Chapter 42: The Athenaeum (Part 2).

Ren led me past the librarian and into the main atrium. Since first waking up in this new world, this was perhaps the only time I had felt something akin to excitement. The hunger burned in me. The first thing I noticed was the smell…or rather, the lack of one. The Athenaeum smelled no different from the grounds outside. Nothing like a place with this many books should have. This place was also, from what I could see, largely empty. Fools. To have such knowledge and not seek it.

“So,” Ren said, turning on her heel to face me. “We’re here. Now what the hell do you want to read?”

“Everything.”

Ren stared at me. “That doesn’t explain anything!”

I did not elaborate. After all, my answer was true. Ren groaned, threw her hands up, and started walking. I followed. She would know this place better than I. So for now, I would follow.

She led me toward one of the spiral staircases. As we stepped onto it, the lower steps held firm beneath our weight while the upper flight detached from the wall entirely. I watched it swing through the open air, expand and then reconnect to a different balcony, two floors above. “How does this contraption know where you are going?” I asked.

“You just think of the floor you want before you step on. It does the rest. Takes a bit of getting used to, I guess.” Ren was already climbing, not looking back.

“This is a strange place. Are all of these Academies like this?”

“Just this one, I think. This place was built even before the Academy itself. Maybe the Academy was built around it? I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention when Inker Mayen was droning on and on about this.” Ren shrugged. Not for the first time, did I wonder just whose bright idea it was to have this girl be our guide in this place.

We walked up. It was smooth and stable, even as something inside me was not. There was a pulse from my core, sharp enough that my hand went to the railing before I could stop it. I dropped my hand immediately. The girl had not noticed. I kept climbing.

Ren led me to a quiet section on the second balcony, where the shelves stretched in rows that were clearly longer than the building should have allowed from the outside. She pulled out her small wooden card and held it up. “So…what the hell do you want to actually read?”

I stared at her. Then at the wood she was holding up. “What do you think you are going to do with that thing?”

“Right. Maybe I should have brought you here first,” Ren muttered. She shook her head. “Anyway, you’re just supposed to…think of what you want and channel into the card. The book comes to you.” She said this as if explaining something to a child.

“And what if I do not know what I want?”

“You think of like…a subject. Or a kind of book.” Ren said. “Usually you’d know the title, but this place is pretty good at figuring out what you want to know even if you don’t.”

This…Athenaeum was now the most strange place I had seen since waking up. Not the strangest I had ever seen in general -that list was long and stranger still. “That is rather convenient,” I muttered. Why had the Black Archive not had such a system? It would have saved me years of wasted time.

“So?” Ren tapped the card against her palm. “What’ll it be?”

“This world’s current structure would be a start,” I said, arms folded.

Ren paused. “So…like…history or…geography?” She groaned. “Damn that’s so boring. I expected something at least a little fun at least.”

“That will come in time.”

Ren sighed and channeled Essence into the card. I watched the process. There was a brief pulse from the small device, and then there was nothing. “Where is it?” I asked.

“It takes a bit depending on where it’s shelved. Be patient. What, you think it’s gonna fly to you?”

“Yes.”

Ren paused. “Err…yeah I guess it is.” I tried not to sigh. We both looked at each other and waited. A book drifted down from somewhere far above us a few seconds later, settling into the air at arm’s reach. Ren caught it and handed it to me. “See?”

So it really had come. I took the volume, checked the title. It was a general history of the last three hundred years. There was no author listed. It seemed this strange place really could read intent. I looked from the book to Ren. “Why do you not simply give me your card then? I can find something more suitable on my own.”

Ren shook her head. “You’re not supposed to let other people use your card. It becomes a pain in the ass if they find out.”

“You should be willing to endure pain for your Queen.”

Ren shoved a finger out at me. “Hey, I already brought you here!”

I did not dignify this petty outburst with a response. There was a single empty table to our side. We sat down. I opened the book and began to read.

The world had changed in ways both larger and smaller than I had expected.

The continent today was divided between three factions. The first was the Covenant -the small coalition of kingdoms I now found myself within. The Kingdom of Arianeth, where Koralis sat, was one of several bound together by shared faith in someone called the Divine. Then, there were the Kingdoms of Solvenne to the South, and Trestie to the North.

The Covenant was a religious faction. It was technically one of several, but it was by far the largest, to the point where the others only had the briefest of mentions. The Inker had not been lying about this, at least.

The Divine, to my considerable surprise, was a living being. One who resided in the Kingdom of Trestie. I found this deeply suspicious. In my time, a God might have backed a Kingdom, but never openly. Some of them used figureheads, but none would walk about freely. Was this ‘Divine’ one such figurehead then? They had been alive for hundreds of years, which was not impossible for several races, but still.

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The second power on this continent was the Mandate -a militaristic empire led by a woman called the Godqueen Seraphelion. I counted the syllables of her name. There were five of them, one more than my own name. I found this both amusing and offensive. To think that a mere human would claim to a name that fine.