Browsing History
© 2022 by Walter Reimer

Thumbnail art by  dragonmelde, color by  marmelmm
Filk idea by  eocostello



“Where are we now?” Varan asked as the teleport spell’s glow faded.

“I’m not sure,” Meredith replied, the mare looking around as her ears flattened. “It feels familiar, somehow,” she remarked, looking around as robed furs moved about in an open-air market under a sunny sky. Despite the initial primitive feel of the setting, there were signs of contemporary technology; a stall selling spices was using a holographic hawker to entice shoppers inside.

A rat, not watching where he was going, bumped into Varan. “Pardon me, sister.”

“Excuse me, ‘sister?” the vir asked.

The fellow peered up at her from under his hood. “All are one family in the eyes of the Holy One.” He waved one paw in what the mage supposed was a blessing and hurried on his way.

Meredith turned to watch him go. “’Holy One . . . ‘” The golden palomino mare’s eyes went wide and she whispered, “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

The paladin didn’t seem to hear the mage, instead marching up to another stall and asking the proprietor, “What planet is this?”

“Why, Sanctuary, of course,” the woman said before continuing her interrupted conversation with a shopper.

Varan grasped Meredith’s arm. “What is it, lir demef?”

The mare looked up at the vir, her eyes wide and – scared?

“We have to get out of here.”

“Why?”

The paladin took a breath. “Sanctuary’s the home of the Church of the All,” she said, “or was.” She and Varan started walking toward the entrance to the market. “They were the last ones to resist Mad Markus.”

That caused Varan to blink. “You mean Markus the Cruel?” Meredith nodded, and the mage asked, “what did he do to Sanctuary?”

The mare gulped. “Destroyed it . . . by orbital bombardment.”

The vir’s feline eyes widened, and she immediately started channeling mana into her staff, the teleport spell taking them away even as the first projectile fired by the monitor Righteous Lightning, causing the air in its wake to glow, slammed into the city.

In the glow of the teleport, the title We Were There at the Fall of Sanctuary drifted past them.


***


They found themselves on a pitching wooden deck, sails filled with wind moving the ship along the sea under a cloudless sky. A group of furs were gathered around the mainmast, listening to a strongly built, grizzled canine speak as he hobbled around among them. One of his legs had been replaced by a crude prosthetic, a simple white bone of some sort.

The air stank, of fish and creosote and unwashed bodies, and the odors clung despite the efforts of the wind to drive them off.

The paladin and the mage made their way unsteadily as the canine shouted a question about what the crew should do if they saw a whale, and after the answer and a few more questions, the grizzled canine pulled a gold coin from his pocket and called for a hammer.

The coin being duly nailed to the mainmast, the man began to rant about a white whale.

“Seems an interesting story, about vengeance,” Varan observed, her tail swinging in counterpoint to help her keep her balance. “What do you think, Meredith? Meredith?”

The mare was hanging over the rail as she vomited again, and the mage teleported them both off the Pequod.


***


They reappeared in one of the main rooms of the library, with Varan resting a solicitous hand on Meredith’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes I think so,” the mare replied. “Motion sickness wasn’t something I expected.” She looked around, and pointed at a figure on the far side of the cavernous room. “They might know something.”

“Perhaps,” and they headed over and discovered that it was a collie mel wearing a battered suit and perched halfway up a ten meter-tall ladder. He was moving books from one part of a shelf to the other while singing.

“In-FO!
Iiiiin-FO!
Shelve dese books an’ I get ta go . . . home . . .
Work all day on a cuppa tea!
Shelve dese books an’ I get ta go home!
Do mah job an’ I might go free!
Shelve dese books an’ I get ta go home!
Come Miss Librarian, tally me hardCOVer,
Shelve dese books an’ I get ta go home!
Come Miss Librarian, tally me hardCOVer,
Shelve dese books an’ I get ta go home!
It's SIX volume, SEVEN volume, EIGHT volume NINE!
Shelve dese books an’ I get ta go home!”

“Excuse me,” Varan called out, and the collie stopped singing.

“Yes? Can you be helped?” the man shouted.

“Can you help us?” Meredith called out.

“Yes, I can help you,” and the collie went back to his task, which appeared to be rearranging the books on the shelf. Finished, he had one extra book in his paws, and he grumbled as he moved the ladder to the next shelf over. The ladder, reaching to the very highest shelves some twenty meters above them, moved smoothly on rollers to his next spot.

“Excuse me,” Varan said, and the man stopped.

“What is it?” he asked testily.

“You said that you can help us.”

“Yes, I did.” The collie scowled down at the mare and the vir. “I said that I can help you. Can denotes ability, and I am certainly able to help you. Now, may denotes permissibility – ‘Am I permitted to help you?’ – and is a happier locution.” He resumed his task, grumbling to himself about the state of public education.

Meredith cleared her throat. “May you help us, please?”

The collie was standing in front of her so fast it appeared as if he teleported. “Sure! I can use a break from the reshelving. What do you need?”

“We are looking for any information on the Amulet of Asininity,” Varan said.

The collie, whose name tag was illegible, said, “Oh, that old thing. Tell you what, you and your friend here help me reshelve these books, and I’ll help you find it.”

“You started from the top?”

“Best place to start, yes.”

Varan judged that he was nearly fifty percent done with the task. She glanced at Meredith, who nodded, and said, “We will help you.”

The collie clapped his paws gleefully. “Great!” He snapped his fingers, and two more ladders erupted out of the floor. “Hope you two like heights,” and he ascended to where he left off, cackling maniacally.

Meredith said, “This could take a while.”


***


“Do we have to wait for them to finish this task?” Vesan asked. She and Varan had been watching the game module play out.

Varan gestured negatively. “We will simply advance the game timer until they’re done.”

“What if this is a trap?”

“Then we go back to the last saved point and try again.”

Varan started moving the game forward, first in two hour increments and then in four, until three and half days later by the game’s horolog the mage and the paladin had completed assisting the collie with his task.


***


“Kras aan i’?” Varan asked. When they had started reshelving, there had been only one book out of place.

Now there were three, with each one holding a book that had been out of the correct order.

Varan glanced at the spine of the tome in her hands, noting that it was A Natural History of Suicide, by A. Lemming, and looked at the collie. “What happened?”

The collie, whose book was How To, When To, Where To: The Best Places for Public Sex by Lei Mei Doane, shrugged. “Never happened before.”

Meredith, who was holding a copy of Tree Diseases and You, a short book published by the Confederate Ministry of Agriculture, shrugged and set the book on the floor. “I say we take a break and try again later.” The other two agreed and placed their books on top of hers.

There was a flash of light, and the books were replaced by a small gold plaque of a mink’s head in profile, with two short lengths of chain.

The collie scooped it up and gave it to Meredith. “This is the second third of the Amulet of Asininity,” the seedy-looking canine said. “The mink symbolizes speed, cunning – and a self-destructive love of shiny things.” As the mare put the talisman away, the collie said, “Now, you two can check out over there, using your library cards.”

“We don’t have library cards,” Varan said.

“You . . . don’t . . . have . . . LIBRARY CARDS!?” the collie screamed, suddenly manifesting far more teeth than his mouth seemed to comfortably hold. Sharp horns sprouted from his head and shoulders, and his claws grew far longer and sharper. He charged, only to meet the flat of Meredith’s sword on the top of his head, and he dropped to the floor as if poleaxed.

The mare and the vir turned as an army of docents came through the doors, grabbed them, and with chants of “No Library Card!” the mage and the paladin were unceremoniously carried out of the Demonic Library and dumped just outside the back entrance.

Two signs read Arboretum and Grotto of Desire. Both signs bore arrows, indicating that both places lay in the same direction.

“Aka, at least we have the second part,” Varan said as she saved and closed the game.