The Seekers of the Golden Books

The rumbling fortress shone in the desert like the heat itself. It was a rippling, fluid thing, an impossible mass of shining stone and magma-like gold, constantly moving forward at a snailish pace. Behind it, a thin layer of glass formed in its passing, shattering at the mile mark back into the soft, burning wastes it called home. From a distance, one could only assume such a thing as a mirage, and closer still, the glassy remains of its passing signified danger; but to the scholars of the Golden Diagram, the great impossible mass was a sign of hope in a barren world.

Vigil galloped his palfrey Daan towards the burning monstrosity. Daan was snorting with fear, the strange mass of shimmering heat bringing ancient animal panic to its crisp blue eyes. Vigil spent considerable time soothing him, even as he brought them closer to its slow, inexorable side. The rumbling bore a heavy burden on both their ears, the tinge of the cracking glass like rain behind the sound. Then Vigil brought forth the dagger, the gold of the blade the purest in the world. He plunged it into the side of the mirrored wall of heat, and it sank inward, the melting stone singeing the hairs on his knuckle. From there, he painstakingly drew the sigil of their order, the mollusk shell curve of the Golden Diagram, of the first great Traveling God.

Upon cutting the curl of perfection, the wall of perpetually melting stone sank inward on the line drawn, before splitting completely to reveal a porthole, large enough for himself and ten horses. He ushered his one and only inside, the hesitance and nickering silenced as the heat died away, replaced with cool, fresh air, devoid of particulate.

Inside, guards were watching him with caution. He removed the turban about his head and the indigo-stained clothing, revealing a scarred face that they well knew. Even still, caution was expressed, and it was only after he dismounted Daan and handed over his weapon: the knife, that they were willing to speak with him.

“Sir Vigil, how fared the hunt?” One of the men asked, staring back out into the featureless dunes, the one sided wall clear and dull, a perpetual dusk. Vigil was a man of repute he had known in passing to and from the fortress, one of the organization's lauded agents, and his face was that of a steel knife. It had gone badly, that much was obvious, but he hoped that his phrasing could dull the blow of his response.

Vigil did not look at the guard as he spoke more to clear the dust from his lungs. “It went fantastic.”

With his palfrey taken to the stables, he was free to travel up the storied floors of the great machine, the steel and stone echoing with every step taken. The fortress was a great relic of an age of wonder, a self-sustaining vehicle that could and did support a small township’s worth of people and animals. Vigil glided his hand along the wide corridor of brass, the metal tarnished to shine more like nacre. Chambers and rooms opened up in equal parts organized and disharmony, and the signs of habitation shone on the wood and paint of their newer order’s leavings. The homes were inhabited by a cadre of scholars, all eager to unravel and experiment as they were allowed.

The lifts were the strangest part of the fortress. Much of the technology that powered the machine was woefully unknown, but the hidden device that allowed transit to nearly any room in the structure seemed to have no limitation of space, or weight. You only needed to visit an area once by conventional means to be able to appear there again. Which was why many of the lower ranking members were not allowed in the Library.

He spoke that word with a reverence that never faltered. “Library.”

Then he was there, an intake and exhale bringing him close. The topmost layer, the zenith of the fortress. The entry point was blocked by the Knowledge Guard, their flat executioner blades always in their grasp. His superiors in golden thread. Their empty stares took him in like he was nothing, and he knew that were he to break the rules of this sacred place; they would kill him, agent or no. He bowed out of ceremony, and exited the chamber.

There were more knowledge guards in the central rib cage of the library, but they were not what drew the eyes. No, it was the Golden Books; shining on every shelf and table that filled the vision. The smell of treated parchment was musty and rich, drawing his attention magnetically. Despite their name, they did not all possess the metal itself. Their name stemmed from the author, the Golden God of Knowledge: Banterrigus himself.

Vigil gripped the parcel hidden below his arm, the cold weight of packaging like dead skin. An attendant arrived, his jovial excitement at the agent’s appearance swiftly replaced with discomfort.

“Sir Vigil! We were informed just moments ago of your arrival, I hope that-”

He paid the man no attention whatsoever, instead focusing on the assortments and series of books stamped with wax, the divine classified and measured by human hands. “Where is the Librarian?”

He was led to them, the fellow knowledge tender somewhat taken aback by the lack of deference as the agent approached the great table, materials and scribes rushing and writing in a storm of paper and orders by the eye in its half-moon center. The old man with wild hair and incredibly folded skin sat there with only a single open book, eyes half-lidded in concentration. When Vigil touched his shoulder, he became instantly enraged at the disruption, only to pale as words were whispered into him. He stood, pointing at a random scribe to take his place. The young boy almost cried as he was chosen to read the sacred book, but they were away from there before either could notice.

In the eaves of a small reader’s alcove, with guards placed outside and a screen to block sight, Vigil sat with his master of nearly thirty years; the Great Second Librarian Plutus, the inheritor of the Golden Fortress, Lord of hidden knowledge. He was the personal friend and squire to their founder, and had guarded the Order’s greatest secrets for nearly eight generations, his unnatural immortality bought through sorcery learned from the Golden Books.

He poured them both wine, and they sat in silence. “Where have you kept it?” He spoke as the first glass was finished, the dark, sweet blue staining Vigil’s tongue. His voice was quiet as the grave, quieter than his natural silence, and Vigil hesitated. “Do you have it with you?”

He relented, and removed the package, a few stray grains of desert sticking to his palm. He did not unwrap it, the cord almost begging to be undone. The old master took hold of the rectangle and very nearly recoiled. Vigil was surprised, could he tell what lay beneath?

Peeling away the covering, a book was revealed. It was as varied as all the books of the library, but where it truly differed was the paper itself. It was black. Pure black, as though someone had pulped the very dark itself and molded it to pages. “Have you opened it?” The ancient man whispered, setting it down upon the table, physically moving away from it.

“No master.” He shook his head. He had thought to upon acquiring it, but had resisted the urge, recognizing the danger.

“Tell me where you found it.”

Vigil spoke of the adventure. His acquisition of a capable delving crew, the digging through the ancient ruins, the old markings of the profane age of Sorcery writ on the walls. The antechamber, sealed once by human sacrifice, its protections now inert. The book sat there within, waiting like a springloaded trap. He left out many details, but found little extra questions from his master. The interrogation felt incredibly rushed.

The master corked the bottle again, and stood. “We will burn this book.”

Vigil immediately stood in disbelief. “What?” Never in the whole of his life had such an order come from Plutus. “Master, why? This violates the Order’s-”

“This is not a book for us, Vigil. You must not question this.”

“It was by your own teachings that I was told to question everything.”

The conversation spiraled from there, as much as it could. Vigil was dumbstruck by the outright refusal to keep the book. Though wondrous, the Golden Books themselves could often prove horribly dangerous, the knowledge within corrupting if not handled properly. Knowledge, after all, had no real guiding principle. It was simply reality; all the wonder and horror written on paper by a being unfathomable to them. There were books that compelled murder, on profane sorcery that invoked dark beings, books that allowed possession of others. Books that could steal your own mind and place it to the page, books that would eat your loved ones, books that could undo history, replacing it with tales unknown. Vigil himself had not escaped completely unscathed in the past, and he had seen a fair number of horrifying fates befall his own superiors who read or picked the wrong book. Yet even the worst of the books were saved, given place on the shelves of forbidden sections and chained vaults. To destroy knowledge, any knowledge, was a sin that merited expulsion from the order. He relayed all this to the master, and ended with, “Then why not this one? Why must this one be destroyed?”

“Because this is not a book.” Was the only answer given, spoken as what could only be a lie. Then he was brushed away without further discussion, left to recover from his journey in his private quarters, the thin layer of disuse dusted away before he fell to a long, soft sleep.

But there were dreams waiting for him. Dreams of the Black Book and its hidden words. Dreams of the oaths he had taken to men now dead. Dreams of the Founder, of the doubts he had for his leader. All the while, he held the book in his hands, and finally, with his curiosity too much, he cracked it wide. Inside, he saw-

And then he woke, the dark of his room reflecting his resolution to himself.

He had painted the protective charms on his open eyes, and the color stained his vision blue as he stalked the halls. The Knowledge Guard saw him, but said nothing. In his arms he carried an obal, denoting that he was to read one of the Books, specifically the tomes that would reveal the next location he was to travel towards. Golden Books to find Golden Books, no matter the age or place.

Inside the library, the pursuers of knowledge forgot sleep and rest, their ministrations continuing well into the night. The wide windows of the fortress showed the moon and stars in startling detail, and telescopes watched the shifting of the heavens with as much interest as the books of the Golden one. In the bustle of the eternal pursuit, Vigil deviated towards the back sections, where the deadly and disturbing awaited.

There was a way to save the book. He would hide the knowledge within himself, whatever it may have been, and commit it to paper once away from here. No matter the curse, he was sure he could resist it, decades of training and ancient magic committed to his body and memory. He would not break his oath, his Order’s teachings, even if the very warden of its rules forbid it.

A knowledge guard walked through his path. He saw nothing, the hidden runes upon Vigil’s arms flaring, the guardian suddenly shifting to look away from him, his attention consumed by the magic. Sweat licked at his neck as he closed in on the place he knew the book was taken, the very back, where the rituals to cleanse and understand the impossible took place.

A great circle of melted and buckled metal greeted him in the room, his hand lantern providing dim light to the scorched chamber. In the center was the black book. Featureless as a slab of volcanic stone, pages sagging from the weight of ink.

He removed and swallowed the bolus he kept in his jacket, the medicine designed to dissuade corruption. He checked his warding, his sigils, and found all to be correct. He needed to be fast, sunrise was soon, and no doubt they would destroy the book in the grasp of its protective light.

He stepped forward, and got down on his knees. Better to read it from where it sat then pick it up. His hand brushed the cover. Just as when he’d first taken it, the hairs on his arm stood erect, as if they wished to leap away from his arm. There was sorcery to it, foul sorcery, but he was safe. He remembered the incident that cost his blood brother his life, the Golden Book that transmuted his brain to molten copper as he’d read it, his protections smudged by tears at the thrilling tale within. He would not be moved, he would not show emotion, he would be clinical. Resolute.

He opened the cover.

“Once upon a time…” The book read in thick waxy letters, the black pages like a portal to depths of the howling earth. “There was a kingdom of Gold and Knowing.” He turned the page. There was only a single sentence, in the very center of the page.

“It died.”

He blinked. He searched the book's pages, feeling the anxious sweat leak further down his back. There was nothing more there. He searched for codes, hidden ink, invisible lines. There was nothing. Cursing, he searched the words still there. No meaning could be derived. Was that why his master wanted it destroyed? Had he misread the emotions of the moment? “This is not a book.” Of course. Understanding filled him. This was not a Golden Book, not really. It was just a trap, meant to curse whoever opened it. It had no knowledge itself. Even now, he knew that his charms were working to save him from the insidiously clever spell, that that was all this was. He sighed, disappointed, but with an understanding and shame that he had refused to trust his master. He closed the book.

And the cover reached up with a dark hand of flesh and teeth, gripping his face with ripping force, smaller hands stretching down into his throat and eye sockets and nostrils, grabbing the cords of muscle and thought and twisting them back and down into the obsidian.

Plutus allowed Vigil to watch them burn the book. It was his request to at least see the destruction, and he indulged him. The Guards stood around the ritual circle, eyes locked to the tome, its true face revealed as it was burning, flesh and teeth and skin and hair boiling and burning and screaming, the pages flapping like lungs as ash spread to the ceiling. Tears fell from the book, its agony written in fire.

Yet when the master turned to look at his apprentice, he saw the hint of a smile there. Even the trained and stalwart men that observed the agony of the creature were chilled by its sight. “Why do you smile Vigil?” He asked, centuries of experience flaring danger.

“I was…troubled by your words yesterday Master. But now? Seeing this, I know I was right to deny myself my curiosity.” He said, the smile still morbid.

Plutus felt guilty, but nodded. “I could not say what it was until now, Vigil. I knew what the book was, but such is the trap of the changelings. They are creatures that feed on knowledge itself, using that which they do not know as food to fuel their ambushes. Our anathema, immune to the workings of men, and all our creations. Our art, our science, our history.” The book burned to skeletal remains, foetal in its position, bones warped into flat pieces and still wailing in death. “Were I to identify it aloud while in such a place of knowledge; it would be given enough energy to activate, and the damage could threaten us all. Or worse.”

Vigil visibly shivered, but the edges of the smile was still there, even if Plutus did not see it. “I can scarcely imagine a worse fate.” He said as the bones smoldered and cracked.

Daan knew that something was wrong, that the thing that came to take him away and to a horrible death only wore the face of his friend, but no one else was the wiser as the fortress opened again. The strange and devouring rider atop him kicked hard to gallop him away, terror and helplessness frothing his mouth. No one saw the missing books from the shelves of the Library until it was far too late, and the desert swallowed the rider, the horse, and the books together, the cruel laughter spiralling away in a crooked swirl, drawn by thoughtless sand and empty time. The fortress moving away, uncaring, ever pursuing the knowledge now stolen.