Meanwhile.
The Great Library
He opened his eyes.
Breath filled his lungs.
Neither of these were supposed to happen, because he was dead.
Thoughts fluttered anew. Was he dreaming? No. There was no such thing for dread souls such as his. Nor was he to find any sort of rest in the next life.
He stared up at a bleak sky, rimmed with towering, swaying bookshelves that stretched endlessly up, like great and terrible claws that raked the sky. Only a second or two after his senses had processed this information did his hand instinctively fly to his chest, diving under the folds of his robe, feeling the hilt of the jagged, cruel sacrificial dagger. There was still time.
He raised it to his neck-
And froze.
He could feel the cold metal against his throat, drawing a thin droplet of blood along its edge from his Adam's apple as it bobbed through a dry gulp.
"Oh my. Such ingratitude."
There was the dull, distant thump of a book closing, and footsteps. A young man watched him from atop a stack of volumes, fingers wound on his knee, his uniform the half-robe, half modern guise of the Directory Alchemic Academy. His features were soft, light, and kindness shone from his face - yet there was a kind of dullness to his eyes, a weariness, rims under the eyes that belied a great and terrible weight that seemed to sag about his shoulders.
"But I had prepared for it. After all, that was what you taught me, wasn't it?"
"Master Lao."
"
Release me." Rasped the former Archbishop of Volkruss, straining with all his might against the invisible chains that bound him. Had his own powers, he thought, been weakened that significantly? He cursed from the depths of his soul the Evil God for not finishing him off! He'd have been better served letting himself be fed to one of those accursed maneaters!
"in time." The youth smiled, serenely.
"First, I imagine you're very curious about what happened-"
"This is not my first resurrection, Scathelocke." Interrupted Lao irritably, feeling the sweat perspiring on his forehead.
"I
choose death. Now,
release me!"
The boy, barely a man called Scathelocke merely watched... and shook his head. Taking another volume from the shelves, he flipped to a certain page, saying airily, unhurriedly.
"Tian Di yet lives."
Lao paused his struggling, body growing still... and closed his eyes, as though in deep thought. What was the emotion that now surged through him, he wondered? Regret?
"And so too, does Kusanagi."
The Archbishop's eyes opened... but, he didn't meet Scathelocke's gaze. He didn't like what he saw - a reminder of his own past. Of a promising student who'd delved too deep, too far - and fallen into maddening, mind-crushing despair. He'd hoped he'd never see him again - that the world would forget and move on, as it always did.
But some things found ways to boomerang back to you. All the bad karma he'd ever accumulated coming to roost in one, lanky young man.
"Yes. That's right." He continued, nodding approvingly at Lao's change in demeanor.
"Battle is joined against your ancient enemy. Just like the good old days. You never told me about them... but I learned. In here."
Scathelocke patted the shelves affectionately. After an apprehensive silence, Lao finally found his voice - right as his binds slackened, and rose to his feet, slowly.
"...What do you want from me?" He asked.
"Revenge?"
Scathelocke laughed, softly, and shook his head as he gave an enraptured sigh.
"Gizos Gragios is not like your Volkruss, Lao. He is not a vengeful God. He is
hope. He is
creation. He is
salvation."
You're wrong. He thought to himself, privately.
All of them... They're all the same. He'd seen enough of them to know. But, hadn't Gragios been defeated? His mind raced with possibilities as Scathelocke gestured. Behind Lao, the bookshelves parted into a long, bright passageway.
"We have returned to you your beautiful hope, so that it may bloom anew."
Lao listened in seeming disbelief, his features running the gamut from shock, to sobriety, to suspicion. The cultists of Gragios were the most enigmatic of all in their dealings - geniuses and artists, but all mad in their own unique way. Scathelocke had been no exception
"...That's it?" He said, carefully. "You're just...
letting me go?"
"We are. Your hope will be repayment enough."
He needed no further prompting. Scooping a couple of books from the ground, Lao bolted away, as fast as his feet could carry him, into the light. For all he knew, it could be a trap - yet no footsteps followed him. No curse lingered about his frame. And as he burst into the light, gasping and uncertain, feeling the rays of the warm sun on his face, the grass beneath his feet yet again - part of him was glad.
Glad... he had another chance.
Meanwhile
Schathelocke watched Lao's back as he retreated. As soon as he was alone, he gave a sigh of contentment. Lao was not the first, and he would not be the last of his subjects today. The stack of books on his table called. So many unfinished stories, he thought. So many lives that ended in despair, in woe and misery. He was going to change all of that.
"Yes, teacher. That's right." He whispered, as he opened the next book, his fingers grasping a gleaming, blood-red quill-pen. As he worked, his pace quickened, his script growing longer and more elaborate, splashing arcs of crimson ribbons across the pages beneath him. All of that wrongness, all of that despair, all of that terror and fear, gone gone
GONE!
"You must hold onto it... that beautiful hope." He said to himself;
"
Seize it! Cling to it, like a drowning man to driftwood, as the waves rise to crush his bones to dust!"
He couldn't bear it anymore. The quill pen fell from his fingers, but continued to write, exerting the will of Gizos Gragios in his own blood, commanding the letters to form, fate to spin anew, to make way for the great Creator. He had been chosen after all. Never again would he feel fear, or pain, or hunger. He was so grateful. So grateful to be alive, and full of hope. Hope that needed to be spread everywhere, to everyone, for all eternity, laughter ripping his lungs, tears trickling down his face as papers fluttered from all across the library towards him.
"Hope...! Hope can
never lose...! No matter how wretched this world is,
hope will always...!"
His words failed him at last, and Flint crumpled into mad laughter as the books rose about him. He was happy. He was happy. He was so, so
happy. O' rapturous salvation!
There was so... so... much work to be done...
