A Librarian’s Nightmare

 

 

Dagger Ish, goblin and head curator of the Kingdoms National Museum was doing some paperwork in his office when there was a knock on the door. He looked up from the papers on his desk, a fountain pen poised in a hand.

 

‘Come in,’ he said.

 

The door opened and another goblin wearing clothes that only a clerk would wear… a white shirt, black tie and black trousers came in. He was wearing spectacles and a pencil was tucked behind one ear.

 

Now you might be surprised to find goblins working as clerks. Most goblins like nothing better than waging a blood thirsty battle for some evil or dark power. But there are some goblins who unfortunately cannot stand the sight of blood.

 

As you can imagine this is not very useful to a folk who see a lot of it and quite often their own. So those who can’t stand the sight of blood leave their mountain homes and go down into towns to find other work. As it happens they make very good clerks.

 

Dagger Ish was one such goblin and had over many years worked for the museum. He was so good at his job that he was promoted to the position of head curator.

 

‘Has the librarian arrived, Losh?’ he asked the second goblin.

 

Dagger Losh, his personal secretary, nodded.

 

‘She’s been shown to the meeting hall.’

 

‘Very good,’ Dagger Ish said as he stood and came around the desk.

 

‘Do you… do you think she will want to take the book with her?’ Losh asked. ‘It’s not exactly a spell book and the library would be entitled to have it.’

 

‘I would be very surprised if she did,’ Dagger Ish replied.

 

‘I hope she doesn’t,’ Dagger Losh said. ‘I hate to think what would happen if the book ever got… misplaced.’

 

‘Yes, libraries do have a habit of misplacing books,’ Dagger Ish agreed. ‘But once I explain its danger, I don’t think she’ll want to take it with her. Now, I had better not keep her waiting.’

 

A short time later he arrived at the meeting hall’s door that was being guarded by an immense rock troll armed with a huge broadsword. Rock trolls make very good guards as they are nearly eight feet tall and their pale grey skin is as tough as, you guessed it, rock. So much so that they don’t need to bother with armour and only wear shorts, for modesty’s sake of course.

 

‘Good morning, Thomas,’ Dagger greeted it pleasantly.

 

‘Morning, Ish,’ Thomas replied in a voice that sounded like rocks grinding together.

 

Thomas pushed open the door for Ish, who stepped through it into a large hall with a high domed ceiling made of glass. Bright sunlight shone through it and gleamed upon a long table of a dark red wood. High backed chairs stood around it and seated in one was a middle-aged woman wearing a drab grey skirt and jacket over a white blouse. She was also wearing a pair of thick spectacles that made her look quite owlish.

 

'Good morning,' Dagger said as he came up to her. ‘I’m Dagger Ish, head curator of the museum.’

 

'Pleased to meet you,’ she replied curtly as they shook hands. ‘I am Morena, a senior librarian with the Kingdoms National Library.’

 

Now the Kingdoms National Library is the biggest library in all of Kingdoms. It keeps a copy of every book ever written in any kingdom and its many librarians roam far and wide in search of them.

 

The Kingdoms National Museum itself sometimes comes across rare books in its own search for ancient artefacts. It has an agreement with the library to hand over any books it finds to them… save for one type… spell books. A spell book can be quite dangerous in the wrong hands and librarians are not trained to deal with them.

 

‘Do you have any books for me today?’ Morena asked.

 

‘Yes, we have a few that will be of interest to you,’ Dagger replied. ‘And one that you will have to see for yourself and decide whether you wish to take it.’

 

‘Is it a spell book?’ Morena asked.

 

‘Not as such… but it does have something quite unusual about it,’ he replied.

 

‘Well, if it’s not a spell book I’ll definitely wish to see it,’ Morena said, showing her curious librarian nature.

 

Dagger gave a knowing smile and led her out of the hall. They headed down several corridors with Thomas thudding along a few paces behind. They shortly came to a huge bronze door guarded by another Rock Troll. It pushed the heavy door open and Dagger, Morena and Thomas stepped through it.

 

Morena found herself in a massive, windowless room lit by lanterns hanging from the ceiling. It was filled with row upon row of glass cabinets of various sizes.

 

‘Where are we?’ she asked.

 

‘This is one of the rooms in the Wizardry Artefacts wing of the museum where magical artefacts are kept, many of which are quite dangerous,’ Dagger replied. ‘We’re keeping the book here for the moment.’

 

Morena was intrigued. What danger could there be in a book if it wasn’t one about spells or enchantments, she wondered? She followed Dagger down an aisle, eyeing some of the artefacts locked in the cabinets. There were helmets, daggers, swords, rings, spears, horns, cloaks, gloves and boots just to name a few.

 

‘So all these items are magical?’ she asked.

 

‘Indeed they are,’ Dagger replied and stopped by a long cabinet with a spear inside. ‘Take this spear for instance. It will strike its target no matter what the skill of the thrower.’

 

‘How amazing!’ Morena said. ‘And this horn?’

 

‘Ah, now this is a very interesting artefact. It was found several years ago in the city of Mooseton, washed up on a riverbed after heavy rains. The person who found it unfortunately blew on it without thinking and discovered that it could raise the dead!’

 

The librarian gasped.

 

‘How frightful,’ she said in horror.

 

‘Indeed and it was highly unpleasant for the folk of Mooseton to have their dead relatives, in varying states of decay, wandering about. It took more than a week for a wizard to come up with a spell to return them to their graves.’

 

They moved on down several more aisles till they came to the far wall and a heavy iron door.

 

‘This is where we’re keeping the book,’ Dagger said. ‘As I said, it’s not a spell book as such, rather it has a spell woven into it.’

 

He slipped a bunch of keys off his belt and choosing one, slipped it into the door’s lock. Unlocking it, he pushed it open and waved Morena through.

 

She found herself in a small windowless room. A lantern hung from a hook on a wall, its light shining over a small desk where an averaged sized book with a plain brown cover lay.

 

‘This is the book?’ she asked in a disappointed tone as she had been hoping for something grander. ‘It doesn’t look all that threatening. You said there was a spell woven in it?’

 

‘It has indeed,’ Dagger replied. ‘The museum came across it several months ago in the city of Oakton in the Kingdom of the Windy Moon. It belonged to a bookshop owner who was extremely jealous of another bookshop owner. He had a rather thoughtless wizard weave a unique spell into the book and then placed it in the other’s bookshop. The next day every single page of every single book in the shop was blank. All the writing, all the pictures had vanished.’

 

As Dagger spoke Morena’s face turned a ghastly pale colour, her eyes and mouth opening wide in horror.

 

‘The book is rather unusual as you can appreciate and the museum thinks it would be safer kept here,’ Dagger went on. ‘But of course, if the Kingdoms National Library felt that they should look after it…’

 

But the librarian had already held up a shaking hand.

 

‘No… no, thank you!’ she replied in a suitably terrified voice. ‘That won’t be at all necessary!’