Page 155 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

Malar looked away. “We need to go, girl. There’s no use dwelling over this stuff. It’ll eat you up. I’ve lost friends, fast and slow. Every time it was slow, we all wished it was fast, me and them.”

“We could grab the book!”

“And get cut into small pieces a moment later. This lot just sliced their way through the streets of Crath.” Malar shook his head slowly as if trying to convince himself as much as Livira.

“Evar could do it. Talk to them.”

Malar answered for Evar. “And tell them what? I mean if he survives long enough to tell them anything. Sneaking up on frightened warriors isn’t a sensible tactic. And what could he say that’s going to change what they do? She’s alive. They’re going to keep her that way, at least until they’re sure they can get out of here. Or...”

Or the fire gets them. Livira knew what he was going to say before he thought better of it. “We should go.” The first tear ran down her face.

Evar started to reach towards her but let his arm fall. “I could try to grab the book and run with—”

“No.” Livira walked away, aiming for Volente, head bowed. “They’d shoot you in the back. And besides, this way Volente can always find them again.”

There is a wood that stands between all worlds and all whens. A woodcutter walks its rows. Time is the echo of his axe. Once one has mastered the navigation of this place, there is no destination beyond reach, be it Chorley or Charn. Similarly, any date upon the calendar and beyond is yours for the taking. Simply remember that you cannot go back, and you need never fear the woodcutter.

Larking About, by Lionel Witch

CHAPTER 66

Evar

Seeing Livira walk helplessly away from her friend put an ache in Evar’s chest. Livira might have a librarian’s seemingly endless vocabulary but until today he sensed that “defeat” had never been a word she understood. The sadness in him was an echo of hers, but with it came the extra burden of seeing something precious crushed before you and having no means to defend it.

Volente led them into the chamber Livira called 47, still on the trail of the book in Arpix’s possession. Evar was surprised to see dense black smoke advancing through the chamber from the east.

“It’s not spreading evenly.” Malar frowned, looking up at the cloud rising to spill across the ceiling.

Evar guessed the speed of the fire’s advance depended on all manner of things: the nature and spacing of the shelving, the type of books in its path. Perhaps some races had fashioned their books out of materials not given to burning. Those chambers would slow the conflagration, while in other places the flames would leap along shelves, spanning a chamber in minutes. In this chamber the books seemed to produce an alarming amount of smoke whilst the fire remained quite subdued—at least Evar could neither see nor hear it.

Volente led towards the door to Chamber 68, putting the smoke to their right, racing them to their destination. The dog plotted a straight line, passing through shelf after shelf. Evar and Livira took an arm each and hoisted Malar into the air so they could fly above the shelf tops, avoiding the frequent disconcerting encounters with books whose contents tried to stake some claim on each of them as they passed through.

The race to the chamber door remained close, though the smoke held no real fear for Evar: even the hidden flames wouldn’t touch him. As they closed on the door, the black wall rolling towards them lay less than two hundred yards behind, swallowing row after row of shelves.

A faint, unexpected sound caught Evar’s attention. There it was again, overriding the eerie silence of the rapidly advancing smoke and the crackle of distant flame.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

“Are you hearing that?” he asked.

“Hearing what?” Malar tilted his head then shook it.

“I can now.” Livira paled.

Clunk-clunk-clunk.

“What is it?”

Livira gained height, towing Malar and Evar towards the ceiling. Her eyes scanned the aisles below, then seeing something, she dived towards it, eliciting a high-pitched protest from Malar.

Below their feet an assistant broke from the smoke, outpacing it. A jet-black assistant. Clunk-clunk-clunk, maintaining a decent speed but without the grace of the assistants Evar had seen before. It almost reached the tunnel then collapsed as if a rope had been strung across the aisle at ankle height, hitting the ground with a bang. As Evar watched, the blackness seemed to drain from it, at least partially, leaving it ash grey while a shadow—an Escape—flitted back along the aisle and straight into the smoke.

“What’s that about?” Malar asked, staring down past his own dangling feet.

“It’s the assistant from Chamber Seven,” Livira said. “The one the Escape took over.”

“Escapes,” Evar said. “It’s still grey. Corrupted. It must take more than one Escape to control it.”

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