clayforthedevil | In Which Libraries are Not Quiet

Bahorel doesn't wait for Harry to climb any higher before sticking his arm into the gap between books and waving wildly about.

A moment later a swarm of what would be spiders, if they weren't also crumpled balls of paper, roils out of the gap and over the shelves, some climbing higher and some dropping in a soft papery rain down the shelves.

Bahorel pulls out an arm now wound about with shredded paper rather than cobwebs, and shakes himself to dislodge a last few paper spiders before leaning over to look in the gap. "They come back if no one comes this way for a few weeks. Sometimes it's the only way I'm sure how long I've been away-- ah but looks like they've cleared out now. Come on!"

He slides through without worrying if Harry can manage the same. Harry's smaller than him, after all.

Harry yelps and ducks behind the book to escape the shower of paper spiders. Once he realizes that's all they are though-- paper, though moving paper-- he relaxes slightly, and watches in fascination as one of them scuttles over the book in his hands on its way towards the floor.

"Has every shelf such pathways?" Harry calls towards Bahorel's retreating back. He casts a last, dubious glance behind him, below him, then shimmies through the opening headfirst. He pauses there, head sticking through one end, feet out the other, at the space that has opened before him. It looks almost like a cavern, some kind of naturally forming little cave with craggy, rounded walls and a high top-- but a closer look reveals that what seems to be stone is tightly packed books. Patches of greenish books make the illusion of moss; tall, dark, skinny ones like streaks of water or large cracks. He shuffles himself awkwardly around so that he can make the short drop to the floor feet-first.

"And the book is here?" he asks uncertainly. How are you supposed to find which you need?

"Only some of the shelves. It depends on the books you want. --No, we're not quite there. There are some good stories here! But it's mostly maps. Living places-that is, haunted land, spirits of places, things like that. Not Earth, hardly any of them."

He pats a grey-spined book about a floating castle fondly. "They don't do anything to you once you have them off the shelves, these books. They just show you wonders." Possibly even Harry will notice that Bahorel thinks that's quite enough; but he's being more sincere than sarcastic. There are books in the Library that do things well beyond the usual scope of literature.

"...wonders," Harry echoes skeptically. That is the sort of thing people say about them, books and poetry, but he's never experienced it. But he does like maps, and he finds himself running a hand curiously along the row of spines without quite realizing he's doing it.

"The old king did think England had a spirit would rise and fight for him." He pokes at a spine that feels oddly squishy. "It did not."

But wait. "--other books will do otherwise?"

"As if any land would rise up to serve a single man. A place lives far beyond that..." Bahorel's only half paying attention to himself; h's already got one of the books off the shelves and open, something with a wild spiraling staircase on the cover. "Ah, the books-- a few. The ones I'm thinking of for your vampire questions are just books; anyway they did nothing else to me. But I've come across a few that demand to be read in a certain order, or write themselves as you go."

He smiles. "I would not blame you if you didn't believe me about that part. But I'm letting you know, in case you find one; it's just something that happens here sometimes."

"I will believe anything any man tells me of this place," Harry says. "I know by now 'twould be foolish to do otherwise. No wonder is too strange, I am sure."

Harry edges over to peer over Bahorel's shoulder. It's a map alright, but-- not a map like anything he's ever seen. He's sure the markings can't possibly mean the same things as he expects them to, for if they do, their arrangement makes no earthly sense.

Bahorel holds it out. "See-- like this. Look at the symbols long enough, and they change. I don't know what it means, but if someone from that world ever came here, they might..? But I've seen maps of some France that were strange too. Ah, and here's an England for you! Part of it, anyway."

He pulls out another book, bound in a slightly bluer shade of gray, and hands it over to Harry.

"Ah!" Harry says, delighted, as he opens the book. "Why, 'tis Northumberland!"

Well, the landscape seems to be, anyway. But the land within it is marked into territories he does not recognize-- and he realizes that there are little army encampments featured, too, attributed to lords whose names he doesn't recognize. And as he watches, the little x's marking the troops shift and change, the little pennants move forward and back-- they're fighting, right there on the page, and as lands are won and lost, the borders shift accordingly, right there on the page.

Gaping, he holds the book out for Bahorel to see.

Bahorel whistles, low. "Are those fast battles, or is this a history, with everything sped up?"

He watches it a few moments in silence, before saying "Do you recognize the way they're fighting? The arrangement of troops and all, is it like you knew it?" It looks strange to Bahorel's eye, but then it would be in any case, given the years and countries between him and the traditions of English knighthood.

"It is-- it is not all unfamiliar," Harry says thoughtfully. "Though this commander-- this here, with the red banner-- he is a fool. But the names I know not."

He turns the book over to look at the cover-- the title is mostly rubbed away, but in the faint indents that were, presumably, once filled in with some color or leaf, the word 'history' is one of the few that can be made out.

"Well." He offers the book back to Bahorel.

Bahorel reshelves it, but says "You know you can take any of them you like. I haven't found any limit on how many a person can borrow at a time. You don't have to bring them back here either; leave a book at the desk and it'll get sorted."

He sets off for the end of the aisle. "I like to reshelve them myself, it's the only way to keep track of the paths here-- but then I don't have any pressing engagements. You're teaching Feuilly how to use a sword?"

It's not so much that Bahorel's succeeding-or even trying- at keeping the innuendo out of his voice there as that he's used to dealing with friends who will absolutely hear it anyway without any need for stressing the idea, and who often count it a triumph to make a joke no one gets.

"Is't so?" He casts a curious glance at the book, but doesn't reach for it, instead falling into step behind Bahorel. But it cannot be denied that the glances he casts towards the shelves have a slightly different quality of curiosity than before.

"Ay, I am," he says, all cheerful obliviousness. "He is a fair pupil, quick and apt."

"He's damned brilliant." It's not an argument, just a statement of fact. "I'm not surprised he's picking it up fast. If he has the chance--" Bahorel stops again, and looks critically at the shelves on either side of them. They've started to be spaced out, less in orderly rows and more in an overlapping arrangement. He stamps hard a couple of times; the floor gives out a hollow-sounding thump.

Edited 2015-08-17 15:20 (UTC)

"He is." Harry makes no effort at all to disguise his affectionate tone-- why should he?

He looks down at the sound of Bahorel's stomping.

"Must we descend?" he asks uncertainly. He starts casting about for a trap door of some kind-- it certainly sounded hollow, and a hidden staircase to a cellar would seem positively mundane by contrast, at this point.

Bahorel would be seriously unimpressed if Percy did try to hide his obvious fondness. That Percy is generally unrestrained about expressing himself is one of the things that makes him worthwhile company, in Bahorel's estimation.

"We do. Stay where you are, you're safe enough--"He pulls a few books halfway off their shelves and takes a final thick volume off entirely, tucking it under one arm. That bookcase moves aside, to show a narrow staircase leading into dim light.

"--Took me a while to figure that out the first time, I don't mind admitting. Come on, it's brighter once you're down there." Carrying his slowly increasing stack of books, he heads down.

Harry can't begin to imagine how Bahorel figured any of this out, unless there is a map or a list hidden somewhere. But he follows.

True to Bahorel's word, and contrary to all expected laws of nature, it does indeed grow brighter as they descend. Narrow windows cut high, high into the walls send down sharp shafts of light that criss-cross the staircase.

Boredom, Harry. Terrifying and apocalyptic boredom from months of being in a place with nothing at all that actually needs doing. That's how Bahorel figured it out. (He's considered that the Library does this sort of thing to him on purpose. If so, he appreciates the entertainment.)

He stops in front of a section of books that are especially brightly lit by the criss-crossing lights above. In the nearby shadowed parts of the shelves, the books are audibly rustling. "There's what we're here for-- some of it, anyway. The better books." If Harry wants to read the spines, there are a few with titles like "Vampyre" and "Living Dead: A Field Guide" and "The Monster Book of Monsters". And quite a few with no title at all.

"Ah!" He draws nearer, but seems hesitant to touch them. "Know you what they concern? Recommend you any in particular?"

Bahorel runs a hand along one of the shelves. This is something like battle planning; he's taking it almost seriously.

"Our Northman looks human--at least sometimes-- and we know he's from Europe, so ..." He grabs a few old hardcovers and one extremely shoddy-looking paperback with a garish painting of a woman being bittend on the front. "Probably these. There are a good many legends, though; you may not find anything here that's entirely right. But it's enough to give you the general idea.--they won't be quite so lively when we've left the Library, I think it's being around the others that does it. Want to look around for other books while we're here?"

The other books are practically screaming to be looked at! Some of them almost seem to know their visitor's names.

"--I think they will be displeased if we do not."

He goes curiously over to the rather furry, quivering Monster Book of Monsters and begins to carefully ease it off the shelf.

"I am sure Feuilly's books never behave so."

Bahorel laughs. "Feuilly's probably a good influence on them."

As long as Harry's looking, Bahorel will, too. Even in this one room of the Library there are more books than a man could read in a normal lifetime.

Harry, stretching on tip-toe for a book, just manages to snag the upper corner with his fingers and tilt it off the shelf. But rather than falling into his waiting hands, it gives a little cry of delight (which sounds rather like the crackling of new pages) and takes flight, covers flapping like wings as it swoops in circles above their heads. Harry, cursing, tries to snatch it, but it hovers just out of his reach.

Bahorel grins. "Your hunt, Sir Percy! Do you want aid, or is the quarry yours alone?"

He's in no hurry; if Harry wants to run around chasing a book, that's fine by him.

"Perhaps if-- if we seek to corner it-- you from that side, I from this..."

Because of course he's not going to ask for help explicitly.

pffft, asking for help. It's just sharing the fun!

Bahorel gets up, still grinning, and takes his place where Harry asked. The book swings between the two of them, seeming to consider its options.

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