Page 80 of The Book That Wouldn't Burn

From somewhere high on the opposite shelf came a nervous squawk—the first time that Livira had heard anything but confidence, condemnation, or outrage from the Raven.

“Too... late.” The assistant’s voice came awkwardly from her lips as if she were wrestling with the shape of the words. “I have... written myself in.”

The assistant turned away, directing her gaze up the bookcase. Slowly, but with less cracking now, and more quietly, like the breaking of brittle stalks, she began to bend, and to reach with one hand for the rope at her ankle.

The Raven descended in a frantic flapping of wings that was half flight and half falling. It landed heavily at Livira’s feet and immediately began to hop off down the aisle. Livira hastily crawled away from the spot where the assistant would land if she fell, then scrambled to her feet and hurried after the bird.

A crash behind them. Silence. And then the advance of heavy footsteps. The thud of the assistant’s feet sounded as if she were made of iron, though the other assistant, who had saved Livira when she fell, had walked noiselessly.

“What does it want?” Livira scooped up the Raven and ran with him. “You were going too slow,” she puffed in response to his squawk of irritation or surprise. The answer to her question seemed fairly obvious—it wanted to kill her. The Escape had somehow infected the assistant, taken her over, and was now using her to hunt down Livira. Frankly, Livira thought the Escape could do a better job on its own but perhaps the ageless and possibly indestructible assistant was too great a prize to leave behind.

Glancing back, she saw the assistant turn the corner into her aisle. She could outrun it for now but something about its pace threatened a degree of untiring relentlessness that would win out in the long run.

Livira made for the door to Chamber 2. Once she’d crossed that chamber into Chamber 1, she would be little more than a mile from the steps and the exit to the librarians’ complex. She only had memory to rely on for the route, though, and that was a memory of this single crossing back and forth years ago.

Several times Livira was sure she had taken a wrong turning, only to slowly convince herself that she might be on track after all. The Raven seemed less heavy than on the last journey, but the distant clunk-clunk-clunk of the assistant’s advance kept the pressure on. The fact that the assistant seemed to know how to follow Livira, even when out of sight and faced with many choices, was a worrying one.

Livira began to pant so hard that she could no longer hear the assistant’s pursuit, which was somehow worse as she might be gaining, especially since Livira was definitely slowing. Sweat ran the length of her body and her sore feet protested every stride. She desperately needed a way to delay the assistant so she could open a big enough lead to get clear of the chamber, and hopefully clear of the library.

When she finally found a ladder, she put the Raven under one arm, ignoring its complaints, and began to climb. Even through the labour of her breathing, as she gained elevation Livira could hear the clunk-clunk-clunk of the assistant’s run.

Livira reached the top of the shelves and clambered onto the boards. She set the Raven to one side and, with a grunt of effort, lifted the ladder one rung’s worth. It was every bit as heavy as she’d feared. Reaching for the next rung without surrendering what she’d lifted was a matter of speed as she hadn’t the strength for it. She hauled up another rung, then another, then another, her arm muscles growing watery already.

Next to her the Raven squawked so loudly that she nearly dropped the ladder. “Gods’ teeth! Do you have to do that? If you can’t help, then at least—”

At the far end of what was thankfully a very long aisle Livira saw the assistant turn the corner. The additional surge of fear pumped fresh strength into her arms, and she began to lift the ladder rung over rung.

Even with terror driving her, Livira couldn’t raise the ladder half of its length before her exhausted muscles turned traitor and the ladder slid from her trembling fingers. Livira lunged for it with a cry of despair and would certainly have been hauled over the edge by it had the ladder’s descent not already been arrested. The bottom of the ladder had come to a halt on the tops of the books of an opposite shelf, prompting the Raven to squawk loudly.

The assistant drew level and craned her head to look up at them. The bottom of the ladder was well out of the assistant’s reach. Even so, the assistant seemed unwilling to admit defeat and began pulling books out then using the exposed shelves to climb, tossing more books to the floor behind her as she gained height.

The Raven’s outrage reached its limit and an astonished croak escaped its wide-open beak. Livira focused her energies on lifting the ladder some more, scraping the bottom of it up the opposite wall of books. It was immediately clear, though, that as slow as the assistant’s climbing was, she was heading up faster than Livira could raise her burden.

The Raven began to hop anxiously from foot to foot.

“Still. Not. Helping,” Livira managed past gritted teeth. Only half the ladder was above the shelf top.

The assistant reached for the bottom of the ladder, black fingers stretching.

Livira released a shriek of effort and shifted her grip on the rungs to start rotating the ladder in the vertical plane. The bottom moved smoothly to the left, out of the assistant’s reach, counterbalanced by the descent of the top as Livira rotated it. When at last the ladder’s feet rose above the shelf top, and the whole thing was horizontal, Livira took a step back and let her burden drop from numb fingers onto the planks at her feet.

Black eyes found her. “Jaspeth wants you, child.”

Livira froze. It was a name from the child’s book about the foundation of the library. Jaspeth, book thief, arsonist, enemy of knowledge.

“Who is Jaspeth?” Livira shouted. “What does he want?”

The assistant’s slow but determined climb continued as she plucked books from the shelf above and let them fall, pages fluttering.

“What does he want with me?” Cursing, Livira realised she was wasting time whilst the assistant was closing the hard-won gap. Hastily, she shifted the ladder and began to rotate it—in the horizontal plane this time—with the shelf top supporting the weight. Soon the ladder lay at right angles to the shelf she stood on and stretched out across many shelf tops in both directions. Livira slid it in the direction she wanted to go until only the end remained on her shelf.

With the assistant closing on the top of the opposite shelving, Livira scooped up the Raven and ran as fast as she dared, using the ladder as a bridge, praying she wouldn’t end up broken on the ground far below.

Having crossed a few aisles, Livira jumped off onto a shelf top and advanced the ladder before her. Looking back, she saw the assistant gain the top of her unit and clamber awkwardly onto it. Livira held her breath. If the assistant could jump the gaps Livira would have to abandon the ladder and start jumping herself, until exhaustion tripped her up. She’d put all her hope in the assistant lacking the agility required.

“Come on.” Livira picked up the Raven again and hurried across the rungs. Four aisles on she stopped again to advance the ladder and to check on the assistant. “Just watching us go.” That made Livira feel uneasy, but less so than a chase.

She walked on, taking more care now. She tried to keep her focus on setting one foot safely in front of the other, but her mind kept straying to thoughts of Evar. She’d left him surrounded by those creatures, fragments of a dozen nightmares. He’d fought like a god of war. She felt that even Malar would have been impressed. Evar, she thought, could have given a good account of himself to the sabber who had walked so arrogantly into her settlement and turned her life upside down.

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