The Library Bookstore

Short Fiction by Tom Cash

In the cold winter of my tenth year, my parents were brutally murdered.  My father was a simple farmer, and my mother made healing poultices and simple potions which she sold in town.  We weren't rich, but we were happy, and we harmed no one.

That didn't matter to the men who razed our farm one evening in the month of Hearthwilde, arriving under the pretense of needing food and a warm place to sleep.  My father, a kindly sort, invited the three men inside.  I could tell my mother was uncomfortable, and that made me uncomfortable, and quite honestly these men seemed uncouth and cruel without really doing much of anything.

But my father was a strong, confident man, and he smiled knowingly at us, winking as if to say, “Everything will be just fine.”

Dinner was a terse affair, with much clanking of silverware and very little conversation.  Not from a lack of trying, mind you; my mother was determined to break the silence.

“So,” she began, clearing her throat, “Where did you say you hailed from, good sirs?”

“Didn’t say.” replied the largest of the three men, a muscular hulk with scraggly black hair, a long black beard, and one milky, blind eye.

Silence hung in the air afterwards.

“And what do you do for a living, might I ask?” she tried again.

This elicited a round of laughter from the three men, but no reply.

My father, always the optimist, tried a different approach.

“Tell me, fellows, do you worship?  Tomorrow is Solaris, the day of worship and reflection for our goddess Welkesh.  We would be quite honored if you would join us as guests at our church.”

For a moment, I didn’t think they heard my father at all, and then the one with the blind eye leaned in close to my father from across the table and growled, “Only thing I recognize or worship in this shite world is coin.”

“That’s a shame, friend, because Welkesh is the Goddess of Abundance.  She brings wealth of a kind much greater than coin!”

“That so?” said the man, perking up a bit.

“Oh yes!” my father gushed, pleased that he seemed to be getting somewhere, “Welkesh has gifted us tremendously!  Isn’t that so, dearest?”

“Eddith, I don’t think—” my mother started.

“Gifted you how?” demanded the man, his voice hungry.

“Well, look around you!  My homestead, my beautiful wife, my child, all this because of the grace of Welkesh.”

“All’s I see is dirt and skinny cows what wouldn’t give milk.” remarked a skinnier man, sitting to the left of the man with one eye.

“Right.” agreed the one-eyed man, “I ‘spect you want me to believe you came by all this from selling crops?  Me pappy was a farmer, we ‘ad nothing.  So tell me, old man, where’s the bloody coin?”
“C-coin?  We don’t have… well, I have some money I could give you—give you, mind, as a gift—but it’s not much.”

“No, I believe you’ll be giving me everything.”

My father stood, angry.  “Now wait just a godsdammned minute!”

The three men looked at one another with something like satisfaction, and rose slowly.

“I won’t be threatened in my own home,” my father continued, “By the will of Welkesh, I command you to leave this place and never return!”

Before I could react, the table was flipped forward and the half-blind thug had my father’s neck in his meaty hands, throttling the life out of him.  The skinnier man broke off and grabbed my mother, spinning her around so she was in front of him.  He pressed the tongs of his fork into the pulsing artery in her slender neck, and leered at me.  The third man grabbed me from behind as I was watching this and spun me around, looking me in the eyes.

“Run, you little twat, and you might grow up to let us rob you again someday.” he grumbled, and carried me to toward the door.

“No!  Daniel, no!” I heard my mother cry, but the man’s arms were like iron, and I could do nothing to fight him off.  The skinny man laughed and looked me in the eyes and drove the fork into the tender flesh of her neck.  She fell to the ground, a horrific wet noise issuing forth from the ragged hole in her throat.

I was unceremoniously launched out my own front door and into the snow.  A kick to my behind propelled me forward, and the ogre of a man cried out, “Run, little boy, before we changes our minds!”

I only turned back once on my run to the church, and by then I could see smoke billowing out of one of the windows of the farmhouse.

—

It was my grandfather, my mother’s father, who took me in.  Folks argued that he was a wild old madman living hidden away in his crooked tower, but to me he had always been Old Marnie.  I couldn’t say why, that’s just what I called him, Old Marnie, or just Marnie.

Old Marnie set me to work soon after my arrival, in the tiny bookstore on the first floor of the sprawling series of towers that comprised the Library.  Most of the Library was closed off, badly in need of renovation, but one tower was well maintained, and my Old Marnie and I lived there, on the third floor.

“One day, perhaps, you’ll reopen these grand old wings and restore this place to its proper glory.” Marnie told me, “But today you’ll be sweeping and mopping, dusting, and learning how to catalogue and shelve books.”

“But Marnie, I don’t want to be a librarian!  I don’t care about books, I just want my mother and father back.”

“Nothing will bring them back, child.  To dwell on it, or the fates of those men, is to court madness.  What you need is a healthful activity to occupy your mind and spirit.  Come now, the stacks need a’dusting!”

—

And so it went, I would sweep and mop, dust and polish every speck of wood in the entire bookshop, move displays around to better showcase what Old Marnie had for sale, and as the years went on, I was even given access to the first floor of the main tower, where the primary stacks were located.  It was closed to the public, and I was expressly forbidden to visit the other towers or venture beyond the first floor of the main tower.

I would spend hours after work perusing the old titles.  It seemed, after a fashion, that I did care for books.  At first, I would read in the main tower, picking whatever caught my eye and reading until my eyes hurt.  After discovering me doing this one night in Hailmist, Old Marnie allowed me to take the books back to my room to read, on the stipulation that I would write an essay on each and give it to him for review.  This became our weekly ritual.  I would typically finish a book within three to six days, leaving me enough time to write an essay.  Then Old Marnie and I would sit in his study on the second floor of our tower and I would watch him read it over the rims of his spectacles, murmuring to himself, and occasionally jotting something down on it with red ink.

Over time, the red marks became less about correcting errors, and more about asking me to think of things in different ways, and to help me ask my own questions.

One night, near midnight, I grew bored of reading, and decided to risk it and explore the basement of the main tower.  I knew it was accessible from the first floor, but I wasn’t permitted to go down there.  I would be betraying Old Marnie’s trust, but how would he know?

Creeping down the dusty old steps, I found myself at a landing with large double doors at one end.  I opened these a crack, and peered inside.  Within was a dizzying array of metal pipes leading in every direction, and in the center was a massive furnace, its belly aglow with internal fire, the gated opening to it a mouth to the Hells.

“Not yet, boy.” came the voice of Old Marnie, scaring me terribly.  I turned to face him.  “I knew you’d get curious one day, but you’re not ready just yet.”

“Ready for what, Marnie?  I don’t think I want to ever go in there, that place seems terrible.”

“It is.”

—

The subject didn’t come up again until the day of my fourteenth birthday.  I had forgotten it in the way you push all unpleasant things back into the recesses of your mind, knowing a day of reckoning will someday come, but holding it in a space of unreality.

“Today’s the day, my child.” said Marnie, as I rose for breakfast that morning.  I knew the day would include the ordinary duties and responsibilities, as every birthday did, and that the evening would be a time for cake and pudding and the fond retelling of memories.

“Yes!  I can’t wait!  I was thinking I would like to finish rearranging the alchemy books to be opposite the books on naturalism.  I feel they should share space.”

“That is wise, my child.  But tomorrow.  Today, your duties end at noon, and you will spend the remainder of the day in the western tower.”

“The wester—you mean the magical texts?  But those are forbidden!”

“No longer.  You are ready.  But first, you must make your bargain with the furnace.”

The flesh on my neck and back rippled and I shuddered.

“Make my bargain?”

“Magic always has a price, and the first payment is always initiation.  You, and you alone, must feed the furnace, and in so doing, it will tell you what you must do to pay your price.”

I was scared, but I knew better than to seek comfort from Old Marnie.  He was a hard man, not unkind, but stoic, and he had little time to comfort me.

At noon, I finished up the work I was doing and made my way to the main tower, beneath which lie the furnace, waiting for me hungrily.

I opened the double doors, and walked slowly to the mouth of the thing, its iron teeth grimacing in eternal agony.  I slid the grate open, and spoke the words Old Marnie told me to speak: “What would you have me do?”

For a moment, there was nothing, and then the fires surged and a blast of heat hit my face.

A voice rang in my ears, “THE KING MUST BE UNTHRONED.  THE STACKS MUST BE REOPENED.  THE PRICE FOR YOU WILL BE EVERYTHING, BUT THE PAYMENT SHALL BE GREATLY DELAYED.  ON THE DAY OF RECKONING, YOU WILL SURRENDER EVERYTHING TO ME.”

I can’t tell you how long I stood there, before finally saying the other words Old Marnie gave me: “I accept your terms.”

I reached my hand into the furnace’s open mouth, the coin Marnie gave me in hand.  The fire didn’t burn, it flowed through me, through my arm and shoulder and up into my chest and from there it spread everywhere until I became one with it.

I was awake.  I understood.  I was ready.  The Western tower was waiting.

And later, cake.