Cambri
Lady Evelyn had returned. I was deeply occupied with my analysis of Dark Lord Corvale's three-volume study of Imp anatomy when the air of the library shivered, as if with pleasure. The temperature dropped several degrees, and before the Library compensated, my breath billowed fog. At my feet, Krem closed his eyes and shuddered. "The Lady has returned to us," the Imp crooned in his childlike voice.
"So it seems." I couldn't quite share the Imp's simple pleasure. Unlike some Keepers, Lady Evelyn did not encourage promotion-by-assassination; she especially disliked to see conflict among her small armies of researchers. Strife in the libraries tended to damage the books, and we all knew that if Evelyn ever had to choose between her minions and her books, the ground would be littered with the broken corpses of Warlocks. No tomes were affected in the fight with Xyanthos, but I had a sinking feeling that it was the principle of the thing that mattered. No, it wasn't pleasure that made my heart begin to throb in my chest as the Library felt the presence of its Keeper once again.
"Master Cambri?" I jumped, and Krem cringed under a nearby desk. "Master, your pen is leaking."
I looked down to find a blot of dark red ink spreading across the page. "Damn it all," I muttered as I threw down the pen. It didn't noticeably help matters. The ink was magestain, immune to magical alteration. It was absolutely necessary in high-magic zones and in the presence of unscrupulous mages (which was what Warlocks were, by definition), but could be a real pain in the ass when it came to correcting mistakes. I crumpled the half-finished page with a sigh, and prepared to start over.
"Librarian."
"*Head* Librarian," I said lightly as I turned around to face the huge, toothsome visage of one of the Dragon twins. One scaled claw carried an iron box-it looked like a recycled poison gas trap. I raised an eyebrow. "What is it…Devlon?" I figured I had an even chance of getting the name right, and rewarded as the Dragon's head bobbed. He placed the box on the desk beside me.
"Books, Librarian. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept. The Lady wants them catalogued, and you have an appointment in the Heart Chamber after dinner."
"Hers or mine?"
Devlon's mouth split into a leer. "The Lady rarely eats, except for effect. Although," he mused, "there was that time she trapped Keeper Donestos into his last Orc and pulled out his…"
"I get it, Devlon."
"Maybe you do, Librarian. And maybe you don't. Your games won't go far with the Lady, I promise you that." The predator's head swung slowly from side to side. "Speaking of which, where is the Imp?"
"I don't really know," I said, and smiled politely. At the moment, it was true. I didn't know that Krem was hiding in the empty shelf we'd cleared for him. Not absolutely, anyway.
Devlon snarled, and his ember-like eyes narrowed as they studied my hopefully pleasant expression. "Oh, yes, Librarian, your games are just about over. Count on it," he growled at me once more, then withdrew with surprising speed. The Library made the twins uncomfortable. It wasn't that they were stupid, unfortunately, but they certainly didn't share most of their brethren's love for literary pursuits. Throwbacks, in other words. They were beneath my notice, or they would be, if it weren't for the fact that they could turn me into ash whenever I left the shielding presence of the books.
I ran my fingers through my hair, and turned back to my papers with grim determination. "Krem," I said as I dipped the quill into the magestain, "You'd better go and take care of your duties."
"Now that the Lady is here…now that the Lady is here, you will ask that I be your secretary, yes, Master?" The quill froze an inch over the paper.
"Yes, Krem. I will ask." If she doesn't simply blast me into a red smear as soon as she sees me, I added mentally. "Now, hurry before you are missed."
"Yes, Master." I never heard him leave.
* * *
I stepped into the Heart Chamber less than three minutes after I'd forced down the last bite of my evening meal. I was armored in my best dress robes, and the amulet that was the symbol of the Head Librarian rested heavily on the scarlet silks. I bowed deeply to the Heart, then lowered myself to one knee. "My Lady Evelyn, I am your servant."
"Yes. You are."
I shuddered as her voice slid inside me. It was the first time that my Keeper had spoken directly to me, and it was like nothing I'd ever experienced. Her voice was like an ice cube against sunburned flesh, it hurt, but somehow I couldn't wait to feel it again. Gods of Night, I thought, is this how the Imps feel all the time?
"So. You took it upon yourself to retire my Xyanthros?"
I swallowed. "Yes, my Lady."
"I take it you had a reason for this startling show of initiative? A very good reason?" She sounded more amused than angry, as if she were asking one of the chickens why it had just crapped on her foot. Perhaps that's what I was, to her, perhaps that's what we all were. As always, the thought made me angry, and scared, which made me even angrier. I had to struggle to keep my voice calm.
"I did have a very good reason, my Lady."
"And what would that be?"
"Do you care?" Time stopped, and my brain boggled at what my ears had just heard me say. Gods, I thought, I really am going to die. The temperature in the Chamber began to drop, degree by slow degree as the silence stretched out. The insides of my nostrils began to burn with the cold.
Her voice, when it came, cut into my flesh with every word. Literally. Blood trickled from my cheeks and wrists, and began to freeze as a disembodied hand wrenched my head back and up, until I was staring helplessly into the huge gem that was the apex of the Heart. "Do…I…care? It wonders if I care? What does it think I should care about, I wonder?"
I swallowed again, my throat felt raw and dry from the cold. I forced words up from my lungs, unable to stop or rethink them. "Me. Us. All of us. Do you care about your servants?"
"What has this to do with Xyanthros, Warlock?"
"He was doing experiments, my Lady. Worse than torture…he said that you had authorized them. He said," and here, my courage failed me, "he said a lot of things. I killed him, before he could kill one of us."
"Experiments?" Evelyn's voice purred. "What kind of experiments?"
Gods, I thought desperately, let her believe me. Please let her believe me. "Xyanthros was testing a variant of the Lightning spell. It extends the sensation without causing death. At first, a few of us volunteered, but the spell...had side effects." I thought about Tyril's spasms beneath me, as he shrieked mindlessly. I remembered the high pitched hum of the spell, the black lightning crawling across his convulsing flesh. I'd seen a lot of terrifying things, I'd done quite a few of them, but I couldn't vanish Tyril's mad, blood-shot eyes from my memory. These days, I always had another of the Warlocks watching him, making sure that he was kept on an even keel. Some days, Tyril even remembered how to read. "One of the more unpleasant side effects is that, in Warlocks and Mistresses, the spell caused a sudden and-thus far-irrevocable loss of memory and higher brain function. Including any useful information about enemy bases," I added meaningfully.
"Go on."
"When we realized what was happening, the other Warlocks and I refused to be subjects at all. Some of the Mistresses volunteered, but it only took one session before they realized that being drooling idiots for the rest of their lives wasn't worth even that much pain. So," I took a deep breath, feeling the rage well up again like a lava flow, "Xyanthros turned his attention to those who couldn't say no."
"My Imps?" She didn't sound terribly upset. My heart dropped.
"Yes, my Lady." I thought about Krem, about the little creatures howls of pain, his pitiful begging, and the way that, after every session, he would crawl his way to Xyanthros' hem and kiss the stained fabric. Because he was an Imp, and that was what Imps did.
"Why do you care what happens to Imps?"
There was a right answer to this, and I could feel it on the edge of his tongue. Because they are yours, Lady, and I did not believe that you would authorize such an abuse of your Imps. It was the right answer, but it was not the truth. And I had a feeling that Lady Evelyn would not find a lie, even the right lie, amusing right now. "I cared because it was pointless. I understand pain, it's application, what it can do and what it must be used for. But I have never embraced pain without purpose. It's," I struggled to find the words, "It's a waste. And I despise waste. The spell could never be used in battle, and Imps only find motivation in your discipline, not in any lesser master. There was simply no point, and a man who doesn't care about waste is a bigger danger to his allies than to his enemies.
"So I killed him." I closed my eyes; ice from my eyelashes scraped on my cheeks. "I yield myself to your judgement." And I still didn't know if she had ordered the experiments done in the first place.
"So you killed him," Lady Evelyn echoed, and the hand disappeared. I sank to my knees. The temperature began to rise, first so slowly that I only knew it by the slickness of melted ice in my hair, then quickly. "Very well, Head Librarian Cambri. I spare your life. But you have made your one mistake, the only mistake I will ever allow. I sincerely hope it was worth it."
I thought about Tyril, about Krem, and about the scars on my own body, old and new. It was worth it.
Lady Evelyn had returned. I was deeply occupied with my analysis of Dark Lord Corvale's three-volume study of Imp anatomy when the air of the library shivered, as if with pleasure. The temperature dropped several degrees, and before the Library compensated, my breath billowed fog. At my feet, Krem closed his eyes and shuddered. "The Lady has returned to us," the Imp crooned in his childlike voice.
"So it seems." I couldn't quite share the Imp's simple pleasure. Unlike some Keepers, Lady Evelyn did not encourage promotion-by-assassination; she especially disliked to see conflict among her small armies of researchers. Strife in the libraries tended to damage the books, and we all knew that if Evelyn ever had to choose between her minions and her books, the ground would be littered with the broken corpses of Warlocks. No tomes were affected in the fight with Xyanthos, but I had a sinking feeling that it was the principle of the thing that mattered. No, it wasn't pleasure that made my heart begin to throb in my chest as the Library felt the presence of its Keeper once again.
"Master Cambri?" I jumped, and Krem cringed under a nearby desk. "Master, your pen is leaking."
I looked down to find a blot of dark red ink spreading across the page. "Damn it all," I muttered as I threw down the pen. It didn't noticeably help matters. The ink was magestain, immune to magical alteration. It was absolutely necessary in high-magic zones and in the presence of unscrupulous mages (which was what Warlocks were, by definition), but could be a real pain in the ass when it came to correcting mistakes. I crumpled the half-finished page with a sigh, and prepared to start over.
"Librarian."
"*Head* Librarian," I said lightly as I turned around to face the huge, toothsome visage of one of the Dragon twins. One scaled claw carried an iron box-it looked like a recycled poison gas trap. I raised an eyebrow. "What is it…Devlon?" I figured I had an even chance of getting the name right, and rewarded as the Dragon's head bobbed. He placed the box on the desk beside me.
"Books, Librarian. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept. The Lady wants them catalogued, and you have an appointment in the Heart Chamber after dinner."
"Hers or mine?"
Devlon's mouth split into a leer. "The Lady rarely eats, except for effect. Although," he mused, "there was that time she trapped Keeper Donestos into his last Orc and pulled out his…"
"I get it, Devlon."
"Maybe you do, Librarian. And maybe you don't. Your games won't go far with the Lady, I promise you that." The predator's head swung slowly from side to side. "Speaking of which, where is the Imp?"
"I don't really know," I said, and smiled politely. At the moment, it was true. I didn't know that Krem was hiding in the empty shelf we'd cleared for him. Not absolutely, anyway.
Devlon snarled, and his ember-like eyes narrowed as they studied my hopefully pleasant expression. "Oh, yes, Librarian, your games are just about over. Count on it," he growled at me once more, then withdrew with surprising speed. The Library made the twins uncomfortable. It wasn't that they were stupid, unfortunately, but they certainly didn't share most of their brethren's love for literary pursuits. Throwbacks, in other words. They were beneath my notice, or they would be, if it weren't for the fact that they could turn me into ash whenever I left the shielding presence of the books.
I ran my fingers through my hair, and turned back to my papers with grim determination. "Krem," I said as I dipped the quill into the magestain, "You'd better go and take care of your duties."
"Now that the Lady is here…now that the Lady is here, you will ask that I be your secretary, yes, Master?" The quill froze an inch over the paper.
"Yes, Krem. I will ask." If she doesn't simply blast me into a red smear as soon as she sees me, I added mentally. "Now, hurry before you are missed."
"Yes, Master." I never heard him leave.
* * *
I stepped into the Heart Chamber less than three minutes after I'd forced down the last bite of my evening meal. I was armored in my best dress robes, and the amulet that was the symbol of the Head Librarian rested heavily on the scarlet silks. I bowed deeply to the Heart, then lowered myself to one knee. "My Lady Evelyn, I am your servant."
"Yes. You are."
I shuddered as her voice slid inside me. It was the first time that my Keeper had spoken directly to me, and it was like nothing I'd ever experienced. Her voice was like an ice cube against sunburned flesh, it hurt, but somehow I couldn't wait to feel it again. Gods of Night, I thought, is this how the Imps feel all the time?
"So. You took it upon yourself to retire my Xyanthros?"
I swallowed. "Yes, my Lady."
"I take it you had a reason for this startling show of initiative? A very good reason?" She sounded more amused than angry, as if she were asking one of the chickens why it had just crapped on her foot. Perhaps that's what I was, to her, perhaps that's what we all were. As always, the thought made me angry, and scared, which made me even angrier. I had to struggle to keep my voice calm.
"I did have a very good reason, my Lady."
"And what would that be?"
"Do you care?" Time stopped, and my brain boggled at what my ears had just heard me say. Gods, I thought, I really am going to die. The temperature in the Chamber began to drop, degree by slow degree as the silence stretched out. The insides of my nostrils began to burn with the cold.
Her voice, when it came, cut into my flesh with every word. Literally. Blood trickled from my cheeks and wrists, and began to freeze as a disembodied hand wrenched my head back and up, until I was staring helplessly into the huge gem that was the apex of the Heart. "Do…I…care? It wonders if I care? What does it think I should care about, I wonder?"
I swallowed again, my throat felt raw and dry from the cold. I forced words up from my lungs, unable to stop or rethink them. "Me. Us. All of us. Do you care about your servants?"
"What has this to do with Xyanthros, Warlock?"
"He was doing experiments, my Lady. Worse than torture…he said that you had authorized them. He said," and here, my courage failed me, "he said a lot of things. I killed him, before he could kill one of us."
"Experiments?" Evelyn's voice purred. "What kind of experiments?"
Gods, I thought desperately, let her believe me. Please let her believe me. "Xyanthros was testing a variant of the Lightning spell. It extends the sensation without causing death. At first, a few of us volunteered, but the spell...had side effects." I thought about Tyril's spasms beneath me, as he shrieked mindlessly. I remembered the high pitched hum of the spell, the black lightning crawling across his convulsing flesh. I'd seen a lot of terrifying things, I'd done quite a few of them, but I couldn't vanish Tyril's mad, blood-shot eyes from my memory. These days, I always had another of the Warlocks watching him, making sure that he was kept on an even keel. Some days, Tyril even remembered how to read. "One of the more unpleasant side effects is that, in Warlocks and Mistresses, the spell caused a sudden and-thus far-irrevocable loss of memory and higher brain function. Including any useful information about enemy bases," I added meaningfully.
"Go on."
"When we realized what was happening, the other Warlocks and I refused to be subjects at all. Some of the Mistresses volunteered, but it only took one session before they realized that being drooling idiots for the rest of their lives wasn't worth even that much pain. So," I took a deep breath, feeling the rage well up again like a lava flow, "Xyanthros turned his attention to those who couldn't say no."
"My Imps?" She didn't sound terribly upset. My heart dropped.
"Yes, my Lady." I thought about Krem, about the little creatures howls of pain, his pitiful begging, and the way that, after every session, he would crawl his way to Xyanthros' hem and kiss the stained fabric. Because he was an Imp, and that was what Imps did.
"Why do you care what happens to Imps?"
There was a right answer to this, and I could feel it on the edge of his tongue. Because they are yours, Lady, and I did not believe that you would authorize such an abuse of your Imps. It was the right answer, but it was not the truth. And I had a feeling that Lady Evelyn would not find a lie, even the right lie, amusing right now. "I cared because it was pointless. I understand pain, it's application, what it can do and what it must be used for. But I have never embraced pain without purpose. It's," I struggled to find the words, "It's a waste. And I despise waste. The spell could never be used in battle, and Imps only find motivation in your discipline, not in any lesser master. There was simply no point, and a man who doesn't care about waste is a bigger danger to his allies than to his enemies.
"So I killed him." I closed my eyes; ice from my eyelashes scraped on my cheeks. "I yield myself to your judgement." And I still didn't know if she had ordered the experiments done in the first place.
"So you killed him," Lady Evelyn echoed, and the hand disappeared. I sank to my knees. The temperature began to rise, first so slowly that I only knew it by the slickness of melted ice in my hair, then quickly. "Very well, Head Librarian Cambri. I spare your life. But you have made your one mistake, the only mistake I will ever allow. I sincerely hope it was worth it."
I thought about Tyril, about Krem, and about the scars on my own body, old and new. It was worth it.