The Library of the Unwritten - A. J_ Hackwith Page 0,27
of mortal mind. An unwritten book is nothing but pure potential, and a soul’s potential is power down here. Power, naturally, is all the creatures of Hell care about. They’d descend on the shelves like a swarm of locusts if we let them.
Librarian Ibukun of Ise, 786 CE
A SOUND, MORE GRAVEL than snore, grated from the sleeping gargoyle as they passed the bookcase. Leto gave it a wide berth as he struggled to keep up with the librarian’s long strides. Hell’s hallways passed in a blur, and Leto had long ago given up keeping track of the path they were taking. He decided to stick to the basics. “Where are we going?”
“The Arcane Wing. The Arcanist, Andras, is a colleague and old friend.” The bag holding the page scrap crinkled between Claire’s pinched fingers, as if she was afraid it would escape. She accelerated down a wide flight of stairs and forced Leto to speed up again.
“Arcanist. He’s some kinda wizard?” Leto asked.
“Not quite. He curates the Arcane Wing. It’s part of the Library. The Unwritten Wing is larger and stores the unwritten works, and the Arcane Wing contains . . . curiosities.”
“Like a museum?”
Claire shook her head. “Libraries traditionally housed a cabinet of curiosities; I suppose that is why the Arcane Wing exists here as well. It houses arcane artifacts—prophecies, spell books, monkey claws, and soul gems. That kind of nonsense. Things that gain power on Earth become . . . slippery. Slippery and dangerous. They tend to fall through the cracks of reality and end up here, where we can contain them. It’s the Arcanist’s job to do that, and fetch the dangerous stuff. Messy job, one I’m glad I don’t have. Books are much more straightforward.”
“So he’s your boss?”
Claire’s chuckle was not entirely warm. “I’m sure he’d like to think so, since he’s been here forever, but no. The Unwritten Wing and the Arcane Wing are allied.”
“Allied?” Leto frowned. “Against what?”
The question made Claire slow. Leto had to careen into a pillar to avoid running into her. Claire seemed to consider before giving him a serious answer. “Against everything. As long as there have been places like libraries—places attempting to preserve and curate—there have been forces attempting to acquire. The Library makes for a very juicy target for the demons of Hell, even though they’re supposedly our hosts.”
That made no sense. “But they’re just books,” he blurted before he could worry about insulting the librarian.
Claire didn’t seem prone to taking offense. She just chuckled. It was a dry, crackling laugh that made her sound older than she looked. “They may be just books to you, Leto, but these are unwritten books. Pure potential. They’re the stuff of something demons don’t have: imagination. That’s the stuff of humans. The power to create. Down here, that’s a decisive power. There are factions here in Hell that would love nothing more than to eat the books whole, for a momentary burst of power. If the Arcane Wing and the Library didn’t work together to present a united front, the books would have been burned long ago.”
Yet another thing Leto might have known, should have known, had he been the demon he was supposed to be. Instead, he was a stupid human asking stupid questions. He could even fail at damnation, and now he was in Hell, surrounded by shadows containing dangers he didn’t even know existed. His arms felt chilled. He wrapped them around his middle. He couldn’t remember the source of self-loathing that welled up in his throat, but the bitter taste coated his tongue.
They wound their way across a dark foyer. The wide amber floor was dusty and bare and seemed to swallow up the light. Claire halted them before a set of thick bronze doors. The grillwork was cast with figures so encrusted with age and grime that Leto couldn’t make them out. Claire’s hand hesitated above the handle. “Andras is a friend—he won’t harm you—but just one rule: don’t touch anything.”
“O-okay?”
“Andras won’t harm us. But the Arcane Wing . . .” If the smile Claire gave him was meant to be reassuring, she sucked at it. “The Arcane Wing is . . . different.”
“Different? Like, compared to the Unwritten Wing or . . .” Leto trailed off as Claire shoved the door open.
The air was chilled and clotted with dust. The first impression Leto had, as he breathed in stale air, was of the shadowy neglect of an abandoned museum vault or perhaps a disreputable pawnshop.