The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [123]
Standing frozen in a pool of light, one hand reaching before him, the rictus of a scream on his face, was his other.
Before him stood the Bookman.
The shape he had only seen through shadow before was now entirely visible to him, and he shuddered as he looked on it, and took a step back, though he didn't know it.
A monster stood there, alien and incomprehensible: its body was made of the multiple segments of a giant invertebrate, a caterpillar-like creature with multifaceted eyes that stared all around them on long stalks that emerged from its head. But that wasn't what scared him: for, watching the Bookman under the lights, Orphan realised something that had never occurred to him before.
The Bookman was old. And time had not been kind to it.
The segments of the body were the colours of earth and rotting vegetation: at places, a green pus oozed out of open sores. There were scars on that body, gashes made as if by some giant mechanical lizard, and the Bookman's small, many legs seemed barely able to hold his massive girth.
"Where is it?" the Bookman roared. "Where–"
The eye-stalks turned. The eyes fastened on Orphan and the wide, horizontal mouth opened.
The Bookman screamed.
The ground shook. In the distance, there was the sound of an avalanche, as of thousands of books tumbling down. The Bookman screamed anger, and the world around him cowered, the shadows hiding, their murmuring ceasing abruptly.
"You!"
Orphan held the Binder's Translation before him. He felt like a child on the beach, trying to protect himself from a monster with only a sea-star in his hand. The eye-stalks wavered, bent towards him. The Bookman moved sinuously, a cross between a worm and a snake.
"Give it to me!"
A new realisation came to Orphan then, the shock of it cold in his mind.
The Bookman was dying.
Orphan stared at him. The Translation shone, sicklygreen, in his hand.
The Bookman stopped.
"Orphan."
And now he could see the shadows gathering. They were not shadows, he realised, but men and women, a multitude of them, gathering silently around the ring of light. He looked at their faces.
Wan and sickly, they wore no expression but for a haunting sadness that collected in their eyes. They were the faces of the dead.
"You failed," the Bookman said. His voice was soft now, the sound of a leaf being turned in a book. "You failed. I thought it was him – tricked! Tricked!" Orphan took another step back. The Bookman didn't move. He spoke softly still, but somehow it was more frightening than his shout. "They will come now. Because of you. They will come, and they will destroy this world."
Orphan inched his head in reply. He felt lightheaded. "Perhaps," he said. "Perhaps. Do you hate them for being your masters?"
The Bookman's eyes, as large as fists, blinked on their stalks. "They are not my masters."
"But they were," Orphan said, surprising himself with his own even tone. "And I think, through your hatred of them, your fear, they still are."
"Enough!" the Bookman said, and the shades fled again, disappeared into the dark corners. "Give me this… this thing."
"You killed my mother."
The Bookman's head shook, but no words came.
"You used me. You planned my course even before I was born. For what? For revenge? You have brought the world to the edge of chaos all by yourself. It didn't take a threat from outer space for that. Only you."
"Only you," the Bookman said, and he chuckled. He was, Orphan thought, quite insane.
"I want Lucy," he said. He tried to avoid looking at himself, his other's frozen face.
"I should simply kill you," the Bookman said.
Orphan looked at the egg in his hand. The Translation. The Bookman didn't move.
It was a fragile thing, Orphan thought. He tightened his fingers around the egg and felt its material give. I could break it, he