Too Many Books

The next morning, Maeril ordered ale with breakfast.

Ṛṣi looked at the cup, then at the hour, then at her.

She lifted her brows over the rim. “What?”

“It is morning.”

“Yes. I noticed. Very brave of it.”

“You ordered ale.”

“We spent months inside a library-monastery,” she said. “If I want fermented grain with my eggs, the gods may file a complaint in triplicate.”

He considered that.

“Lathander may have opinions.”

“Lathander has priests. They can write.”

She drank.

Ṛṣi let the matter rest. The ale looked thin enough that even dawn might forgive it.

Breakfast was bread, eggs, a little cheese, and a pot of something hot that Maeril had declared “nearly tea” after smelling it and “an insult to leaves” after tasting it. Their packs sat beside the table, half-ready for a road neither of them had yet learned how to afford.

Maeril reached down to tug one upright.

The pack made a sound no travel pack should make.

A sliding, internal collapse.

She froze.

Ṛṣi set his bread down.

“Maeril.”

“It is fine.”

A scroll case rolled out from beneath the flap and bumped against her boot.

Then a wrapped book followed.

Then another.

Then a bundle of ink-stained cloth, two narrow boxes, a tied packet of loose notes, and something small and corked that hit the floor with a threatening little clink.

Ṛṣi looked at the table.

Then the floor.

Then Maeril.

She held up one hand. “Before you say anything, this is not as bad as it looks.”

A third book slid halfway out and stopped, wedged at an angle that made the whole pack lean drunkenly toward disaster.

Ṛṣi reached down and set the pack upright before it could surrender entirely.

“Wizards do not travel lightly,” he said.

“We do,” Maeril answered at once, “if you lot stop asking us to fix everything.”

He picked up the corked vial carefully. “Is this dangerous?”

“Emotionally, yes. Physically, only if opened by idiots.”

He set it on the table with respect.

Maeril began gathering the fallen things back toward herself, muttering under her breath as if every object had betrayed her by obeying gravity.

“This,” she said, holding up a slim book, “is essential.”

Ṛṣi nodded.

“This is also essential.”

“Of course.”

“This is not essential, strictly speaking, but abandoning it would make me an embarrassment to the arcane profession.”

“That sounds serious.”

“It is. Wizards have standards. Inconsistent ones, but standards.”

She tucked the book under her arm, then looked at the rest of the heap with open hostility.

Ṛṣi took one of the scroll cases and offered it back. “How many books are necessary?”

Maeril stared at him as if he had asked how much air a lung required.

“That depends.”

“On?”

“Whether the world intends to behave.”

He waited.

“It rarely does,” she added.

He accepted that as sound reasoning.

She shoved a wrapped bundle into the pack. It did not fit. She removed it, turned it, tried again, and somehow made the problem worse.

Ṛṣi watched her struggle for three breaths.

“May I?”

“No.”

He folded his hands on the table.

She tried again.

The pack refused.

Her tail lashed once behind the chair.

“Fine,” she said. “Yes. But do not look serene while doing it.”

“I will try.”

He took the pack, removed three items, loosened the side straps, shifted the weight, laid the flat books against the back, nested the scroll cases along the side, placed the wrapped boxes lower, and made a narrow pocket for the vial where it would not break against harder edges.

Maeril watched with increasing resentment.

“You have done this before.”

“I pack bandages.”

“That is not the same.”

“Both need to be found before someone bleeds.”

She opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Pointed at him. “Annoyingly fair.”

He returned the pack to her.

It stood.

Barely.

Maeril touched it with one finger as if testing whether it had become a trap.

“I hate that you improved it.”

“I can make it worse again.”

“No. I need the room.”

“For more books?”

“For necessary work.”

He glanced at the pile still on the floor.

Maeril followed his gaze.

“That,” she said, “is the problem. Wizardry is not an elegant calling, whatever towers and portraits would like everyone to believe. It is ink, paper, copying fees, powdered things in packets, glass things that break, books that become vital only after you leave them behind, and people saying, ‘Maeril, can you please solve this impossible magical nonsense before supper?’”

Ṛṣi’s expression stayed solemn.

“Can you?”

“Usually. That is why I suffer.”

He almost smiled.

She saw it and brightened in victory.

“What I need,” she said, leaning closer, “is a bag that cheats.”

“A bag that cheats.”

“Yes. Space is a tyrant. Some bags have learned civil disobedience.”

He looked at the pack again.

Maeril warmed to the subject immediately. “A bag of holding is the common dream. Big inside, small outside, very useful until someone uses it badly and makes reality angry.”

“That happens?”

“It can. Reality is touchy.”

“I see.”

“But a proper haversack—” She lifted one finger, as if invoking a saint. “That is the civilized version. Compartments. Order. Your hand finds what you need. You do not spend ten minutes digging through socks and dried mushrooms while something with teeth expresses an opinion.”

Ṛṣi looked at the stack of books.

“And you want one.”

“I want several. I would settle for one. I would name it.”

“You would name the bag.”

“If the bag saved my back, yes. I would honor it properly.”

He considered the phrase carefully. “How expensive is properly honored space?”

Maeril made a face.

“Very.”

“How very?”

“‘Please negotiate with the laws of distance on behalf of this shoulder strap’ very.”

“That sounds coin-intensive.”

“My entire path is coin-intensive.” She tapped the nearest book. “Spells cost ink. Ink costs coin. Paper costs coin. Copying costs coin. Components cost coin. The people who sell components know this and have chosen evil.”

Ṛṣi looked down at his own travel bundle.

It was small.

Too small, Maeril clearly thought. Suspiciously small. Morally offensive in its simplicity.

“What?” he asked.

“You own a staff, a spare shirt, and the ability to look meaningful in rain.”

“I also have sandals.”

“Luxury.”

“My robes were given to me.”

“Of course they were.”

“And food is often given where I serve.”

Maeril leaned back, eyes narrowing. “So let me understand this. You became powerful through breath, suffering, discipline, soup, donated cloth, and being impossible.”

“That is incomplete.”

“Is it inaccurate?”

He thought about it.

“No.”

She threw both hands toward the ceiling. “Meanwhile I need ink that costs more than a mule because if I write the wrong curve in the wrong place, the spell sulks and refuses to live.”

“The spell sulks?”

“Some do. Abjuration is well-mannered. Illusion is smug. Conjuration cannot be trusted near furniture.”

Ṛṣi nodded slowly.

“I have been ignorant of many things.”

“Yes,” she said. “But you are pretty when you learn.”

He blinked.

Then looked down at his bread.

Maeril grinned, satisfied, and returned to wrestling the last book into place.

It still did not fit.

She stared at it.

The book stared back with the blank patience of a thing that knew it was necessary.

Ṛṣi said, “We will need coin.”

“Yes.”

“For food. Lodging. Road costs.”

“Yes.”

“For ink.”

“Tragically.”

“For a bag that cheats.”

“One day,” she said, pointing at him. “Do not mock the holy dream.”

“I was not mocking it.”

“You were thinking calmly near it. Same offense.”

He picked up the last book and turned it sideways.

Maeril watched.

He slid it into the narrow space between two scroll cases.

The pack accepted it.

She stared at the result, then at him.

“I dislike how useful you are.”

“I can stop.”

“Absolutely not.”

She pulled the straps tight with a grunt, tied one extra cord around the middle, then sat back, breathing as if she had defeated a minor demon.

The pack stood beside the table.

Bulging.

Unhappy.

Victorious.

Maeril took another drink of ale.

Ṛṣi looked at the pack, then at his own small bundle.

After a moment, he reached over and shifted one of her side straps so the weight would sit higher on her back.

She watched his hand, then looked away before the moment could become too soft.

“The road is going to complain,” he said.

“Then it can join the line.”

He smiled into his cup.

Not almost, this time.

Just enough.

Maeril saw.

She pretended not to, which was one of her kinder habits.