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“That sounds kind of dangerous.”
“It’s what killed him,” Ben told me as he stopped us before an unremarkable wood door. “He drank a poison which he thought was his milk.” He grasped the handle and caught my gaze in his serious one. “I need not warn you to avoid touching anything beyond this door.”
I bobbed my head up and down. His tales of terror had made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
Ben opened the door and revealed a large room with a cobblestone floor and a few rows of tables. Shelves lined most of the walls, and a sink sunk into a counter on the opposite wall from where we stood. Small cauldrons and old books were haphazardly placed on the tables, and vials and glass containers lined the shelves.
All of this was covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. The current crop of leggy creatures scurried away at the opening of the door. There were so many that it looked like a small black wave.
Ben inspected the gross condition for a moment before he sighed. “It’s the only room in the house Tully can’t clean. With a single careless elbow, he could cause the whole house to explode.”
I looked up at him in horror. “Shouldn’t you do something about this stuff?”
He chuckled. “Even the good professor doesn’t dare try to handle the potions. A simple jarring motion could spell doom, or ruin a good outfit.” He closed the door and swept his arm down the hall. “Shall we see the library?”
“It doesn’t have any doom-ness, does it?” I asked him as he led me down the corridor.
“Only if you know the ancient tongue of the emperor’s,” he teased.
I cocked my head to one side. “Isn’t that what we’re speaking now?”
He shook his head. “The first emperor spoke many languages, and one of them was completely unknown to everyone else. He was only known to utter the language when he read from a few weathered texts he always carried with him.”
“Didn’t anyone try to study them after he died?” I asked him.
“They were only able to study a partial copy of one book a scribe had made without the emperor’s knowledge. The originals were buried with him.”
“That must be a big crypt,” I mused.
He stopped us before another door about thirty feet away from the end of the hall and on the opposite side as the study. He grasped the handle and smiled at me. “It may be, but nobody seems to know where it is. And now I present to you the family library.”
Ben swung the door inward and revealed a huge room. The library occupied some sixty by seventy feet square and extended to the second floor of the house. Every inch of the walls was covered by bookcases. Every inch of those bookcases was filled to near-overflowing by books big and small. Some had fresh bindings, but many appeared to be quite old, what with their tattered spines and yellowed pages. Huge ornate carpets covered the wood floorboards and a few heavy tables with thick legs stood on either side of the room. The tables were surrounded by high-backed, well-stuffed chairs with ornate arms.
The upper floor was accessed via a spiral staircase to our right. A second-floor balcony completely encircled the space, and an intricate banister kept unwary readers from falling to their doom.
I stepped inside and gaped up at the high ceiling with its solid beams. “This must take up half the house.”
“It does,” Ben confirmed as he moved to stand at my side. “This was originally a mere drawing room, but my great-great grandfather began to collect books, and when the room would hold no more he had it expanded to the size you see now.”
I slipped over to the bookcase to the left of the door and noticed that, unlike the others, this one sported thick glass doors. There was also a heavy padlock on the handles.
I half-turned to my host and pointed at the heavy lock on the cabinet. “I’m guessing this means these are pretty expensive.”
“And dangerous,” he added as he came up to my side. His keen eyes examined the dozens of tomes locked behind the cabinet. “Many of these ancient books are filled with magic spells. A single curse from these pages muttered under one’s breath could kill a man.”
A little bit of color drained from my face. “Then why don’t you burn them?”
“Because good spells are mixed in with the bad,” he explained as he reached into his pocket and drew out a key chain. A half dozen ancient keys hung from the metal loop. He lifted one out of the mix and used it to unlock the lock. He drew out a wicked-looking tome, the cover of which featured a hideous face sewn from wrinkled leather. “This, for example, has a particularly useful chapter on poisons,” he mused as he flipped through the pages. I couldn’t read a single word on the pages, but there were enough pictures of skulls to tell me which ones were the bad magic. “But there are also antidotes, should one be unlucky enough to ingest any of these concoctions.” He set the book back and securely locked the cabinet.
I watched him put the keys back in his vest. “Do you always keep those on you?”
He smiled at me. “Not during my nights out. During that time I hide them in one of my safe houses.”
I nodded at the heavy lock. “What’s to keep somebody from just smashing that and taking the books?”
“Tully, for one,” Ben reminded me. “He is sprier than he appears. Then there is the protective magic.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “What kind of magic?”
