Elchanan TELL THE TRUTH AND RUN
Elchanan is not sure what, exactly, he is looking for. Even if he did, trying to find it would be an exercise in becoming overwhelmed. Delumine’s library is the largest in all of Novus. Someone had told him this - it was, truthfully, the only reason he had altered his recent pattern of getting piss-drunk at night in the Denoctian streets and sleeping away his hangover into the afternoon - but the mere description could not have begun to prepare him. The forest begins to narrow, and to show its age. He is walking slowly through Viride, the sun (thankfully) distracted somewhat by the webbing of leaves above so that it cannot be bothered to singe him. Frost crunches underfoot, beginning to refreeze as the day wanes. Small lanterns smile from the boughs. Anyway, it is almost dusk. How worried can he be? What light does shine through is bloody with sunset, as dead as it is warm. It has lost its bite. Now he is in charge. The ground turns from dirt to wood, the path inlaid with spirals of knobbed, gnarly tree roots: overhead the branches on either side of the road start to knit themselves together into a kind of roof: suddenly it splits into a cavernous circle, and Elchanan stops short to observe what must be the center of Delumine’s infamous library. Small canine things scutter across the floor, appearing and disappearing from tunnels cut into the hard dirt. Scholars in green robes and eyeglasses drift quickly from aisle to aisle. (Elchanan presses himself, somewhat irritably, against the wall where the light does not hit so hard.) Intricately woven silk and canvas rugs line the floor, as do thickly knit blankets and pillows.Bookcases sweep from floor to ceiling, stacked with perfectly-organized gluts of scrolls, diagrams and hardback novels. Elchanan has never been too enthusiastic a student, but even he is unwillingly awed by the sheer volume of information. He realizes, somewhat miserably, that even his homeland must have a story written about it here. One of the little fox-things runs past him. Or tries to - Elchanan abruptly extends a limb into its path, and, as planned, it stops, though not without a hearty glare from its position crouched against the floor. Ugly thing, he mumbles to himself almost inaudibly, and then, to it, with a fakely cheerful smile, he asks, Where are your international scrolls? It whips a tail toward a hallway to their right, and as soon as Elchanan turns to look, tears away and into the nearest tunnel. Rat, he says dismissively, watching it flatten itself into the hole and disappear. A Deluminian overhears and gives him bitter side-eye. Elchanan merely shrugs, and slinks in what might be the right direction. |
