The Fall of the Readers Read online

  “But you did learn?” Alice said.

  “I did. And when I did, I saw what my children had become, and I realized the harm I had done. They had my intelligence, some fraction of my power, but they also had all the hunger and ambition of your world. They used the folded space you call a ‘labyrinth’ to dominate and destroy, to rule over humans for their own amusement.

  “I could see that I had been nothing but a curse on this beautiful place I had found, no matter that it had only been through ignorance. I decided the time had come to return home. I would leave, and I would bring my children with me. They would bring something of this world into my home, and with it, who knows what we might have created?

  “But they did not wish to leave.”

  “They turned on you,” Alice said, feeling a sympathetic pain. “All of them?”

  “Not all. But enough. They collected the greatest wizards of your world, and offered them a bargain; their services in exchange for imprisoning me forever. In my ignorance, I was easily trapped. Those of my children who dissented were bound up in prison-books.

  “But my children, who believed themselves so clever, underestimated the humans. With the labyrinthine helping them keep their libraries under control, the wizards’ power grew at a frightening rate. They became the Readers, and they have dominated the world ever since.”

  “But they’re gone now,” Alice said. “Ending trapped them.”

  “She has. And now Ending and her siblings are free to do as they have always wished, to make the world into their plaything. Two millennia of slavery has not made them kinder.”

  “I should never have trusted her.” Alice felt like she might have cried, if she’d still had eyes. “I should never have trusted any of them. First Geryon, then Ending. And now my friends are . . .”

  She felt like she should be sobbing, gasping for breath, but she had no lungs, either. Nothing but thought, alone in the darkness.

  “You cannot blame yourself. Ending set this scheme in motion long before you were born. She has infinite patience. That is what makes her the most dangerous of all.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Alice said. “What’s the good of it now?” What’s the good of anything?

  She couldn’t move, even if there had been anywhere to move. She couldn’t feel her threads, or the fabric of space.

  “If you could escape from here,” the First said, “what would you do?”

  “Stop them,” Alice said at once. “And rescue my friends.”

  “The only way to stop my children is to free me,” the First said. “And that means the end of the age of Readers and the end of labyrinths. It means the return of the old times, the wild times, before I even came here, when magic was a natural part of your world.”

  “That’s why I came here in the first place,” Alice said. “The Readers have gone on too long as it is. They’ve twisted the world, and it needs a chance to recover.”

  “No matter what it means for you? You are, after all, a Reader.”

  “I didn’t ask to be,” Alice said. “I’ll manage.” If she’d had a heart, it would have been beating fast. “Is there a way out?”

  “Yes. As I said, Ending’s prison for you is incomplete. She must allow the flow of time in order to use your power, and that means there is a crack, however miniscule. I can force it wider and get you out.”

  “You helped me once before,” Alice said. “In the Palace of Glass.”

  “I did. In dreams, I have only a fraction of my power, but sometimes a fraction is enough.”

  “Once I’m out, what do I need to do?”

  “Return to the Great Binding and destroy it. But it will not be easy to reach. I cannot be certain where you will return to in the real world, and the old Readers’ portal will not open for you. You must find another way to the center of the Grand Labyrinth.”

  “I’ll find a way.” Alice hesitated. “It’s me that powers the binding now, isn’t it? What would happen if I just . . . died?”

  It was a horrible thought, but she had to ask. If dying means saving the world and all my friends . . .

  “The binding would take too long to unravel. Ending would have time to find another solution, even if it meant bringing back the old Readers to make a new agreement. She will do anything to prevent my release. The Great Binding must be destroyed, once and for all.”

  “All right.” Alice couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit of relief. Now, instead of jumping off a bridge, I just need to get past a magical labyrinth into the best-protected place in the world. “And my friends?”

  “Once I am free, I can retrieve your friends from the void. They will not even know anything has happened.”

  That, at least, was a comfort. But something nagged at her. She wanted to believe the First. The feeling that came into her mind along with her was warm, gentle, and kind. It reminded her of her father. But first Geryon, then Ending . . .

  “How do I know,” she said slowly, “that any of this is true? That this isn’t just a trick to get me to let you out?”

  There was a long silence.

  “I can offer no proof,” the First said. “But once you are free, I cannot command you. You can believe me, or not, and that is as it should be. You are a Reader, and your decisions are your own. If you wish, you can leave this world and its problems far behind.”

  The First’s words reminded Alice of something the Dragon had said to her, in Esau’s fortress, what seemed like a hundred years ago: “You deserve the opportunity to make your own choices, to walk your own path. Indeed, I believe you will do so, regardless of what Ending, Geryon, or anyone else intends. You must do what you believe to be right.”

  “What if I can’t tell for certain?” she had asked the Dragon.

  The Dragon had sounded as though it was smiling. “Which of us can?”

  She took a deep, shaky breath. “All right,” she told the First. “Send me back.”

  “Be ready for anything.”

  “Well,” Alice said, stretching her nonexistent limbs. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

  THE FIRST’S WARNING OUGHT to have been sufficient. Most of the Earth’s surface was ocean, after all, especially in the general vicinity of the Grand Labyrinth. But Alice had still been shocked when she’d slid out of the void and immediately plunged into choppy, freezing-cold water.

  Fortunately, she’d had the presence of mind to yank hard on the devilfish thread. The transformation had left her well-suited to her new environment, and for a long time she’d gloried in the feeling of having a body again, even if it was a fish’s. She’d chased down and devoured a few smaller fish, swallowing them raw and bloody, and marveled at how they tasted like the finest meal she’d ever eaten.

  At night, she’d surfaced and changed back to a girl to study the stars. She began swimming west, on the theory that if she was somewhere in the Atlantic, this might eventually take her back to the United States. The length of the journey didn’t seem to matter much. As the devilfish, she could rest in the water, find what she needed to eat, and swim until she was tired; nothing else really counted.

  On the second night, she’d spotted a ship by its lights, and gotten close enough to identify the American flag at the mast. She followed it, using Spike’s strength to power through the water faster than any normal fish would have been able to. To her surprise, it was only another day before land came into sight, bumps on the horizon that slowly grew into beaches and trees. She’d left the ship behind, searching for a place she could come ashore without anyone seeing, and settled on a deserted strip of sand.

  Most of the houses visible from the beach were boarded up and dark. A long, empty street lined with driveways that led only to empty lots spoke of plans that had gone catastrophically awry. Faded signs proclaimed it to be the proper
ty of the Ocean Vista community, and strictly prohibited trespassing, but the drifts of cigarette butts and empty bottles suggested the rules were largely ignored. Alice held up a hand, staring at her fingers as though she’d forgotten what they were for.

  She hadn’t been human for more than a few minutes at a time in days, and had been in the void for an eternity before that. It was some time, therefore, before she got her legs in working order, gathered them under her, and climbed unsteadily to her feet. The rocks were sharp and painful with no shoes, and she pulled on the Swarm thread in what had become an automatic reflex. Thus protected, she walked up the beach, avoiding the debris and slipping through one of the many places where the fence had been cut away. Beyond were rows of identical houses, the empty lots standing out like missing teeth in a smile.

  She’d had time to plan as she swam through the endless, comforting ocean. The first part of the plan had worked; this certainly looked like the United States. The second part entailed getting back to Pittsburgh, which presented a few obstacles. She had no idea where she was, other than the vague notion that she was somewhere on the eastern seaboard. She had no money, identification, or anything else that might be useful. She had nothing, in fact, except the ruined clothes she was wearing and the threads coiling at the back of her mind. And she hadn’t traveled through the human world, the real world, in a long time.

  It was odd to think about trains and automobiles, the need to buy tickets and check schedules. Even before her father had died, she hadn’t traveled much on her own, and the prospect of being lost in another state with no one to help her would once have been terrifying. Now it felt like a minor irritant, a problem but not a really serious one.

  I suppose it’s all a matter of perspective. Of course, in the old days, she reflected, she could have gone to the police and told them what had happened, and they’d probably have taken her home. Telling her story to any authorities now would only land her in a mental asylum.

  First things first. Find out where I am.

  It was late evening, the sun already down and the sky rapidly purpling to the color of a bruise. Most of the houses on the street were dark, but at the end of the first row, she saw one whose windows shone with the steady glow of electric light. Alice headed for it, drawn like a moth to the flame. She rang the doorbell, which was a modern electric chime. Electricity. She’d almost forgotten about it, living in Geryon’s gloomy old mansion, where magic powered everything.

  “Hello,” Alice said as the door opened. She had practiced this speech in her mind on the way here. “Do you have a newspaper you can spare? Yesterday’s would be fine.”

  “Good Lord.” The woman who’d opened the door had short, bobbed hair and spoke with a Southern accent. She was older than Alice’s father, with thick, horn-rimmed spectacles and a skeptical expression. “What’re you doing out at this hour?”

  “I’m just . . .” Alice’s mind went blank. She had genuinely forgotten that in the human world, a girl her age might not be allowed to wander about whenever she wished, and she had no idea what would be plausible. “Lost?” she finished, hopefully. “And if I had a newspaper, I could find where I’m supposed to be.”

  “And are you going to walk there?” The woman peered closer. “You haven’t even got any shoes!”

  “I . . . left them. To dry.” Alice raised her arms. “I fell in the water, you see.”

  “I see.” The woman sucked her lower lip. “Well. You’d better come in.”

  “You’re not going to call the police, are you?” Alice said as the woman escorted her into a tidy kitchen. The walls were covered in floral print wallpaper, and there were pictures hanging everywhere, mostly amateur watercolors, with a few photographs mixed in.

  “Couldn’t if I wanted to,” the woman said. “We’re not on the phone here. They never built the lines.” She gestured to the battered wooden table and chairs. “Sit, sit. You want something hot to drink? Hot cocoa?”

  Alice hadn’t realized until that moment how much she missed hot cocoa. “Yes, thank you. That would be wonderful.”

  “If you want to go to the police, I can take you into town when the bus comes,” the woman said. “But I got a feeling that’s not what you want.”

  “No,” Alice said.

  “What’s your name? Mine’s Nancy.”

  “Alice,” said Alice. “Alice Creighton.” Last names seemed to be a thing of the human world, too, like cars and radios. It had been ages since she’d used hers.

  “Alice is a nice name,” Nancy said, busying herself with a saucepan. “You’re not from around here, I take it?”

  “Honestly, I don’t even really know where here is,” Alice said.

  Nancy named a town, and Alice shook her head. She named another, larger town, and when Alice didn’t know that one, either, she rolled her eyes and said, “Florida. Have you heard of Florida?”

  “I’ve heard of Florida,” Alice said. She had a vague image of palm-lined beaches and crocodiles.

  “That’s where we are. Down near the end.” Nancy poured hot milk from the saucepan into a mug, and spooned in chocolate syrup. She set it in front of Alice. “Give that a stir and let it cool off. So how do you come to not know what state you’re in?”

  “I was on a boat,” Alice said, improvising. “A ship, I mean. I . . . stowed away. Then somebody found me and I had to jump overboard and swim for shore.”

  “Where were you headed?” Nancy said suspiciously.

  “North. I’m looking for my family.”

  “Family.” Nancy’s face softened. “That’s important, in times like this.”

  She turned away, looking out the kitchen window for a while. Alice blew on the cocoa and, cautiously, took a sip. It was thick and sweet, and brought back memories that felt like they were from another world. Mrs. Juniper, her old tutor, had always made her cocoa as a reward for a job well done. Alice wondered where she was now, and what had happened to her father’s old house, and if there was another little girl now living in her room.

  “Here,” Nancy said, interrupting her thoughts. “You wanted a newspaper, right? This is yesterday’s.”

  It was a cheap one, the ink already smearing. Alice’s first concern was the date. It said April 25, so today was April 26. She’d gotten out of the habit of tracking the calendar closely, but that meant it had been at least a month since she and the others had set out in search of the Grand Labyrinth.

  The headlines told the usual stories, celebrities and politics and local color. A famous baby had been kidnapped, apparently, and a ransom might or might not have been demanded. Hindenburg, the president of Germany, was having a public feud with someone named Hitler. The American presidential election had already begun.

  Above them all, though, was a large headline in slightly frantic type: “MASS INSANITY CONTINUES, EMERGENCY CONFERENCE CONVENED IN D.C.” The subheads read: “New York, Pittsburgh, Seattle Affected; Thousands Flee Cities; Reports of Panic in London, Athens, Rome; Scientists Suspect Airborne Fungus—Ergot Poisoning; President Hoover Urges Calm.”

  Alice read. In a few cities, residents had begun seeing inexplicable things—streets where no streets should be, or tunnels that led to the wrong places. Creatures no naturalist had ever catalogued, strange lights and sounds. People had gotten lost in their own neighborhoods, their own houses, found in tears hours later and describing endless staircases or roads that looped back on themselves whichever direction they ran. An increasing number weren’t found at all.

  The best that ordinary human science could do, in the face of this, was a diagnosis of “mass insanity,” some kind of infectious airborne contagion causing the people in the affected areas to go temporarily mad.

  The labyrinths are spreading. Alice hadn’t imagined it would happen so fast. Her gut twisted as she followed the story, reading about teams of investigators finding nothing out of the ordinary in places
where the residents had run screaming. The labyrinthine are toying with them. The authorities would never imagine that it wasn’t a natural phenomenon they were dealing with, but something magical under the control of a malicious intelligence.

  She wondered how long it would take before the scientists and politicians would admit what seemed utterly insane—that the world they lived in, the world of laws and normality, was a paper-thin film over something deeper and darker. And even if they admitted it, what could they do? Send in the police? The army? Machine guns and tanks would be useless against something that could shift space itself, could let you wander forever in a maze made of familiar landmarks.

  Alice had never really thought about how vulnerable the real world, her world, was. The old Readers could have ruled the world, but—as Geryon had once explained to her—why bother? Besides, culling potential apprentices and scraps of magic from the world was easier if humans knew nothing about it. But the labyrinthine don’t care about any of that. To them, the world was simply a toy, to be played with and broken as they pleased.

  “MASS INSANITY,” the headline screamed. She wondered if that was better or worse than the truth.

  I have to stop them. It wasn’t only her friends’ lives at stake.

  She realized she’d been sitting quietly for a very long time. She took another sip of cocoa, and found it tepid. Nancy, leaning against the kitchen counter, regarded her quietly.

  “It’s all they talk about on the radio, the last week or so,” Nancy said when Alice looked up. She nodded at the paper. “You think your family’s caught up in all that?”

  Alice nodded.

  “Well. I don’t blame you for wanting to go to them.” She looked at one of the photographs on the wall. There was a boy in it, Alice noted, not much older than she was, standing beside a much younger Nancy. “But you look dreadful. Stay here tonight. We’ll find you something to wear, and in the morning we’ll talk to someone about getting you on a train.”