Read Online The High House by James Stoddard - Free Book Online

exactly are we looking for?”
    “Clues as to the traditions of the house, specifically the way the title is passed down. I need to find the legal section.”
    The card catalogue was thirty feet of dark cherry. Hope quickly identified several volumes and the two men wandered the aisles to find them.
    Walking amidst the stacks was like plunging into jungle shadows, with the slow running of a stream, the cries of birds, the lowing of oxen, the stamping of warrior feet just beyond hearing, and dark leather all around. The pungent odor of books surrounded them, old, forgotten, ponderous with words, deep antiquity in rectangular form. Carter saw a centipede flowing across the carpet.
    “Odd,” Hope said, stopping before a section with FICTION carved upon the top of the shelves. “Everything is out of place. The legal books are here.” He searched a time before choosing a tall, moldering tome.
    Carter, who had moved farther down the aisle, gave a chuckle. “You should see the HISTORY section. Vathek by Beckford, The World’s Desire , even the Orlando Furioso , fantastic books all. Why, here’s even the dreaded Krankenhammer of Stefan Schimpf, the mad cobbler of Mainz, a book of magic outlawed in most countries. Bad filing, you think, or an odd sense of humor?”
    As Carter scanned the misplaced editions, he saw a small gold book wedged between a pair of larger volumes, with the prestigious title: The High House, Evenmere, Being a Genealogy and History From Its Founding .
    “I might have something here.” He took it and sat in a red velvet chair, in a small alcove built into the nearby shelves, with a modest desk and a green lamp overhead.
    “I’m going to poke a bit farther on,” Hope said, disappearing between an opening in the stacks.
    Carter’s excitement on finding the book lessened when he discovered the chronicles ended more than a hundred years before his father’s birth. The genealogical list, though dull, was of amazing length. The names and the history proved enigmatic, the events and references being of an obscure nature, although he did find mentioned the Tigers of Naleewuath and the Master Keys . But mostly the book told of the times when the Masters of the house were summoned to various countries to perform inexplicable services. It reminded Carter of the strange folk who used to visit his father, dressed as if from another age.
    Pondering the volume, thinking of the past while the soft lapping of water trickled unaccountably at the edge of his hearing, brought a heavy drowsiness upon him, made worse by his previous sleepless night. His head soon drifted to the top of the desk; the book fell from his hands. His last conscious thoughts were that there must be a fountain somewhere in the room.
    Dreaming, he raised his head and found himself still at the desk, although the dimness had given way to a soft mist high up on the paneled ceiling. He looked down at the table, where the book lay open to the last page, and saw his father’s signature upon it, proceeded by a brief history.
    “Why, that wasn’t there before,” he said.
    “Of course not,” Brittle said, causing Carter to start. The butler stood looking down upon him, his face drawn and waxen pale. “It wasn’t there because you are only dreaming now. You must have fallen asleep at the table. Yet, we all find ourselves here together. You should leave the library at once.”
    Carter looked around, perplexed and suddenly suspicious, uncertain if people in dreams say you are dreaming. He shut the book quickly and stood. “Perhaps I should.”
    “Try to reach the main doors,” Brittle said. “I will see if I can find some way to forestall them.” Turning, he hurried away between the shelves.
    Carter sought to leave, but discovered the library all changed, the bookshelves no longer in neat lines, but at various angles, more a maze than before. He walked a short distance, turning right, then left, following the labyrinth until he reached a dead