Caldason hoped Kutch wouldn’t notice the sign over a bordello further along the street.
The boy touched his arm. ‘It’s down here.’ He led them into a side turning, a less well-heeled thoroughfare than the one they left. There were shops here too, but slightly meaner, many needing a lick of paint and their stock dusting.
Halfway along, they came to a particularly dilapidated storefront. It didn’t have a spruce exterior like its main-street neighbours, just peeling grey boards where a window might have been. There was a glamoured sign above its frontage, showing an open book with its pages turning, but it flickered and spluttered fit to expire. The faded letters over its door read
The Wordsmiths’ Repository
.
Caldason raised an eyebrow. Kutch said, ‘All right, it sounds a bit pretentious, but it should have what I need,’ and reached for the door handle.
An old lady shuffled their way. She was warty and little and bent-backed, and her silver hair was trying to escape an ancient, battered bonnet. A tattered shawl of indeterminate colour draped her shoulders. Her ankle-length dress was shapeless, and she wore scuffed, buttoned boots. She, too, was heading for the bookshop.
Kutch opened the door, setting off a tinkling bell that almost masked its creaking, and held it for her. Arthritically edging past, she croaked, ‘Thank you, young man.’
He smiled, and made to follow. But didn’t.
‘You all right?’ Caldason asked.
Kutch came out of his reverie. ‘Eh? Oh. Yes, I’m fine.’
‘What was it?’
‘Don’t know. A little…You know when people say somebody’s just walked over their grave? Like that. It’s gone now.’
‘Sure you’re all right?’
‘Yes. Come on.’ He walked into the shop. Caldason pulled back his hood and went in after him.
They were confronted, not unnaturally, by a great many books. Shelves ran floor to ceiling on every wall, and there were enough large tables to restrict the floor space to narrow aisles. Every surface was laden with books. Fat books with rusty iron hinges, slim books, multi-volume sets, dog-eared pamphlets. Though other colours could be seen, the majority had brown bindings. Some were shiny new, others were practically falling apart. Tomes with gold-embossed spines stood next to fellows whose lettering had worn to anonymity. The smell was glorious, though it was hard to say why, given it consisted of rotting paper, mould and crumbling bindings. It was the odour of antiquity.
The sole break in the shelving was to allow for a door-sized opening into a further room, also stuffed with books. Next to it, a rickety staircase rose to another floor.
There was no sign of the old woman. The only person they
could see was the proprietor, hunched like a vulture on a stool behind his littered counter. He was a needle-faced individual of indeterminate age, bony thin. His wire-wool black hair ended in a widow’s peak, and he had tiny, dark, acquisitive eyes. Though he was unlikely to demonstrate it by smiling, his teeth were probably bad.
Kutch took a folded sheet of parchment from his pocket and approached him.
‘I wonder if you have any of these?’ he said, offering the list.
The bookseller didn’t look at it, let alone take it. ‘What are they?’
‘Books.’
‘What
kind
of books?’ His half sarcastic, half disgusted tone spoke of the long-suffering patience of a man forced to deal on a daily basis with people he regarded as morons.
‘Oh. Yes, sorry. Books on the Craft.’
‘Down there.’ He waved vaguely towards the far end of the shop.
Kutch caught a whiff of bad breath and took a backwards step. ‘Er, thanks.’
‘And be careful how you handle the merchandise, some of it’s expensive.’ Curt dismissal issued, he went back to reading a book he had open on the counter.
Caldason was standing by the staircase. Kutch joined him. ‘Seems what I want is down there.’ He jabbed a thumb.
‘I heard. While you’re doing that, I think I’ll take a look upstairs.’ He indicated a chalk board on the wall. An upward pointing arrow had been drawn on it. Underneath was written:
AGRICULTURE
Kutch could guess which subjects Caldason would be perusing. ‘All right. See you when you’ve finished.’
‘Don’t forget Serrah’s meeting us here.’
‘I’ll keep an eye out for her.’ He moved off.
As Caldason put his foot on the first stair, the bookseller quickly raised his head. He wore an expression reminiscent of a hawk spying prey. ‘Tread with care up there,’ he snapped, but offered no explanation as to why that might be necessary.
When Caldason got to the top of the shaky staircase he understood the warning, and the two-customer restriction. The sizeable room he came to had an uneven floor, and the boards groaned with every step. Unlike downstairs, here there were just a couple of tables, stacked high. But the walls were equally crowded with books. The only difference being that they were jammed into a series of massive wooden bookcases, the enormous weight bowing the shelves in places. As he crossed the room the floorboards felt springy underfoot. The whole place seemed to creak and wobble.
One part of the room consisted of a shelved alcove, and as he drew level with it he saw the old woman there. She was stooping to look at a herbal laid out on the seat of a chair. Caldason nodded. She gave him an apple-cheeked smile.
He found the combat section, ran his eye along the titles and tugged out a hefty volume. The book was glamoured, and as he flipped the pages its illustrations sparked into life. Painted characters fought with swords, axes and quarterstaffs. Lances raised, warriors rode chargers into battle. He
paused at a picture showing a siege, with a battering ram hammering at a castle’s doors while defenders rained down arrows from the ramparts.
There was a faint noise. Of movement, rustling and soft commotion. Then the hint of a fragrance mingling with the smell of decaying books. Something sickly-sweet with a sulphurous tinge to it.
He looked up.
Downstairs, Kutch had located several of the books he needed. Their cost was higher than he’d expected, and he doubted whether the money Phoenix had given him would be enough for everything. So he’d started sorting them into vital and not-so-necessary piles.
He froze, letting a book slip from his fingers, and slowly straightened. He was aware of a cognisance, not dissimilar to the feeling he got before a vision, and feared he was about to have one. Several seconds of stilled breath later, he knew that wasn’t it. Something else was happening.
He looked up.
Caldason realised the sounds were coming from the alcove. Stealthily, he moved towards it.
Before he got there, a figure stepped out to face him. It wasn’t the old woman. But it took no great leap of logic on his part to guess that it had been.
He was looking at someone who appeared to be neither one sex nor the other, though their features inclined a little more to the feminine. She was wiry, hard-muscled and near flat-chested. Her fair hair was severely cropped, and she had a shockingly white complexion. The eyes were arresting; astonishingly big, unblinking, black as coal. Overall, the sight of her was dismaying, and his first thought was that she must be a glamour. Some instinct made him reject the idea. He reckoned her to be magically enhanced in some way, but human.