Santi and Tony stared down at the body of a horse sprawled between the book shelves. All was quiet. All was still.

"It could just be sleeping," Tony said, breaking the stunned silence. She dug her hands deep into her apron pockets and cast the Head Librarian a hopeful look.

"If I were to take a nap, I probably wouldn't do it on top of all that congealed blood," was Santi's sensible reply. "And how do you explain the sword sticking out of its head like that?" The section of blade jutting out of its forehead was missing its tip. The force of the blow to the horse had snapped it off.

"Maybe it's a unicorn."

Santi shook his head. Tony may have been as ancient as the bones of the Library itself, but she was new to being human and had yet to become jaded like him.

"Well, whatever it is, it's dead," he said with a note of finality. There was something familiar about the horse, but he couldn't quite figure out where he would have known it from. In fact, the sword looked familiar too.

A glint on the horse's flank caught Santi's eye. When he leant down to examine it more closely, he saw that it wasn't a horse at all, but layers of softly glowing letters. The letters formed words, which in turn ran on into sentences. It was not something that the librarian had encountered before, but then again, it was a dull week when the Library didn't throw him a curveball.

"It looks like some sort of text manifestation." Santi straitened. "What do you make of it?"

Tony dipped her fingers into the blood. She brought them to her face and licked each one deliberately.

"Yum," She grinned. "It's definitely from a book. Pre Gutenberg, and written by a scribe who wasn't too stingy with the ink." She bit her lower lip and looked up at Santi bashfully. "I think I may have eaten his work before."

"As long as you don't do it again," Santi said sternly. Tony was now on a strict diet of human food, but accidents still happened. In all other respects, however, she was the perfect assistant librarian.

"Some books need to be eaten," she said.

Santi scoffed. "If you eat anther book, you're going back into the terrarium."

She shrugged and rose gracefully, as if to say 'agree to disagree'. "What would you like me to do today, Santi?"

He liked her accent. It was faint, and somewhere between Mediterranean and French. He liked the way she made his name sound exotic.

"You could start with cleaning this u-,"

Santi averted his gaze as Tony complied immediately and with enthusiasm. She tore into the text like it was Christmas present wrapping.

"A-and I suppose we should get to the bottom of this," he muttered as he retreated.

Tony mentioned that it was 'pre Gutenberg', that is, before the invention of a commercially viable printing press. Prior to Gutenberg's invention, books were scribed by hand in very small numbers. This meant that many of the works produced prior to the 1400's were often lost in the passage of time.

If the horse and sword were familiar to Santi, it meant that they were from texts which must have survived the march of time. They were likely from famous stories. So which medieval stories had horses and swords in them?

All of them, of course. Santi rolled his eyes.

He left Tony to finish with the mess and headed to his office, a loft that overlooked the main body of the Library. There, he briefly consulted the Prima Codex, a book so large that Santi had to pace back and forth to turn the pages. The Codex referred him to the Crywolf Chronicles, a twenty-three volume compendium that was the life work of a Greek girl who later became an oracle. Each tome was lavishly illustrated and detailed all the artefacts of history. If the sword that he saw this morning was even halfway famous, he would find it in the chronicles.

The sun crept across the sky as Santi perused hundreds of pages of swords. He was about to give up when a sword with a broken tip caught his eye. Earlier today, he had assumed that the tip of the sword had snapped off in the horse, but what if the sword was already missing its tip?

The illustration of the sword was detailed enough that Santi could read the inscription on its blade.

My name is Cortana, of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durendal.

"Cortana... where have I heard that name before?" Santi mused aloud.

"Do you play video games?" Tony asked from his shoulder.

Santi jumped and swatted her away. "Don't creep up on me like that!" He growled at her as he nursed a heart attack.

Tony smiled. "I didn't creep. I simply moved to stand directly behind you so that I could watch you for long minutes while you were unaware of my presence."

Santi shuddered and changed the topic. "And what kind of question is that? Of course I don't play video games. They are an abomination upon the world. They festoon young minds in rot!"

"They are really fun," Tony said with a shrug. "If you don't play video games, then you would know of Cortana as the sword of Tristan, later passed down to Henry III of England."

Santi's fist came down on his open palm. "Ah! Of course!"

Cortana, or Curtana, was also known as the Sword of Mercy, used in the coronation of British monarchs. It was famous for its squared end; the tip was rumoured to have broken off in the skull of another knight. Knowing that the sword had belonged to Tristan helped Santi narrow down the horse's identity. Llamrei was King Arthur's prized mare, known for being unflappable in the face of monsters.

"So what does this all mean?" Santi mused aloud.

Before he had a chance to think about the question, his monologue was interrupted by a piercing scream somewhere deep in the Library. Santi charged down the stairs, running towards the noise. He slowed belatedly when he realized that he could have been running headlong into danger. But then Tony caught up to him and he felt a wave of relief. Any danger was best faced with strong allies.

Another scream echoed through the Library.

The sound came from the north facing wing. There, they found shelves overturned and a hysterical woman grasping desperately at pages that had fallen around her tartan skirts.

Shredded paper blanketed the ground like feathers after a fox's raid on a henhouse.

Seeing the woman, Tony licked her lips and advanced.

"Cythraul! Dros yno!" the woman pointed desperately at the path beyond the fallen shelves.

Santi knew enough Welsh that her words made him queasy. He stepped around the shelves to see a trail of scattered pages leading further into the Library.

"What in the blasted bookends is going on here?" He glared at the woman though the situation was clearly not her fault. "Beth yw eich enw?"

The woman mustered up a semblance of composure, which was no easy feat given that Tony had started to examine her sleeve. "Fy enw yn cael ei...Enid."

Enid. Of course. After Cortana and Llamrei, it should have come as no surprise that he would run into other characters of British legend. However, Enid's connection was only tangential to the other two. The horse and sword were from the Historia Regum Brtanniae whereas she was from the Llyfr Coch Hergest. Both were famous texts in their time. Was there another connection?

A thought occurred.

"Tony!"

The assistant librarian stopped nibbling Enid's dress. "Mmm?"

"How does it taste?"

"Good."

"Does it taste familiar?" The irony of using a bookworm's palate was not lost on Santi.

"Yes. It's the same as before. The same one who wrote the other book."

"Do you know the scribe's name?"

"No."

Santi did. He allowed himself a small smile. The author of both books was Geoffrey of Monmouth, most famously known for his history on the ancient kings of British Isles. He also dabbled in local love ballads and legends. Today's victims had all been characters from his works.

Which meant that his other books were probably in danger.

"Tony, follow the trail and see if you can track down the thing that did this. Save the book if you can, but judging by the amount of paper here, we might be too late. Whatever the case, meet me in the European history section when you're done."

"In the basement?" she questioned.

Santi nodded.

Something was attacking Geoffrey's well known books, and it was Santi's job as Head Librarian to put an end to it. He turned on his heels and began to walk briskly back to the main section of the Library while Tony ventured deeper into the north wing. Footsteps followed Santi, who turned to see Enid trailing him unsurely. He kept walking. He had no words of comfort for her. Until he caught the fiend, and until he found a way to return her to her book, the only words he could offer her were empty ones.

The stairwell to the basement level of the Library continued from the steps below his loft office. Santi reached into his pocket and scooped out a small, malleable nugget of gold. Alchemic gold was hard to come by, and he hoped that he would not be forced to use the only piece he had on him today. The books in the Library were kept safe from each other and from themselves by countless delicate webs of magic. Any errant power could undo the layers of careful bindings that Santi's predecessors had put in place. Alchemic gold acted as a focus and a stabilizer for spells, but one could never be too careful.

The basement was a vast warehouse-like space where shelves climbed higher than trees. When Santi flicked the switch, huge halogen lights in the ceiling and walls eradicated the cavernous darkness.

All was quiet. All was still.

Before Santi lost his nerve, he descended the rest of the way down into the maze below. Rows of ancient books lined his path. They tugged at the corners of his mind and unravelled the edges of his concentration. Even the most experienced librarian could become bookfuddled down here where some of the texts were old and powerful enough to be gods themselves. Santi took a deep breath and focused his mind on the singular task of getting to the history section. The weight of the gold in his hand helped to ground him.

As they made their way through the basement, he could feel Enid's fear like a cold draught behind him. Without turning to look at her, he reached back with his free hand to grasp hers.

Santi noticed gaps between the books as he walked. Some marked the places where books had gone missing. His thoughts turned briefly to Tony, who had dined down here for hundreds of years. There was no doubt that she had done irrevocable damage to the Library as a bookworm before he had finally caught her.

Seeing the gaps left behind by the missing books annoyed Santi, but they were the least of his worries. There were other spaces that felt... void. It was as if the essence of the book had rotted out, taking its physical form with it and leaving a wrathful shadow to mark the space where it had once been. He shivered each time he passed such a hollow.

They came to a halt in front of a shelf containing the Library's collection of Geoffrey's works. Santi let go of Enid's hand so that he could browse the books. Many were manuscripts, written in the author's own hand, carefully preserved in treated pouches.

All was quiet. All was still. But there was a sour note in the air, as if something was rotten at the core.

At last, you have come.

It was a voice that spoke straight in Santi's mind. He scrambled to block it out, but it was like trying to stop water with fishing nets.

"What are you? What do you want?" He asked.

One of the pouches fell from the shelf and landed at Santi's feet. He backed away just as black ink began to seep out of the pouch. The puddle grew larger, chasing the librarian as he retreated and staining the nearest shelves. When it started to creep up the shelves to the books, Santi was forced to stand his ground.

You have come, the ink said as it soaked into his shoes. But you are too late. Too long I have waited, and you have forgotten me.

He heard a gasp from behind him and turned to see Enid sinking into the black mass. Her form unravelled where it touched the ink, turning into letters that were scattered and absorbed.

"Rhedeg i ffwrdd!" Enid cried.

But the ink was everywhere, and there was nowhere for Santi to run. Even if there was an escape, he was the Head Librarian, which meant that he could never abandon the books.

The blackness around his feet was as cold as death.

"Consistere," Santi commanded. At the same time as he spoke, he dropped the piece of gold, which landed with a flash of light in the dark ink. The spell spread and halted its seeping advance. It was too late to save Enid, but the books around Santi remained unharmed... for now.

There was movement on top of the shelves, but Santi ignored it. He felt the ink tugging at him. Within it was a story that time had forgotten. Santi crouched carefully and dipped his hand into the ink.

The story flooded into him. It was the tale of Aethnen, a humble farmer with a wife and three daughters. He fought in no wars, and slayed no monsters, but he was honest and hardworking, and his daughters were married off to decent men. In the last of his days, he came across a starving man on the road and gave the man something to eat. Later, the man turned out to be a king who vowed to Aethnen that the farmer's kind deed would never be forgotten.

Santi rose slowly as a low laugh trickled from the fallen pouch. Once the pouch had housed a book, but now it contained something entirely different. Something corrupted. Something sinister. The pouch began to shake and expand as if something was growing deep within. The sides tore and gave birth to the hunched old frame of a creature who was once a kindly old farmer. Ink dripped off him as he rose to stare at Santi with one red eye.

The king said that I would be remembered. Yet, here I am, lost, while his stories live on and on and on. Aethnen lumbered towards Santi with his hands outstretched. But if I am to be forgotten, I will not be alone. You will join me. Every book in this Library will join me!

Santi stood his ground. "No," he said. "I'm sorry, but this madness ends now."

On cue, Tony leapt down from the bookshelf onto Aethnen. He screamed and clawed at her, but she was a predator of his kind and he was no match for her. Santi watched, this time unflinchingly, as Tony tore into the book manifestation. Within minutes, she had reduced yet another piece of priceless history to black smears on the ground.

When she was done, she wiped the leftover text from her lips and looked up at Santi with her pale grey eyes.

"Some books need to be eaten," she insisted.

He understood her words now. Tony wasn't just a glutton, she was part of a carefully balanced eco-system.

"Maybe," Santi said reluctantly. "Or maybe they just need to be read."

Author's Note

This was written for the November writing contest on Labyrinth. The challenge was to choose a prompt from the Writing Prompts forum that has not been used before. The penname of the writer who suggested the prompt had to appear in the story. I chose one of CryWolf's prompts - to write to a specific title.

The Gutenberg printing press revolutionized bookmaking. It made the mass production of texts possible for the first time in history.

Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric who wrote a mostly made-up history of the kings of Britain. In it, he embellished on the stories of King Arthur and provided some foundation for the legends of Arthur today.

Tristan, a knight of the round table, was said to have owned Cortana. Today, the sword is considered part of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom.

Enid is the wife of Geraint, another of Arthur's knights.

As always, I hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it.

18/11/14 - Minor edits.

29/11/14 - More editing based on Liz's comments. Thanks, mate! :) Also, a note on the Welsh - I tried to frame the text around it so that you didn't have to be a speaker to get the gist of the conversation. ;)

06/12/14 - Edits based on Tales' comments. 'But they was the least of his worries' is just too gangster for me. So thanks for the pick up.

08/12/14 - more edits. It never ends.