Some might think that a novel should start with action, or a character. Well, what about architecture? I promise that this is relevant to the story, but at first glance the first part of my book “A Plague of Dragons” seems overly heavy on both the physical appearance of towers and the duties of a library assistant.
Fun fact: I worked as a library assistant for three years during high school and nobody EVER put their books back, or if they did, it was never in the right place.
Summer City was the centre of the Anidain Empire, a magical realm that stretched from the northern mountains to the cold southern ocean; and from the eastern sea to the western ocean. The city sat on the flat river plains almost like a plate of food piled too high. The walls were tall and the gates strong and guarded by magic, even though it had been over six hundred years since they were attacked.
The city was famed for its towers. The first dynasty towers were relatively short, with square or hexagonal bases, narrow windows and flat roofs. Wooden and stone buildings crammed around these ones, hardly allowing any light to reach the streets: a product of the ancient times when all anybody cared about was living safely inside the walls. The second dynasty towers were marvellously tall, with round bases, wide glass windows and tall, peaked roofs of shining bronze. Flags flapped from their pinnacles and some sprouted more towers out of their sides, making them look top-heavy. The third dynasty towers were not as tall, but they were more elaborate, with wide bases of all shapes, enormous windows, and with either A-framed roofs or big glass domes.
The Summer City Advanced School for Mages was a curious mix of all three dynasty styles. Over the years it had been built on and extended until it now incorporated four buildings. It had a small rectangular tower as the administration centre and library, two soaring round towers for the dormitories of the students, and a new, octagonal-based tower with a glass roof (for studying the sky) as the classrooms. The teachers had their offices in the administration centre, although most of them lived in the Street of Stars, in their own towers.
The administration centre had fifteen floors, and the top two floors were taken up by the library. It was said to be one of the finest collections of texts in the Empire, barring of course the Great Library down in the Elf-Kingdom that framed the stony shores of the southern ocean. The fourteenth floor had bookshelves all around the edges, like spokes in a wheel. In the middle of the floor were large wooden desks with chairs, so that students could read and study there. Magic lamps hovered over each desk, casting light down. Two stairwells furled up on either side of the study area to the fifteenth floor, which was little more than a mezzanine. Three great chandeliers hung from the flat roof over the study area and shed light into the high wooden bookshelves on the mezzanine floor, illuminating the gilt spines of the books.
There were some desks on the mezzanine, but mostly students went up there to fetch books on topics as diverse as “Elementary Fire When It’s Raining” to “Raspor’s Philosophy of the 2nd Dynasty Priesthood”. The floor of the lower floor was carpeted in dark red, while the mezzanine was in dark blue. New students, coming into the library for the first time, were both overwhelmed by the amount of books and confused as to where to look for what they wanted. That was where the library assistants came in. Their job was to help those students, as well as return the books that they had borrowed. Most students (and teachers) simply left their books on their study desks, or put them into a special trolley that was marked “Returns”.
It was early afternoon, and there were no students anywhere in the library, as they were in their classes. Most of the library assistants had also not yet returned from lunch. The only people in the place was a teacher, hunched over a scroll on one of the desks in the fourteenth floor, and one of the library assistants, who was halfway up a ladder in the First Dynasty section, shelving books from the “Returns” trolley.
Master Eldwin was hunched over his scroll, deciding if Hibiscus bark salt was the proper solution to use in order to break a faint spell hidden in its margins. He had a clean-shaven face, with heavy wrinkles surrounding his mouth, nose and eyes, and a strictly short haircut. He ought to have been wearing full-length robes due to his status as a teacher and as a member of the Mage Council, but instead he was in trousers and a tan-coloured knitted jersey, with his black and maroon-edged robe draped over the back of his chair behind him.
He was trying to concentrate, but it was not helped by the near-constant stream of muttering that was coming from the library assistant. As she balanced halfway up her ladder, two books under her arm and another in the process of being slotted into its rightful home, she was grumbling. She wore a black robe, like a student, while underneath she wore a long skirt to her ankles and a grey blouse. She was scowling. Her hair, long and black, was braided and wound around her head. It was perfectly smooth, without even a wisp escaping from where it was supposed to be.
‘Blast those stupid students,’ she muttered to herself, descending two rungs of the ladder to replace the last two books. ‘Can’t they put books back by themselves? They have hands. They have staffs. They could at least enchant each one to return to its place once they’ve finished the thing.’ She slid the last book back into its place and climbed down the ladder, pulling her blue skirt out of the way of her feet.
‘They’re completely useless,’ she continued, raising her voice as she approached the table where the teacher was at work. ‘And the Masters aren’t much better. Why can’t they use what nature gave them and put their own books back!’
‘Come now, Ashleigh,’ Eldwin said, spreading the Hibiscus bark powder evenly over the scroll. ‘You don’t need to grumble as much as that.’
‘You would, if you were in my position,’ the assistant said as she picked up an armful of books. She sneered, more to the books than to her teacher. She stormed away to push the ladder two shelves down the wall. Eldwin smiled, and paused in his work to watch her work off her anger, sliding the books into their shelves with abrupt yet tender hands.