I wish it to be known, first of all, that this was not my idea. It was my son Alcatraz's idea. I may be a Librarian, and evil - I will accept the title evil, if that is what it takes to get the job done - but cruel, I am not.
No, it takes a professional writer to be this cruel. To be cruel enough to believe that a story is an appropriate gift for a special occasion. Especially a true story; that doesn't even require putting in the effort to make up a lie. But Alcatraz suggested that, for Leavenworth's birthday, I should collect some recollections about his greatest victories over the forces of the Library. On reflection, I decided that, on the one hand, this would save me the trouble of finding a real gift for him; and on the other hand, if I collated, annotated, editorialized, and organized the results, the result would be so contaminated with Librarianship that Leavenworth wouldn't even be able to enjoy reading them. So without further nonsense, here, Leavenworth Smedry, are the anecdotes I was able to bribe, blackmail, or guilt-trip my friends and family into writing down for you. If you don't think this is a good enough present, blame your grandson.
The first comes to us courtesy of young Bastille:
When I was small I spent a lot of time at Castle Smedry. Castle Smedry had the same problems with being too big and too empty that most castles do, but at least the annoying relatives wandering in and out of it weren't my annoying relatives, and all the service people were too used to Smedrys to bother too much about a king's daughter visiting. I especially liked to go on the rare occasions when the Old Smedry was home, instead of wandering around in the Hushlands. I could tell my father that the Old Smedry had invited me to visit and since he trusted the Old Smedry absolutely he would just wave me off and tell me not to cause more trouble than I could help.
The Old Smedry likes children, and back then most of the Smedry kids were either grown-up or on Mokia or both, so he'd always ask me over if I said something, and I could stay as long as I wanted or until my sister noticed I hadn't come back yet and complained to Mother.
Children like Old Smedry too. He treats them like rational beings capable of making sensible decisions, which is generous of him, since at his age he still isn't capable of making a sensible decision.
Usually I read books when I was there. Castle Smedry has the largest collection (not a library!) of books on Oculatory subjects in all of Nalhalla, and if I had questions about them while he was around, he would answer me, or even demonstrate.
Once I was sitting in a chair in one of the book-filled studies (not a library!) at Castle Smedry, reading a large textbook on Rare Sands of the World, while the Old Smedry was across the room, digging through several heaping bins of intelligence reports from the Hushlands. It was wonderfully quiet until Attica Smedry came storming in.
"SOMEONE has stolen one of my books!" he raged.
"Oh dear," Old Smedry asked, looking up from his piles of reports. "Are you sure you haven't lost it?"
Attica gave him a withering look. "I think that at this time in my life I know the difference being losing a book and having it stolen from my desk, Father. If I find out who stole it, they are going to get very, very, lost however. Bottom of the Marianas Trench lost, if I can manage it."
I curled up a little more tightly in the dusty old armchair I had claimed, and hid my face behind the book I was reading. Luckily I had covered it with the jacket off one of the terrible Adventures of Alcatraz kids' books that my brother was obsessed with. (It cut down on the number of people who wanted to comment about such a small girl reading such a big book, and tittering about how at that rate, I would need glasses by the time I turned six.) Attica didn't even look over at me. He's afraid of children and prefers to ignore them when he can't avoid them entirely.
The Old Smedry glanced over at me and winked. "Which book was it, boy?"
"Shawshank's Sands from Hidden Places," he said, frowning.
Okay, maybe I had slightly stolen it from his desk, but he hadn't been using it, and I was planning to return it when I was done, and anyway he lost things all the time.
"Oh, that one," the Old Smedry said. "I borrowed it."
"You borrowed it? When?"
"Last week, don't you remember, boy?"
Attica frowned. "Well, I need it now. Please return it."
"Yes, yes, absolutely, as soon as I have a minute to fetch it," he replied. I tucked my nose even farther into the book, though I doubt Attica had even noticed I was there.
"I need it soon, Father, not next year," he said threateningly, and then stormed out of the room.
As soon as he was safely gone I said, "I'm sorry, Grandpa Smedry, I'll return it right away."
He smiled at me and shook his head, "Take your time, lass. He could use another chance to learn that he can't always get want he wants."
I don't think Attica would have lost me at the bottom of the ocean either way, and it only encouraged me in several bad habits, but I'm still overdue in thanking him for doing that for me. Thank you for protecting a little girl when she needed it, Grandpa Smedry.
--Bastille
If you talk to people who have lived all their lives in the Dark Kingdoms - like Mokia and Nalhalla - they will tell you that there is nothing worthwhile in the Hushlands that you can't also find in the Kingdoms.
This is clearly wrong.
After all, there are no donuts in the Dark Kingdoms.
Yes, Hushlanders who are reading this, just try to imagine a world without donuts. It's terrible, isn't it? That's what people like my in-laws have to live with, every day. No wonder they're trying so hard to reconquer America.
Why are there no donuts? Well, nobody really knows. All we know is that there is a law in Nahalla that Smedrys have the right to requisition anything they want from the people of Nalhalla, except donuts. And that shortly after that law was made, donuts disappeared entirely from Nalhalla.
And they call us evil. No donuts! Wonderful, sweet, greasy, gooey donuts, warm from the fryer--
Excuse me, I think I need to get some breakfast, I'll be right back.
Okay, where was I? Oh, yes, one of the other good things about the Hushlands, that even Leavenworth Smedry can agree is worthwhile, is my niece-in-law Himalaya's new Reformed Library. Here's the story from the Hushlands' Libraries that she sent me for Leavenworth's gift:
Now that I've set up the world's first completely non-evil library, you would be surprised at the number of Free Kingdomers who visit just to use it.
Or maybe you wouldn't. I've been trying very hard not to tell people what to think anymore. It's a process.
Anyway, even though the Jessup Smedry Memorial Reformed Library is in the depths of the Hushlands, we have a steady stream of Free Kingdomers using it. Especially my husband Folsom's relatives. I guess it makes sense - the Smedrys are all scholars, one way or another. They must find it amazing to be able to find the books they need without having to spend a week searching through disorganized piles, and to even have helpful information professionals there to find them what they need. They try not to show it, though.
And then there's my grandfather-in-law.
"But I really, really need this book," he told me, giving me his best harmless pitiful old man look. I didn't budge. She-who-cannot-be-named had trained me to be immune to that back when I was still in library school. The book was How Do Dinosaurs Say 'I'm Mad' by Jane Yolen. It's possible it really was vital to some diplomatic effort of the state of Nalhalla. Ms. Yolen managed to work quite a lot of accurate information about dinosaurs into that series, for the benefit of Hushlander children. But even a non-evil library has to have some rules, and one of them is that you return the books on time, so the next person can read them.
"I can't let you check it out, Grandpa Smedry," I said. "The last book you checked out is eighty-seven days late. Your library card has been blocked."
"Oh!" he said. "Right. Yes, indeed, that one, I promise I'll return that tomorrow. I'll just pay my fines in the meantime--" he started to rustle in the pockets of his tuxedo trousers.
'I promise I'll return that tomorrow' from Grandpa Smedry is possibly the weakest promise that has ever been made. "I'm afraid you can't pay your fines and clear your account until the book has either been returned or renewed," I reminded him, as I had the last six times he'd visited my library. "And you've already extended your checkout as many times as it's allowed, so you won't be able to check out anything more until you've returned it, or paid us the replacement cost for a lost book."
"Well it's not lost," he said. "Obviously. I don't lose things. It's just a little bit late. Can't you make an exception?"
I shook my head. "This is the Hushlands, Grandpa. Not the Free Kingdoms. We don't make special exceptions for Smedrys here. That's one of our few good points. That and donuts."
He sighed. Given how hard his grandson Alcatraz has been pushing for a more egalitarian society in the Free Kingdoms (he doesn't want to be trapped by his name and power forever, he says), he couldn't really argue me on that.
"Well, then, do you make exceptions for in-laws? Can I check it out on my son Attica's library card? Just this once? It's for one of his projects, after all."
That would also be against the rules. But we sometimes let even non-Smedrys use close family members' cards, if they were regulars and we knew the family. Non-evil librarians know when to make exceptions. Books are for use. Every reader its book, every book its reader, I recited the Laws of Non-Evil Library Science in my head as a calming mantra.
"Let me see," I told him, even though I knew it wouldn't do any good, and brought up Attica's record. "Oh goodness, sorry," I said. "It looks like dear Uncle Attica has lost some books. Twenty-four of them, to be precise. Would you like to pay off his fees instead of yours? And his wife has eighteen items lost and billed for," I added, before he could suggest Shasta. I admire that woman greatly for somehow managing to stay a Librarian with Talent as antithetical to Librarianship as that one, but she still has to pay for lost books.
"Have you checked the shelves for the missing books?" Grandpa Smedry asked. "Maybe they've turned up."
"Every week." Dealing with Smedrys at a library requires some special procedures - like not automatically forgiving Attica Smedry his late fees just because the books somehow turned up on the shelves all by themselves three months later.
"Well, how about my dear grandson Al--"
"Alcatraz is banned from the library for a year for returning too many books with damage," I reminded him. The goal of our library was to get as much information into the hands of the people as we could, so I hated having to ban anyone, but some of those books hadn't been damaged so much as destroyed. Some of them had been damaged in ways I didn't even know was possible. Putting the words in A Memory of Light into the Forgotten Language just because you didn't like the ending was one thing, but then there was the book that had its binding glue turned into some kind of horrible, stinky, tarry substance that I could swear was semi-sentient. Some things even a non-evil library can't afford to tolerate.
Bastille's account wasn't much better these days. She really needed to stop checking out romance novels until she started to get the Talent under control. Our shelf of E. L. James books was never going to be the same again.
The longer I ran this library, the more I began to understand why Smedrys and Librarians have always had so much trouble getting along.
"There's always dear Kazan," he said. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind---"
"Kaz had me put a note in his account that nobody taller than 4'2" was allowed to use his card, no exceptions," I said. "It's a privilege for short people only." Which was really nice of him, because it meant that all of his small Smedry cousins could still use the library, even after their parents had screwed up their accounts irretrievably. He even pays their fines, when their Talents inevitably cause problems, without telling their parents. Uncle Kazan is still my second favorite Smedry of all time (after Folsom, of course.)
I flipped Kaz's note around so Grandpa Smedry could read it himself. He frowned, and then we were both interrupted by a sudden flurry of sound in one of the study rooms. I braced myself in case it was music, and then shook my head when I realized it was just some dinosaurs. Our study rooms have become a popular vacation spot for dinosaurs - I think they've gotten the idea that my library is a safe yet deliciously daring way to experience the Hushlands and learn about their much more ferocious ancestors, and the windows in the study rooms are made of Somebody Else's Problem glass, so they don't have to worry as much about being seen.
They always cause trouble, though. And sure enough, a second later, an entire flock of Alvarezsauruses came tearing noisily out of the study room and then straight out the front doors, shedding feathers everywhere.
"Oops, sorry!" Grandpa Smedry said. "No more time to talk, I have to go deal with that, I'm late as it is, bye!" and dashed after them.
He was still holding the book, of course. The security gate started genteelly blaring to let me know that somebody had taken a book out of the building without checking it out first. I sighed, and went over to deactivate the alarm, and then overrode the bar on Leavenworth Smedry's library card so I could check the book out to him. Better that than a ban for book theft, I thought to myself.
So, Grandpa Smedry, since I know you're reading this:
Here is your official Library notification that you do still have to return that book. Both of those books.
Yours with love, Himalaya
This next anecdote is from my son Alcatraz, who surely needs no introduction:
Librarians really hate outdated encyclopedias.
I know, you'd think they'd love encyclopedias, right? All that Librarian propaganda, helpfully packaged in the most boring and orderly way possible. And they do, usually, like encyclopedias in general. Just not outdated ones.
Look, imagine you're a librarian, and you're trying to keep your library stocked with all the materials necessary to keep the populace in a state of sedentary complacency. That means an up-to-date encyclopedia. But to make sure your encyclopedias are up-to-date, you have to get a new one every year. At that rate, you soon have a library that's nothing but shelf after shelf of outdated encyclopedias.
Usually they make the only sightly-out-of-date encyclopedias available for the people to check out and take home, and then after a couple more years they use them for something else, like building fiery altars for Dark Oculatory magic, but in a lot of libraries they accumulate them too fast to use them all up that way, especially the ones run by Orders that aren't big on ritual magicr. And no Librarian is going to be happy to destroy an encyclopedia set - so orderly! such apparently limitless yet carefully controlled information! - and often they start to accumulate in storage after awhile, and they get restless.
What librarians hate even more than outdated encyclopedias, though, is sets of outdated encyclopedias that have one volume checked out. You can't pull an encyclopedia set for storage if there's still a volume checked out by somebody. Boxing up an incomplete set when you know the missing volume is out there would just be wrong. And you certainly can't use an encyclopedia with a missing volume in a Dark Oculatory ritual. Shattered glass! Who knows what would happen!
Somewhere in my grandfather's rooms, there's a bookshelf containing the Sj-Sz volumes of the Encyclopedia Americana in every edition from 1973 to the present, all still checked out from the Metropolitan Central Library. If you ask him about it, he just smiles reminiscently and then doesn't say anything.
(Oh, did you think this anecdote was going to have something to do with that time I was tied to an altar made of outdated encyclopedias as part of a Dark Oculatory ritual? Sorry, that's got nothing whatsoever to do with Grandpa's collection.)
The Dark Kingdomers will talk a lot about Librarians hiding information from people. It's true. We do this. What is lesser-known is that one of our greatest powers is giving people too much information.
You see, if a Dark Kingdomer scholar wants to find a particular fact, they will go to an archive (not a library!) such as, for example, in the catacombs below the University of Mokia. They will spend perhaps two weeks attempting to find the one book they need among the completely disorganized piles, but at last, with a sense of great triumph, they will discover what they need, and carry it away, possibly the first person in decades to have discovered it.
By contrast, if the same researcher goes to a library in the Hushlands, and asks the librarian for help finding a fact, they will quickly be given an entire cart-full of related secondary sources; two clipping books; an archival box full of primary accounts; several rolls of microfilm; and database search containing every cross-reference to a book that particular library does not hold, every public-domain book or periodical that contains the search term; and every mention that has been made of it on the Internet since 1992.
Two weeks later, the Hushlander researcher will also find the one fact they needed, but they will have spent a lot more energy looking for it, will be discouraged by how many other people have written about the same thing, will be completely unsure which fact they were actually looking for, may suspect they were looking for the wrong fact in the first place, will have the sinking feeling they have disappointed the Librarians, the Library, and possibly all of Humanity by failing to use the resources to their best capacity, will not want to look at another book for at least a year, and may even have forgotten their research topic entirely.
It's a much more effective way of directing the flow of information than simple obstructionism.
She-who-cannot-be-spelled is the acknowledged master of the Too Much Information technique, as the following carefully selected excerpt from her contribution should clearly reveal:
In his day, Leavenworth Smedry made quite the dashing secret agent. Of course, I cut a fine figure too, if I do say so myself. I had been chasing him up and down the East Coast of America for almost two weeks, hounding him out of every hiding place he found. I would have let the chase go on even longer, just for the joy of it, except that he was very close to his final target - the old Metropolitan Central Library - and I knew, though he did not, that the moment he crossed the Library's threshhold, he would finally escape my pursuit.
I brought him to bay in a blind alley just a few blocks from the library itself.
"Kanchenjunga Sarketjåkkå," he growled, back against the wall that blocked off the alley, as I stepped out of the darkness.
A delicious shiver went up my spine. "I always loved the way you say my name," I purred, stalking another step closer, making sure I was showing plenty of shapely calf through the slit in my black pencil skirt.
"You decided to show yourself at last," he said. "Because I was about to get away?"
"No, Leavenworth. Because I finally have you exactly where I want you," I said, and triggered the door of the Librarian trap he was standing on top of.
It dropped him into a chute that went five stories straight down into the sprawling labyrinth of tunnels that underlay this entire part of the city. They all connected back to the Library, and it would probably count as entering its premises, but that wouldn't matter once I had him.
He, I knew, would be late to his landing, so it wouldn't kill him, but he would be some time recovering. I took the elevator. As soon as I was on the right level of the sub-basements, I shouted "Ghlaghghee! Entwine!" to the Alivened that dwelt in those dank corridors.
Now, I am no Dark Oculator to command Alivened to my will - but Ghlaghghee has been Alivened for longer than the Order of the Dark Oculators has existed, threaded through all the sewers and winding places of the city's underground, adding new tendrils to herself from every damp old newssheet or scrap of waste paper she comes upon, growing older and cannier every year, and she's accustomed to taking orders from all Librarians. No matter how late Leavenworth tried to arrive for his capture, her tentacles could move more slowly and more inevitably; and there would always be more of them.
By the time I opened the secret door in the tiny chamber where he had landed, he was safely trussed, spread-eagled against the wall, all his limbs bound by ropy tentacles made of crumpled, twisted, fetid newspaper but as strong as cords of iron.
It is hard to arrive late for an appointment when one cannot move at all.
"Thank you, Ghlaghghee," I told her, patting the nearest tentacle gingerly. "You did a very good job." She writhed in appreciation.
"That polyester tuxedo really does nothing for you," I added to Leavenworth. "You should switch back to the white linen."
"Sarketjåkkå!" he said. He even got the å completely right. I resisted the temptation to swoon. Then he squeaked, as the tentacles moved to some places that looked rather uncomfortable (such as around his pinky fingers.) "Was this really necessary?"
"But I do so enjoy our little games," I told him, tipping his chin up with one finger so that he had to look me in the eye. His mustache bristled attractively.
"Just tell me how you did it," he said, that chin outthrust in a posture of daring defiance. "How did you follow me? I must have been late to your pursuit fifteen times, but as soon as I turned around, there you were!"
"Ah," I said. "Well, darling, you may be a Smedry, with an honestly rather impressive talent, but I am a fully qualified librarian." He opened his mouth to object, but before he could say anything, I slid one hand into his right front trouser pocket. "And you," I continued, "were carrying an overdue library book." I pulled out the miniature edition of The Tale of Two Bad Mice with a minimum of unnecessary rummaging.
"I've never seen that book before in my life!" he spluttered.
I smirked at him. "I planted it on you the last time we talked. But it was duly checked out on a library card in your name, and that was all I needed."
"That's vile chicanery," he spat.
"Mmm-hmm," I agreed. "But that's enough flattery from you, Leavenworth. It's time we get down to business. Unless," I added, and stepped even closer to him, so that only Ghlaghghee's tentacles were between us, "Unless, before we get started, you would like to... try a brownie."
[Editor's note: at this point your editor is choosing to redact the rest of the story, for there are some things nobody should have to know.
"Oh, come on, Mrs. Smedry," you're probably thinking right now, "You're claiming it gets worse than giant Alivened tentacle monsters and She-Who-Cannot-Be-Named flirting with your father-in-law?"
Oh yes, it gets worse. Much, much worse. So you see, there some circumstances where even you Dark Kingdomers agree that censorship is fully, 100%, justified.
For the sake of your own sanity, we're skipping right to the end.]
Happy Birthday, you old goat,
And as always, thanks for the memories:
Kanchenjunga Sarketjåkkå:
This final section was meant to be my own contribution to this collection of stories, the tale of the first time I ever met Leavenworth Smedry, and the start of all my troubles.
Unfortunately, while I was working on his gift, Leavenworth asked me what I had been writing so secretively all this time. Now, I am very well aware that my membership in the Smedry household is entirely under Leavenworth's sufferance, and that, despite any minor alliances we may have made, he still dislikes me as cordially as I still dislike him, and therefore I could not afford to act as if I was untrustworthy. Especially since he still has access to a Truthfinder's Lens.
So I told him I'd been inspired by Alcatraz's successes as an author and was writing my memoirs. (Don't worry, this isn't true - this little gift has been as much experience of authorship as I ever want in my life, believe me.) And then he asked to read it, so I loaned him the notebook I was writing my own story in. I told him, though, that I ABSOLUTELY had to have it back by 1800 UTC on December 20, and NO LATER.
Of course, he was late.
In fact, it's four days later, and he still hasn't returned it.
Well, fine, then, Leavenworth. If you can't return something that was loaned to you in good faith in time for me to add it to the collection, your birthday present will just have to be missing its final section. If you ever do decide that you're ready to return it, just let me know, and I can edit it back in.
Happy Shattering Birthday,
Shasta.
I finally went and asked Leavenworth, again, if he was ever planning to return the notebook I'd loaned him, which contained the draft of the planned final section of this collection of stories.
He told me he was pretty sure he'd returned it already, and was I certain I hadn't just mislaid it?
I told him that I most certainly was certain.
He suggested that I might have left it stuck in a copy of one of my son's books, since I had been using them for research.
I am sufficiently accustomed to Leavenworth's little ways that I went and checked, and sure enough, there it was, tucked into my old complete omnibus version of my son's memoirs.
So, belatedly, here is the story of the first time I met Leavenworth Smedry. I would apologize for the lateness, but I have never apologized for Leavenworth's faults in my life, and I shan't be starting now.
Back in those days, I was but a young innocent working the circulation desk at an obscure rural public library. I had not yet even earned my MLA, much less my Black Belt certification, or the higher levels of initiation that would open so many secrets to me. And so, when the strange old man came pelting through the door, I had no inkling yet of the many travails of which he would be harbinger.
He slapped a library book down on the counter in front of me, and then stared at me intently. He wore a full tuxedo, which looked like something out of one of the more futuristic James Bond movies, and a very impressive mustache. "Have you been initiated yet?" he asked.
"I'm sorry, sir?" I said politely.
"Into the Wardens of the Standard," he said.
I had, in fact, been initiated into the Wardens of the Standard just the evening before - later, of course, I would break with them quite dramatically, but at the time I had only been given the First Trial, and shown the keys to the secret stacks under the Storytime Pit that housed the books of the Shadow Catalog. I had not been told any but the most basic passcodes, because there was a children's indoctrination program that morning and all of the more senior Librarians were busy with preparations, but overconfident in my new knowledge, I haplessly told him, "Yes, yesterday."
"Drat!" he exclaimed. "A day late! A mere day late! Well, as I've come all this way, I might as well return this book anyway." He shoved it across the desk toward me.
It was a large, brick-sized hardcover, with one of those fantasy covers with swords and dragons, but odd-looking in a way I couldn't, at the time, describe. The library stickering on it looked odd, too, but it did have a label for our library, and a bar code that would work with the new computerized cataloging system that had only just been installed. I frowned and ran it across the scanner.
A strange, garbled-looking error message that I had never seen came up, so I tabbed through to take a closer look at the catalog record. "Ah!" I said. "Yes, sir, I'm afraid this is a bit late, it shows as last checked out on January 22... 2016? That can't be right." I looked again. "This shows you checked this book out almost thirty years in the future."
"No late fees after all then?" he said. "Marvelous! I'll be off then."
"Wait, sir!" I called after him, but not too loudly, as it was a library, and in those days we still held strictly to the Codes of Silence. He didn't turn, and a moment later he had disappeared out the front door.
I frowned, and looked more closely at the book. The Complete Memoirs of Alcatraz Smedry, it read, beginning with Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. Slowly, I opened the cover and began to read.
"Miss Fletcher!" a thin, severe voice interrupted me. It was Miss Palmer the leader of the local Order of Librarians, and incidentally my boss. It was hard to look at her the same way now that I had seen her, down below, burning with the dark fire of a cataloger's fury. "I know you are aware of the rules about reading while on duty in the Library."
"I'm sorry, ma'am," I said, hastily shutting the book. "It brought up a rather odd catalog record, I was just investigating--"
"Investigating odd books is not your job either," she reprimanded.
"No, ma'am, of course not, ma'am, it won't happen again," I said.
"See that it doesn't."
As soon as she was gone I slipped the book into my bag to take home and read later. That was my second mistake.
(My first mistake was talking to Leavenworth Smedry at all.)