tolen

A short story/riddle set in the city of Such

The centipede, larger than a locomotive, clattered over the crumbling relief, high above Auditor Darnell;
“I’ve told you before ’Detective’, the Brethren of Pure Logic cannot find any change in the fabric of reality” came the clicking whirring reply.
Well you wouldn’t, Darnell thought , If we could detect the crime, then we could repair the damage, replace the Librarian and put the whole awkward affair to bed.
Darnell noted the comment anyway, you never knew when even the want of evidence might prove helpful.
“Thank-you Nin, I know that you have been very thorough”
“Indeed we have Auditor! I find it galling that you can even imagine that we would be anything other.” hurled the centipede with typical truculence, “You are on a hiding to nothing… No crime here! If we ignore it, the Librarian will come back in a week, a little humbler hopefully, and everything will get back to normal.”
Nin, Logician and Centipede, wound back up into the dark abode of the brethren, leaving Darnell alone and unconvinced. The Auditor remembered what it felt like the morning that the note had been found… the world had changed, but no one knew quite how. At the moment of the crime, a huge ‘lack’ had rolled over the city, touching each and every citizen that lived within the gigantic circular wall; a ‘lack‘ that no-one could define.

“I feel quite ill”, commented Gardiam, the underling who had found the note ”Look at how he made it! Each letter clipped from a book. The act of a vandal, I tell you… not like Allerton at all!”.
Darnell had been called from her bed, at an ungodly hour of the morning, to find the city already chattering about the apparent crime; Allerton, Chief Librarian and butt of many a joke, had gone, leaving a note that ranted about poor treatment and how he had committed the perfect robbery in revenge. Darnell re-read the end of the note,
“You’ll never work it out! But there will be a nagging feeling that you won’t be able to put your finger on! And when I tell you what I’ve done… HA! (rendered in illuminated lettering) You will revere me. The most daring criminal act ever committed! I will return to the library in a week, when I predict that you will beg me to reveal my crime,
Cordialy,
Allerton, Banquo.”
Completely mad, thought Darnell.
Gardiam quivered, the vole didn’t cope well with anxiety, “Could it not all be a ploy? By another? To bring down Librarian Allerton?”
“Tell me…who would benefit from a ploy like that… Underling Gardiam?”
The fur on the vole fluffed up in alarm,
“You can’t mean… You don’t think…!”
“No, Gardiam I don’t.” the vole relaxed a little, “One thing before you go Underling, tell me, have you accounted for every book?”
“We did that even before we reported the incident” chirruped the vole cheerfully.
“Did you? …and?”
“Not one out of place.”
“Thank you Underling, that will be all.”
The vole hurried away, relieved, and Darnell turned her attention back to the note.

Darnell read and reread it over the following week, certain that it contained a clue to unlock the puzzle, but however hard the auditor looked, the key evaded her. The other conundrum to be unravelled before the affair could be put to bed, concerned the location of the Librarian. Where had he gone to?

“I do/do not believe the poor man/ungrateful wretch, to be capable of complex magic.”
Floating up above the City in the High Church, Darnell felt more than a little uncomfortable; any audience with Ambar/Diambar the Cleric/Heretic made her head ache. The two men had, apparently amicably, inhabited the one body for a long time now, but their ability to contradict each other concurrently made getting a direct opinion from them hard. The face, half midnight black, half porcelain white, remained unreadable to Darnell,
“Could he not have found an incantation in a book?” The Auditor offered.
“Dear lady/Vile female, knowing an incantation may/may not automatically confer the ability to perform magic.” The Cleric/Heretic appeared rattled at the very thought, “But I’ll concede on one point; Allerton may be able to perform rudimentary conjuring, limited to the world of the word… but nothing that could change the real world: to do that you need imagination, not a quality I have ever noticed in the man/worm”.

That opinion, in one form or another, echoed around the city. Whoever Allerton talked to, they all agreed with the opinion of the Cleric/Heretic. Furthermore no one could find any evidence of the crime, however hard they looked.
The Tailor of Weak Attraction could find no rip or tear in the fabric of reality; The Blind Judge in the Balancing Court claimed that due equilibrium had not been altered; The Divine all looked beyond the veil and breathily predicted (typically) that Love would out; and even The Widow of the Wall, in general not one to become involved in the petty drama of the city, checked her ledger, but could find no death that had not been already recorded.
Yet, however hard people claimed in public that there had been no change, privately an uncomfortable worry crept into the very fabric of the City. The moon lit the night, the dawn broke, the minutia of life ticked over unchanged, but, in the heart of every citizen, the feeling grew that a piece of reality had definitely gone, and with it, part of the poetry of life. Therefore, when the week had played out, a large crowd gathered in the forecourt of the Library to watch Darnell go into the building, admit her defeat, and bring them the answer.

The Auditor entered the reading room to find that the Librarian had not yet returned.
“Hello..? Allerton?” Darnell called hopefully.
“I’ll be with you in a moment” came the reply “I’m having a little trouble”.
Oddly, the voice had come from above. The Auditor had a worrying thought, what if the Librarian had tried magic that had proven to be too hard for him? What if he couldn’t come back and put everything right?
“Are you trapped? Do you need help rematerializing?”, Darnell offered.
“Rematerializing?”
“Have you become trapped in an alternate plane?”
A laugh rang out around the Library, a thin laugh that made Darnell flinch.
“We couldn’t find you. Whatever magic you have performed…”
“Magic! You think that I can do magic? My! You have a high opinion of me.”
“Then where are you now? Where have you been all of the week?” Darnell barked to the incorporeal voice.
A loud bang rang out above her head, a trapdoor in the ceiling flew open and a rope ladder tumbled down to the ground. A piggy little face appeared in the hole, the face of Allerton the Librarian.
“I’ve been hiding in the loft.” he grinned.

A little later, after Allerton had, not too gracefully, climbed down the rope ladder, Darnell invited him to reveal the crime.
“You mean you don’t know?” he twinkled.
“I wouldn’t be here if I did.”
“You’ve got every clue you’ll ever need” The Librarian chuckled, “The lack of evidence! The one thing omitted! Can you not find my crime?”
“You know I can’t” growled Darnell, “You’ve won Allerton. There, are you happy now?”
“Look in your notebook Auditor, or the letter that I left you Ha! The letter! Oh, how funny… the letter I left you, or maybe that ought to be plural”
The Librarian began to jig around in elation, an exhibition that made Darnell want to rip the throat from him.
“Oh, ho, ho! But no! Nothing plural eh? Not any more!” he cried.
Through the irritation, a thought occurred to Darnell; Allerton read the look in a moment,
“There! Do I detect a glimmer of realization?”
“You couldn’t have!”
“ You’re nearly there”, cajoled the Librarian, “Come on Auditor, think back… think back over the week. Which tiny building block of our life have you… all of you… overlooked?”
The mind of the Auditor darted back through the week, re-examining every part, every meeting, every interview, every word; and then it hit her.
“Why did we not…”, Darnell found that the word would not come, the only time during the week when that had happened. The Auditor frowned, once you knew what had gone, what had never been there, it addled the brain.
“Notice?” proffered the Librarian.
“Huh?” , goggled Darnell.
“Why did we not… notice? Once you know what I’ve done it can be hard to find the right word. I admit it even gave me a little trouble to…” Allerton took a moment to pick the appropriate word, “…begin with. You‘ve worked it out though haven‘t you? Come on… tell me what I‘ve done”.
“You’ve …” again the word jammed in her throat, the initial letter almost gagging her, Darnell forced it out, “… ‘tolen!”.
Incomplete, but it would have to do.
“You’ve… ‘tolen the letter…” but the letter wouldn‘t be uttered, however hard the Auditor tried.
The Librarian laughed like a drain; Darnell tried to calm her anger at being duped.
“Give it back Allerton”
The Librarian put a hand into a pocket, it came out holding a tiny golden character that glowed with an inner light; he inhaled it.
“Shh!” the utterance reverberated around the whole library. “In my own time, Auditor. I will put back the letter, but one thing before I do.”
“What?”
“Are we agreed that I have proven my point? That I, and indeed all at the library, have earned a little more…” he inhaled another character, “…respect?”
Carefully the Auditor replied, “That… would… be… correct”.
A third character came from the pocket. With a theatrical movement Allerton cried,
“So be it then!”
The Librarian opened the heavy coat and…

…suddenly several swarms of the sadly subjugated letter ‘S’ shot swiftly from the coat. Swirling up into sepulchral shadows and scurrying stealthily around the silent spaces where spiders spun spindly webs. They shimmied under the doors and swooped out of windows, slid into books, slammed between cracks in the stonework and out, streaming into the sunlight, shining and sparkling in the sweet morning air. The people of the city saw them as the swung out of the sky and straight down their astonished oesophagus‘. Soon the city was shouting, screaming, sighing, shaking, smiling, standing in stunned silence and many, many more things that it had not been able to do since that start of the week.

Back in the library, Allerton smirked at Darnell,
“You look like you need to say something… Here, have this one on me.”
He held a final and flapping letter ‘S’ between his fingers, then, letting go of it tenderly, blew it towards the Auditor, as lovers used to do in times past with a kiss. The Letter shot up the Auditor’s nose with a swish. She eyed the Librarian keenly, with something approaching admiration.
“Smug sod.” She said.