One summer day, when Boc was a few years older, he was working with the castle librarian, Julian Drame. Old Julian's father had been a lesser noble on the king's court. He lived for many years at the castle, but generally kept to himself, living in a castle apartment with his son Julian. As Julian became an adult, he was content to spend his days reading in the library. When his father died, Julian had no viable claim to remain in the castle, and by law ought to have yielded his father's apartment to another incoming lord. However, no one ever seemed to notice, and Julian continued reading in the library as he always had. Some long time later, when the old librarian died, the patrons of the library assumed Julian had taken the role since he was always there and had been spoken of and to familiarly by the old librarian, and it wasn't long before he himself was generally known as the new castle librarian. And so it happened he started taking salary as such, and never attracted unwanted attention to the matter.
Now Julian was an old man, having been acting as the librarian for a time approaching thirty years. And thus, he was happy for Boc's help, for the sprightly Demi-human could re-shelve books without mistake or failure, and at an exceedingly fast rate. Boc needed not any ladder or steps, for he could climb the shelves with a book in one hand, hold fast in place high up on a shelf with his prehensile feet, while using both his hands to ensure each book found its correct home, before scampering back for another.
On this day, however, Old Julian and Boc were not confined to the library, but rather they were driving outside on a two-wheel pony cart. For some time, Julian had been in correspondence with a widow who lived in the nearby, who desired to donate a small collection of her late husband's books to the castle library. In such correspondence, Julian had determined the size and location of the collection, and he believed the small cart beneath him was sufficient to the task.
"It's a lovely day, don't you think Sir Drame, sir?" Boc asked, shading his eyes with his hand.
"There's other words than lovely I would use," Julian said, while keeping his eyes on the pony, and the road ahead. "Infernal comes to mind, this cloying heat. Though perhaps that's too judgmental."
"Oh, it is hot, that's true sir," Boc agreed.
"I might say brilliant for all this light, but now again that's too far the other side, someone might think I'm praising the thing that's giving me this awful headache."
"Well, I suppose it doesn't need to be called anything, we can just enjoy being out here, out of the shade of the castle."
They sat quietly for a time, then Boc asked, "Have you been this way before, sir?"
"Aye, it's been years, but I've been this way before."
"Oh, on what occasion?" Boc asked.
Old Julian didn't answer right away, but finally said, "On occasion of being young, and quite stupid. On occasion of leaning too far forward against a failing wind. On occasion of reaching the flesh of my hand out for a fiery prize ere I even knew what it was to be burned." The old man drew silent, against the clopping and plodding sound of the pony and cart.
When he was ready, he continued. "It was a woman, of course. Looking back, I don't know if she ever loved me, but she loved stories. She loved the thought of adventure. She looked out, when everyone else was looking down, or up. We would talk, like nobody ever fore or since. I believed our own adventure was real, just there . . . just waiting for the right time."
"That day came, so I thought. She sent for me, told me to meet her at a place we both knew, just near here. She didn't say what it was, all she said was she'd found it, she'd finally found it. It's so silly now, I know, but I had a bag packed with me. In my mind I was already leaving with her, and we were going to be off, maybe never to return. When I found her, she was so excited. She had to tell me over and over before I could understand. She was leaving to serve the two fingers, to be a finger maiden for some Tarnished yet to be named. It was all very dramatic. But that night at home I unpacked my bag, and haven't had a use for it since."
Boc sat in his silent thoughts for a while, rocking to and fro on the pony cart. A dragonfly kept pace for a time, then flew off to be somewhere else. Eventually Boc said, "My Mum had an adventure, once upon a time, but I'm not sure she enjoyed it."
Old Julian sniffed the air deeply, but chose not to speak. Not until a good while later, when he said, "Well, Boc, I believe we have arrived," as he tasked the pony with a turn off the road and up towards a shack. Drawing near the place, Julian said "Hello," several times with a loud voice, but there was no answer. After doing the things one does, they finally saw a note on the stack of wood near the back door, kept in place under the weight of a log. The note generally apologized and explained why the widow wasn't there, and gave directions to where the books could be found inside the shack.
This missive seemed to trouble Old Julian. The strange and unexpected change made him wary, thinking such a scenario might indicate a trap. He looked around the shack and checked the ground, before realizing he had no skill to know which footprints were from innocent yesterdays, and which might betray would-be hooligans currently inside. The shack had no windows through which to peek. He stopped again to think. Boc had grown nervous, peering in as many directions as he could, looking for the source of Julian's apparent unease. Finally, Julian said to him, "You know, Boc, I might have a job for you. Do you think you could squeeze down the chimney without falling? If you went head-first, then you could pop in for a quick look, see if anyone's lying in wait at the door."
"Well I've never tried that before," said Boc, "I'm sure I can see what it looks like on the roof, but no promises after that."
"If you wouldn't mind, it would be splendid if you were to take a look."
To no one in particular, Boc said, "I fancy it's better than just standing here . . ." and then he easily scrambled up the corner of the shack and hopped onto the roof. If there were someone meaning them harm inside, Boc realized it wouldn't be advisable to announce his presence on the roof, so he stepped as ginger silent as he could towards the chimney. The opening looked just big enough he thought he could squeeze through. Just that preliminary look, however, had coated his hands with black soot.
He debated telling Julian it was too small to fit. He couldn't help feeling, though, that the old man was counting on him. So, he stripped to his underwear, and balanced with his waist on the lip of the chimney. From this position, he bent over with his hands and arms going in first, keeping his legs splayed outward like a Y, as a brake. Once fully inverted, he pressed his hands outward, then alternately kept his weight by pressing his hands or feet against the chimney wall. Inch-worming along in this fashion, while also controlling as much as possible the noise, proved to be a lengthy process.
The task also increased in difficulty the lower Boc went, because the chimney was wider at the bottom than at the top. Whereas he fit in with a tight squeeze at the top, by the lower parts he was stretched out at each limb like a flying squirrel. His muscles were tensed and tremorous when he finally saw the opening below. Holding his breath now, he slowly continued his maneuver down. Every millimeter, he could start to see just a little bit more. First, the threshold of the fireplace. Then a floorboard, then two. He saw the front legs of a chair, then a crossbar, but no occupant was apparent. Keep going, just a little further. The seat. Just one more little bit.
On the seat of the chair he saw what looked like two furry feet, which then seemed to disappear. But no, he vaguely tracked the movement of something jumping up (down?) to the floor. As soon as he could focus on this new thing, a cat punched Boc with one paw right on his nose. Instantly falling, Boc thumped off the stone floor of the fireplace in a black sooty cloud, coughing and wheezing in uncontrollable commotion. The cat must have been satisfied with its good work, for when Boc was finally able to turn upright and focus, it was nowhere to be seen. Better yet, though, was the fact that nobody else was there either, for his presence would certainly no longer have been secret.
On his way to the door to re-unite with Old Julian, Boc spied the stack of books, right where the note had described. While the old man took inventory of the collection, Boc retrieved his clothes and washed with a bucket of water from the adjacent well. Not fully clean, but clean enough, he found Old Julian securing the score of books on the board just behind the seat of the pony cart. Julian, for his part, was still profusely thankful for Boc's efforts. "You cannot be too careful," he kept saying. As they started for home, Boc looked over his shoulder back to the shack, and saw an unmistakable shape of a cat, sitting up on the roof with a gently moving tail.
As active as the visit to the shack had been, the trip home was to prove no less volatile. For a time, it seemed the ride would be spent enjoying the cooling airs of an afternoon. But around a bend in the road, they came upon a group of three rough and hungry looking men waiting with weapons in hand, and who were instantly attentive to the presence of the pony cart. Catching everyone by surprise, Julian snapped the pony to action. A turning maneuver was impossible with close vegetation on both sides, so the pony bolted straight on toward the erstwhile bandits. Their reaction betrayed their shock, parting to avoid the sudden threat of hard contact by the rapidly approaching pony cart.
Thus through and beyond the immediate danger, Julian communicated to the pony a need for haste, while Boc held on and scanned for dangers behind. And he was not spent long in looking, for the men must have had horses nearby. Riders three, with rising dander, upon horses of a more mature and athletic class of animal than the single poor pony pulling a cart, passengers, and books, were quickly making up the deficit. The marauders rode hard, sometimes in file formation and sometimes in echelon, depending on the width of the path, and their catching the cart was an imminent inevitability.
"They're catching us, Sir, and I believe they mean to do us harm," Boc managed to say. "Is there nothing for us to do but watch them do it?"
"Use the books, it's our only defense," Old Julian said, with some conviction in his tone. "When one of them comes close, let a mighty tome fly, let it smash havoc to the face of man or beast . . . But wait, good Boc . . . wait until he is close enough to fill your nostrils with his reek, then let thy aim be sure, let thy wordy arsenal fly true. In this we shall depend."
Spurred to unexpected action by his cart-mate's exhortations, Boc pulled a volume from behind the seat and adjusted himself. His left foot clawed at the back of the seat-board while his right foot clung perpendicularly along the front, close to Old Julian. With his left hand, Boc clasped the seat-back, such that he felt well braced to hurl fury upon their pursuers when they came. But there was no time, the closest rider was upon them, the horse pushing on the side of the cart with his frothing snout. Boc trained his eye on the rider and took measure, then threw the book as hard as he could muster, right at the man's bobbing head.
It was a miss, but a near miss, and strong. It glanced off the rider's shoulder. But when the rider adjusted in the saddle to avoid the worst of the incoming chronicle, the horse misunderstood the movement and momentarily broke form. This renewed a small gap, as the horse and rider fought to regain their lost speed. Boc used the moment well by re-arming himself, this time with Postlethwaite's Catalogue of the Arcane. Having never practiced or trained for such a battle, however, Boc unknowingly made the mistake of holding the prodigious text by the spine. When ready, he loosed the dull missile, this time aiming for the horse's charging skull.
As soon at the book left his fingers, however, the cooling air caught the hard covers, ripping them open like an unspringing trap. The age of the binding also proved critical, for the countless scores of pages of what many believe was Postlethwaite's great magnum opus, many of them illustrated, scattered like pigeons in the sudden presence of a predator. This was not at all what Boc had intended, but the result was happily accepted. The chaotic cloud of papyrus looked to the rushing horse like a thing more solid than it was, and in taking sudden evasive action the horse lost its footing. The lead horse was thus turned into a tumbling obstacle, and this more solid than any collection of papers. The two following horses could not hope to avoid the downing of their lead member, charging at such a clip were they. In a moment, the heaving mass of three broken horses and three bellowing riders were left behind, no longer fit to bother.
And so it was that on his second try, and in a manner unpredicted, Boc nullified the attack, rendering the pursuers unable to continue the chase. In his slow-to-apprehend surprise, Boc eventually said, "I think that does it . . . that's them done, Sir. My goodness, you were right to make weapons out of them tales. That seemed to be just the thing, Sir."
Old Julian laughed. When once again able to speak, he said something not fully cognized by the companion Boc, but it had to do with someone always having said a good book can save your life.
The remaining journey home was thankfully without any notable event.