Aliyah

No fire. No blood. Stay quiet.

Those were the old rules, stamped in triplicate across three different dusty tomes, each with a title that had nothing to do with the Higher Library. It was in these deceptively dry chronicles of early Songian history that she found what she had been looking for.

Wedged between walls of text describing plans for castle architecture and proper maintenance of anti-corrosion runework were clues: little throwaway lines regarding the seeding of a proper Library and its dimension-warping nature, a stray remark about the placement of a recently-unearthed anatomical text into its safekeeping. Best of all, a thesis on the dying tradition of book-lending between masters and apprentices which relayed the limited levels of access to Higher Library books for apprentices of higher arts: Healers, Magicians, and the like. 

These were the morsels of information deemed unimportant enough to be placed into the relatively unguarded Lower Library. Not as good as a map, but good enough. The Higher Library was confirmed to contain the secrets that she wanted.

Getting in, now that would be harder.

She had known from the start that she wasn’t going to waste bribe money on this. Rana was holding out hope for a suitable Healer and any Healer, no matter how amenable, was going to be expensive. Though she had to admit, she was starting to think no such Healer existed. Perhaps Rana was merely playing the part of the loyal friend, coaxing drops of optimism into her like metaphorical medicine. As if a human being could run off hopes and wishes alone.

No more sitting around waiting for the right answer to present itself. Instead, she went through desks.

By and large, castle maidservants weren’t thieves. Pouches of coins and fine Glisterian fountain pens sat temptingly unguarded on desktops, but shifts were recorded and tracked. That had been made very clear to her throughout training. As far as she was concerned, theft was not an option either. But information could be memorized, papers and journals placed back into their resting places as if they had never been touched.

She signed up to clean the rooms of whatever rumour-known jaunters she could, and encountered locked safes. Desks were filled with drawers which flashed with shining symbols when touched—clear warnings, sensible wards. Misfortune again, she thought. If only she’d learned her runes better, she might be able to undo them. She’d even gone and checked through the old room of the young man who’d been sent away by his mother, now officially vacant—but as she’d expected, it had been stripped clean.

The young man who’d stolen into the Higher Library was long gone, but his mother had her own quarters in the Cook’s wing. Perhaps she’d kept some of his old belongings. It was one of the few leads she had left.

Snagging herself a cleaning shift there wasn’t difficult, especially not long before noon; just before the main rush for luncheon. Sweeping and a bathroom cleaning had been requested. That gave her a good hour or so to work with; better yet, most people preferred to avoid their rooms during deeper clean-ups; some of the grime-fighting solutions that they used stank of false-flowers for a couple of hours afterwards. Even so, she was betting on the cook being occupied with the lunch rush. She pulled on a face-mask, a hair-cap, and thick, waterproof gloves. Then she hooked a broom to her wicker cart, piled high with bottles of cleaning solution and buckets of soapy water.

No one acknowledged her as she trundled down the halls and into the cook’s quarters; that was one good thing about the grey uniform; people’s eyes just slid right over you.

The cook’s rooms were plain but lovely; all oak-panelled walls and crisp, undarned sheets. Cream-coloured curtains graced a wide bay window overlooking the salt. There was a small shrine in the corner, filled with flowers and holding a framed painting of a sharp-faced man—a deceased husband? Aliyah spotted an attached reading room, too. This woman must have worked as a cook for a long while.

She ducked into each room, checking for movement or sleeping figures. Good. No one home.

To work, then; bathroom first, to give the cleaning solution time to soak. The place wasn’t filthy, but it was certainly lived in: dye stains in the bathtub, stray hairs and dust on the floor, the usual. Then a quick look around the reading room as she swept it; desk with a vase of fake flowers on top, warded bookcase full of trashy-looking imported novels, a high-backed, embroidered armchair. The desk drawers weren’t warded. They were, in fact, empty. Odd, but ultimately unpromising.

Back to the bathroom to wash out the cleaning solutions, more scrubbing, a peek under the sink which held nothing but pipes and empty jars. The medicine cabinet was empty but for a bottle of berry-flavoured dentifrice solution and an unopened packet of iron salts.

By the time she finished with the bathroom, her arms and shoulders were sore from scrubbing. She had a handful of minutes left to sweep the sleeping area. The bed had a quilted headboard and was large enough for two people. Feeling foolish, she knelt and looked beneath it—there were only floorboards, coated with a thin layer of dust.

Sighing, she hauled herself back to her feet. This was no use. Quite probably the disreputable Library-jaunting son had taken all of his notes with him. All she was doing was intruding on the privacy of an old widow. She packed up her supplies, pulled her cart out of the bathroom and past the shrine—

She paused.

The shrine. That fragrance…

A mixture of white orchids and twining, silvery vine-like sprigs exuded a subtle, fresh scent. She squinted at them. They were real, fresh-looking, spotted with dew. She flicked a petal with the tip of her finger, felt a tingle of magic across her skin. The dewdrop that glistened at its tip stayed firmly in place, even as she poked it again. She tugged gently at another petal; it resisted detaching. She furrowed her brow.

She’d gone browsing in the upper-markets with Rana once; they’d ogled fashionable, flowing gowns and finely-wrought jewelry displays together, ignoring the suspicious stares of richer folk. She’d stood impatiently outside of a bookstore as Rana debated which pot of ink to spend an audacious amount of money on—the bookstore had been next to a flower shop.

That flower shop. That fragrance. Everlasting flowers. Though, not quite everlasting: the stasis lasted a few months at most.

One supposes there’s no continuous coin to be made if they really lasted forever, she’d thought at the time, shivering slightly in the cool, scented breeze.

The labels had said half a crown per bunch. There looked to be about four or five full bouquets here, spread around the painted portrait. Maybe she should consider applying to be a cook.

She frowned. Something didn’t feel quite right. The fragrance of the not-quite-everlasting flowers tickled at her nose, sending her back to that cool, soft afternoon in the upper-markets. Her thoughts tumbled as she turned in a slow circle. Oak paneling. No river view, but bay windows all the same. This was an awfully big room for a lone cook, wasn’t it?

Perhaps the dead husband had simply left her with a large sum of money. She turned back to the shrine and squinted at the honour-saying beneath his portrait; may his soul fly ever freer than his kites. A kite-handler? No, a cook would be richer than a kite-handler. Hells, a maidservant was usually richer than a kite-handler.

She walked over to the bed, rubbed the linen between her fingers. The fabric was supple, the weave tight and heavy. Undarned, she thought, not ripped, not worn, undarned despite news of ongoing trouble with the shipments. Hmm. Over in the bathroom, a small jar of milk-and-honey bath melts that she’d missed, half-empty—implying that the bath was actually filled on a regular basis. Rosewater bars in the soap dish. And the reading room, now that she was looking—really looking—boasted decorative silk flowers in an intricately painted vase. The embroidery thread in that armchair also looked suspiciously silky.

This whole place was a study in poorly-masked indulgence. Surely the widow-cook was hiding something. The desk had been empty.

What kind of person kept their desk empty? She hurried back and crouched under the desk, searching for a mark scratched on the underside, a secret drawer, something. It was frustratingly free of mystery. She picked herself up and circled over to the bookcase, which took up half of a wall. There were panes of rune-glass over the books; it was more of a cabinet styled after a traditional bookcase. She tilted her head sideways and started reading the titles, expecting second-hand recipe collections, or perhaps even mass-market spellbooks. Instead, the case was full of titles like ‘The Bride of the Forest King’ and ‘My Darling Paramour’ and ‘Steamy Conquests of a Handsome Prince’.

She jerked backwards, face flushing as her frown deepened.

Why keep such tacky, salacious paperbacks in a warded bookcase? If it had been any other room she was cleaning, she’d have pinned it on the eccentric tastes of a lonely old woman and moved on. But she was here for a reason; the widow-cook’s son could have left his notes behind. It bothered her, this collection of cheap books amidst other, far more luxurious trappings. Could he have hidden them there? 

The desk had been empty, after all.

She eyed the ward-signs which drifted over the surface of the bookcase; they moved slowly and surely, like sky-fish through a cloud bank. Signs for alarms and possibly ones for total immobilisation of the intruder. She hadn’t the faintest idea on how to slip past them. She rubbed at her eyes and sighed. She could come back. Another long day spent crawling through the Lower Library awaited her.

“What the fuck,” someone spoke into the silence.

Aliyah whirled round, heart racing. Behind her, framed in the entryway to the study, was a young man in a rumpled kite-handler’s uniform. He was trim and lean, with that tousled, windblown look typical of kiters, and a conspicuously shiny gold piercing through one ear. He was also scowling fiercely.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m—I’m the maid,” she stammered. Realisation flashed through her mind. “The listed occupant for these rooms goes by the designation of a cook. What are you doing here?”

His scowl deepened. “Just collecting some stuff that I left with my ma.”

Aliyah froze. Was he the son, then? The one who broke into the Higher Library? A real criminal? She took a risk.

“What kind of stuff?” She crossed her arms. “For all I know, you could be a thief.”

“What is your problem, lady? Look here!” He stepped closer and waved a key in her face. “Have you finished emptying the trash yet? You left your damn trolley in the middle of the bedroom.”

She narrowed her eyes and flicked a glance over to the bookcase, then back at him. His shoulders stiffened visibly.

“…You haven’t taken anything that you aren’t meant to, have you?”

She felt her heart leap in premature victory; there might be something strange about the bookcase after all.

“No. What makes you think that?”

“You’re a maid wandering around my ma’s rooms without so much as a duster in her hands,” he retorted. “Looks like you’ve finished cleaning. Can you leave?”

“No, I don’t think I will. If something goes missing during my shift, I’ll be the one they blame.”

The kite-handler clenched his jaw. “I’m telling you, this room’s my ma’s. She knows I’m here and she didn’t say nothing about some maid coming in.”

The conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere except back and forth. She took another risk. “Does she know you’re here? I thought she kicked you out.”

The kite-handler scowled even harder. “Oh, you mean little Hakim? Where did you hear that from?”

She didn’t reply. The silence trickled into every gap in the room.

“Alright,” he finally said, crossing his arms. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about Hakim, but I can tell you there’s nothing worth stealing around here. Could you please just go?”

Her pulse was pounding so heavily that it thudded against the bones of her chest. He was the criminal, she reminded herself. She shuddered at the idea of arguing with a—dangerous? Magicians always warned traitors were dangerous—outlaw, but she wasn’t the one with the most to lose here. “What’s in the bookcase, then?”

He flinched. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s all ma’s stuff. Leave off.”

“Really? Then you won’t object if I take a look, right?” She uncrossed her arms and took a step closer. It was a bluff, of course. The runes would probably fry her alive, if the case contained what she was starting to suspect it did.

“Don’t be stupid. It’s warded.”

“Looks like a bunch of sensationalist potboilers to me. I wonder why anyone would bother.”

“Clearly to stop sticky-fingered maids.”

Aliyah sighed, mostly to conceal her trembling nerves. “I could report you to the Higher Library for harbouring stolen goods.”

The kite-handler stilled. “No. You couldn’t.”

“They’ll investigate,” she continued. “They’ll check, even if they think I’m lying; if I’ve heard about your little brother, I’m sure they would have too. The only reason they haven’t checked is because no one’s bothered to report someone who doesn’t even live here anymore. But you live here.”

“Not for much longer I don’t.”

“Do you think you can outrun a Librarian? Or rather,” and here she paused, stomach sinking as she realised what she meant to say. She forged ahead. “Do you think your mother could outrun a Librarian?”

A moment of silence. The kite-handler paled visibly.

“Leave my mother out of this,” he snapped, clenching his fists. For a moment, she thought that he might take a swing at her. “And leave Hakim out of it too, you hear? You want to report? Fine. Just leave them out of it. Bloody fucking maids, thinking you’re so much better than us. I hope you choke on the payout.”

“I could always not report you,” she said. “In exchange—” 

He laughed sharply, cutting her off. “You want a bribe? And let me guess, more bloody bribes in the future for keeping your mouth shut? Fuck. Fine. Give me a couple weeks. It’s my last shipment, ever. Not easy stock to move.”

A shiver of triumph rushed through her. She opened her mouth to say yes—but something made her falter. A nagging feeling, a feeling of nothing good ever came that easy. She squinted at him, thoughts ticking over. Her well-practiced sense of paranoia swept in to save her from possibly looking like a fool.

“…By which time you’ll have burnt all the evidence,” she hazarded. “I don’t think so. Besides, it’s information I’m after.”

“Information,” he said slowly. “What kind of information? Why should I tell you if you’re going to rat me out either way?”

“First of all, who are you?”

He hesitated, eyeing her with distaste. No doubt she could have found out herself, but she’d been too focused on the rumours of his brother and mother than any other living relatives. 

“My market byname is Jackal,” he conceded.

It suited him well enough. He seemed the fleet-footed, wily type.

“Alright, ‘Jackal’. I want a way into the Higher Library.”

That made him hesitate some more. “A backdoor? Why’d you want one of those? It’s dangerous in there.”

“Yeah, a backdoor. I’ll take Healer books too, if you have them.”

He froze. “Healer books? You’re a spy, aren’t you. Some foreigner who looks Songian enough to pass for a real one. Or is that just a glamour?”

“I’m not a spy and I’m not using an illusion.” She glanced back over at the bookcase. “Are these books ‘glamoured’?”

“Not a spy? Then what do you need Healer books for, eh?”

“To heal myself. Why is that so hard to believe? Surely other people have tried!”

“Yeah, that’s what a spy would say. You don’t look awfully sick to me.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “You sell the stolen goods, right? In the local black-markets, I assume?”

“What about it?”

“Then shouldn’t you be more worried about your other customers being spies? I’m a maid for goodness sake, an actual maid. I’m almost never out of the castle. Some weeks, I can’t afford to eat meat. Do you think a spy would live like this?”

He scoffed. “Yeah, I do. I’m not stupid, lady. No meat? So what. Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? I think a spy would do anything to get at that sort of book.”

“Who’s more likely to be a spy: me, or the blackmarket buyers? You already sell books—”

“Not Healer books,” he hissed. “I only lift what I can carry, y’hear? And yeah, a lot of the clients are spies, or informants, or hungry foreign bastard merchant nobles—I’ve got good cause to worry. So I only take easy things, things that can’t hurt anyone. And unless you’ve ever been starving, ever watched your ma give the food off her plate to you and your shit-useless siblings, you’ve no right to act high and mighty about it.”

She huffed in frustration. “So get me an easy Healing book if you don’t trust me in there.”

“There’s no such thing as an easy Healing book. Those suckers can’t be taken out of the Library, they just can’t. I had a friend who tried. Bad way to lose a hand.”

She tried another tactic. “How did you learn to make a backdoor? Can you backdoor into other places?”

“Nuh-uh miss spy. Trade secret. And no, I can’t. No one can; it only works with Libraries, if they’re big enough. So don’t go getting any funny ideas. Or do, and get yourself killed. Chop yourself in half on a wall. It’s no skin off my back.”

She took a deep breath. “I can’t stop you from thinking I’m a spy. But even if I was, you can’t exactly report it without drawing attention to your own trespass, can you?” Her thoughts raced. “If I leave right now, I can have a Librarian here in minutes. You bought all of this, didn’t you? The flowers, the soap, the linen. All for your mother; do you think she’d be happy to have it all taken away?”

He swore under his breath. “I said, don’t drag my mother into this.”

“You dragged your own mother into this. You’re using her bookcase, which she presumably knows about. The Librarians will get her just the same.”

He clenched his jaw.

“How old is she,” she said softly. “A couple of years from a comfortable retirement?”

“I can’t get you Healer books,” he gritted out.

There it was. The killing strike, the part where he caved. She’d broken through. It unnerved her, how good that felt to realise, how easy it was to twist the knife.

“So get me a backdoor,” she said, cushioning her voice with her best coaxing tone. “One that I can reuse. I’m sure there’s a way that can’t be traced back to you. I’ll leave you be and you’ll have time to clear out your stolen goods; even if I reported, they can’t do anything once you’ve left, right?”

He sighed, long and slow. “And I’ll bet you want it right now, eh?”

She dropped the coaxing tone. “I’ll stand here until your mother gets back if I have to.”

“Oh come on, now—don’t. I’ll do what I can. But don’t ever come back here. This is my last lot, I swear. Ma works hard, she doesn’t need no spy-maid bothering her.”

“I’m not a spy,” she said yet again. Jackal’s loyalist sensibilities were starting to irk her. “I didn’t think that a blackmarket salesman such as yourself would be so devoted to the good of the kingdom.”

“Really, now. Of course you’d say that, miss maid.”

She bristled despite herself. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, it’s easy for you, prancing around inside the walls,” he said as he pushed past her and placed a hand against the doors of the bookcase. The runes brightened and swarmed over his hands before dissipating with a soft hiss. “You don’t need to think. But if I sell important information to a spy, the spy burns down the castle, the kingdom’s eaten by bloody merchants, my family gets hurt, and I’ve nowhere else to go. But I’m quitting next month and I’m taking my ma and sis with me, out of this shitty kingdom. So if you’re planning on wreaking havoc, do me a favour and hold off for a little while yet.”

He opened the glass panels and skimmed his fingertips across the rows of books before grabbing one, seemingly at random. It was as thick and as cheap as all the others, the cover boasting an illustration of a muscular torso superimposed over the silhouette of a wolf howling at the moon. When he flipped it open, she saw that a hollow cavity lay within the pages, dry, pulpy guts scooped out in a rough square. Within the hollow sat a small, tattered scroll. Truth be told, she was a little disappointed; a small, wishful part of her had been hoping that the bookcase would swing open like a door, revealing a vault of treasures. Still, she scanned the overabundance of easily-repurposeable books with fresh eyes.

“How many times have you gone into the Higher Library?” 

If Jackal had made enough selling blackmarket papers to afford this room for his mother—with plenty more to move out of the kingdom entirely—then surely he’d gone more than once. She could see why he risked such expeditions.

As if sensing her thoughts, he slammed the doors of the bookcase shut and snorted. “Not enough to be that rich, believe me. Ma’s rooms are paid for in advance but the rest of the money’s long been moved to, let’s say, safer havens. I’ll buy your silence with knowledge—no more, no less.”

“Alright,” she said, more boldly than she felt. “So, give me the knowledge.”

He undid the scroll, glanced at it, and frowned. “Patience, miss. Adjustments take time.” 

He crossed over to the desk, fished a runequill out of his pocket, and began to write. She peered over his shoulder; the scroll was a scrawling mess of circles and esoteric symbols, none of which she recognised. It looked as if it were half-map, half-spell-slip.

“Can you not?” he asked without turning his head.

She bit back an instinctive apology and moved back to stand by the bookcase. He worked at the paper for several minutes, muttering under his breath. His free hand clenched and unclenched as he went. Then he swore and crushed the paper to a crumpled ball before shoving it into his pocket.

“Oh for—I can’t do anything with the stuff in here. C’mon.”

She didn’t move. “Where are you going?”

“Can’t spin anything from blackmarket crap. I keep the real shit in my own room. Would keep everything there and away from fucking spy-maids if I could, but no.” He gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Greedy mongrel Jackal, they said. Stupid stockpiling. Should’ve listened to the bastards.”

“No,” she said. “I’m staying here.”

“Suit yourself. Do some more dusting or something while you wait, eh? It’s what they pay you for. Don’t touch the bookcase, it’ll set you on fire.” With that, he strode out of the quarters, locking the door behind him as he went.

Her gaze flicked between the plain desk stool and the embroidered armchair. In the end, she chose neither; pacing back and forth at first, then looping through each room as she waited for him to return. Somewhere around her twentieth loop, she slowed by the bay window. There were big, fluffy clouds on the horizon, interspersed with wisps of murkiness, blots of poison. No sky-fish to be spotted tonight, and from the looks of those darker caustic spots, none for the next week or so.

Someone cleared his throat from behind her. Jackal again—she recognised his tone just as she whipped around. Were all kite-handlers able to creep about, or was he just that good at silencing spells? She shivered inwardly. He could have easily knifed her in the back just then. But no, she was safe. She had leverage. Her very corpse could be leverage; that thought left her feeling cold and hollow. If he did kill her, it wasn’t like she’d be around to appreciate his ensuing predicament.

“Here. I found these. Should work okay.” He held out a rectangle of paper, about the size of his hand, every last inch smothered in blotchy symbols that made her eyes itch to look at.

“A spell slip?” she asked, turning it over in her hands. The other side was also marked with a dizzying level of intricacy. “I asked for something reusable.”

He made an annoyed sound as he reached into his pockets and handed over thick bundle of papers; on closer inspection, they looked to be exact copies of the first spell-slip. “I was getting to that. They are reusable, if you want to get there and back again. That’s the whole point of having two sides. There, this is all I can give you. You done?”

“No. Help me use it.”

“What? Well, you just hold it against a wall and say—”

The word he said didn’t sound human. It was so flush with magic that it made her ears ring, much like how glancing at the sun left one seeing bright spots, hazy afterimages over the backs of closed eyelids. 

When she took a step towards the nearest wall, he made a sound of exasperation and threw an arm out to bar her way. “Not here, alright?”

“I need to test it,” she snapped. “And I’m not going anywhere that would make it harder for them to figure out your motive if my dead body is dumped out in the Killing Fields.”

Idiot Aliyah, she thought. Bribing people was difficult. Maneuvering around them was even worse. She didn’t know how Rana did it. A nasty thought occurred to her; her stomach felt pitted with stone pellets.

“If you wrote this thing to kill me or to curse me, you’d better say so right now. My shifts are tracked. They would know.”

He held up his hands and made a disgusted sound. “They’re real, I swear. Hakim’s spare copies. And I’m not going to kill you, fucking hell. What do you take me for, huh?”

Words were all well and good, but she had no way of knowing if the backdoor would drop her into a pit of spiders, or whether it would simply close once she was through the other side. “I’m going to test it and you’re going to accompany me.” 

Jackal worked his jaw and fumed, as if he were chewing through a chunk of bitterroot. “Fine. But open the gate in the bathroom, at least. Last thing I want is ma coming home early to you crawling back out of her wall.”

She obliged. “You’re going to have to teach me how to say that word again,” she said as he threw the door to the latch shut.

“Really? Never used one before? Well it’s simple.” He proceeded to sound out each portion of the uncommunicable word, pausing between each one. She followed along, stumbling and coughing at the end; the capstone syllable burned its way up her throat. 

“What?” he asked, eyeing her with a sour look on his face, “Never used a properly heavy spell before? Best get used to the taste of your own blood.”

It took three more tries before he proclaimed her pronunciation ‘not impressive, but good enough’. She hawked up a lump of clotted blood into the sink, which made him grimace.

“Alright,” she said once she rinsed her mouth out. “I’m going to try it now.” 

She reached over and grabbed his wrist as she steadied her stance and braced an elbow against the edge of the sink.

“Y’know, a backdoor’s a door, not a portal in a fanciful book,” he snorted. “It’s not going to suck you through to the other side.”

“I don’t know that for sure.”

“Suit yourself. But yes, best to hold onto passengers, so at least you got that right. Make sure you have the other slips with you.”

“I’m not stupid,” she snapped. Though she patted her pocket just to be sure; the other spell-papers crinkled reassuringly inside the fabric. She placed one of the slips against the cool, tiled wall and held it there with the flat of her hand. 

She said the word of power. Blood filled her mouth. She leaned over her shoulder and spat it into the sink. She turned back to the wall, where her hand was buzzing with magic. A splotch of blue-grey shadow was unfurling over the tile. The spell-paper glowed under her palm. Jackal tugged her back as the shadow elongated and spread, coalescing into the shape of an arched gateway. Aliyah spotted faint, fuzzy shapes beyond—shelves? At least nothing seemed to be moving past the doorway.

“Is that it?” 

“Yep. Not very impressive, I know. Step on through before it dissolves.”

“You first. I can’t even tell what’s on the other side.”

“That’s the point.” He looked down his nose at her as if she were a brainless worm. “If you can just see the Library, the Library’ll see you.” He shook his head, stepped through, and dragged her after him.

Darkness closed over her head as the gate swallowed them whole.