I’ll be honest - my first steps into the Library are a bit more anticlimactic than I expected. I don’t know precisely what I expected? But what I got was about two-fifths of a second of blurry darkness while my eyes adjust to the lower light, followed by a hallway. Just a hallway in front of me, kind of dim, hewn of rough brown stone. Something brighter and broader at the end of it, firelit and spacious.

There wasn’t any twisting of space or mind-altering passage through an interdimensional gateway or a psychic stripping of the outer layers of my brain. It’s just a goddamn hallway. I’m actually kind of let down a bit. I’m not gonna lament not having to break a sweat, but it is kind of funny how life seems to lack all sense of showmanship sometimes.

I take a few steps forward toward the room. It gets brighter. There’s still that feeling in my head, that difficult-to-describe feeling - something like vitae, but less… vital. I know that doesn’t make any sense. Describing magic stuff to normal people is an uphill battle at the best of times. I think that might be one of the reasons why my people keep going insane.

Something nabs my attention, and I stop.

There’s a little alcove cut into the stone on my right, making a flat surface that’s facing me. Hung on that flat surface is a wood-framed notice, printed in ink on old-looking paper. At first the text doesn’t appear to make any sense, but then I squint a bit and it resolves into something readable.

THE LAWS OF THE LIBRARY

Acts of violence shall not occur within the Library.

Library property may not be damaged.

Metabolic processes of all biological patrons shall be arrested.

Time may not advance within the Library.

No arcana save the Librarian’s may exist.

The Librarian’s commands shall be obeyed.

Seems pretty straightforward. Standard public library boilerpla-

I’m sorry, what was that about metabolic processes?

And time?

I turn my head to look back down the hallway. Now that I’m closer, I can see some shelves, and a ceiling that goes up and out of sight. And something that looks like a throne, with its back to me. Nothing too weird. Not even any movement. Then I look back at the door I entered through. It’s shut. I don’t remember closing it, or hearing it contact its jamb.

I am beginning to suspect that I might be in a weird place.

That’s alright, though - I’ve long been of the opinion that I belong in weird places.

My boots carry me forward, and before the passage dumps out into the hall beyond, I notice an archway, a subtle relief rising out of the surrounding stone. It doesn’t look like much of a decoration, but it’s too deliberately placed and straight to be a natural feature of the rock. A threshold of some kind, I’m guessing. No one pops out of a cloud of smoke or starts asking me riddles, so, I’m assuming I’m cleared to cross it.

I do, and some stuff happens.

First, my brain feels like someone ran over it with a steamroller, rolled it back up into a scroll, and stuck it in a shelf cubbyhole for a few thousand years. I feel… older? Like I was just born? Space seems to judder around a bit, and I almost lose my balance, but everything goes still, leaving only a strange sensation of pressure behind my eyes that fades after a few seconds.

Two, my guts feel different. Not bad? Or good? But different. Which is probably bad, overall. I don’t think someone’s guts suddenly feeling different ever leads to anything neat and tidy. I don’t know how to articulate it, it’s a deeply strange sensation that I’ve never encountered before. But then that stops too.

And then there’s, uh…

Uh.

My hand goes up to the center of my bare chest, palm over scars.

Nope. Nothing.

My heart has stopped.

In an instant of sheer skin-prickling panic I try to draw my vitae up - I want to thrash it around, dig it inside of me, do something to try and prove to myself and the world that I’m not actually dead.

Nothing happens at all.

I don’t have any vitae.

Before I really start to writhe around on the ground in a blind animal terror, I realize that my eyes still work. That means my implants are still drawing power, from… something. And that means I can run an internal diagnostic.

I usually keep my onboard medical software offline - my body is magical and weird. It’s not very compatible with standard human vital metrics, so whenever I turn it on, it mostly just shrieks at me about how much of a goddamn mutant I am. I get enough of that outside of my head. Yes, I could rewrite the software’s parameters to calibrate to my body specifically, but I never saw the point of spending the effort - if I’m about to die, then I’ll have found myself in circumstances far past which a computer alert would be useful to me.

I turn it on, and sure enough, the medical program immediately flies into a panic. Labcoat flapping as it runs around in circles through my head, glasses askew, waving its paper-laden clipboard in all directions and screaming about defibrillation and epinephrine injections.

Heart rate - zero. Blood pressure - zero. Current metabolic activity level - zero. And a few other things that shouldn’t be possible in a person with a properly-installed medical monitoring program. I shut the poor thing off before it claws its little electronic eyeballs out.

So, my machine parts are still working. But they need my meat parts in order to derive their functions. So there has to still be something going on in me.

And I’m still here. As far as I can tell. As long as that’s the case, I guess I don’t have all too much to worry about. The Librarian wouldn’t have been able to keep his operation up for this long if he was eating people. You would think.

My electric meat/metal vehicle advances onward and carries the nebulous accident of me into the light.

And once in it, I can’t stop my neck from craning around in amazement.

I’m standing in something that looks like a common room in an inn. At the very center of the chamber, there’s a wide bronze brazier, stacked high with wood and burning away. This rests on a broad dais of stone, the stairs and surface of which have been draped in rugs. There are reading chairs placed atop the platform, of all different colors and kinds. They look very old.

The steps off this dias land on smoothed stone tiles. Extending from the circular platform, radiating in all directions, are shelves. Massive ones, bookshelves so colossal you could use the wood from just one of them to build at least three entire houses. They spoke off and spiral out from this central space, towering above it and closing it in stately, impassive wood.

There are levels above this one, too. The ceiling goes up… at least hundreds of feet. Ringed all around up above my head are balconies and railings and platforms of wood, all leading up to a crystal skylight. There’s a creamy white light coming in from the great glass-and-metal aperture, but I couldn’t tell you what from. It’s not the moon, and it’s not the sun either.

I can feel the enormity of the space I’m in without actually being able to see all of it. It’s filled through with towering bookcases and labyrinthine passages and alcoves to the point where there isn’t even any discernible echoing coming back to the crackling fire, but I know this place is massive on the inside. If it weren’t for the sound of the fire and the comforting oil lamps hung up all around, this place wouldn’t seem very welcoming at all. You can feel the weight of time and knowledge pressing down on your shoulders.

I feel… unimportant. That’s not really always a bad thing - I’m just critically aware in this moment how small both me and my life are, when held up against even just the records of all the things that came before me, much less the things themselves.

A voice rips me out of my own head.

“Greetings. And welcome to the Library.”

I can’t immediately see who’s talking to me. Call me crazy, but I think it might be coming from that big wooden throne right there. The voice is… old, definitely, but not in any way feeble or decrepit. It’s a voice that’s supremely confident, almost regal - a voice that wields its age as a weapon and asset, rather than a weakness.

I amble myself up some shallow stone steps and onto the dais, then around the back of the great chair so I can see who I’m talking to.

Sitting in the throne is an older man in clean white robes, woven through with faint gray and goldenrod patterns. His skin is weathered and tan. His hair is shoulder-length and silver-white, the same as his lengthy beard. From the looks of him, I’d guess he’s in his... early to mid-sixties? It’s a little hard to tell - he could also be a well-seasoned 55 or an uncommonly healthy 75. His body appears to be in fair condition despite his age - arms and shoulders still have weight to them, and his face is full. A pair of delicate, nearly-invisible spectacles rest on his nose, and there’s a book in his lap. A huge, wood-bound thing about two feet on a side, with scarred and meaty vellum pages. He closes it over his crossed legs, looks up, and regards me evenly.

I saunter briskly over to his chair and extend a hand at him.

“Hello! I’m Baulric.”

Yeah. I know who this is - or at least I’ve got a pretty good idea. But I’m doing this anyway. I like to see how powerful people react to a sudden advance in the guise of politeness.

He smiles coolly and takes my hand. His is dry and warm. We shake, and I take a few steps back.

The man replies, “Indeed you are, Mr. Featherlight. I admit, your visit is an unusual one. It’s not often that I have such considerable advantage of a newcomer. Forgive my presumption, but in light of your offering, it may very well be the case that I know you even better than you do, haha.”

My brow furrows. “You, uh… read that already?”

“Yes.”

“The… whole thing?”

He nods, still smiling.

“That was about twelve solid years of running internal monologue. Minus the parts where I’m sleeping. Or unconscious.”

“I’ve grown quite adept at reading, Mr. Featherlight. Lots of practice.”

“... But I only handed the drive to your guy a couple of hours ago.”

He nods understandingly. “Ah. Well, you see, it’s something of an inaccuracy to term them ‘guys’ at all. They operate primarily as autonomous extensions of myself, through which I am able to interact with the world outside. Pieces of me, with a small shred of my power.”

Maybe catching the blank and unsure look on my face, he continues, “It’s complicated. Please, feel free to sit and join me for a cup of something, or pay me no further mind and commence your browsing.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I’m not bothering you?”

“Not at all. I very literally have all the time in the world, Mr. Featherlight.”

“How much time do I have?”

He huffs a laugh. “A better question for the fates than some old man, yes?”

“In terms of my visit, I mean.”

“Oh! As much as you like, until you decide to leave. Stay as long as you wish.”

“Days? Weeks?”

“Months or years, it makes no difference to me.”

This bears a bit of thinking about.

I cast my eyes around behind me for a second. They land on a chair that looks like it might be tough enough to withstand me - a massive stone armchair layered over and over with fur pelts.

I point to it. “Will that hold my weight? I don’t want to break any of your nice things with my butt.”

He smiles again. “That chair is of trollish make, secured from the reading room of Aolokongo’tutreshk, the Great Fire Temple, before it was razed to the ground as part of the Reclamation genocides. It has supported many hundreds of troll butts before yours, and as such I doubt you could break it even if you challenged it to single combat.”

Suddenly I’m not sure if my butt is even worthy of touching it.

“Is all your furniture of… historical significance?”

He shrugs. “Significance is relative, as is history. It’s just an object, Mr. Featherlight. Made for sitting. It doesn’t care who you are, who made it, or about anything else, for that matter. It’s a chair.”

Hm. I guess he’s not wrong. I put it out of my mind, and plant myself in it. For a chair made out of stone, it’s very comfortable - the furs are bound in many stacking layers, making it surprisingly soft.

After a moment, I say sheepishly, “I don’t really know very much about the trolls.”

The older man nods without a gleam of judgment in his eyes. “Understandable, considering the ongoing political climate of the world. If you are curious and wish to know more of one of the cultures your species extinguished, I have a modest archive of some of the only surviving trollish texts in,” he points off to his right somewhere without looking, “that direction. Most have accompanying translations from Trollish into languages that do not require a throat of stone to pronounce. Their epic poems are particularly moving. The trollish oral tradition consistently provided more intimate and visceral portrayals of honor, love, and sacrifice than that of humans or elves, in my opinion.”

I don’t exactly know what to say. I feel a weird mix of genuine sadness and shame-by-proxy.

And I think he picks up on it, as he continues, “They are gone, Mr. Featherlight. Extinguished. An unchangeable act committed by the past. The least we can do is honor their passing by appreciating their culture’s great works, that we may taste some of their spirit, and perhaps carry it on through time. Can I interest you in a drink?”

I look up, knocked out of a sudden mire of distant regret by the promise of alcohol. “I’d love one.”

He nods and points toward an end table by my chair’s right arm. Atop it is a glass stein of sudsy amber beer. Neither of those things was there an instant ago. I just rewound my feeds and fucking checked - there was not a small table or a beer there when I sat down.

“I believe I know enough to assume that this would be your favorite choice.” He raises a glass of his own, which I did not notice him holding earlier - it looks like it’s full of wine.

“To knowledge, Mr. Featherlight, and the bright future it may yet bring.”

“To knowledge.” I raise my stein, and we drink. This beer is… extremely good. A reasonable amber ale. Not too heavy, but still very flavorful. Exactly what I would have wanted at a time like this.

Exactly the beer I would have wanted right now.

I set it down and meet the man’s eyes for just a brief moment.

You ever feel like you’ve met someone that can look through you? In the same way a person can look through a jellyfish, and see every single one of its few distinct components and how they operate? I feel like that jellyfish right now. Totally transparent, entirely understood.

And I don’t fucking like it.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The man gets a twinkle in his eye. “Ah. Starting to feel a bit territorial, yes? I apologize. Of course, it was you who decided to pay with your life experiences, but I should refrain from flaunting my newest acquisition. Impolite. I will exercise some restraint.”

I level my gaze at him. “Entertaining enough read?”

“Forgive me for saying so, but I was pleasantly surprised. Generally speaking, the average person’s internal record is far from interesting, or even particularly noteworthy. But you, Mr. Featherlight, have led a fairly dynamic life this past decade and change. There are highs and lows, yes, but on the whole, it makes for an engaging narrative. You should be proud - that’s something not very many can say.”

“Kind of strange getting commentary on the relative enjoyability of the narrative of my adult life, but I guess interesting is better than otherwise. Can I ask a question?”

“You may.”

“About you.”

“Of course. I may choose not to answer some things, but for the most part I’ve long since outgrown the need for secrecy.”

“Are you the Librarian?”

“I am.”

“Are you really nine-hundred years old?”

“No.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixty-three.”

“... How long have you been sixty-three?”

“A very, very long time.”

“How long?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Why?”

“It colors people’s impression of me unduly, I think. Numbers matter much less than the person attached to them.”

“Ah. I see. Sounds like the kind of magnanimous attitude I would expect from someone… fifteen hundred years old, perhaps? Around there?”

He just smiles over his wine glass.

“Alright, fine. Is it true you were a slave?”

“I was born into slavery, yes.”

“Belonging to who? The elves?”

“No. I’ve heard that variation of my tale a number of times over the years. I’m not quite sure how people got there, the truth is somewhat different.”

“What is the truth? Wait - you’re not going to tell me, are you.”

His smile and slightly raised eyebrows are all the answer I need.

I sip my beer and hold up a hand apologetically. “I feel like I’m prying. I try not to be a pry-er. Sorry. It’s your business, not mine.”

“I understand. I know quite a bit about you, you know nothing about me. That aside, from your records I can confidently say you’re what I call an ‘information addict’. Always analyzing, always on the lookout for data, on a nearly compulsive basis. Even if the data doesn’t mean anything or is entirely inapplicable to any real situation. Having it is all that matters. I understand that completely. I literally live in a library after all, haha. And I believe in the exchange of information. You’ve given me some, so now you have access to mine. Most of mine, anyway. An old man has to at least cling to some secrets, otherwise he’s not much of an old man at all.”

We’re both quiet for a moment. The Librarian doesn’t seem to feel social pressures the way normal people do. I have a feeling that if I just sat here without saying anything at all, for hours, he’d be perfectly content. He’s been alive for centuries - my guess is that after all that time, the forces of awkwardness no longer hold any sway.

“You know why I’m here?”

He nods. “I do. Your friend Mr. Summerstone is quite correct, in my opinion - if your wish is to ensure both your safety and that of others from hostile elements, it is your duty to hone the powers you were given. Risky, given the Brotherhood, but it is my estimation that in the end it may be worth it.”

I smirk. “Something tells me you’re experienced in training with magic under the nose of an autocratic regime.”

He shrugs modestly. “You could say that.”

“So, what do you think, uh… just a second. Is there something I should call you other than ‘Librarian’?”

“Oh, I don’t have a name.”

“Did it get worn out? I knew there had to be a reason people are so paranoid about that.”

“No, I was born without one. At the time and place of my birth, human slave children weren’t given names, only designations. Non-breeding humans didn’t last long into adulthood anyway, so names were something of a waste of energy. Since then I’ve only had titles, ‘Librarian’ being the latest. It’ll do. You’re after… materials on biomancy, yes?”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“A disgusting, dangerous, fascinating, and beautiful art. As with life itself. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll be able to help you overmuch.”

“Oh, that’s okay. Just ‘much’ should be fine.”

The immortal sage rubs his chin idly. “As in, despite owning thousands upon thousands of single-edition books and primary sources on any subject you could imagine, not much on the art of life magic remains. Anywhere, and that includes here.”

I can feel my face start to slide downward, and my heart sink with it. “What are you… telling me here, Doc?”

He’s wearing an expression that’s both apologetic and pensive. “I’m telling you that while I have hundreds of ancient books on the subject of, say, hydromancy, or geomancy, I have… perhaps a dozen or so for biomancy. One of which I believe you’ve already seen. It’s quite a rare magic, not often found attuned to human souls. Beings with the power to channel it tend not to… be in the habit of writing things down, you see.”

“You’re telling me that after thousands of years of history, there are only a dozen books on biomancy left? A dozen?”

“If that. You have to bear in mind, Mr. Featherlight, I don’t have everything. I’ve only been around for so long, and our own species has ensured that much was lost. This combined with the very real scarcity of biomancers, and the average biomancer’s… lack of regard for academia, results in quite a paucity of research materials into the subject.”

“What about the elves? Weren’t they magical as hell? And wrote everything down?”

The Librarian retrieves his wine briefly. “It’s true that the elves were more powerfully magical than humans on the whole, but the distribution of magic was still the same for them. Similar proportions. Some kinds were just more common than others. The elven religion also had a hand in this. Prevailing dogma held that life was the favorite creation of their god, and mortal manipulation could only ever turn it into something less perfect. As such it was less-studied. Also, very little elven texts remain at all, thanks to your Dynamic Brotherhood. What a silly name they’ve chosen, isn’t it? Considering how static their fires have made everything.”

I run my hands through my hair exasperatedly. This could be bad. Hopefully the other eleven books have a bit more usable content than the one I saw when I was a kid, or this entire enterprise is sunk.

“What about the other races? Did they work with life magic much? And, uh… happen to make less flammable records, maybe?”

“Well,” he says, suppressing a brief laugh, “the trolls tended to carve rather than write, as they could do it with their fingernails and writing implements tended to be a bit fragile in their hands. But they weren’t a terribly scientific people. Not stupid, simply culturally unconcerned with the fetters of recordkeeping. They preferred to teach one another things directly, and saved carvings only for things they thought were very important or ‘stoneworthy’, which tended to be their myths, legends, and other stories critical to their cultural identity, not research as you or I might understand it.”

“Did the trolls have magic?”

“Oh yes, but truthfully, with their great strength and toughness, they hardly needed much. The trolls interpreted the various magics as blessings from their gods, and troll arcanists were seen as chosen sons and daughters, touched by divinity. For better or for worse, that is. They would carve recountings of the exploits of these great magical heroes, but their magic was just seen as a fact of life and not particularly relevant. The trolls cared far more about what people did with the magic rather than the magic itself. A very action-oriented people. To our detriment today.”

“And the rest? … You said I have all the time in the world, so, frankly I’m just indulging my own curiosity now. If I’m not being a pest.”

“We both have the time. Curiosity is the mark of a hungry mind. And hungry minds tend to last longer than others. Let’s see…”

He casts his eyes upward in thought for a moment. “Well, the dragons were a strange case, obviously. Lumping them in the same category as the other sapient races of Almarest seems somehow disingenuous - they were more akin to demigods. Few in number, but impossibly mighty, and they lived for tens of thousands of years. The exception being Peltiriothurion, who was, as far as anyone can tell, genuinely a god in the flesh, totally immortal, incomparably powerful, old enough to have seen mountains grow like grass. And then your ancestors shot him and all his siblings to death with fancy bullets.

“This is the one instance where I’m unsure if I can say that was entirely a bad thing. The dragons were not a writing race, nor did they speak to others outside of themselves often at all. They saw all other peoples as food before anything else, and were powerful enough to make it so, usually. As such, very little if anything is known about what their culture was like, including their knowledge of magic. They did not share, did not contribute, and they did not play nice. And, in my opinion, their unthinking predation upon other races is what resulted in not only their downfall, but the downfall of nearly every single sapient species in the world.

“That isn’t to discount the giants, however. The giants were similar to dragons in that they saw every other race as a foe, but not for food - purely for conquest. The giants did not write, nor do I believe did they give much consideration to matters of the mind at all, outside of basic battle strategy and clan hierarchies. They cared only for might, and the expression of that might in battle. Racist scholars both human and elf often conflated giants and trolls as being fundamentally similar, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth. The trolls were mighty, yes, but they were often gentle in their strength. The trolls carved cities, and wrote songs and stories, and their scholars were some of the wisest beings that ever lived. People would come from all across the continent just for the honor of asking them a single question.

“The giants, on the other hand, only seemed to be interested in slaughter and combat. Magic was rare in them, but a very small number of them did have the power, and used it to devastating effect. Giant mages tended to be clan chieftains or priests at the very least - in a society where your rank is dictated entirely by who you can defeat in combat, the ones with magical powers quickly rose to the top. We know a few from what was written down by the races they fought - Chotosam, who beat her great war drum to summon hurricanes, or Yanodir, who could shatter entire plateaus with a single stomp.

“And therein lies the problem. Giant magic was extremely powerful, but we have no way of knowing whether it was so naturally or by result of some form of training. They never wrote anything down either way. Humanity rose up and began to kill. The various giant clans had only been able to succeed through brute force - they had never been pushed to uniting against a common threat. And they didn’t. They died fighting amongst themselves just as they had for thousands of years.”

I stop him for a second. “The giants didn’t cooperate with one another at all? Even though they were about to be hunted to extinction?”

The Librarian shrugs. “The giant clans disliked and distrusted one another to such a great extent that they might as well have been separate species. They got to be so strong from a life of constant combat, against others and themselves, but that violent, tribalistic way of life was only able to carry them so far. Despite their might, they stood no chance against a unified humanity, armed with the twin blades of new technology and ancient hatred.”

A thought occurs to me. “Well what about Baulric?”

A little ghost of confusion flits across his face, but then he realizes who I’m talking about. “Oh, from the Saga of Sir Suldrane. Your namesake. Well... I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Mr. Featherlight, but I have never found any evidence that the Saga is anything but a myth. A very old and very human story. I have never come across any indication or testimony from any reputable human source or otherwise that the tender of the fabled Giltgrove was ever a real person, nor was the knight Suldrane, for that matter. Yes, the story is many thousands of years old, and so there may never truly be any way of knowing for sure, the Primordial Era being what it was. I do know, however, that no mention of this story exists in the writings of any other culture.

“I believe the Saga was merely a product of its time - a story that humans told themselves to give them hope. Humanity needed a hero. A hero who came from absolutely nothing, and rose up to humiliate the elves, crush the giants, and even slay dragons. You can see why humans would start telling a story like that. And you can see why they would come up with a character like Baulric to help him along his way. It’s an attempt to defang the enemy. Paint the monster in a more favorable light, in a form of servitude to the hero. It’s a little more comfortable that way.”

I frown. “Kind of takes some of the fun out of it.”

He nods, in an understanding way. “Knowledge is a potent antidote to fun.”

“So is history.”

“Sometimes, yes. Especially if we ignore it.”

I think about getting to work, but the questions keep coming, like an avalanche.

“The sign said that time doesn’t work in here?”

“Nothing advances in here. There is no, ah… progress, so to speak. If time is a river, flowing forward, this place is like a rock up on the bank.”

I blink. “So I don’t have all the time in the world to be here.”

“You do. You could stay here for thousands of years, if you wanted. It’s just that the world outside will march on past you.”

There’s a strange feeling in my chest meat - like my heart rate would have increased in stress just then, if I still had one.

“Then I’m on a clock. Sorry to cut this short, but there’s things out there that I need to take care of. Before they take care of me.” I set my beer down and stand.

“You’re starting an uphill struggle, Mr. Featherlight. Magical might doesn’t come in a day or two after reading a few old books. It’s a combination of many things. Learning the rules. Years of exhausting practice. Making realizations within yourself. The path used to be easier to walk, but now… much has been burned away. You may be several centuries too late to ever be a true magus.”

I meet his eyes with the signature cool calm that I’m famous for across the land.

“I’ve made a few realizations in my time. And I’ve practiced a thing or two, if not much. All I need are some of those rules to know. I’ve gotten this far with almost no knowledge at all - I just need a bit, something to let me know what I might be missing. If it doesn’t amount to anything, then that’s the way it’ll be. I’ll deal. But I want to have at least tried. For them, if not me. And this is the only place I can do that. Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll get to trying.”

It could just be me projecting a bit, but I could swear I detect a glint of… something, in his eye. Not sure what. Either way, he smiles and points a finger to his right.

“Keep going that way until you smell sagebrush and ashes. Then just follow the signs. Come back here and ask for me if you have questions. And good luck, Mr. Featherlight.”

He winks, and disappears. So does his wine glass.

Wizards, am I right? Am I right? I’m asking. I’ve never met one before.

The Library seems a bit more… yawning, and cavernous, without its Librarian in the frame. The space hasn’t changed, but the vibe has. Suddenly this central hub I’m standing in seems a bit too open for my tastes, and I’m eager to get into these strange new alleyways.

I crack my knuckles, snort, and walk into that darkness like it owes me money.

The books wash over me like an oncoming wall of water. They rise up high on either side of me, and they’re more or less all I can see in the few gaps between the huge shelves. The lanterns are dim, which makes space and distance a little hard to judge. Wood and paper and other things, in all different colors. There are thousands upon thousands of books, and the shelves lack any uniformity - sometimes they’re wood, sometimes stone, sometimes metal, and they start to change size and layout the further I walk. After a while they stop being straightforward rows radiating out from the center - the paths turn left, and right. Then they intersect with one another. Then they start to dip down into sunken underpaths beneath other shelves, then up on bridges to rise above the rest.

Not too far in, maybe thirty minutes of walking later, I decide to stop and actually look at some of the thousands of spines rushing past me. I can’t really afford to be distracted, but I admit, I’m curious what kind of collection a man can build when he’s got hundreds of years to do it.

A red book, richly bound, pretty thick. The Untold and Sublime Intricacies of Passion, by someone named “Profusion Exarch Sargiddo Chloride”. This is the literary equivalent of suddenly realizing that something is breathing on the back of your neck. Yeesh.

A green volume, thin and floppy-looking, called The Many Processes By Which the Other May Be Enraptured and How One May Execute Them, by… it just says “588995-XM-B”. Okay.

Then a dark brown leather-bound one, about as big as books get, with the inscription The Sacred Gyre of Writhing, by “Helnak the Lesser”. Wow. I wonder what the Greater is up to.

… And this one is just a dirty, unevenly-bound thing held together with rusty bolts inside a messily-scratched iron plate that says THE SECRETS OF FUCK. No author. And looking at those stains, I’m not touching it to find out.

I’m… starting to get a sneaking suspicion that I might not be in the most family-friendly of sections. I look around to see if there’s a sign anywhere. And there is, over by the intersection of a few more rows, like a street sign.

“SEX/EROTICA”, it says, bright as mustard.

Figures. Privileged enough to get a brief glimpse into the catalogue of ages and the first thing I get is porn. Somewhere, something very powerful is wiping a tear, pointing, and calling its friends to come over and look.

I’m beginning to suspect that parts of this place might not be real. Or, they’re more real than everywhere else I’ve been in my life. You ever feel like you’re making a nuisance of yourself just by being somewhere, even though you’re not really doing anything? That’s what this is like. I feel like I just climbed through the window of some elite club and someone’s about to come over and ask to see my membership card.

Sagebrush and ashes. Sagebrush and ashes. I really should have asked him what the fuck sagebrush smells like. I’ve run into… what, maybe three or four actual ground-grown plants in my entire life? And I’m pretty sure most of them were dead by the time I got to them. Fortunately my sense of smell is pretty good, all things considered. I’ll just keep a nose out for anything that doesn’t smell like paper and time.

I keep walking. Earlier this wasn’t much of a prospect, but it’s starting to turn into something else. The layout of this place is mutating as I go deeper in. Nothing’s in straight lines anymore - the shelves curve away to form secluded alcoves, great sweeping peaks, rolling hills, plunging valleys. It’s like nature in here, and it’s unnerving. I don’t know how long it would take to fabricate and install shelves so insanely shaped that they look like they should be falling over. I don’t know who would choose to keep their books in something made to look like a breaking wave, or a colonnade of looming trees.

There isn’t any predicting it. I’m on a coastline of newspapers and periodicals. Then I enter a shattered network of hard-cover canyons, bending and twisting back on one another, and the river is me, stepping across the spotless floor tiles. The cliffs give way to an expanse of low wooden hills, overgrown with books like grass. At the top of each one is a shining electric lamppost - stars under a vaulted stone sky.

I don’t know whether I’ve been in here for hours or days. My magic is gone, I don’t have a heartbeat anymore. I look behind me and fail to even pick up my own trail.

Me, the master manhunter, made into a mouse by miles of impossible ink and paper.

Coming to the end of the foothills, I enter some shelves like mountains. They soar high over my head and close everything away. I round a few corners and all the open space clamps shut behind me like a door, like I just walked into an alley. I can’t stop from huffing a sigh of relief. It’s not aggrete and glass like I’d prefer, but at least it’s pretending in a form I’m familiar with.

I’ve come into a labyrinth, I guess. Up until now it hasn’t been that hard to just keep going in the same direction, but with all these twists and turns, with the ceiling somewhere way up high and no real reference point between, I stand a good chance of getting lost. No landmarks, no compass. Who keeps a compass when you’ve got street signs? I talk big, but I’d die so goddamn fast in the actual wilderness. This isn’t even real wilderness and I’m shaking on the inside like a fucking anemic chinchilla. I want my goddamned magic back. I don’t know if I’m alone in here and I’m not used to things being able to sneak up-

What was that noise.