{"id":221,"date":"2010-04-05T13:30:27","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T19:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/?p=221"},"modified":"2010-04-08T22:44:43","modified_gmt":"2010-04-09T04:44:43","slug":"chapter-twenty-six","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/2010\/04\/chapter-twenty-six\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter Twenty-Six"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a9 2010, Patrick Hester.\u00a0 All Rights Reserved<\/p>\n

Chapter Twenty-Six<\/h1>\n

Eli, Narut and Fyet stepped into the library the next day.\u00a0 There was no sign of the old man, Captain Shen, which relieved Eli.\u00a0 He didn’t want another encounter with him.<\/p>\n

He’d been surprised by the number of older men in the keep; he imagined that anyone who survived their time on the island, would escape the moment their terms were up.\u00a0 To find so many older men who had joined again and again was more than a little disturbing.<\/p>\n

The library was easily as large as the commissary, which had been built to serve hundreds of men at a time.\u00a0 From wall to wall, there were shelves and each shelf was weighted down by stacks and stacks of books.\u00a0 He’d never seen so many books before in all his life.\u00a0 Suddenly, he thought it might not be too bad on Evermist.<\/p>\n

The three men separated, each walking down a different row, eyes wide.\u00a0 Eli ran his eyes up and down the shelves, trying to make out titles.\u00a0 By the time he made it to the end of the row, a frown fixed on his face, he found Narut looking similarly confused.\u00a0 Turning, he saw Fyet taking a seat at a long, wooden table.\u00a0 He had a stack of books and started going through them.\u00a0 Narut nodded to him and they walked over together.<\/p>\n

“Fyet?” Eli asked.\u00a0 “Did you find something?”<\/p>\n

“I didn’t recognize the language,” offered Narut.<\/p>\n

“Neither did I,” Eli agreed.\u00a0 They both looked at Fyet, who was looking through his third book at such a speed there was no way he could’ve been reading them.<\/p>\n

“I’ll bet it’s Templer,” said Fyet.\u00a0 Eli frowned.<\/p>\n

“Templer?\u00a0 I’ve never heard of that.”<\/p>\n

“Nor have I,” said Narut.<\/p>\n

“Not surprising,” said Fyet.\u00a0 “They don’t really like outsiders.\u00a0 I only know about them because I used to make trading runs there with my da.\u00a0 He told me theirs was the oldest city on all of Paerleon.\u00a0 They don’t let many people trade with them, but my da makes some of the finest saddle’s in our village and the Templer’s like em so we always made a trip up at the beginning of summer and came back with a decent amount of gold.”<\/p>\n

“Where do they live?” Eli asked.<\/p>\n

“Up North East near Shelter Bay, just at the edge of the mountains that cut Corrac\u2019amor off from the rest of the island.\u00a0 No idea how big the city is, we only ever got as far as the gates.”<\/p>\n

“You couldn’t see the city from there?” Narut asked.<\/p>\n

Fyet shook his head.\u00a0 “They have a wall, not as big as The Wall, of course.\u00a0 But it keeps people out.\u00a0 When they open the gates, all you see is a road leading up into the hills.\u00a0 I think the city is up there somewhere, hidden away.”<\/p>\n

“What makes you think these books are written by them?” Eli asked.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think that, not really.\u00a0 It’s just – there are signs on their gates, signs we couldn’t read.\u00a0 It’s the same language.\u00a0 I’d swear it.”\u00a0 He pointed to a page, “See this character?\u00a0 I’ve seen it before.\u00a0 And this one,” he added, moving his finger down the page.<\/p>\n

Eli picked up one of the books; it had a hard cover of faded blue with chipped, gold lettering across.\u00a0 Opening it, the inside had a textured, patterned paper and the same lettering which he assumed was the title.\u00a0 He’d never seen the language before and he prided himself on the amount of books he’d read.\u00a0 Flipping through it, he found a sketch that didn’t make any sense.\u00a0 He laid it flat on the table.<\/p>\n

“Look at this,” he said.\u00a0 Fyet and Narut leaned in.\u00a0 The image showed a half-naked man with a beard, holding a large bow and apparently killing men who were attacking him.\u00a0 There wasn’t a lot of detail.\u00a0 The men, also half-naked, carried round shields and spears or swords.\u00a0 It was very strange.\u00a0 He looked at his friends who shrugged; they didn’t understand it any better than he did.<\/p>\n

“Why would anyone keep books around that they can’t even read?” he asked, closing the book.<\/p>\n

“Are there any of these Templer people here?” Narut asked.\u00a0 “Maybe they take care of the library?”<\/p>\n

Fyet was shaking his head.\u00a0 “I doubt it.\u00a0 Like I said, they don’t like outsiders.\u00a0 I think they pay to keep their kids out of the lottery.”<\/p>\n

“That’s a lot of gold,” Eli whistled.<\/p>\n

“And doesn’t answer why they keep so many books around that no one can read,” Narut added.<\/p>\n

“Because, it’s still history.”<\/p>\n

All three looked up.\u00a0 The man who stood before them wore the uniform of an officer, causing them to snap to attention.\u00a0 He waved them off with a smile.\u00a0 He was much younger than Captain Shen, with dark hair and dark skin, much darker than Narut.<\/p>\n

“You’re new?” he asked.\u00a0 They all nodded.\u00a0 “Well, welcome to the Library,” he waved around him.\u00a0 “Thousands of books, all written in an ancient language no one remembers anymore.\u00a0 It’s sad, really, but it’s a part of our history so we keep them.”<\/p>\n

“Why here?” Eli asked.\u00a0 If the books were as important as he said, surely they should be somewhere other than Evermist.<\/p>\n

“Do you know about Paerl?”<\/p>\n

They all three nodded.\u00a0 Paerl had been the capital city before Valles.\u00a0 It had been destroyed centuries before.\u00a0 Witnesses reported it there one moment, gone the next – all in a flash of light so bright it competed with the sun.\u00a0 Anyone sent to investigate found themselves ill within days of returning and died soon after that.\u00a0 It had become a quarantined area.\u00a0 They said nothing would grow there, even now.<\/p>\n

The Magistrate changed the capital to Valles and went on as if none of it had ever happened.<\/p>\n

“Paerl was the capital, it was our greatest city.\u00a0 This library is nothing compared to the one there, and it was all wiped out in an instant.\u00a0 The decision was made to keep everything else here, where the militia could protect it.”<\/p>\n

“But,” Eli said.\u00a0 “No one can read any of these, can they?”<\/p>\n

“There are quite a few books here that you could read, and I’d be happy to show them to you.\u00a0 As for the rest, a few scholars make the trip each year to study them, try and translate them.\u00a0 Someday, we’ll be able to read these books again and our history will be ours again.”<\/p>\n

“Does anyone know what language this is?\u00a0 It looks similar to what the Templers use,” Fyet offered.\u00a0 The librarian – for that’s how Eli was thinking of him now – frowned.<\/p>\n

“It does?\u00a0 I wish they had more contact with us.\u00a0 If they could translate these, it would mean so much to so many.\u00a0 We don’t know what language they’re written in, only that it’s one of the ancient dialects.\u00a0 There were so many of them, once, it’s possible someone still speaks it somewhere out there.”\u00a0 He waved vaguely.\u00a0 “Let me know if you want something you can actually read,” he added with a smile, then moved off.<\/p>\n

Nicer than Shen, Eli thought.<\/p>\n

“I swear, it’s Templer,” Fyet said half to himself.<\/p>\n

“I still don’t understand why they’re here,” Eli said.\u00a0 “Why not take them to Valles?\u00a0 Why not have all of our scholars working to translate them?\u00a0 If they really are pieces of our history, it doesn’t make sense to keep them all hidden away here on the island, does it?”<\/p>\n

Neither of his friends could argue with him.<\/p>\n

Tell your friends:<\/em>
\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a9 2010, Patrick Hester.\u00a0 All Rights Reserved Chapter Twenty-Six Eli, Narut and Fyet stepped into the library the next day.\u00a0 There was no sign of the old man, Captain Shen, which relieved Eli.\u00a0 He didn’t want another encounter with him. He’d been surprised by the number of older men in the keep; he imagined that […]<\/p>\n

Tell your friends:<\/em>
\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a>\"Add<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,9,12,10,11,8,7,13,14,6],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252,"href":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/atfmb.com\/Evermist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}