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Life and Other Sexually Transmitted Diseases, by Chris Barnard

CHAPTER 34

Evar

After the shard of wood was pulled from his leg Evar began to heal rapidly. The removal and, worse, the digging about for splinters, had to be done outside the circle so that no foreign bodies would be sealed in to cause problems later. None of it was less than awful, and for once Evar was glad that Livira was not there to see him howl and writhe and try to fight off the ones trying to help him.

He’d been in worse shape than Clovis when they finally hobbled into the centre circle. They both let themselves fall in untidy heaps, not prepared to move again until the library’s magic had done its work. It was surprising, then, to have the humans, none of whom even spoke their language, come across and show their concern, not just for Arpix, but for all of them, even Clovis, who had treated them more or less like scenery. Scenery she didn’t approve of.

Lying there with Jella and Salamonda fussing over him, Evar felt that perhaps there might be hope for both their kind, separately and together. He remembered the city he and Livira had visited where it had seemed that humans and canith had lived peacefully together, and that whatever had slain them could have been an outside act, the work of some cowardly poisoner who wanted to tear down what they’d built.

Within a couple of hours Evar was back on his feet with nothing but the odd twinge to remind him that his upper thigh had been run through. Clovis still looked rough, but a lot better than she had before. Arpix argued that they stay longer, but Clovis said he’d told them that every chamber had a centre circle, so they were never going to be much more than a mile from one if they needed it.

Grudgingly, Arpix agreed and the whole group moved off. Evar wasn’t sure of the point at which Arpix’s agreement had become a necessary part of their plans, but he had no great objection to the idea, just surprise.

Their first task was to revisit the automaton, since neither Evar nor Clovis was willing to leave the white sword embedded in its metal belly. Clovis was especially adamant on the point.

It wasn’t hard to find their way back. The main group remained a few aisles away while Evar and Kerrol went to retrieve the blade. Arpix came with them, saying he wanted a closer look at the mechanism that had nearly killed one of their number.

The three of them stood, surveying the destruction surrounding the bulk of Evar’s assailant. None of them proved eager to approach it, all sharing the idea that the thing might at any time spring back into action.

“And you say that the huge one that chased you was much the same?”

“Yes,” Kerrol answered.

“Giant mechanical ganar...” Arpix mused. “One of them a vast mechanical ganar that had remained motionless for decades, centuries maybe, even as skeer passed by. And then you three turn up and it hounds you across three chambers until an assistant scolds it.”

“Yes,” said Evar. He’d not really thought about how long the thing had waited, doing nothing, before they’d emerged. But the chamber’s shelves had been built around it. It seemed ridiculous to say, but it was almost as if it had been waiting for them to come out.

“Did the canith and ganar not get along?” Arpix asked, frowning.

“You’d have to ask Mayland,” Evar said. “There’s nothing my brother doesn’t know about history. At least not if it got written down. I do remember the ganar now, though I never really thought about what they looked like. I wasn’t particularly interested in their history on our world. I was fascinated by the fact they lived on Attamast. I could tell you about some of their wars up there. It’s said that after one war the whole moon burned for a year and the night went back to twilight once Attamast rose.”

“Well, whoever made this one did not appear to like canith.”

“It probably would have attacked you too,” Evar said, though Arpix was closer to being right than he knew. It did feel as if there were something personal about all this.

—

Wentworth led them through six more chambers before they met their first skeer. Evar had given the Soldier’s sword back to Clovis after recovering it from the automaton’s body. She was far from fighting fit, but even at half strength she was five times more dangerous with a sword than he was.

They were fortunate that the skeer’s presence was advertised well in advance by the fact that the door to which they were heading was open and could be seen to be open above the shelf tops when the aisles ran their way. Evar imagined that to hold the doors open it must take a creature of at least sufficient intellect to be able to read if taught to do so. Otherwise, the skeer could simply anchor a goat in place rather than occupy one of their number with the task.

He thought again of the ganar automaton waiting outside the chamber door. There had been another creature waiting in much the same way. A skeer. Only it had been closer, and primarily intent on keeping the door from closing again rather than on doing them harm. It had called for others to do the harm part.

Much as expected, a stealthy reconnaissance involving the use of a ladder and peering over shelves confirmed the presence of a single skeer warrior in the doorway. Evar, who had left the orb behind with Kerrol, returned to report.

Arpix translated his companions’ thoughts. “They’re saying we should push it out of the way with the orb.”

“If it still works.” Evar still thought it might have broken when it broke the automaton. It couldn’t have been intended to grow so hot, surely?

“The problem,” Arpix said, “is that we don’t know for sure that door will open for canith or humans. If we push the skeer out of the way and the door closes, we can’t go the way Wentworth is leading us.”

“I’ll go kill it.” Clovis drew her blade and started forward.

“That didn’t go well with the cratalac.” Arpix got in her way.

Evar expected her to flatten him but possibly she thought him too fragile to risk violence with. “This is not a cratalac.”