Kirs shifted in her thick coat as she carefully followed the priest down the steps to the catacombs underneath the church. She was wearing the aforementioned winter coat, along with a thick set of furred outer pants and, unfortunately, thin leather gloves. As they descended beneath the ancient structure she wished they were thicker.
The catacombs were, according to the priests, cold during the summer, let alone late autumn, early winter, as it was now. But she needed the finger mobility offered by the gloves to work the texts and records stored below. Her breath plumed more strongly as they descended on to the first floor, where they kept all the texts.
“I believe you know the way from here, Librarian.” The Priest said, offering her the bright-torch he’d been holding. “Again, we implore you to take care with our records, it’s not often that we get them re-written.”
Kirs bowed, before accepting the torch. “Of course, Father. Thank you again for this opportunity.”
“May the three eyes watch over you and guide your step, Child.”
“And you, Father.”
The Priest started back up the stairs, leaving Kirs to head through into what passed for the cathedral’s stacks. With the echoes of the Priest’s footsteps ringing around her, she stepped into the room. It was only of moderate size, with bookshelves lining every wall, though she knew it to be the first of seven such rooms, each similarly filled with scripts and texts.
The task she’d set before herself wouldn’t be so hard if the stacks were like the library at the academy. There each subject had their own section, ordered by the last name of the author. Unfortunately, the texts in the catacombs weren’t ordered, at all. Often times they lacked something as simple as an author name, or they were so old that it had been lost over the ages. Neither did the texts differentiate between the subjects as they all pertained to the religion and the stories risen within it.
Even spotting the difference between fact or fiction was difficult at times. Were they simply overstating a person's power because they didn’t have proper measurements back then? Or was a natural growth from oral traditions predating the written down story?
The only saving grace was that each of the books in the first room were all well known and well used. They carried the main weight of what a new priest needed to know and were the texts most often quoted by the priests. The likelihood of finding what she needed were within these texts was abysmal, otherwise it would’ve already been pointed out at some other time.
No, she needed to head deeper.
Through the room, into a narrow hallway only slightly wider than her shoulders, she carried the torch. The steady light making her appreciate that at least the church had moved on from old fashioned torches. She didn’t have to fear her own flickering shadow throwing shapes at her within the tight hallway.
Finally, the hallway opened into a new room, nearly identical to the first in shape and size, with the only difference being the books and a red ribbon pushed between two books about halfway through the room.
Alright Kirs, you’ve got this. She told herself, idly reaching up and tickling against her nose as she reached the red ribbon. You’ve made your way through most of this room, and it’s only been a few weeks. She cracked her neck, and slipped the book out next to the red ribbon.
There were no tables within these rooms, but there were small stools for her to sit on. Depositing her torch in one of the sconces located on each of the walls, she dragged a stool over to where she’d grabbed the book, she settled herself. Taking in a deep breath, she took a moment to appreciate the ancient text. The cracked leather cover had long since lost any indentation that would mark its name and she could only vaguely make out the name of the priest who’d transcribed it.
Slowly, she brushed a glove over the cover, before gently opening the book. Yellowed pages that were likely as old, if not older, than the nation of Elusria revealed themselves before her eyes. In some places, the ink was missing or wiped away, but rarely in such large areas that she couldn’t make out what it said by context. The toughest part was the linguistic drift that had happened since this book had been taking to quill and ink.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
She didn’t read every word on every page. She didn’t even really read anything in the book, just skimmed the pages looking for anything relevant to her search. From what little she gathered, it appeared to be another retelling of Anirai’s story. This book centered on her combining the tribes.
Kirs did her best to avoid getting dragged into the story, since it would make her already long days even more arduous. Instead, she quickly moved on once she realized what kind of story it was. Though, she did check the back in case the authors had left a glossary, or other relevant information.
Nothing. She sighed pulling out the next book.
Thusly, she continued her path through the room, bookshelf by bookshelf. Each book that was either related to rituals or rites, got a tiny bit of red cloth, similar to what she used to mark her spot in the room.
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With frozen fingers, Kirs pulled the next book open. The cold of the catacombs was stinging her cheeks and nose, and her fingers were getting sluggish as they moved across the pages.
I’ll have to stop soon, She thought. She couldn’t risk any of the pages. Kirs licked her lips, before opening the book. Just one more, then I’ll go. While this cover wasn’t anything interesting, she had a good feeling about this book. Just like I did with the last two books. She tried not to linger on the thought, instead seeking to linger on the book.
The first pages looked immediately different from what Kirs had been expecting. Instead of yellow pages and faded ink, she found ivory white marked with rich black. “How?” She muttered. She stared intently at the book, trying to divine its secrets just from her glare. It had the textured, rough feel of early paper, but wasn’t nearly old enough.
She slipped through to the next page, but caught herself halfway through. The pages had reflected the light oddly. Slowly, she flipped the first page back and forth, seeing the purple flickers along the lines of the paper.
She’d seen that color of purple before. Ranvir called it Purple Space. It sometimes appeared in quick flickers along his manipulations, not that he ever seemed to notice them. Granted, he tended to be overly occupied when he was working on his power, so she shouldn’t blame him. Couldn’t, I mean.
She admired the purple glow for a little while longer, before she moved on. Each page was like the last, infused with these purple lines that only appeared when reflecting the light. Fifteen lines going horizontally and fifteen lines going vertically across the page. Kirs admired them for so long, that she forgot to read what the book actually contained.
Silly, she admonished herself, directing her attention back to the contents.
At first, she found nothing of particular interest in the book, it just seemed some sort of retelling of the stages a shaman must go through. Shamans were interesting. When she’d first began reading, she’d thought shamans were just their name for tethered, but then tethered was also showing up.
This told her clearly that a shaman was something else. So she started looking for what else they could be. She assumed they might some sort of spiritual guides that led their tribe through the times, but the only evidence she found in support was the short mention of shamans in relation to the Triplet Goddess. More often, witches appeared to be the direct spiritual link between the Triplet Goddess and her people. No, the shamans seemed to hold some other sort of role within ancient society, that only sometimes overlapped with the witches.
Then yesterday, she found what she’d been looking for. Directly stated in the text was the purpose of witches and shamans. A witch protected the spiritual health of their people. It referred in part to their duties in connecting their people with the Goddess. Kirs took that to mean witches performed the ceremony Masters now handled, connecting tethered to their powers. This also involved some sort of breeding system to bring out specific parts of their tribe.
Kirs shivered at the thought. It didn’t appear to be a permanent bond between the people of the tribe, only a ritual mating to create strong tethered. The first time Kirs actually encountered this notion was in regards to Anirai, though she hadn’t recognized it at the time.
Shamans on the other hand seemed to be teachers and offered their people the physical protections. From warding off the cold, to teaching the young how to hunt. They were the teachers and protectors. They were also more numerous than the witches. Where there might only be a single witch in a tribe there could be a dozen shamans.
In particular, what she found interesting about the shamans was that they’d seemingly discovered glyphs centuries, or even a millennium, before the modern people of Elusria. While modern people marked metal stick with glyphs that made the expression stick to them for extended periods of time. Shamans marked the tents of their people with glyphs that warded off the cold and snow. Created weapons of obsidian that didn’t break.
Skimming the book, Kirs flipped through pages that told of the duties of shamans and what needs a tribe had that they could cover. The book was thin, couldn’t be more than fifty or sixty pages. Despite the promising look of the paper and its surprising longevity, nothing of real use appeared within the pages.
Until the last page.
At the very end of the book, lay a page different from the rest. Kirs’ breath slammed to a halt in her throat. She felt like someone had just gut punched her as she looked over the page. The entire page was taken up by a single drawing.
A circle and a title.
'Nightstones For The Children’.