Page 164 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

The Assistant looked at the Soldier. Both were thinking that the first thing the canith would eat would be Carlotte.

“Cut me.” The Assistant held her hand towards the Soldier again.

“It is not permitted.”

For a time, both stared at the other in silence. Long enough for the canith to make progress on blocking the tunnel. Long enough for Carlotte to sit down beside them, put her head into her hands, and weep. Long enough even for the Assistant to lower her hand.

An image rose within the Assistant from a place she didn’t own. The image of a hand holding an apple, and then, in the next instant, holding only a scattering of apple pips. “I’m not sending her to the Exchange. It’s to bring water, so they can irrigate their crops.”

“They don’t have any crops.” The Soldier kept his sword at his side, as much a prisoner of the body he’d invaded as she was.

“They’re not going to have any without water.”

“How will water help?”

“You destroyed their rations, correct?” the Assistant asked.

The Soldier nodded. It was the rules. No food could be brought into the library.

“Then they will have seeds remaining. Which require water.”

“No food is allow—”

“Allowed to be brought into the library. This food will be grown here, not brought in.” She held her uninjured hand out to the Soldier.

The Soldier cut her.

The Assistant drew a perfect circle, from the outside this time, and shimmering light filled it as she stood up from her task.

She looked at Carlotte, sitting close by. “Don’t fall.”

“What?”

“Carlotte...”

“How do you know my name?” The girl stood uncertainly, meeting the Assistant’s eyes.

The Assistant felt something stir deep inside her, something timely, fluttering against the timeless barriers that held it trapped. Her eyes filled with blue light that felt like tears, though she had never known tears. Confusion trembled through her.

She made a shooing gesture, hiding it with her body so that the Soldier couldn’t see. She didn’t know why but it seemed as if it was something they shared, this girl and her. She looked meaningfully towards the circle of light. “Don’t fall in, Carlotte.”

Carlotte’s eyes widened. She stepped closer to the circle, staring at the Assistant as if seeing something new but only half believing it. Not even half.

The Soldier swivelled his head. “Remain where you are, human. Assistant, summon the water.”

Carlotte jumped. The Soldier was fast, but not as fast perhaps as he normally was. The girl vanished in a flutter of silk skirts and all that remained of her was a scrap of blue fabric in the Soldier’s hand.

“Bring the water,” he repeated with more conviction.

Whatever strangeness had steered the Assistant subsided within her, leaving her exhausted, drawn down to still greater depths. Left to her own devices, the Assistant knelt and completed the task. The portal she had drawn connected to the forest where the Exchange lay. Besides the nexus, it contained all manner of superfluity. Trees, for one thing. Pools, streams, brambles, squirrels, rabbits, foxes, a tumbledown wall... all manner of things. The Assistant connected her portal to one of the pools. She adjusted a few parameters and stood up.

In time, books would be delivered. It was an empty chamber. It would need books. The Assistant and the Soldier would set them out around the room. She would set out the books and perhaps write some more of the one she held in her hand. The rest was for whoever came by to deal with. Maybe the canith would show an interest. Eventually she would be needed again. But until that time she and the Soldier would rest within the Mechanism. In the meantime, there was little to do but wait. And she was good at waiting.

Sometimes being too slow is the whole of a nightmare.

Dreams of the Eldest, by Gaim Menneal

CHAPTER 70

---