Chapter Sixty Six

Inigo stood, clutching his head. He blinked as his surroundings came into focus. His ears went back. His face grew fearful. Where was he?

Above him rolled a putrid green sky. A stone path lay beneath his feet, bits of paper littering the masonry. There was murky water all around him. It was silent, with the exception of the echo of the waves. Inigo also heard the sounds of turning pages. He drew his Dawnbreaker, noticing that her light was a bit muffled. He chanced a few steps forward, the shuffling of his feet sounding like an avalanche. He shivered as he walked, eyes ahead for danger.

He narrowly avoided the tentacle that struck at him. It slammed against the path with a sickeningly moist splat. He slashed with his blade, but the appendage retreated too quickly for him to land a blow. The khajiit stared at the water, his weapon shaking in his grip. “What am I doing here? How do I get out of this nightmare?” He spun around, the sound of falling books taking his attention. 

It was now that he truly saw. The books made up most of the terrain. What he had thought strange walls were indeed stranger shelves. Books were stacked on every surface, even the ground. They were propped against doorways, leaning close to the pools and the water’s edges. There were pages littering the place, some catching on columns of air, spiraling as if in a mysterious dance. He made to pick a few pages up, jumping when the voice came to him.

“So… Another seeker of knowledge enters my realm.” The voice was commanding, deep, and passively malicious. “Perhaps you will prove clever enough to uncover the secrets hidden here. If so, welcome.” 

“Mr. Dragonfly, who is that voice?” Inigo spun like a madman. “He does not sound as welcoming as he would have us believe.”

The voice returned, sounding more terse. “Perhaps you are a fool, or a coward. If so, you are in peril. Read your book again and escape,” the voice cracked as it began to fade, “before Apocrypha claims you forever.” 

Inigo’s heart beat as if to escape. He sheathed his weapon, drawing a torch from his pack. The flames gave him a small measure of comfort as he pressed forward. Part of him was compelled to listen to the voice. If all he had to do was read the book again to escape, it would be very simple to leave this musty, disturbing place behind him like a bad dream. However, being called a coward wasn’t something he could ignore. He stepped along the metal walkway, the torchlight revealing hundreds of faded texts on the pages littering the ground. Most of them were far to old and weathered to make out their meanings. He might have delved into them with more interest had it not been for the whispers. They fluttered about in the air, making him question the validity of his solitude. His hand gripped Dawnbreaker. 

“Yes! After all these years a lead! Perhaps I can finally make the connection.” As if by their own accord, a nearby stack of books rose from their table, soaring off into a hallway to the left. Inigo climbed the steps, watching the tomes as they went by. Mr. Dragonfly bounced off the glass of his jar. Inigo nodded. 

“It is strange. It feels as if there are people walking about, but I cannot see them.” He stepped out of the way of a few books as they floated past. “What sorts of magics are at work in this world? And what could be dangerous about a disorganized library?” He was answered by an alien screeching. He narrowly missed being hit by the creature. When he faced it, he fell back in horror. 

It had gray skin. The flesh was like that of a drowned corpse, bloated and slimy. Tentacles hung from its body. They wriggled and twisted as if in possession of their own minds. The monster had no legs, hovering above the stairs by some manner of alteration. It had two arms, with fingernails that rivaled the length of some daggers he had seen. The eyes were many, and blinked separately from one another. It raised its hands, strange sacks on its head flaring and glowing read as magic blaze in its palms. 

Inigo rolled, drawing the holy sword as he stood. He slashed at it, clipping a tentacle as he hissed. “How can you find time to attack me when this place is such a mess?” The beast screamed as the appendage fell to the ground. “Keep it down! People are trying to read here.” The monster raised some of the tentacles of its face. It revealed a frightening mouth, circular, with three rows of teeth. In the center was a beak, covered in a steaming yellow mucus. Inigo lunged, stabbing the orifice with all his might. With a final wail, the monster seemed to melt into a pile of ooze. “Remind me never to complain about Tamriel’s librarians again, Mr. Dragonfly. At least they don’t act like these things.” He stooped down, rummaging through the slime. He found a soul gem, a scroll of fireball, and a copy of ‘Before the Ages of Man’ amid the goo, but little else.  

He pressed on, not entirely sure where he was going. There were steps up, then steps down. Every hallway, every table, every surface, flat or not, was covered in books, notes, and all other manner of script. Nothing was labeled. Every spine was as black as pitch, and every turn revealed another endless collection. He began to feel lost amid the clutter. The only things that seemed to mark the way were stone sculptures. They looked like the mouths of some deep dwelling fish, adorned with jagged teeth and four eyes. Their mouths held orbs of pulsing energy. Sometimes blue, sometimes green, and always unsettling. 

“I wish Gaeolin and Auroth were here…” The Khajiit tucked his ears back, his fur standing on end. “One of them would know something about this wretched place. Enough to find a way through this labyrinth of literature, at least.” The dragonfly at his waist hummed as if in agreement. A strange croaking sound echoed from the hall ahead, Inigo turned away from it, following a pulsing green light down the opposite path. He was almost to the end when he felt the tug at the base of his skull. He froze, knowing immediately what it was. “Gaeolin is trying to summon me!” He stood still, willing the magic to pull him from this unending atheneum. The pull was growing stronger, but something wasn’t right. 

The longer and harder the spell tried to work, the more it felt that the air was growing close. His feet felt heavier, and his body grew stiff. The sky flared a more intense green, pages and scraps of paper crowded around him, wicking away the blue wisps of power that threatened to take him. Inigo slashed with his blade to try and fend them off. But as soon as he succeeded, the summoning stopped. He slouched in resignation. “I suppose it was never going to work. Considering how he had gotten here, a simple conjuration spell would not have been powerful enough. “I’m sorry, my friend. We will have to get by on our own this time.”

The hall opened up into a grotto of books and pools of water. Metal lattices surrounded him. Ahead, on a raised section of the arena was a large spire of twisted, petrified tentacles. A column of green light ascended from it into the sky. Inigo made his way forward slowly, trying his best to stay quiet. He was just preparing to walk around the pool when the water of the pond burst upward.

A huge monster surged out of the mire, towering over Inigo by twice his height. It leered at him, letting out a loud howl. Inigo grabbed a knife from his boot, throwing it at the beast’s face. “You are a big fellow, aren’t you?”

The lurker raised a foot, stomping down with the force of a giant’s club. Tentacles burst from the floor, spraying some sort of gross pus all over. It made the Khajiit feel sick, but he quelled his nausea to fight. He cut his way through the mass of tentacles, cutting just below the monster’s knee. It staggered, falling to the ground. He rushed it, drawing the magical sword across it’s throat. It spluttered, it’s blood pooling beneath it as it began to melt. Inigo backed away, more than ready to be free of this place. 

There was a strange sort of switch, fashioned out of some sort of other worldly flower. He tapped the stamen, watching it retract as a set of stairs emerged out of the wall. He stepped lightly up to the top with his weapon ready. Behind the pillar of tentacles sat a large book. Inigo put away his sword, inching toward it. The cover read ‘The Winds of Change’, made of what looked like some weird variation of leather. It had blisters and scars. He opened it, gasping at what he saw.

Strange text ran across the pages, winding round and round, spiraling into circles of pulsing ink. From the inks rose orbs of green light. A voice spoke in his head, soft and calm. “You have done well to find me. To make it past such creatures takes a focus and bravery that my master has not seen in his realm since ages past.” The script began to flutter, taking different courses over the paper. “I can reward you in different ways, should you wish for the powers I possess.” The orb on the left flared, fading to reveal an image of himself reading a book. “You could accept the insight of a scholar, gaining more knowledge from the books of your world and others than you normally would.” The center orb lit, showing him fighting with his friends. He flinched at the sight of his sword striking Gaeolin in the back. But despite the blow, Gaeolin looked unaffected. “With the Insight of the Pure Companion, your stray attacks, magics, and arrows will never again harm your friends. You will know yourself to be only an ally, never an unwilling traitor.” The right orb glowed, turning to an image of him talking to a bandit girl. As she turned away from him, his blade burst through her chest, her face twisting in pain. “With the Lover’s insight, you will be a deadly force to members of the opposite sex. The women of Nirn will be more susceptible to your blades and attacks.”

Inigo looked at the three orbs. “So, if I take this power, I can hurt ladies more? No, I don’t find that prospect enjoyable.” He looked at the scholarly option, his face grimacing a bit at the idea. Then he settled his view on the center orb.

The power to never hurt his friends again… His memory lept to the past in an instant. He remembered the day, overcast, raining. He tasted the dryness his mouth had back then, felt the craving for that cursed drug flare. He remembered the draw, the water dripping from his hood as he let the arrow sail forth. He could hear the sound Gaeolin had made as his body hit the road, and how fast skooma had fled from his mind. He reached out, putting his hand into the orb. “With this power, I will not fear myself as I have since that day. I accept the Companion’s Insight.”

“Very well.” The light swam up his arm, soaking into his chest. Inigo grinned, closing his eyes as the library melted away. Soon, he stood before the book, at the bottom of the staircase in the barrow beneath Raven Rock. He let out a sigh of relief before making his way up toward the exit.