Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery

“They never attack other books. And they uproot or destroy a number of the library’s smaller vermin. You might compare them to forest fires in the outside world—ugly, but perhaps ultimately beneficial to the cycle of existence.”

“Pity about the lamps, though,” said Yvette.

“Ah. Yes,” said Molnar. He tapped the head of his staff, and a ball of flickering red light sprang from it, fainter than that of the lost lamps but adequate to dispel the gloom. “Aspirants, use the empty book satchel. Pick up all the lantern fragments you can see. The library has a sufficient quantity of disorder that we need not import any.”

While the aspirants tended their cuts and scoured the vicinity for lantern parts, Astriza glanced around, consulted some sort of amulet chained around her wrist, and whistled appreciatively. “Hey, here’s a stroke of luck.” She moved over to a bookcase nestled against the outer library wall, slid Lev’s grimoire into an empty spot, and backed away cautiously. “Two down. You four are halfway to your sixth year.”

“Aspirant Vrana,” said Molnar, “I believe we’ll find a home for your book not a stone’s throw along the outer wall, at sixty-one Manticore Northwest. And then we’ll have just one more delivery before we can speed the four of you on your way, back to the carefree world of making requests from the comfort of the reading rooms.”

“No need to hurry on my account,” said Casimir, stretching lazily. His cloak and armor were back in near perfect order. “I’m having a lovely time. And I’m sure the best is yet to come.”

It was a bit more than a stone’s throw, thought Laszlo, unless you discarded the human arm as a reference and went in for something like a trebuchet. Along the aisle they moved, past section after section of books that were, as Master Molnar had promised, completely unharmed by the passage of the unbound grimoire. The mist crept back in around them, and the two Librarians fussed and muttered over their guidance spells as they walked. Eventually, they arrived at what Molnar claimed was sixty-one Manticore Northwest, a cluster of shelves under a particularly heavy overhanging stone balcony.

“Ta-daaaaaa,” cried Astriza as she backed away from the shelf once she had successfully replaced Casimir’s book. “You see, children, some returns are boring. And in here, boring is beautiful.”

“Help me!” cried a faint voice from somewhere off to Laszlo’s right, in the dark forest of bookcases leading away to the unseen heart of the library.

“Not to mention damned rare.” Astriza moved out into the aisle with Molnar, scanning the shelves and shadows surrounding the party. “Who’s out there?”

“Help me!” The voice was soft and hoarse. There was no telling whether or not it came from the throat of a thinking creature.

“Someone from another book-return team?” asked Yvette.

“I’d know,” said Molnar. “More likely it’s a trick. We’ll investigate, but very, very cautiously.”

As though it were a response to the Master Librarian’s words, a book came sailing out of the darkened stacks. The two Librarians ducked, and, after bouncing off the floor once, the book wound up at Yvette’s feet. She nudged it with the tip of a boot and then, satisfied that it was genuine, picked it up and examined the cover.

“What is it?” said Molnar.

“Annotated Commentaries on the Mysteries of the Worm,” said Yvette. “I don’t know if that means anything special—”

“An-no-tated,” hissed a voice from the darkness. There was a strange snort of satisfaction. “New!”

“Commentaries,” hissed another. “New, new!”

“Hells!” Molnar turned to the aspirants and lowered his voice to a whisper. “A trick, after all! Vocabuvores again. Keep your voices down, use simple words. We’ve just given them food. Could be a group as large as the last one.”

“Mysteries,” groaned one of the creatures. “New!” A series of wet snapping and bubbling noises followed. Laszlo shuddered, remembering the rapid growth of the thing that had tried to jump him earlier, and his sword was in his hand in an instant.

“New words,” chanted a chorus of voices that deepened even as they spoke. “New words, new words!” It sounded like at least a dozen of the things were out there, and beneath their voices was the crackling and bubbling, as though cauldrons of fat were on the boil…many cauldrons.

“All you, give new words.” A deeper, harsher voice than the others, more commanding. “All you, except BOY. Boy that KILL with spell! Him we kill! Others give new words!”

“Him we kill,” chanted the chorus. “Others give new words!”

“No way,” whispered Astriza. “No gods-damned way!”

“It’s the same band of vocabuvores,” whispered Molnar. “They’ve actually followed us. Merciful gods, they’re learning to overcome their instincts. We’ve got to destroy them!”

“We sure as hell can’t let them pass this behavior on to others,” whispered Astriza, nodding grimly. “Just as Master Molnar said, clamp your mouths shut. Let your swords and spells do the talking. If—”