“My name, once, was Namru,” it said. The voice wasn’t like Drozanoth’s—this was dry, without weight, the sound you’d imagine from the mouth of a mummy rather than a swamp monster. No muscles to push air out of the chest. Or like an insect. Something making noise by rubbing something together, not with the wet red springiness of vocal chords.
“Why are you here?” I said, not sure why I was asking.
The blank, mouthless face tilted down protectively at the book. “I was... something else... in another time.”
“What were you?”
“A guardian. Protector. I think.” The voice clicked and grated randomly, then resumed. “They... tricked me. Trapped me here. I once was the God of Knowledge, many prayed to me, their voices... I heard many prayers. Scribes and priests and beermakers and engineers and sailors. They prayed to me for numbers, letters, seals. They prayed to know. But now, nothing... no one. I am here, dying. Forever. Alone. At Their behest.”
I stared at it. There was no good reply, least of all sympathy. I knew what had happened. A covenant had gone wrong, a loophole had been found. Namru, who once had been a smaller spirit like the one Johnny had called on for her warding spells, had been betrayed and imprisoned here. I wondered when it had last seen a human being, heard a voice like the prayers it had once received. Poor thing.
“I’m here for the book.”
A long silence. The smooth face turned to me. Every moment that passed, I seemed to see the countdown on Johnny’s computer. The clock in the corner like any other clock, but heading towards death and disaster.
“What will you give me for it?” Namru said, pulling it closer.
“The... the owner of the library said we could take it.”
“He is not its owner. I am.”
“I don’t have anything I can give you for it.”
I waited for Namru to counter, to tell me what it wanted so that I could hedge and negotiate and maybe talk my way out of it, but it simply said, “Then you cannot have it.”
We both stalled out. My neck was hurting from turning my head away from the poisonous light. I glanced back to make sure it was still there. When it wasn’t speaking, it was utterly silent. More silent than death, with its chemical gurgling and maggot chomping and gases bubbling. More silent than the desert. No real desert was so still. Johnny and I had watched documentaries about it. Thousands of things live in deserts. Quietly but not silently.
“I don’t want to take away the only thing you’ve got,” I said.
“You speak truth. You have a good heart.”
“But… but I will if I have to. We need it. Terrible things are about to happen.”
“Do not. It will break your heart. Trade me. Trade.”
“Time,” I said. “I... I could...”
It was impossible to gauge the thing’s reaction. But time was the only currency Johnny said she’d ever heard of them asking. And time was all I had to give. I could not offer my life.
“I need not time here,” the thing said, and this time the stone of its face moved slowly, as if something squirmed beneath it. I quickly looked away again, kneading the scarf in my hands. “There is no time there. But there are... other things...”
Something was approaching in the distance, hesitantly, slipping on the sand. In the starlight it was impossible to see what it was until he had come within the radius of the book’s unnatural illumination. We stared hungrily at each other. I felt my vision narrow to a pinprick.
The thing chuckled. Actually laughed, as if it were human. “This knowledge is not yours to have,” it hissed. “And the world not yours to save. But you could have this.”
“This,” I croaked. “What... what are you... what is this offer? How...?”
“That you stay,” it said, finally extending its front limbs with the book on them. It was absurdly small. If I’d had my jacket with me, it would have fit in the pocket. Tears blurred my vision. What if I was wrong? What if Johnny was wrong—wrong about everything? She had admitted as such earlier. That she was wrong about something. About…
But no. The way the world had become, I felt more certain about some things. It must have been like this in the old days, I thought suddenly. When magic poured through for us and our enemies to use alike. When the end was near. When everyone