A sudden chill by my right side. The ghost child was there, Róise clutched in one hand, the other slipping into mine.“Catty,” she whispered, “my head hurts.” And then, sharp and distinct, there came to my nostrils the smell of smoke. I whipped around, the child’s hand still in mine, Gearróg huddled on the pathway in front of me, and saw it seeping out under the library door, an insidious gray blanket. Through the glazed window something flickered, golden, deadly. The library was on fire. The manuscripts. The books. The grimoires—the ancient pages would go up like a torch. A burst of light, a flare of heat and the history of Whistling Tor would be gone.With it would go any chance of finding the counterspell.
“No!” shrieked Gearróg, rolling over, booted feet kicking, arms threshing. “Make it stop! Leave me be!”
Cold sweat broke out on my skin. From behind the library door I thought I could hear the crackling of hungry flames. I stood frozen as the child clutched at my skirt and began a piercing wail, “No fire! No fire!” Gearróg had come up onto his knees and was groping for his spear, which had rolled out of reach. His arm was twitching so violently that for now he had little chance of grasping the weapon.The smoke thickened around us. Blind panic was only a breath away.
“I need you to help me,” I said, squatting down beside the ghost child. “Take Róise up to my bedchamber right now. Run as fast as you can.You can get into my bed if you want. Stay there until I come, however long it takes.”
She obeyed, silent now, running across Irial’s garden through the drifting smoke and out through the archway. I turned back to find Gearróg on his feet with the spear in his hand, four paces away and facing me. His eyes were desperate. He would kill me without hesitation if he believed that would silence the voice in his head. Behind him the library burned.
“Gearróg,” I said shakily, “you’re a good man.You’re a warrior. Anluan needs you. He needs you to stand guard until he comes back up the hill. It won’t be long.”
The warrior shifted from foot to foot, his fingers clenching and unclenching on the spear shaft. His eyes darted from me to the walkway, where men still fought and yelled and fell.“Anluan doesn’t want me hurt,” I said.“I’m his friend. I’m your friend. Gearróg, the library is on fire. Please let me pass so I can save the books.” I edged forward; he stood immobile, blocking the way. God help me, if I didn’t get in there soon it would all be gone. “Gearróg, let me pass! Please!”
Gearróg lurched to one side, striking his temple with a clenched fist. “Stop your wretched ravings,” he muttered.This time he wasn’t talking to me. “Hush your poisonous prattling! Let a man do his work!”
Up on the walkway, someone started to sing. It was a ragged, desperate sort of song, dredged from old memory, the kind of tune a man reaches for when there is nothing else to keep the mind from tumbling right over into madness.
“
Gearróg was staring up towards the walkway as new voices joined in, first one, then another, then more and more in an uncertain chorus.“
I dashed past him, along the path, up the steps, pausing for a moment to snatch my handkerchief from my belt and press it over my nose and mouth before I pushed open the library door. In my mind a desperate list of priorities was forming itself: Irial’s notebooks, which were nearest to the door and might not yet be damaged. The grimoires, left in a stack beside my work table. Nechtan’s documents and the transcriptions I had already completed.The box with the obsidian mirror . . .
The place was thick with smoke. I couldn’t see an arm’s length before my eyes. Choking, coughing, I groped my way over to the shelves where Irial’s notebooks were stored, ready to grab an armful and flee out into the garden with them. I had no chance of putting out the fire. By the time I fetched even one bucket of water, everything could be gone, and Gearróg was in no fit state to help. My arm swept along the shelf, but Irial’s records were not there—someone had moved them. Or was I in the wrong place? The smoke was stinging my eyes, making my nose run, creeping into my throat. My breath rasping, I screamed, “Muirne! Anyone! Help!”
