More Tales from the Guilds Ch. 08

Oliver Beindersnip sat at his accounts desk when the bell over the bookstore door jingled. He looked up and smiled. It was one of his favorite customers, Missy McGoldrick. She normally came in right after school on Mondays and browsed around for an hour or so before heading home for dinner. Every once in a while she even bought a book. More importantly, though, she was young and cute and friendly with a sparkling personality and a very good heart.

"Hi, Mr. Beindersnip," she trilled, "May I come in and wander around?'

Every time she visited she asked the same question and naturally got the same answer.

"Of course, Missy. And this week I've just unpacked a bunch of really old and really odd books. If you want to look at them they're on the third floor."

"Ooo, that does sound exciting! I'll go right up, shall I?"

"Enjoy, Missy. Just don't get lost."

It was his standard joke. They had both laughed over the urban legend of old bookstores that led (like wardrobes in English manor houses) into strange worlds full of talking animals and witches. And, in fact, Beindersnip's Olde Bokes would have been the perfect location for such a 'wormhole' as it was attached to the personal library of the Earl of Constable's country home—now owned by the National Trust and only home to the Earl's family on holidays like Christmas or the opening of grouse season. Tourists would tour the Earl's family library (dating to the XVII Century) and exit through Beindersnip's. The sight of all those rare old volumes frequently led to them buying similarly old, if not quite so rare, books from Oliver and providing him a modest, but adequate, living.

Climbing to the third floor required care to not trip over the books piled on the treads and to squeeze carefully by the piles that took up most of the landings. If a fire inspector had ever bothered to come in, it would have raised his hair but Missy was used to the clutter and soon found herself leaving the top landing and sidling into the work room where Oliver unpacked, repaired, packed for shipment and labeled the books as they came and left the shop. Donning a pair of white cotton gloves, the girl opened this or that enchanting, intriguing or mysterious volume, being careful to blow the dust off first.

Seeing nothing in the newest shipment that caught her fancy, she turned her eyes to the shelves surrounding the room. There, on a shelf barely within her reach, she saw for the first time a book with odd but simple title Døørs.

"I wonder what a døør might be," she asked herself and stretched up to take it down. But when she pulled on it, instead of sliding out—it tipped. There was a muffled 'click' and the entire section of shelving rotated out making an opening into another room, a dimly lit room, a room that stretched into the far distance.

"This is nonsense," she muttered under her breath, "and I am not silly enough to galivant in there and get lost. No, I shall take this big ball of string, tie it to a nail on this end and roll it out behind me so I can find my way back, no matter what."

*****

"Ook!"

"What do you mean you feel a disturbance in the force? What force? Whatever are you talking about?" The Lecturer in Recent Runes had been enjoying a convivial pint with the Librarian in the Patrician's Purse when the orang had suddenly sat up straight and exclaimed.

"Ik-ik-ik," the Librarian was obviously chuckling.

"Oh, another classical reference. Well, I suppose that's no surprise given you live in a world of books. So, you can tell when something is happening in L-Space?"

The Librarian tilted his head to one side and shrugged slightly.

"Eek."

"Under certain circumstances? Sometimes? Well, alright then, just what is it that you sense?"

The Librarian raised his mug to his lips and poured about half the contents down his throat. He drummed his fingers on the bar before once again shrugging and continuing to drum. "Ook."

"Something is wrong but you're not sure what. Is it coming our way? Is it a threat?"

The orang knitted his brows and pursed his lips. Turning his left hand palm up, he spread his fingers in bafflement.

"Eek-ik."

"Just wrong, hmm. Well, I certainly hope it goes just wrong is some other direction. Things have remarkably peaceful of late and I, for one, would like to see them stay that way. Mr. Caskwell, two more of the same, if you please."

*****

The ball of string Mr. Beindersnip used to repair old book bindings was a large one and by the time Missy reached the spindle she was far, far into the seemingly endless stacks. Worrisomely, she looked up toward the ceiling and saw the line of twine lying up there perpendicular to her current route. The mystifying sight made her pause and begin to seriously consider going back. Just then someone came around the end of one of the rows of shelving.

A boy of about her age, dressed in an old-fashioned frock coat, white shirt and bow tie, took one look at Missy and froze. "What are you doing here? Non-wizards aren't allowed in these shelves. Don't you realize how dangerous it is? You could get eaten! How did you even get here?"

Overwhelmed and nonplussed by the vehemence Missy pointed back the way she had come and at the string in her hands.

"I—I just came from back there and now I'm going to follow the string the way I came. I want to go home."

Just then a terrifying whistling roar came from the direction she pointed to.

"Oh gods," the boy wailed, "it's a Thesaurus rex. You can't go there, you won't last five minutes. Come on! We've got to get away."

Grabbing her arm, he pulled her down the shelves in the opposite direction, jerking the string out of her hands.

"My string! My stri-i-i-ing! How am I supposed to find my way home?"

Anger, fear and grief fought for dominance and sent her into tears. Fighting to stay upright as he pulled her first one way and then another, around corners and sometimes right into what looked like solid shelves, Missy stumbled along. Finally, they came out into an open space. It was a large rotunda with a dome overhead and classical statues of nymphs around the base of the dome.

Missy was pulled up to a tall, amiable-looking man in a false beard and long robes.

"Professor Pelc!" her captor exclaimed, "I found this girl wandering around in the restricted shelves. She says she came from the other side."

"And I was going to go back," Missy bawled, "and he made me drop my string and now I don't know where it is. How am I supposed to get home through all those books? I just want to go home!"

"Hastor," the man addressed as Professor Pelc barked, "have Melia bring us a pot of calming tea."

The youth looked properly cowed. "Yes, Professor."

"And Hastor—fetch the Librarian!"

"Immediately, sir," Hastor replied and bustled off.

The Professor's demeanor changed at once for something kindlier and more sympathetic. Producing a handkerchief from somewhere and handing it to the sobbing girl, he said, "Now, young lady, let me introduce myself. I am Lladislav Pelc, Prehumous Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy and Deputy Librarian. Who might you be?"

Missy took the hanky, wiped her eyes and blew her nose and replied between sniffles, "My name is Melissa McGoldrick. I'm twelve years old and I live in Constables-on-Trym."

Pelc blinked slowly. "Miss McGoldrick, where might Constables-on-Trym be?"

"In Brambleshire, in England, of course."

Pelc took a long, slow breath. Gently taking her hand, he led Missy over to a settee behind the central desk under the dome and gently set her down on it. Taking another deep breath, he asked the question that he dreaded the answer to.

"Miss McGoldrick, the world you live on—what shape is it?"

"What a strange question! It's round, of course. What other shape could it be?"

Pelc took a third deep breath and let it out slowly. Round. The only round planet he knew about was the one created by accident when the High Energy Magic students (and Ponder Stibbons) had split the thaum and unleashed so much magical energy that the faculty had to put it someplace. Roundworld was now under the watchful care of Hex, the University's thinking engine, and Professor Rincewind. Going there was hard and required great magical skill and here this slip of a girl was telling him that she had somehow crossed the void between them. And there was only one possible route. L-Space!

Just then 300 lbs. of baggy-looking muscle wrapped in orange fur arrived.

"Ah," Pelc exclaimed with relief, "Librarian. We have a bit of a conundrum."

Missy's eyes nearly popped. "Librarian? That—that's an orangutan!"

The Librarian's face brightened up. He patted her on the face and gave her a banana.

"Ook."

"You can talk?" Missy almost went into shock.

"Eek," the ape replied with a nod.

Just then Melia arrived with a steaming pot on a tray and a teacup. The scent wafting from it was odd, somewhat savory in a slightly piscine way. The maid poured a cup and handed to Missy with a smile.

"Here," she said, "this will help."

The girl looked dubious but took a sip anyway. Then she took a deep breath and sighed.

"Oh, this is good. And it feels good. What is it?"

"Calming tea," Professor Pelc answered, "It's a variant of what we do to control the Bursar's insanity. It doesn't really make him sane but gives him the delusion that he is. Quite an ingenious solution."

"So—I'm not really calm and feeling better, I just think I am? That's silly!"

"Ook."

"Well, yes, it does make me—uh—think I feel better so I guess that's alright. But if we can go back to the original subject, what do you mean, 'What shape is my world'? All worlds are round."

The Librarian slowly shook his head. "Eek."

"Ridiculous. How can a world be flat? And riding on the back of a turtle? On top of four elephants? Absurd, if I may say so."

A bell chimed. Professor Pelc and the Librarian looked up happily.

"Ah, time for elevenses," Pelc announced, "why don't you come with us. The kitchen staff here is very skilled and our meals are greatly to be looked for."

*****

Missy was 'bookish' only on Mondays. Slim and tall, she was an enthusiastic field hockey player and the pride of River Tym Girls' Academy. This gave her an appetite on par with any of the boys her age and when she saw the spread laid out in the Dining Room her face flushed with delight. Being fiercely athletic kept her from being the kind of 'boy crazy' that afflicts so many girls her age but finding herself the only girl in a table full of boys was pleasant, to say the least. Admittedly the boys at Unseen University, completely unaccustomed to feminine company, were callow and unsure of themselves but they could appreciate 'pretty' when it came to sit with them. Between mouthfuls of pie, fowl and Quirmian salad the conversation managed to get started.

At the head table, Pelc and the Librarian quietly explained the situation to the Archchancellor and his Vice.

Mustrum Ridcully, DThau, DM, BS, DMn, DG, DD, DMPhil, DMS, DCM, DW & BElL, Archchancellor of Unseen University was a man of powerful intellect. However, it was powerful in the way of a locomotive and just about as difficult to steer. When confronted by a problem his first response was to ignore it unless people were still shouting at him after five minutes. Only then would he make the attempt to line his thoughts up in such a way as to address the problem directly. But when that happened, the problem was in trouble.

Pelc didn't shout but the Librarian, being about eight times as strong as a normal human could speak (in orangutan) very persuasively. And so, after a few minutes of his muttered 'ooks' and thumps on the table, Ridcully finally lined his synapses up.

"So whatcher sayin' is that this Roundworld gel has somehow managed to get inter L-Space and find her way here. Librarian, that shouldn't be possible. I've always thought that only Master Librarians could navigate th'place—or time—or whatever it is. She's but a slip of a lass."

"Worse yet," Ponder Stibbons interjected, "Roundworld has no magic. No narrativium, not even any gods. There shouldn't be any connection—oh."

"Exactly," Pelc responded, "no narrativium, no gods, no magic, BUT—there are lots and lots of books—and libraries—and bookstores. So, L-Space positively permeates the place. And because in the Multiverse any contingency, no matter how improbable, has to happen someplace, there must be openings from Roundworld into L-Space that end up here, in our Library."

"Ik-eek!"

"What? How can th' chitty be magical when she's from a world without magic?" Mustrum was starting to rumble, like a dormant volcano.

"Ook."

"You can smell it?" Stibbons was aghast.

The Librarian nodded slowly but most emphatically.

"Oh, gods, what have we done? And we haven't even done anything." Pelc was visibly upset.

"I'm going to go talk to Hex—after elevenses." Stibbons returned to the duck confit on his plate.

*****

"I'm sorry, Vice-Chancellor, but there is insufficient information for a meaningful answer. Yes, I can access Roundworld for a given value of access. Additionally, I can assist the Faculty, should any of them wish to visit the place. However, it is a distinctly alien, unmagical world and I have only the vaguest of ideas about its operation. Could a young lady, born and raised there, somehow have a talent for the magic which is non-existent there? Perhaps. How it would have occurred and why is a mystery. However, since you say she wants to go home, I'm sure we can accommodate her. It will be a bit tricky since she will wish to return to both a distinct place and a distinct time, but with a bit of help from the senior wizards, it can be done. I should point out, however, that she is currently laughing happily and flirting outrageously with the Key Stage 3 and 4 students."

"Hex," Ponder glowered, "that is not the answer I was looking for! Our students are on their way to becoming wizards. We are encouraging them down the path of masculine company and big dinners. Yes, I know the Archchancellor has backed off slightly from the celibacy rule, but we don't want to encourage them to develop roving eyes. So, if you say that we can return her to her original place and time, we should bend every effort to doing so. Otherwise, we could end up with another Eskarina Smith on our hands. Fond as I am of Professor Emergent-Weatherwax I am not going to be the one who encourages coeducation at UU. She needs to go home. Not just for her benefit, but for ours!"

"May I recommend that you engage the professor in this?" Hex replied in its usual monotone, "She might persuade the lass with less effort than, say, the Archchancellor. From what I have observed, she doesn't succumb to bluster."

*****

Once she'd been assured that she would go home to the same place and time (because "Time is—shall we say—different here") Melissa agreed to borrow one of the unused student rooms and spend the night. Had she known that the previous inhabitant had self-immolated in a classroom she might have been less sanguine.

The next morning, she found herself sitting next to Professor Phoebe Emergent-Weatherwax at breakfast. The older woman invited Missy for a tour of the campus and as they strolled through the cloisters, the girl asked, "Why are all the students here boys? Is there a separate school for girl wizards?"

Phoebe had to think about that. How much did the girl need to know, considering that she was going home to a world where nobody was a wizard. And would there be a way she could kept there? If she got into L-Space once, what was there to prevent her from getting back? Suppose she showed up in the Library again. And if she did, when would it be. Time is different here from there.

"Well, because this university is over a thousand years old, tradition sticks to it like treacle. Now we have had two girls who enrolled and became wizards. I'm the second. But the vast majority of girls with magical talent become witches. One of my second cousins was renowned as the most powerful witch on the Disc. But we keep the boys separate because in the old days, if a boy was the eighth son of an eighth son, he was automatically a wizard. The bad part is that if a wizard had eight sons, the first seven would be immensely powerful and the eighth would be what we call a 'Sourcerer'. A Sourcerer is a being of such great power that he surpasses many of the gods and they inevitably cause no end of trouble. So, when Alberto Malich the Wise founded the university, he established the rule that wizards will not marry nor have children.

Today we treat that more as a guideline than a strict rule, because we women can now very effectively keep our families to a reasonable size. Additionally, women seem to have a different sort of magical talent, most of them."

"How did you get in?"

Phoebe smiled wryly. "I was born in a little kingdom a long way from here and, as most girls from poor families do, got a job as a maid. After a while it got pretty humdrum so I came to the city to find something a little more interesting. I got a job as a maid here and given the nature of the place, cleaning the faculty and senior students' rooms exposed me to a lot of new things. Then one day I went into a student's room and found his shoes sitting on the floor with smoke coming out of them. Nothing else, just the shoes. As I stood there in surprise this book came flying at me with its covers open and what looked like teeth! I screamed and held up my hands and—and sparks flew out. They blasted the book to the wall and it fell to the floor. It turned out I had wizardly magical talent."

"A book attacked you?"

"Yes, and that's why Hastor dragged you out of the stacks and back to the lobby. We lose about one or two students in ten here every year to magical accidents and attacks. Unseen University is a very dangerous place and the Library is the most dangerous place of all. You have no idea the horrors the Librarian keeps locked in the basement!"

"Coo, then the best idea for me is to get home as soon as I can, I guess."

"Yes, Miss McGoldrick, it is."

*****

"Danfield, what by all the gods is this nonsense?" Cashister Lavish was livid and pointing at an unfolded notice lying open on his desk.

"As I understand it, Mr. Lavish," his butler hesitantly replied, "your tailoring bill was bought by this—this Beggars and Bodyguards Surreptitious Bank and they are now demanding payment in full; with interest. I fear it comes to a considerable sum."

"For tailoring? He has his nerve! I shan't pay it. What are they going to do about it?"

"Er, Sir? The 'Bodyguards' part of the name refers to the Guild of Bodyguards, Bouncers and Last Resort Lenders. They used to be called the Breccia. Trolls, sir."

"Trolls?"

"Yessir."

Cashister's face went from livid to pale. He swallowed nervously. "I owe this much to a bank half owned by Chrysoprase?"

"Yessir."

"And if I don't pay it he'll send his—people to collect, won't he?" Cashister began to perspire.

"Highly likely, Sir."

"And it is all perfectly legal, isn't it?"

"You would have to ask Morecombe, Slant and Honeyplace to be sure, Sir, but I rather suspect that it is." Danfield spoke softly to his employer as one does to someone standing on the railing of a very high bridge

Cashister picked up the bill and read it again slowly. AM$2,755.00 was indeed a considerable sum. He wondered how much of that was interest. He also wondered what it would cost him at Lady Sybil Free Hospital (which wouldn't be free to him) to get repaired by the Igors after a troll bill collector got done with him. Paying the bill would certainly hurt but not as much as getting several sets of bones broken and a few joints turned backwards. He put the bill down and, with his hands trembling slightly, picked up his pen and checkbook.