The Long Reach of Night Page 2

  “No! Come away.” Owlworm made to fly upwards again, but there was a movement in another doorway.

  “Is that you, Owlworm?” said a deep voice, and the air trembled.

  Owlworm screwed up his features and tried to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible. “Master, I – ”

  The figure that emerged from the doorway was huge, a vast, rounded shape, wrapped in a thick white gown, the hem of which was embroidered exquisitely in golden letters. Under each arm, the figure carried a book that would have taken two lesser men to handle. Effelgung, for it was no lesser a being than the exalted Librarian himself, turned his immense head and observed Elfloq, whose claw still rested on the forbidden door of the Curse Chamber.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t tamper with that door,” he said solemnly, his voice like a bell, tolling the doom of a world.

  Elfloq withdrew his arm as if it had been scorched. “Profuse apologies, most omnipotent Warden – ”

  “You must be Elfloq,” said Effelgung. His eyes were twin suns, their gleam alive with what seemed amusement, possibly irritation at the intrusion. The rest of his face was an explosion of white beard, an avalanche that reached to his hugely curving waist.

  “You know me, sire – ”

  “Of course. I sent Owlworm to fetch you.”

  Elfloq gaped, but Owlworm had already taken to the air. “I take it you’ll have no further need of me for the time being, master?” he said with feigned nonchalance.

  Effelgung made a dismissive movement with his arm, as though the tome he carried was no more than a pamphlet.

  “Fetch me?” Elfloq was murmuring.

  “Yes, little familiar. Come this way.” The huge Librarian swung round and left the chamber, and Elfloq found himself trotting along in his wake, like a gull following a ship in full sail. So he had been pursued by the wily Owlworm. Duped and brought here for a reason. How naïve of him to think otherwise! Even so, to be here, in this treasure house of secrets! There must be a way to capitalise on this.

  Effelgung led them through a number of small rooms, each stuffed with books, to a round chamber that seemed to have nothing but tapestries on its walls. These were extraordinary, rich in colour and detail, the work of undoubted master artists. Elfloq could not help but marvel at them. One in particular took his eye, depicting as it did the disastrous fall of the sorcerers on Moonwater. He was trying to discover if he, himself, was somewhere among its elaborate workings, when Effelgung called for his attention.

  “Sit!” said the Librarian, indicating a tall chair that appeared to have been carved from a singularly large emerald.

  Elfloq perched on its edge, waiting.

  “You want to know why I sent for you,” Effelgung went on, setting down the two huge books on the table before him. He sat behind it in an even larger emerald chair, his robes billowing out around him like clouds.

  “I am honoured, highmost Keeper – ”

  “Good, good. Now then, whom do you serve?”

  “I would only be too glad to make myself available to your own worthy self – ”

  “Never mind the flattery, Elfloq. That’s not what I asked. Your master, correct me if I’m wrong, is the Voidal, is he not? The so-called ‘wanderer in the void’ who has so upset the Dark Gods.”

  “Well, since you put it that way, sire – ”

  “I do. A tenuous alliance, I’ll warrant. A man who has been cursed with immortality, doomed to wander for an eternity, missing his identity, his soul. Not the most auspicious of partners, I should have thought. Yet you cling to him.”

  “He has power, my lord.”

  “Hardly his own to utilise. He’s a pawn!”

  “It is his sad burden,” Elfloq nodded.

  “And you, I gather, serve him whenever you can. Hungry for a share of such awesome power, eh? I know, I know. My ears, Elfloq, are very long. As you can see, I acquire all manner of knowledge. My network is omniversal. Well, such devout servants as yourself are invaluable. I find myself in need of such loyalty myself.”

  “Owlworm has done well.”

  “Him? He’s helpful, but limited. No, I need someone with true guile, with the skills of a master thief, the inquisitive mind of a Divine Asker, the determination of a demon. In short, little familiar, I need you.”

  Elfloq almost toppled from the chair. “Me, almighty one? A simple familiar, little better than Owlworm – ”

  “Nonsense. You have the cunning of a god. And the scruples of an alley cat. And obviously you are extraordinarily courageous. You must be to consort with so cursed a being as the Voidal.”

  Elfloq would have quavered, but he realised that Effelgung was actually praising him. “Well, that’s kind of you, sire.”

  “I need you to perform a simple task for me, Elfloq.” The Librarian leaned forward over the table, and for a moment Elfloq thought he was about to be engulfed. “I will, of course, pay you handsomely. What do you say to that?”

  “I am sure, master, that the payment will fit the deed.”

  Effelgung smiled, his profuse beard quivering. “What do you desire most?”

  Elfloq suspected that the Librarian knew this already, but he did not say so. “To be reunited with my master, of course. No self-respecting familiar could want less.”

  “Quite so. But it’s not easy for you to find him, is it? Given that the Dark Gods persistently fling him out into the shadows beyond all knowing. I, on the other hand, am privy to all sorts of knowledge. Windows, gateways, spy-holes.”

  “You know where I can find him?”

  “I could send you to him, when he next emerges from the darkness.”

  Elfloq would have felt a surge of joy at this, but he was too well versed in the ways of the omniverse. There was always a price, always a favour to return.

  “I don’t ask much,” said Effelgung, leaning back.

  “What do you wish, sire?”

  “A book.”

  “A book,” Elfloq repeated.

  “Just a book. One that was stolen from me.”

  “It is valuable?”

  “All my books are valuable.”

  “You want me to steal it back.”

  “I do, Elfloq. A task suited to your skills.”

  “I hope, lord, it is not similar in size to those two volumes before you.”

  “No, indeed. It is a very small volume.”

  “And its name?”

  Effelgung drew in a vast breath. “I cannot reveal it! Too dangerous. If others knew that the book was abroad, no longer in its correct place on my shelves, what chaos might ensue!”

  “Uh, so how I am to know this book? By its cover?”

  “No! Too grave a secret.”

  “By its smell, then? Or does it emit a sound, a tune, perhaps?” Elfloq was beginning to wonder what he had got himself into.

  “None of these things. To find the book, you must find the thief.”

  “I assume, master, that you know who this thief is?”

  “I do. He is the Laughing Facemaker. The offspring of a human father and a demon mother, a wicked hybrid with diabolical powers. Transmogrification, shape-shifting and so on.”

  Elfloq would have asked more, but Effelgung rose dramatically, swept his robes around him and walked to another door. He rattled its bolts and stared down at the familiar. “Behind this door, Elfloq, lies the answer to many riddles.”

  Elfloq could only watch as the huge Librarian pulled back the bolts and then took from his robes a large key. He inserted it in the one fat padlock and clicked it open. The door seemed reluctant to move, even when Effelgung applied his not insubstantial weight to it. But inch by dusty inch, it did move, until at last a gaping dark hole, cavernous and intimidating, seemed to take the place of the entire wall.

  Effelgung motioned Elfloq within, but the familiar hovered on the threshold, as though about to step into an infernal abyss.

  “Oh,” said the Librarian, his bulk quivering with what might have been mirth. “Silly of me. We need light.” He made a snapping sound with his fingers, and in the air above him a dancing circle of light appeared. Like a firefly, it wove its way into the chamber beyond.

  Elfloq crept forward, aware of the massive shape of his host behind him. The room beyond was not large, circular with a conical ceiling, more beams draped in web. There was a single table, and as the fire-glow brightened things, Elfloq could see heaped ashes beside it, as though a particularly large volume had been burned. On the table was another fat volume, lying open.

  Effelgung closed the thick door with a bang that reverberated around the bare walls. Elfloq felt as though he had been shut in a tomb. The air was still, utterly lifeless.

  “It was here that the crime was committed,” said the Librarian.

  “Those ashes – ”

  “Are Owlworm’s predecessor.”

  Elfloq felt himself shrinking into an even smaller ball of terror. “His, his –?”

  “He was far too interfering for his own good. He came in here against my express wishes and took from the shelves up there a single, slim volume. The volume.”

  Elfloq saw a curved shelf on which a few small books rested, a perfect set, though it was true, there was a slender gap in their midst.

  “He went further,” said Effelgung, cheeks puffed out in annoyance. “He opened the said nameless work. And so – disaster. The Laughing Facemaker was out.”

  “Out?”

  “Out! Out from his prison, the book. And my faithless servant was fried alive for his troubles.”

  “And the culprit?”

  Effelgung hovered over the opened book on the table like a mountain about to fall upon it. “He opened this dreadful opus.”

  “And what opus would that be, master?” said Elfloq, trying to see what
was written on the vast pages, though it was impossible as his eyes were only just on a level with the tabletop itself.

  “It is a monstrous construction. A dire creation by an adept whom I will not name.”

  Elfloq sighed. Effelgung was proving singularly reluctant to name names. There seemed little advantage in cloaking so much in mystery.

  “It is The Skullworks,” said the Librarian, as though to contradict himself. “And our villain has entered it insouciantly.”

  “Ah,” said Elfloq, thinking aloud. “It is a gateway out of here.”

  “No, no. It is a world of its own, true. But like others of its kind, it is still contained by the Library. It is the repository, however, of many forbidden secrets.”

  “Would they be too terrible to name?”

  “Absolutely! Armed with them, the Laughing Facemaker could return here and yet break out of this miraculous building.”

  “And you want me to find him.”

  Effelgung nodded. “It will take someone discreet, Elfloq. Someone who would be least expected. If I went into The Skullworks after him, or if I sent a dozen ferocious warriors, the Laughing Facemaker would simply elude us all. You, on the other hand, could hop in there and hardly be noticed.” The Librarian slipped from a sleeve a thin volume. “This is the book from which he emerged.”

  Elfloq grimaced at it. In doing so he noticed that it did not match those on the shelf. “The others all have scarlet binding, sire, while that one – ”

  “Is bound in the skin of a shark-hound, a particularly vicious creature. Yes, I thought it best to disguise this work. He would recognise the original at once.”

  “But, but – forgive me, illustrious one, but didn’t you say the book was stolen – ”

  “It is incomplete, now that he has escaped from within it.” Effelgung handed the book to the baffled familiar. “Take it. Guard it with your life!”

  Elfloq shrank back. “But what must I do?”

  “You must persuade the Laughing Facemaker to open it and read what is written within.”

  Elfloq nodded slowly, taking the book. His own squamous flesh crawled at the feel of the shark-hound binding. He was about to flip it open, but the shadow of the Librarian fell over him like a thundercloud.

  “No! Do not read it yourself! Do you want to end up like Owlworm’s predecessor?”

  Elfloq dropped the book with a frantic squeak of denial.

  “The Laughing Facemaker will not be expecting a visitor like you. He may be on his guard, however, where books and the written word are concerned. But if he reads what is written in that book, we will have him. It will draw him back into it as surely as water sinks into a drain. Then you can bring it back to me. Well, pick it up, pick it up!”

  Elfloq obeyed, though he held the book as if it were infested with plague.

  “I’ll get Owlworm to find you a shirt. You’ll need to keep the book concealed about your person.”

  Elfloq groaned. A book of secrets that he dare not open, a world of the gods knew what horrors to visit, and a dangerous madman on the loose that he must trick. All this for a chance to meet again his own elusive master. Whether it was worth it or not, he was in this up to the hilt. Effelgung was evidently not a man to be denied.

  * * * *

  Effelgung, although generally reluctant to name names or to divulge secrets of any kind, nevertheless provided Elfloq with a general working knowledge of the world of The Skullworks. It was, said the Librarian, a world within a world, the enormous head of a former magician, who had learned far too much for his own good. He had offended the gods to the extent that they beheaded him, distributed his body throughout the Nine Hells of Snarlwake, a particularly obnoxious underworld, and locked his skull away in its own private hell. Within this hell, the Skullworks, numerous imps and vagabonds toiled at mining the lost memories and knowledge of the extinct magician, preserving and cataloguing them. Periodically Effelgung used magic of his own to retrieve them.

  The Librarian opened the huge tome to a page that illustrated in vivid detail a massive skull, the size of a city, perched atop a precipitous cliff face. Behind it a bloated moon gave it a pallid halo and shadows flitted across the great curved dome of bone that was its brow. Elfloq, kneeling on a tall chair, studied the picture, which seemed to be as large as he was, listening to the voice of Effelgung as it plied him with yet more details. The voice seemed to drift away and the picture magnified itself.

  Elfloq heard other sounds, but they came from within the picture. He clutched at the little book under the thin shirt he now wore and turned to ask Effelgung a question.

  The Librarian was not behind him. Neither was the Library. It was a bare plain, stretching to a wall of night, pocked with mires and slippery rocks. Elfloq swung this way and that, only to see the same dreary scene. He looked down: the chair was gone. He knelt upon a rock. Something flew by overhead, cloaked in shadow. Ahead of him, the cliffs under the Skullworks reared up menacingly. He had arrived.

  * * * *

  Elfloq had had no alternative but to obey Effelgung’s instructions. He had flown up into the queasy night outside the great skull, then under the shadows of one of the cavernous eye sockets. It seemed to be as large as the moon beyond the Skullworks. Shivering with unease, the familiar had flown within. It had been like entering the ultimate black pit, utterly dark and shapeless.

  He had emerged as if from a dream, opening bleary eyes on a bizarre scene. Here now, perched on a rock ledge, the familiar drank in the view. Below him was one of the innumerable bone caverns of the Skullworks. Cathedral-like in dimensions, it was filled with throngs of small beings, most of them no bigger than Elfloq himself. They crawled like ants over the floor and curved bone walls, studying them intently. “Gleaners,” Effelgung had said. “Picking up every morsel of knowledge they can find. There are ancient vibrations in the bone. Each tremor has meaning.”

  Elfloq could think of nothing more mind numbing than a life dedicated to such as this, but these creatures probably knew nothing else. Rising, he carefully worked his way along the ledge towards an opening, a natural crack in the bone. Seeing there was light beyond, he wriggled through, to find himself in another large chamber, a duplicate of the one he had left and with a similar host of gleaners.

  Several times he traversed chambers such as these, sometimes thinking he was merely travelling in circles, but eventually he found himself in a corridor, like a dried artery up into another realm of the Skullworks. Spurred on by light ahead, he hopped up the slope to a tiny open doorway. The room beyond looked more hopeful.

  Effelgung had spoken about this place. “Resting Hall,” he had called it. It was not unlike the heart of an inn, with two long bars at either side of it and dozens of booths and tables. Brands burned smokelessly along the walls, and individual tables were lit by candles, though mysteriously these never seemed to burn down, as if reconstituting themselves as they melted. There were a few gleaners here, scattered about the long hall, all sitting in silence, mulling their thoughts and sipping at tankards.

  “Don’t be afraid to go in,” Effelgung had advised. “If you are to find out anything about the whereabouts of the intruder, it will be in one of the Resting Halls. Don’t be afraid to quiz people. They all do it. In fact it’s all they do.”

  Elfloq took hold of his nerve and entered, moving slowly and as unobtrusively as possible to the long bar to his left. Behind it a tall figure pushed a tankard forward and Elfloq took it, nodding his thanks.

  “Found anything interesting?” said the man mechanically.

  Elfloq imagined the man was staring through the shirt at the little volume. “Uh, no. A modest selection. Very minor spells. Not worth cataloguing.”

  “It’s been a while since any of our regulars came up with anything worth gossiping about. It’s worrying. Makes the gleaners restless.”

  Elfloq exchanged a few more pleasantries before extricating himself and wandering over to a table that was not too conspicuous. Where to begin? Experience had taught him that in these situations it were best to keep eyes and ears open, mouth firmly shut. He listened to a conversation on his right, where three imp-like beings were talking animatedly about something they had found, but it could only have been of interest to them. Other groups came and went, but Elfloq heard nothing more about an intruder or anyone that might have been the Laughing Facemaker.