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- had a lot more pages.
Esk took her fingers out of her ears. Was there anything on the pages?
Simon nodded solemnly. Yes. On every sssingle one of ththem there www-
No, said Esk. I don t even want to imagine it. I thought reading was more
peaceful than that, I mean, Granny read her Almanack every day and nothing ever
happened to her.
I d-daresay ordinary tame www-
- words
- are all right, Simon conceded, magnanimously.
Are you absolutely certain? said Esk.
It s just that words can have power, said Simon, slotting the book firmly
back on its shelf, where it rattled its chains at him. And they do say the p-pen is
mightier than the sss-
- sword, said Esk. All right, but which would you rather be hit with?
Um, I d-don t think it s any use m-me t-telling you you shouldn t be in here,
is it? said the young wizard.
Esk gave this due consideration. No, she said, I don t think it is.
I could send for the p-porters and have you t-taken away.
Yes, but you won t.
I just d-don t www-
- want
- you to get hurt, you see. I r-really don t. This can b-be a ddddangerou-
Esk caught a faint swirling in the air above his head. For a moment she saw
them, the great grey shapes from the cold place. Watching. And in the calm of
the Library, when the weight of magic was wearing the Universe particularly thin,
they had decided to Act.
Around her the muted rustling of the books rose to a desperate riffling of pages.
Some of the more powerful books managed to jerk out of their shelves and swung,
flapping madly, from the end of their chains. A huge grimoire plunged from its
eyrie on the topmost shelf tearing itself free of its chain in the process and
flopped away like a frightened chicken, scattering its pages behind it.
118
A magical wind blew away Esk s headscarf and her hair streamed out behind
her. She saw Simon trying to steady himself against a bookshelf as books ex-
ploded around him. The air was thick and tasted of tin. It buzzed.
They re trying to get in! she screamed.
Simon s tortured face turned to her. A fear-crazed incunable hit him heavily
in the small of the back and knocked him to the heaving floor before it bounced
high over the shelves. Esk ducked as a flock of thesauri wheeled past, towing their
shelf behind them, and scuttled on hands and knees towards him.
That s what s making the books so frightened! she shrieked in his ear.
Can t you see them up there?
Simon mutely shook his head. A book burst its bindings over them, showering
them in pages.
Horror can steal into the mind via all the senses. There s the sound of the little
meaningful chuckle in the locked dark room, the sight of half a caterpillar in your
forkful of salad, the curious smell from the lodger s bedroom, the taste of slug in
the cauliflower cheese. Touch doesn t normally get a look-in.
But something happened to the floor under Esk s hands. She looked down, her
face a rictus of horror, because the dusty floorboards suddenly felt gritty. And dry.
And very, very cold.
There was fine silver sand between her fingers.
She grabbed the staff and, sheltering her eyes against the wind, waved it at the
towering figures above her. It would have been nice to report that a searing flash
of pure white fire cleansed the greasy air. It failed to materialise....
The staff twisted like a snake in her hand and caught Simon a crack on the side
of the head.
The grey Things wavered and vanished.
Reality returned, and tried to pretend that it had never left. Silence settled
like thick velvet, wave after wave of it. A heavy, echoing silence. A few books
dropped heavily out of the air, feeling silly.
The floor under Esk s feet was undoubtedly wooden. She kicked it hard to
make sure.
There was blood on the floor, and Simon lay very quietly in the centre of it.
Esk stared down at him, and then up at the still air, and then at the staff. It looked
smug.
She was aware of distant voices and hurrying feet.
A hand like a fine leather glove slipped gently into hers and a voice behind said
Ook, very softly. She turned, and found herself staring down into the gentle,
inner-tube face of the librarian. He put his finger to his lips in an unmistakable
gesture and tugged gently at her hand.
I ve killed him! she whispered.
The librarian shook his head, and tugged insistently.
119
Ook, he explained, Ook.
He dragged her reluctantly down a side alley-way in the maze of ancient shelv-
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