The kitchen door of Cedarwake Manor seemed miles away from the gate by the time Gil made it back to the estate. He was half frozen and completely worn out from the task and just yearned for the safety of the mansion.
It was quiet when he arrived. No men and women conducting the business of the state, no servants bustling to keep the household moving, no cooks scurrying about the kitchen to prepare dinner. Then again, with the Governor and most of his faculty gone, the only people that needed feeding were himself and the Governor's son, Lord Warren Salphus. With the weather only getting worse as the day sank into night Gil could only guess that Warren had sent the staff home to their families. Several of the servants lived at the Manor, himself included, but the young cook and most of the maids were not counted amongst them.
Gil pulled the cloak from his shoulders and placed it, absentmindedly, on the empty countertop and tossed his gloves to the side with the ease only someone who had grown up in the house and was used to being chastised by the housekeeper could.
Out of the kitchen, through the dining room, and into the grand foyer, Gil moved with the blind grace of a boy who had been running the halls since he was strong enough to discover his legs could be used to get him into trouble. His Mother had been an aid of Governor Salphus, and his father was a lawman from a neighboring state. While he hadn't always lived in the Cedarwake Manor, he was only a few years Warren's Junior so they had been assigned playmates when he was still very young.
Gil climbed the grand staircase that flowed from the second floor down to the entranceway like some sort of stained wood and red carpeting waterfall. The stairs were solid, well made and expensive like everything else in the manor. Gold paint trimmed the delicate details of the handrail, small flowers bloomed softly in the oak. He turned his eyes from the blood-colored floor to the top of the stairs. Most of the doors were closed. He could hear rummaging behind the large set of double doors at the end of the hall that lead to Governor Salphus's room and study. The housekeeper and the Stewart who lived on premise must've been taking the Governor's absence to get deep cleaning done.
At the other end of the hall, a cracked door let out the light flicker of light and the soft smell of burning wood. Cresting the staircase, the retainer walked towards the beckoning light and into the young Lord's private library, and what a library it was. Bookcase lined the room from floor to ceiling leaving only room for the windows and doors. The shelves were brimming with all manner of literature, from informative texts on nature and medicine to the brave tales of fantastical adventures, to the musings of philosophers and poets. Warren Salphus had an insatiable appetite for the written word and spent nearly all of his free time in this room. His father often worried he spent too much time caressing the spine of a book and not that of a future wife.
The door creaked it's welcome as Gil entered, smiling a bit at the familiarity of the scene. Amongst the piles of pages and the soft glow of the fireplace as the young lord of Cedarwake Manor. A bright-eyed young man in his early to mid-twenties, tall with the build of someone who played sport more often than he did and blond hair that often fell out of its tie and into his face. Gil had always thought of him as handsome, though he had never really put much thought into whether that was his own opinion or if he was just nodding along with the coos of the housekeeper and maids.
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"I should keep this stupid text for the pain I had to endure to obtain it," Gil announced loudly, an attempt to rouse Warren's attention. He pulled the book from underneath his arm and walked towards his friend, presenting him with the absolutely ordinary brown paper package.
Warren's head shot up and he locked eyes with Gil for just a moment. His seemed to sparkle with more anticipation then they did over the last bundle of tales he had brought back. Whatever was in here must've been more exciting than the compiled histories of Ocular fungal Meningilia.
"Gil Greaves you are a hero amongst men!" He proclaimed as he leapt from his seat and took the book that was offered to him. He swiftly strode to the door, closing it and locking it. The key was in the breast pocket of his silk vest before Gil even had a moment to register the fact that Warren had locked a door he'd never seen a key to.
"I'd like to know just what it is that is in there that you made me go out in that forsaken snow storm for," Gil asked, following Warren over to his desk at the far end of the room. Perhaps it was a particularly expensive first edition after all the shopkeeper had seemed to mention this parcel was special compared to the others. Even if it was expensive he was quite certain that the maids would nick the silverware or the gold-hilted sconces before she nicked a book.
"Come here Gil, and keep your voice low," He said, ushering his companion to his side. "This, my friend, is the finest piece my collection will ever see," He said softly, untying the string that wrapped the package with the same sort of delicacy Gil imagined one might untie the laces of a lady's corset. He noted that Warren's hands were trembling, which just caused a moment of confusion to flood his mind. However, the confusion for the trembling was quickly replaced with confusion for what was in the package.
As the parchment was peeled back all that was unveiled was the plain cover of a completely humdrum, run-of-the-mill leather bound journal. The leather didn't even seem particularly exceptional. It was beaten brown bindings just like you might find in the bag of anyone who was walking about the streets.
Gil began to wonder if Warren understood that there was nothing particularly interesting about the book in his hands. He cocked his head a bit in an attempt to catch Warren's eye, but it didn't work. The young Lord was captivated by the book.
"What's so extraordinary about this? It just looks like your average day Journal," Gil said, going to grab the book from him but, the tease was stopped before it could even begin.
Warren snatched Gil's wrist before his fingers had a chance to brush the cover of the book. Gil was a little caught off guard with the suddenness and severity of being grabbed like that.
"You don't understand," Warren pushed, slipping his grasp from Gil's wrist to his hand. He pulled the two of them farther from the door, practically against one of the shelves as he opened the opened the book.
The pages looked like they were adorned with handwritten scribbles, illegible to even a well-versed scholar, or at least Gil had to assume. "I don't understand, what language is that? Is it from the Green Isles? Irmous?" he asked. He knew that Warren had learned to read in several languages, one or two even that wasn't common to their continent, but this didn't even look like it could have been from the Far Western Mountain Region.
"No, it's much rarer than that! So rare only a handful in the world know how to read and interpret it. No, these writings are more than just a language. These writings speak the mysteries and the truths of our world. It's the breaths of the trees and the songs of the bird and the great roars of the ocean. No, my dear friend. This is not just a language. This….is a book written in Theban," he said.
Gil felt the chill pierce his flesh again as the word cut through him like the wind outside. He shivered, looking down at the book again. Theban. . . The language of the forbidden. Gil felt his heartbeat in his ears and his blood fall to his feet as if it too were trying to escape the reality of what he'd just heard. "T-theban?" he repeated out loud.