The Care and Feeding of Griffins by R. Lee Smith Read Free Book Online

she could see the display case and no sooner did her eyes strike it, but the little light inside came on, sputtering at first, as unused lights will do, before glowing out with force and illuminating proudly its collection of treasures.
    Taryn stepped over the threshold and under Romany ’s arm, all her wondering attention fixed on that glowing glass case.  She was only dimly aware of the great door whispering shut and settling once more.  She was fascinated by what she saw.  She was amazed.
    There was an old leather backpack occupying one corner of the case.  It was a well-used thing, worn and patched and stained.  Its top flap was unbuckled and flung casually back to reveal its contents: metal stakes, half-burnt candles, dented tins (one of these, also open, displayed a dozen of the thickest, ugliest wooden matches Taryn had ever seen), rolls of white linen, several sheets of stained paper, a tiny bottle half-filled with ink, and a book, laid open to a hand-drawn map and some spiky tired-looking letters in a language Taryn couldn’t make out.  A traveler’s pack, that much was obvious.  One that had seen plenty of hard traveling in its time before retiring here in the sleeping library to rest at last.
    Beside it, raised up on forked blocks, was a sword.  A saber, really, wider cut at the curve than at the hilt.  It still looked very sharp, for all that it looked very well-used.  It was not made of metal, but of a deep purple substance that seemed almost crystalline.  Taryn knelt to better see the broad, pitted blade and found that she could see right through it in the right light.  And there were marks down the unsharpened back of the saber’s blade, carvings or etchings, but like the writing in the book, they were not letters Taryn knew. 
    The sword ’s scabbard sat below it, still attached to the belt that had carried it.  It was a very narrow-waisted belt.  A ladies’ belt, Taryn thought, although there was no proof of this anywhere.  The only ornamentation the belt carried was in its buckle—a plain, round buckle made of some beaten, dull metal, and marked with a hook-shape.  Or not a hook at all, she realized, but finally a letter she could recognize.  J.  That was all.  Just J.
    The other items in the case, although unusual, could not capture quite the same depth of amazement as these three world-weary retirees.  They were relics, she was sure; there were golden idols and jewels and priceless artifacts, there were cups and mirrors, carvings, daggers, beaded headdresses, rings, staff-heads, stone bowls, balls, bottles sealed with silver caps and wax, and so many marvelous things that Taryn couldn ’t seem to see them all, but her eyes kept returning to that pack, that sword, that belt.  J. 
    When she straightened up at last and reluctantly turned away from the display case, Romany was waiting by the inner library doors.  At her shoulder was the same library calendar, empty now but for a scrap of what looked an awful lot like leather.  The word MOOT had been painted on it in broad strokes of blue.
    “Where are we?” Taryn asked, pulling her gaze with effort away from that unknowable word.  “Where are we really?”
    Romany pushed open the inner doors and held them wide, waiting.  After a moment, Taryn went.
    It was cold inside and there was a smell, the sort that one came home to after a week’s vacation.  Not neglect, exactly, nothing musty or precisely stale, but only the smell of a building that was lonely.  Taryn ducked beneath Romany’s arm, feeling threads of the gypsy’s shawl brush over her like cobwebs.  A number of dragons made the leap onto Taryn’s back, but quickly scampered off again as she straightened up inside the sleeping library.  She could see empty shelves, empty tables, the empty counter that librarians had once manned.
    The lights began to come on, one by one from left to right, and Taryn saw that it was not entirely empty after all.  At her right,