Colourful fine carpets cover all the walls, some more rugs hanging over them in turn.

The carpets are like a dark, dull rainbow. The carpet itself is black, with colours seeming floating over it like a reflection in water. The colours swirl and mix and seperate so slowly you have to careful look before you see the emerging patterns of dancing colours.. You watch a batch of a grey blue twirl around with concentrated yellow and green drops, absorbing them.

The rugs draped over them like curtains over imaginary windows are stationary pictures of outfits, each in a different pose. They continue from down the walls onto the floor and a few hang from the ceiling. You recognize a few outfits, but what really catches your eye is the one hidden on the far left, the one that looks just like Zaren's black finery. It's the only one with a person in the clothes.

Zaren's in it, posed elegantly in his black and gold coat. His arms are raised as if to greet you, but his face perfectly shows his comtempt at your very existance. All but his eyes, which are laughing. You do not know if the contempt is the joke.

There is a man behind that insanity, you are sure of it. Whether the insanity is a cover or not, you do not know.

You look back at the swirling patterns. They are starting to resemble pictures now, just barely, but the proper shades are coming in...

A library

Hundreds of volumes of large tomes cover shelves that reach up to the very high ceiling. You are in narrow crack between two long shelves. You walk through the space between the shelves, trailing your hands on the book. The shelves are so close you can't help but bump into a book here and there. The shelves are so large and heavy they don't make even the slighest movement when you fall against one accidently.

You've tripped over a ladder. It's laid along the ground, edges from shelf to shelf, the same kind as there is in every other row. They were used to reach the books once, but no one reads these records anymore. Now they just keep the space between the shelves uniform. Those maps hate being in the same place as the other non fiction and always try to push the shelves apart.


The books are all a dull green, faded from dust and time. They are larger than usual. Each one is about as wide as your palm and the same length as your arms. They are stuffed in very tightly, leaving not one inch of space. You wouldn't want to have the job of putting them into the shelves.

You reach one end of the row. There's next to no room between the wall and the shelf, but you manage to squeeze through. The rows of shelves seem to go on forever in this direction. You use the next row to turn around and face the other way. The shelves end a few rows up, so you head that direction. You come out into a small space between a shelf and the grey stone wall.

There's a door here you could try it but it's locked. Oh. There's also another small shelf here at the end of the row. You look at the small selection it has. Most are records of the books in this library. They include just a topic and a number. There are too many books to even list the names in this tiny shelf.

Three books that are not records draw your attention.

You pick up the small brown book

You pick up the small brown book. Its wretched condition is something compared to even the oldest and worst kept tomes you've seen.You take out a sheet of paper to record its name.

The ratty cover nearly comes off when you lift it to turn to the first page. There's no title or author listed, just a strange star design in the center of the page. You copy onto another piece of paper with your fountain pen the design as best you can and place it beside you so you can request another copy of whatever this book is.

You turn the page as carefully as you can. The thin paper seems almost as if to look at it would shred it.

It's another design. With your vast experience what? in many different languages and the writing of many different authors, in the books prior to the invention of the printing press of course, you can easily see that the symbols were of the same hand. You turn the pages, seeing nothing but strange symbols belonging to no language you can recognize. Even then, it should have repeated characters, but each design is different, leading you to believe it is no language, simply meaningless symbols.

The next page is torn in the center where the symbol would be. Through the hole you can the next page is blank.

You check the torn page; it's a violent rip but does not look in danger of growing and the rest of the page is blank anyway.

But there's something about that blank page...

You look at it carefully. There! A shape! A rip! A tear! That wasn't you, you're careful. You haven't ripped a page in... Well, it's been so long you've forgotten.

That's not a rip though... It's growing, like a burn. You set the book down away from the others to keep the fire from spreading but... It's not hot. It's not smoking. Still, the pages burn through.

Fiery shapes grow... Why, it's almost moving... It's beautiful. You can't.... You can't look away.

The ash blows up through the windless air and the sparks bloom into flowers of fire. It's an inferno bubble around you. Your skin burns and blackens and crackles. You can see through the fire now.... In the fire now... It's...