The Libranarium.

Sarah Sauron, the golden-haired object of his inflamed ardor, approached Martin and abruptly handed him a Post-it Note and an index card. “You need to find this book, Martin, and make sure this number matches it and put it back in the card catalogue.”

She was walking away with a succulent sway, before he could comprehend her request.

So he jumped to his feet and pursued her, his ‘sweet’, across the carpeted domain.

He was just within reach, of this delicate peach… when he was intercepted by another—librarian.

“Martin,” she declared. It was Forestine, an older woman with green hair, tied in bunches above her head like a floret of broccoli. “What are you doing?”

I—I don’t know. I think I’m supposed to find a book,” Martin replied.

She had been assigned the duty of keeping him occupied at-all-times, and as such, his attempts to woo Sarah, the librarian’s assistant, had proved futile and frustrating.

Forestine snatched the card out of his hand and scanned it. Frowning, she returned the card to Martin and pointed toward an obscure darkened hallway at the opposite end of the university library. “You may find what you’re looking for in the repository.”

“And that’s…”

“Yes, that way.”

He crossed the well-lit library wondering why he’d never seen or heard of the repository before, and entered the canted hallway. It had one door, and Martin felt dizzy as soon as he crossed the threshold. It arrested his progress in a matter of moments, forcing him to stop and lean against the wall. A wall, he realized, that was full of books. They had a distinctive odor, impossible to describe, one might well call it ‘age.’ The dizzy spell gone, he stepped from the hallway into a main hall: a massive rotunda carpeted in multiple layers of thick Persian rugs of differing styles, patterns and sizes.

“Can I hawp you?” It was more of a squawk than a question.

He turned to face the speaker. She was very tall, thin, toothy and severely dressed, even for a funeral. After a series of garbled syllables, Martin held the index card up and said, “I’m looking for this.”

She leaned over him and snatched the note out of his other hand, then straightened to her full 8-foot height and held the note with two fingers in her outstretched hand. She pursed her beaklike lips and looked down at him out of one eye. “Seems like we have a special request then, don’t we?”

Martin didn’t know, and hadn’t read the note himself. He was visibly awed by his surroundings: a vast, circular room, many stories high, stacked with millions of books. Massive primitive chandeliers adorned with countless candles shed an abundance of light on the multitude of hardbound book-lined shelves.

“Oh yes it is.” She ripped the note into smaller and smaller pieces. “That’s why they sent you, a neophyte.” She allowed the shreds of paper to sprinkle to the carpet. They blended right in. “Allow me,” she said, stepping aside to reveal an ancient wrought-iron, cage-type elevator. She held the door open for Martin, then followed him in, carefully closing the outer cage door and then the inner scissor-type gate. “Are you ready?”

He nodded and grabbed a handrail just in case. She moved a lever near the door and the elevator teetered slowly around the circular room and stopped at a point one-hundred-and-eighty degrees in opposition to their previous position. “Here we are,” she said, opening the doors again.

“But…” Martin started to protest.

“Yes?”

Her inquisitive gaze took him by surprise. He looked at the room, then at the eight-foot librarian, then the elevator. It looked like it had been made in the fourth century, by angry druids. It was rickety too. “How does that, contraption—help us find the book?”

“Are you a Christian?” The woman asked him. “Best not to question the wisdom of the Druids then, is it?”

He never got a chance to reply before the discussion had moved on. “What you’re looking for is a very rare and sacred book.”

“It is?” Martin whispered, wide-eyed.

“Well of course.” The bird-woman bopped him on the shoulder. “That’s why you’re here, dummy. Let’s see what you’re looking for.” She snatched the index card from Martin’s hand, scanned it and whistled. “You sure about this?”

Martin shook his head. “No.”

“This is no ordinary book we’re tracking down, Mister,” she said.

“It isn’t?” He had read the title but forgotten it as soon as he read it. Something about lizards and flagons. He wasn’t sure what a flagon was, but supposed he was about to find out. The librarian ushered him into another elevator and closed the doors again. Martin was startled to find himself going up, by himself, clutching the bars of the elevator as it rattled, creaked and jerked its way up alongside the wall of books. He dropped to all fours and had flattened himself to the floor by the time the elevator ground to a shuddering halt, three stories above the Persian carpeting. A momentary gout of steam erupted from a vent in the wall beside his head before subsiding. (Granted, his head was on the floor, but that was small consolation.)

“Mar-tin!” The voice of the bird-like librarian wafted up to him. “Are you on the right shelf?”

“I don’t know,” he called down to her, peering over the edge of the cage. “How would I know?”

“Wellllllahhh. What’s on the shelf in front of youuuuuu?” She trilled.

He managed to turn till he was facing the books, a difficult task while keeping oneself plastered to the floor. Up close, the books were large, magnificent volumes with heavily embossed, golden titles, like, ‘Alternate Reality, Volume 11’; ‘Abel’s Revenge, and Other Lost Books of the Bible’. Next to that? ‘Arks, A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Boating, For Animal-Lovers’…

“Do you see anything with the word ‘complete’ on it?” She asked, and then, Martin could have sworn, she clucked impatiently.

The elevator clanked and rose in a series of jerks and sustained wobbles. Martin hugged the floor again and did some fervent deal-making with his version of the deity, as the cage swayed, rattled and bumped, ever closer to the ceiling.

“Mar-TIN? Whataya seehing nowwow?”

“A Complete Autobiographical Ass…”

“What was that again?” Came ringing up to his cage near the ceiling.

He started over, and said, “I said, ‘A Complete Autobiographical Assay of All (Known) Lizards, Wizards, Dragons and Flagons.”

“And what’s the catalogue number?” She hooted.

“One-zero-zero-zero-one, point, zero-zero-four, and a half.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I shoo…are you kidding me? You wanna come up here and read it yourself?” It was an implausible number, but there was nothing wrong with his vision and the chandeliers rose and descended with the ‘book cage.’ So there was no mistaking it.

“What about the letters?”

“What letters…” Martin spoke before looking, and then he looked closer. There should have been three letters after the number, the beginning of the author’s last name. Forgetting for a moment his precarious perch, Martin examined the book more closely, sliding it partway out of its slot, there was no author’s name on the cover either and he slid it back into place. “There’s no letters, ma’am.”

“Not even UNK?” she honked, “ANON or ANO?”

“Nope,” he called down. He was much more comfortable now, having figured out that the cage was designed to be sat in, with the legs dangling from the entrance that faced the bookshelf. Handrails, a safety strap, pillows and the shape of the floor should have made this obvious to him much sooner.

“You’re sure?”

“Yup.”

“Thank youuu,” she replied. “Would you like to come down now?”

He was surprised to learn that the task was done. “Uh, yes. Get me down, please.” He realized he was in the middle of an implausible event, tugged his phone out of his pocket and took some pictures. Who would believe this without evidence? He thought. He tried to take a video of the cage’s death-defying descent, but the phone turned itself off, inexplicably.

When the elevator returned to ground level, the long-necked librarian graciously thanked Martin for his non-magical assistance in locating the long-lost book, and admonished him to keep quiet about his knowledge of the Dewey decimal system, at the very least.

“And at the very most?”

“At the very most you must use your head, Martin.”

He felt a reoccurrence of that queasy feeling when he crossed the threshold and re-entered the darkened hallway. He made his way to the librarian’s desk. Forestine’s eyes doubled in size when she saw him. “Surprised to see me?” He asked her.

“I thought it would take a little longer, that’s all.” She ignored him from that point on so he looked around and caught the eye of the younger woman, Sarah, his reason for being there, and beckoned her over while pulling his phone from his pocket.

“You wouldn’t believe where I’ve been today, Sarah, you really wouldn’t, except that I have proof.” He tapped the screen to show her the evidence, and he and the phone disappeared in a puff of blue smoke.

“Oh my God” the young woman gasped as she retreated. “What—what happened? Is he dead?”

“No, he’s just back in the Libranarium,” Forestine said without looking up. “What a fool. All he did was find the book, what he should’ve done was open it.”

“Why, what was the message in the book?”

“I can’t tell you that, sweetie. That’s magic. If you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.”

When she was alone, Forestine muttered the message that Martin should have gotten. ‘Don’t flirt with the Wizard’s daughter.’