Page 53 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

CHAPTER 24

Livira

No!” Livira thrashed blindly. “Help!”

The hand that had snared her ankle was gone now but the shock still trembled through her and for some terrifying seconds she failed entirely to remember that the pitch-darkness was wholly of her own making. Cursing and sweeping the floor with her hands she finally found the book and closed it. As the covers came together the light reasserted itself.

She rolled over and sat up. The assistant lay where she had been, but the reaching hand now touched the circle of light through which Livira had travelled. The other arm had moved too, and on her shoulder lay the raven, not perched but slumped with its wings an untidy sprawl across grey flesh.

Livira threw herself at the circle of light, and bounced off, coming to rest back on the floor. She surged forward, pressing both hands to the tingling shimmering surface. She found no way through and, unlike before, Evar did not reach to pull her in.

“Why?” Livira scrambled over to the assistant and grabbed the hand that had snatched her from the world beyond. “I was going to help him! I was somewhere new! I could have got back here when I wanted to, without help!” She tried to shake the arm in her frustration, but it was as if the assistant were carved from the same stuff as the floor, and either bonded to the ground or unexpectedly heavy, even for stone. “Why?”

“...the Exchange... is for... bidden...” Her grey lips barely moved and no other part of her even twitched.

“The Exchange?” Livira lowered herself to the floor, so their faces were level. “Is that where I was, with all the round doors? That wood between the worlds is the Exchange?” Livira had been astonished by the towering tapwood trees, their rows stretching out beyond sight. There had been ravens flying between their branches, and everywhere doors of light like the one before her, standing in ordered rows. She’d been fascinated by the way the doors always faced her, whichever way she went, so that she had seemed the centre of that strange and endless wood, with a million shimmering eyes turned to watch her.

“...not meant... for... you...”

Livira frowned and sat up. “I’ll go back if I want. I said I’d help him.” She watched the circle of light, expecting Evar to follow her through any moment. She was rather disappointed that he hadn’t already. He must have seen that she was yanked through unceremoniously. Livira glanced between the doorway and the new book she was still clutching. Reflections on Solitude could save her in more ways than one. The others would forgive her running off. Master Logaris would have no reason to punish them. Lord Algar’s plan would fail. But she’d need to get it back, and fast. She stood and found that for reasons beyond her understanding she felt re-energised, as if she’d had several good meals and a week of sleep. She felt better now than she had at breakfast.

“I need to tell Evar I have to go back with the book.” Livira got to her feet. “I can come back here later and help him if he still hasn’t found this woman of his.” She approached the circle of light and tried to reach in again.

“Let me through!” Livira pushed harder. She looked down at the grey assistant, unmoving at her feet. “I don’t care if it’s forbidden! You let me through once. Open it!” If Evar could see her he would have pulled her to him by now. “Help me.”

But the assistant neither moved nor spoke.

“Please!” Livira dropped to her knees beside the creature. “At least let me speak to him. Let me explain...” She’d only spent a few minutes with Evar, but she didn’t want to abandon him like that. He’d seemed more lost than she was. Even a goodbye would have seemed uncomfortably final, but to have been torn away mid-sentence was intolerable. She hauled on the assistant’s outstretched arm without result. She may as well have tried to dig a hole in the floor with her bare hands. Livira smashed her fist on the ground in frustration.

“How about you?” She turned her attention to the raven. “Can you do anything?”

The raven seemed as lifeless as the assistant. Its pitch-black feathers even appeared to have taken on some of the assistant’s greyness. Tentatively, since the raven had always seemed a skittish thing on the edge of a frenzied attack, and since she didn’t want to shock it into one of its ridiculously loud cries, she picked the bird up. For something that had, on many occasions, almost flown, it was surprisingly heavy. Its feathers were stiffer than those the wind had sometimes brought to her back on the Dust, and their edges were sharp enough to cut skin.

“If I leave you here you might turn just like her.” Livira even suspected the assistant of having drained the life from the raven to fuel her own modest burst of activity. The bird might have bullied her across what felt like half the library, but it had also been her only companion in the vast solitude of the place. If the book in her hand in any way lived up to its title, then it would have something to say about the bonds that companionship under such conditions could form. In any case, having been forced to abandon one new friend, she wasn’t about to abandon the only acquaintance that she might be able to help.

With both books, the dark one and Reflections, secured in the capacious book-pockets of her trainee robe, and the bird under one arm, Livira started back the way she’d come. The strange rejuvenating effects of the Exchange stayed with her, putting a spring in her step. In addition, there’s a certain measure of speed added to any journey when both your route and destination are known. The outward journey was a meander—the return was a race against an uncertain time limit.

On the way here she had been exploring, already resigned to failure, and so soured by the dull complexity of secretive and ever-changing index systems that she hardly cared if Algar’s plan to remove her from the library succeeded. Now, with the book in her hand, she understood that the wonder of the place wasn’t in the order that the librarians had forced upon one small corner of it but in the mysterious chaos of the unknowably huge remainder. Each book contained a world of its own, and the minds and times behind those worlds were infinitely fascinating.

Underlying it all was the mystery of the library itself, and the inhuman guardians who operated it. That some petty-minded lord should seek to keep her from all this was intolerable. So intolerable that, even knowing the distance ahead of her, Livira began to run. After all, in a straight line, if such a line could be found, it wasn’t much more than four miles.

Livira was still feeling relatively fresh by the time she reached the chamber door, though her initial run had devolved into something only slightly faster than a brisk walk. She approached it with hesitation, aware that the door might refuse her. “You let me in—so if I’m in the wrong place then you should let me out. If you make a mistake, you should always try to fix it.” Livira didn’t believe that last part, but Aunt Teela had been fond of saying it. Especially to her.

She reached out to touch the door and found it no different to the wall or the floor. Fighting back the panic that took hold of her heart, Livira got the raven out from under her other arm and held the bird up to the white surface.

On previous occasions the library’s doors had either remained unmoved or had departed swiftly. This time the one before her slowly began to fade around the area that the raven was touching, as if uncertain of the bird’s credentials. The effect spread like the ripples of a stone dropped into water. At last, a hole appeared, an irregular hole with smooth edges, yawning around the bird. It was as if the door were debating if the Raven was still the Raven or simply a collection of its pieces, devoid of the feisty, argumentative spirit that had previously animated it.

The moment that the hole was wide enough for Livira to slip through she did so and hurried on, worried that the process might reverse if the door finally decided the Raven had died.

Crossing the second chamber was a lengthier process but Livira was at least able to avoid all the time she wasted in the labyrinth on the way out. By the time she reached the first of the maze’s two focus points, the place where the floor had been stained by some ancient calamity, both her arms were aching. The Exchange’s energy was leaving her and, no matter how often she swapped the side on which she carried the Raven, its weight was beginning to tell on her.

“This is where I found you.” Livira sat in the cleared circle for a rest, placing the Raven on her lap. It hadn’t stirred the whole time she’d been carrying it, and its body felt stiff, its limbs and neck resisting any attempt to move them. “I could leave you here?” It had been on the stain when it first saw her, hidden from casual inspection. Perhaps the blackness would regenerate it. Maybe that, rather than camouflage, was why it had been there.

“How about this?” Livira hefted the bird from her onto the darkly stained floor.

She massaged her arms as she watched it. Her helper. Her guide. It looked untidy, as if it had fallen from its nest, a broken sprawl. Still no movement. At last, she stood to go. She walked halfway to the edge of the clearing and looked up, craning her neck to fix her gaze on the top of the shelves. “Would you rather be up there?” She looked back. “Birds like to be high up, don’t they?” She remembered the ravens flying among the branches of the tapwoods in the Exchange. She should have taken her raven there and set it among its fellows. Or would they have mobbed it, sensing its strangeness and seeing its injuries? “I could carry you to the next ladder and put you up somewhere you can... perch.”

The bird simply lay there so Livira decided for it. She hefted it onto her hip once more and set off, pausing only to replace the books that she’d left as markers.

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