His thick robes were heavy. They stretched down to his shins where they ended in frayed tatters, making them difficult to run in.
Got to get out, Aymeir repeated in his head. Thankfully, he had been able to get the message out. But was it too late?
Surrounding him on both sides were long rows of dark, timber bookcases, as old and as feeble as his body was. They held centuries-worth of scripts, letters, manuscripts, and other writings, now smothered by cobwebs and degrading into dust. Gloom and dark crevices were abundant amongst the long stretches of bookshelves and cabinets.
The Grand Repository was home to hundreds-of-thousands of artifacts and books, stacked across miles and miles of sturdy bookcases. It was the Repository was the grandest and most impressive library in all of Eos, and a sacred place for the Magister’s Imperium.
It was a reliquary of knowledge and history.
But on this night, the Grand Repository was a hunting ground. Magister Aymeir was being pursued.
I knew this would happen. I knew it was only a matter of time.
He pattered ahead into the darkness.
The air was stale, still, and thick with mildew. The library was a dank maze that the Magister was desperately trying to flee into.
It was nearly pitch-black. Despite the pale moonlight shining through the stain glass dome several hundred feet above, and some candles still left around, a dark and foreboding aura had taken hold.
He raced down the seemingly never-ending corridor before him, tightly clutching the old tome in his arm. So dim was it that he could not see the way more than a dozen paces ahead.
The further into the labyrinth he went, the darker it became.
The engraved silver candelabrum that Aymeir gripped in his other hand emitted an orange glow around him, like a protective shield. He knew, however, that he was far from safe.
Behind him, in the blackness, he could hear bookshelves smashing and collapsing, the ear-splitting crunch of wood snapping and books toppling. A shriek resonated out from behind, echoing throughout the glass dome of the inner sanctum of the Repository.
It was a horrific scream, cold and mind-numbing, a scream not of this world. Aymeir feared what was after him.
I must get away. I need to get the tome out of here.
Aymeir pushed ahead through the moonlit dust, his leather sandals scuffing along on the marble floors. He drew in short, desperate breaths as he ran; he could feel his knees weakening-
He tripped.
Within a split-second, Aymeir was falling face-first towards the floor. The tome that was pressed tightly in his arm against his chest went flying forwards, smacking onto the floor, and sliding into the malevolent darkness ahead.
As he collapsed, Aymeir pushed his arms out in front of him to absorb the fall. His body weight came down hard.
Crunch.
His left elbow snapped. Pain rocketed up his frail arm like a burst of fire.
Magister Aymeir, now flat on the floor, rolled to his side, clutching his shattered arm in the other. He cried out; the pain was agonising. It was then he realised what he had tripped over.
Lying frozen on the floor right beside him was a corpse.
Beams of white moonlight broke through the clouds, stripping the darkness away from a lifeless face.
Aymeir recognised the corpse. It was Magister Gideon.
His long white beard had been stained red from the thick blood he had been coughing up as he had lay dying.
His head had nearly been severed whole from his body. The tear through Gideon’s neck was messy and deep, from one side of his jaw down diagonally through his neck. His throat lay exposed, as if something huge had tried ripping the old man’s head off.
Gideon’s eyes were still wide open, his mouth ajar. A mushy, thick pool of red and black coagulated blood surrounded his body.
“Oh, Creator, no,” Aymeir whimpered.
Could Aymeir even believe in the Creator anymore, after all of this? The Imperium had taught him to be open-minded and a critical thinker. He had felt the rampage of speculation grow more intrusive over the years, like an insidious parasite. Every thought he had and everything he learned, he now took with a grain of salt, as he had been trained to do.
Yet, deep down in the pit of his stomach, Aymeir found the last spark of faith he had left and clung on to it like a scared child.
Aymeir closed his eyes solemnly, whispering a quick prayer to the Creator. Forgive me, Gideon. Creator, I hope Lynn is alright.
He gritted his teeth in anguish, tears streaming down his wrinkled face. He used his good arm to prop himself back up to his feet. He knew that the beast that had killed Gideon would soon be upon him if he did not move.
Aymeir came to his senses as he felt the ground beneath him shake. The thing hunting him in the darkness was catching up, fast.
Its footsteps were heavy, determined, shaking the marble floors. It let out another deafening shriek, so loud it made Aymeir wince.
It was then Aymeir remembered.
The tome.
Magister Aymeir grasped for the candelabrum he had dropped, miraculously with one candle still lit. He shuffled ahead to where the tome had been thrown when he had tripped over.
Aymeir drew in another stale breath of unsettled dust as the stomping behind him grew louder.
Where is it? Where is it?
A gust of icy wind blasted through the corridor of bookshelves from behind Aymeir, as chilling as a frozen crypt, and rotten with the stench of decay. It made his eyes water and his breath weak.
Aymeir searched for the old tome, but a myriad of other books and scrolls had made their homes on the floors,
