Chapter Six

Helping myself to the enemy’s wine was a stupid thing to do. I drank with Marisa not because I thought it was a good idea, not because her explanation satisfied me and not because it might get us closer to our target.

I was tired, afraid, angry, and here was a chance to get a cheap shot against my enemy, a metaphorical sucker punch. Stealing their property was more intoxicating than the drink itself.

Nursing wine forced us to relax. I wanted to take a break.

“Let’s sit here for a bit,” I said.

Marisa didn’t object, so we sat with our backs to the cellar wall. The stone floor was cold under my butt, but I was too buzzed to mind it.

We rested silently, and I set my bottle aside. I didn’t want to risk getting fully drunk. Marisa took one final sip, then set her bottle aside too. She leaned her head against my shoulder. I should have shrugged her off, but I didn’t.

“Okay. They’re both out. Let’s tie ‘em up.”

“I don’t wanna! They beat Meiling!”

Hearing a pair of small voices nearby, Marisa and I froze like slouched sculptures. This had to be the Mansion’s residents come to find us.

“You’ll get beat if you don’t follow orders.”

“I’m scared.”

“Listen, coward. If they’re not tied up when Patchouli gets down here, I’ll make sure she knows it’s because you wouldn’t help me. She’ll tell Lady Scarlet, and she’ll sick her maid on you. Who’re you more scared of: a couple of drunk girls or her?”

“Okay, fine! Let’s just get it over with.”

A sound like soft, flapping fairy wings approached. I kept my eyes mostly closed, just with my right eye open by a sliver. The approaching glow of two fairies’ wings cast shadows through the wine racks. They hovered less than a foot above the floor as they floated up to us.

These two fairies were clothed like none I had seen before. Some wild fairies wore simple dresses, others wore ballroom gowns, and still others were naked – but these two were dressed like French maids.

“Taller one first,” said one fairy to the other. “Hold her hands while I tie her wrists.”

The fairy who just spoke carried a coil of rope cord. She flew over to my lap and lowered herself to stand on my thigh. She was about to thread the rope around my left wrist.

Seeing the chance, I opened my eyes all at once, lifted my right hand, then smacked the fairy in the back. The blow sent her face-down onto my left leg, left her dazed.

“Oh no!” screeched the more timid of the two fairies, still a few feet back. “She’s awake! We’re dead!”

She turned wings and fled, darted back between the shelves, then flew up and disappeared into a square hole in the ceiling.

“Wait, damn it! Get back here!” The fairy in my lap tried to right herself so she could take to the air and follow. Marisa’s hand snapped over and grabbed the fairy around her middle. The fairy panicked; she screamed, Gyeeaaahhh!! and beat her little fists against Marisa’s fingers.

“No, no! Let me go!”

Marisa sat up straight, lifted the fairy up to her face, looked her eye to eye.

“Foolish of mees,” said Marisa. “Why would witches come downs when she can send servants insteads?”

The fairy’s hands had a white-knuckle grip on Marisa’s finger. Her face grimaced in anger and terror.

“All good now, thoughs,” said Marisa. “Your friends showed the way forwards. Go tell your boss we’re comings!”

She threw the fairy into the air. The little maid took flight and darted up through the hole in the ceiling, leaving the room dark again.

“Why did you let her go?” I said. “We could have made her lead us to her master.”

“She dids.” Marisa got to her feet, shook her skirt to straighten it, then walked past the wine racks. She stood under the ceiling hole that the maid fairies had escaped through. Marisa’s hatlight showed a metal ladder that started at the floor and led up through the hole.

“Was that there the whole time?” I said. “I didn’t see it before now.”

“Wouldn’t matters. Hatches was closed until fairies came downs. Too panicky to close its behind thems.”

“So we go up.”

Marisa nodded.

---

It led into a vertical shaft just big enough for a person to squeeze through. Marisa headed up first, which meant that her body and clothes blocked most of her light, leaving me mostly in darkness a few rungs below her. I was thankful that even if I looked straight up, I couldn’t see up her dress.

Marisa brushed the walls as she climbed, dropping grains of dirt on me. The ladder rungs were too cold under my bare hands. The few swallows of wine I’d had burned in my stomach. These discomforts combined with the physical exertion of heaving my own weight upward. It left me craving a long soak in an onsen... or at least my own bathtub at home.

“Killing lights,” Marisa whispered down to me. “Something’s up aheads.”

She let her hatlight go out, but it didn’t leave us in total darkness. There was another light from above, warm and orange.

“They’ll expect us,” I whispered back.

“Yups. Better go say hellos.”

The light above grew stronger. We could see the top of the shaft. It ended in a hatch opening into the floor of another room. Marisa pushed the hatch open and climbed out first, then held the hatch open while I climbed the rest of the way. She took my hand and helped me up. The hatch closed under its own weight once I was out, falling shut with a soft thump. We looked around this new place.

“Said there’d be a librarys.” said Marisa.

So she had. The hatch had opened in the hardwood floor between two massive bookshelves. The shelves stood at least three times my height, and they were stuffed with books, books and books.

As we got to our feet, I eyed the titles visible on the books’ spines. Most were written in the modern language, only a few in the old language.

それらの女性は不滅ですか？ 藤原の日記の抜粋

The Fauna Record of Gensokyo

Geological and Mineral formations of the Gensokyo Valley and Mountains

An Account of Human Life in Gensokyo, Fourth Edition

This section seemed to be for books on local history. I glanced at Marisa, who was thumbing through a volume she had pulled off the shelf: The Naturally-Occurring Magical Energies within Gensokyo, with Conjecture of Their Origin and Purpose.

I stepped beside her and looked over her shoulder, read a bit of the page she was on.

Since the sealed land we call Gensokyo and its environs, as discussed, is separated from the surrounding land by the Boundary (Chapter VI, p2), and given the assumption, with reasonable evidence, that the land outside the Boundary are not naturally saturated with powers of similar nature or account (see Chapter VIII, p5), certain claims are made regarding the relationship between the Boundary and the magical energies within the country it surrounds. The two theses whose evidence are examined in the below text are, 1; that the Boundary exists as a large-scale, broad-scope manifestation of the magical content of Gensokyo and 2; the opposite scenario, in which the magical content of Gensokyo is derivative of the Boundary instead. It is crucial to decide which of these is more likely to be correct, or else be left with a “chicken and egg” scenario. The study of the Boundary is insurmountably complicated if approached without a foundational belief of whether the Boundary is either caused, or caused by, Gensokyo’s disorganized pool of magic.

“Good lord,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “This is denser than the classics. Are you understanding any of this?”

“Not a lots,” said Marisa. “Still, wouldn’t mind having this in my collections. Wonder masters of the house’d let me borrow its.”

A new voice answered her. It sounded far away, as if on the other side of the library, however big this place was. It was a woman’s voice, but not girlish. She sounded strong, confident.

“You hoodlums astonish me,” said the new voice. “Immediately after breaking and entering, vandalizing our food storage and drinking our priceless spirits, you have the audacity to ask if you can borrow a book. No doubt, any lending period would stretch far beyond that which the original book’s owner intended. ”

As she spoke, Marisa shelved the book, then we headed toward her voice. We walked into an aisle and past uncounted rows of shelves. Never had I seen so many books before, certainly not in one place. We passed a few fairy maids as we went. They were dusting the shelves, straightening the books on them. Most of the fairies averted their eyes, refusing to look at us as we passed.

“I do not forget,” said the voice, louder as we approached. “Especially not when it comes to my inventory. I am youkai, an old and powerful youkai. I am the librarian of the Scarlet Mansion, and chief advisor to Lady Scarlet.”

We came to the library’s heart. The wooden floor gave way to polished marble. Here the floor was nearly as reflective as a mirror; we could see our reflections in it. It was disorienting, seeing a copy of myself look up at me, standing on the soles of my twin’s feet. I looked tired and dirty.

Carved into the marble was a huge symbol: two inverted triangles on each other, making a six-pointed star. I remembered seeing this symbol somewhere, maybe reading about it years ago. At the center of the star stood the youkai woman who had called herself old and powerful, though she looked like neither.

She was short and slim. Her eyes were royal purple and her hair was the same, hanging down her back in two big ponytails. Under one arm, she held a thick book that had no title on the cover. She wore a light-purple dress that reminded me of puffy pajamas, covering all but her hands and face. Upon her head was a nightcap with a crescent moon-shaped brooch pinned on the front.

Her outfit would draw confused stares if she went out, but I couldn’t blame her for covering up. This library wasn’t much warmer than the cellar. We might still be underground. There were no windows to let in daylight; we could see only by sparklamps hanging from the ceiling, burning with red and orange.

“I am Patchouli Knowledge,” said the youkai woman before us.

Marisa curtsied. “Marisa Kirisame’s at your services. This wino bum is Reimu Hakureis. Nice to meetchas, Patchey.”

“Patchouli. You will not refer to Lady Scarlet’s advisor with diminutives.”

“Maybe you can advise her to stop killing my country,” I said.

“My advice to you is not to pry in matters that do not concern you,” said Patchouli.

“It concerns everyone in Gensokyo.” I held up my gohei. “I’m here to stop Scarlet, whatever she’s doing. You can either point me to her, or stand aside so I can find her myself.”

“I will do neither.” Patchouli opened her book, flipped through the pages. “Let me see. How to deal with intruders. Ah.” She looked up. “I will have you both bound and taken before Lady Scarlet. She will decide what is to be done with you. If you are lucky, I will be the one to carry out your sentence. I dislike pain and carnage, so I will make your ends brief and clean. If you are unlucky, Lady Scarlet will have her chief maid deal with you instead. Unlike me, she is quite the sadist.”

Marisa had a spellcard between her fingers. “Best not uses threaty words, Patcheys. We beat up that China-girl door guards. Can do same heres.”

Patchouli laughed without opening her mouth. Hmm-hm-hm-hm!

“China-girl? If the level of threat in combat were presented numerically, Hong would appear in the negative integers.”

“And your bullcrap needs exponents.” I whipped out my own spellcard, eager to use it. “I’m done talking. Stand aside or get killed.”

Patchouli produced her own spellcard from the pages of her book. It was made from nicer paper than Marisa’s cards, but looked the same otherwise. It was covered in old language characters that I couldn’t read it from ten paces away.

“A magic duel, then.” Patchouli snapped the book closed. “If you win, I will tell you how to find Lady Scarlet. If I win, you will go before her as prisoners. Agreed?” She held up her card. “Metal sign!”

“Love sign!” said Marisa.

“Spirit sign!” I said.

All three spellcards gathered energy to their owners. The air thrummed with power, rippling around us like the heat rising over a fire. Patchouli smiled.

“Show me your best,” she said. “Metal Fatigue!”

“Master Spark!”

“Fantasy Orb!”

---

Patchouli’s spell launched first. A thick whirlwind of golden metallic coins, each bigger than my head, materialized in a protective cylinder around her. It hid her from sight, not an instant too soon. Marisa’s spell hit, and mine a second after.

The Master Spark laser slammed into the golden shield. Each coin touched by the beam fell away from the spell, crumpled up and evaporated. The coins whirled around Patchouli, moving fresh constructs into place as old ones broke. My Fantasy Orb attack did similar damage, each colored sphere destroying a handful of the coins, but Patchouli managed her spell well. She was unharmed by the time our spells died out.

Marisa and I stood, watching the remaining coins of her spellcard fade away. Her first spellcard had no offensive value. She only wanted to beat our spells, not us.

“That was a little more than I expected,” she said. “But, as I have hopefully made obvious, you are both sorely out of your league. I urge you to forfeit the match before you get hurt.”

“Not out of spellcards yet,” said Marisa, pulling out another. “Love sign!”

“Nor am I,” said Patchouli, taking another from her book. “Earth sign!”

Unlike some people, I was out of spellcards. Did that mean I had to stand here and watch those two kill each other?

“Rage Trilithon!”

“Master Spark!”

A wall of earth appeared before Patchouli, sending a spray of dirt and gravel around the marble floor. The earthen barrier was tall enough to guard her from another Master Spark. Again, she played defensive. She knew Marisa couldn’t have an unlimited number of spellcards. She could keep casting protective spells until her enemy ran out, and win by attrition.

Marisa’s spell died out again. It eroded the earth shield, but didn’t penetrate it. Instead of waiting for them to go another round, I gripped my gohei and ran forward. I jumped the dirt wall and came down in front of Patchouli.

“What are you—OW!” she cried out, as I swung my gohei at her head. She raised her arm in reflex, so I hit that instead.

The youkai witch was not ready for physical combat. She melted under the hit, dropped her book and fell to the floor, holding her battered arm. I brought my gohei down on her, again aiming for the head. She rolled away from me in a defensive curl, I hit her mostly on the side. She yelled in pain.

“Stop it! Stop it!” She crawled away, dragging her book along. “No physical attacks in a mage’s duel! You are breaking the rules!”

“I’m not a mage.” I went after her, ready to pummel her more. It felt good to hurt the bad guys, after the evil they had done. Patchouli pulled another spellcard from her book and cast it. I dashed at her, trying to land another blow before her spell launched, but I wasn’t fast enough.

“Wind sign: Slypheed Breath!”

This spell didn’t have the same control as her last two. She was hurt and panicked, casting in a hurry, but it was enough to get attackers away from her. A huge gust of air slapped the whole front of my body at once. It knocked me off my feet, and I lost my grip on my gohei. I slid back on the marble floor and slammed into a bookcase. The back of my head and shoulders smacked into the spines of books on the lowest shelf. Marisa held her hat against the wind spell, even though it had been directed at me.

“How dare you!” Patchouli stood, holding her book. “You broke the code of the mage’s duel. Nevermind taking you before Lady Scarlet. I will eliminate you myself.”

I didn’t doubt that she could. The spells she’d used so far weren’t the extent of her power. Her spells were themed on natural elements, but she had best not use any fire-based attacks. Not in a library. Her precious books—

I looked up at the shelf I lay against. Her books.

“Marisa!” I yelled, pointing to the bookshelf nearest her. “Shoot that!”

Marisa looked at me. “Shoot... the books?”

Horror came over Patchouli’s face. It twisted into bitter, ugly rage. She pulled another spellcard out. She ran at me.

“Yes!” I yelled at Marisa. “For god’s sake, shoot it!”

Two spellcards came out, along with their incantations.

“Love sign!”

“Water sign!”

---

Marisa held a charging Master Spark toward a shelf full of books, ready to fire. Patchouli held a water-based spell toward me, a spear of glowing ice extending from the card in her hand. If she let the spell go, the crystal spike would fly over and nail my head to the shelf behind me. Not wanting my brains splattered all over her books was the only thing that kept Patchouli from killing me.

“Do not launch that spell,” said Patchouli to Marisa, keeping the ice spear aimed at me. “I will kill her.”

“Don’t wants hurt the books,” said Marisa. “Books lover toos, you sees. But wants my lifes more than so much dusty papers.”

“Your life?” said Patchouli. “You mean the life of your friend.”

Marisa shrugged her free shoulder. “Eh. Reimu’s good for camp songs, but useless on important trips. Not a mages like us. Saw how she used that spellcard I gave hers? Pretty sloppys.”

Patchouli was silent.

“On other hands, Patchey is uber-strong mages,” said Marisa. “Explode Reimu’s head with icey spells, won’t take any longers to shoot one at mees. Except, might have just enough times to blow away half your librarys. Lots of precious books here, rights? Irreplaceable books.”

“I hold your lives,” said Patchouli, “but you hold my material possessions.”

“Yups,” said Marisa. “Pretty sures this ends one of two ways. Either we dies and take your books with us... or we don’ts.”

“You are proposing that we agree to a draw, or we will all lose.”

Marisa grinned. “No brainers, rights?”

“I wish it were so,” said Patchouli. “If I could send you both out of here without any harm to my library, I gladly would, but that would be a failure in my duty to Lady Scarlet.”

“Not reallys. Why does Scarlets keep Patchey arounds?”

“I already told you. I am her librarian and advisor—”

“No, no.” Marisa waved her off. “Not the titles. What makes you usefuls? What value does a good Patchey bring to the homes?”

Again, Patchouli was quiet.

“Brain powers.” Marisa tapped the side of her head with her free hand. “A thinkers, not a fighters. When two bad guys came stomping into librarys, you did all you could doos: challenged to magic duels. Then big, ugly, stupid Reimus broke rules and beat puddings out of yous.”

“It seems you are not that fond of your companion,” said Patchouli.

Marisa took in a breath, sighed it out. “Taking cares is dutys, not pleasures. But those two are sames for some lucky mages, like Patcheys. Her duty and pleasures is taking care of librarys. If she lets two bad guys go to protect her books, she’s not to blames. Just doing her jobs.”

“The mistress might not see things that way.”

“You’re her advisors,” said Marisa. “Show hers what she needs to sees.”

Silence. Patchouli was still, kept her ice spell aimed at me. She glanced at me, then back at Marisa.

A few seconds passed, then Patchouli sighed.

“Lower your spellcard,” she said. “I will lower mine.”

Marisa hesitated. She didn’t want give up her hostage first, but she didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t beat Patchouli with force. The negotiating was done. She could only hope she had played Patchouli well.

Marisa let the gathered energy at her hand dissipate. The spellcard had long since burned off, and not firing the spell meant that card was wasted. She turned to face Patchouli fully.

“Your turns,” she said.

The ice spear at Patchouli’s hand ran through with cracks, as if it were suddenly heated. The spear broke under its own mass, shattered into a hundred pieces. Ice fragments scattered over the marble floor and soon evaporated.

I stood, grabbed my gohei off the floor, then walked over to Marisa’s side.

“The library’s main entrance is that way,” said Patchouli, pointing off through the bookshelves. “I make no guarantee of your safety once you leave.”

“Will you tell us how to find Scarlet?” I said.

“Yes,” said Patchouli. “Go down the hall, take the fourth door on the right. That is the main stairwell. Go up to the top floor, out into the hall, and take the first set of double doors on the left. There you will find the observatory. Lady Scarlet was there stargazing, last I heard.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“No. I refuse your thanks. I tell you where she is only because you pose no threat to her. Look for the mistress, and her chief maid will find you first. In that, I am not helping you, but sending you to your deaths.”