The Knights' Trio and the Library of Damned Fools

Far and deep into the long lost reaches of the Caucasus Mountains, two men (and a Woman), were climbing down a sheer cliff. The first man, stout of body and sharp of mind, rappelled down with the care and precision of a three-legged ewe. Mainly as he was coated in full steel plate. As he smashed against the rock wall for a third time, his first companion called down to him playfully as the rope shook.

"Oaf! Do be careful! I don't want the meteor of your shelled form to alert the Quarry of our approach. This one is a wily one, so I am told!"

The Oaf, named Giles, flexed his gauntlets and pouted slightly. "I truly hope that you realize that this rope shall end at some point, and that you will stand before me soon, Prama." Despite the slight wind, the monk caught the words and laughed, both externally and internally at the wording of his half-french companion.

While they both held fast to the knotted cord on their granite descent, the woman, ever more practical, scaled past them on the rocks, her hands gripping hold after hold as she passed them both. Giles swore at her as she swung to an open outcropping. "Vile wild-beast of a woman!"

In the end, it had taken the two men a considerable amount more time to reach their destination, a balcony of rock that jut free the ancient peak. The woman, ever dressed in animal skins and rags, saluted them as they landed, puffing and huffing with vigor.

"Tell me, why again did you elect to scale these heights in that tortoise-shell?" She spoke in Sakha, and then remembering herself, spoke again in broken, half-garbled French. "Why armor over rocks?"

Giles frowned at her. "Because the last damn time we scaled rocks like this, the Quarry tore two score men away with its foul spines, or have you forgotten?"

She blinked at him. He sighed, and drew out from his pouch of trinkets the rosary he carried, adorned with the trophies of Quarry now dead. He pointed to the large spike, then tapped it to his plate. She nodded at him, smiling in understanding.

The other man, the final of the trio, landed next. He sat in a near perpetual stoop, a great jug over his (slightly) aged back, and wore turmeric-yellow robes. "What of him? Surely this dandelion would be more a hindrance, what with that holy water on his back."

"Ha! Birds are attracted to that which is shiny over colorful, Oaf." Giles had half a mind to sock the monk in the face, but was interrupted from his thoughts. "Besides, we won't be burdened with this much longer. Soon we must imbibe of its contents and enter the depths." He pointed behind them both. Giles and the Woman turned, observing the cave that led deeper into the mountain. It was a lifeless stretch of rock that trailed into dark.

"Hmm, so there is where our infernal enemy lies?" Giles, wiping the sweat from his brow, waited for Prama to speak, as he usually did before entering the suspected lair of the Quarry.

"In my meditations, I saw a great repository of knowledge, like the one in Alexandria before the fires took it. Though this one as well was aflame. Inside, scribes rushed to hide and save the precious scrolls and tablets from the blaze, yet their bodies sported wings of six-fold and their eyes innumerable. A terror lay at the center, a crooked and smiling serpent that ate the books as they burned and excreted them as slurry."

Giles rankled as the woman leaned forward.

"The slurry was then gathered up into inkwells by impish servants, and a masked beast of four heads and two faces wrote, with a pen of bone, new books. From these books, terror and despair emerged as flowers. They ate the minds of men as they were drawn deeper into their tales." Prama finished. Giles, feeling his chin for signs of stubble thought on past adventures. "So, this shall be the source of those accursed tomes that plagued the men of Carthage. The beast's description fits the Quarry of that day. Tell me monk, did the Buddy arrive in this dream? Were you able to consult him on the questions I had for him?"

Prama rolled his eyes. "At this point I know you're purposefully mispronouncing it. No, he did not."

Giles, noting the tone in the amber man's voice, did not push further. "So. There is an evil library within this mountain. Woman?" She looked at him, blinking. "Can you read?"

She blinked again. "Can. You. Read?" He mouthed the words slowly. She blinked a third time, then shook her head. "There we are. That's one issue down. Now, as for you and I, I am uncertain. If these books offer such temptations, I am surely more chaste to them then thou, but-"

The monk began unwrapping the torso-sized jug. "Indeed Oaf. Which is why I have a unique solution. We cannot read if the words blur in our eyes and mind." Giles sniffed the air, and the woman raised an eyebrow.

"Is that-"

"Indeed!" The monk tore through the holding paper on the jug. Below, the fragrant scent of apricots sang to their throats. Brandy!

There were no questions. With thirst beyond reasoning from the terrible climb and heat of the late spring, the three companions drank deep of the spicy ambrosia, each taking a turn in a spinning wheel of ritualistic drinking.

As it emptied to the final drops, Giles hoisted the jar above his helmet and crashed it down, terracotta chips sprinkling his brow like baptismal water. "Aaaalright! Let's go slay us a damn, damn devil! Lesht I rusht my vamb-braces." He slurred, drawing the long sword from his hip and pointing its silvery sheen into the deep cavern which gaped at them, inviting.

"Quarry-dear sir, quarry! Remember the rules we settled upon!" Prama, half-mad and itching to be done with this business already spoke in turn. Saying what the monsters even were, by nature, made them stronger after all.

Still, tinder in hand, the three stumbled clumsily into that dark maw. Outside, the light of the torch vanished, the final piece of them swallowed into the deep, deep earth.

Giles noted the strangeness of the corridor only after what he assumed was an hour of marching. There was no labyrinthine maze, no odd puzzles which he needed to smash through. This was not a tomb! Though he was unsure if that was his annoying thoughts or the man yelling behind him.

In fact, as the walls melted away into abandoned shelves and ancient stone desk tops, scroll shelves like pox marks in the wall, Giles felt somewhat cheated. Was there not supposed to be books in this library? Where the hell were they?

When the path ended in a large bookcase, he would have sworn, if not for the woman pressing a shoddy copper pick into his hands. "Where'd you-u get that?" The woman stuck a thumb behind.

"Corpses, miners. Back way." He looked at the tool, its rusty wedge. Then he shrugged and chopped away at the great shelf.

To his surprise (if you could BE surprised while piss-drunk that is) the shelf came away like paper. Like...something he didn't want to think about right now for some reason.

"Exercise caution Giles. Shhh..." Prama moved ahead of him, wobbling on slightly more steady legs as Giles sat back, both exhausted and nauseous from the exertion.

Until he heard Prama yell in fear. Giles stiffened, then thrust the torch he held into the Woman's hands, charging into the chamber.

Inside, he felt his eyes burn. It was as if they'd been dipped in tallow and set alight just by looking upon the books. All at once, he'd never been more thankful for being drunk. He assumed that this was what Prama was yelling about. Then he saw the Quarry.

It was larger than a man. It was larger than the elephants that Prama spoke of in his homeland. It was bigger than a damn house, and coiled around a great black well, its tail dipping into the foul, stinking liquid. It's great steaming mouth opened, and words poured over his brain as though they were being scratched with a pen upon his skull.

"Ahhhh, more students. Come to take the secrets of the Forbidden Truths. Come to bargain as Theophilius, or perhaps that pathetic scribe once did? No matter. Come in, come in. Allow I, Da-

Giles roared, to intercede the creature speaking it's name, but found his throat silent. Odd. Still, the forward chop of his long sword was more than enough to interrupt it's musings. The beast roared as the blade bounced away from its umber scales, and Giles was flung back as the coils stretched up and the scales pointed in jagged lines, bludgeoning him as a mace would.

The wind went out of him as he crashed into a bookcase, this time laden with tomes. He spat blood, but there was still no sound to the action. He sang a quick tune. Still no noise.

"Insolent creature! Do you not know that a house of learning is silent to all but it's master!" The sharp whip-crack of its voice cut them as it began again. "In your tongue, I am Damnatio Memoriae-

He grimaced. Across the way, he saw Prama clutch his skull. They were still so heavily affected even when drunk? Blood filled Giles ears, though the voice did not stop.

"-The great librarian of the Damned Fools. An excellent name for such creatures as yourselves, would you not agree? Hmm, what are your names? Let me peek..."

Giles grunted hard and sat up. Prama, nearby, was batting away the serpent's massive tongue with his hands as it attempted to invade his skull, through eye or ear. He clutched his ribs, which even in the drunken stupor felt sore (a bad sign) and stood, sword held level with the gargantuan beast.

He was suddenly dragged off his feet behind the collapsed shelf. He thrashed, fearing a minion or imp, only for a familiar hand to clap over his mouth. The Woman!

She was motioning frantically to him, holding one of the books before him. He watched as she held the torch to it, to no avail. He frowned at the puzzle, but that was not a concern considering what Prama was having to-

"I HAVE come to bargain!" He heard the man shout. Clarity through mortal peril, Prama had awakened his guile through the haze of drink and was suddenly speaking to the massive demon.

"Ahhh...That changes things. Come to bargain, you say? You alone, or are you to offer your companions souls to me as well?"

"They are free to-" He hiccuped.

"Oh...do not be afraid my child. Is that not what the Great Ones say to you as they approach?"

"Indeed, o mighty librarian. Master of Books, fooler of Fools, Tricker-Trickster of-"

"Oh, you need not flatter. I so rarely receive guests, you know. I have not so much as heard a peep since those Carthaginians raided my great library. I say raided, but-"

"Do go on! I am a student of all things, no domain is too accursed for my ears, oh Great Serpent!" Prama continued.

The creature happily did so. "Well, if you must know, it is part of the deal, not that I made one with them, they stole them as a matter of greed, as books are quite valuable to your kind. I do not mind, the books of the library are meant to be shared after all! It is here that I write the litanies of woe and sutras of loathing by which the fall of man shall come, and it is the foolish men who come believing the wealth of knowledge outweighs the poison of its origin. Most of my originals...they are burned, but when you use such a medium, it is only to be expected of such lesser creatures..."

"Your...medium?" Prama spoke, observing the shelves with mock interest.

"Oh yes." The snakes' head shifted upward. Prama's eyes saw the ceiling and almost screamed. For even with his dull vision, he could see in the torch light the racks upon racks of human leather, tanned full body profiles, the hollow faces screaming. "Yes indeed. In fact...If you take twenty of these books from me, I shall promise you the life of a king. Regardless of what you came here for, it is a tempting offer no? A side deal, as the market men are so fond of saying."

"I-" Prama was feeling the alcohol kick into a second wave. "Tell me more."

Meanwhile, the Knight and the Woman were busy trying to find a way to destroy the book. They tried stabbing, more fire, kicking, ripping, his sword, her dagger, to no effect.

In a fit of rage, The Woman spat into the cover. There was a ripple as the snake turned in their direction, the great yellow eyes filled to the brim with malice. "What was that!?" Prama, sensing the need of his distraction, came closer, and in a moment of boldness, touched the snake. "Please...tell me more."

That was a good enough distraction for the other two. "It's weakness...liquid?!" Giles stood up, tore free his waterskin and draped the remaining contents over his blade and face. Then he slammed shut his helm. "Hold there woman! I shall dispatch this vile creature."

He charged off, not noticing the Woman was holding her ear to the ground, uncaring to his action.

The blade sunk deep this time as he lunged forth, and Giles felt triumph as the beast knocked him away, a font of oily blood filling his gaze. "Traitors! You shall make a fine second edition!" The jaws opened to reveal a great number of eyes inside. Giles barely had time to jump away as the creature struck.

The woman waved her hands in the air now, up near the wall of the chamber. Giles, running towards her to evade the beast, saw her holding the pickaxe out, motioning him to...

He kissed his cross and flung his full weight into the spot she'd dug around, and it gave way to a torrential spring. The beast howled as the fresh blood of the earth washed into the black inkwell, diluting it to nothing. The blast of it seemed to be acid to it's very skin, bones appearing as it tried and failed to run from the flood.

The force of the geyser filled the chamber within seconds, and dragged the three away, out of the mountain and down, down to the earth below. The Library of Damned Fools now turning to mush behind them, its great caretaker disintegrating as ink on a page.

When Giles next awoke, it was on the river bank of what is now called the Ardon, his boots full of minnows and mind throbbing like never before. The woman was already awake (of course) and noodling free some measure of fish for their nightly supper. Prama, who was still asleep, face down in the mud, was awoken by Giles lifting him up to check if he yet lived. Then they, all together, laughed in triumph and victory over their foe.

That night, as shadows grew high and tall, they built a small fire, and supped on the silvery flesh and wild herbs. Prama told tale of their next Quarry, which lay in Portugal, and The Woman sang them a great and mighty song of frozen peaks and fir trees.

Giles took free the scrap of ruined book leather he'd managed to hold, and with the point of his sword spiked a hole in the tip, threading it into his rosary. Then he thanked the Holy Mother for their victory, as was his custom in these strange days.

Yet still, questions plagued his mind. The Library, how many books had escaped into the world? How many souls had died to feed it's maw? How many more would yet be lost by whatever tomes remain?

Could he have acted sooner? Could there be something he was missing? Each Quarry they fought had seemed to have no connection to the others, yet even alone and isolated, their works flourished. Was this a test ? Some kind of clue to what he should be pursuing?

As the Woman's song finished, the stars arose through the smoke. Giles stood up, and with his back to the fire, rolled his shoulders.

"Never was much a scholar anyways."