Chapter 2
1618 Words
2
I slowly moved my eyes in the direction of the cold barrel. A shadowy form stood beside me. Their face was so pale that I could make out most of their features. It was a man of about forty with bushy eyebrows and sharp eyes that had a strange glint in them against the dim light from the open door.
“Naso!” Caius shouted as Sage grabbed the man’s arm and pushed it backward. The cold metal moved off my head and I was finally free to breathe.
My attacker shrank back before he paused and blinked at my dragon lover. “Caius?”
A sly smile appeared on Caius’ lips. “You fool. What were you going to do with that?” He nodded at the man’s ‘weapon.’
I looked down at his hand and my face fell. The man held a long cylinder made of metal.
The man sheepishly smiled at him as he raised the rusted cylinder of metal. “It would have worked, too, if you weren’t here.” He looked to me and bowed his head. “Sorry I startled you, miss.”
I managed a shaky smile. “Just don’t make it a habit.”
The man chuckled before he walked over to a small table. He moved as lithe as a cat in the darkness, but soon the light was lit and the room was revealed to us. The space was filled with cubby holes that were stuffed with rolls of paper. Some rolls were short and barely stuck out. Others were so long that their ends drooped out of the holes. I saw that many of the rolls used the same metal cylinder as Naso held to keep the paper tightly rolled. The furniture, likewise, was covered in unrolled papers. Some were the width of tapestries and others were long scrolls that draped over half the room.
The papers were in various states of decay. May had seen better days before my grandfather’s days, what with their yellowed, torn trims and patched parchments. However, there was a small stack of perfect scrolls neatly tied and bundled into a box beside the left of the door.
Naso turned to us with a smile, but his eyes were sharp and curious, especially when they fell on Caius. “Now what can I do for my old compatriot?” He stiffened and his eyes widened just a little as I noticed he drummed the fingers of his left hand against his hip. “Or perhaps it’s something you can do for me?”
“The first one,” Caius told him.
The fingers stopped drumming and his posture slackened. “I see. What is it you want? An ancient tome? A manual on how to be an ass?”
Caius flashed him a grin. “I’ve written half of them, if I could write, but this is a bigger favor than those. I need you to get us into the Index.”
“The Index?” I repeated.
“A nickname we who walk its halls call the Central Library,” Naso explained as he studied Caius with the look of someone who doubted my dragon lover’s sanity. “But you can’t be serious. It would be hard enough to get one person in, but four?”
“Could you get one of us inside?” Sage wondered.
Naso wrinkled his nose. “Perhaps when the guards were fewer, but they’ve had some recent high-level security breaches that have caused the vilicus to increase the number.”
“The vilicus?” I wondered.
Naso arched an eyebrow at me. “Yes. He leads the Index. The current vilicus is Magnus van Petrus.”
Both of Sage’s eyebrows shot up. “Of the House of Petrus from the Flavian Coast?”
“Who else but one of that house would hold the position?” Naso countered with a bitter smile. “He took up the lofty position when his uncle passed away at the ‘young’ age of four hundred, having been in the seat after his father.”
“So what do you do?” I asked him.
Naso puffed out his chest and raised himself to his full, short stature. “I may not have the blood of a renowned shifter family, but I am rather skilled at reading the most archaic pieces of literature, and I’m also a master at repairing scrolls.”
“That’s good for the scrolls,” Caius spoke up as he nudged the box of clean scrolls with the side of his foot. “But I don’t think you’re going to get us into one of these boxes so we can get inside that place.”
Naso frowned at Caius. “Be more careful with those! It took me a good month’s work to repair those scrolls!”
Sage scooted between Caius and the box and bowed his head to Naso. “My apologies for our brutish friend. However, if money is a problem, we will gladly pay it.”
The air escaped Naso’s chest as he sighed. “You really are intent on getting in there, aren’t you? Why is that so important? What are you looking for?”
“We merely wish to peruse some documents submitted by one of the High Librarians,” Sage assured him. “Nothing damaging nor illegal but the entrance.”
Naso cupped his chin in his hand and furrowed his brow. “Well, there are the ancient catacombs.”
Sage arched an eyebrow. “Are they safe enough to traverse?”
Naso dropped his hand and shrugged. “I wouldn’t bet my life on it, for that would surely be what I would be risking, but I can think of no other way inside.”
“Why are there catacombs underneath a library?” I spoke up.
Naso turned to me with upraised eyebrows. “Don’t you not know the sage history of the Index?”
Sage grasped my shoulder and smiled at the librarian. “My friend here has led a rather sheltered life, but a refresher course wouldn’t hurt any of us, if you would do us that honor.”
Naso’s ego was inflated along with his chest, and he cleared his throat. “Well, you see, the fine city in which the Central Library is located, Urbas Sophia, was once called Pantainos, and was itself a primitive library system created by a simple group of people called the Graius. They had a small collection of research volumes, but were more interested in the science of sorting them, of which I am an avid practitioner of such arts.”
I glanced around the messy room. “It looks like it.”
A little bit of Naso’s air left him, but he rallied. “That is, I respect their interest in such organization.”
“As did the leaders of the Library,” Sage added.
Naso nodded. “Indeed. The early Library leaders wished to share their knowledge, and when the Graius refused, a small war commenced. The Library with their Blue Binds were victorious, and the contents of the older Graius library were emptied.”
“Stolen,” Sage corrected him.
“Removed as spoils of the struggle,” our acquaintance amended himself. “The existing buildings were created to house the new collection, and thus was the Index born.”
“And now they stock the shelves with relics just as dusty as those from the ancient crypts,” Caius quipped.
“That’s a neat story, but it still doesn’t explain why the Librarians built the Index on top of a bunch of dead people,” I pointed out.
“The Graius, as was their custom, had buried their dead in crypts and catacombs under the hardest stone in the area,” Naso explained. “That spot proved to be wonderful ground for a stone foundation, so the Index was built atop the dead.”
I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. “So has anyone ever seen a ghost in those halls?”
“Ghosts don’t exist, pumpkin,” Sage reminded me.
“That’s what you said about lumina,” Caius reminded him.
Sage coughed into his fist. “Yes, well, in this case I’m sure we shouldn’t have to worry about the dead. The living is troublesome enough.”
“Should we expect to meet some trouble getting to one of the catacomb entrances?” Caius asked Naso.
“Do you mean from the Blue Binds? I highly doubt it,” Naso replied. “While the Blue Binds have an inordinate amount of control over Perdico, the Index is still safely within the grasps of we Librarians and other than the front gate and walls of the Index we discourage the Blue Binds from making an appearance in the city.”
“This sounds too easy,” I commented. “I mean, no guards at an entrance into the basement of the Index? Why not?”
Naso shrugged. “I don’t know about easy. You still have to navigate the halls to the storage room with the research material. However, I do know that nobody I’ve ever heard of has come out of those catacombs.”
“Magic traps?” Sage guessed.
Naso shook his head. “I don’t know. Nobody does. There has been rumors of shadows lurking in those cold corridors for ages.” He paused and chuckled. “The locals have come to call the area the Kingdom of the Darkness.”
“A nickname isn’t really going to scare us off,” Caius assured him.
Naso sighed. “If you insist on getting yourselves killed by the unknown than I will give you a chance at success by showing you the halls after you exit the catacombs.” He turned his attention to the papers plastered to the walls and nodded at a large map. “There.” He led us over to the poster and I saw that the lines drawn on its crusty, stained surface mapped out a large building. Naso stepped to the side and turned to us before he tapped the back of one finger against the map. “This is the layout of the Index. I don’t know where you’ll come out for the catacombs, so you’ll have to memorize-”
“Did it,” Caius announced.
Sage looked to him and arched an eyebrow. “Have you prior knowledge of the layout?”
Caius flashed him a smile. “Nope, but I’ve had a lot of practice. You just have to know the patterns and it’s easy.”
Sage sighed. “Then I suppose we must ensure you survive the catacombs, should we find any danger.”
“I’ll lead you to one of the entrances,” Naso offered. “It’s in the residential district, so there shouldn’t be anyone around from the Index.”
- Writer
