Book of Iron by Elizabeth Bear Read Free Book Online

before Maledysaunte. It hissed; it glibbered. Prince Salih moved forward, ready to intervene, but the ghul came no closer as Maledysaunte checked her step. Her lips formed words; no sound emerged. But its eyes watched the shapes her mouth made avidly, and it answered.
    “It wants to know,” said Kaulas, who spoke the language of ghuls, “if we seek the treasure-hunter. If we do, it says she went beyond the water.”
    “Do you trust a ghul?” Salamander said.
    Kaulas and Maledysaunte, as one, shook their heads.
    The ghul retreated, scuttling backwards on all fours. Bijou started forward again as if it had not accosted them. Out of the corner of her mouth, she spoke to Salamander and Maledysaunte as they came up beside her. “So, what say you tell us exactly what it was that Dr. Liebelos did , in Avalon? And what the results were?”
    Maledysaunte just shook her head. No sound from her lips: not yet anyway. Bijou kept an ear on the footsteps of the men close behind them, but she wouldn’t turn her head to see them. Instead she cleared her throat, a sound meant for encouragement. With some urging—it was heavy, being made of stone and metal and bone—Ambrosias slid back down Bijou’s body and twined through the sand beside her.
    From beyond Maledysaunte, the Wizard Salamander spoke reluctantly. “You’ve heard of the Glass Book of Erem?”
    Despite herself, Bijou could not quite hold back the chuckle. “It figures prominently in the history of Messaline.”
    “There’s another such text.”
    The moonlight was so bright that Bijou could see the color rise in Maledysaunte’s white cheeks. It stood out in stark, discrete spots like the rouge on a porcelain doll from the outermost East. Her eyes flicked again, following some movement that Bijou could not. This time, Bijou understood it, and wondered how long one could endure, aware of things no one else could perceive, before it drove one mad. 
    “I see,” Bijou said.
    “The Iron Book of Erem. Also called the Black Book of Erem.”
    “Where is it?”
    “Nowhere in the world, any more.”
    “Destroyed?”
    “No,” Salamander said.
    From the set of Maledysaunte’s chin, Bijou imagined she understood what the Hag of Wolf Wood was feeling. Bijou knew what exile felt like, the repudiation of one’s family. But Maledysaunte’s pride and distress were clues, and Bijou could not afford to pass those up, currently.
    “I think,” Bijou said, as they passed the last rank of ghuls, who turned to watch their backs retreating as they walked deeper into Ancient Erem, “that we’ve earned a few answers.”
    “When the Black Book has been read, it translates itself.”
    “Into…another language?”
    The footsteps of the men grew ragged as they began to climb a slope to the lowest terrace of stone houses. The undead stallion’s hooves slid in sand.
    “Into the soul of whoever read it. It ceases to exist in the external world. In a very real sense, that reader becomes the book. And there it remains until that reader dies.”
    Bijou actually blinked, understanding running hot and habituating through her veins. The rush cleared her of the pall of sorrow and cobwebs Maledysaunte’s incantation had left behind. She drew a deeper breath in reaction, thinking of rotten teeth and withered skin. “Which usually happens quite quickly, I imagine.”
    “I imagine,” Salamander agreed.
    “But Maledysaunte is immortal.”
    “She is.”
    Behind them, Kaulas cleared his throat. “That doesn’t explain what brings your mother here , however.”
    Finally, a dim smile flickered across Salamander’s face. Bijou caught it from the corner of her eye. “It’s said that the one way to win the Book free of its…host…is to summon it back to the anvil where it was forged.”
    “Here in Erem,” Kaulas said.
    “Here in Erem.”
    Prince Salih asked, “What would that do to the host?”
    Maledysaunte turned over her shoulder and smiled, a terrible grin that showed the gaps in