained around them like discarded toys, and the whole screaming mess fluttered on down the aisle, leaving a slowly falling haze of upflung dust in its wake. Coughing and sneezing, Laszlo and his companions stumbled shakily to their feet, while the noise and chaos of the indoor cyclone faded into the distant mist and darkness.

“My thanks, humans,” said Lev hoarsely. “My clan’s ancestral trade of scale-grooming is beginning to acquire a certain tint of nostalgia in my thoughts.”

“Don’t mention it,” coughed Laszlo. “What the hell was that?”

“Believe it or not, that was a book,” said Astriza.

“A forcibly unbound grimoire,” said Molnar, dusting off his armor. “The creatures and forces in here occasionally destroy books by accident. And sometimes, when a truly ancient grimoire bound with particularly powerful spells is torn apart, it doesn’t want to stop being a book. It becomes a focus for the library’s unconscious anger. A book without spine or covers is like an unquiet spirit without mortal form. Whatever’s left of it holds itself together out of sheer resentment, roaming without purpose, lashing out at whatever crosses its path.”

“Like my face,” said Laszlo, suddenly aware of hot, stinging pains across his cheeks and forehead. “Ow, gods.”

“Paper cuts,” said Casimir, grinning. “Won’t be impressing any beautiful women with those scars, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, I’m impressed,” muttered Yvette, pressing her fingertips gingerly against her own face. “You just let those things whirl around as they please, Master Molnar?”