The Wizard's Way by Jacob Holo

Author:Jacob Holo [Holo, Jacob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: humor, magic, wizards, steampunk, wizard, humorous, inventors, pugs, inventor, gaslamp

XX.

The Brünl Library

The Brünl Library had been in existence longer than the entire Queendom of Aurica. It stored texts that were far older and more valuable than any Aurican book, and none of its contents were subject to The Queen’s decency laws because, technically, they weren’t stored on The Queen’s land. They were stored in Brünig.

In the Iron City, humans and bearmen lived so seamlessly alongside each other that most assumed they were part of the same city, but this was not the case. The bearmen—or Brün as they called themselves—had been so pivotal in the winning of the First Aurice’s wars that the Second Aurice granted them their own small nation on the eastern arc of the mountain.

A spirit of cooperation led Brünig to form its laws in tandem with Aurica, but ultimately it occupied a fully autonomous state that was only subject to the Aurican laws it agreed to be subject to, and the Brün heartily scoffed at Aurican notions of decency.

The reason for this was mostly practical. Creatures who possessed no basic need for clothing had different standards of propriety than creatures whose sense of which was partly structured on the necessity of clothing. The bearmen, however, had interpreted the laws—or lack thereof—to include printed content, too.

Chaucey hadn’t given much thought to this beyond the obvious applications (i.e., scandal magazines). After all, for a banned book to appear in the library’s collection, it first had to reach Brünig, and Brünig being such a comparatively tiny spot of land surrounded by the whole of Aurica, it seemed unlikely that anything as illegal as wizard literature would make it there in the first place.

Unless it was helped along by illicit postmen.

The delusive nature of the Brünl Post changed things. If the Brünl Post could get clarien ink and pyramids to Farwude, then what was to stop it from bringing banned Ferantin texts to the Library? Perhaps even texts that mentioned Larkanschal?

• • •

The next morning, Chaucey unscrewed the lenses from his clarien glasses, pocketed them, and locked the rims in the trunk. If there were wizard texts in the Brünl Library, perhaps signs in clarien ink would point the way. It was worth a try, he thought, and he headed down from the skyroom.

Pentalion had already gone downstairs, and Chaucey was unsurprised to find him in the lobby of the workshop distributing cups of coffee that were apparently as miraculous as his mixed drinks.

Elsa looked like death’s little sister before she grabbed one, but when she handed the empty mug back she’d been restored to her usual battle goddess self, off to conquer new lands, this time with a large contraption on her back.

She was in a dress again, and the colors made her look something like the Aurican flag—butter yellow with hints of red and blue. This was probably meant to play on the festivalgoers’ patriotism, but Chaucey’s main reaction was to note how the colors complemented the sunny tone of her skin and how the bustle rounded an already pleasant shape into absolute loveliness.

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