The Burning Page

And then she saw that there was a fine cage around it. The steel meshwork was wide enough for her to examine the book, and allowed its glow to escape, but it certainly wasn’t wide enough for her to slide the book out. There wasn’t even an obvious lock, let alone a key. Words in the Language were worked into the metal, but she didn’t recognize them: they were a vocabulary that she had never learned.

‘Ray!’ Alberich called. Irene looked up and saw him walking towards the interlacing open stairs, strolling through the air on a bridge of books that tumbled to the ground as he passed.

It was the first time she’d actually seen him in the flesh throughout the whole wild chase. He was tall, and painfully thin – assuming this was actually a body that looked like his original one, and not just another stolen skin. The hooded black robe that he affected (really, how clichéd) was draped over his gaunt frame, flapping in the wind which blew pages and dust alike across the landscape of bookshelves. His brown hair was streaked with grey and was thinning like a monk’s tonsure, but he walked with the firm pace of a young man.

She considered using the Language to drag those books from under him and let him drop, but that seemed too obvious. Besides, he could simply order the books back again. She’d never duelled like this before. One needed to strike in a way that the opponent couldn’t simply reverse.

The book lay there in its cage as if it was mocking her. ‘Yes?’ she called back. Could she order all the cages to open, so that the books would fly out? But taking the time to give such an order would give Alberich a full sentence in which he could strike back.

He stepped off the bridge of books onto one of the further staircases, a good twenty yards away from her and five yards further up. ‘Have you quite finished with your adolescent rebellion?’

‘No,’ Irene retorted. She reached out to touch the cage, but yanked her fingers back as she felt the prickle of chaotic power in the ironwork. ‘Come closer and I’ll demonstrate.’ Could she order the metal stairs to bind him? What could she say that Alberich couldn’t counter?

‘I want to tell you one thing.’ His sentences were shorter now, more clipped. Was it in case she counterattacked mid-metaphor? ‘Your home world? Your parents? I am going to find them. You have inconvenienced me. They will pay for it.’

It was a petty, spiteful threat. But the sheer malice contained in it, the absolute viciousness of his tone, cut at Irene and made her flinch. ‘You haven’t a chance,’ she retaliated, edging sideways along a horizontal stretch of walkway. Perhaps she could manage something if she reached the clock.

‘Oh? Really? I’ve had centuries of life. I’m good at what I do.’ Alberich kept his distance, but started to trace a parallel course to hers, clearly planning to keep between her and the clock.

Irene laughed. It wasn’t a very good laugh, but it bolstered her spirits. ‘You don’t understand. My parents are Librarians. They can run from you forever!’

To her surprise, Alberich actually stopped walking. ‘They’re what?’ he said.

‘Librarians. Like you or me.’ She wondered what she’d said that had managed to unsettle him. ‘So, you see . . .’

Then she saw his face clearly, and her words ran dry in her mouth. He wasn’t shocked or unsettled. He was amused. His face showed those centuries of age, and they had left lines of cruelty etched around his mouth and eyes that were as clear as the Language itself. His voice was full of a horrible good humour as he spoke. ‘Ray, my dear, my very dear little girl. That simply isn’t possible. I should know. Two Librarians can’t have a child.’

Irene blinked. That statement didn’t make any sense. ‘But you said you have a son . . .’

‘That’s how I know.’ He began to walk again. ‘You have no idea what it took. I had to take her deep into chaos to make it possible. All that for a son whom you are keeping from me.’ His mouth opened impossibly wide, and his tone deepened to a roar. ‘So don’t insult me with such stories.’

‘Believe what you want,’ Irene snapped. She was closer to the central clock now. Unfortunately, said closeness involved a vertical drop of about five yards before she could edge any further on a horizontal level. Manageable with caution and with the Language, but less welcoming with Alberich there to mess things up. ‘I know—’

‘You obviously don’t know anything,’ he cut her off. ‘And nobody ever told you. No doubt to spare your feelings and keep you loyal. Are you some orphanage brat, Ray? Or were you stolen from a cradle?’ He was walking faster now, his steps keeping time with the clock. ‘If it wasn’t for the inconvenience you’ve caused me, I might even feel sorry for you. I know all about how it feels to find out your whole life was based on a lie.’

‘Really? So what was yours?’ It was a poor comeback, but it was the best Irene could do. The rest of her mind was flooded with the concept that she wasn’t what she thought she was. For every sensible objection of he’s lying and why should I believe him and he’s trying to confuse you, there was a counter-argument – in the way that he’d seemed genuinely surprised when she’d said she was the child of two Librarians. She would swear it hadn’t been faked.

Did it make any difference if she wasn’t the child of the people she’d called parents? If the fact of her birth was a lie, then was it such an important lie?

‘The Library claims to preserve the balance between chaos and order. But that’s a lie. That’s what children get told to keep them quiet and obedient.’ They were on a level with each other now, and he stopped to look across at her. ‘If you join me, I’ll tell you the truth.’