Vellum and Green Vitriol
Copyright © 2007, S. Y. Affolee
The Final Conjuration
Seal XLI
I stumbled, coughing, into dusty blackness.
My feet eventually halted and I slumped against what felt like a stone wall. Deep, ragged breathing sounded in my ears. Rhys. I took out the book lantern from beneath my coat.
The light revealed a narrow passageway heading off into darkness. Thor sat in the middle of the passageway with his tail curled around his haunches. He raised a front leg and began licking down his fur as if everything that had happened before had never existed.
On the sides of the passageway, several wooden crates were stacked up against the wall. Judging from the layer of dust on top of them, they had been undisturbed for quite a while. The other end of the passageway terminated into a stone wall--the other side of which was the library archives. I stepped over to place my hand on the wall. The stone was cool to the touch and I felt the grain subtly shift, but it felt as solid as ever.
"What on earth happened?"
Rhys brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over his eyes. "There's something strange about that wall. I think there is a spell on it."
"Perhaps there is. But this feels solid to me. How did we go through it?"
He walked over to touch the wall as well. He frowned when it poked at it, his fingers obviously encountering something very solid. "Did you perform some sort of transportation spell?"
"No. Did you?"
He shook his head and then turned to look at the oblivious cat sitting in the middle of the hidden hall. "Thor. The cat went through first, didn't he?"
"Well, yes. Does the pamphlet contain any spells for walking through solid objects?"
"I've never read the Dux Bestia, so I wouldn't know. But that makes as much sense as the wall somehow spontaneously deciding to let us through."
A scratching sound made the cat suddenly prick up his ears. I paused at the cat's sudden attention and tried to strain my ears. The sound came again, but it was from the other side of the wall.
"I could swear that I could hear people in here," came a muffled voice from the other side. The voice was too distorted from the barrier for me to tell for sure who it was who was speaking, but I had a good idea. The librarian, Pendington. Apparently, he was even more paranoid than we had assumed him to be.
"Eh, we're sure you're right about it," said another voice. "Perhaps these intruders are lurking about elsewhere. It is quite possible that they heard us coming and they hid elsewhere."
"Yes, constable. That's it. They're probably hiding somewhere else in the library. I know this place like the back of my hand. No alcove will go without search! I bet the villains have ensconced themselves in the horticulture section."
"The horticulture section? What makes you say that?"
"The shelving arrangements in that part of the library are particularly devious."
"Well, devious or not, I suggest we turn on the lights in this building. It's damn hard wandering about here in the dark."
"But that would ruin our element of surprise! Besides, didn't you say you had the entire place surrounded by your officers? Even if they managed to get out, they'll be caught." Pendington started to say something else, but his voice faded, indicating that he and the constable were already well on their way to that horticulture section in the archives.
Rhys looked pensive. "I suppose it would be out of the question to go back out there. Tonight's expedition is a failure, I'm afraid."
"It's not the end of the world," I replied. "We did go through some of the books tonight. We can come back to the library tomorrow morning and act as if nothing had happened since the last visit we had during the day. That would twist Pendington's knickers."
"He seems too much of a stuffed shirt to be wearing women's underwear."
"Oh, I don't know. Some of the most unlikely people seem to have the strangest predilections."
"Is that a hint that you have some sort of habit that I don't know about?"
"Such as what?" Thor had finally finished smoothing down his fur and had gotten up to pace the width of the passageway. He glanced at us and made some impatient cat sounds.
"Hm. Plenty of nice girls like to tie their blokes up before they have their way with them."
"Huh."
"What, am I right?"
I found myself smiling as I shook my head. "I think that guess of yours says more about you than it does about me."
"Hey, there's nothing wrong about being tied up."
"You should be careful what you wish for." Thor gave a loud meow and then bounded off into the passageway. "Come on, let's go. I think that cat knows far more than we attribute him for. Perhaps he knows another way out of here."
We jogged after the cat, down the featureless passage. It was long and straight with a slight slope downward, and judging from where we had started, I strongly suspected that we were heading south and underground. Thor raced further, his paws quick and soundless on the stone floor, his tail sticking straight out behind him like an antennae on top of a radio tower. Perhaps he was trying to home into something.
Abruptly, the passageway ended and dropped off into a flight of stairs. Thor didn't stop. He continued to go down.
"I'm beginning to doubt that cat," Rhys said. "He might be on another of his manic episodes."
"I have doubts too," I admitted. "But there isn't anything we can do. At least this passage is straightforward. If we need to, it will be easy for us to backtrack."
"Yes, but if Thor continues to do his own thing, we won't have him with us to enable us to go back through the wall."
So with no other choice, we went down the stairs. As we approached the bottom, there was a familiar sound. Water.
At the foot of the stairs, the tunnel widened into a small chamber. It was more of a stone platform which jutted out into a watery tunnel that branched into several directions. Water was not stagnant. It lapped at the platform as if it was pulled by an invisible current. An underground canal. A sewer.
Thor made another sound and jumped over the platform. Startled, I raced over to the side to see if the mad feline had decided to drown himself.
There was a boat bobbing next to the platform. The cat sat on a wooden bench and looked up at me as he patted the end of an oar with a paw.
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