Unhallowed (Rath and Rune #1) - Jordan L. Hawk Page 0,10

to be easy. The work of a day, maybe two. But this place was huge.

Stack after stack of books marched off into the gloom. Even so, a large square room or two would have been easily mappable. Instead, he quickly saw the library seemed to be made up of interconnected rooms, which struck out in directions that made no sense, so that the walls met at bizarre angles. Random shafts of light fell from above, striking tables or shelves seemingly without any planning or thought to convenience. Most of the illumination came from the electric lights, and when they reached a winding ramp, Ves realized they were headed underground.

“What the devil is this place?” he asked, startled. “Surely it can’t have been originally intended to be a library.”

Rath paused. A distant lamp cast his face half in shadow, giving a sinister cast to his thin smirk. “It’s a labyrinth,” he said, sounding pleased at Ves’s discomfiture. “And yes, it was always meant to be the library.”

A labyrinth? Gods of the wood, his task suddenly went from simple to daunting.

“But it makes no sense.” Ves gestured vaguely. “Why is it partially underground? The damp and mold must wreak havoc on the books.”

“It is mostly beneath the ground,” Rath corrected. Then he sighed. “Very well. A history lesson, since you don’t seem to have familiarized yourself with the founding of our fair institution.” Ves stiffened at his tone, but didn’t interrupt. “Construction on the museum was completed in 1859. The Ladysmith is the only example of public architecture by Alexander Dromgoole, and the last project he designed before being taken to the State Lunatic Hospital at Taunton. This was before our own Stormhaven Lunatic Asylum was built.” Rath paused. “Unfortunately, Stormhaven fell into the sea some years back.”

“I…see.” Ordinarily such a scandal might be kept quiet, at least within the hallowed halls of the architect’s own work, but Rath delivered it as though he expected it to enhance the museum’s reputation, rather than the reverse. “So you’re saying Dromgoole was losing his grip on reality when designing the museum? But then why did no one simply redraw the plans?”

Rath shrugged. “Mr. Ladysmith was adamant no one alter Dromgoole’s work. And as it was his money funding construction, he got his way. It’s said Dromgoole’s final descent into madness came while working on the library.”

That Ves could believe. The layout made less sense the farther they went. Ceilings changed height without warning, what appeared to be nooks turned out to conceal main passageways, and the light was generally so dim that only the addition of reading lamps on the tables offered any hope of actually perusing the books. Before the installation of electricity, they must have relied on lanterns, which seemed a rather hazardous practice for a library.

And everywhere were the books: the shelves overflowed with tomes, pamphlets, and periodicals. There were even books chained to a few of the tables, accompanied by signs suggesting they not be unchained For the Safety of Yourself and Other Patrons.

“The collections are ordered according to area of study,” Rath explained as they walked. “Each collection has a specific librarian assigned to it, to aid in research. Do you see that?”

He stopped and pointed at an archway. A small bas-relief crowned it, featuring a rather threatening rabbit. “That is the Natural History of North America collection—well, part of it, it extends to several rooms. But we librarians casually call it the rabbit room. There’s the star room, the flower room, the lion room, etc. I assume the library in Boston had a similar organization.”

“It did not,” Ves assured him.

“Did it at least have a bat room?”

“I…no?”

Rath grinned, showing a flash of good humor previously hidden under his general disapproval of Ves. “Ha! I didn’t think so. Let me show it to you.”

Confused, Ves followed him to an oversized door. “This room used to be called ‘the chimney’ because of its shape, but now we just call it the bat room.”

Ves understood the comment about the shape as soon as he stepped inside. The narrow width of the room was all out of proportion to its height. It must jut out of the body of the museum like some strange tower. The books were all encased in glass-fronted cabinets, and sturdy iron ladders were set on rails, so they could slide back and forth to reach the books. A door from the upper floor led to a narrow iron spiral staircase. A shallow fountain burbled in the center