Chapter 3

The day after Mera had shown him the armory, she came into his room and woke him just as the walls were starting to illuminate. She had warned him of their “dawn” departure, but he was used to early marching times with the army.

The night before, they had prepared several portable meals that would keep throughout the day. Mera planned on a short excursion for his first day and had kept the menu small and light. With their food packed and both of them armed, they rode the lift to another of the mid-shaft doorways.

By an unspoken mutual agreement, they remained quiet throughout the morning hike; speaking only when necessary to pass information. Ashur was mentally preparing for what lay ahead of them while Mera seemed to be deep in thought. The tall soldier wondered if she was having some doubts about having him come along but with her face and skin unreadable, he resigned himself to following along with her.

The other reason for his taciturn demeanor was due to his constant attention on one of the three Library maps that he kept about him. He knew that, should he lose sight of his azure guide, the maps would be his only way of finding a way back to more familiar areas. It still amazed him to watch the images and words on the folded paper move and change as they traversed from one area of the Library to another.

After several hours of walking, the map seemed to go blurry on one edge. The writing was fuzzy and distorted on the side that corresponded to their destination. When he showed Mera, she had nodded and explained.

“Remember when I said that the Library is now bordered by other planes and realities? The map cannot keep up since it is tied to the space that the Library occupies. As we get into the overlapping areas, we are both inside and outside the Library at the same time and the map gets confused.”

Thinking that the map wasn’t the only one, Ashur folded it up and stowed it into a pocket. As part of outfitting him for these jaunts, Mera had given him clothing that was more appropriate for what they would need. His new trousers had several pockets sewn very neatly into the legs while the shirt and vest had more along the breast and sides. The stitching of the pockets was strong and intricate and the soldier was still getting used to them. It felt strange not to have a pouch or two hanging from his belt and bumping on his thighs. He had caught himself stopping to see if he had dropped them several times during their morning walk only to remember that he had used the pockets. When he had joked about this, Mera had simply shaken her head sadly and murmured, “So much lost.”

Now, as they moved further into the muddled area between the Library and some unknown place, Mera slowed and became more alert. She stopped often and looked around the edges of bookcases or moved circumspectly around common reading areas. The juxtaposition of soft, deep chairs and intricately designed tables with the stalking woman’s demeanor made her actions surreal and conveyed the gravity of their situation more than if she had simply told him to be careful. Taking the cue, he mimicked her movements and went from “soldier” to “hunter” in the space of a few heartbeats. As if she had felt the change in him, she turned to look back and nodded her approval.

Silently, they roved through the aisles with eyes moving back and forth looking for danger. What kind of danger, Ashur had no clue, but, having seen what had happened to Mera, he knew it was quite real. Working with decades of experience hunting and foraging while on long patrols, he watched for movement between the shelves and listened for anything above the soft susurration of their breathing and foot falls.

And so, they both heard the clicking of claws on stone floor. Ashur whipped his new sword from its sheath and activated the shield on his arm. Bracing himself for the fight, he saw Mera remove a small glass globe from the folds of her skirt as she stepped up beside him. It looked much like the one the female half of the giant statue held, but any further curiosity was pushed from his mind as the source of the clicking stalked around the corner of a bookcase.

The soldier almost took a step back from the monstrosity. It had seen them and started stalking forward on six large legs. The beast held its long scaled snout low to the ground and sniffed the air in their direction. Overlapping plates of thick green made up its hide and they moved across each other with the creature’s movements. Once, it had cleared the corner, Ashur could finally see the entirety of what they faced. From snout to tail tip, it was no more than ten feet long, however the mis-proportioned thing stood nearly six feet at the shoulder. The strange monster waved its stocky head back and forth on an elongated neck as if to see them with both eyes which were set in either side.

Ashur braced himself to run forward to fight but was held back by Mera’s hand on his arm. “Wait,” she said. Holding up the globe, she stared intently at the approaching animal. It stopped in midstride as the ball in the woman’s hand began to glow. Growling, the creature shook its head as if to clear something away, but, as the light intensified, both growling and shaking stopped. After a few moments, it stumbled backwards; obviously confused. Finally, it turned and retreated back among the shelves.

As the illumination in Mera’s hand faded, Ashur relaxed slightly, but still remained ready should the strange beast return. The caretaker returned the globe to her dress and nodded with satisfaction. When she saw that he was splitting his attention between her and the receding clicking, she patted the air between them to reassure him.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Right now, that poor thing is really pining for home and will follow the path I gave it back to wherever that is.” At his confused look, she pulled the globe free again and held it up. “Part of the magic of the caretakers is in a manipulation of sorts. The female half can work with the thoughts and emotions of others since we are more attuned to them. The male half tends to work more with the body and its workings.” She shrugged a bit and put the glass ball away. “There is a bit of overlap which is how I can speed up my own regeneration, though not nearly as fast as Colphon could. On the other hand, he could only receive impressions of other’s emotions where I can change thoughts and desires if needed.”

She waved in the direction of their recent visitor. “Simpler minds are easier to work with. I implanted our friend there with a desire to go home and put the directions in his head. I’ve found it’s a much cleaner and less exhausting way to work.”

With that, she turned and resumed her patrol. Eight more times that day, they ran across similar animals; all of which Mera was able to connect with and send home. They eventually called a halt to have a quick lunch.

“If you can bend minds to your will, how were hurt so badly?” Ashur asked. “Did something catch you by surprise?”

“No,” she admitted. “The wounds you saw weren’t from any meandering animal. In a few days, we’ll actually need to go back to that area and make certain that the entity that got me truly is gone.” She leaned against a bookcase and sighed deeply. “Not all of the beings that wander into the Library’s space are as benign as what we have faced today. To be honest, I’ve been dealing with these hexapeds for about fifty years or so when, I’m guessing, they migrated into the area where the spaces overlap. I’m not sure what reality they come from, but they’re basically harmless.”

Pulling up her skirt to look at her newly healed foot, the caretaker wrinkled her nose. “The damage you saw was from something more powerful and definitely malevolent. It was looking for a way to cross over to another plane and this happened to be the first opening it found. I’ve run into many of those over the centuries and, let me tell you, they are not fun. I was fortunate that my first encounter with something that strong was around three hundred years after the cataclysm and I’d had some experience to fall back on.”

Finishing her inspection, Mera rose to her feet and extended a hand to help the soldier rise. “Those that are vicious or ambitious enough to attack once they get here are usually mentally strong enough to have some sort of resistance to my attacks. At that point, I have to fall back on the Lexicon. Last time, I didn’t see the need fast enough and it got me before I could react. Fortunately, I was far enough into the Library that my magic was still at its strongest.”

She shrugged and continued on. “We shouldn’t see anything like that today.”

For the rest of the day, they followed the route laid out in Mera’s head and, as the ever present light started to dim, they had returned to the area where Ashur’s map had started to go fuzzy. They took another break to eat a cold dinner before heading back to the lift. By the time they reached the house, the only illumination they had was from a cone shaped device that Mera had produced from her pack.

Turning the house wall-lighting on, they shuffled to the bathroom and showered separately before falling asleep in their respective beds. Ashur slept dreamlessly and woke early the next morning. Apparently, going on a sort of patrol had returned him to a military sleep schedule.

When Mera emerged from her room, he had already made breakfast and replaced the provisions they had used the day before. Her eyes lit up at having the warm meal before setting out and gave him a kiss on the cheek as she gathered the dishes. “Today will be much easier,” she told him. “We don’t have to go as far.”

This time, she took them through the same door as yesterday, but their trek lasted for only an hour before she resumed her quiet stalking movements. The day proved to be uneventful and they returned in time to enjoy another hot meal before once again retiring to separate rooms.

After a few days of short excursions, Mera felt comfortable enough to take him on longer patrols. With no weather to deal with, they were able to make do with simple bedrolls and cooked their food over a simple ring on a stand that Mera could heat with a Word. On the morning before their first overnight, she had shown him her equipment for extended circuits and he had been amazed. The soldier had joked that she must have a magical canteen with unlimited water somewhere as he filled his own from the kitchen sink. His companion had laughed and shaken her head. He had automatically been a bit concerned about their water supply until she told him how to find the small fountains that had been placed in some of the reading areas for visitors. “We knew that most people would be searching the shelves for hours, so we put in amenities,” she explained. She also showed him how to find the one-person bathrooms that contained a toilet and sink very like the one in the house. He had been slightly disappointed by the prosaic solutions but was glad to have them when needed.

His only disappointment with the outing was in the scenery. He was growing to miss being outdoors and, while their single day trips had seemed like he was just wandering around a big building, walking around for days between the ever-present bookshelves was odd. Curious, he asked Mera how she coped with it.

“I used to miss it,” she said. “There are a few places where the overlaps are in rather beautiful groves and waterfalls, but I’ve never felt comfortable relaxing in those areas because they are away from the Library proper.” She sighed. “I’d like to, but it’s hard to take a nap under a tree when you don’t feel safe. Over time, I think I just got used to being in here.”

When the light began to fade on their first night, Mera found a nearby reading nook, called a halt for the day and started to set up camp. She showed him how to unfold small squares of brown cloth into bedrolls and set up her heating ring. After they had eaten, it was dark enough that Mera had brought out her hand torch.

“I have to say,” Ashur commented, “this is one of the nicer places I’ve had to camp out in. Granted the floor is hard, but at least I don’t have to worry about a stray rock sticking into my side. I’m getting too old to sleep well that way.”

He lay on his back and looked up into the mist above the bookcases. Nearby, he heard movement, but paid it no mind since it was coming from the direction of Mera’s bedroll.

“Do you ever meet people when you travel?” he asked. “I mean, the creature from the other day was basically like a cow or a wolf and I’m assuming the thing that attacked you is a lot like a bear or something, but do you ever actually meet thinking and reasoning folk?”

The rustling from her bedroll stopped. He would have looked at her, but her positioning meant that he would have had to crane his head at too awkward of an angle, so he continued to gaze into the distance.

“I do... , “ she replied hesitantly. “You’re right to call the six-legged critter a cow, but the thing that attacked me would be more like a demon. Where a bear strikes out of hunger or defense, it attacked me with malevolence and rage. I meet more of those than I’d like, but not many.”

She stopped for a few moments. Ashur assumed she was gathering her thoughts so let the silence linger.

“I do come across a few higher functioning beings that you could call “people” and I can even understand a few of them. Most often they have stumbled into the overlap and are wandering lost and frightened. I do my best to help them return to their home without much interaction. It’s rare and quick so I don’t really get to have the feeling that I met someone. Often enough, I can get them on their way in five minutes or so. None have ever tried to return though I sometimes wish they would.”

A long sigh came from her direction.

“Until you came along, I really had no one to talk with. If nothing else, thanks for that.”

“Well,” he chuckled,” I don’t know how good of a conversationalist I’ve been, but you make it easy. I feel comfortable with you and like to see you happy. To be honest, I decided a while ago that I wanted to do as much for you as possible before I left so that you would have a few good memories to keep.”

As he said those words, however, Ashur knew that he was lying a little. He didn’t want her to have only a few memories. He wanted to stay and help her; keep her company. He felt protective of this poor lonely woman and wanted to be there for her. He was coming to consider her a friend. Their occasional sexual dalliances had helped, but he knew better than to equate them with some sort of infatuation.

No, he wanted to stay here in this fantastic library and stand by her side. Mera was beautiful, intelligent, caring, and strong in her own right. She might not need him to be her protector since she had proven that she could look after herself over the centuries, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t bring her more happiness by being her friend. For the first time since she had firmly told him that she would be sending him back, he began to wonder if he could convince her to let him stay.

His thoughts stuttered to a halt at the soft noise coming from Mera. This time he turned and looked over to see her turned away from him. Her body shook and he thought he could hear muffled tears. He cursed his loose tongue for reminding her that he was leaving and made his way to her side. Kneeling down and putting his hand on her shoulder, he tried to figure out how to ease her mind.

“Look,” he started lamely,” I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad or anything. I just meant that...” Whatever he was about to say was lost when her lips met his. Focused on his apology, he hadn’t registered her quick movement until she was on him. Her arms wrapped around his neck and held tightly as she kissed him. He could taste her tears as they flowed down her cheeks. His own arms encircled her just to keep his balance until he realized her intent. He wasn’t certain what brought this on, but he certainly wasn’t going to complain.

Her kisses grew more passionate and she started pawing at his clothes while trying to remove her dress at the same time. He would have found that amusing if her actions hadn’t instantly aroused him. In just a few short seconds, he was kissing her back just as fervently. Never one to turn down good sex, he helped her with her dress and started to get his own clothes off. She fumbled at his pants with little mews of frustration when her hands couldn’t get them off fast enough.

He gently batted her hands away and lifted his hips. Pulling down both trousers and armor at the same time, he tossed them to the side while still keeping contact with her lips. Their tongues fought back and forth noisily in the darkness of the aisle accompanied by soft grunts and groans as they shifted positions.

As soon as he was free of his pants, the panting woman raised herself up and grabbed hold of his cock. She broke away to stare into his eyes as she rubbed the head along her lips. He felt her lubrication dripping down onto him, but it was short lived. As soon as the tip of him was covered in her juices, she rammed herself full onto him. Grabbing the back of his head, she resumed their heated kissing and thrust her hips back and forth against his pelvis. He felt her use his neck as leverage and grabbed her hips to help her frantic gyrations.

She never lifted up but ground her clit against his pubic bone while moving his penis inside her. He felt the heat of her passion and exertion radiate from her skin. It wasn’t long before she clamped down around him and hummed tremulously into his mouth as her first peak crested over her. She shook and shuddered and he felt the tremors move through her body in waves.

Expecting her to slow down after her first climax, he was surprised when she kept going as soon as her body would let her. She threw her head back while still clinging to him and he watched swells of pink wash over her skin. Content to let her move as she needed, he enjoyed the show and the feeling of her cream flowing down his scrotum and ass.

Then she came a second and third time. He was afraid she would snap his neck as her back arched away from him and she hissed through clenched teeth. When she started to come down, he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her closer to him. Her body resisted at first, but he drew her into his chest. Her hips were still grinding away at him as if of their own accord.

Bringing her lips back to his, he reached around behind her and seized her ass. By now, he was starting to get close and wanted her to peak at least one or two more times before he finished. Reaching around her, he was able to get the fingers of one hand underneath them both to touch where they were connected. Her thrusting helped and he coated them in her slippery fluids. She seemed not to notice what he was doing until he starting to rub around her other entrance.

She jumped then but pushed back as if inviting him to do more. Encouraged, he stroked in circles around her opening until it started to loosen. When the tip of his middle finger entered her, she seized his shoulders and pushed back harder. Most of his finger slid past the tight ring of her ass. Still thrusting with her hips, she buried her face into his neck and grunted several times. Ashur felt the flood of her peak squirt between their bodies until she started slamming her sex up and down on him at which point it sprayed everywhere.

Mera’s voiceless moans transformed into a steady stream of “Oh, yes! Oh, yes! Yes, yes, yes, please, please, oh yes!” Her hard thrusting and the litany of her begging chant soon brought him to the edge. She must have felt him growing close. Reaching behind her, she grasped the hand of his penetrating finger and pushed it in as far as was physically possible.

“Fill me,” she cried. “Please! I need to feel you cumming in me! Do it! Do it!” She slammed down once more and he came. His muscles seized again and again as he filled her with his seed. His finger slipped from her as he grabbed her hips and pulled her down onto him as hard as possible. Breathing in sharp grunts, he held her tightly until he was spent.

Once he was able to see again, he looked down to see his lover collapsed against his chest, her face still nuzzled into his neck. She was making small happy noises. He finished pulling off his shirt and the armor beneath it so that she was resting against his bare chest. Bracing himself with a hand on the floor, he chuckled when he saw the puddle beneath them. It spread out and had soaked part of the unconscious woman’s bedroll.

Rolling them both over so that she rested on her back, he extricated himself from between her legs. She made a small noise of negation when his softening member slid from her, but it was momentary. Giving her a soft grin, he grabbed a cloth and headed for the nearest of the amenity bathrooms. Part of him was subconsciously aware that he was walking around a public building naked, but he chuckled to himself again and ran warm water to dampen the cloth.

Once he had cleaned himself a bit, he returned to his slumbering companion and gently wiped her down. Letting the puddle and her bed dry on their own, he picked her up and settled her into his. She turned onto her side and curled up under the blanket with a sleepy, contented little smile.

Ashur woke the next morning to the smell of food. Unsure if a guard was needed, he had stood watch through the night until the day’s trek and their sexual exertions had started to weigh heavily on his eyelids. He had curled up next to Mera then and fallen asleep.

She smiled brightly when she saw him move and stirred the eggs she was cooking.

“Good morning!” she chirped. He laughed inwardly a bit at her bubbling energy, returned her grin, and headed to the bathroom. When he returned, she had plated the food and was inhaling her portion.

“A little hungry?” he teased. “I can’t imagine why.”

She snorted and bits of egg flew out between her teeth. She clapped a hand over her mouth and mock glared at him. His laughter filled the aisleway as she did her best to clean up the specks of food, her eyes shining with her own mirth.

They continued their route that day with only one encounter and that was a quiet deer-like animal that shied away as soon as it noticed them. Fortunately, Mera already had her sphere out and ready. Moments later, the skittish thing moved past them purposefully, its path home firmly in its mind.

They returned to the house and their previous routine. They continued this way for several more days until, one morning, Mera came to the breakfast table with a somber look.

“Today, we’re heading back to where I was hurt. I need to be sure that thing is dead. I’m not certain if there will still be a body, but we have to check. You’ll need to pack for at least a three-day journey. Ideally, it should only be a two-day trip, but I want to spend a full day looking for evidence.”

Ashur nodded and went into his room to repack. In addition to the determined look she had shown, there had been a hint of sadness that he couldn’t quite place. In the time that he had been here, he had come to know the lonely, ageless woman but, for the life of him, was stymied by the small bit of melancholy.

To Ashur’s surprise, Mera took him back to the floating platform that had brought him to the Library from his dirt cell. Knowing what was in store, he had asked how long they would be traveling in the grey, formless space. She warned him that it might be the better part of a day, so he packed a book to her wry amusement.

“What if I want some company while we’re traveling?” she had teasingly asked. Her laughter when he told her that he had gotten in trouble for disturbing her last time filled the living area for some time. She had patted his arm and stuffed an additional book in his pack. His understanding of her language was still mostly rudimentary, but he liked to challenge himself with harder material. He was a bit sad that all of this effort and learning would vanish in a short time, but was enjoying the learning process, nonetheless.

Mera proved true to her word. He had read almost a tenth of the thick book and was starting to get hungry when she looked up from the podium on the platform for the first time. When he understood that she was taking a break from directing the trip, he pulled some of their food and water from the pack and held it out to her.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile, enjoying her meal. “This part of the trip isn’t really all that complex, so it becomes really monotonous after a while.” When he asked if she could teach him to maneuver the platform like the lift, she shook her head. “Maybe with some time, but we really don’t have that much...” Her voice wound down as if reminded of something and the sadness he had seen back at the house had returned. The blue in her skin had deepened as well. Without another word, she returned to the podium and resumed their journey. By now, he knew her well enough that she would probably not respond to probing about her reaction at the moment, so he resolved to ask her about it later and returned to his book.

Ashur realized that he had dozed off when he felt a gentle hand on his cheek. “We’re here, barbarian,” Mera whispered. “It’s time to walk again.”

“Oh, good,” he mused wryly, rising to his feet. “I like to walk.” When he looked around, he saw that they were somewhere that resembled the walkway that he had seen when she had first released him from his cell. This time, however, the rails weren’t of solid metal, but of chain.

“How far are we from where I first came in?” he asked. Mera waggled her hand in the space between them.

“The concept of distance really has no meaning in this context. We are here and we are now. That’s about the best that I can describe it without somewhere around twenty years to teach you all of the theories you’d need to know.

“From here, however, we walk.” She patted his arm and set off down the walkway.

Ashur had expected their trek to be long, but they had reached the end of the walkway in short order. When they arrived, Mera turned to the right and opened a door only ten feet away from the junction. The soldier expected to see a hallway much like the one that had led to his cell, but this one opened into a wide room with several more doors; one of which she approached. There were several bolt locks on the door and Mera slowly unlatched each of them before carefully pulling the door towards her. Before it was even partially ajar, her manner changed to huntress once again.

This surprised him since he had expected to travel further before reaching the area of concern. With practice built from the last few days of patrol, he followed her to the door carefully and quietly. She looked around briefly and pushed it shut before he could see what was on the other side. Once it was closed, she slid all of the bolts home again with great force.

“I was going to just start looking, but I think it would be better to do that when we are fresh. We’ll stay here the night and then begin the search in the morning. I want to be rested if I have to face that thing again.”

They set up their bedrolls and the small tripod heating unit to cook their evening meal. Preparations were made with few hiccups since they had been getting practice working together. Once they had eaten, they quietly sat on their beds. Mera was pensive and slightly withdrawn and looked as though she was going to speak but stopped herself and returned to whatever was troubling her. For his part, Ashur tried to speculate where her thoughts were taking her. Eventually, to break the silence, he spoke up.

“Listen,” he started,” we’re going to have a busy day tomorrow, I think, so I just wanted to thank you for everything so far. I’ve enjoyed learning about this place and being with you. I ... uh ... Look, if I don’t get another chance, I just wanted to say that. Thank you.” He searched for something more to say, but everything else he came up with just seemed like random babbling. With her seeming so lost in thought, he wasn’t expecting an answer and was surprised when her voice came across the space to him.

“You’re welcome. I’ve ... ah ... I’ve enjoyed it too.” With that, she drew into herself even more and curled up in her blankets soon after. He watched her for a long time and could see that she wasn’t asleep. After a while, he started to come up with arguments and reasons for her to let him stay. She hadn’t put up much of a struggle when she let him convince her to help with patrols, but that had been for a short-term arrangement and he was hoping for something much longer. For a long time, he thought of one rationale or incentive after the other and rejected them all.

In the end, he knew that he wasn’t the Chosen One she was looking for nor was he of the first races so he couldn’t use her kind of magic. Ultimately, he probably would end up killed in one of these encounters because he was merely human. He sighed and wished things could be different. Holding onto that thought, Ashur curled up and slipped into a restless sleep.

The next morning, both of them ate breakfast and tidied up their camp without tearing it down. Whether or not they found the corpse of the creature that attacked Mera, they would be returning here before heading back to the house. They were subdued in their actions and spoke little until they were ready to open the door again which Mera did after making certain he was ready.