Here’s a little something for you since I don’t have much to write about for this month’s update.
Written by
Gregoria
Tick…tick…tick…
High above and far below, brass wheels turned in time with one another, and the noise echoed through the guts of the machine and into secret halls lined high with shelves of books. It sounded no different than it had just moments ago, and yet the cacophonous noise of the machine told the Librarian everything she needed to know. She rose from her seat with some reluctance and packed her books aside. She didn’t have an office so much as she did a favorite spot; an alcove large enough for tables and chairs, meant for guests who were rarely there to use them.
Her metal footfalls resounded against the polished stone floors, echoing through endless shelves. The walk was blessedly long that day, as it always was when he came to visit. Once every century, when the wheels of the world aligned just right, he could enter the one place forbidden to him. The one place in the universe where a being held more power than he did. Sometimes he didn’t come, but those instances were unfortunately as rare as guests were.
She worshiped him once, when she was young and afraid and grieving. Then she came to understand who he truly was, how he treated those around him, especially her, and with that understanding came hatred. But in the eons between that distant past and the present, even that burning passion faded–first to embers, then to ashes. At a certain point she resigned herself to being bound to him through each of his Cycles until he finally decided he’d had enough.
She realized she was stalling, that if she took too long he would simply come to her. She beckoned her garden, and the expanse of the Library contracted to bring its wrought iron gate before her. Without a sound the gate welcomed her inside, and at her whim it disappeared behind her in a flurry of paper.
The path was lined with flowers taken from various realms and planets (back when such a thing still existed), haphazardly planted with no thought given to color coordination, she felt that the chaos was beautiful in its own way. She had long since taken their ability to grow or die; her job kept her quite busy, and they were far too valuable as specimens to risk forgetting to water or prune them for a few decades. Something akin to a star hung far overhead in permanent noon, granting the garden much needed natural lighting–except when the Librarian deemed it should rain, or that a moon should take its place.
She took a seat at a stone bench in the shade of a tree. A fissure formed in the air in front of her, which violently split like an open wound into red light. His hand emerged from the gash, his fingers curling around its edges to pull himself forth–his head emerged then. His face would be unassuming if the right side of it weren’t laid bare to the bone, the dry white of it long since turned a gleaming gold which the Librarian could almost see her reflection in. As he emerged in full, standing tall and slim in imperial regalia, he regarded her with a half-hearted smile. The expression didn’t reach his eyes, which seemed to lose more of their luster each time he visited her.
“____, it’s good to see you,” he said.
The Librarian’s brow twitched, and she cursed herself for reacting to it yet again. Even in its absence she knew what it was, because it was one of two names she struck from all records. They could no longer be, and yet it was his curse to remember everything, even if she wished he wouldn’t. Each time he saw her, he saw fit to make at least one of the never-were-names so, as if he meant to exert what little power over her he had. Acknowledging their absence, she could feel the Prisoner stir somewhere deep within the Library, and so she locked away the thought and turned to more pressing matters.
“Remember that you are a guest here. Do not try my patience, or I’ll simply push you out over and over until the day is over,” she warned.
“But even after all this time you haven’t picked a new name. How can you expect me to greet you otherwise?”
“Call me by my title. What do you want now?”
“Just to talk,” he answered, “A hundred years is a long time you know, even for me. I thought it would be nice to catch up.”
The Librarian was unconvinced. “I doubt you’re interested in what I have to say, Cyrus, and likewise, I’m uninterested in engaging in small talk with you. You mean to ask me something, so do it.”
He grimaced, the still-living side of his face resembling its counterpart for only a moment, “Paul is alive.”
“And you speak yet another distasteful name. He was meant to be dead?”
“I should hope so, I’m the one that killed him. But he must be alive, someone must have saved him. Rumors from the border provinces of a wise man covered in burns, it’s too big a coincidence.”
The Librarian cocked an eyebrow, “Do you make a habit of believing in every rumor you hear about the dead come back to life?”
“Please. The description is too consistent: A man wrapped in bandages, clutching a book bound in black and gold.”
His gaze ‘til that point was like a wax statue, sculpted with practiced niceties and charisma to hide what lay beneath, but the truth melted through like a hot iron until it made itself known to the her. It was a wordless accusation, and a wordless question.
“I didn’t,” she answered.
“But that’s what your books look like. Who else could’ve saved him?”
“There are things beyond your notice, things out in the-”
“Don’t lecture me,” his temper reared its ugly head, and in the heat, his wax charisma melted away entirely, “I made all of it! I know all there is to know, all the things you need your books to remember.”
“This is a library, where patrons come to learn in peace,” She asserted, “Raise not your voice against the Librarian.”
“Don’t you dare. I made you-”
With a snap of her fingers, he was gone. Banished back from whence he came. He attempted to return several times, first furious, then apologetic, then simpering. Eventually he stopped trying, and the window through which he could bother her closed shut.
The Librarian returned to her favorite spot and cast a glance to a vacant spot on the table. Much like the never-were-names, there was something there once; a book, written by many men across many times, in many circumstances that were similar, yet different. But unlike the names, Thrive’s journal was out there somewhere in the world, in the hands of its owner. She had willed it so, because it struck fear in the heart of a man she once worshiped.
Whether that would bear any fruit, even the Librarian who knew everything didn’t have an answer.
