A Conversation in Blood

  He missed it. A little. Maybe.

  Huge portraits covered the walls, old Masters and famous wizards, and magical symbols were engraved in the floor. Carved in an ancient tongue above one archway were the words:

  Knowledge is both power and peril.

  Nix had always found it trite.

  Veins of glowing minerals lined the stone of the walls and floor, providing dim yellow light, the pattern of them reminiscent of a luminous spiderweb.

  “Nightlights,” Nix said, by way of explanation. “Follow me.”

  The college’s massive library occupied essentially the entire floor belowground. Nix led them down a staircase, down another hall, to the far side of the college, then down a triple-wide stone staircase that descended deep into the earth before giving way to a wide, carved archway that opened onto the vast, vaulted room of the Conclave’s library.

  “Gods,” Egil said, standing in the doorway.

  “Aye,” Nix agreed. He hadn’t seen the Conclave library in years, and he’d forgotten its grandeur. The glowing veins of minerals lined walls and ceilings and provided light, testifying to the size of the chamber.

  The room was larger than the entire footprint of the college above. The floor was tiered, with short individual flights of stone steps leading to this section and that. Tables and chairs and divans stood here and there, all of them ancient and ornate. Shelves ran floor to ceiling along the walls and in free-standing bookcases, all of them stocked with leather-bound tomes, thick grimoires, scrolls, engraved metal plates, centuries of accumulated knowledge on subjects arcane and mundane. The Conclave library was often proclaimed to be the single greatest depository of knowledge on Ellerth, and Nix had never doubted it. The books and writings collected in the huge room numbered in the hundreds of thousands. No one could read them all, not in multiple lifetimes. No one could catalog them all. No one except the book sprites, swarming, obsessive little fae with a fixation on the written word.

  Even at the late hour the book sprites flitted through the room, their tiny wings trailing glowing motes of various colors. They were like a swarm of sparkling insects, darting about the shelves and tables. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Two score candles on tall candelabra burned on various tiers, the flames at the end of their wicks a deep green.

  “Open flame in here seems a risk,” Egil said.

  “The candles are enspelled,” Nix said. “They’re everburning but never burn down. And the flames won’t burn paper, parchment, or wood or the like.”

  Egil frowned, no doubt irritated to be in the presence of more gewgaws.

  Kazmarek groaned. Egil laid him on the floor. Nix kneeled down and pried open one of his eyes. No focus yet. Nix dug a length of thin cordage from his satchel and handed it to Egil.

  “Bind him. If he talks and we don’t fancy his words, we’ll gag him, too.”

  “Aye, that,” Egil said. The priest expertly bound the Grand Master at wrists and ankles. The wizard groaned throughout, slowly working his way back to his senses.

  “Come on,” Nix said, and hustled up the stairs of one tier and then another. Egil heaved Kazmarek over his shoulder and followed.

  Book sprites flitted around them as they went, curious, their high-pitched voices discernible to Nix only as a kind of rising and falling whine. He stopped when he reached the highest, central tier of the library.

  The Block, as the students had called it, featured eight long tables with accompanying high-backed chairs, all neatly arranged. It offered a view of the rest of the library. Students studied and researched there. One of the candelabra with three everburning candles stood to one side of the table.

  As they stood there, more of the book sprites gathered around them, the beat of their wings a faint, soothing buzz, while others flew off. It was like standing in a shower of embers.

  Egil placed Kazmarek in one of the chairs, where the Grandmaster slumped. Book sprites buzzed about him for a moment, no doubt curious, then flew off. The wizard groaned again and his finger twitched.

  “Coming around,” Nix said.

  “Aye,” Egil agreed. He put a hand on the haft of one of his hammers. “Where do you start in here? These little pyrotechnics can help, you said?”

  “They can.”

  Kazmarek straightened, looked around blearily. “Are we in the…? What are we doing here? What are you doing?”

  “Nothing I care to share with you just yet,” Nix said. He grabbed a summoning candle from a small drawer built into the underside of the table.

  “You could’ve killed me,” Kazmarek said to Egil. “Striking me like that.”

  “If I’d wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have used my hand,” Egil said, patting the haft of his hammer.

  “You should talk less,” Nix said. “This isn’t one of your lectures.”

  Kazmarek took in the summoning candle. “Whatever you’re planning, it’s not too late to stop. You can still just leave.”

  Nix ignored him. He removed the plates from his satchel.

  The Grandmaster squirmed in his chair to get a better look at them. “What do you have there?”

  “He said shut up,” Egil admonished.

  The Grandmaster ignored him. “Show me those. Nix, show me those.”

  A few of the book sprites darted over, too, hovering near the plates for a moment. The plates caught the sprites’ light, cast it back in a rainbow of green and orange and red.

  “Nix,” Kazmarek said, his voice different, quieter. “Please let me see those. I’m bound. I’m not dangerous. Maybe I can…help you.”

  Nix raised an eyebrow. “I think you can see them just fine from there. Do you know what they are? That’s why we’re here.”

  “I can’t see them well from here,” Kazmarek said. “Bring them over. I need to see them close up.”

  Nix could not quite read his expression or tone, but if he’d been forced to put a name to it, he’d have called it fear. Nix took one of the plates and slid it across the table until it was before the Grandmaster.

  “Don’t try to touch it, even with your nose.” He drew a dagger and held it at the ready. “And if I even think you’re starting a syllable in the Language of Creation I’ll cut out your tongue.”

  Kazmarek, sitting very still, merely stared at the plate. He licked his lips and leaned forward, probably studying the script. Nix tensed, ready to stab him if he touched the plate. He didn’t touch it, and despite the green glow of the candles, he seemed to go pale.

  “Well?” Egil asked.

  Kazmarek seemed not to have heard him. He leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, his brow furrowed in thought or worry. He swallowed hard, looked again at the plate, then at Nix.

  “You don’t know what you have?” he said.

  “If we fakkin’ knew,” Egil said, “we wouldn’t be here.”

  “As the priest said,” Nix said, “it’s a long story. Anyway, you know what they are. I can tell from your face. So?”

  Kazmarek cleared his throat. Nix could tell he was measuring out every word, trying to keep his tone of voice level, trying to reveal nothing.

  “How many of these plates do you have?” the Grandmaster asked. “Just those two? Where did you find them? Who else knows you have them?”

  Nix took the plate from before the wizard and for the briefest moment it seemed Kazmarek might try to leap out of his seat to stay close to it. He watched the plate go as if his eyes were attached to it.

  “Where we found them doesn’t matter,” Nix said.

  “It does!” Kazmarek said, his voice loud and echoing in the library. At the sound, book sprites flew from the shelves like startled birds. “It does matter!”

  His earnestness took Nix aback. He shared a look with Egil, who raised his thick eyebrows in the equivalent of a shrug.

  “We’ve got just the two,” Nix said to the Grandmaster, seeing no harm in offering a bit of truth. “And almost no one knows what we have.”

  “You and another wizard,” Egil adde
d. “He’s a bit more irritating than you, in that he keeps trying to kill us. But only a bit more.”

  “Jyme, too,” Nix added.

  Kazmarek leaned forward in his chair. “Which wizard? Never mind. Listen to me. Both of you. What you have here is bigger than you. You won’t understand it. And you could do…profound harm. You must stop.”

  “We’ll take all that into consideration,” Nix said somberly. “Egil, have you considered?”

  The priest nodded, his expression serious. “I have and I’ve reached a decision. I do not give a fak. Nor would I trust the word of a wizard, much less this one.”

  “Seconded in all respects,” Nix said. Then to Kazmarek, “Drop all the wizardly ‘our doom is upon us’ shite. Just tell us what they are and we’ll move along.”

  “Nix,” Kazmarek said, his eyes fixed on Nix’s face, almost febrile in their intensity, “please hear me. Please. You must not learn what these are. Once you know, you can’t unknow. For your own well-being, don’t. Just leave them with me and go. That’s the best thing you can do now. I’ll take care of it all.”

  Nix gave Egil a knowing look. “And there it is. Angling for our swag.”

  “Aye,” Egil said, but it was halfhearted and he looked unsure.

  “Ah,” Nix said, seeing Egil’s hesitation. “The priest wavers but shouldn’t. Egil, this man is a liar. A skilled one. He appears earnest, sincere, yeah? He’s neither. I know him better than you. He wants the plates for himself, the same as Kerfallen, but his motivation isn’t our well-being.”

  “Kerfallen,” the Grandmaster said, the word coming out like a curse. “That stunted little fool.” He looked not at Nix but at Egil. “Nix is right. I lie when necessary. But I’m not lying about this. The plates are dangerous. For you. For all of us. Just leave them here and forget you ever saw them. That’s all you have to do. There won’t be any repercussions for trespassing here or attacking me.”

  “They’re just pieces of metal,” Egil said. “Gewgaws and naught more. Dangerous for all of us seems a stretch, indeed.”

  “No,” Kazmarek said, shaking his head. “You’re not hearing me. They’re much more.”

  “Then tell us or shut up,” Nix said.

  When the Grandmaster said nothing, Nix turned away. He imagined he could feel Kazmarek’s eyes on him, the heat of their regard two smoking points on his back. He placed the summoning candles before him. Threads of gold and silver swirled through the gray wax of the candle. It smelled of cinnamon and cardamom. He lit it with a match from his satchel. Like the other candles in the library, the wick burned a soft green.

  “Nix,” Kazmarek said, shifting in his chair, his tone carrying a hint of desperation, “you would’ve made a fine Master. That’s what I always had in mind for you. Did you know that? It’s not too late.”

  “As you said,” Nix said, “you lie when needed. And now you turn to flattering lies. You never thought anything of the kind. You considered me a warren rat and begrudged every moment I spent here. You lie now because you’re afraid.”

  “Yes!” Kazmarek said, nodding, his eagerness to agree nearly toppling him in the chair. “Yes! I am afraid! You don’t know what you’re doing. For me to explain it would…”

  “Would what?” Egil asked.

  “Be beyond us?” Nix said. “We’ve already heard that.”

  “No,” Kazmarek said. “To explain it is to name it. Nix, this is something you should not know, must not know. Priest, make him understand.”

  “He already understands,” Egil said.

  Indeed, the more the wizard protested, the more determined Nix became to learn the nature of the plates. He watched the smoke from the summoning candle spiral up toward the vaulted ceiling. Glowing lines veined the smoke, igniting for a moment like little lightning bolts. A few of the nearest book sprites caught the scent, flew over, and gathered in the smoke, pleased by the smell.

  Egil stepped beside Nix and spoke in a quiet voice so Kazmarek would not easily hear. “Are you sure about this? His fear seems real.”

  “The only thing I’m sure of is that I don’t trust him. Do you?”

  A bit of a pause before Egil said, “No.”

  “You want to give him the plates and walk away?”

  “Fak no.”

  “Nor I,” Nix said. “I concede he seems in earnest. But seems is the critical word there.”

  “Maybe,” Egil said doubtfully.

  “We’re here,” Nix said. “Let’s just see it through, yeah? Knowing what they are can’t hurt.”

  “Yeah.”

  Book sprites swarmed overhead, so many they looked like a glowing cloud of sparks. They glowed in various colors—green, orange, violet, and red, changing as they flitted about.

  Nix arranged the two metal plates to either side of the candle. A score of the sprites flitted down, hovered over them.

  “Do not obey this man,” Kazmarek said to them, in the commanding voice Nix had come to know so well when he’d attended the Conclave. “I am commanding you. You answer to me. Do not obey him.”

  Nix brandished Kazmarek’s master key and showed it to the sprites. “He doesn’t hold the key, I do. So, you will answer to whoever lights the summoning candle. You’ll do as I bid.”

  “You are forbidden!” Kazmarek shouted at them, and the sprites darted about in agitation, their colors changing rapidly from green to orange to violet and back again. Several more flew down from the ceiling, as though to investigate.

  “Do not obey this man,” the Grandmaster said again to the sprites.

  “Nix…” Egil said.

  “He can end it himself by telling us what they are,” Nix snapped. “Tell us, old man.”

  “No! Never!” To the sprites, Kazmarek said, “And you are to show him nothing.”

  “And now I know what I want is here,” Nix said. Before the Grandmaster could reply, Nix said, “Another word and we gag you.”

  Kazmarek ground his teeth and stared rage at Nix.

  Nix tapped the plates with his finger and spoke to the sprites. “There are books here that identify these. Find them and bring them to me.”

  “No!” Kazmarek said, and struggled against his bonds.

  Egil cuffed the wizard in the back of his head. A bit halfheartedly, Nix thought.

  The sprites hesitated, flew around Nix, around Kazmarek, over the plates.

  “Do as I’ve commanded,” Nix said, and the sprites, bound by the magic of the candle, driven by their fae need, darted off. They spread out across the library, delving into its hidden, forgotten corners, seeking to fulfill Nix’s command.

  Kazmarek was wide-eyed, tense. “There’s no book here that will answer your question.”

  “I already know that’s a lie,” Nix said, watching the sprites about their work. “Something’s here.”

  Kazmarek shifted in his chair. “I never should have brought you out of the Warrens. The Art was always beyond you.”

  “If it was, that’s because the teaching here was so poor,” Nix said.

  “Poor, you say? Why—”

  “Shut up,” Egil said, cuffing the wizard a second time, not so halfheartedly this time.

  Nix watched the swarm of sprites as they checked books and scrolls, from time to time coming back to eyeball the plates, as if to remind themselves what it was they were looking for.

  Egil stepped close to him. He put his fingers near one of the plates, but didn’t touch it. “Maybe there’s nothing here?”

  Nix shook his head. “Look around. That’s not possible. Gotta be something here.”

  As though on cue, the pitch and rhythm of the sprites’ chatter changed, getting higher and faster. They flew across the library from all the directions, gathering in a distant corner of the room that Nix had not noticed before.

  Behind him, Kazmarek’s intake of breath was sharp enough to cut skin.

  “They found something,” Nix said to Egil.

  “Aye,” the priest said softly.

  T
he sprites clustered together, a congregation of colors, and as one removed something from the shelf. They flew it over to Nix, all of them glowing violet as they worked together, and set it on the table. Their work done, the sprites dispersed into a multicolored spark shower, and each returned to its perch on its favorite shelf or table.

  In their wake they left a slim grimoire, the thin, beaten metal covers stained dark with age. The vellum pages bound within looked stiff, wrinkled, and dry, obviously old. The tome was not labeled. Nothing on its cover suggested what might be within.

  “Doesn’t look like much,” Egil said.

  “If you open that book there’s no going back,” Kazmarek said.

  Nix shared a look with Egil. The priest said, “Your decision. I’m with you, as ever. I’ll own up to some…concern, though.”

  “Yeah,” Nix said. “But even so.”

  He sat down, put his hands to the cover, and opened the book.

  The Afterbirth ran out of the building that smelled of sweat and urine and sex and vomit and lurched through the dark streets. He left a trail of his blood in his wake like a line of crimson thread stretching out behind him, but he soon felt the pinch in his skin as the wounds he’d suffered stitched closed. He knew he was taking a great risk moving openly through the street but he could smell the Great Spell in the air, smell it as sharply as ever and he could accept no delay no none. He’d rely on the dark to conceal his appearance, to hide the truth of him.

  At his passage dogs barked and growled from out of the night, cats hissed and darted down alleys, and horses and mules whinnied with fear, bucking in their stalls and pens. His weight cracked cobblestones underfoot and he hunched low, knuckles sometimes scraping the street. The hour left the avenues mostly empty but he saw or smelled a few people, most of them rife with the stink of alcohol and unwashed bodies. He could feel their eyes on him as he passed, could guess at the questions his form raised he figured they’d assume the night or their drink or drugs had played tricks with their vision and that they’d mistook what they saw.