He scooped up his book, hugging it against his chest the way I hugged Dantaleon against mine. Then he sauntered away from the living room, beckoning.
I followed him to a closed door, puzzled. “I get the strangest feeling I might learn a thing or two from you as well.”
Like an echoing memory, Dantaleon’s voice cackled in the depths of my mind, taunting me. In theory, yes, I could potentially learn so much. Yet at the end of the day, in the pit of my gut, I knew that I would lean on the comforts of casting Ignis and Arma, perhaps with a Grandia thrown in here and there for flavor. I looked over my shoulder at Crystal, who was mopping up eggs and tomato with a crusty piece of bread. My lips pursed with envy, both at the food and the fact that she was so versatile, so diverse in her magic. I should be a dabbler, too.
“You could stand to learn so much,” the old man said, “if only you would open your mind.” He placed his hand on the doorknob, turning to me with a smile, his eyes twinkling. “I sense a stubbornness around you, princeling. You should know that your power could be limitless.”
I shrugged. “I’m nothing without my books, like I’ve had a limb cut off. It’s why I’ve come to you for help.”
He shook his head, his smile dropping. “You still don’t understand.” He pushed the door open, and my breath caught in my throat.
Beyond the door was a desert, miles upon miles of perfect, bleached sand radiating from a glorious oasis. And around the oasis, stretching on into forever, were rows upon rows of shelves, each filled with books.
“My dear boy,” the man said. “The possibilities are endless.”
24
Now this? This was how meeting a god was supposed to go. I took too long to put my eyes back in my head, but the vision was simply majestic.
Rows and rows of bookcases emanated in long, endless lines, running outwards from a crystalline blue oasis, like the spokes of a wheel. Above it all burned a perfect, golden sun, warm against the skin, but the star itself seeming so close in the sky that I could see plumes of flame leap and arc upon its surface.
And for good measure, the god had thrown in some palm trees. I thought I saw a couple of hammocks in the distance, and perhaps something that looked like a beach recliner.
We stood at the center of some great desert library, a marvel that dwarfed my own beloved Repository by several orders of magnitude. My heart twinged with longing, with loss. My soul thrummed with the proximity, with the closeness to so much accumulated knowledge – so much accumulated power.
My hand swept across the room – no, the oasis, logic be damned. “I have to admit, it’s a little hypocritical for you to lecture me about being so dependent on books when you’ve got all of, well, this.”
I stiffened just seconds after those words left my mouth, but I clenched my jaw, prepared to double down if I had to. Bastet was right. I was a petulant brat. It was something I had to work around – or work with, perhaps.
The god narrowed his eyes as he studied me for a scant few seconds. His glasses sparkled in the sunlight, dousing my vision with a splash of yellowish-white. I blinked, and in place of the god was a great bird with a long, hooked beak. I blinked again, and he was in the shape of a man once more.
“Do as I say, not as I do,” the god said, the severity falling from his face as he chuckled. “I have had millennia to commit very many of these books and their spells to memory, dear princeling. But that I could say the same for you. Perhaps you wouldn’t be in this predicament?”
His eyes twinkled as he taunted me, I could swear it. Ouch. He wasn’t wrong, though.
“Interesting how you can keep all these books here and never fear for damage.” I licked the tip of one finger and raised it in the air, realizing too late that I had no idea what I was doing. “Isn’t all this heat going to wreak havoc on the parchment, the leather covers? Not to mention all the humidity.”
The man scowled at me. “Please don’t patronize me. This entire realm is exactly as I crafted it, something to remind me of the old kingdom. The temperature, the sunlight, it has no impact on my collection unless I say it does.”
I nodded, impressed. This was the very definition of a domicile, then, the true home of a god, where they were safest, most powerful, and where they couldn’t be killed. The apartment was just the anteroom. He and Bastet probably shared it. Speaking of which –
“My apologies,” I said. “I should have figured it out sooner. You’re Thoth. The Egyptian god of knowledge.”
“And of magic.” The man’s face broke into a smile as bright as the sun above us. “It sweetens my heart to hear my old name. Not many remember, you know. I heard you and Bastet in the kitchen. She’s absolutely right. Some of the other pantheons are fortunate. Others, not so much. The apartment helps us stay incognito as we maintain what we can of a domicile. Not much ethereal real estate for those of us who have so little power in today’s world, and then there’s the hassle of paying the rent for our piece of terrestrial real estate. Bastet and I have taken to soothsaying to make ends meet, using Tarot cards and crystal balls. Smoke and mirrors, you see, so that our clientele won’t be suspicious when we tell them things about themselves that we already know. All in aid of paying far too much money for far too
