Chapter 69. In Search of Fast Time
I peered into the dorm.
“Hey,” Grit called from her bed. She was half under her duvet, but awake, reading a book. Clickens was gone from the bed, probably off somewhere chasing a skeleton rat or something.
I slid in through the gap between the door and the wall, trying to make as little noise as I could.
Minnelil lay on her bed, on top of the covers. She opened her eyes and bounced up. “Welcome back,” she said.
“Oh, you’re awake too,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“I was reading,” Grit said, snapping the book shut. “Nothing to do since I finished all that skeleton business already.”
“I was resting,” Minnelil said, “Are you done with the book?”
“Yeah, it was okay,” Grit said. “It was nice to be able to read something for fun. I try to give myself a week after an exam to read whatever I like, but with the whole schedule being upended, I went for it. This has been sitting in my trunk for a month.”
I walked over to Grit and held my hand out for the book. “In Search of Fast Time? What is this?”
“It’s a classic,” Minnelil answered. “A man tries to smell a chunk of ambronite and his nose travels faster in time than the rest of him, overloading his—“
“No, stop. This sounds way too stupid,” I said, handing the book back to Grit. “Why were you reading it?”
“Minnelil said it’s a classic,” Grit said, shrugging. “I should take it back to the library. I always fell asleep when I trying to read it, so it took a while.”
“Do you have anything planned?” Minnelil asked me. “We could all go? Have you even been there yet?”
“I haven’t,” I said. I could tell them about the thing waking up in the mountain, but what would be the point? They would only try to get involved. It was only a smell. Maybe it would fade by itself. “Sure, whatever.”
Grit jumped up from the bed, grabbing the book. “Hah, whatever, she says. But I actually saw a skeleton carrying a bundle of books earlier, so it’s a good time. We can get there before anyone else. Let’s go!”
The library was tucked into the highest corner of the building, as far from our dorm as possible. No wonder I hadn’t bothered climbing up here before. Minnelil pushed the door open and ushered Grit and me in. The room looked like the library in the orphanage had, but larger. The walls were lined with bookshelves disappearing into the darkness, with rows of bookshelves on the floor as well.
The ceiling was so high I couldn’t see it except the circular window far above. Dim light filtered down from it through dust so thick the light barely reached the floor. Orbs of light hovered low above the shelves. They were larger but dimmer than the ones in the smaller rooms or the dining halls.
A desk sat ten paces from the door. A massive figure stood behind the desk, dark cowl pulled low over its face. For a moment I was worried it was Jextor. No one else could be that big.
“Who passes into my domain?” the figure said. The voice was so deep, it made Falar sound like a young boy. Not Jextor then.
“Hey Firgl!” Grit said. “It’s just us. We brought a new friend. Got new books?”
The figure threw back its cowl, revealing a wide green face. Tusks jutted out from his mouth, filed flat. “I do! I’m just cataloguing them. You’re free to help if you want.”
“Whoa,” I said.
“Lina, this is Firgl,” Minnelil said. “He’s the school librarian. Firgl, meet Lina. She’s new.”
“Delighted,” Firgl said, nodding. He lisped a little because of the tusks, but smiled with his whole face. “We loaned On Embodying Death to you earlier? It happens rarely, so I remember the name.”
“Hi,” I said. Guess I could have said something more, but I had never seen an orc up close. The robe did very little to hide how big he was, with a neck that was probably twice as thick as my thigh. I craned my head up to look at him. “I’m Lina.”
He chuckled, a rumble of a sound. “So I hear. In addition, I realize I have heard of you. Keep those council challenges out of my library, you hear? I’ll let Minnelil tell you the rules. She’s a regular.”
“Um, okay,” I said. That had been weeks ago and I hadn’t known I wasn’t supposed to practice drawing runes outside of the Bursar’s office. She had blasted out of the room, some old anti-mage fail-safe activated, arms scything the air. Had really given me a scare, but all I had to do was clean the snow off her afterward. Were people still talking about that? Ugh.
Firgl turned his gaze back to the pile of books on his desk. “Forgive me, but I need to check the arrivals for anything new. It’s a privilege I’m honor-bound to take full advantage of.”
“I’ll look through them with you,” Grit said, sitting opposite the orc. The desk had a pile of maybe six books, the top one laid open.
Minnelil nudged at my sleeve. “Come on, we’ll let them work. I’ll explain how things work.”
I let her drag me between the shelves. They reached much taller than me, stacked with books on both sides. Every row of shelves had a small plaque with what books were on them. The one on the left held books about Antimagic to Changelings while the one on the right had Channeling to Devils.
“They are mostly alphabetical,” Minnelil said. “There’s a whole row for books about skeletons.”
“How about the fun books?” I asked.
“The ones about flesh golems are usually pretty amusing, weirdly enough,” Minnelil said, dragging me further between the shelves. “The people specializing in them seem to have a lot of inside jokes, stretching over centuries.”
The shelves continued ever deeper. There were occasional desks between them. I heard the rumble of the librarian’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words.
“Are we far enough already?” I asked.
Minnelil glanced back and smiled, continuing to walk ahead. Her green eyes glowed in the dark softly, being brighter than should have been possible. The golden motes in them danced. “I’ll show you the fun books you mean. Grit and Firgl will be busy for a while.”
I scoffed, but let her continue dragging me. “What was that about new information? Why is he so big?”
“He’s an orc,” Minnelil said, like that explained everything. She stopped to brush her fingers on the spines of the books on the shelf. “The responsibility of every orc is to gather information and bring it back to their home city as soon as they get any. That’s why you never see them stay anywhere. They wander around and rush home the moment they learn of something new or important enough.”
“Except him?”
“Except Firgl. He has an agreement with the school. He manages the library, gets to go through every book first and has the use of messengers, so he can stay himself.”
Her voice was soft and quiet, and the tip of her nose moved up and down as she talked. The light from her eyes touched her cheeks, tinting them with gold.
“I really want to touch you,” I said, holding on to her hand.
“Soon,” she said, and the gold on her cheeks turned warmer. “We’ll go a bit farther.”
She turned to walk again and I growled. She chuckled, a small bright sound that made me want to tackle her then and there, but I could still hear Grit and the librarian talking. “If almost every student here is human, how is everyone important an orc or a skull or a machine? Or whatever it is that Jextor is supposed to be? Is there an actual reason?”
Minnelil smiled, but then stopped to frown. “Good questions, all of them,” she said. “We could ask Firgl about that. Let’s go back.”
“No! I mean…”
A smile crept on her face and I growled. She laughed and pulled away from my hand, starting to run down the aisle. The soft lights sieving through the books hit her robe and dust swirled in the beams of light as she ran through them. It made her cowl fall from her head. Her brown hair streaked behind her, like it didn’t weigh anything at all.
I snatched at it but missed as she bounced away, leaping on the balls of her feet deeper in. “You goblin!” I shouted as I started after her. I would wrap the hair around my fist, pull her head back to arch her back. The thought made me stumble and almost fall. I yelped.
Minnelil glanced back, brow furrowed in worry.
“Don’t stop to look back when chased,” I said, lunging forward and grabbing hold of her wrist.
Minnelil chuckled and tumbled toward me as I pulled on her hand. She continued the movement, rotating and spinning past so close our noses brushed each other. I held on to her wrist which pulled my arm over my chest. She pushed back up to me, squeezing my arm between us.
Her eyes were as large as the moon. She blinked, pupils wide and the glowing motes gathering around the pupils. I hooked my other arm around her neck, pulling her face to mine. Her nose touched my cheek and mine hers. I pushed my tongue inside her mouth before she could say anything dumb, or wise. She whimpered and breathed against my face.
She kissed me back. I pushed my hips forward, aiming it at her thigh.
Minnelil gasped and craned her head back to breathe. “We’re still pretty close,” she whispered. “There could be other people here.”
“There’s no one in here,” I said. My voice was thick and my chin was wet.
“You can’t know that,” she said, arching her torso away to let me pull my arm out. “And Grit is going to be insufferable if she decides to follow us.”
“I’ll organize a date for her with Falar. He’ll kill her and we’ll have no one to bother us.”
“That’s awful! Besides, you’re forgetting Fek.”
“I’ll just stop babysitting him and he’ll accidentally reanimate the odd furious skeleton and it’ll bite him. That’s probably already happened.”
Minnelil groaned, following it with a laugh that sounded like a clear bell being rung. She rolled her eyes and the light falling on her face followed their movement.
“Grit tells you to behave yourselves!” Firgl shouted from somewhere on the other side of the library. The words were hard to make out with the slight lisp and how they turned into rumble heard from afar.
“Told you,” Minnelil said.
“Fine, fine.”
“Come on. We’re nearly at what I wanted to show you.”