Ive always wanted to start one of these things with ‘once upon a time,’ and now I get to. So, here goes. Once upon a time, there was a library.
The library sat in the centre of the known world and was open to anyone who could read, but more importantly, anyone who could write. Those that could write down what they knew were important back then. Not everyone had those skills and they were paid handsomely to dictate a kings word, or the experiment they had just undertaken.
But it was all kept within the walls of this singular library. Over time, other libraries were built. Copies of the big one. Some of them were meant to be backups; copies of everything written, sent to the edges of what was known just in case. In other cases, they were there to keep local history. A copy of the idea of a library.
The main library, the big one, it stood for generations. It was revered and honoured across the world. But nothing lasts forever and in a period of time that no one can really explain, conflict, chaos and carnage covered the world and in the midst of these dark ages, the library and many of its contemporaries were utterly destroyed.
Historians estimate that, had this library and the concepts embodied in it survived until modern day, we would be up to 1000 years further ahead, technologically, than we are simply because we had to rediscover so much of what had been destroyed.
Do I believe that? That doesnt matter. I dont have the luxury of belief. Not my own, at any rate. My belief only extends until the next paycheck and I have the distinct impression that might be delayed.
So that was the history lesson. I am a terrible teacher, I know, but thats all you need. Library. Had lots of stuff. Weve relearned who knows how much of it. But we do know, or highly suspect, that we havent even scratched the surface of what was kept there.
We found the location of the library some 60 years before I was born. We had every room mapped the year I graduated from university. Thousands of rooms, mostly equal size, all of them empty.
As I said, I dont have the chance to focus on my own beliefs, but I do find it odd that the library was left standing instead of being destroyed itself. Why go to all the effort to empty such a large space first?
My job, then. Im a treasure hunter. For profit, of course. My profit. I know this part of the world like the back of my hand. I know the myths, mostly, I know the people. Its that last one thats important. People are the worst. They get in the way, they take things that arent theirs and they smell. Honestly, most people just smell. It isnt their fault or anything, its just who they are. And its usually the worst smelling ones that offer me my work.
Ive gone through the library. One of the few. I wasnt meant to. But I was there and the guards were easily distracted by expensive bottles of something tasty. I was there and I took photos. I spent nearly a week in that place, documenting things. I had no idea what the hieroglyphs said. I dont know that anyone does. Ive spent a few years studying what I can, trying to understand them. I have a vague understanding of the layout, the format, of them, but a technical translation? Its not happening anytime soon.
But I do think the library worked as you would expect a modern library to work. Everything was segregated by subject and each room was dedicated to such a subject. Most people, even without the characters, would have suspected this. But what most people dont know is that not every room was the same.
The library extends underground, making the building itself almost twice as high as you see it from ground level. At the very bottom, in the middle, surrounded by the same same sized rooms as above was a singular room that was considerably larger. It was clearly not built for the same reason as the others and if I was allowed to think for myself, I would suspect that the entire was built on top of this room that was already there.
It looked like a shrine, some kind of altar at least. In the middle of the room is a black stone plinth. Its hand carved and is covered in pictograms that dont match any of the hieroglyphs in the main part of the library. On the top surface of this plinth is a small indentation, the size of a golfball.
I have photos of the area around the plinth which seem to indicate that other black stone plinths stood around the room in a regular pattern. Where they could have gone, I cant say.
But thats not what is important about this space.
Around the outer edges of this shrine area are a number of rooms that are identical to the ones above. Most of them are empty. They arent empty in the same way as the library above. They werent emptied. Whatever used to be here has just perished; turned to dust over time. Its like whoever went through the upper part of the building just didnt make it down here. I dont think anyone whos part of the mapping project has either. I cant imagine how. Theres a giant door. The same black stone, inlaid with deep red, almost black, crystal lines. Im not an expert in that kind of thing, but the entire track of crystal looks like its a single piece. The point is, this door is very hard to miss. I almost turned myself in, when I left, just so I could ask someone. Almost.
I said most of the rooms down there were empty. One of them wasnt. It had three books in it. These books were on three lecturns, wooden, handmade. They were closed and had leather belts that kept them that way.
The cover of the leftmost one was a blank leather. It was poorly made and the pages inside were think and fragile. Imagine a childs attempt at recycled paper from school.
The middle one was also leather, but it was wrapped around a piece of wood so it kept its shape. It was three times bigger than the left hand book, buts its pages were better quality, thinner.
The right hand book was made entirely from stone. Its hard to call it a book in the true sense of the term; it was more accurately half a dozen slaps of stone, each with the same style of pictogram carvings over them.
I desperately wanted to take them with me but, besides the weight of the last one preventing it, something told me that I shouldnt touch them, much less move them.
Despite this, I undid the belts on all of them, one at a time, and took as many photos as I could of each page, from every angle. The covers too. All of the work Ive done with these photos is kept on a single memory card, used only in one computer that never connects to the internet and in a room only I have access too, across the country from where I call home. Call me paranoid if you must, but there must be a reason none of the mapping team has ever mentioned this. If I make one slip up then theyll know Ive been down there.
Like history and myth and geography, language seems to be a natural talent of mine. I cant say why, but I am learning more and more from these hieroglyphs with each day. And as each day passes, I can see more of the pattern. So far what Ive learned is that the deeper into each floor of the library you go, the more esoteric and harder to grasp the knowledge is. The same principle applies to each room. And each level. Stand in the main foyer of the library and everything is trivial. Easy to grasp and, importantly, easy to pass on. The rooms around the foyer are basic level knowledge, but with heavier examples the further you got from the door.
Go up a floor and you get knowledge thats considered closer to heaven, holier. Pure. Until you reach the roof where all the words of the various gods of the time were kept.
But if you went down, you followed the opposing path. You strayed further from god. And the plinth? Those books? They were the deepest part of the library. They were the furthest anyone could possibly get from anything holy.
So you might be wondering why I am spending every waking minute trying to learn what those books say. Learning what knowledge deserved to be kept in bound books, in the alcoves of a shrine to something I couldnt begin to imagine.
I ask myself that too. I ask myself why I read these books cover to cover each and every day. I dont understand what the language says, but I know what it means. I know theres a message here and I know that if I keep reading Ill find it.
Ive not been out of this room in a week. My laptop has no battery life left. I havent showered in days, and the only food I have is from stealing from my neighbours. My life is unravelling and I can see it happening in real time. But its like Im watching it on a TV from the back of my head while someone else controls my body. I feel like I could reach out and change the channel at any time. Get myself back on track. But I dont. I want to see where this goes. I want to see how deep down in this world I can go before its too late to turn back.
The books speak of something. Each of them speak of the same thing in different tones. The plain leather one, with the thick pages speaks of a creator. Speaks of a fatherly figure from somewhere else. He comes and he gives the people the ability to do things. And then he leaves again.
The thicker leather bound book talks of a challenger. Something that comes into our world and makes our lives harder. Takes something away from us when we need it. Forces us to grow. To adapt and to overcome. This isnt spoken of in malicious terms, whoever wrote this knew that we needed this push every so often. Its reverent, almost. Welcoming of this intercession.
The stone book. Its speaks of the other thing. This book was deeper in the room than the others. From what I understand, this is the most unholy object the people of that world knew. It spoke of the creator, and it spoke of the mirror, the taker. But it spoke of a third thing.
As I read the stone book, as the carvings spoke to me, I looked through the window into the balmy summer night and I saw it. The slowly opening eyes that filled the sky.