The Masked City

I am still far too easily distracted.

Two turnings later she came to a couple of doorways, with a deposit slot between them. With a sigh of relief she opened her attache case and dropped in the envelope containing the book. One job done. Now she could get down to some serious research.

The doorway on her left bore the plate: B-134 - BELGIAN GRAPHIC NOVELS - 20TH CENTURY - SECTION ONE. She pushed it open to look inside and was relieved to see a computer on the table. An overweight orange cat was curled up on the chair, feigning sleep. With barely a glance at the thickly shelved walls - and the occasional brightly displayed front page of a moon-bound rocket or a set of dwarfish mummies - she pushed the cat off the chair with a mumbled apology, sat down and logged in.

She scanned her list of personal emails, rated them all as non-essential and ignored them. There was nothing from her mentor Coppelia, and nothing from her parents. Everything else could wait.

Instead she brought up the Encyclopaedia function. It was supposed to be a general compendium of information from Librarians in the field in alternate worlds. In practice, although better than nothing, the information was patchy - Fae and dragons often inconveniently used false names.

Guantes, she typed in.

One record came up, twenty years old. Irene resisted the urge to do a fist-pump in the air, and clicked on it.

Moderate-power Fae. Masculine, usually claims to be a member of the aristocracy and titles himself Lord. Capable of travel between worlds. His archetypal aspects include: power, manipulation, control, leadership. The reader will have observed that his name is the Spanish word for ‘gloves’ and may find this indicative of a tendency to subtlety and manipulation.

Irene glanced at the name of this entry’s author. Rhadamanthys. His status was marked as deceased. Damn, no way to ask him questions now.

Originally encountered on G-112. [A Gamma-type world, which meant it had both magic and technology.] The world was neutral at the time, with both forces of chaos and order present. Guantes was fomenting an aristocratic rebellion against the Holy Roman Emperor. The latter was supported by another powerful Fae called Argent. During the power struggle between the two, the Empire fell and a Byzantine theocracy backed by a dragon princess came to power -

‘Argent?’ Irene could feel her frown growing. It was only a matter of languages, after all: silver, argent …

- at which point both Fae left that world, and I believe they were disciplined by higher-ranking members of their race. I personally have not encountered the gentleman again …

Irene skimmed down the rest of the entry. Nothing useful, just a few notes about Guantes apparently being manipulative, but prone to distraction by his own cleverness. The sort of schemer who’d come up with new schemes in the middle of ongoing ones and lose track of his ultimate objectives.

A thought struck her, and she checked the circumstances of Rhadamanthys’ death. Died in an accident with a diving bell in the River Dnieper. This was during a Russian revolution, while he was trying to retrieve some volumes of epic poetry. Probably nothing to do with Guantes. Probably.

She tried looking up obvious translations of ‘gloves’ and ‘silver’. With Russian she got lucky, and found an account of one Fae known as Prince Serebro a hundred years ago. He had an ongoing feud with a Lord Perchatka (Serebro had won). During this, the Librarian who’d recorded the entry had looted forbidden works under the Cathedral of the Black Madonna. Nothing definite on the pair, but certainly suggestive.

She was conscious of time ticking away. Quickly she composed an email to her mentor Coppelia, including the salient facts and a request whether the older Librarian knew anything relevant. Irene wasn’t a daily-report person, but if there was a chance Coppelia might know something, it would be stupid not to ask.

Right. That was all she could reasonably find out for the moment. Tension was prickling at the back of her neck. She had the horrible feeling she’d forgotten something, or failed to notice something important. She needed to talk to Vale as soon as possible. Librarians did face death threats from time to time and, while it came with the job, it was hardly on her list of One Hundred Favourite Experiences. However, she didn’t know the magnitude of the current threat. And a simple book purchase and an attempted assault seemed to be throwing up all manner of new connections. There was no way of knowing how badly it could go wrong.

She shut down her computer and headed back to her exit - it had already taken her twenty-five minutes. She’d come back later today, or tomorrow, and check for a response from Coppelia.

With a twinge of the brand across her back, Irene stepped out of the Library and back into real time and space. (Or, according to some arguments, unreal time and space, if the Library was the only ‘reality’. But that was something for philosophical disputations.) The door closed firmly behind her and, as she glanced to check, the last remnants of her painted letters faded into the paintwork. Nothing was left behind, not even the faintest trace of ink or shadow on the wood.

She had successfully made it there and back, with nobody any the wiser. And she couldn’t help feeling just a little bit of glee that she had once again - now what was the best phrase for this? - got away with it. Here’s to being a secret agent of an interdimensional Library!

The glow of self-satisfaction lasted until her cab turned onto Baker Street. As it drew level with Vale’s lodgings, she could see that no lights shone in the upstairs windows, which suggested that he was out. Even though it was only late morning, the fog meant that street lights and houses were lit against the gloom. She paid off the cab-driver and hurried to the door.