Page 149 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

“Come on!” And beckoning Malar and Evar, she elbowed a path through the refugees towards the portal. And, as she went, she realised that the wood was packed with them, soldiers greatly outnumbering civilians. She was glad that Evar would be with her. It seemed that the only thing stopping the soldiers from taking out their anger on Clovis and the other canith was not knowing quite how many more of their kind this enchanted forest might hold.

Ghosts surround us. We swim through their currents, breathe them in, perform our lives before their audience. And yet, they remain unseen, not only by us but by each other. A multitude of loneliness, a crowding silence full of screams.

The Haunting of Crath City, by Olidan Ancrath

CHAPTER 63

Livira

Smoke hung so thick in the aisle before Livira that she couldn’t see the shelves much beyond the reach of her arms. The feeble light of the portal she had just stepped through barely reached her, and for a moment she panicked that if Arpix and the others did come here they would find she had squandered the doorway’s last power to look for them. They would choke to death within touching distance of salvation. But the idea that anyone could navigate the chamber now was too far-fetched for her guilt to survive long.

“Looks hot.” Malar emerged beside her. “Why can’t I feel it?”

“You can’t feel anything here.” Evar stepped out on her other side. He passed a hand through the nearest books, then shuddered. “Except bad writing.”

It did look hot. An orange light stained the ever-present glow of the library that lit the smoke from within. Flakes of ash fell in a gentle rain.

“How can you possibly hope to find them in this?” Malar squinted down the aisle. “Even if it wasn’t burning, you could never find someone in this place. It’s a maze. Before today I had no idea it was this big.”

Livira had been focused on this very problem and the solution had occurred to her before she made the decision to return.

“Volente!” She made it both a shout and a command, adopting Arpix’s tone.

Evar and Malar looked at her with wide eyes.

Nothing happened. “Volente!” She shouted it more loudly, realizing for the first time that the dog might not be able to hear a ghost’s voice.

“What are you doing?” Evar asked.

“Trying...” Livira couldn’t keep the sudden despair from her voice. She looked around, hoping to see Volente’s black muzzle nosing through the shelves. “Volente! Please come. It’s for Arpix. You liked him!”

Perhaps the dog would have come anyway, or maybe it was good memories of being fussed over by Arpix that made him brave the burning library. Either way, the enormous hound bounded through the nearest shelves, causing both Malar and Evar to leap back and raise their blades.

“He’s a friend!” Livira waved Malar away as he advanced to protect her. “He’s going to find Arpix for us.”

“He’s a guide?” Evar peered at Volente. “I’ve read about those. Don’t they only find books?”

Livira nodded. “They do. But I happen to know that Arpix or Meelan is carrying a certain book.” She reached a hand to pat Volente, finding him solid. Seeing her fingers swallowed by his utterly black fur was slightly unnerving. A new terror flattened the brief-lived relief which had followed the terror that Volente would not come. If she named the book and Volente didn’t start leading them down the aisle it would mean that it had burned, and that almost certainly her friends had been consumed in the same fire. In a trembling voice she asked, “Volente, take me to A History of the Gratatack Cavern Wars, Volume Six, by Sscythic Twenty-Nine.”

Volente raised his head. He sniffed the air. He knew where books should be. Sscythic’s book should be on a shelf in Chamber 7 near to where the injured assistant had lain for untold years before the Escape possessed her. Did the dog know where books were though? Could he track a moving one?

Volente sniffed once more, rumbled deep in his chest, and led off.

Livira, able to breathe again, hauled in a great breath, and then, wondering if ghosts actually needed to breathe and why the smoke didn’t make her cough, she followed.

—

The dog led them out across Chamber 16, aiming for the door to Chamber 29. The first time they came to a dead end and Volente sauntered through it, Livira threw up her hands and called for him to come back. It took Evar to remind her that they too could walk through walls. Malar, who had been deeply unsettled by the dog’s size and blackness, remained similarly unnerved by its ability to pass through solid objects. When encouraged to do so himself he recoiled from the idea, seeming more worried by the concept than he would by the prospect of taking on an armed man.

“Do it quickly,” Livira told him. “At a rush. You don’t want to spend time overlapping with books. It’s very unsettling.”

“Can’t we go round?” Malar peered back along the hazy aisle.

“No! Just do it! What kind of soldier are you who can’t follow orders?” Livira felt her temper slipping.

“A retired one who doesn’t see any fucking officers here,” Malar snarled. “You want me to put my head through a solid wall.”

“It’s just wood!” Livira tried to calm herself. Malar wasn’t like this. He wasn’t used to being frightened and it showed.

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