Swords & Dark Magic - By Jonathan Strahan Page 0,155
at random like some headless animal. And all they can do with it is keep it bottled up and hope it doesn’t bite them too sharply. It needs a will, Laszlo! It needs a mind to guide it, to wrestle it down, to put it to constructive use.”
“You’re kidding.” Laszlo’s mouth was suddenly dry. “This is a finals-week joke, Caz. You’re kidding.”
“No.” Casimir gestured at the glass focus. “It’s all here already, everything necessary. If you’d had any ambition at all you would have seen the hints in the introductory materials. The index enchantments are like a nervous system, in touch with everything, and they can be used to communicate with everything. I’m going to bend this place, Laz. Bend it around my finger and make it something new.”
“It’ll kill you!”
“It could win.” Casimir flashed his teeth, a grin as predatory as any worn by the vocabuvores that had tried to devour him less than an hour before. “But so what? I graduate with honors, I go back to my people, and what then? Fighting demons, writing books, advising ministers? To hell with it. In the long run I’m still a footnote. But if I can seize this, rule this, that’s more power than ten thousand lifetimes of dutiful slavery.”
“Aspirant Vrana,” said Astriza. She had come up behind Laszlo, so quietly that he hadn’t heard her approach. “Casimir. Is something the matter?”
“On the contrary, Librarian Mezaros. Everything is better than ever.”
“Casimir,” she said, “I’ve been listening. I strongly urge you to reconsider this course of action, before—”
“Before what? Before I do what you people should have done a thousand years ago when this place bucked the harness? Stay back, Librarian, or I’ll weave a death for you before your spells can touch me. Look on the bright side…anything is possible once this is done. The University and I will have to reach…an accommodation.”
“What about me, Caz?” Laszlo threw his tattered cloak aside and placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Would you slay me, too?”
“Interesting question, Laszlo. Would you really pull that thing on me?”
“Five years! I thought we were friends!” The sword came out in a silver blur, and Laszlo shook with fury.
“You could have gone on thinking that if you’d just left me alone for a few minutes. I already said I was sorry.”
“Step out of the circle, Casimir. Step out, or decide which one of us you have time to kill before we can reach you.”
“Laszlo, even for someone as mildly magical as yourself, you disappoint me. I said I checked your sword personally this morning, didn’t I?”
Casimir snapped his fingers, and Laszlo’s sword wrenched itself from his grasp so quickly that it scraped the skin from most of his knuckles. Animated by magical force, it whirled in the air and thrust itself firmly against Laszlo’s throat. He gasped—the razor-edge that had slashed vocabuvore flesh like wet parchment was pressed firmly against his windpipe, and a modicum of added pressure would drive it in.
“Now,” shouted Casimir, “Indexers, out! If anyone else comes in, if I am interfered with, or knocked unconscious or by any means further annoyed, my enchantment on that sword will slice this aspirant’s head off.”
The blue-robed Indexers withdrew from the room hastily, and the heavy door clanged shut behind them.
“Astriza,” said Casimir, “somewhere in this room is the master index book, the one updated by the enchantments. Bring it to me now.”
“Casimir,” said the Librarian, “it’s still not too late for you to—”
“How will you write up Laszlo’s death in your report? ‘Regretfully unavoidable’? Bring me the damn book.”
“As you wish,” she said coldly. She moved to a nearby table, and returned with a thick volume, two feet high and nearly as wide.
“Simply hand it over,” said Casimir. “Don’t touch the warding paint.”
She complied, and Casimir ran his right hand over the cover of the awkwardly large volume, cradling it against his chest with his left arm.
“Well, then, Laszlo,” he said. “This is it. All the information collected by the index enchantments is sorted in the master books like this one. My little alterations will reverse the process, making this a focus for me to reshape all this chaos to my own liking.”
“Casimir,” said Laszlo, “please—”
“Hoist a few for me tonight if you live through whatever happens next. I’m moving past such things.”
He flipped the book open, and a pale silvery glow rippled up from the pages he selected. Casimir took a deep breath, raised his right hand, and began to intone