Miles folded his hands, leaning on the chipped and dull brown desk. Abiding in effortful patience, his eyes wandered around the room finding an interest in the millions of dust particles galivanting through the overhead lantern’s dim beams. He was probably breathing entire pages in the form of particles from the musty books on the walls: unread for ages on shelves.

Elle, gloating with victory by his side, had the audacity to mirror his stance. She scooted her stool a stroke closer to the desk and waited with a small smile for the librarian to return.

The old man rummaged in the back corner of his shop, and collapsed a pyramid of tomes. He cursed to himself in frustration. “Pilgrim!” he called out, and the little boy sitting against a shelf and reading a book far too big his body, removed his nose from the pages and pointed it toward the librarian.

His name was familiar. Where had Miles heard Pilgrim before?

A wide scarf wrapped the boy’s face and his sweater hung upon his shoulders like a tan shower curtain. Pilgrim was a scrawny boy, as indicated by his legs showing where his short-pants ended, and judging by his high tone of voice, he hadn’t began the journey to manhood yet.

Following Pilgrim’s direction, the old librarian reached into a pile and pulled out a red journal. Breathing hard, the librarian returned and sat, placing the journal carefully down between Miles and Elle, and himself. He smacked his lips. He straightened the journal as though it were a painting, then adjusted his spectacles.

The old man’s crawling pace through these gestures was absolute torture.

“Well,” said the librarian, looking each of them in the eye. “I suppose we start at the beginning.”

Just when Miles was to suggest they skip the end, Elle piped up. “Oh yes, where else do stories begin?”

Miles gave her a sidewise glance, but she just smiled unapologetically in return.

The librarian sniffed, inhaling a thousand dusts, cleared his throat, unwound the twine binding the book – slowly, no less – and opened the blank cover. Making a surprised and satisfying sound as he found the letters on the first page, he looked up expectantly.

“My Team: the Inquisitors,” he pronounced. Then to himself, “That’s Shelty’s handwriting.” He turned the page. Seeming to have forgot he had visitors, the librarian carefully reviewed the beige, holey text, letter by letter. He sighed, then went on. “We were commissioned by Lord Vaulkner on the eighth of Sevren, 389 After the Dragon… it was a Lunasday.” With his face low, he turned the page. “There were five of us, a good number: not too many, not too few. You want enough on a Team to have each other’s backs, but not too many that you have to divide the treasure with.” The light glinted off his glasses as he hoarsely laughed.

Miles sat back and folded his arms. “I suppose you were the Inquisitor’s fearless leader?”

“No…” the librarian responded, practically sniffing his page. “I was the scroll handler.”

So, the sole survivor of the only Team to have found the Pool of the Dead was a pack mule: usually the youngest who carried the extra scrolls? The story suddenly became humorous, if not interesting.

“Of course,” the old man continued, “we set out to find the Cradle of Civilization, as mentioned by the holy texts, as many Adventurers do. But that was not what we found.”

Bursting with anticipation, Miles asked, “What’s it like? The Pool?”

The librarian sat still for a moment, deep in memory. “Strange,” he finally answered. “It’s… made, as though by human hands. There are doors…”

“And the Pool? What is it?”

Meeting Miles’ eyes, the librarian answered, “It is a window; a window to death. It’s mistress met me there as I gazed into the waters.”

The Mistress of the Dead was an exhilarating name. Miles was practically salivating. “And did you get to talk to someone?”

“Yes.”

Miles skin bumped all over his arms. His face tingled.

“I asked to speak to Quinn, the Lightning Bearer.” The librarian turned several pages and reviewed them with a careful eye, slowly tracing each line with a wrinkled finger.

Somehow, Elle sat calmly, her only awe a half-smile stuck on one side of her lips. Otherwise, she remained still and quiet.

Miles, on the other hand, was pressing his fists into the counter with anticipation. His face retained that practiced bored look, he insured.

“I asked to speak to Quinn, and the Mistress of the Dead went away, and Quinn came instead.” The librarian looked up with fear and embarrassment. “I haven’t told anyone what he said.”

The old man had better spill the story.

Reaching out, Elle took the librarian’s hand, and squeezed it. “I would like to know what he said, Mister Librarian. I promise, I will believe you.” She turned to Miles, “Won’t we, Miles?”

Miles nodded, even though the promise was dependent on what the old man said.

The librarian looked between them, then turned to Pilgrim, who had now lowered the huge book, showing that he had the feminine features of a noble’s brat. Without a word, the boy nodded, and the librarian continued. “When I told Quinn what the stories said about him, he laughed. He said that History had been kind to him. And then…”

Yes?

“And then…” The old man hesitated.

….

“He told me that in his time, before the dragon came, there were no monsters.”

The room went silent.

“No monsters?” Miles asked, incredulously.

The librarian nodded, ashamedly. “And there were no Scrolls of Power.”

Ridiculous. There had always been monsters, and there had always been Scrolls of Power. Sitting back, dissatisfied, Miles asked, “Did he say where they came from?”

“You won’t believe me,” the old man replied, fearfully. “I knew no one would believe me.”

“I believe you,” Miles insisted, though he didn’t in the least. But the story hadn’t ended yet and he didn’t want the old man to leave a loose end like that.

“You don’t!”

“We do! Don’t we Elle?”

Reliably, Elle nodded vigorously.

Miles craned his neck and found Pilgrim, “We believe him, Don’t we Pilgrim?”

Pilgrim nodded, sternly, the scarf bending at his chin. That was good, the brat was useful for something, then.

Shifting his eyes and failing to start two times, the librarian wrung his hands and finally took a breath. “I asked Quinn where the monsters and scrolls came from. He said the goddess put them there.”

He must have dementia. But the story was fantastic. “Why did the goddess make monsters and scrolls?”

The old man replied, quietly, “Quinn didn’t know. Neither did the other dead men and women that my Team spoke to.”

It was a deplorable anticlimactic ending. Miles looked out the window, bored. Citizens passed by the sunlit glass, totally unaware that this bookstore and its librarian even existed.

Elle leaned in. “Show us the way.”

After shuffling through another stack of papers, Pilgrim pointed to a crate at the base of one of the shelves. The old man retrieved a beige and soiled parchment, folded in quarters, and returned to the desk. His timid hands unfolded the thick paper, revealing contours and landmarks that rivaled the map posted on the News Boards, and ordained by the city’s own cartographer, Pilgrim.

Pilgrim?

Miles turned to the boy sitting against the shelf. “Pilgrim!”

The boy just stared back with big doe-eyes.

“Hush, Miles,” Elle responded, and put her hand on his forearm.

Did anyone care that the city’s cartographer was here, and not to mention he wasn’t even fifteen years old?

But Elle’s touch brought Miles to her.

“Let him finish,” she sweetly insisted.

Well, if she was going to ask like that...

The three of them pored over the map as the librarian pointed. “See this star? It’s Sceindar City.” He traced a faded pencil line with the tip of his index, going due southwest. “We know that the Cradle of Civilization is far to the south, so we headed this way, which is already known.”

The map was a bit outdated, but surprisingly there were few additions to the modern maps compared to this fifty-year-old one. Had there been so little progress since then?

Pilgrim hadn’t joined in the map analysis, yet. Miles tuned to him. “Don’t you want to see this?”

Through the thick scarf, his answer was muffled. “I’ve already read it.”

The librarian waved his wrist. “Pilgrim has been studying my map collection for two years. She knows more about the world than Team Kistador.”

“She?” Miles replied. “Pilgrim is a girl?”

“Of course she’s a girl!” Elle replied.

“Right,” Miles mumbled. He didn’t want to linger on the fact that he hadn’t known, and looked intently at the map again with the others.

The old man traced his Team’s journey through the charted fields and forests, and where there was an O, that indicated a monster attack. But the further south the line went, the narrower the land features became, surrounded by empty and unmarked land until only the line remained with a few trees or hills on either side.

Looking up as the librarian explained, Miles developed a new sense of respect for him: he had gone with only a small Team to places unknown. Killed monsters, traversed dangerous forests and mountains, found a new village, and collected scrolls, gold, and even an Artifact. Altogether, he had been an astounding Adventurer. So what happened to make him turn to a life of hermitude, locked away in a small shop where only those in pursuit of fairy-elf tales and rumor would find him?

“And that’s when the slamnders found us,” the librarian quietly said.

“What’s a slamnder?” Miles gulped.

After a moment of failing to describe them other than, “big, pale-skinned, and akin to apes,” Pilgrim stood, picked a book out of a pile, and came and lay it on the table atop the map. She flipped through the pages, and Miles glimpsed a myriad of horrendous and terrifying creatures.

The image, drawn in charcoal, was divined from nightmares. The monster, as huge as a horse, had no eyes and its skin seemed like that of a pig. But its arms were outstretched from the tree which it clung to. Great claws on its fingers and toes anchored it to a thick branch. And its mouth was round and tusked.

It seemed more lizard-like than ape.

“And that’s what killed your friends?” Elle asked.

The old man nodded. “In the deep and forgotten places of the world, the beasts grow strong. My Team had discovered this fact along the way, and that is why we decided to return to Sceindar City from the Pool, and not pursue the Cradle of Civilization. But I was the only one who returned.”

Miles found that suspicious: how could the pack mule make it out alive, but not the Team leader? “How did you survive?”

The old man hesitated. Slowly removing his spectacles, he rubbed his eyes. “Is there salvation for me?” he whispered. Then, answering, the said, “I had all of our scrolls. I ran.”

He was a coward, then? Miles folded his arms and glared.

The old librarian finished his story: with a satchel full of Protection and Teleportation scrolls – and more – the coward fled all the way back to the city where he sold the rest of his treasures to buy this shop while his friends were slaughtered. He was the absolute worst kind of person. And he seemed to know it.

With his head bowed, and his eyes no longer meeting Miles’, the old man slumped in his chair.

Silence followed, and the flickering lantern above made shadows dance on the table. After a moment, Elle spoke up softly. “I’m sorry for your friends. I do think there is salvation. Not only for you, but for anyone who has the conscience to ask for it. When you meet your friends in paradise, they will forgive you.”

That was touching and all, but it didn’t bring Miles any closer to seeing Nyx one last time. “Can we have the map?”

The librarian lifted his hand, still depressed and looking at the floor. “Yes, but Pilgrim has a better one. She’s made one that the city won’t publish, though I know it’s good.”

Miles turned to the boyish looking girl beside the librarian, expectantly.

“It’s my map,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

The last thing Miles wanted to do today was argue with a child.