Unbound (31 page)

I could have wept with relief, if I had possessed a body with which to do so.
The book had worked.
If I died, that book would help her to remain herself.

I saw Lena’s birth, those hours before she emerged from her tree, when her mind first stirred. And I remembered our hands intertwined, pressing against rough bark, feeling the water flowing through the trunk and into the branches, the roots sunk into the earth, the leaves rustling in the wind. Instinctively, I reached out to bring this world into balance with the moment of her awakening. Stars crawled through the sky.
Planets whirled past one another, until I had given Lena her answer.
Yes.

Meridiana was watching me now, though her head hadn’t turned. Her eyes had faded, a patina of brass dimming the distant stars. The hinged jaw opened. “Welcome to Purgatory.”

Clowning Around for Books

When:
This Sunday at 1:00 p.m.

Where:
The corner of 21st and Yale St., across from the West Branch Baptist Church.

What:
A clown-themed counterprotest to celebrate books and piss off closed-minded idiots.

Our local bigots are at it again, this time adding book-burning to their list of “wholesome Christian” activities for the family.

You probably know them for their lawsuit-trolling ways, including picketing funerals and other public events, but it didn’t take the Neanderthals at the WBBC long to jump on the anti-magic bandwagon with a “Bonfire of Books” this coming Sunday.

They’ve announced a long list of titles to be burned for promoting “sins” like homosexuality, premarital sex, false religions, profanity, promiscuity, adultry [sic], birth control, transgenderism, polyamory, interracial marriage, abortion, alcoholism, feminism, socialism, welfare, and magic.

We all know Pastor Tom Briggs is a walking skidmark in a bad suit, and his congregation is a stain on Christians everywhere. The police are looking into whether or not the church has filed for the proper permits for this event, but given the number of lawyers in Briggs’ flock, there’s unlikely to be any legal reason to stop them.

And that’s as it
should
be. Freedom of speech is easy when it’s speech we approve of. The true test of freedom is what we do when people like Briggs and his ilk mount their soapboxes and show their asses to the world.

Fortunately, freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from mockery and other consequences. So grab your wigs and your oversized shoes, your makeup and your juggling clubs, and join us this Sunday for a circus-themed counterprotest. We’ll have readings all day from the most outrageously “offensive” books we can find, including a special event at 3:00 with Leslie Bliss, a local author of popular lesbian erotica. The library will be selling
refreshments, with all profits going to the purchase of banned books for their shelves.

Don’t have clown garb? No problem! Show up early for free face painting.

George Bernard Shaw once said, “I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” Well, we’re not going to fight these illiterate pustules of humanity. We’re going to ridicule them into total and utter irrelevance.

“N
ICE UNIVERSE YOU’VE GOT HERE.”
I wasn’t certain how I spoke without a physical body, but I seemed to be able to vocalize as long as I didn’t think about it too hard. “Any leaks I should know about?”

Meridiana didn’t answer, but I could feel her attention vibrating through my core, like speakers with the bass maxed out. I silently thanked Bi Wei for erasing the pertinent pages of my memory.

I could sense the planets, the flow of Meridiana’s magic, the enormous metal bands that bordered our universe, everything
except
the glowing hurricane below. Was it illusory? But even an illusion required magical energy. I studied the individual clouds,
each one distinct in shape and color, distended like toffee. There were hundreds. Thousands. “That’s the Ghost Army, isn’t it?”

I couldn’t feel them because they weren’t really here within the armillary sphere. They existed in the real world, trapped in Meridiana’s orbit.

She’d been telling the truth. Destroying this place wouldn’t destroy the Army of Ghosts. It would set them free. “How did you find them all, let alone control them?”

Her cold stare gave no answers. I returned to her throne. I could feel her magic, but I couldn’t interpret it, any more than I could read ancient Sanskrit. I studied the hammered bronze, wishing I could peel it back to expose the spells within. I could almost see the words etched into the metal.

With that thought, the words grew clearer. Each one carried memories. Stories.

I had forgotten none of this was real. We weren’t truly floating within the armillary sphere. The planets, the rings, these were simply manifestations of Gerbert d’Aurillac’s spell. I was like a character from a computer game seeing the world’s code for the first time.

If I could see it, could I manipulate it as well? I envisioned the word
sleep
joining the text beneath Meridiana’s skin, but nothing happened. That was probably for the best. If I could control her, she could certainly do the same to me, and she had spent a lot more time learning how to function in this place.

But I could still read. I looked past the rippled sheen of metal to the text beneath. It was something I had managed a few times before, seeing the spells that lived in Gutenberg’s skin, or the magic of Lena’s tree, but those examples had all involved libriomancy.

At its heart, libriomancy was no different than any other magic. Nicola used music to wield and shape her spells. Ponce de Leon was powerful enough to use little more than will alone, aided by that cane he carried. Libriomancers tapped
into the same power; we just used books to understand and control it.

I had said before that all stories were magic. It had never occurred to me that all magic was stories.

Words flew past too quickly to read, but I absorbed them anyway. I read Meridiana’s rage at Gerbert d’Aurillac’s betrayal, and beneath her fury, her grudging respect for how well he had prepared his final trap.

I looked beyond Meridiana to where bands of celestial text told the story of the stars as d’Aurillac had understood them. I saw the names of the constellations, written in Arabic but melting into English as I read. Beneath the constellations lay the writing that had informed his work, including the very text from al-Sufi I had referred to when trying to decipher his poem.

I read of his interactions with Meridiana—Anna—as well. He had tutored Anna and her brother both, but Otto had never been a magical or intellectual match for his sister. And so Gerbert d’Aurillac had favored Anna. I read of his pride in her abilities, and his horror when he realized he had helped to empower a monster. And I read his hope.

Gerbert d’Aurillac’s faith flowed through every line of this prison. Faith in God’s plan for Meridiana and the world, and faith in Meridiana herself, that she would one day turn from the darkness and seek redemption.

“Isaac, does anything of Jeneta Aboderin survive?”

Ponce de Leon’s question hurled me downward. I dove through the bronze Earth, seeing both the molded wrinkles of land and water and the story of the world’s creation, translated through d’Aurillac’s theology and education. I could have stayed there for hours, but the question compelled me to seek out the answer.

My vision split apart. I saw Jeneta walking through the woods, flanked by mythological creatures. At the same time, I looked beyond the armillary sphere to the Army of Ghosts, to a single wisp in the storm, battered about like a handkerchief
in a dryer. Within that swath of thinned life and memories, I glimpsed a swirl of text.

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;

Joy and relief flowered from my core, pulling the worlds into alignment in response to Ponce de Leon’s question. I recognized the snippet of “Sympathy” from my time working with Jeneta. It was from
The Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar.
I searched my memory, then called out what I could remember of the final stanza.

It’s not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings.
I know why the caged bird sings!

I thought I sensed a change within the storm, a tiny flicker of recognition. I silently thanked Ponce de Leon for choosing that question, for helping and forcing me to find Jeneta.

She slipped away, lost in the clouds despite my attempts to hold on. But she
had
heard me. Given centuries, I might have learned to communicate with the rest of the ghosts, and to control them as Meridiana had done.

Reluctantly, I turned away from Jeneta and the other trapped souls to face Meridiana. As I did, the metal wall behind her rippled like air over the blacktop in midsummer. I moved closer. What had caused the corrosion around her throne and wrinkled the wall?

Though the metal face never moved, I felt Meridiana’s smile. Words flowed beneath her mask, a palimpsest of text, layer upon layer superimposed over the figure before me. I peered deeper.

That was a mistake. Those words—her magic—entangled my thoughts like seaweed and dragged me deeper. The armillary sphere faded to blackness, and I began to drown.

“Isaac, do you repent?”

Nidhi’s question saved my life.

The magical foundations of Meridiana’s prison seized us both, forced us to respond. Trapped within this universe, unable to lie to myself, I realized how difficult a question it truly was. A few days earlier, I would have answered no. I would have justified and rationalized everything, from running off to outer space to bargaining Lena’s blood to risking my life and those of my loved ones.

After all, that first trip into space and the deal that went with it had given us the key to finding Meridiana’s prison. If I had been short with the people around me, it was because I was so intent on saving Jeneta’s life. How was that a bad thing?

Only that wasn’t what I had been doing. I had been running away, both figuratively and literally. From my own failure to protect my friends and neighbors. From the fear of a life without magic. From guilt and helplessness. And from the people who wanted to help . . . people who needed my help.

Yes.

The planets moved without conscious thought, and then I was tearing free, even as Meridiana shouted her own answer.
No
.

Lena caught my arms and kept me from hitting the floor. I was rigid as steel and acutely aware of every physical sensation. The pressure of Lena’s hands on my muscles. The smell of my own sweat. The way my clothes rubbed my skin as my body seized.

“What’s wrong?” asked Lena.

Nidhi shoved something soft under my head. Nicola was
singing, and Ponce de Leon was doing something with his cane. Darkness clouded my eyes. I felt like a dinosaur had stepped on my chest.

“He’s not breathing,” said Nidhi.

Bi Wei pressed a hand over my chest. My heart spasmed, sending blood through my stiffened limbs. I lurched onto my side and vomited. Silty water spewed from my stomach and lungs, and then I screamed.

I felt like I was being flayed from within as the life slowly spread through my body, but the next breath was slightly easier. Sweat covered my body. I tried to move, but my limbs were like softened clay.

Everyone was watching me. Ponce de Leon held his cane ready. Nicola’s head bobbed to unheard melodies. How much magic had they prepared in case something else escaped with—or within—me?

“What happened?” asked Lena.

My teeth were chattering too hard to answer.

“It’s Isaac,” said Bi Wei. “Just Isaac.” The others relaxed.

“Meridiana did something to you,” guessed Ponce de Leon.

I managed a nod. My mouth was a desert, and my sinuses felt like water balloons squeezed to the bursting point. “Thirsty.”

Jackson fetched me a Vernors. The carbonation burned my throat, and I coughed up the first swallow, which triggered another bout of vomiting. Water spilled out of my mouth and nose.

When the upheavals subsided, I reached for the desk. Lena helped me stand. I touched the sphere first, then one of the books stacked beside it. I felt nothing. Magic was once again lost to me. “Somebody box that thing up,” I croaked. “I don’t want her listening, or jumping in to answer our questions.”

Nicola emptied a crate of books and lifted the sphere into it. She sang a spell as she sealed the crate. I didn’t recognize the song, but hopefully it would give us some semblance of privacy.

I took another drink of Vernors, then collapsed into the chair. “Gerbert d’Aurillac’s sphere was designed to hold a single human soul. But the dead were a part of her from birth. When she was locked away, they remained free. They sustained her, and over the centuries, she learned to control them.” I took a deep breath. “I need to know exactly what’s on Jeneta’s e-reader.”

Jackson tapped the keyboard of his laptop to pull up the program they had used to remote view the e-reader.

“Can you sort them by date?”

“What are you looking for?” asked Nidhi.

I scanned the list. “In the beginning, it was all Meridiana could do to survive. She had to consume the power of the dead to maintain her universe. Over time, she learned to send her ghosts out to gather others, particularly those with magical abilities. She used them not just for sustenance, but for their knowledge. And for the past five hundred years, the majority of her victims have been libriomancers.”

“Are you suggesting she can do libriomancy?” asked Jackson.

“Through Jeneta, yes. And Meridiana knows more about libriomancy than anyone alive today.” I grabbed a pencil and began jotting down titles. “That’s how she created the monsters that follow her around. Imagine libriomantic possession turned inside out. Instead of a character from a book worming his way into your mind and taking control, Meridiana takes that character’s story and uses it to reshape a living being, to turn them into extensions of her own mind and will.”

“What about Jeneta?” asked Nidhi. “If Meridiana’s ghosts and the people they possess are a part of her—”

“Meridiana silences the voices of those she consumes, but she can’t destroy Jeneta without losing her libriomancy. And Jeneta is her way out.” I stabbed my pen at the list of books. “Look at what she’s been checking out.
The Magician’s Nephew.
The Looking-Glass Wars
.
Princess Nevermore
.”

Nobody reacted.

“All portal fantasies, about gateways between one world and another. And in each one, the magic portal was a body of water.” I gestured to the puddles on the floor. “That’s how she means to escape. The metal around her throne was corroded. The bronze rippled like waves on a pool. She intends to use these books to create a portal to herself.”

“How close is she to completing this portal?” asked Nicola.

“I didn’t have much time to study her plan before she tried to drown me, but I think she’ll need to bring the sphere to whatever portal she’s preparing in our world.” I sat back and grinned. “Now ask me how we’re going to stop her.”