The Library - The Complete Series (13 page)

Vanguard

The agony is intense, burning through my body with unparalleled force. I have been injured before: I have felt blades slice into my gut; I have been dropped into boiling water; I have even felt the tongue of a tick slipping into my neck. But this new pain is something else: it's as if a fire is raging beneath my flesh, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. There's no blade or barb to pull out, and no wound to soothe; instead, as I try yet again to get to my feet, I realize I have no chance of standing up. Something has got into my body, to destroy me from the inside, and it can't be a coincidence that this has happened just as I happen to meet Daniel for the first time in years.

"Come on, big boy, suck it up," Sharpe says, leaning down to look up into my face. "This is very funny, but -"

Sick of his voice, I swat him away, sending him flying into a nearby shelf. Worse than the pain is the humiliation; I should not have to suffer like this while Daniel, Claire and Sharpe stand around and watch. For a warrior of my stature, this is a travesty. I should be able to deal with this alone. If I am destined to die today, I would rather do so alone, but unfortunately I am surrounded by fools and gawkers.

"Let me fetch some balm," Daniel says, hurrying to a nearby aisle.

"What can we do to help you?" Claire asks, kneeling next to me.

"There is nothing," I mutter, grimacing as the pain gets even stronger. "Just leave me alone."

"Are you..." She pauses for a moment. "I mean, how bad is it?"

"If you're concerned that I might die," I gasp, "I'm afraid I cannot give you an answer. Something has struck me down and..." I pause as the pain seems to have tightened its twist on my gut; if this keeps up, I will not be able to remain conscious.

"Here," says Daniel, kneeling on my other side and holding out a handful of gray powder. "This might help. You've ingested some bad worms. If you don't take the remedy, you'll be dead within the hour." He pauses for a moment, waiting for me to accept the powder. "Vanguard, this is serious!" he says after a few seconds. "Don't let your pride keep you from accepting help."

Although I hate showing any sign of weakness, I'm forced to take the powder and swallow as much as I can get into my mouth. At first, the pain seems to get worse, but finally it begins to fade. Just as I'm starting to think that perhaps I have been cured, I realize that I'm getting weaker and weaker. I turn to Daniel, but my vision is starting to become blurry and the pain seems to have taken most of my strength.

"Look..." I start to say, as my breath becomes increasingly shallow. "Look after her..." I splutter, desperate to ensure that Claire will be kept safe. If there's any chance that I might recover from this illness, I need to know that I'll still be able to take Claire to the Citadel and present her to the Elders. Finally, unable to fight any longer, I fall to the ground. I can hear voices panicking around me, but I'm slipping away second by second. Soon everything is black and I can no longer even remember where I'm supposed to be; I know I was doing something important, but now my concerns and worries have begun to lift like scales from my back. It's over. Whatever I was doing, wherever I was going; none of it matters now. I've lost.

C
laire

"He'll be okay," Daniel says as we stand beside Vanguard. "This guy's body could swallow all the poison in the Sea of Mercury and still get up and walk away. Eventually, anyway. It just takes time. It'll be painful, and he'll probably be unconscious for a while, but he'll wake up someday." He pauses for a moment. "I guess you haven't been traveling with him for very long, have you? You don't know him properly."

"What caused this?" I ask, turning first to Daniel and then to Sharpe. "Was it that stuff he ate?"

"It must have been the worms from the soil near the well," Daniel replies. "It's rare, but some of them can be toxic. As I said earlier, it's as if the land in this part of the Library is turning against us and trying to make us starve. Instead of helping his body and providing nutrients, the worms are trying to eat him from the inside. They won't succeed, of course, although in a lesser creature they might stand a better chance. A human, for example, would probably already be dead."

"Vanguard's guts are made of iron," Sharpe adds. "Almost literally. He'll get over it. Mind you, I don't fancy being around while he's recovering. Something tells me he's not gonna be a very good patient."

"He'll have no choice," Daniel says. "His body can't be hurried. He'll recover when he recovers." He leans down and checks Vanguard's pulse. "There's so much metal in his body, it's hard to know when he's sick and when he's not. He'll recover, but I can't say how long the process will take. I suppose that means you two have no choice but to stay here with us, at least for tonight. Unless you fancy going on without your friend."

Looking over at Sharpe, I can immediately tell from the look in his eyes that Daniel is right. There's no way we can continue our journey to the Citadel without Vanguard, so I guess we'll just have to wait it out and accept Daniel's hospitality.

"We have food," Daniel continues. "Proper food. Food that's fit for a human. We also have water. Not much, obviously, but I'd be happy to extend something from our supplies to our visitors."

"Do you think he'll be okay by morning?" I ask, looking down at Vanguard.

"It's possible," Daniel says. "I'd imagine it'll take two or three days, maximum, for him to recover completely. Vanguard's body is... different to anything I've ever seen before. You're welcome to stay with us for as long as necessary. We're preparing to move to another part of the Library soon, but I doubt we'll be ready to go within the week."

"I guess we'll be staying, then," I say, looking over at Sharpe. I'm hoping he'll give me some sort of signal, so that I can at least be sure whether this is a good idea or not. However, he just stares back at me with an uncomfortable look on his face. I can't help feeling that Sharpe's hiding something from me.

Daniel seems nice enough, though, even if there's something about him that worries me. For one thing, I'm a little suspicious of the fact that Vanguard became ill so soon after we ran into these people; for another, Daniel exudes a kind of calm confidence that seems mis-placed given the severity of the refugees' situation.

"We should eat soon," Daniel says. "Follow me. Vanguard will be quite alright here for a while. I'm afraid this part of the Library is completely dead." He leads us to a nearby aisle, where a group of other men have begun to heat a large pot over a small fire. Surprisingly, whatever's in the pot smells pretty good, and I decide to avoid asking about the ingredients; after all, if it tastes nice, do I really need to spoil the meal by finding out that it's made of worms or whatever horrific things have been caught in the Library?

"You seem quiet," I say to Sharpe, while Daniel is talking to some of the others.

"Me?" He looks up at me. "Oh, I'm just thinking about a few possibilities."
"What do you make of Daniel?" I ask.

"Interesting guy," Sharpe says. "Wouldn't turn my back on him for a second, though."

"You picked up on something strange about him too?"

"He's too pleasant," Sharpe replies. "Too calm. Too happy with the way things are going. Since the Citadel was overturned and the war started, no-one in this entire land has been happy about anything. Every face has been lined with worry. A man who isn't filled with panic is a man to watch closely, because it means he knows something that's hidden from the rest of us." He pauses for a moment. "Plus, you know, I make it my business to be almost pathologically suspicious of every new person I encounter."

I pause for a moment. "Do you think it's possible that he poisoned Vanguard?"

"I have no idea," Sharpe replies.

"So what do we do?" I ask, keeping my voice low.

"We don't have many options. Just accept his hospitality and hope Vanguard wakes up pretty quickly. Anything else would be inviting trouble."

"Friends!" says Daniel, gesturing for us to join him over by the cooking pot. "Won't you come and eat with us?"

"Slick," I mutter, as Sharpe and I walk over to him.

"We're lucky," Daniel continues. "Tonight, we have meat from a Grandapam."

"A Grandpa's what?" I ask.

"A Grandapam," he replies. "It's a kind of large, reptilian -"

"Okay!" I say, interrupting him. "That sounds good! Let's not spoil everything by getting into detail!"

Smiling, Daniel grabs a large serving spoon and fills a bowl with soup. "Even before the fall of the Citadel," he explains, "Grandapam meat was considered a delicacy in these parts. The Librarian would send his finest soldiers out to track down the wild beasts and bring back their bodies, and great banquets would be held as the meat was carved and cooked. It was considered a huge honor for anyone to be invited to such a feast, and the commoners of the Library were duty-bound by law to turn over any Grandapam body to the custodians of the Library. These days, those laws have fallen by the wayside and anyone can eat Grandapam. If they can find it, that is. The creatures have become scarce. Wisely, they have fled the region."

"I'd flee too if I was considered a delicacy," I say, as Daniel passes the bowl to me.

"Yeah," Sharpe says, "well if you..." His voice trails off.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing," he replies. "Just thinking out loud. How's about some of that meat?"

As Daniel serves a bowl for Sharpe, I look down into my bowl and see chunks of white meat floating in a kind of gray sauce. To be honest, it doesn't look as bad as I'd expected; I'm pretty sure I've had worse on a night out with friends, and at least around here you know what you're eating. After watching how the others eat, I tilt the bowl and drink the sauce, before picking up the chunks of meat and eating them one by one. To be fair, they taste pretty good; this is the first proper meal I've had for a couple of days, so I don't think I'm in a position to complain. Hell, I even accept a second portion when it's offered to me by Daniel, and eventually I start to actually feel full.

"We're running low," Daniel mutters, looking into the bowl. "Fetch another Grandapam," he says to one of the other men, who immediately hurries off to another aisle.

"You really don't have to do this on our account," I say, as Daniel drops some more pieces of meat into our bowl. I can't help wondering why he's being so generous with this meal, while most of the refugees are starving. "If you're running low on food -"

"Please," he replies. "Don't worry about anything. We have all we need for our guests, and soon we'll be moving off to better lands. I just need to be sure that our journey will have the blessing of the Forbidders, and then we can begin. I am very hopeful that soon we shall receive notice that they are happy with our preparations."

"Notice?" I pause for a moment. "So these Forbidders -"

"Release me!" shouts a voice from nearby.

Turning, I see that a couple of the other men are dragging a prisoner toward the pot. With dark green, scaly skin, the prisoner basically looks like a newt wearing armor. He's thrown roughly to the ground; with his hands tied behind his back, he struggles to get back up, but the men quickly force him down onto his knees with sickening brutality.

"Have you relented?" Daniel asks, smiling benignly at the prisoner.

"If you think your barbarity will please the Forbidders," the prisoner spits back at him, "you're entirely wrong. What you receive in the short-term will be taken away when they are ready. Or are you too much of a fool to recognize when you're being used?"

"What's going on?" I whisper to Sharpe.

He grimaces awkwardly for a moment. "I was hoping you wouldn't have to see this," he replies. "My limited experience of humanity makes me think you might not like what's about to happen?"

"What do you mean?"

"That prisoner," he continues. "He's a Grandapam."

"He's a..." I stare at him, and then I turn and stare at the prisoner. "He's a..." I look down at the pieces of meat in my bowl; at that moment, I hear a brief cry of pain, and when I look up I see that the prisoner's head has been cut away. Blood is spraying from his neck, and moments later one of the other men starts hacking away at the dead body, removing strips of meat and tossing them directly into the cooking pot. A horrible, sickened feeling starts bubbling up from the pit of my stomach as I realize what I just ate.
"Please don't be worried," Daniel says, sounding as calm as ever. "He won't take long to cook. We shall have plenty more meat within the hour."

Turning, I run through to the next aisle and drop to my knees. I retch for a moment before finally throwing up, spraying half-digested meat and soup all over the ground. I manage to bring up more and more, and eventually I resort to sticking my fingers down my throat in a desperate attempt to get every last morsel of Grandapam out of my stomach. The thought of eating something that walks and talks, and something that seemed to have a kind of nobility and a sense of its own destiny, is just way too much. I continue to heave for a few minutes, but nothing else comes up.

"You deny our hospitality?" asks a familiar voice from behind me.

After wiping my chin clean, I turn to find Daniel standing just a few feet away.

"I'm sorry..." I mutter.

"Was there a problem with the meat?"

I shake my head. I guess this kind of thing is common in the Library, but it's not something I can get used to. Not yet, anyway.

"So you threw up a serving of perfectly good Grandapam?"

I retch again, but I'm pretty sure my stomach's completely empty. All that comes up is a small amount of bile, which I spit to the ground.

"Let me explain something to you, Claire," Daniel says, walking around me. "We suffered for weeks on end, with almost no food. We prayed and prayed to the Forbidders, begging them to deliver sustenance that might save our lives. Eventually, just when it seemed that all was lost, we came upon a group of wandering Grandapams. We were able to subdue them easily, and they have kept us going for quite some time. For that, we must thank the Forbidders. We must praise them, and keep them happy. What we must never do, though, is throw their gift aside. If we do that, they will become angry."

"Best not tell them, then," I reply, getting to my feet.

"It's not a matter of telling them anything," he continues. "They're all around. They see and hear everything. If they know that their benevolence has been wasted, they will become angry. They will bestow no more gifts upon us, and we will die. As we prepare to set off on our journey to a new land, I can't possibly allow us to jeopardize our position. You understand, don't you? Food is one of the most valuable commodities in the Library; second only to water, it's what keeps us alive. To simply cast a serving of perfectly good meat across the ground... It's an insult, Claire. You have shown a complete lack of understanding for the needs of the people who live here."

"I didn't mean to insult you," I tell him, trying not to lose my patience. "It was a gut thing. I couldn't -"

"I'm not the one you've insulted," he says, fixing me with a determined stare. "It's the Forbidders who will note your behavior. They will look poorly upon me if I'm seen to tolerate such disrespect of their gifts."

"Well, I'll just apologize," I tell him. "Do you want to point me in the direction of the nearest Forbidder? Where are they, anyway? I haven't seen one yet."

"You will not apologize," Daniel says. "You will atone. There is an important difference between the two gestures." As he speaks, a group of other men enter the aisle, and I start to realize that I might not be able to just walk away.

"Let's not get this blown out of proportion," I say, backing away from Daniel. "If you want me to apologize to someone, or atone for something, just let me know how to do it and..." I turn to see the other men making their way toward me. "There's no need for this to turn ugly," I add, trying not to panic.

"It's not for me to decide how you must be punished for your actions," Daniel continues. "Only the Forbidders can make that decision, and their word is law. They will decide the severity of your punishment. They will decide if there are any mitigating factors, and they will decide when and how to deal with you." He pauses for a moment. "On the eve of our great journey, we cannot afford to anger them. We will wait until sundown, and then you will be sent up to meet the Forbidders face to face, and that is when you will be punished as they see fit."