Olm’s name doesn’t ring any bells. I’ll investigate him later, I decide, once I’m done with this strange mission, once I’ve entered the library, delivered the book to its warrior guardian and returned home.
Keeping my thoughts positive, right? I’m doing my best here.
Huffing a frustrated breath, gathering my strength, I resume climbing. The muscles in my calves and arms burn. The satchel feels heavier the longer I climb, dragging me down.
“Throw me down, then,” Olm mutters. “Maybe a passing wildcat will grab me and carry me back to civilization, away from these bare rocks, savage animals and stupid women.”
“So that’s what’s bothering you now? My exhaustion?” I reach higher, find purchase with the toe of my shoe and lift myself up another few feet. “Not the fact I’m about to abandon you at the library?”
“The library. You speak of the Areon as if it’s an actual library,” he scoffs.
“It contains books. Therefore, it’s a library.”
“A library is a place of order and quiet, a safe place. The Areon is an entire world, a kingdom of violence and rogue magic extending into every book and every story.”
“That’s interesting. What else do you know about it?” I grit my teeth, struggling to pull myself higher. “Go on, entertain me while I climb this deadly mountain.”
“And distract you? No. Just… get up there.”
“I’m going in, you know,” I bite out. “You can’t stop me. If you don’t help me do what I came here to do, I’ll tear your book apart.”
“Remember the dragon,” he says and heat seeps through the satchel and into my back. “If you leave me, I’ll roast you until your flesh is tender and falling off the bone.”
I shiver. Olm seems harmless most of the time, all protests and indignant replies, but if he can indeed unleash a dragon… The only reason I’m alive is that he needs me as his pack animal, to transport his book where he wants it to go, but if I attempt to leave it at the library or destroy it as I have threatened, will he kill me? How fast can he be? Could he destroy me before I destroy him?
Hopefully it won’t come to that.
“The law decrees that magical books are precious and shouldn’t be tampered with,” Olm snaps at my thoughts. “That includes destruction.”
“Is there such a law? It doesn’t matter, Olm. I’m a thief, do you think I care? And out here, who will see me?”
“You are unbearable,” Olm declares, the heat dissipating at my back. “I wonder if the trouble of unleashing the dragon on you is even worth it.”
“Stop doubting. It’s not.” I huff and puff as I climb and climb. “Like you said before, you need me alive if I am to take you where you want to go.”
“Does that mean I’ve managed to persuade you to take me to the palace?”
“No.”
A screech of frustration almost throws me off the mountain and makes my ears bleed, but I keep a feral smile on my face as I keep going, my palms and shins cut up and bleeding on the rock, my dress torn and tangled around my legs.
Every part of my body feels bruised and heavy. I’m hungry, desperately thirsty and so exhausted I want to cry.
Almost there.
Gritting my teeth, I pull myself over the last few yards of rock, leaving some more skin behind, and finally reach a wide rock shelf.
Grateful to have reached a flat surface, I crawl further until I’m not dangling over the drop anymore and sit back on my heels. Look at that. It’s as large as the square where I encountered this accursed book. And…
“Seriously?” I say, aggravated. “Is this it?”
It looks like I’ve reached the entrance to the Library of Areon, only it’s not what I’d expected. I had imagined a huge, engraved gate to the realm beyond, magic shimmering at its edges. I expected statues and pillars carved on either side, something impressive and breathtaking.
Well, it is a gate, most definitely. A door, at the very least, and it’s not open. Oh, no, that would be too easy. It’s a simple outline in the black, basaltic rock, its surface craggy and patched with lichen and flowers.
An epigraph is etched over it, the letters jagged and barely visible.
“A riddle,” I whisper. “Naida didn’t know about it, but it makes sense. It’s a library. Books are tales, and tales like riddles.”
