Episode CXXVII - Yet Another Library

Ellis stayed with Annabella for a little while, watching her play with her dollhouse and being somewhat reassured when Clarissa was released from her dungeon by Harris, her long-lost brother, who had defeated Mistress Poppydew with a broom and locked her in the attic.  She gave him a slight smile, almost ethereal in its pallor, as he stood up to leave.

"I have to catch up with some of the others, now," he said, "but I'll be back to see you later.  I promise."

She nodded and returned to her game and Ellis slipped out into the corridor.

His next stop was the library.  Ember had vaguely outline the directions to it before he had left to seek Annabella and it took some trial and error to find.  Once its grand double doors were in sight, however, it could not be mistaken for anything else.  It seemed that Lord Blood Dragon loved his library exceedingly.

As he pushed through the heavy ebony doors he was so astonished by what lay within that he had to stop immediately to try and take it all in.  Covering three mezzanined storeys and easily as long as a football pitch, with ebony panelled walls, cabinets and shelves and lit by four enormous chandeliers of smoked crystal glass, each with hundreds of hypostatick candles, the library of the Blood Forts was easily the most impressive Ellis had ever seen.

His eyes scanned it back and forth a few times, just absorbing the codexual beauty of it all, before he noticed the softly echoing sounds of voices.  He took another look around and confirmed that he could not see the speakers, meaning that they were probably in one of the many alcoves that added to the surface area of the walls and allowed for even more books to be crammed into the already massive depository.  He listened carefully for a moment, unable as yet to make out any of the words, or who was speaking them, and, working out which alcove they must be in, he took off towards the sounds.  He was looking forward to surprising them all.

He stopped some distance short of the corner of the alcove, however, as the voices came into focus and he was taken aback by what he heard.

"Tho there weally ith only one courthe of acthion we can take," came an unfamiliar, slightly high-pitched voice.  That can't be Lord Blood Dragon, can it? Ellis thought, unsure whether to laugh or be appalled.  Unfortunately the Former Baron’s next words confirmed it.  Blood Dragon was the most disappointing Vampire ever.

"It would seem so my sanguivorous companion, though it pains me to admit it.  The books are all in agreement and it never pays to disagree with as many fine tomes as these.

"My fourth cousin, twice removed, Hansel Von Kuchemann, tried it one Sunday afternoon, to his peril, when he decided to rearrange his library of exotic Geist diaries, choosing to sort them into alphabetick order when they themselves had insisted quite strongly – and in writing - on being categorised according to class.  Between the fragments of shredded paper and my poor cousin's scattered viscera, it took his servants a whole two weeks to clean the Library so that it could be used for that month's Borough Book Club which, with tragic irony, Hansel hosted posthumously from the pages of a children's chapbook."

Ellis couldn't resist a small smile at the sound of the Former Baron being his usual self, but was concerned by the tone in his voice which suggested a course of action would have to be taken that he did not like.

Suddenly he realised that he was eavesdropping and, feeling guilty, Ellis decided it was time to show himself.  He stepped around the corner just as Miss Barkcastle was leaning over towards a large tome which lay open in the middle of their reading table.

“At least the locations of five of them are clearly marked in Volume VI of Missouri Smith’s Diary of an Imperilled Archaeologist.  I’m not sure we’d know where to begin without his groundwork.”

“Ah, Alice,” the Former Baron said with a smile as he caught sight of Ellis appearing around the bookcases, “finally feeling like your old self, I see?”

“Something like that,” he replied sheepishly, “I’ve still got a lot to think about.”

“I’m sure you do!  Why, when my Great Aunt Helga first woke from her coma-”

“Actually,” Ellis interrupted, “I was wondering what you were talking about.”

“We’re twying to ethtablith a way to get wid of Lakhma,” the Vampire replied, forcing Ellis to look his way.  In many ways he resembled the Vampire performances of Bela Lugosi, however all his teeth seemed unnaturally long and sharp and were probably the reason for his ridiculous speech impediment.  “I for one cannot abide the tentacular menathe any longer!”

“On this we all agree, of course,” Miss Barkcastle added.

“So what have you decided?”

“Well,” the Former Baron picked up the conversation, although he sounded a little put out that Ellis had not allowed him to tell yet another family anecdote, “we found reference to a series of weapons which were created the last time Lakhma took control of Shadow over a thousand years ago.”

“Weapons?” Ellis asked, intrigued.  “What kind of weapons?”

“We’re not entirely sure, Ellis, dear,” said Miss. Barkcastle, “all the references describe them only as Obelisks, but it is clear that they defeated Lakhma somehow.”

“Obelisks…” Ellis said, trying to think.  The only obelisk he could recall was the one on the Thames Embankment in London which he had seen on a school trip to the British Museum when he was 11 – only of course he now knew that he had done no such thing.  That memory, along with almost all the others he had of his life on Earth, were fabricated somehow.  Thinking about it, he found he wanted to know more about how that happened.  Just how old am I, really? he wondered.

Regardless, the embankment obelisk had just been a tapered pillar of stone with a pyramid on top which the British Empire had taken from Egypt.  Whilst it might possibly have made a good battering ram if turned onto its side, it was certainly no weapon.  It was also, relative to the size of a city like shadow, very, very small.

“You said you knew where they were?” he asked.

“We know where five of them are,” the Former Baron corrected.  “There are supposed to be six, however.”

“How do you plan to find the sixth.  It’d be like looking for Cleopatra’s Needle in a haystack!” he giggled at the pun, but the others just gave him a strange look.

“Who ith thith Cleopatwa?” Blood Dragon asked, looking as bewildered as ever a Vampire could, “and why are we interethted in her thewing kit?”

“It’s… uh… nevermind,” Ellis replied with a shrug.

“Well, to answer your question,” the Former Baron continued, “I propose we visit the other five first and see what we can learn, then perhaps we will have some clue as to where the sixth is.”

“There’s one not that far away, actually,” Miss Barkcastle suggested, “probably just a few days away by carriage.”

“Unfortunately we’ll be hunted down like animals the moment we step foot outside the doors of this crypt,” said the Former Baron dejectedly.  “I’ve never felt so much like a rat in a cage in all my life, not even that time when, just for fun you understand, my third cousin Erzebet and I, well-”

“I’m not sure I want to know where this is going,” Ellis interrupted.

“Oh it was all perfectly innocent, although some of the things that cheese got used for afterwards were less so.”

“I’m sure the anecdote is well worth hearing, Franck, my dear,” Miss Barkcastle said gently, “but it’s not solving the problem you pointed out.  How do we get to the first obelisk?”

“Where ith it, again?” Blood Dragon asked.

“It’s on an island in lake Nightglass, apparently.”

“Then I think I have jutht the tholution you need,” the Vampire replied, rising to his feet.  “If you’d like to follow me, thewe’th a part of Vawokh Vehr I haven’t intwoduthed you to yet.”

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