A Study in Spirits Read online

Brigit was the last to enter. She looked curiously about while Burkhalter fiddled with the inside keypad. Burkhalter was concerned about being trapped by the faulty door so she propped it open with a chair.

  Worktables were in the center of the room with metal stools. Against the wall were metal storage cabinets. A few tools were on the counter: glue, scissors, a cutting knife, and some string.

  There was a smell of old paper and a sharper astringent smell. The dryad breathed it all in deeply.

  A whisper, growing louder, caught her attention.

  Save us, save us, save us, save us —

  From who or what? Brigit silently queried back.

  The destroyer —

  “Is that creature here? Where?”

  Brigit hadn’t realized she spoke aloud until Burkhalter, looking over her shoulder, asked her, “What creature?”

  As if it now felt secure, the monster shed its disguise. Brigit retreated, pointing, “That thing standing beside you!”

  To give Anna Burkhalter her due, she did not shriek. She punched Titivillus in the jugular even as the creature’s long tail whipped around to take her off her feet. With one hand, she grabbed the tail and used it for balance to launch herself into a roundhouse kick. The steel shank of her stiletto pierced its belly, making it howl in outrage.

  Angered, Titiviullus jerked its tail back, flipping the librarian off her feet. Going down, Burkhalter’s free hand flailed, seeking a way to stay upright. Instead, her hand slide across the tabletop, and in passing, she grabbed the knife off the table.

  Protect us! Protect us!

  Brigit felt the desperation of all the words on the paper stored in the room. She could have escaped by opening an exit to the Perilous Realm, but she would not let these innocents suffer.

  I will, and I shall, Brigit told all the books. The dryad used her magic to touch them. Come to me! Come to me now!

  She pulled their knowledge from vellum, papyrus, and paper to her. It flowed into her, writing their messages across her skin.

  Jib gave a yowl and started to run, Logan right behind it. The púca’s black fur started to spark, and became licking flames as the True Beast grew to panther size.

  Using its bond to Brigit to locate her, Jib took them down a labyrinth of hallways, twisting in and out until it stopped abruptly. Through an open doorway, Logan could see a tall, blond woman struggling with the creature he had seen before: dark burnt skin, ears like horns, with its long, cord-like tail wrapped around a woman’s neck.

  Farther back in the room stood Brigit. Her eyes were black with a dazed expression. She held her arms stiffly out from her body, a green glow swirling around her.

  “Guard Brigit, Jib,” Logan commanded needlessly for the púca was already racing to her. It pressed itself against Brigit’s leg and with contact, its magical fire flowed up her body, enveloping the dryad in a protective glow of orange over her green. The panther’s fierce eyes, with red irises, narrowed. Its mouth pulled back in a snarl.

  Logan moved the chair and entered the room more cautiously.

  “Why are you hurting this lady?” Logan asked, putting as much earnest meaning to his words as his bard power would give them.

  “She’s incompetent!” screamed the creature. “As the head librarian, she welcomed falsehoods within these sacred walls!”

  “Are you that keen on truth, Titivillus? Because it doesn’t seem that way to me,” Logan asked mildly. He knew from dealing with such dangerous situations before that only calmness would relieve the tension.

  Like their previous encounter, Logan felt the thing probe his mind, trying to find a way into his thoughts. He threw up his mental shields, blanking his mind as best as he could.

  Logan had only his words for a defense. He would need to use them with surgical precision.

  “It’s retreating. I’ve scrubbed it from all the computers in the library,” Emma told Paul and Celia.

  “That’s great news,” said the naiad, looking from the girl, still seated at the computer, to the wyvern. “We’ve won!”

  Even while she spoke, the cavern around them started shaking. The computers and lights shut off, leaving them in the dark.

  “Paul?” Celia asked.

  “I think what Emma said earlier has happened. The creature knows what we’ve done and is retaliating.”

  “Mistakes cannot be allowed.” The creature’s voice was brittle metal.

  “Is that Titivillus speaking or Aristarchus?” asked Logan.

  From the corner of his eye, Logan saw Jib crouching in a stalking pose, the púcas hind legs shifting as if powering up to spring.

  “Stand down, cat!” warned the thing that looked like Titivillus. “Or the librarian dies.”

  “You haven’t answered me,” said Logan, trying to bring the monster’s attention back to him. “But, I don’t think you can, and that’s why you avoid it. I’ve seen you as a monk, as the medieval demon Titivillus, and the Greek scholar, Aristarchus. But I don’t think you are any of these beings.”

  Logan could see that Burkhalter was weakening, her face ashen. He tried not to let his words rush out despite the need for a quick resolution.

  “You traveled here with the collection, didn’t you? You slipped in, attached to it, hidden. But you use what is inside the collection as masks. Like an actor playing roles. But only by taking the lead role on the stage can you make yourself important. However, that isn’t the real you.”

  “Humans require a form,” spat out the monster. “I must take a shape that you respect to teach you the nature of truth!”

  “How can a lie like you recognize the truth?” Logan’s words powered by bard-magic were a clarion blast. As a blow, they sent the creature staggering back. Its tail loosened enough so Burkhalter could catch a breath.

  “You bend truth yourself, bard,” it protested. “Do not quibble with me!”

  “I’m human and allowed. I also know the value of the gray area between truth and lies. The misty areas where many truths exist. You seem less flexible.”

  Logan could feel his bard power building, the rightness of what he was saying melting like sugar on his tongue.

  “Different opinions spawn new ideas, new ways of thinking. But you don’t like that, do you? You don’t like your authority questioned. Contradicted. Or debated. You want to be always right.”

  The thing became agitated and lost its grip on Burkhalter. She threw herself out of its reach.

  Her throat free from restraint, she yelled hoarsely, “You entered Bewachterberg under false pretenses! As an appointed representative of the king, I call upon the griffins to judge you!”

  A Griffin's Justice

  “Someone has summoned the griffins.”

  Emma replied to Paul’s statement. “Isn’t that good?”

  “That depends,” the wyvern replied, his tone implying he knew the answer. “When griffins arrive, they judge the matter from their perspective. Their verdicts are often unpredictable. It is best to avoid them.”

  The wyvern’s words were the tinkling of a windchime you heard late at night, as the wind stirred around your house right before a storm. “Whoever called them is judged as well as the person on trial. Both hearts will be weighed.”

  “Oh,” said Celia, trying to figure it all out. “Like a heart weighed on the scales of Osiris? Their soul must be lighter than a feather to enter heaven?”

  “Hm, not exactly. In the end, the griffins decide. And they are contrary beings.”

  “Surely,” continued Celia hopefully, “if the creature destroying the books is involved, it can’t but lose!”

  Paul’s long silence did not engender optimism.

  He finally replied, “The griffins only care about matters concerning the border. They do not care about criminals. If the matter is out of their jurisdiction, they rule against the summoner for issuing a false warrant. It is how the former librarian lost his life three years ago: he called, they came, and they ruled against him.”

  “Wh
o called them this time?” asked Emma.

  Obake, always helpful with outing secrets, replied, “The head librarian.”

  When Logan was transported to the Perilous Realm last year, he experienced vertigo. Not this time. Being transported to another plane of existence was done in a moment, a breath, in a heartbeat.

  No longer was he in the library. Instead, he was standing on a black rock under a bright orange sky. Everything around them was mist. The air was dry.

  He coughed from the heat, and the sun above him blinked.

  It wasn’t a sun but a giant eye! The round orb in the sky looked down at them.

  “Who requests a judgment?” The voice was rich and thick, like honey dripping down a biscuit. Honey that burned.

  Logan walked over and stood with Brigit and Jib. The púca was back to cat-size, although its fur still held a charge of magical orange fire.

  “Know where we are?” Logan whispered to Brigit behind his hand.

  “No idea.” Her words were in Latin, and since Logan understood it, he assumed they must still be in Bewachterberg. Somehow.

  Burkhalter was still standing, if barely. A steady stream of blood was flowing from her hand down her leg. Her answer was firmer than her posture.

  “Anna Burkhalter, head librarian at Leopold-Ottos-Universität Geheimetür, Bewachterberg.”

  “Another librarian?” the soft burning voice coming out of the air was irritated. “This is twice in a millennium that your office has called upon our services. Can you not solve your own problems?”

  “I was appointed by the king of Bewachterberg.”

  There was a hoarse crrrrawwk that dismissed the authority of the king.

  “Since the Leopold Ottos librarians think to summon us like servants, we have removed the library from the campus grounds. It, and its contents, are in our keeping. Think carefully, librarian. Make your case well if you wish it, and its occupants returned.”

  Burkhalter made no protest even though her face whitened. She only bowed her head briefly as if acknowledging their judgment. Bracing her shoulders, she kicked off her other shoe and picked it up with the hand not holding the knife.

  The acid honey spoke again. “State your case.”

  “This,” Anna Burkhalter used the heel of her shoe to point at the creature in the form of Titivillus, “entered Bewachterberg illegally. Its presence here is against the country’s ancient law.”

  The eye blinked several times as if considering. Its attention wavered from the librarian. It addressed Brigit.

  “Dryad, why are you here? What do you know of this matter?”

  Brigit cleared her throat. It was so hard not to think in Latin, in Ancient Greek, or Egyptian hieroglyphics. She had to shush the books in her head to think clearly enough to form a reply.

  “Whatever that is,” she indicated Titivillus, “it’s been vandalizing the library for months. It removed works from the collection without permission. It destroyed books, papers, and manuscripts.”

  “We are not to be summoned because of childish scribbles in the margins of books or because art books had their nudes removed.”

  Brigit grew angry and, in her passion and disregard for authority, shouted back, “Books had their very existence removed! Their authors, present in the abbey as ghosts, vanished. This murdered books and ghosts!”

  “That indeed sounds like a crime, but it is not one under our jurisdiction.”

  “What? You don’t care? Do books,” she held out her brown arms, her skin printed with words and images, “not get justice for their desecration!?”

  “We deal only with the borders. Do you have anything of note about how this creature entered Bewachterberg?”

  Brigit’s arms fell limply back to her sides. Her chin dropped to her chest as her fists clenched in frustration at her thighs.

  “No.”

  “Púca?”

  Jib was taking a bath, ignoring everything and everyone. The griffin had to ask again before the True Beast bothered to return a laconic answer.

  “I am here as a guardian to the dryad. I care not about these other matters. Do what you will with the creature or the librarian.”

  “Luckily for you, púca, we are not dealing with your entrance into Bewachterberg. There is no authorization on file for your presence in our country.”

  “Paperwork?” scoffed Jib, who, like all cats, would sit on a king’s throne without turning a hair. “I do not bother myself with it.”

  Logan held his breath at Jib’s insolence. It must have irked the voice for it snapped at Burkhalter, “Librarian, do you need these two to make your case?”

  “No, I do not.”

  Brigit and Jib vanished.

  Logan took a step forward in surprise and looked around him as if the two would appear elsewhere. They did not.

  The Rector, Maximilian Schubert, stormed into Bandemer’s office while the chancellor was having a meeting with his tailor.

  “The abbey library has vanished!”

  In surprise, the tailor’s hand slipped, and the point of the pin pricked Bandemer’s wrist drawing one small drop of blood. The chancellor hastily pushed back the expensive fabric, crying out, “Not on the lace! I could never replace these cuffs.”

  “Did you hear me!?” demanded Schubert. His face was flushed and sweaty from having run halfway across campus to get to the chancellor’s office.

  Blotting the blood with a handkerchief, François Auguste snapped, “I did. Who wouldn’t have? You bellow as loudly as a dancing bear with a sore head.”

  Schubert gave an anguished cry of “But the library-!”

  “Someone has been very foolish.” Bandemer wiped the pin clean of blood and threw the handkerchief into the trash. With a snap of his fingers, he set it on fire, destroying it.

  Watching it burn, Bandemer shook his head sadly. “I had such high hopes for Anna Burkhalter.”

  Indicating to his tailor to help him with his coat, Bandemer prepared to leave. He collected his walking stick, his fingers wrapped around the gold cap.

  “Let us go for a promenade, Schubert. We shall investigate this together.”

  As Maximilian Schubert had said, the library was gone. In its place was an immaculate green lawn.

  “At least they took care of the landscaping. The old trees are still here.”

  “Stop with the joking, Bandemer. This is a catastrophe.”

  “Using humor is my defense mechanism, Schubert. It takes the edge off the shock. Try it someday.”

  The two were standing beside each other, gazing to where the oldest building in Geheimetür was missing.

  They weren’t the only ones. Quite a crowd of students and staff were standing about the commons. A circle of them drew Bandemer’s attention. He used the hard rod of his cane to beat an opening through the crowd.

  Within the circle, lying on the grass was a young black girl. The dryad’s eyes were closed, her arms sprawled out sideways. The slow rise of her chest showed she was alive.

  Standing over her, in a protective stance, was a panther-sized púca. Its low growling warned everyone to stay away.

  “Explain yourself!” Bandemer commanded, and Jib did.

  The griffin next addressed Logan.

  “What do you have to say about such events, bard?”

  Logan was still upset about his friends disappearing. But he realized he could do nothing but hope for the best. He and the librarian still needed to get out of the situation alive.

  “This being took upon itself the right to edit and censor the works in the library. It claimed it was removing mistakes, falsehoods, and inaccuracies. It was a self-appointed critic with no official standing.”

  “As we have said, we do not give judgments on human concerns. Whether this creature committed a wrong in Bewachterberg is up to the authorities there to decide, not us.”

  “Why is that?” asked Logan curiously. He couldn’t help wanting to know; it was part of his bard nature to seek out information.


  “A crime of today might not be considered a crime in the future. Just a short hundred or so years ago, humans were burning their witches. Now, they allow them to be citizens and own shops selling candles to hex your enemies. How can we keep up with the changing attitudes of the world? We are too old to follow the nonsense of fads.”

  Before Logan could respond, the creature screamed, “You are all liars!” The words echoed around and around as if they were in a chamber or on top of a mountain. Which it was, Logan didn’t know. He had stopped looking for meaning in the void surrounding them some time ago.

  “So, you wish to speak now?” The honey grew more acidic as if the griffin found Titivillus just as tiresome as they did. At least Logan hoped so.

  “They lie! I speak only the truth. I ate what was untrue. They welcomed me! They held a party for me!”

  Titivillus was shrieking now, stomping its hooves in a fury. Logan interrupted its tantrum with a small, deprecating cough.

  “Being a bard, who has some ability in recognizing truth from lies, may I interject here? The truth is seldom clear cut. No one perspective is complete in itself.”

  “We are not here to judge digested books,” interjected the griffin with some asperity. “The talk of the books is tiresome and irrelevant to the matter at hand.”

  “What I mean, noble being,” Logan said soothingly, “is that this creature uses lies to justify its existence in the library. And we are here to judge if it was welcomed into Bewachterberg, correct? So what it says about this matter must be evaluated for it shows whether it speaks factually.”

  “Go on,” the griffin said grumpily but added a warning, “but do not use your sweetening powers here, bard. Persuasion magic will not influence our justice.”

  Perhaps not, thought Logan, but irritating them would not work in their favor. Let Titivillus irk them. It could win their side points.

  “I’ve met this creature in several different forms and guises, first as a monk. Our school chancellor Herr Bandemer confronted it. It stated it was a guest of honor. The chancellor denied this. Since the chancellor arranged the reception and sent out the invitations, I would assume he would know.”