On months and weeks – Common knowledge
A month for each of the Eternals.
Eight weeks each to keep with the pattern.
Six days a week.
And a bleak week one a year to mourn their death, however long priesthood needs it to be.
Early spring / Mercy 782 ADM – Eternal Empire – Modona’s upper district – Merentah Library’s private study
The lock rattled, then clicked, it’s iron hold on the door over it opened.
Ulysse entered the richly decorated study, filled with tapestries bearing his family’s color, he pushed the door closed and locked it back, took a look at the ornate bronze key then put it back in his pants pocket.
He’d been lucky to leave it in his pocket yesterday, and to have worn the same clothes today.
It wouldn’t have been the first time he forgot his key.
Nor the last.
He went to sit, or more accurately sprawl along the length of some couch, head propped over the book with his left arm.
Necromundian Frontier Wars 700 ADM, written in 718 ADM by Kosil Antenor.
“Heh this book is almost as old as grandpa.”
He took the book’s cover with precaution opening it slowly to the first page, a preface.
It read; Necromundian Frontier Wars 700 ADM is a...
Please don’t repeat your book’s title every two lines mister Kosil, He thought.
...a treaty on the analysis of function and impact from military assets, with a focus on holy sites, on the frontier wars between the Heretic lich kingdoms of Necromundis and the Eternal Empire of Holy Faith...
He barely understood that so he elected to skip toward the bottom of the page, ignoring most of the preface, plus Necromundia was super far away and he didn’t care much for holy sites.
...I Wish to convey my most peculiar and sincere thanks to the Antenor family, and the many private patrons that made this work possible.
This Kosil sounds like he has a big brown nose.
Turning the page, he yelps in joy at the sight, the map of a city-wall is skillfully drawn on the whole page and richly annotated, at to bottom an embellished legend indicates Lyconides’ Wall.
The shape, an hexagon with triangles peeking out from the edges seems familiar to some architectural style he cannot quite remember.
But more importantly, not native to the book, a grid, in red ink, and a scale, of years to centimeters, were drawn over the map in the Librarian’s meticulous handwriting.
Had he been the one to scribble in red ink over a 60 years old book he would have gotten a beating from grandmother, but he knew the Librarian’s ink would fade away in time.
Anyways he was glad the test was a map, a map could mean several things, but with a time to distance scale, this was a date hunt, kind of like a treasure hunt to him.
His eyes darted to the first note, the first question, it read;
When was the holy faith founded?...
To him that was insultingly easy, it was about –1800 ADM.
Unprecise, but no one knew exact dates from before the Eternals’ death, the convention was to round up the century.
Its pair read ...When did the Merentah acquire this book?
Or maybe it would not be so insultingly easy.
He stood up on the couch, then jumped behind it towards a peculiar shelf, it did not conform to the library classification but did not need to, theses were copies of the registers, with a reference to every book inside the library.
Reading the giant’s spines, he found the one History & Religion Story 1, the black leather and steel bound book was among the biggests of the shelf, and heavy enough that he didn’t want to drop it on his toes.
Ulysse lifted it, straining, and put it down on a lectern, opened randomly on a page full of titles, authors, dates and locations, sorted in lines and columns alphabetically.
He skipped the pages until he saw the first books starting by N, next came the Ne, then Nec, etc...
There were a lot of books about Necromundis, He’d need a few more minutes to find the right one.
To the young man’s dismay the Aquisition column over this particular book was hidden by a spill of red ink, and a note, Think for yourself.
“Well think for yourself yourself! Dumb book.”
He snapped the register close in a dull clap of air.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“You would be better advised to control your temper child; it helps not in the sharpening of a dull mind.”
It was a cold steely voice, coming from the grumpiest person he knew, not-so-dear aunt Kresida, Kre’Witch in his head.
From what grandpa told him she looked just like his great grandmother, a tall, thin woman, with pitch black hair yet green eyes, a severe expression, that despite being in her forties didn’t show a single wrinkle or gray hair.
“Did you just call me stupid.” he said thinking about that second half of her sentence.
“So, you do have ears, a wonder then that you can handle the sound of your voice.”
He bit back his whining; he knew it would only give her more arrows to stab him with.
But he would tell his mama, quote her the exact words of that witch.
Ulysse went back to sprawling on the couch head propped on left arm while the witch perused one of the registers.
He got into a staring match with the damn question. When did the Merentah acquire this book?
About a quarter of an hour later and he still had no answers, his mind was on fire and he had scribbled all his theories on a notepad.
Yet none could give him an exact date, just an interval and that wouldn’t do, the Librarian demanded precision.
He saw Kre’Witch a few books under her arms reading his book from behind his shoulders.
“When was this book acquired. Didn't you look in the register child?”
“Obviously, but the Librarian told me to think for myself.”
He clearly saw her smirk from the corner of his eye, no doubt mocking him, which, for once was kind of fair to do.
She proceeded to extend her arm towards the book, hand open as if to receive it.
“Mayhap I can give you a hint.”
He yielded, handing the book, pretty sure he could mock her for struggling too.
That made it all the more frustrating when she found the solution mere moments after looking at the cover.
“The answer is quite simple, so much so that I find it quite hard not to reveal it with my hint.”
She handed back the book, then turned around towards the exit.
“Your struggle lays in not thinking of theses who acquired it.”
The Merentah owned it, my family in other words, but who! Kre’Witch always made things more complicated with her hints. Wait I have to consider the knowledge she had, that is, only the book’s cover.
Necromundian Frontier Wars 700 ADM, written in 718 ADM by Kosil Antenor.
Family... Antenor... Flopitty flop! Kresida was right I’m downright stupid.
House Antenor, although he didn’t hear its name often, he now recognized it for what it was, his uncle Damien’s wife family, Lady Areta Antenor.
Technically she had now adopted the Merentah name but still, by all accounts he should have noticed himself. Hells the library itself had been part of the dowry along with the domain.
If he wasn’t mistaken their marriage was in 755, 27 years ago, almost as old as his dad.
So, he had his first pair of dates now, -1800 horizontally and 755 vertically.
Plunging his arm between the cushions he tried to find his ruler by feel, he always left it here, with the crumbs.
After tearing it out he got to work measuring the position on the book, a negative date meant to go one page backward, 1800 put him on the right side, then 755 most of the way to the bottom.
The word was Private, from that brown-nosing paragraph, and looking at the clock it took him half an hour total, first questions were rarely that hard, he’d have to get a grip if he wanted to succeed before the night fell.
***
As the sun begins to set – Sprawled on the very same couch
He did it, the young man rose, triumphantly brushing off the crumbs of his impromptu pocket snack, clutching his little note
Private
Promenade
Sophia
Maker
It had required him quite a fair bit of research to look up all the dates and the dozens of discarded books around him told quite the story.
After finding the pair of dates for Private he had to look up the ancient emperor Lyconides after which the city was named to find Promenade, then Sophia was a “sister city” quoting words from his question, that lead on a fool's errand searching for Lyconides sister, before seeing a map with Sophia’s Wall on it, named after an empress regent, yet another fortress city on the Necromundian frontier.
Finally, he found Maker quite easily, he knew he had recognized the shape of the city, it was Dwarven architecture, but if anyone asked, legally the imperials did it.
Dwarves were monsters after all, he’d seen pictures of their grotesque forms in the Fauna & Monster section.
With his keywords now in mind he made his way to the private collection register, just as bulky as the last, the steel bound monstrosity contained references to all the books in this room.
Ten minutes later he had it, Private promenades of Sofian make. Best of all, it was in the Tales & Legends section.
A short run through the study and he was before the book, it looked old but fancy, blue tinted leather worn on the edges yet silver ornaments had persisted the test of time.
As he removed the book, he noticed another one right beside it, quite a crude book actually, not a single adornment to be seen, it was however brand new, but more importantly its title was written in strange sharp symbols, he had never seen such letters.
A voiced sounded from behind.
“I had half a mind to refuse your gift for the help you received Ul’ysse, but given your ease at finding the Maker and lack of mistakes, I found it acceptable.”
The Librarian had a bit of an accent, he was of average height, thin and pale with a small mustache, looking a lot like his grandfather, only younger and with eyes of an even deeper purple. He must have been from the Merxau branch, yet he had never confirmed such a thing.
“Hello Sir Librarian.”
Ulysse had always called the man by his title, finding he had an aura that demanded respect.
“Is that my gift?”
He said, showing the Librarian that unreadable book.
“It appears to be yes,”
He crouched, eye level with Ulysse.
“But it is more than that, it is a show of trust, and a proposition.”
The man’s face was serious, eyes narrowed.
“You must talk of this book to none. If this burden grows too much you must burn it, forget it. Yet if you do this will be the last you see of me. Should you however succeed in learning its contents it will be my pleasure to teach you much more.”
Ulysse stared at the book in his hand suddenly finding it heavier, panic slowly drawing on his face.
“What you can’t go. How can I learn something I can’t read.”
“Child, rest assured, should you be able to open it, there is a lock, and this book is the key to its own understanding, look inside.”
He opened the book on its first page, feeling a bit stupid, there were a collection of runes, no, letters he supposed, side by side with Imperial syllables phonetically sounding the new alphabet.
“Whether we meet again or not, I wish you a long and happy life dear Ul’ysse.”
The Librarian was getting up, heading towards the exit, casting a benevolent gaze to the child.
“Goodbye Librarian Sir, I will learn this very fast so we’ll meet again.”
As the door closed Ulysse let himself breathe, he was shaking a little, what would he do without the librarian, what if he couldn’t read the book, what if he leaked the secret.
No, he could do it; he was smart like that.
But for now, he had to get back home for dinner before mama sent dad to give him a spanking.
He cut through the forest to go faster and it was very scary, dinner was good though.