Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Forty Eight: Meetings

It was a relief to be bored.

The stacks in the Nict temple's small library were quiet and dimly lit, and smelling of old parchment and candle wax. It was the closest to peaceful Jordan had been since he landed in Nictaven, once he'd stopped expecting Arlen to jump out at him from behind every bookcase. The other workers in the stacks ignored him completely unless he needed help with something or if Ren got under their feet, which was just fine. He found them as disturbing as they found him.

He hadn't known what to expect from a temple dedicated to a death god, and while the huge stone cadaver in the courtyard had been a shock, it had otherwise been fairly ordinary. It was a tiny little temple, with only a few rows of pews and an altar with a single grey candle. Jordan suspected the candleholder was carved from bone, but hadn't dared ask. He was just grateful that Callan was absent at some castle dinner, because none of the other priests paid him more attention than they had to. The head of the house gave the impression that he knew more than Jordan would want.

As far as community service went, it wasn't bad. He couldn't read, so the more arduous tasks were left to the priests and acolytes. All he was doing was removing papers from boxes and sorting through them to find pages that were faded and needed copying out.

He reached up and took another crate from the shelf above him, holding his breath against the dust that cascaded down. He wobbled, but managed to avoid dropping it; he hopped back from the desk, trying to shake out the pain in his wrist, and ignored the glares from the priests at the racket. The crate was heavier than the others; as he poked a few papers aside, he came up against something sticky and quickly withdrew his hand. Most of the crates varied from dusty to crumbly, but sticky was new. He pushed Ren's face out of the box as she padded across the table to investigate. He hadn't been able to convince her to stay inside his hood the entire time, but to his relief the shadow-runner was getting better at responding to cues; as soon as he got annoyed with her, she stopped.

"Alf," he called quietly to the priest who was acting as his supervisor. The dour old man appeared from behind one of the bookcases, scowling.

"What?"

"There's something sticky in this one."

"Nict's balls," the priest muttered, and gestured over two acolytes. "Check it for worms."

Jordan recoiled from the crate. One acolyte passed him a scathing look and the other ignored him entirely, taking over in picking through the papers until they hit the sticky dome clinging to the spines of several logbooks. It was dark brown and gleamed with mucus. One of the acolytes withdrew a quill from the pocket of his robe and jabbed a hole into the dome; as soon as the quill left the opening, a wriggling purple maggot oozed out onto the table, a ring of sharp hook-teeth the only distinguishing feature. Even Ren didn't seem inclined to go near it.

"Don't touch it," Alf sighed, peering round the acolyte's shoulder to inspect the emergence.

"Wasn't going to," Jordan said, and took another step back as Alf removed the topmost logbook from the crate and slammed it down. Ren scurried up Jordan's arm and sat on his shoulder, gently growling, and a thin whine started up from the nest. Alf lifted the logbook, scraped acid-green goo off the cover using the edge of the table, and then gestured sharply. The acolytes hefted the crate and carried it quickly from the library.

"That's at least ten years of records gone," Alf muttered. He had eyes like a basset hound, doleful and bloodshot, and Jordan always felt like his gaze was accusing him of something. "See you next week."

Jordan blinked. He hadn't realised time had gone by so quickly, but before he could say anything or ask what those creatures were, Alf had disappeared back into the gloom of the stacks.