The books started to seem more like mountains than piles of papers. They continued to accumulate themself like trash in a rubbish dump. The simple thought that he would have to read and process all of this information gave him nausea. If he is to make through he must remain in the present moment , thinking just about that one book, one page, one phrase, the one word that he was reading, never letting his mind wander. It was extremely hard but he had to focus.
He felt like he had been there, in that corner of a state library for days, maybe days really had passed. He was unsure of what hour or day was it, there were no clocks or calendars, the bathroom was barely at a few meters from his chair.Aall distractions, even the smallest, had been removed. There was one thing to do there: study.
It all begun a few days back when his captain called him, in the office, only for a brief chat. alone. Pxan hoped that he would fire him, because if he didn’t fire him it was something worse and more serious, he could get in prison. Maybe they finally found about his past?
His captain was reading a letter when he entered the office, he was an old man, both the beard and hair had long since become white as snow, one of his eyes had recently started to become blind and his shoulders weren't what they used to be. Regardless of this, he worked like a man half his age, managing an entire sub-district with extraordinary discipline and efficiency.
<
Pxan nodded
<
Pxan agreed before he realized what that question might entail.
<
"A lot of stuff" Pxan remembered
When the captain said archivist he thought that he would pass most of the day reorganizing papers and old bureaucratic boxes. How wrong he was.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The archivists were one of the few groups of people to have access to every book with the librarian sigil, he had more freedom than prestigious academics...there was something wrong with this situation, someone wasn’t telling him the truth.
Subjects to learn and categorize were far too distant and strange from each other, the reading list contained books about the following subjects: Ancient History, Modern History, Logic, Philosophy, Math, Physics, Ancient Geography, Modern Geography, Geometry, Computer Science, Theology, Ancient Letterature, Modern literature, Sociology and a strange subject that he didn’t well understand titled Rennaisance Philosophy which seemed an umbrella term to put all the strange and weird philosophy books under.
He started reading a large book that was at the top of it's list ‘Being good at speak doesn’t simply being good at reasoning or seducing, it means first and foremost the capacity to efficiently convey ideas to another human being without them being distorted[1]’ he glanced at the cover “Damn another one of those Rennaisance Philosophy books.” he looked around seeking something more ordinary and hopefully less heavy to read. A black book with a staff, two serpents climbing on it and two wings spread across the cover, he already saw that symbol, somewhere. Maybe that was a fiction book. Maybe. He opened the book.
“Is a shame that most magick systems neglect the fundamentals of self-knowledge and meditation, without those the novice student is sure to fail in the rituals[2]” he didn’t knew what he was reading. He glanced at the sigil, it was the sigil of the librarians, this book was on the list but...this is material for the inquisition, “I must understand better” and so Pxan continued to read the book all night long.
When he finished its eyes were heavy and his face tired, yet he felt like he had found some sort of answer in that strange book. He finally understood his enemies at least partially, he was one step closer to his revenge and this brought him a little joy.
When he finally exited the librarian called him
<
The voice of the librarian woke him from his half-sleep
<
<
He glanced at the clock <