Page 1

For those of you who have had to wait awhile for this book I provide brief catch-up notes to Book Two, so your memories may be refreshed, and I can avoid the awkwardness of having to have characters tell each other things they already know for your benefit.

Here I carry forward only what is of importance to the tale that follows.

The library is effectively eternal and infinite. It reaches into many worlds and contains a truly vast collection of books (or the equivalent) from a great many species, spanning all periods of history. It comprises square chambers two miles on each side and is staffed by gleaming white assistants that stock and restock the books. The door from one chamber to the next opens for every member of some species and not for those of others. The further you travel from an entrance keyed to one particular species the rarer become the doors they can open.

The Exchange is an in-between kind of place whose appearance is shaped partly by the expectations of those visiting it. The Exchange can change the appearance of others to suit visitors’ expectations and it makes the speech of everyone in it understandable to everyone else. This translation-and-disguise effect can follow, for a limited time, the people who use its portals.

The Exchange contains many doors. Those doors lead to the past, present, and future, and to different worlds. The furthest forward time a person visits becomes their present. If a person leaves the Exchange by a door that leads to their past they appear there as a ghost, invisible to the people of that time and unable to touch anything or communicate with anyone. They will regain their normal form in the Exchange and in any place in their present or future. Left to its own devices, the Exchange brings things together and creates coincidences.

The Mechanism is a small building into which a single person can take a single book. It will then allow them to experience and interrogate the book as if they were walking through the world in which it’s set or talking to the author with the advantage of all manner of solid illusions to illustrate the text.

Escapes are the blood of the library and can take physical form. They can manifest as a person’s fears and often mirror the violence around them.

There are many mythologies concerning the library’s creation. All of them are true. The one that is used by Livira, Evar, and the others in order to make sense of the situation concerns two brothers: Irad, who created the library, and Jaspeth, who wants to destroy it. The current library is an imperfect compromise resulting from a fragile peace between the two brothers. A low-level war between the brothers’ proxies has been flaring back and forth across history. It appears to be coming to a head again in the here and now. In the library’s war, Yute is championing the current compromise. Mayland has sided with Jaspeth and wants to destroy the library.

The main characters we have already met in this story are:

Livira: a human from a settlement on the Dust, now a librarian aged around twenty. She spent around two hundred years trapped inside an assistant (known as the Assistant) that raised five canith children trapped in a library chamber.

Evar: a canith in his early twenties who spent a decade in the Mechanism with Livira’s book. Last seen failing to save the assistant in which Livira was trapped from being destroyed by skeer.

Clovis: raised as Evar’s sister. Dedicated to the arts of war. Until recently she hated all humans since humans—specifically King Oanold and his soldiers—slaughtered all her people in the library chamber when she was a child.

Starval: raised as Evar’s brother. Dedicated to the arts of stealth and assassination.

Kerrol: raised as Evar’s brother. Specialises in understanding and manipulating others.

Mayland: raised as Evar’s brother. Thought to be dead, but turned out to have escaped the chamber a year before Evar did. Specialises in history.

Arpix: a male librarian, early twenties, companion to Livira, studious and serious.

Jella: a female bookbinder, early twenties, companion to Livira, timid, kindly.

Carlotte: a female house-reader, early twenties, companion to Livira, vivacious, adventurous.

Leetar: a rich trainee diplomat, early twenties, sister to Livira’s recently deceased friend Meelan.

Yute: deputy head librarian, former assistant, married to now-deceased head librarian.

Yolanda: Yute’s daughter, a child in appearance but has spent years “lost” in the library.

Lord Algar: a one-eyed nobleman who has tried to put an end to Livira’s career at every stage.

King Oanold: ruler of the now-destroyed Crath City. Stirred up hatred against the peoples who live on the Dust (including Livira) for political ends.

Salamonda: Yute’s housekeeper and cook. A woman in her late fifties.

Celcha: a female ganar. The ganar were enslaved by humans and by canith. Celcha and her brother, Hellet, were manipulated by Mayland (and Starval) to help create an assistant that would work to destroy the library from the inside. Celcha wrongly blamed Livira and Evar for the harms done to her and worked to destroy them using mechanical ganar.

Wentworth: Yute’s artificial cat that has many powers but seldom uses them. The most powerful library guide.

Edgarallen: an artificial raven created as a library guide.

Volente: a large very black artificial dog created as a library guide.

The Book That Broke the World ended with three portals in the floor of a reading room side chamber within the library.

The three portals were created by the blood of an assistant (Hellet—Celcha’s brother) when a giant mechanical ganar (made by Celcha) beat him to death on the floor. With the mechanical on fire and about to explode, the portals offered escape routes to those gathered there.

Through the first portal went the canith, Mayland, Starval, Clovis, and an unconscious Evar, who had earlier been shot trying to save Arpix (plus Salamonda and Livira’s friend Neera). Mayland is heading the effort to destroy the library, effectively championing Jaspeth. Livira tried to go with them to be with Evar, but Mayland stopped her.

Through the second portal went Livira, Yolanda, Jella, Leetar, and a dozen or so survivors from the city. Yolanda is trying to fulfil Irad’s vision for the library, fighting the restrictions on it.

Only Kerrol followed Yute through the third portal, both of them seeking some kind of compromise that will stop the warring parties.

Arpix, Salamonda, and Neera were captured by King Oanold’s soldiers and are now his prisoners. Lord Algar has Livira’s book and wants Arpix to help him use its power. King Oanold’s group is still trapped in the library and his soldiers have resorted to cannibalism, killing and eating some of the civilians with them.