The door shuddered, and the gap increased, the creature clearly winning against the spell that tried to keep it shut. Lirael stared at it, unable to think of what to do next. She frantically glanced up and down the corridor, as if some unlookedfor help might come.
But none did come, and she could only think that whatever this thing was, it must not be let out into the main spiral. The words of the librarians telling her of self-sacrifice came back to her, as did her depressed climb up the Starmount Stairs only a few months before. Now that death seemed likely, she realized how much she wanted to stay alive.
Even so, Lirael knew what must be done. She drew herself up and reached into the Charter. There, in the endless flow, she drew out all the marks she knew for breaking and blasting, for fire and destruction, for blocking, barring, and locking. They came into her mind in a flood, brighter and more blinding than any light, so strong that she could barely weave them into a spell. But somehow she ordered them as she wished, and linked them together with a single master mark, one of great power, that she had never before dared to use.
With the spell ready, pent up inside her by will alone, Lirael did the bravest thing she had ever done. She touched the door with one hand, the creature’s hook with the other, and spoke the master Charter mark to cast the spell.
Chapter Eight. Down the Fifth Back Stair
As she spoke, heat coursed through Lirael’s throat.
White fire exploded through her right hand into the creature, and a titanic force was unleashed from her left, slamming the door shut. She was hurled backwards, tumbling over and over till her head struck the stone floor with a terrible crack that sent her instantly into darkness.
When she came to, Lirael had no idea where she was. Her head felt as if a hot wire had pierced her skull. It was somehow wet as well, and her throat ached as if she were in the throes of a really bad flu. For a moment she thought she was sick in bed and would soon see Aunt Kirrith or one of the other girls bending over her with a spoonful of herbal restorative. Then she realized that there was cold stone under her, not a mattress, and she was fully clothed.
Hesitantly, she touched her head, and her fingers showed her what the wetness was. She looked at the bright blood, and a wave of cold and dizziness overcame her, shooting up from her toes and through her head. She tried to call for help, but her throat was too sore. Nothing came out, only a sort of breathy buzz.
Now she remembered what she’d been trying to do, and a bolt of pure panic banished the dizziness. She tried to raise her head, but that hurt too much, so she rolled on her side instead, to see the door.
It was shut, and there was no sign of the creature. Lirael stared at the door till the grain of the wood grew blurry, uncertain that it really was closed, the creature gone. When she was absolutely sure it was shut, she turned her head away and threw up, sour bile burning her already painful throat.
She lay still after that, trying to steady her breathing and her stammering heart. A further cautious examination of her head revealed the blood to be clotting already, so it probably wasn’t too serious. Her throat seemed to be worse, damaged by speaking a master Charter mark that she didn’t have the strength or the experience to use correctly. She tried to say a few words, but only a hoarse whisper came out.
Next, she investigated her feet, but they turned out to be more scratched than cut, though her shoes had so many holes that they had become like sandals. Compared to her head, her feet were fine, so she decided to try standing up.
That took her several minutes, even using the wall for support. Then it took another five minutes to bend down again, pick up her dagger, and ease it into the scabbard.
After that exercise, she stood for a while, till she felt steady enough to examine the door. It was shut properly, without a gap, and she could feel her own spell, as well as the door’s magical lock, holding it closed. No one could get in or out now without breaking Lirael’s spell. Even the Chief Librarian would have to get her to lift it, or break it.
Thinking of the Chief made Lirael pick up as many of her torn-off buttons as she could find, and replace the red rope and the seals across the door—though calling up a spell to warm the wax was almost beyond her. When she’d finished, she walked a few steps up the main spiral, but had to sit down, too weak to go on.
Slumping down, she lapsed into a semi-conscious daze, unable to think about anything or to assess her situation. She sat for a long time, maybe even an hour. Then some natural resilience rose up in her, and Lirael realized where she was and the state she was in. Bloodied, bruised, her waistcoat buttonless and torn, her emergency mouse lost. All of which would need explanation.
The loss of the mouse reminded her of the statuette. Her hands were much clumsier than usual, frustratingly so, but she managed to get the small stone figure out of her pocket and set it on her lap.
It was a dog, she saw, carved from a soft grey-blue soapstone that was pleasant to touch. It looked like a fairly hardbitten sort of dog, with pointy ears and a sharp snout. But it also had a friendly grin, and the suggestion of a tongue in the corner of its mouth.
“Hello, dog,” whispered Lirael, her voice so weak and scratchy, she could hardly hear it herself. She liked dogs, though there were none in the higher reaches of the Glacier. The Rangers had a kennel for their working dogs near the Great Gate, and visitors sometimes brought their dogs into the guest quarters and the Lower Refectory. Lirael always said hello to the visiting dogs, even when they were huge brindled wolfhounds with studded collars. The dogs were always friendly to her, often more so than their owners, who would get upset when Lirael spoke only to their dogs and not to them.
Lirael held the dog statuette and wondered what she was going to do. Should she tell Imshi or someone higher up about the thing that was loose in the flower-field chamber? And admit she had woken the extra key spells in her bracelet? 79
She sat there for ages, turning over ideas, scratching the stone head of the dog as if it were a miniature real animal. Telling the truth was probably the right thing to do, she concluded, but then she would almost certainly lose her job—and going back to the children’s classes and the hated blue tunic would be unbearable. Once again, she toyed with the idea that death might provide an escape, but the reality of nearly being slain by the hooks of the creature made killing herself even less attractive than it had been before.
No, Lirael decided. She had got herself into trouble and she would get herself out of it. She’d find out what the creature was, learn how to defeat it, and then go and do it. It couldn’t get out till then, or so she hoped. And no one else could get in, so it wouldn’t be a danger to other librarians.
That left explaining her cut head, scratched feet, bruises, mislaid mouse, lost voice, and general disarray. All of which could probably be done with a single brilliant plan. Which Lirael didn’t have.
“I might as well walk and think,” she whispered to the dog statuette. It was oddly comforting to speak to the dog and hold it in her hand. She looked down at the way it sat, with its tail curled around its back legs, head up and forelegs straight, as if waiting for its mistress.
“I wish I had a real dog,” Lirael added, groaning as she stood up and started slowly walking up the spiral corridor. Then she stopped and looked down at the statuette, a sudden wild thought blossoming in her mind. She could create a Charter sending of a dog, a complex one that could bark and everything. All she’d need was On the Making of Sendings, and perhaps The Making and Mastery of Magical Beings. Both were locked up, of course, but Lirael knew where they were. She could even make the sending look like the lovely dog statuette.
Lirael smiled at the thought of having a dog of her own.
A true friend, someone she could talk to who wouldn’t ask her questions or talk back. A loving and lovable companion. She tucked the statuette back in her waistcoat pocket and limped on.
A hundred yards later she abruptly stopped thinking about how to create a sending and started to worry about how she would find out what the creature in the flower room was.
There were bestiaries in the Library, she knew, but finding and getting access to them could be a problem.
She kept thinking about that for another hundred yards until she realized she had a far more pressing problem. She needed to work out an explanation for her injuries and the lost mouse, with a minimum of actual lying. Lirael felt that she owed the Library a lot, and didn’t want to tell an outright lie. Besides, she didn’t think she could lie, if it came to heavy-duty questioning from the Chief Librarian or someone like that. The mouse was the tricky part. She stopped moving to try to think more clearly, and she was surprised by how much her body needed the rest. Normally she ran around the Library all day, up and down the spiral, up and down ladders, in and out of rooms. Now she could barely move without a major effort of will.
A fall would explain her head injury, Lirael thought, once again feeling the cut. It had stopped bleeding, but her hair was matted with blood, and she could feel a lump coming up.
A long fall, with a terrified scream, could also explain her sore throat. Buttons could be scraped off in that sort of fall, and a mouse easily lost from a pocket.
Steps, Lirael decided. A fall down a flight of steps would best explain everything. Particularly if someone found her at the bottom of the steps, so she wouldn’t have to say anything much. 81
It took her only a little while to work out that the Fifth Back Stair between the main spiral and the Hall of Youth would be the most likely spot for her to have an accident. She could even pick up a glass of water from the Zally Memorial Fountain on the way. You weren’t allowed to take the glasses away, of course, but that was probably a bonus. It would give everybody—particularly Aunt Kirrith—something to scold her for, and they wouldn’t look for more serious crimes. And a broken glass would explain her scratched feet.
Now all she had to do was get there and not meet anyone on the way. If the past extra-large Watch gatherings were any indication, the Fifteen Sixty-Eight wouldn’t last much longer. There was a definite correlation between the size of a particular Watch and how long it lasted. The normal Forty-Nine lasted nine days, giving the Watch its name. But when there were more people involved, the Clayr returned much sooner. The most recent Watch had taken the participating Clayr away for less than a day.
The closer she got to the Hall of Youth, the greater the danger of meeting youngsters or others not part of the Watch. Lirael decided that if she did meet anyone, she’d just fall down and pass out, hoping that whoever it was didn’t get too inquisitive. But she didn’t meet anyone before she turned off the spiral, picked up her glass of water at the Zally Fountain, went through the permanently open stone doors of the Fifth Library Landing, and reached the Fifth Back Stair. It was a narrow, circular stair, not much used since it merely connected the Library with the western side of the Hall of Youth.
Wearily, Lirael climbed the first half dozen steps, to the point where it started to turn inwards. Then she threw the glass down, wincing as it broke. After that she had to work out 82
where to lie so it looked as if she really had fallen down the steps. This made her dizzy, so she had to sit down. And once she was sitting, it seemed quite natural to lay her head on an upper step, cushioned by an outthrust arm.
She knew she should be artistically arranging herself on the landing below, an obvious victim of a fall, but it all seemed too hard. The strength that had sustained her to this point was gone. She couldn’t get up. It was so much easier to go to sleep. Beautiful sleep, where no troubles could torment her . . . Lirael awoke to a voice urgently calling her name, and two fingers checking the pulse in her neck. This time, she came to her senses fairly quickly, grimacing as the pain returned. “Lirael! Can you talk?”
“Yes,” whispered Lirael, her voice still very weak and strangely husky. She was disoriented. Her last memory was of lying on the steps, and now she was flat on the ground. She realized that she was on the landing, looking much more like the victim of a fall than anything she could have arranged herself. She must have slipped down the steps after passing out.
A blue-waistcoated First Assistant Librarian was bending over her, peering closely at her face. Lirael blinked and wondered why this strange person was moving her hand backwards and forwards in front of Lirael’s eyes. But it wasn’t a strange person after all. It was Amerane, whom she had worked with for a few days last month.
“What happened?” asked Amerane, concern in her voice.
“Does anything feel broken?”
“I hit my head,” whispered Lirael, and she felt tears springing up in her eyes. She hadn’t cried before, but now she couldn’t stop, and her whole body started to shake as well, no matter how hard she tried to stay still.
“Does anything feel broken?” Amerane repeated. “Does it hurt anywhere else aside from your head?”
“N-no,” sobbed Lirael. “Nothing’s broken.”
Amerane didn’t seem to trust Lirael’s opinion, because she lightly felt all the way up and down the girl’s arms and legs, and gently pressed against her fingers and feet. Since Lirael didn’t scream and there seemed to be no grating of bones or abnormal lumps or swellings, Amerane helped her get up.
“Come on,” she said kindly. “I’ll help you get to the Infirmary.”
“Thanks,” whispered Lirael, putting her arm around Amerane’s shoulders and letting her take most of her weight. Her other hand went to her pocket, fingers wrapping around the little stone dog, its smooth surface a source of comfort, as Amerane carried her away.
Chapter Nine. Creatures by Nagy
At first, Lirael thought she would be out of the Infirmary within a day. But even three days after her “fall,” she could barely speak, and she had lost all her energy, not even wanting to get up. While the pain in her head and throat lessened, fear grew everywhere else, sapping her strength. Fear of the silver-eyed, hook-handed monster that she could almost see waiting for her amidst the red daisies. Fear of her trespasses being found out, forcing the loss of her job. Fear of the fear itself, a vicious circle that exhausted her and filled what little sleep she got with nightmares.