Disclaimer – All characters and settings are either the property of Sir Terry, or Commonplace Books.
A/N – Set after the Smiling God arc, no spoilers for the live show recording 'Librarian.' Discworld timeline is vague, complex and probably about 15 years after Moving Pictures, but no real spoilers for anything. Complete in around 10,000 words.
This story is dedicated to the wonderful Sir Terry, because a man isn't dead while his name is still spoken.
Of Apes and Night Valians
The Discworld is a world and a mirror of words, which means all the worlds you can think of, a lot more that you can't and at least one world which doesn't want you to remember that it existed. And it includes other worlds, parts of realms and dreams and places that really ought to be real, where you were a bestselling author and the cheque really was in the post and your date to the ball didn't turn up with their clothes burnt by dragons.
Or at least, that's what the Librarian of Unseen University said. (He said 'Ook, ook,' really, but it amounted to the same thing.)
The students had been playing with Hex again. A new story telling craze had hit Ankh-Morpork over recent months and a few of the more anti-social, grounded or just plain experimental students had been practising broadcasting their efforts via Hex. People had been building mini Hexes and listening in on the first and fifteenth of the month, as long the Bursar hadn't ordered them cancelled again.
And the Librarian had thought that he remembered reading about something similar once, and he'd tied himself to a couple of ropes and gone into the far depths of the library and now this.
The central dome had disappeared. It was scorching hot; not the damp jungle heat that Orang-utans are generally familiar with but a heat sharp like knives. And he was almost sure that someone on the edge of hearing had called him a monkey.
With a muffled 'ook' of frustration, the Librarian started knuckling his way through the strange new shelves.
The cell phone bleeped just as Carlos was tweezering a fragment of Night Vale steak from one petri-dish into another. The shattering of his peace and quiet made him jump; the steak landed on the floor, emitting a low hissing noise. He didn't see it move off, because that would have been too close to impossible, even for Night Vale.
'Carlos the Scientist. What is it?'
'Listen. Are you at the lab right now?'
'Cec, what's wrong? Speak a bit slower, would you?' As a sensible precaution learnt over the past 18 months in Night Vale, he sat down, closed the windows and grabbed the silver framed, holy water scented duel purpose garlic-crusher and tarantula catcher that Cecil had given him when he moved in, saying that he at least ought to be able to protect the apartment.
He'd been worried for a while that moving in presents were another Night Vale custom that he ought to practice, but it had turned out to be just a Cecil idea.
'Are you in the lab? Because if you are, I want you to lock the doors and the windows and the loft and stay put.'
'Why? Ok, I'm in the lab now. Why?'
'Because,' and the yelp Cecil gave was surprisingly high pitched. 'Oh, Carlos, I'm sorry, the weather, my show, I love...' The call cut off.
He kept a radio within arm's length of him all the time now, and he lunged for it.
'Sorry about the silence after the weather there, listeners. I was rather distracted for a moment. Now, it is my sad, sad duty to inform you that a Librarian has been sighted loose in the town. Just a moment ago, ladies and gentlemen and else-wises, while you were listening to the joys and delights of our upcoming weather, in fact.'
He must have called me first, Carlos thought, and shivered, partly with gratitude and partly because Cecil's voice was so quiet, barely a whisper.
'I urge you, dear listeners, to go inside. To throw any un-catalogued or banned books out of your windows in the hope it may distract this vile creature for a moment or two. Shut your doors, your windows. Tamika Flynn, you are not to approach this creature, understood?
'I repeat, Tamika, this is an enemy beyond you. Night Vale, this is an enemy beyond all of us. For the first time, a Librarian has left its sanctuary and travelled amongst us and who can say if this will be the doom of us all?
'Listeners, I urge you to find your loved ones or those who should have been your loved ones. That man who opened your heart to mystery and wonder, who you exchanged odd emails with for a decade and then one of you didn't answer one day and you didn't want to push it, so you didn't email again and now you miss him every time his name isn't in your inbox. The girl at the shop who makes you smile and you never take it further. The red head of Hirim. A librarian is amongst us. Let your loved ones, your should have been loved ones, know that they are loved.
'And on that subject...Carlos...My dear, wonderful Carlos. I know you are listening, because I need you to be and you have always been what I needed, since that day I first saw you and fell instantly in love with you. Please stay in the lab, Carlos.
'Listeners, my dear, dear listeners. I wish you well.'
It was an interesting town, the Librarian concluded. Bore all the hallmarks of being part of the Roundworld project, which was fairly safe and full of books. Very, very hot and not many people around. Strange, because there were plenty of houses and offices around, plus a far distant rumour of cacti and sand.
He flared his nostrils and felt the hair on his back creep. Was that someone behind him? Right behind him, close enough to feel their breath on his spine? No, but...Ah, there was a hooded and robed figure on the other side of the street. That must have been it.
'Oook-okk-oook?' (Hello, there, fellow wizard of this town, I'm the Librarian. Could you please tell me the way to the University?') (Orang-utan is a surprisingly concise language.)
The hooded figure turned, and something that might have been its eyes, except for the fact there were too many of them, blazed.
What on Disc? 'Oook-ook?' ('Are you from the Dungeon Dimensions, far Klatch or the Inadvisably Applied Magic Department?')
Only he didn't get a chance to finish saying, because the figure floated towards him and gave off a physic blast of terror and threat that would have floored a human. Thankfully, it was several orders of magnitude below Yob Soddoth or the Infernal Star Toad, and humanity was just a bad memory that only resurfaced in the depths of a dark night for him, so the Librarian was merely rocked backwards and left with a fleeting impression of the friendliness of tables.
Clearly, the natives weren't very friendly. Perhaps he should find the Library where he should have arrived – L-Space normally dropped you off in the middle of the next library but he'd ended up in a couple of author's studies, darling little cafes in Paris and the occasional pub before now. It all depended on where they got their ideas from.
Yes, find the library and head home. For now, he dodged the hooded figure and headed towards the centre of town where any self respecting library ought to be situated. And was that arguing he could hear? Hopefully, because arguing inferred wizards in the same way, as Ly Tin Wheedle put it, that ravens inferred poetry. (He'd always felt it had lost something in translation.)
The argument was, in fact, between several members of the Sheriff's Secret Police, four of Hirim's heads – the fifth being engaged in re-reading The Hobbit and considering that he hadn't been in contact with that side of the family for ages, perhaps a quick email would be in order – and the Mayor.
As Cecil would have put it on his show, there was vigorous debate over who ought to deal with the beast. As regard for his own tattooed skin would have weighed highly in his thoughts, he would have left out the gunshots and the Mayor's brief transformation into a hungry but insubstantial cloud of green smoke that devoured two policemen.
In the end, it was agreed that a crack team of highly trained spiders would carry a most respectful message to the Library and request assistance. After all, it was possible that it was a renegade and the others might be grateful of the chance to hunt it down, disembowel it and use the skin as a replacement binding for some books that were starting to look a little tattered around the edges. As the spiders were conspicuous by their absence, the motion was carried unanimously. Hirim's reading head – distracted by Mirkwood – heard spiders, blinked in surprise and went back to considering the tastiness of dwarves.
The message was carefully drafted on ghostpaper and handed to the nearest NVCR intern, with instructions to go find a tarantula or two. The rest of the crowd dispersed and Hirim took advantage of the quiet to stretch out in the warm sand of the emergency stop lane and devote all five heads to his reading.