//------------------------------// // Chapter Twelve - The Library // Story: 2986 Steps // by Verlax //------------------------------// The ancient doors slowly screeched open before her. Twilight cautiously stepped inside, silently admiring the gothic architecture of the building. Despite it’s location in the modern district of the city, this building looked like it was older than the entire Mareggen district itself. The entrance greeted her with the sight of long corridor, lighted only by a few small oil lamps. The entire building was built out of a darker kind of oak, and the roof was held in place by a series of marble columns, the only non-wooden elements of the structure. Decorations were engraved on the wood itself, lines carved in wooden beams in a fashion so ancient, that they could be even as old as Canterlot itself. She marched down the corridor, observed only by the silent, unblinking faces of ponies captured on canvas. The entire hall was filled with portraits, every one of them showing a different, regal-looking individual, most of them having an air of wisdom and aloofness to them. Twilight didn’t want to know who they were, they seemed so distant and so blank that even looking in their faces made a shiver run down her spine. The corridor finally led to a larger room, filled with several desks and chairs. Beside one of them, a young colt was reading an old tome and writing something down in his notebook. He was probably a bit younger than Twilight, yet he seemed to be sluggish and completely out of energy. Twilight approached him, yet the colt still didn’t acknowledge her presence. “Good morning!” she greeted him enthusiastically. The colt finally raised his head from his notes. “Why would it be good?” he asked grimly. His accent had a lot of Canterlot nobility in it, which was quite strange, considering he was an earth pony, not a unicorn. “Ehm...” Twilight was taken aback by this response. “Nevermind.” he shrugged. “Welcome to Flankfurt Library. My name is Lovecraft, what can I do for you?” he asked, snapping his book close. It downed on Twilight, that she didn’t actually know why she went here for in the first place. She just wanted to relax herself in the peacefulness of a library, to read something that will allow her to forget about all the grim reality. The local librarian however didn’t help her much, and by just exchanging a few words with him she knew she would have a hard time relaxing now. Then a thought struck her. Something that she was constantly hearing for the last couple of days and seemed to engrave itself on the back of her mind came to the forefront. She didn’t even notice when she blurred out: “I’m searching for information about something, that the ponies named ‘Leper Messiah’.” Twilight was both shocked and disgusted with herself for saying that. She normally didn’t let superstitions dictate her actions, but with this... If Lovecraft was surprised by her question, he didn’t show it. His face was still the same emotionless mask, and his eyebrows didn’t even twitch at Twilight’s words. “Messiah... interesting. Doctor or writer?” the colt asked. “Doctor.” she answered. “Why are you asking?” “No ordinary pony has enough intelligence and wisdom to actually come here in the first place.” Lovecraft said in a bored fashion. “You are my first visitor in a month. And that one was a bailiff.” “Oh.” Lovecraft searched through a pile of his notes. “But coming back to your question... Messiah, right? I suggest you search in the Medieval wing, section 3 to 5.” Here he pointed at a set of doors behind him. “And now please leave me alone, I’m busy.” he said and started writing something in his notes again. “Actually, aren’t you too young to work as a librarian?” she asked out of curiosity. “I’m not a librarian. This is my home.” he shrugged, not even raising his head from his work. Twilight knew that she wouldn’t get any more information out of him, so she approached the doors he pointed her to and opened them. She nearly stumbled back in shock at the site that greeted her. The room was filled to the brim with bookshelves, each one sagging from the sheer number of books placed on them. It was such an absurd amount of books, that even she had a problem grasping the sheer number of them. If all of these books were his private collection, Twilight concluded that he must have been the richest, most dedicated collector in all of Equestria, and coming from her, that was a lot. Even the Royal Canterlot Library didn’t have such a collection, and comparing her own Golden Oak Library to this monster of a collection, it felt grossly inadequate. Probably only the library in the Crystal Empire could compare to this. After a few moments of searching she found some books that seemed promising enough. An old translation of ‘Solaris’, ‘The Evil Influence on Reality’ and a quite detailed chronicle of Flankfurt’s history. Twilight levitated all of them and took a seat near one of the desks. Lovecraft was still busy writing in his notes and Twilight’s curiosity demanded her to check what he was working on, but now she had more important things to do. She opened ‘Solaris’ and started to read. It was a religious text, really important to several ponies. It contained several myths, letters and history lessons from the old times. She was scanning it, trying to search for something that would give her a hint as to what the Leper Messiah actually was. She still couldn’t believe she was actually doing this... “Why do you seek answers? Why do you want to know who he is?” she nearly had an heart attack when Lovecraft’s voice came from behind her. “Why wouldn’t I want to know?” she respond with her own question, trying to calm her heart at the same time. “Isn’t the search for truth a noble goal?” “Noble?” Lovecraft’s expression almost changed at that. “Maybe it would be ‘noble’, but in fact, the truth shall doom our kind.” At this point, Twilight was completely lost. “What do you mean?” she asked, confused. Lovecraft picked another book from desk and opened it. Then, he turned towards Twilight. “Are you interested in astronomy? I guess you are, no well-educated pony would stay neutral towards this topic. Our world isn’t even a single drop in the black, infinite sea of the cosmos. The ignorance is strong in ponykind, that’s the fact. Each of us is an individual pony. All of us are equal and of course, everypony is special... that is the biggest nonsenses I have heard in my entire life. Sometimes, the truth is the synonym of doom, I cannot count how many times lies are told to make ponies feel safer, better about themselves... but especially ‘safer’.” Lovecraft said in a slightly more energetic way. “The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but someday the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” Twilight finally managed to rise her jaw from the floor. “Well... right.” she said uncertainly. “So you you’re saying that if I will discover the truth, it will threaten me?” “I’m not saying anything.” he answered and went back to his notes. Sweet Celestia... this whole town is crazy. Insane. Simply mad. And that goes without saying how creepy this library and its owner is... “Actually, can I borrow these books?” Twilight asked, hoping that she could read all of them in the comfort of her nice room in the hospital and not here. “No. This is not an ordinary library and I’m not lending books. You can read all of them here, if you want.” Lovecraft replied. Shoot. Twilight went back to reading the books she took. However, ‘Solaris’ didn’t gave her any answers. There were a lot of tales of horrible epidemics, but none of them mentioned somepony, that could be compared to the ‘Leper Messiah’. She met the same result with ‘The Evil Influence on Reality’. It was some sort of codex written several hundred years ago and, describing what ‘unnatural’ beings could threaten ponykind. Most of them were rubbish - phantoms, specters, wraiths, hags and other supernatural creatures that did not exist in reality. There were however Windigos listed in it, which made it somewhat credible, if not fiction-filled. Sadly, there was nothing on the Leper Messiah. She didn’t have much hope when she started leafing through the tome on Flankfurt’s history. To Twilight’s surprise, it was there she found something. 13 of June, 587 Anno Celesis The ship from the far east approached the port of Mareggen. During disembark, a single passenger of the trade vessel was discovered to be afflicted with lepra. Panic broke out and the town guards threw the traveler into the sea. The method of disposing of the leper was deemed unreliable and dangerous, as the leprae could pollute the local waters. Sailors started searching for the body, but it was never found. Guards responsible for this action were punished and thankfully, the potential leprae threat never came to be. “So this ‘Leper Messiah’ could be an almost five hundred years old being?” Twilight thought skeptically. “The single pony that rises from the dead, seeking for vengeance? But the guards responsible for his death are since long dead. Even if the Leper Messiah was a ghost haunting the city, he wouldn’t have any reasons to do so, at least if you believe what they say about specters. It must be something else.” However, beside this single note in the chronicle, no other fragment mentioned anything even remotely similar to leprosy. She briefly reviewed all three tomes again, but still she found nothing. Twilight stood up and marched towards the medieval section again. However, before she entered the chamber, she noticed a quite strange looking corridor branching off to the left. Yes, the library wasn’t exactly in a prime condition, not with bookshelves placed around seemingly at random and dust covering large patches of the floor, but this corridor was in total chaos. Rubbish littered the floor alongside dust bunnies, a clear indicator, that Lovecraft scarcely (if ever) cleaned his house. Some bookshelves were stacked here, as if to place them out of the way, and on some of them lied single books, each of them in various states of disrepair. Some of them looked like more than half their pages were missing, others seemed singed as if by fire and others still looked like if somepony decided to drown them and changed his mind mid-way. On the end of that corridor, lighten only by a single oil lamp was a door. Twilight approached it and found a small hole in the wooden frame, a place where the wood rotted through. She used it to peer inside. To her surprise, the doors were leading to staircase, somewhere beneath the building. “Some kind of basement.” she reasoned. “Maybe I’ll find some books with actually useful information there.” “Wait, but what about Lovecraft? He won’t be too pleased with me if I scour his cellar... nah, who am I kidding. He’s too busy with his notes and books. Let’s do this.” she thought and silently opened the door. The staircase, in comparison with the rest of building, was made out of stone bricks. She slowly marched down, the stones proving to be slippery and dangerous, but with some effort she managed to reach the bottom of them safely. There she found another set of doors. She gently opened them and walked inside. Twilight was right when she thought, that there were more books below. However, she didn’t expect ‘this’ kind of books. All of them were incredibly old, a lot of them had improvised covers, missing pages. The air inside here was musty and it was hard to breath. While of course the room hasn’t been cleaned in a long, long time (if ever), she noticed that Lovecraft visited down here from time to time. The chair near one of tables had pillow on it, and the pillow in comparison to other pieces of furniture wasn’t covered in dust. She trotted inside, searching for books that would interest her. They were scattered around, seemingly without any order. It took her several minutes to find something really astonishing. She didn’t even have to open the book to know, that this tome was special. It was a really small tome, but its cover was something she wished she didn’t have to look upon. It looked like the skin of somepony that suffered from leprosy and it seemed like if it was slowly rotting, not like a piece of paper or wood, but actual flesh. The smell was the same as the usual odor of a leper, and it almost made her heart stop when she realized that. She was reluctant to even touch it, a first time ever when she didn’t want to read a book, but she realized that this might have be the only chance she would get to learn the truth. Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, she opened the book. The smell of decay attacked her nostrils, but she managed not to vomit. The title page was written in the careful hoofwriting. Nostramane The Plaguebearer