Realms of the Arcane - Brian M. Thomsen [99]
Wes put the book down again, and took a few deep breaths. The library had been here a lot longer than he had believed, if this story were true. And Wes wasn't even close to the middle of the book yet. He figured that was where the first probationer's story would be, and he hoped the stories would all reach their climaxes in the second half. He was up to five hundred years. The library could be closer to two thousand years old rather than one thousand, as most people believed.
Brother Frederick, the abbot, the visiting scholars, and everything else he should have been attending to were forgotten as Wes returned to his search for the start of the story.
Robar had gone missing two hundred fifty years before Edmund, in a time when the library's expansion had been quite slow. Only a few new volumes were added to the collection each year, and building wasn't a rushed affair. The large rooms in the south wing, and the ornate figures on the south wall, were added then.
Robar had followed Troyan, who had been missing for over four centuries. In Troyan's time, the library's great hall had been built. The original hall was now the accommodation area. Troyan had come to this room and picked up a very flimsy tome with no binding. He had been the one who had taken the book and bound it before he read what was in it.
Reading through all the layers of this twisted story, to the middle of the book, Wes discovered that the first probationer to disappear had been Bairn. He had been taken in by the monks when the library was being established, well over a thousand years ago. The monks had been discussing ways of protecting the library from the dangers of fire, vermin, and ignorant or selfish nobles who would not wish the works to be shared with any who had need of them.
There had been no solution settled on until one night Bairn had a dream in which a messenger from the gods visited him. The messenger told him the library needed a guardian entity, and that entity could only come from the life-force of one who truly believed in what the library stood for, and what it could mean to future generations. Bairn had wondered why he was the one chosen to receive this vision. Surely such an important message should have gone to Alaundo the Seer or one of the monks.
A tenday later, Alaundo made a prophecy that a young man would give himself to the library, to be a part of it forevermore, and that this man would be followed in the years to come by many more. These men would protect the library from all the forces of darkness and evil.
Recognizing the similarities to his dream, Bairn sought an audience with the seer, expecting to be beaten for his insolence. He was surprised when he got his audience the very next day.
The seer and the orphan met for many hours, while both of them had other duties that needed their attention. When the meeting was over, Alaundo left Bairn in his private chambers and instructed the monks that none could enter until the seer returned. When he did return and granted audiences to those he had ignored while he met with Bairn, many asked where the young man was. Alaundo just smiled and did not answer.
In those days, there had been few works in the collection, and the library was small in comparison to today, so Bairn had been able to carry out his task for almost six hundred years before he felt the need to choose a successor.
Now, in the second half of this history of Candlekeep, Wes began to read what happened to each of the following guardians, and how they had been chosen. Troyan had been the first of the probationers to be sent to the reading room, and there hadn't been as many volumes in the hidden chamber then. The shelves were all there, and the table and chair. The book was only a few pages back then, and Troyan had found nothing in it to trouble him. He had read about Bairn's disappearance, and had hoped to make a name for himself as the man who solved that mystery. When Bairn