« Come on down, miss. We'll get you a cup of cocoa and a cart home.
- Just leave me alone and I'll be fine.
- I'm sorry I can't do that. The Librarian doesn't like it when people are perched on top of the bookshelves.
- Oook.
- What, is there something wrong with the banana I gave him?
- Eeek!
- No, not the least... it's just that... well, you being so close to the books... not to mention now hanging upside down... it worries him, see. »
Ponder Stibbons felt uneasy. He wasn't accustomed to having outsiders in the University, in the Library of all places, and the current intruder being a wet, shaking and blood-covered Lyra, didn't help matters at all.
The Librarian had knuckled all the way up to Hex, looking for its nerdy caretaker. The ape had miraculously managed to tell him that someone strange and dripping had crashed through a window, shortly after a violent explosion that had shaken quite an imposing part of the city, so the student wizard had ended up in the grimoires' lair. He had almost lost his glasses upon the sight of the pretty young girl with the red hair.
She had cut a small hole in one of the great stained glass panes, and her seemingly long fall had left her landing on top of a shelf. Dressed entirely in black, her clothes had been partially clawed or bitten off. Blood was pouring out of large open wounds; she had bite marks, bruises and burns almost everywhere where skin was visible, which was almost too much for decency, yet she didn't seem to acknowledge her state. Her face was as white and sad as the full moon, and it seemed her attacker had decided to spare that part of her trembling body. The flickers of octarine all over her were most unnerving.
The problem was that neither Stibbons nor the Librarian knew what to do; waking up the staff was out of the question, since it was a bit later than 3AM, and the girl was definitely not ready to move. The books were getting nervous; the most lively ones were pulling at their chains, wriggling uneasily. Some of them were trying to get closer to the woman, apparently attracted by her; others were simply frightened, like cats during a thunderstorm.
Lyra had somehow attached a rope somewhere and was hanging from it, watching the wizard and the ape; she had found it funnier to do it upside down, since she wasn't sure of what she was doing anyway.
Everything had happened so quickly. She only had to Touch Steven for a few seconds to understand why he was crying: ever since she had left him, as a child, to become an Assassin, he failed to find a reason to live. She was, to him, a daughter, a friend, a marvel to cherish, and Death had stolen her from him, ripping his soul appart, leaving only an insane shadow of himself. He knew that if she had stayed, she would have become a monster just like him, yet he was not strong enough to let reason win over his tortured heart.
Preying on small animals had soon become impossible, for he was too depressed to hunt. Starvation had made him unstable; he couldn't control his transformations anymore, and he had ended up attacking people within small villages in the Ramtops, unable to contaminate anyone and make a friend. He couldn't stand himself anymore in the end, so he had begun a long journey across the mountains to Ankh-Morpork, to find his princess so that she could kill him. A thousand dollars was all he had managed to gather, through odd jobs that always ended badly, partly because he invariably turned into a wolf and ate someone at some point.
She had refused to access his request, of course; a parricide was out of the question, yet he was hopeless and in need of the only possible cure for his illness.
He had pushed Lyra aside just in time. His green eyes had turned golden, and she had watched him transform, painfully, uselessly trying to retain the beast within him, his scream of despair slowly becoming a wolf's howl. That was approximately the moment when things became messy, and the redhead didn't want to remember the fight. Steven had an incredible instinct of survival, so his reflexes told him to fight, and fight to kill. Lyra had become his prey, and she knew that she could either get eaten alive or inhume her adoptive father. She didn't feel any inclination towards a long agony, so she had decided to get on with it and deal with the shock later.
The struggle had been nasty, long and tedious. She had felt like an animal trying to resist a predator.
Once she had dealt the final blow, which had decapitated the werewolf, she proceeded to lay the charges of No 1 Powder in various places around the room. Her teachers had been kindly asked to get the hell out and run as far away as they could in five minutes.
Lyra had tried to wrap the corpse in blankets and wash the blood off the furniture; one of her ribs was broken, but she didn't have time to suffer from her injuries.
A half drunk bottle of sherry had served as a catalyst. A single tear had rolled down the girl's cheek as she had looked at the remains of the man who had loved her beyond all sense, then she had dropped a lit match on the floor and jumped out into the night.
She had almost believed that she would make it to the roof of the dragons' shelter. That was a bloody stupid idea, come to think of it, since the powder had ignited almost instantly and the explosion produced a giant blueish flame, along with a shockwave that sent her flying. The noise had stunned her, plucked her ears, and soon enough she didn't know where she was anymore. Somewhere in the sky, for sure, moving very quickly, then crashing through a window, into a place with a lot of books and a scared ape.
Maybe she ought to have died with Steven, that sounded reasonable enough. She had probably failed her examination by blowing the place up; hopefully no one in the building survived, which was probably the case, for there were no screams.
There was someone else in the Library. Lyra wasn't happy with that at all, for it was exactly the person she really didn't want to meet at such a moment. Stibbons had run off somewhere, leaving only the Librarian to deal with the new intruder, which he did by hiding under a pile of papers.
Also, if these little fairies could just stop fluttering about inside her head, she would be really grateful for that. She proceeded to sit upright on top of the bookshelf and tried to prevent the dizziness from getting worse. Hardly anything in her body responded to any of her brain's commands, but after trying really hard, a few words finally came out.
« Oh no, not you, she muttered while clutching the sides of her skull.
- Good morning to you too. Lady T'Malia asked me to find you and get you back to the Guild so that you can get your badge and your pay for tonight.
- I don't want the money. They can keep it. I'll fetch the insignia later. Look, Teatime, just leave me here for a few hours and I'll turn up in the morning, okay? »
Of all the people from the Assassin's Guild, they had to send him. This was either a bad joke or some sort of punishment for not having played by the rules.
The horror of what she had done was slowly creeping over her, overwhelming her. Lyra felt her heart beating wildly, and the blood loss made her light-headed. Teatime had come closer and was staring at her, seemingly puzzled and trying to figure out what to do next.
« You look a bit damaged. There are bits of you missing, you're surrounded by octarine sparks and you're oozing over the books; that's not very elegant, he said with a frown.
- Dear me, I failed to think about the furniture, what a shame. Can't you just go away and mind your own business?
- I'm afraid not. Now please get down from there and we'll both go back to the Guild.
- What if I like it here?
- Oook!
- Don't make me come up here. »
The truth was, she actually wanted to climb down and hug Mister Fluffy, which was a cute name she had found for the Librarian. From her blurry point of view, the ape resembled a big ball of orange fur, and she felt an increasing need to cuddle it, for some reason. She could definitely not think straight at the moment and felt too weak to move.
« Teatime, I don't think it would be a good idea for me to budge right now – Aaaww hello Mister Fluffy! Whozza biiiiiig balla fuzz? Whoizzz? Youwwaaaaaarrr! »
There we go, I've lost her, the glass-eyed Assassin thought.
The Librarian had knuckled his way up to her, possibly intending to carry her to lower altitudes. He had certainly not planned to get suddenly dragged closer, crushed against a female chest and have his head scratched. The whole thing was far from being unpleasant; it was just downright weird.
« Lyra, do leave this ape alone and stop being high, Jonathan said with a sigh.
- Nope! He's too cute! Besides, I need to hug something. You should try it, it's so soft and a bit squishy and it smells of bananas and peanuts and – hey! »
The ape, contrarily to the girl, had finally regained composure, wriggled out of her arms and gently slapped her back to her senses. This ended up in yet another free fall, but this time the landing area was a soft armchair, which became incredibly happy, for someone hadn't sat in it for over a hundred years; the Library had never been anything near a crowded place, and with the stray magic, some pieces of furniture had acquired a mind of their own.
Lyra seemed to have snapped out of it. She staggered to her feet and looked around in bewilderment.
« What... just... happened? she asked.
- You called the Librarian Mister Fluffy and started to cuddle him, which resulted in him beating you back to your senses.
- Oook.
- But it's okay, he's not mad at you. He seems to like you.
- How can you tell that?
- You're still alive... »
The bloke had a point. She lurched towards the door, as in a dream, hardly noticing that her left thigh was missing about a quarter of its usual flesh, or that a trail of blood was forming under her.
She caught a glimpse of Teatime walking towards her and gallantly offering an arm for her to rest on, which her dignity dictated to refuse.
Then the world vanished.
