It didn’t take a great detective to see that Zayanna was having multiple second thoughts about the whole expedition. ‘We keep moving,’ Irene said, sounding calmer than she felt. ‘If he’s got to find us first, then let’s make him work to keep up.’ She pointed further up the staircase.
‘And then?’
That was the question. How could she fight Alberich in a library where he controlled the environment? This whole place was a perversion of the true Library, with books that contained only nonsense, rooms that were indistinguishable from each other, without even an index . . .
Alberich’s voice rose from the depths towards them as they ran up the stairs. ‘I’m impressed,’ he murmured.
‘Is he really?’ Zayanna asked.
‘No,’ Irene said.
‘Why shouldn’t I be impressed? You found your way here. You persuaded your companion to help you. I’d thought you were competent, but I didn’t know you were that competent.’
Irene was only half-listening to the words. Either they were merely one more attempt by Alberich to persuade her to join him, or he was simply playing with the two of them and something horrible would happen the moment they let their guard down. Neither option was useful. Then, as she and Zayanna stumbled out into the next room, she caught sight of Zayanna’s face. An unpleasant thought brought Irene up straight, as though someone had yanked her hair. Which of the two of us is he trying to convince? And what if Zayanna listens to him?
She needed to find the centre of this place fast. She needed a map. But all she had was books of nonsense . . . which, come to think of it, were an essential part of this place. She could use that.
Zayanna screamed and pointed. The shadow was levering itself up the staircase. Long twig-like fingers splayed across the floor, reaching for them. They ran.
Irene grabbed a book off the shelf in the next room as they stumbled inside. It seemed to throb in her hands, its dull orange leather binding the shade of rotten autumn leaves. She flipped it open, but the contents were just as much nonsense as the ones she’d looked at earlier.
‘Is this the time for reading?’ Zayanna snapped.
‘Depends on the book.’ Irene took a firm grip on it. ‘Book which I am holding, lead me towards the centre of this library!’
The book in her hands shivered as if it was trying to squirm free, then tugged unmistakeably towards the doorway on their left. But at the same moment the shadow was in the room with them, stretching from floor to halfway across the ceiling. It reached for Irene.
‘Lights off!’ Irene screamed at the top of her voice. Every light in the room, and in all the adjacent ones where her voice could reach, shut down. Total darkness enshrouded her. She reached out for Zayanna’s hand, and felt it warm and trembling in hers.
And then something touched her shoulder. ‘Really, Ray,’ Alberich’s voice breathed just behind her. ‘Did you think that would stop me?’
Irene bolted in the direction of the doorway, led by the book she was clutching. Her voice had carried well: she and Zayanna stumbled blindly through two darkened rooms before they came to one with lights on. The book tugged her towards the stairway and down. Behind her, she heard Zayanna gasp in shock, and turned to see what had happened. ‘Get it off, darling!’ Zayanna pointed at Irene’s coat. ‘Quick. There’s something on the back . . .’
Where Alberich touched me . . . With the speed of sheer panic, Irene shrugged her coat off and dropped it on the floor. There was a patch of mould on the shoulder, shaped something like a handprint and visibly spreading. She shuddered in disgust, then tried to squint over her shoulder to see her back. ‘Is it still there – did it seep through?’
‘I think a bit got through onto that robe thing,’ Zayanna said, inspecting it. She pursed her lips as Irene discarded that as well. ‘All right, darling, I think you’re clean. It’s a good thing you’re wearing so many layers.’
The mould was growing faster now, colonizing the overcoat in vile streaks of grey and white, the same shade as the bone-coloured books on this room’s shelves. ‘We have to keep moving,’ Irene said. ‘If I don’t use the Language and if we don’t stay in one place, it’ll take him longer to find us. I think. I hope.’
‘I can’t think why it’s taking him so long as it is,’ Zayanna said as they ran down the stairs, following the book’s tugging. The clock in the distance seemed to be sounding a counterpoint to their running steps, its steady tick like a constant pursuit. ‘If he can see everything in here, why can’t he just reach out and squish us?’
‘I’m not sure, but I’m not going to complain.’ The book led them to the right, then three rooms along straight, then down again. The tugging was stronger now. ‘I think we’re closer.’
‘You realize this could all be a trap.’ Zayanna’s tone was more speculative than nervous.
‘Some things are worth risking a trap for.’
‘For you, darling.’ Zayanna glanced at the violet-bound books they were passing, then shrugged. ‘I’m a people-person, not a book-hunter.’
‘It’d be nice if I could be just a book-hunter.’ Irene was on edge, twitching at every creak or groan from an overloaded bookshelf, eyeing the shadows nervously in each new room. The clock seemed louder now, each separate tick a footstep of oncoming doom. ‘I was happy when it was just books!’
‘Were you?’ Zayanna shrugged. ‘I’m no judge, darling, but you seemed to me to be having a perfectly splendid time getting along with those friends of yours back there. I wonder if we’ll ever see them again?’ The question was casual rather than serious, toying with the idea, rather than actually worrying about it.
‘I have spent most of my life preferring books to people,’ Irene said sharply. ‘Just because I like a few specific people doesn’t change anything.’
‘Do you like me?’
Common sense urged Irene to say of course and reassure Zayanna. But she was justifiably bitter over those multiple murder attempts and the fact that Zayanna was complicit in Alberich’s attempt to destroy the Library. All reason supported a tart response: after all, Why on earth should I like someone who’d do that? Finally Irene said, ‘More than I should.’