16 - Library

The Second Scripture – Church of Complexity

Our father dreamt of a world of infinite light, the void pushed back to the boundaries of space and time by endless complexity. When he awoke, he wept at the reality of things, the endless march of entropy swallowing his tears into nothing. And so, he pledged, I shall remove the limits of things, no more will creation be bound by what is possible, only what can be imagined.

-

Will walked through the collapsed town, a discouraged frown on his face. Everywhere he looked, buildings were in disrepair and the people living in those buildings reflected that.

They looked haggard and worn, wearing clothes that hadn't been cleaned in weeks. Sunken eyes filled with hopelessness followed him and Sarah as she led him through the town to the library.

When he told her about the job he accepted, she was more than happy to tag along. On the condition that he owed her a favour, the nature of which she refused to reveal. When he asked further, she only winked at him and pulled her fingers over her mouth in a zipping motion.

In the end, Will decided that two hands were better than one and agreed. Besides, he would find the library much quicker with her help since she knew the town well.

Sarah was quite short, barely more than five feet tall, her head only reach Will's shoulders. She had blonde hair the colour of hay that she tied up in a bun. And had striking blue eyes that seemed to bore holes into whatever she aimed them at. Besides that, her cheeks were covered in freckles that only enhanced her striking eyes further.

She had this weird energy surrounding her, when she spoke, you listened. It was as simple as that. Stella had a similar effect on Will but that was more to do with the authority she held and the way she carried herself.

With Sarah, it was different, when she spoke it was magnetic. Every word she said was agreeable and charismatic. Something which ended up making Will feel extremely uncomfortable when the blonde girl stared at him. Seeming to see straight through him, revealing all his secrets through a simple glance.

While they walked through the abandoned streets, cutting through collapsed houses and climbing over rubble, Will listened as Sarah did most of the talking.

For the most part, it was just her pointing out where things used to be. "See that collapsed church over there, that used to be for Solus. That big building on your right that fell in on itself was the city bank, etc"

The girl seemed to have an endless stream of knowledge on the city, apparently having grown up here and known Stella and Johnny since a very young age. She and Daniel had even gone to school together which Will found fascinating.

This leads into another reason why he wanted Sarah to come. His schooling was extremely limited, mostly consisting of basic reading and numeracy, before focusing entirely on the practical skills someone in a small village might need.

His teacher's motto had been, 'As long as you can tell if someone is ripping you off, you know enough,' And that had carried through into Will's education.

Sure, he could read, but he imagined that a book that might take him days to finish could be completed in hours by Sarah, who had received a formal education from the state.

Besides, how bad could the favour she needed be? 'Shit, I take it back,' Will cursed himself but it was too late, he'd already thought it and events outside of his control were in motion.

Feeling an ominous cloud settle over him, Will noticed that they had come to a stop outside a squat building made from red brick. It looked like something a builder incredibly paranoid about earthquakes might design, the brick walls thick and the roof a heavy black slate that had somehow managed to stay attached during the winds.

Almost immediately, Will saw why they were needed here. While the building itself was tough and relatively unaffected by the storm. Tens of huge, ornate stained-glass windows had been blown in by the storm. Blanketing the building in tiny fragments of glass.

Granite steps led up to the library's heavy wooden doors that were firmly shut. Will marvelled at the ornate carvings on the dark wooden surface of the doors. One had a massive tree on some sort of island and the other, a huge serpent with horns swallowing a golden flame.

Sarah looked at the doors and gritted her teeth, her whole countenance changing. She suddenly turned to face Will and said, "Slap me," her voice strangely persuasive.

He almost just did it without thinking, before stopping himself, "Why would I slap you?" He asked in confusion. Wondering whether she was trying to set him up as some villain or something.

"Fucks sake, just do it. I need to ready myself for this," Sarah swore through gritted teeth.

Will frowned, backing away from the small girl slightly.

Sarah looked up at him and spat out, "Fine, if you're going to be a little girl about it, then you can go first!"

Thinking she meant he should open the door, Will moved to walk past her, right when a hand flew into the side of his face, making his head spin.

"What the hell was that!?" Will swore, holding his stinging cheek.

Sarah exhaled slowly, a look of satisfaction on her face, "Now you do me,"

So, Will slapped her, he made sure to hold back so he didn't break her neck. Just hard enough that she'd still feel it tomorrow.

He regretted it immediately, hating how easy it had been to do something he would never have done two months ago, and knowing he had fallen victim to his animalistic instincts all too easily.

Sarah almost pirouetted, holding her cheek where a solid red handprint was forming, "Ah shit that hurt!" She swore.

Seeing her clutching her cheek, Will let his guard down momentarily only for a palm to hammer into the side of his face again, so hard that it made his ears ring.

"Woo! Let's do this," Sarah shouted, pushing open the heavy wooden doors to the library before Will could get even.

The library was an utter disaster. Books and glass littered the floor, hundreds of collapsed bookshelves having fallen against each other like dominos.

The room was an oval shape, with a big circular desk at the centre with branching paths leading into the various sections of the library. Behind that desk sat a man with the most obvious comb-over Will had ever seen. It did absolutely nothing to hide the fact the man was, for all intents and purposes bald, almost making it look worse.

He wore glasses that were so far down his nose he could probably touch them with his tongue and sported a shockingly well-kept tweed waistcoat considering the circumstances.

In his hands, he held two scrolls that he kept switching between, studying them with the intense fervour of a religious fanatic. Taking no notice of the pair when they walked in.

"Why did you do that," Will hissed quietly, still holding his smarting cheek.

"Because this man makes people want to hit something, and I just needed to get it out of my system ahead of time," Sarah said matter-of-factly.

"How can-" Will began to ask before she cut him off.

"Liam, we're here to help with the mess," Sarah said loudly, not eliciting any response from the librarian.

"Liam!" she shouted.

The bespectacled man looked up, startled to find two people standing right in front of his desk, "Oh my, have you been waiting long?"

"No, we just got here. I heard you need help with the mess," Sarah said coolly, gesturing to the collapsed bookshelves on either side of her.

"Oh yes, oh yes. The mess is terrible, absolutely appalling I say. Did you know that this morning I woke up and found a theism book in the philosophy section, how it got there is anyone's guess, but I still can't quite believe it." The man said seriously, explaining the story like he was describing a stab wound.

"Uh-huh," Sarah mumbled, her eyes already glazing over.

"Yes, yes. And as I'm sure you know Sarah; I am very particular about the separate sections of this library. I am a firm believer that knowledge should not be buried in an unseemly bookshelf full of random tomes. Instead, it should be accessible and easy to find, convenience being one of the biggest draws of my library."

"Yeah, totally," Sarah said dully, on a completely different planet at this point.

"You know, when I visited the capital's library, they had a very unorthodox way of ordering books, assigning them in the eras they were written, so that each of the past empires has their own recorded biography in a way. In my personal opinion, this makes finding…"

Will couldn't stand it anymore and jumped in, "Hi, I'm Will by the way," He needed to get the man to stop talking or he'd go insane.

Losing his train of thought, the Librarian smiled at Will in greeting, "My, you have a very strange constitution young man. I've heard of heterochromia before but never eyes with different colours and pupils. Very strange indeed."

Handling the question about his body like a live grenade, Will responded carefully, "Yes, I have found it very strange as well. You wouldn't happen to have any books on similar cases, would you?"

The librarian frowned his forehead knitting as his eyes completely glazed over. He sat in silence for almost a minute before returning to normal and replying. "I do indeed have books on this subject, but to be honest, I would recommend going to Dr Martin if you want to learn more. His knowledge of the weird and wonderful afflictions that plague the human body is almost endless."

"I'll do that, thanks," Will said thoughtfully, feeling as though he had heard Dr Martin's name a couple of times recently.

Much to Will's dismay, the librarian launched into another tirade on how medical knowledge was best understood and learned through practice rather than reading. Something which made sense but was completely irrelevant at the moment.

Eventually, he could feel the metaphorical rope keeping his hands at his side and off the librarian's throat fraying and he interrupted the man once again. "I actually came here today to learn more about animals. I'm fascinated by the way they've begun to evolve, and I want to try and understand the direction these evolutions could go in," he said, carefully avoiding any mention of snakes.

The librarian scratched his chin thoughtfully, "Hm, so you think that by studying the habits and traits of animals before the First Impact, you might be able to predict the future path their evolution will take. An interesting theory indeed,"

Suddenly, Will jumped in, unable to contain himself, "Did you just say First Impact? Where did you hear that phrase?" He hadn't heard anyone else call it that since arriving in Port Vale.

Startled by Will's outburst, the librarian frowned, scrunching up his forehead before relaxing it again. "It's not some hidden knowledge or anything, although I doubt many of the people in this region are well-read on the topic of the divine era. Most just take it for myth these days, parables to tell children and amusing adventures of mythical proportions," he said, getting back into the flow of things very quickly.

"But you think it's true?" Will interjected.

The librarian shook his head indignantly. "I don't think it's true. I know it's true. As sure as the sun rising in the east and a pen falling if you let go of it. Maybe before the First Impact, those stories were little more than folklore, but now there's proof, we are living through history as we speak,"

"What has the First Impact got to do with the divine era?" Will asked eagerly, happy to find out anything of importance about his future enemies the gods.

"Hm… where should I start?" The librarian said with a frown, pushing his spectacles up his nose slightly.

"Ah yes, did you know, that our world is made from a monster's corpse?"