The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [82]
He lay winded, his eyes closed. Pain brightened behind them. Thrumming. He could feel the floor vibrating with the beat of drums.
"Stand up."
The speaker wasn't Aramis. The voice was gravelly, old, the sound of dry earth hitting a metal coffin. Orphan opened his eyes and saw dim light coming alive around him. He was in a large, circular room, bare but for…
He stood up and tried to back away. In the centre of the room stood a gigantic spider. Aramis stood respectfully to one side, at a distance, his face impassive. Beside him stood Captain Wyvern.
"Approach," the spider said.
Orphan looked at the spider. Something was not right about it, about its appearance… A lifeless sense. No. Constructed. At the end it was curiosity, more than fear, that made him move. He wanted to see.
He paused a few feet from the spider. He looked over the creature and almost sighed. Strong, metal legs held up the fat bulbous body. Two black eyes, like polished buttons, stared down at him. It strongly resembled the Bookman, he thought: an insectoid creature that was not made of living tissue, a machine and yet much more. He stared at the creature, trying to understand. Something Byron had said…
"So you are the messenger," the spider said. Its two forelegs rose and fell on the floor, tapping out a sharp staccato.
The floor changed.
He stood now, he saw, within a picture. It was a picture of the island, rendered by arcane means he didn't understand. Crude, he thought. Not a picture. A map. He stood at its centre. The temple was marked under his feet.
"I am the Binder," the creature said.
Orphan stole a glance at Aramis and Wyvern. They were immobile, like two statues who might have stood for centuries in this ruined hall. "What do you bind?" he said.
The spider sighed. The alien eyes looked deep into Orphan's, held him captive. "Books," it said. "Which is to say, repositories of knowledge. Everything living, everything thinking is a sort of book, Orphan. Yes, I know what you call yourself. I also know your name. I have been waiting for you."
"My name is Orphan," Orphan said, sounding petulant even to himself.
"A book which doesn't yet know its own title…" the Binder said. "To answer your question: I am, as this shape may suggest to the mind, a web-weaver. The world is made of many strands. How those strands interact, how one shapes the other, is the thing that occupies me. Your strand, for instance. Strands."
"What?" He took a step back, and thought, What does the Binder want with me?
"My web is limited," the Binder said, "to this island. And my time is almost gone. I, like the Bookman, was only ever meant to be a tool. A repository of data, of forgotten science no one was ever that interested in. In the world we came from…" It sighed again, a strange sound from the arachnid body. "The Translation," the Binder said, "will one day give this world its peace. The Translation of everything." It advanced on Orphan. Orphan stepped back, again. "The translation of every work begins with a single word…" the spider said. And then – "Hold him."
Orphan tried to turn. But Wyvern and Aramis materialised on either side of him and held him. He tried to struggle but couldn't break free. "What are you doing?" he shouted.
"Destiny," the Binder said, "is like a book. It needs manufacturing, the pulp processed, the glue fixed tightly – and it requires a binding, to hold it together lest it fall apart.
It approached him. The drums picked up again, their beats rising and falling as if following the spider's eight footsteps.
Panic made Orphan voiceless. He struggled against his captors but they were unmovable. He tried to kick and found only air.
Then the spider was on top of him.
Metal legs pinned him down. "This will hurt," the spider said, "a little. Hold his hand flat against the floor."
Orphan felt his hand grabbed, pressed palm down on the ground. They grabbed his fingers and splayed them. He tried to speak and couldn't.
A leg came down. It was metal, like an axe. The pain seared