True Love and Necromancy [Featured Story!]

Chapter VI

FINDING THE HIDDEN LIBRARY OF MYSTERIES always took a good hour and a half longer than expected because, as was implied in its deliberately literal name, it never wound up being in the same place twice. Convenience and accessibility were not factors that the founders of the Library had considered. In order to benefit from the wisdom contained within the Library's walls—thousand-year-old texts, scrolls made of human skin, and recent scholarly journals featuring articles on levitation and exposés on the healthful effects of chamomile tea (which was all new age nonsense, in Theo's opinion)—one had to be willing to endure more than a little inconvenience.

Theo wandered around the darkening city, squinting his eyes for the tell-tale squiggliness in the atmosphere that would outline the Library's invisible door. After a good several hours of steadily mounting frustration, he found the hazy indications of the door high up on the side of the Central Bank of Barenn.

With a long-suffering sigh, Theo began disgruntledly collecting debris from the alley behind the bank. He piled crates, large metal waste bins and stray cats up to make a dangerous, wiggly ladder.

The sorcerer crawled without dignity up the teetering tower of trash and, as soon as he got his upper half up high enough, he plunged through the squiggly place in the bank's brick wall. Half sprawled in the vestibule of the enormous Hidden Library and half still dangling unhappily from the other side of a two-foot-thick brick wall, he feebly tossed his borrowed book and his superfluous (but wizardly) walking stick into the library. Then he scrambled for purchase and dragged himself inside.

The sorcerer pulled himself haughtily to his feet and turned to the librarian, an eerily tiny old man who wore enormous glasses and sat behind a desk that was far too large for him. His main job-related duty was to scowl.

"You needn't outdo yourself every time you move the Library," Theo said ill-temperedly.

"Shh," said the librarian.

"Here." Theo snatched the book and staff up from the floor. He marched over to the librarian's desk and set the book down there with an impressive thud.

The librarian opened the cover of the book. Inside was a curious pocket containing a card with dates stamped upon it. It was some kind of arcane, ancient tracking system. He squinted at the date through his unreasonably large spectacles.

Theo grinned smugly. "Not this time," he said.

It was nearly impossible, what with the constant changes in its location, to deliver a borrowed book back to the Hidden Library on time. As a result, most patrons ended up paying exorbitant past due fees. Theo had cultivated the ability to speed read everything he borrowed, which allowed him to return everything on time and to forget pretty much everything he read.

Theo, staff in hand, headed over the scuffed wooden floor to the stacks. The Library went on approximately forever, and the shelves towered above him, stretching up and up and up into the murky gloom. Presumably there was a ceiling, somewhere.

Theo squinted at the hand-lettered directories posted on the ends of the shelves, which were in roughly alphabetical order. By the time he found the section on invocations, it was well into the wee hours of the morning. Theo eagerly turned into the passage between the shelves, skimming for the section he wanted.

He then stared in amazed disappointment at the meager selection of books.

"This is it?"

"Shh!"

Theodosius turned, startled, to see the diminutive librarian standing directly behind him. True to form, he was scowling.

"Seriously? You have—" he paused to count—"Four? Four books on invocations? Four? Four books on the arcane practice of summoning beings of power from the underworld and binding them to your will?"

The librarian scowled a little more. He was very good at it. Then he pointed with a gnarled finger at a posted placard hanging near the I section:

Hidden Library of Mysteries

ACCEPTS NO LIABILITY

FOR THE QUESTIONABLE LIFE CHOICES

OF PATRONS

And, once he was certain Theo had read the placard, he pointed at a smaller sign below it. This one featured a smiling, grandmotherly woman in a traditional witch's hat, holding up an admonishing finger. A speech bubble spouting from her mouth read:

Just say "No" to summoning demons, dear.

"Oh, please," Theo snorted, his patience with the moralizing quite diminished. "I saw Joys of Mind Control, The in the next aisle over. I'll take all four."