Serene

Serene was still feeling frail when she followed Will to Sheerhome, but she had to admit that a wash and a clean change of clothes had made her a little less miserable.

He wouldn't tell her much about where they were going or why, and what he did say gave very little comfort. She wasn't sure how much of her strong urge to vomit was due to withdrawals, and how much of it was the growing sense of foreboding about the night ahead.

Will took them through the gates into Topside around dusk, not long before the gates were set to close. They then went south, away from the Darkside district she was familiar with, until they ended up in a section of the city wholly unknown to her. Besides being away from the major markets, it was also the resurrectionist part of town, meaning that Serene had made a conscious choice to stay away from it.

The destination that the Butcher had in mind, however, was the Academy. She had heard of the place—everyone had—but as far as she knew, no one went there anymore.

It was a sprawling complex of buildings and towers connected by arched walkways and tiled promenades. It stood upon a large campus that had likely once been beautiful, but was now just a dreary field of nearly chest-high weeds and patches of ornamental flowers and bushes that had grown out of control with no one to tend them.

In the onsetting night gloom, it looked a little too much like some old haunted castle for Serene's liking.

There was a surprising amount of activity going on inside the complex, with faraway voices echoing across campus and lights spilling from some of the smashed windows.

"Don't stray too far from me," Will warned without looking back at her, "plenty of vagrants come to the Academy for shelter. Place is almost as bad as the Outside. They'll strip you down for your clothes and organs if you let them catch you unawares."

"I didn't wash up yesterday," Serene muttered, "I've been around for a minute. I know how scavs operate."

That was only half true. Darkside wasn't exactly the nicest part of Sheerhome, but the whoremasters at least had an incentive to keep up a presentable front for their clientele. Undesirables were herded out by the pimps and their toughs, often with the heel of a boot or the head of a cudgel. If even the most depraved corner of the city wouldn't take them, it was no wonder that scavs and vagrants and stumpies would congeal in their own little colonies such as the Outside—and this place, apparently.

Boulder had always dealt with the deadbeats who couldn't pay. So in reality, she was mostly familiar with the folk Will described by vague reputation.

Still, that didn't give him the right to talk down to her.

That man really had no charm at all. She still couldn't quite picture him and Sam getting along, let alone… getting along.

Will led them to a tall building near the streetside edge of the campus with a domed roof of fishscale tiles that had begun caving in on one side. The shallow steps leading to the entrance were littered with old leaves and discarded detritus left behind by careless humans. The double doors went high enough to admit a troll without trouble, chased with brass in complex floral patterns that had begun to tarnish with age.

Curiously, the door had no handles, or any obvious way to open them.

"Fletcher is pretty paranoid about his books," Will explained, as though that was supposed to mean anything to her. "He doesn't make it easy for just anyone to get in."

He placed his hand against the blank metal fittings, then shut his eye for a moment. Soon there was a soft metal click, and the doors swung inward on creaking hinges.

They stepped through into a large, circular chamber—a library of some description, evidently, considering the overfull bookshelves lining the walls. A spiral staircase off to the side led up to higher floors. What commanded Serene's attention, however, was the man floating cross-legged in the center of the chamber, maybe ten feet off the ground.

The man had his naked back turned to them; lanky, and so pale his complexion almost looked gray. Two extra arms sprouted from his sides, and in each of his four palms sat a large eye. Hands outstretched, he appeared to be browsing a number of books that orbited around him, pages flipping on their own. Penstrokes of light formed a wide sphere around him; fine as glittering spiderwebs, they formed patterns so dense and complex that Serene could not begin to comprehend their meaning.

The patterns billowed and shifted with the erratic movements of the man's many arms, but were inexorably pulled toward the front, where the information tunneled into a narrowing vortex that was sucked into an open tome much larger than any of the other books.

"What the fuck…?" Serene breathed.

"That's Fletcher—custodian of the Academy library," Will said. "Some people call him the Spider. I assume you can see why. Aside from being two legs short, anyway." Then, raising his voice, he shouted: "Fletch! You've got company!"

The man paused, his spherical web shivering with sudden tension. He kept moving, then slowly halted again, as though with great reluctance. The sphere of symbols popped like a bubble, and the books that had been floating around him all zipped off in different directions to fit snugly into their places in this bookshelf or that. The man unfolded his legs as he drifted to the stone floor. A brown open-front robe yanked itself off a nearby coat rack and draped itself loosely over his shoulders.

He turned to face his visitors, and Serene found he was a gaunt man at the end of his middle years, his ribs clearly outlined against his skin and his belly sunken-in from malnutrition. His hair had more gray than brown in it, worn long and pulled into a loose tail in the back with a ribbon. His extra arms melted back into his thin torso, leaving not a trace of their existence, and the eyes in his remaining two palms shut their lids and vanished.

His sheet marked him a… No, that couldn't be right. A Level 20 Scholar? That would make him almost the same level as Lord Brimstone himself…

"William Greene!" the man called. The large tome snapped shut with a loud clap and drifted down to its owner. He tucked it under one arm as he came hobbling over, his sunken eyes alive with nervous energy. "I am not in the mood for a social call at the moment, young man!"

As he drew closer, Serene realized that the man was really quite short—he couldn't be standing much higher than five feet—and the robe he wore trailed on the floor with a soft swishing of fabric, dirty blue slippers kicking at the front. His stern demeanor suddenly shifted as his eyes drifted onto Serene and bugged out. "William!" he squealed, and pointed a skinny finger right at her. "You know the rules! No women allowed in the library!"

"Calm down," Will said with a placating gesture. "Fletcher, this is Serene. She's…" He glanced over at her, then shrugged. "...my apprentice."

"I don't care! She's—"

"Here on urgent business, I assure you. You know I would hate to sully the sanctity of your cootie-less domain otherwise." He turned to Serene and said in a lower voice: "Fletcher's a little eccentric, but he's all right. Try not to take anything he says to heart."

Serene snorted. "Killer, I've heard some things in my time that'd curl the hair on your head. If this is the worst of it, I'll be fine. That being said… what are we doing here, exactly?" She wasn't sure what she thought of being introduced as Will's 'apprentice', but she figured that was a conversation for another time.

Will neglected to answer, and turned his focus back on the librarian. "You seem upset, Fletch. What's the matter?"

"What's the matter? What isn't the matter! Oh, this is awful—just dreadful!" He turned as though to stalk off, then spun on his heel and came storming back around, nearly tangling his feet on his too-long garb in the process. "First the leaks, then the whisperwings, then the burglar, and now this! A woman! Oh, this is not good—not good at all. Must devise countermeasures. Stronger locks, yes. More effective means of pest control—maybe one that can also function as intruder deterrent? William, don't just stand there! Help me think!"

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Slow down, old man," Will said with an exasperated sigh. "Start at the beginning. You mentioned a leak?"

Fletcher paced back and forth, back and forth, hissing and tugging at his robe whenever it proved uncooperative. "Yes, that's right—a leak. A terrible leak. The roof has come open, damp seeping in, destroying books! I moved the ones I could to the lower levels for safekeeping, but it's becoming awfully cluttered as you can see, and it's obviously not a permanent solution… I need to find a Builder to fix it, but that means going outside, and that means…" He glanced over at Serene and hid a grimace—rather badly—behind a slender hand.

"I know a reasonably competent Builder," Will said. "He's out of town right now, but he should be back in a few days. I'll have him swing by and sort out your roof, free of charge."

"Days? But that's—"

"The best I can do for you right now, I'm afraid. Next issue."

"Why, I… Well, I…"

"You mentioned 'whisperwings'? What does that mean?"

"Disgusting creatures!" Fletcher hissed, his hands curled into claws before him as though to crush something between them. With great difficulty, he managed to calm himself enough to elaborate. "My boy, as you may know I have had some problems with pests trying to ruin the books in the past."

"Yes. Swoopers, I believe you called them."

"That's right! Swoopers! Well, the swoopers stopped being such a big problem once I brought in a few cats to manage them. But then this awful damp and mildew, it attracted something… worse. Come! See for yourself!"

Fletcher dragged Will by his sleeve over to a work table at the far end of the hall, and Serene reluctantly followed after. Some sort of winged creature, a bit larger than your average bat, had been pinned to the work surface with its wings splayed and its innards cut open. The thing was vaguely moth-like in appearance, at least when looking at its fuzzy gray wings, but it had an enlarged head with nasty-looking mandibles that Serene imagined could cut like a pair of scissors.

"Disgusting creatures!" Fletcher repeated. "They recently began to infest the top floor, but swiftly ventured lower to kill both the swoopers and the poor kitties. They've been tearing up my precious volumes to make their nests with, the damned things."

"Have you tried getting rid of them yourself?" Will asked, and poked at one of the whisperwing's many sharp legs.

"Of course I have!" Fletcher shot back, waving his arms angrily inside their overlong sleeves. "I've been going around killing the bastard things every hour of the day! But they breed too quickly, and they have begun to hide their eggs from me. I think… William, with the risk of sounding like a madman, I think they are learning—and not just from their interactions with me. I think they can somehow ingest the information of the books they eat. You see, look at these markings here…" Fletcher pointed to a spread wing, its surface lined with fuzzy dark patterns. "Look a little like letters, don't they? I had this one in captivity for a little before it expired. When I fed it a book—don't worry, it was only some erotic drek, nothing actually important—when I fed it, the patterns changed!"

Will stroked his chin in thought. "I see. Interesting."

"I was actually in the process of compiling a bestiary entry on them when you disturb—... Uh, when you came to visit." Fletcher took out the thick, leather-bound tome he had been carrying under his arm and flipped through its seemingly countless pages before finding the one he was looking for. "Here, my boy—take a look. It's still a work in progress, you understand, but the major points are mostly there."

"I'd love to give you my thoughts, Fletch, but maybe another time," Will said, and steered the book away when it was offered. "It would be a terrible shame if the thing that finally killed this place was a couple of bugs—I'll help you with your infestation problem."

"Oh, excellent! I knew I could count on you. I always did say you were one of the good ones." He looked pointedly at Serene, as though to illustrate the alternative. When she crossed her arms and stared back, he quickly diverted his gaze.

Will held up a finger. "I'll help you, but later," he said firmly. "We have some important business to deal with first."

"Later!?" Fletcher squealed, hopping up and down in his agitation. "Important!? What could possibly be more important than the books?"

"I was sent here to kill you, actually," Will said in a calm, smooth tone that contrasted jarringly against the librarian's shrill voice. "Brimstone's orders."

Fletcher went suddenly still, his face gone even paler, which Serene would not have thought possible. "Kill… me?"

"Yes. And since I thought you might prefer to wake up tomorrow, I've taken the liberty of devising an alternative."

Fletcher began anxiously flipping pages in his tome, fingers occasionally straying over the letters. "But… But why would the lord want me dead? I haven't done anything! And why would he ask you of all people to carry it out?"

Will shot the little man an incredulous smirk, hand resting on the hilt of his saber. "You do realize I'm an assassin by trade, right?"

"You are?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure I've told you that before. More than once."

"Huh." Fletcher rubbed at his forehead. "You may have, my boy. I forget little things like that sometimes. Well, if you've thought of an alternative, it can't be all that bad, can it?"

"Depends on you, I suppose. Brimstone has ordered me to kill everyone in the city that he considers a threat before officially declaring war on Stormfront."

Fletcher's thin brows shot up. "War? On Stormfront?"

"Fletch, buddy… I know you don't get out much, but come on."

"This is… a lot to take in." Fletcher snapped his tome shut, then opened it again, stealing furtive glances at Serene all the while. "Does your apprentice really need to be here? She's making me jumpy."

"I could put on a male face if that would help," Serene muttered.

"No, that's all right," Will said with a dismissive wave. "He could do with a little socializing."

"Regardless!" Fletcher cried, and numbers and letters of colored light sprang out of his ears as though pushed from his brain in his agitation. "How could the lord consider me a threat? I never leave the Academy! I'm no threat to anybody!"

"Your level is reason enough, Fletch," Will said. "The good lord sees treason just about every way he turns, these days."

"And your plan?"

"Well, obviously, I'm not going to kill you. We're friends, after all."

The librarian nodded enthusiastically, and waved a drifting string of letters away from his face. "Of course, my boy—of course. You're one of the good ones, I've always said so."

"Right. Which is why I've brought my apprentice with me. She's got a knack for Illusions, so she's going to dress up a random corpse to look like you. This ruse won't stand up to any kind of close scrutiny, of course, but Brimstone trusts me enough not to micromanage. The guardsmen Brimstone sends to verify my kills and haul off the bodies usually aren't the brightest types, and they're all Laborers, so they don't have the tools to see through that sort of trickery."

"I see… Very good! Very clever, my boy! But then…"

"You'll need to go into hiding for a while. Luck willing it won't be for very long—I've already got a plan in motion to take Brimstone out. But until he's gone, you can't be here. If anyone finds out I didn't do my job, we're both ending up on the chopping block."

"But I'm quiet as a mouse anyway! Hardly anyone knows I'm here!"

"Enough people do."

"I couldn't possibly leave the collection! Not while it's in such a vulnerable state!"

"You'll do exactly as I tell you, Fletch." There was something dark in Will's done that seemed to say 'or else'.

"Uh…"

"Won't you?" Will's one dark eye was unerringly fixed on the little librarian.

"Yes… All right. It… might be for the best. But only for a little while! Only until it's safe!"

The Butcher nodded. "Well and good, Fletch. Just see it as a short vacation."

Serene found herself shifting uncomfortably. It was clear that Fletcher was no sort of fighter. Still, to intimidate a man four levels his greater into doing his bidding so easily…

"There are two more targets I'm supposed to kill tonight," Will continued. "I will bring them here, and the three of you can hide somewhere in the bowels of the Academy. I'd wager you know all sorts of secret passages that no one has seen the inside of since the Better Times. Am I right?"

Fletcher scoffed. "Well, that goes without question! Who do you take me for? Not only have I studied the Academy's blueprints extensively, I was there for nearly every turn of its grand history!"

Will waved the little man's exposition aside. "Yes yes, very good. Now, I had arranged for three bodies to be delivered to the library for our use. My man should have arrived by now…"

"Ah!" Fletcher exclaimed. "You must be talking about the burglar!"

Will quirked a questioning eyebrow.

Fletcher fussed nervously over one of the pages, smoothing out some imaginary wrinkle in the paper. "Yes, well, there was some ruffian pounding on my door earlier, demanding to be let in and telling me something about bodies, and payment, and making a mess of me if I didn't do what he wanted. I never get visitors here, so I simply assumed he was a no-good dirty scoundrel and ignored him until he ceased his knocking. Took quite a while, that. Very annoying. Very rude."

Will sighed. "That'd be the one."

"He was here just a while ago. Tried to get in the side entrance over there. I think he might still…"

"He's still here," Will said. "I can sense him. Let's go see if he's got the goods, shall we?"

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