Chapter 74 - Library Cards

I had expected a small cell, perhaps a room of similar size to the derelict kitchen. But this? This was an entire, perfectly preserved, entire second wing of the elf college’s library. And it was entirely dedicated to Soul Seeking.

“Bugbears’ hairy balls,” I swore. “Annalisa, are you seeing this?”

“It doesn’t smell as bad in here,” she commented. She leaned down over the balcony railing and shined her light. “There’s not much water. Just a bunch of tables.”

There was some water seeping through the masonry. But the stonework had filtered it clear and it was perhaps a finger’s depth up on the tables below. But the tables weren’t really what I was looking at. Rows and rows of bookshelves lined both levels of the gallery running all the way into the distance. Other rooms split off, likely leading to private reading rooms or workshops. Above, a luminous fresco of the wane dragons intertwined across the celling; their long, serpentine bodies weaved off into the distance. Whatever enchantment they had was almost faded, but they provided the bone king’s share of the light, since even the ever-present undercity lichen had found little purchase here. The shelves and their contents showed little in the way of rot or ruin, as well.

”The books are all preserved!” I said. I moved to the nearest shelf, finding where paperworms had long-since made scrap of one of the volumes. “Well, some of them.” The shelves were stacked with books haphazardly, with books stacked in piles three deep, and occasionally in towers on the floor.

I moved to the next shelf and found a collection of tomes that, while dusty and brittle, were mostly intact. They would need restored before they could be properly read without causing further damage. Hawkley would certainly put me in touch with reputable bookbinders (or disreputable bookbinders, which might be the preferred method with pilfered treasures).

I’d never heard of an ancient elven academy like this. I knew the Golds were the original Soul Seekers, just like I knew they had some way of communing with the wane dragon ghosts. But most of their history is lost, and they’re not keen to return to these shores and enlighten us. Not while the fullblood orcs are still waiting with glow-steel swords in lead-lined sheathes to welcome them back to the Bastard. They’d probably burn down Dragonmaw again just to keep with tradition.

A way to navigate the collective works still left me with a critical quandary: What to take? There were thousands of volumes. Even if I read ancient elvish, which I didn’t, it would take months for a team of librarians to properly index and catalogue this collection. We had another day or two’s worth of food and fresh water, and we couldn’t risk being away from Barrowdown much longer than that without our enemies exploiting our absence. We may not have been as strong as someone like Mother Mayaz, or even someone like Kridick, but our presence was still an anchor which held the district in place.

The disorganization of the library was a problem. Of course, I also had a fantastic divination tool in my pocket. But the Deck of Wills wasn’t typically used for such a function—with the exception of the suit of ways, to which I was not bonded. I pulled my deck out and rifled through the cards as we walked down the aisles of the library. My head spun with possibilities. There are arcane divination spells geared towards locating specific arrangements of conceptualized intent. In layman’s terms, they could find and mark books with certain words or phrases expressed within their pages. Very handy for this exact application. Unfortunately, I didn’t know a single one.

“What’s the play?” asked Annalisa, breaking my train of thought.

I shook my head to clear it of my daydreaming. To work, then. “It’s going to take a lot of readings to find the best stuff. I don’t want to burn out my will playing twenty queries. I need to take some time figure out what to ask. But first, we see if anyone’s done the hard work for us. Maybe this wing had its own index and catalogue that we can use to make sense of all this.

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“uh huh, uh huh,” said Annalisa, nodding. “And while you’re doing all that boring booky mage stuff, I’m going to see if I can find something interesting to do.”

“Not interested in playing librarian?” I teased.

Annalisa made a loop around her neck with her finger and then gagged as she pulled the imaginary noose tight. I laughed, in spite of myself. I suppose it was too much to ask for my devilborn partner to suddenly develop an attention span for books in a language she didn’t even speak. Unless...

“Are any of your brothers linguists or librarians?”

Annalisa shook her head. Worth a shot. Her eyes brightened. “Hey, we know an elf! We should get him down here to translate?”

“Bad idea,” I said. “No one wants to distance themselves from Golden Elves more than non-Golden elves. The elves from the Vomit Isles and the Azure Coast hate anything to do with the Golds. They see them as a bunch of self-righteous slavers and slaughterers. Which, to be fair, they are.”

Annalisa yawned in my face. I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Fine, enjoy. Go explore. Bring back anything that looks magical. Use your card if you run into trouble.”

“Yay!” she said, stuffing the packs into my hands and running ahead. “Enjoy your books!” she said.

Honestly, I was just glad she was no worse for wear after her ordeal. I should have known better than to think something as trivial as multiple blade wounds, a risk of sepsis, a traumatic tunneling snap-back, and several hours of unconsciousness would slow down Annalisa of Dunnemarshe. But her footfalls shook an extra layer of dust off the rafters.

Once she’d gone, I stood alone in the library. I won’t lie. I was never much of a bookworm. I avoided reading most of the assigned texts at the academy, preferring to catch-up in class while the professors repeating the same idea in six different ways. Still, the academy library had been a wealth of resources, and I regretted losing access to it almost as much as I did to the living allowance. There were maybe four or five libraries in the city that rivaled that of the Seekers Guild. Between the Royal Arcanists Library, the Makers Guild with their collected works of crafts, smithing, and engineering, the Naval Academy with their collective knowledge of ship laying and world geography, and, if you were being technical by volume, Madam Twopeaks’ Gallery of Fiendish Delights had the largest collection of, well, artworks of affection is the polite term. Most of her books are coated in weather-proofing wax.

I mean, so I’ve heard, anyway.

I’ve never actually been there.

…

Look, forget I mentioned it.

I spun the cards in the air above my hand and called forth the four of dragons. Looking around in the amber film that covered my eyes revealed little. Even books that contain the secrets to magic are usually not, themselves, magical. And if they are? Well, best to stay away. Best not to read books that take it personal. Some of them read you right back. The greed’s ability to discern items of high value flagged as well. Nearly every tome that hadn’t fallen into a crumbling mess lit up like the city lamps every sunset. I sighed. Well, it couldn’t be that easy, could it? Not that being surrounded by valuables was such an awful problem to have. Fifteen minutes of dredging the depths of the stacks also revealed no index or catalogue. If it existed, it was lost with the ruined books in the first wing. No use spilling tears over something that had happened centuries before I was born.

Still, while I was here, I could take advantage of Annalisa being off on her own exploring. I settled down and shuffled my deck of wills. The Golds had known prophets and seers—though for some reason, they couldn’t see their own defeats at the Sungate at the hands of the orcs. I wondered if, even centuries before, they had foreseen events relevant to the fel witch. I might never have another opportunity to find out. I sent my will into the cards.

“In this wing, could I find information relevant to Margot Bethane, her plans for me, and her claim that I was somehow chosen?”

I shuffled and cut the cards, pressing my will against their attempt to resist the question. These new cards certainly had a stronger will than my older, beat-up deck. I pulled the top three cards off the deck to reveal the two of lances, the Loom arcana, and the four of streams. I rubbed my chin as I looked down at them. Somewhat conflicting reading, that—but it was certainly a true one. The two of lances suggested a direct line, while the four of streams suggested a winding path. The Loom suggested a close relationship. So, if I interpreted the reading correctly, the winding path which led Margot Bethane to me had a close relationship to a direct reference in this library. So... yes? I settled back with a sigh. Even with divination, this wasn’t going to be easy, was it?

“Alright, let’s see if we can figure out where.”

I restacked my deck and sent my will into them again.

And again.

And again.