The Library

The Marble Statue

The bottom of the hole was filled with soft, damp soil. It was nearly pitch-black, but Allina felt the sides until she found a strange doorway. It was a few centimeters from the ground and a perfect circle. There was no door; instead, the passage was covered by hanging vines that had somehow managed to grow in the lightless hole.

Allina hopped up and pushed through the vines. The pathway was dark for a long while, but she saw there were faint lights in the distance. While the passage was earth, there were small stepping stones all along it. She walked along the path until she found the lights, which were actually glowworms. The tunnel widened out after the first few glowworms. Soon the path got steeper; Allina was once more going uphill.

The tunnel began to wind and turn. Allina realized she must be walking around the roots of the trees.

The path then turned to stone all around and narrowed considerably. There were no more glowworms overhead, but a light in the distance.

When Allina finally did emerge from the tunnel, she was in the mouth of a marble statue. It wasn't a human: the statue had fangs and a dog's long tongue. She crept forward and poked her head out of the mouth.

The statue stood in a circular room. In the far distance were trees, locked with each other to form a wall. Dappled moonlight poured down between the leaves of the canopy overhead. The room, Allina could tell, was far larger on the inside than it had seemed on the outside, perhaps because of some spell. Figures milled about in the distance. Some sat at stone tables or stood by other marble statues.

She was just wondering how to get down when she heard skittering footsteps behind her. Mice, two of them, came up in the tunnel behind her. Allina didn't dare turn around.

"My lord, who is that?" said one mouse to the other.

Allina tensed but didn't move. They can speak! Can all mice speak, and I simply never noticed it before?

"He looks to be a child, squire," said the second mouse, "and an impolite one at that." The second mouse was older.

"You!" he called, "state your name! Where is your lord?"

Allina began to panic, but still didn't move. If she spoke, she might drop the wand in her mouth, and if she turned, they would doubtless be able to tell she was actually a human in a mouse's form.

"It must be a wild creature, then," said the second mouse. "Sometimes one finds its way through the tunnel; likely, it came in when you left the entrance open outside." For a mouse, he had quite a stately voice.

The two mice hurried past her and leapt out of the mouth. As they fell, a very odd thing happened: their bodies turned to white smoke. The two smoke clouds morphed into the silhouettes of a man and a boy. Right before her eyes, the silhouettes turned into humans. Well, not entirely.

The man was lanky and tall. His head was a mouse's, laced with scars; his neck and arms were covered in thick golden fur. He wore a white shirt and black trousers and boots; his clothes seemed to be from another era, though Allina could not think of which.

The boy looked like he would be very tall, but he had a mouse's hind legs and tail. His mouse-fur was brown, and his skin was white like the man's. His clothing was brown, and he wore long white gloves.

Allina gasped. She dropped the wand, which was still pulsing, and it clattered as it hit the stone. She quickly hid it under her belly.

To her horror, the man and boy turned to face her.

"My lord, did you hear that?" asked the boy.

The man made what looked like a displeased expression at Allina, but with his mouse's face it was hard to tell. He grabbed Allina by the tail and she yelped. "A wand," he said, reaching into the statue's mouth to retrieve it.

"Another witch," the boy said. His eyes glittered with both childlike awe and cruelty. "Should we kill her?"

"No! She is more useful to the king alive than dead."

Allina struggled to wriggle free, but it was no use. His thumb was at her neck; if she tried to bite, he'd crush her windpipe.

The man carried her across the great room. Other strange half-men walked about, talking with each other or trading items or teaching the half-boys. The crowd of people parted for the man that had captured Allina; conversations stopped. Soon, they were going down a set of spiraling stairs into the waiting darkness.