Far to the west of the world lies the Library. A towering monolithic structure that stands tall against the storms and rain from the sea behind it. On one side is the land and the road leading to it which stops at its great stone door. On the other side is the steep drop far into the rocky sea below. On this side the depth of the library is visible for it penetrates deep into the earth, making up part of the cliff and disappearing beneath the waves. There are few who know just how far down the Library goes, in fact Sorum the Page believes that there is no one left who knows.

He has spoken to the Grandmaster and to the Elder Archivists and they have all given him vague answers and changed the subject quickly. One thing he has been able to gather is that there are those who have vanished into the Library’s depths and never returned. He often mentions this to his friends. They do not care.

“It’s not your business is it Sorum?” Zarat says as he takes a larger than necessary bite from a pie. “No one wants to go down there so you don’t have to show them the way.”

“But I want to go down there.”

“You’re a page, you don’t get to go where you want to go, you have to go where other people want to go.” Zarat finished his pie in another enormous bite and then looked around for another.

“Well one day I might be a scribe and then-”

“Why would you be a scribe? You’ll have to pour over dusty tomes all day. You should be a raven keeper like me.” Zarat snuck a pie from a neighbouring plate as the plate’s owner engaged in a heated scholarly debate.

“You’re an apprentice raven keeper.” Sorum said. “And besides the ravens stress me out, they’re all screechy and they bite.”

“They do not bite!” Zarat said angrily through his mouthful. “They’re tame, and they’re much less stressful than going down into places no one comes back from. You get to stay up at the rookery and feel the fresh air, it’s very relaxing.”

The next day Zarat sprinted down the stairs from the rookery in terror as his master shouted at the top of his lungs. “Why have all the ravens escaped! What have you done you incompetent boy!”

Sorum rolled his eyes as he ran past. He was looking at his reflection in one of the stained glass windows, trying to get his hair under control. The Lady Essry and her entourage were arriving and he was supposed to be attending them. He heard Zarat crash into an empty brazier and watched as his master caught up with him.

“I don’t know what happened... I don’t...”

“You utter buffoon! You have disrespected the sanctity of-”

Sorum walked off and left them to it. He had best be getting to cleaning the rooms the Lady and her entourage would be staying in. They were large rooms, much grander than his. With enormous stained glass windows looking out on the sea. This particular window told the story of a battle between a great hero in red armour battling a white jagged monster made of bone. Sorum didn’t know that story, he was doubtful anyone did, it seemed to him that most of the stories in the library were long forgotten.

As he swept the room he noticed the bed had already been made and that a book had been placed on it already. A strange book with nothing on the cover save a dagger. He opened it to find letters he couldn’t read and left it there, he continued sweeping.

He was almost finished when Bravan walked in. He could tell it was Bravan because Lady Essry hadn’t arrived yet and although he looked uncannily like her Sorum wasn’t falling for that trick again. There were many magical artifacts in the Library and while the Book of Faces was impressive it became less so the tenth time Bravan used it.

“Hello Bravan.”

“Bravan? I am Lady Essry you insolent page boy and I shall not be spoken to in-”

Sorum threw his broom at him and Bravan dodged out of the way, tripping on his illusory skirts. He crashed to the ground and let out a torrent of unladylike curses.

Sorum walked over and picked up the broom. “Impersonating a noblewoman! Such an original and intelligent idea! If only I’d seen this trick before...”

Bravan looked up at him from the ground. “Well if you’re so smart why are you still a page?”

Sorum looked away in annoyance, even outsmarting Bravan was no fun, he always had some more spite to express.

Bravan picked himself up. “Maybe if you weren’t so rude to your superiors you would...” he trailed off.

Sorum frowned, still looking away. Bravan would never trail off in the middle of a sentence like that, he was far too arrogant, especially now he was a scribe. He looked up and saw what Bravan had seen. The book on the bed was open and its pages were flying out swiftly and silently. Forming into a ball, no a head, then a body, all made of paper and covered in the letters of that strange language.

They watched for a second then it was over and the lithe paper figure had formed, crouched nimbly on the bed. The leather knife shape, carved into the cover was now a leather knife shape in the figure’s hand.

Bravan opened his mouth to say “-” before the figure flew across the room and buried the knife in his chest. Bravan screamed and fell to the ground, blood pouring from his chest. The figure stepped back cleanly out of the path of the blood, Sorum didn’t.

As he flailed and screamed and bled Bravan’s illusion fell away revealing the boy underneath. The figure cocked its eyeless head curiously, then it looked at Sorum and the letters on its face formed words.

‘Oops.’

Sorum stammered in surprise. “W-wh-what?”

The letters reformed. ‘That was not the Lady Essry.’

“N-n-no...”

The figure nodded, accepting this fact. ‘Well I’d suggest you run, you look awfully suspicious standing there covered in blood. If you do please take me with you, I can be of service and my employer will not be pleased with my failure.’

Then it was gone, the pages reformed back into the book on the bed. Sorum stood there for a second in shock. Bravan had stopped screaming and now he could hear footsteps approaching. There were many magical artifacts in the library but he’d never heard of a book who could actually kill people, chances are the book was right, he would look very suspicious.

He grabbed the book and ran. The footsteps were coming from above so he ran down. Down whole flights of stairs at a time, past bewildered pages and scribes and masters, hoping they didn’t notice the blood on him. He heard some people shouting behind him but they weren’t close enough and the Library was vast. There was always another corridor, another door, another stairwell, for him to descend. Soon the voices began to fade away behind him, he staggered to a window that looked out onto the sea. It was stained glass showing a great migration of some kind, another story he didn’t know. But it was wet, the sea was spraying up against it, he’d never been this close to the sea before. He’d never been this far down.

He went to open the book but it was already open and the figure formed before him, knife in hand. This time it sheathed the knife and tucked it away somewhere in its pages.

“Who are you?” Sorum asked. “What are you?”

‘I am the Lexigrael.’

“What is the Lexigrael?” Sorum asked, taking a wild stab at the pronunciation.

‘Me.’

“Ah yes.” He nodded and looked out into the sea. “Why were you trying to kill Lady Essry?”

‘I was... employed...’

“Did you write out those dots just to be dramatic?”

‘...Yes...’

Sorum smiled. He probably shouldn’t be enjoying talking to an assassin so much but he was still recovering from all that had happened.

“How does one employ the Lexigrael?”

‘One must sign a contract upon my pages in my script.’ He held up his arms, revealing all the arcane scribblings, looking closely Sorum could see they were written in different hands.

‘Then I do my best to fulfil the contract.’

“What’s in it for you?”

The figure looked at its arms and the writing on them. ‘The contracts and the way they are written tell me much about the people who wrote them. I learn the ways of the world and the people in it and as a book knowing things is really all I want.’

“What do you know about the lower levels of the Library?” Sorum asked eagerly.

‘Nothing.’ the Lexigrael replied and Sorum’s heart sank. ‘But I know something about the upper five hundred or so levels.’

“The what?! There are more than five hundred levels?”

‘There are thousands of levels. No one knows just how many as far as I am aware. The artifacts and the monsters that use them grow stranger and more dangerous the further down you go. Some believe it goes down forever.’

Sorum was incredulous, this was everything he’d hoped for and more. “Can you show me some of these artifacts?”

‘Well it might be dangerous.’

“Aren’t you a master assassin, can’t you protect me?”

The Lexigrael rocked back and forth uncertainly. ‘Well... yesss... But not from anything really scary, fire monsters for example?’

“Are there fire monsters?”

‘In some parts, we can stay away from those. What artifact do you want to see?’

In the Lady Essry’s room the masters all stood around Bravan’s body. They muttered and grumbled and whispered to each other but it was obvious what had happened. They would need to go and find the page boy and execute him. Well... they wouldn’t have to. They had other people who could do that, but they were loathe to deal with those people and were hoping one of the other masters would go and do it first.

Eventually they left as a group and Zarat, the newly demoted page boy was put in charge of cleaning and preparing a different room for the Lady. They shuffled along through the hallways, each one eager to be last, until eventually they reached the oaken door of Mazzran the Worm. There was only one guard in the library and he was kept chained up in a room of dank marsh and vines. Normally a guard such as that would not be very effective and indeed Mazzran was useless at stopping crimes before they happened, but often the threat of what he’d do after the crime was enough to stop anyone.

They opened the door and were greeted by the stench of the marsh. Vines fell from the ceiling and dark water pooled on the ground. Mazzran hung naked, suspended by vines over the water, his bare feet just touching it. He looked up at them with red eyes through long black hair and grinned.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked politely.

“We have a murderer we’d like you to catch?”

He lunged forward on ‘catch’, swaying on his vines. Even though they were much too far away to be in trouble all the masters jerked back in surprise. Taking a while to recompose themselves.

“Well what can I say but ‘of course’. Anything for the kind masters who keep me so well fed and housed.”

“Yes well. This murderer is called Sorum, he’s a page boy who ran away deep into the library. We think he must have a knife of some kind, judging by the wound on the victim.”

“Deep in the library? How exciting! I’ll leave at once if you could just set me free.”

They looked back and forth at each other, this was the part they loathed. They had ways to catch him again of course, but it had been a long time since they’d had to use them and it was never easy. And for every minute he was free all of their lives were in danger.

The master in the front was pushed forward and waded fearfully through the marshwater. He brandished his metal staff and touched one end to the wall of the library, poking it through the vines. The other end he brought around and with his hands trembling placed on Mazzran’s chest. Mazzran let out a great laugh of joy and then he was gone, down the staff, into the walls and off to find Sorum.

The masters stood in the door, he was usually back in a few minutes.

They came to a fountain, a silent fountain in the middle of the library. A black pool sat beneath four faces that cried black water into it. Sorum peered into the water and saw not even his own reflection.

“What’s this?”

The Lexigrael shrugged. ‘Somewhere around here there is a-’

Sorum had no time to read the rest of the words for a hand had grabbed his foot and he tried to lurch away. Before he even did that though the leather knife had cut the hand and it had disappeared. Sorum’s ungainly lurch sent him tumbling into the black fountain which was much much deeper than it looked, and much much colder. He floundered to the middle and clung to the central pillar beneath the faces. Outside the fountain the Lexigrael peered around. The room was lit by flickering torches but one by one they began to go out.

“It’s a shame you can’t go in the fountain paper man,” a cruel voice said from the walls. “You might be safer in there.”

The Lexigrael had lost its knife, it was simply standing ready, little more than a figure in the rapidly deepening darkness. The second to last torch went out and Sorum looked toward the last one, so did the Lexigrael. Which meant neither of them saw the bloody hand leave the wall on the other side of the room and throw the leather knife.

The Lexigrael didn’t need to see it though, it’s hand snaked around behind its back and snatched it from the air. Then it leapt over the fountain, clearing the entire room easily to land nimbly by the last torch.

It was difficult to see in such low light but huge letters began to form on the Lexigrael’s body. ‘It’s a shame you can’t go in the fountain Mazzran. You might be safer in there.’

“Ho ho ho,” the cruel voice laughed from a face that had emerged to read the letters. “Very clever, and you know my name. This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

Sorum shivered in the cold, he knew the name Mazzran. In his excitement he’d forgotten all about him, not that he knew much about him to begin with. Just that he never failed. He clawed at the pillar and tried desperately not to fall into the black fountain. The water from the faces above him was getting all over him and making him even colder. He hoped the fountain wasn’t full of dark magic, he was starting to regret his constant drive to adventure the lower levels of the library.

Mazzran tried to grab the Lexigrael’s foot but it was too fast and he narrowly avoided being stabbed again. Next he tried kicking sparks from the torch into its face and it staggered back out of the way. He quenched the torch with his hands but the knife swung back and he had to move them away, the sparks landing on the torch and slowly blossoming back into flame. While the flame was blossoming it was dark though, and the dark was where Mazzran worked best.

He slid toward where he could feel it’s feet, ready to attack. It moved, then it moved again, it was so fast. Then more feet appeared and they weren’t moving so he grabbed them. That was a mistake.

It was light enough for the Lexigrael to see by and it watched Sorum’s wet shoes hit the floor. Mazzran’s hand wrapped around one and the knife took off his fingers. He screamed and the sound echoed through the dark room around them.

Mazzran retreated into his walls, while he was there he was shapeless, formless, he did not bleed. But as soon as he left he would be back in that excruciating pain.

“Do you want your fingers back?” Sorum asked from the safety of the fountain. That blasted fountain, if he’d just been able to kill the boy he could have left without having to fight that accursed thing. But no, where was the fun in that.

Mazzran reached up through the foot of the Lexigrael with his good hand. The paper crumbled beneath him, crushing its foot, then he was gone before that too fast knife could hit him. But then he grabbed the other foot, crushing that as well. He was laughing now and his laughter shook the room. The Lexigrael crawled toward the fountain and as it did he took one leg at the knee, then the other. Both times he was too quick for the knife, he was getting the hang of it now, and it was too broken to properly retaliate. Then he felt hands on the fountain wall, maybe it could escape into the fountain, but he wasn’t going to let it! He lunged and hit nothing but Sorum’s wet gloves. How did he keep falling for that trick? The knife shattered through the back of his other hand and then pulled. Bound by pain he followed until the Lexigrael had his face out of the stone, vulnerable. Unable to think through the pain he lunged and the paper figure was not nimble enough to dodge now that it had no legs. They went up and then crashed back down into the black fountain. The leather knife buried in Mazzran’s face, the cold water turning the Lexigrael to ribbons. Sorum climbed slowly out of the fountain and stood shivering in the lower levels of the Library. Lower than he was used to anyway, apparently they went much deeper than this. Exploring them all seemed rather less interesting now. He went back to the surface. There were no guards there now.

Below him the Fountain of Amizan drank in the magic of the Lexigrael and Mazzran the Worm.

Zarat rushed to the door as the doorbell clanged rudely and constantly. He didn’t think it was very ladylike at all, who did this Essry woman think she was? He reached the door and calmed himself, he had to be polite or he’d never get his old job back. Of course if they never found the ravens he’d also never get his old job back but one problem at a time.

He opened the door and found all the ravens, he also didn’t find Lady Essry but rather a bedraggled man carrying a patterned lute in one hand and clinging onto the bell for dear life with the other. He was scratched and torn up and had ravens biting and clawing at him, cutting his face and hands and clothes to ribbons.

He looked up at Zarat with desperate eyes and clutched his lute. “Help me!”