This is the conclusion of the cycle that began with Part 35. To read this cycle from the beginning, here are links to Parts 35-38. I’m afraid you should. It has been a long year since the last installment. The following might not make sense otherwise.

Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38

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The flowing golden cloth of her sleeve hung down to her waist. He reached and gently laid his right hand upon her forearm.

There was a brief flash, and his eyes blinked.

They were standing before massive gates—or, more accurately, doors. Wooden planks as wide and thick as a man extended up seven times the bookseller’s height. Iron studs as big as his head dotted the wooden wall. Decorative as well as protective iron was bound to the doors. Four hinges held up each door. They were nearly half as tall as he was. The hasp was as broad as a rowboat is long. The enormous lock swung loosely on the hasp. The hasp was not engaged.

The door was unlocked.

“You should go. Leave. Remove your ring,” Arganta spoke urgently and distantly. She was surprised, caught off guard, and thoughts flew through her as she spoke.

“No,” the bookseller said flatly.

“Remove your ring and go home, bookseller!”

“No.”

“This has never been unlocked before. I do not know who is on the other side… or what.”

“I wish to be by your side, whoever or whatever has broken into the library.”

“I do not need you as a distraction.”

“I may rather be an ally. And perhaps a distraction would be of assistance.”

“Stay behind me.”

“I will be by your side.”

With that, she put both her hands upon the door and pushed. The huge massive doors swung slowly inward as if they bore no weight at all. Seventeen paces on the other side of the threshold, a woman was seated on the floor in the main aisle. Beyond her, thousands of bookshelves lined the hall into the distance. Far, far away, the south and north walls, converging near endlessly, seemed to meet at a far distant point. Perspective’s trick of the eye.

The woman’s legs were crossed. A large vellum tome was splayed open in her lap. She was clad from neck to ankle in suede. The colors of the fabric were as dangerous storm clouds. Ugly darks and lighter grays. Upon her head was a Robin Hood hat made of the same material. A blood-red feather rose from it like a dagger. Upon her feet were black suede moccasins with pointed toes.

“Hullo, sister.”

The voice was the opposite of Arganta’s bell-like tone. It was husky and sounded like dead leaves scraping across pavement.

“Morgana. Leave now while you can,” Arganta warned.

The woman slowly raised her face up from the book. She looked at Arganta with the deadest eyes the bookseller had ever seen.

Then she noted the bookseller and cocked her head quizzically.

“I have only just started this book, sister. I believe there are many useful tools inside,” she rasped, not taking her eyes off the bookseller. “And I see this is a doubly special day. Our long-delayed reunion, and you have brought a… a… what exactly is it?”

“I am a b-b-bookseller,” he stated, trying to keep his voice from cracking to pieces.

“A ‘b-b-b…’” she mocked. “Slumming, sister?!” She laughed, and the cacophony hurt the man as if he had been struck from his temple to his foot in one solid blow. “His sort aren’t permitted in these halls. Or are you selling off some of our inheritance?”

“He is my special guest and has an important role to play in works far beyond your comprehension. This visit is a step upon that journey that only he can take. It is you who are not to be here. You forfeited that right long ago.”

“Well, here I am, sister, doing a little light reading,” she said, nodding her head down toward the book in her lap. “And shouldn’t he be sent off to shelve some books or whatever it is that his sort do to be useful?”

“You have not the head nor the heart for the words in that book. To use any of them would risk their turning upon you. You would be undone by your own plotting. Have you not done enough damage to yourself practicing forbidden arts—poorly, I would add?”

“I know enough to be aware that there are many things this book could mend. Like this, for instance.”

She stuck the long fingernail on her left forefinger under a page and lifted it. Several large sheets of vellum rattled as they flipped from the left side to the right.

“Should I read this passage to him, sister? Why, I could change from him a b-b-bookseller into a—“

“DON’T! You will be undone if you do.”

“You mean it could be worse?”

Morgana raised her eyes and turned them to the bookseller. She looked into his eyes. Hers were like those you would see on a fishmonger’s cart in Galway—wet and vacant. Dark and hollow like an empty grave at midnight. He felt he was being drawn into them—falling into their abyss. Terrified, he raised his hands and placed them before his eyes. The ring on his finger emitted a brilliant flash, and Morgana had to avert her gaze.

“Well! I have not seen THAT for ages. And it is upon such a dull hand!” She laughed again, and the sound was like the creaking of a dismal rusty iron dungeon door. “Be careful with that. You might blow your finger off!” She returned her attention to Arganta, dismissing him as beneath contempt.

The Queen spoke. “How came you here? You have been banished for 967 circlings of the sun.”

“Time’s up, sister!” Morgana laughed like the croak of the harshest raven ever hatched. “Lost track of your calendar?”

She paused and added, “And I have brought company. My loyal horde is just outside.”

“There was no one else outside but us just now,” the bookseller said, speaking with all the sternness he could muster.

A deep growl croaked from deep within her. “Speak when I address you, common one. You are far out of your depth. They are growing this very minute.”

She began to straighten herself and turn her head toward him. He feared her dead eyes could kill. He raised his right hand to cover his eyes. The ring surprised him by emitting light in a beam as big as clenched hands. It glowed upon her black clad breast. He lifted the beam toward her rising gaze. To avoid the light, she turned her head and cocked it toward Arganta.

“Grrrrrwwowwll,” she shuddered. “How came this mortal to wear this family treasure, sister?”

“It is none of yours, lost sister. When you eschewed your duties, you forfeited any legacy you had fantasies of inheriting. The ring was mine to give. Now sister, how came you here? Truth! Your term has not passed, and regardless, you must apply to enter Avalon. And should you ever apply, I would deny that entreaty. ”

Morgana cocked her head the opposite way, then leaned and pushed both arms upon the stone paved floor. The bookseller noted that her right arm was shorter by a third than the left. She struggled and growled and rose. Her left leg was much shorter than the right. She straightened. Her body was bent at an ugly angle; ugly at every angle.

Arganta looked away and turned to meet the bookseller’s eyes.

“YOUR work, sister. Look upon your work!” Morgana did a curtsy to display her deformity.

“I did not do this. You brought this affliction upon yourself.”

“Look upon me, sister!”

Arganta addressed the bookseller. “She opened books she knew were disasters to behold,” she explained. “Especially to one whose black heart is darker than the lowest dungeon slab.”

She turned back to her sister. “Now, how came you here?! Be quick about it. If you have left other doors ajar, there may be chaos. Dangerous and forbidden books may escape! Unwelcome readers may slip in!”

Morgana extended her longer arm to its full extent and pointed her forefinger. She crooked it back and forth as if pulling an invisible thread. The little man appeared between Arganta and the bookseller. It seemed that he was not drawn forth of his own volition.

“Rumpie! Rumpie, are you unwell?!”

“She knew my name, your highness. She spoke it thrice, and I was compelled to use my keys.”

“Oh Rumpie, I am so sorry. But how could she?”

Morgana responded. “Not all fairies are pink and blue, sister. I spelled a broken fairy into pure dark crystal long ago. When the times were auspicious, I sent her sometimes to this little serving man’s hovel. Drunk as a lord, he sings to himself when in his cups. One evening, he drunkenly sang a riddle song. It was a name riddle. His own name. He was confused and knew not his own answer. But my fairy did. She slipped out of the kingdom when the barrier was down—when first this human, apparently bearing a ring far beyond his competence, told you he was leaving because he was scared of his own words. And, well, she slipped out with him. The passage was already open, after all. She ended up in his dreary bookstore. “

“This is all my fault?” the bookseller asked.

“You would not have known that when you fled in a panic, something slipped out with you. But perhaps you would like to know the rest of the story, bookseller?”

“No!” Arganta exclaimed sternly. But the bookseller heard something else in her voice. Was it panic? “Do not do this, Morgana. You could create chaos here!”

“Sister, our father always told us, ‘Words cannot harm you.’ Why would these harm him? After all, they are his own words; his own book.”

“My own… book?” the bookseller whispered, dumbfounded. “I have written no…”

Morgana raised the open book to his chin. She tilted her head downward and blew. A cloud of ash gray powder flew off the pages. The cloud formed thousands of tiny words. He had never seen the typeface before and could not read a word in the dust cloud.

“Nooooo!” Rumpie cried. He ran toward it and leapt into it. His jump was surprising for one so small. He took the brunt of the powdery blast and fell in a crumple on the marble slabs that paved the library floor.

Arganta stepped forward and removed her cloak. She cast it over the little fellow and bent and dabbed him with it.

Morgana used the distraction to scuttle between them and to the doors. She pulled one open and called out:

“Let us lend some mayhem to these hallowed halls! Minions, let them fly! Come in! Rip and rend and tear the pages! Pull each book from these shelves! Shuffle the sheets, confuse the ages!”

A horde of toadstool trolls rose from the forest floor, erupting like fast fungi. Their hair was like dead grass, their squat bodies wrapped in shaggy dead bark. The faces were more plantlike than animate. No higher than the bookseller’s knee, they trundled across the threshold.

But as they crossed the threshold, each troll fell and rolled across the floor with the sound of a granite boulder, then lay motionless.

“What are you doing to my army, cruel sister?!” Morgana screeched.

“This library is spelled for those with minds and creativity. Your creatures are more mushroom than monster. Poisonous and dangerous, to be sure. But the library has its own defenses against pestilence. They enter and are turned to stone.”

“I nurtured this horde for decades…” Morgana growled.

“They’ll make interesting garden ornaments,” Arganta said. “Perhaps a macabre wall. Rumpie! Rumpie! Where are you? I think we have just the place for them around the poison garden.”

The little man crawled across the floor as if all his strength and spirit had been drained from him. He fell flat on his face at her feet.

“I shall never be trusted again, your highness.”

“Of course you will. I shall christen you with a new name. Come, let me whisper it in your ear.”

Rumpie stepped back a pace and looked up, up, up at her.

“She took a bit of my hairrr…” he began to wail.

“Your hair island is gone! I had not noticed. I shall spell it back when this is done.”

Arganta turned to Morgana. “Devious sister, I should spell you into a book and shelve you here for all eternity. But such a horror story… No. History is history. It must not be censored. Yours would be a cautionary tale. It would scare temptation from young ones and remind those who would let defenses be weakened that evil must have a light shone upon it—eternally.”

“Do not put me out into the world again, dear sister. I can change. I can become your loyal servant and help restore all of Avalon’s glories.”

“You ARE changed, dark sister. NOW!”

There was a flash, and Morgana straightened. Her stunted limbs lengthened. She stood upright—made whole again. But her eyes were as dead as ever.

“I have spelled your powers into this book bound in black vellum. You shall walk upon the earth shunned by any and all who cross your path.”

“Cruel sister. Your heart is harder than the diamond tome at the core of this library.”

“Consider it a pilgrimage, Morgana. Cross the wide world and see the beauties. Observe the creatures you would destroy. Walk the forests and fields you would devastate.”

“I am better than them all,” she growled.

“When you know ‘better,’ then perhaps we can meet again. Until then, you are cast away. Rumpie! Lead her to the border and see that she crosses. It will lock behind her.”

“But…”

“She has no power over you! In fact, you are much stronger than she is. Go. And each of you take a stone toadstool with you. It will take many trips to get them all to that dangerous garden. By then, you will be able to braid your hair island into a forward ponytail!”

“Bless you, my Queen.”

They watched the odd couple trundle up the path into the forest.

“Bookseller, you have done Avalon a great service this day.”

“I only raised my hands to avoid those horrible eyes.”

“The ring gave her pause. Her spells were shaken. I was able to revive the defensive spells.”

“I’m glad to have been here, Arganta. Now, about the book, the book you brought me here to see…”

Arganta sighed. “I believe it is best that you do not know this book. Yet. Why, it has yet to be written! Even book muses can be in error. I will return you to your beloved bookshop. You will have no recollection of this library or of your new friend, Rumpie.”

“BOOKSELLER!” Rumpie came running into the library as fast as his short, bow legs could carry him. He grasped the bookseller around his knee and pressed his head to the bookseller’s thigh like a happy puppy.

“Nor will you remember me as you see me here,” Arganta continued. “I will become your elusive Book Muse once again. When you return, put the ring upon the wall. Stay home and work with your books. You have much there to do. Many books to rescue for this very library!”

“I will never see Avalon again? Or you?”

“Perhaps in dreams. But you know how fleeting they are. Come, let us walk down this aisle a bit. I will miss you knowing me and being in Avalon. Let us look at the books together.”

They walked together down the endless aisle. Rumpie hop, hop, skipped behind to keep pace.

The bookseller scanned the titles they passed. Every hundred paces or so, they passed cross aisles that stretched beyond sight to the right and left.

“So many…”

“Perhaps some day, you will return. You can search out any gaps in the collection and return to the world to find and buy them for Avalon.”

“Bookseller to the Queen…”

They walked in silence for another 3331 paces before she spoke again.

“Just ahead are those books you should not see. Perhaps we should stop and part here.”

He held out his hand to her, unsure how to part. He looked up, and up, and up until he saw her face tilted down toward him. A tear trailed from her eye and dropped from her cheekbone. It fell like a tiny glowing crystal. It landed upon the ring and became a fiery diamond inset in the otherwise plain gold band.

He held it up before his eyes, and its pale white light bathed his face in serenity and peace.

He raised his left hand to his right and lifted the ring off.

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The bookseller found himself at his desk.

“I must have dozed. So sleepy lately.”

He looked down and noticed the ring between his thumb and forefinger. He rolled it back along his thumb and forward toward its very tip.

“I don’t remember taking you down,” he said to it. “And what is this! You now have a stone in you?!”

He sighed and stared at the ring. He rolled it once more between his thumb and forefinger. Then he leaned forward and hung it upon the pin on the wall above his desk.

“I have a story to write,” he thought. He picked up a pencil and began scratching out an outline. It filled two pages. He stared at his words.

“I wonder where that story came from?” he thought.

But he hadn’t any time to ponder, for the bookshop bell above the front trilled merrily. It was the sound the bell made when wonderful books were arriving.

“Surprises! I wonder what there will be?”