The Last Library Ch. 06

Mera's face lit up with realization. "So that's how the tether moved! The Library did it to bring me help! I was so scared that whoever was the origin of the Cataclysm did it. I was racking my brains trying to figure out how they did it!"

Xakelle nodded somberly. "If you agree to help me, we are going to expand that awareness so that it can take a more active role in keeping itself...and you...safe. Thus far, it has been like a plant reacting to face the sun. You need it to be more if you are to survive regardless of helping me."

It was Ashur's turn to join in the conversation.

"I understand that you can help us to be stronger and better, but can you really turn us into gods enough to face something that can destroy an entire dimension? That's a lot of power to share!"

The maroon woman shook her head. "No, I'm not going to turn you into "gods," she stated firmly. "I can, but I won't for three main reasons." She brought one of her hands out of the water and started ticking off points on her dripping fingers. "One: It would alter your probability paths too far and cause more damage later on. Two: You couldn't handle it. Your consciousness isn't set up for that kind of scope and your mind would be destroyed before it could cope. Third: I'm not asking for your help with problems of that level...which leads me into the bad part of my request."

She lifted herself out of the water and sat on the edge of the pool with her feet resting on the underwater ledge. Neither of the Librarians were in the mood to appreciate her naked beauty. They were still intent on her grave expression and explanations.

"If you agree to help me, the level of danger you will face will be greater by several orders of magnitude. On one hand, you will no longer have to worry about those random little accidental intrusions. Your days of shoo-ing lost and itinerant herd animals will be over.

"On the other hand, you will be actively looking for trouble, in a manner of speaking. To make matters worse, trouble will be looking for you too and it will be up to you to handle it. That Sheernt that you both fought will be weak in comparison to some of the beasties that will be headed your way."

Ashur interrupted her. "What's a Sheernt?"

"The skinny creature that hurt you so badly. When they go rogue like that, they are locally known as Sheernt and, as I said, something of its power will be on the easy side of what you will face."

"If you say yes, your lives will be much harder for a while. I will help prepare you as best I can, but your mortality odds will go through the floor."

She stopped and looked up thoughtfully. "In all fairness, your odds of survival are dropping anyway due to becoming more noticed, but if you help me the risk will go up faster." Her gaze lowered to meet theirs and she stepped back down into the pool. Instead of sitting, she moved to stand in front of them.

"So, to summarize, I am requesting your help in keeping things moving forward across all of existence. I will do everything I can to give you the tools you need, but, for the most part, how you accomplish it will be up to you. I won't be able to help very often.

"You will face enemies that will try to stop you, end you, or simply take your library and the power it contains. They will be strong, malevolent, relentless and you will be in constant danger."

Her reddish-purple hands reached beneath the water to take hold of theirs.

"No matter your decision, I make you this promise. I will help to give you a little more protection. You are good people in this one and I want to help. I also can't afford for the power your library is holding to fall into evil hands, if I can help it."

She released her hold, stood up straight again, and took a step back. "I will leave you to discuss your decision now. I promise that you will have complete privacy. When you are ready to give me your answer, simply poke your head back into the bedroom and say my name." With that, she disappeared.

***

"Well, that was interesting."

Ashur turned his head to look at his partner. The look of horror that had taken over her expression made him grab her by the shoulders and turn her to face him.

"Mera! What?!?" Her attention finally came back from wherever her fear had taken her and she focused on him.

"I never realized," she stammered. "I thought I was safe. Protected. I didn't know that there was anything out there that could threaten the Library. I thought we were in our own little hidden bubble! Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit!"

Ashur's grip tightened slightly to get her attention. "Mera, we face dangers from the overlaps all the time. What makes this so new?" He was surprised at her reaction. One of the first encounters he had faced with her was something that had been consciously encroaching on the Library. Why did Xakelle's revelation hit the blue woman so hard?

"Because!" she yelled. "Now I know that it could have found me! Found the Library!" She started to tremble almost as badly as she had when explaining her century of insanity. He could see that she was turning inward again and knew that he needed to head that off quickly.

"Mera! Who? Who could have found you?"

"The one who caused the Cataclysm, that's who! I thought that when we submerged the Library, we were hiding it! What if it could still find me and was just taking it's time?"

The big man pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, trying to think of a way to comfort her. He was starting to comprehend something more about his partner's emotional state. She had explained to him the exercises and mental training that she and the long-lived races learned as children, but he had taken that to mean that she could handle most situations with aplomb. Now, he realized the troubling corollary to that: whenever she did run up against an emotion that she couldn't cope with, it would be huge. Apparently, she was currently trying to deal with the traumatic and debilitating fear that stemmed from the destruction of her world. He had to find something to break her loose from her emotional trap.

"Love," he began and felt her body jerk in recognition that he was using the word as a name for her, not as an answer. Startled, she pulled away to look into his face and he continued. "If whatever it was that caused the Cataclysm was still out there and could find you, it probably would have by now. From what you told me, it wiped out everything and everyone reasonably fast. It's a good bet that it would have come after you as soon as it could. If it hasn't, then you've been protected from it and, by what Xakelle says, quite a few other things at this point. That means that you have been safe all this time.

"Right now, however, we need to discuss what is apparently a much bigger issue. If she's telling the truth, then that protection isn't going to last much longer and that concerns me. How much longer are we actually going to be safe? Do we really need her help? Are we going to help her?

"I'm inclined to say yes, but, from what she just told us, we're going to be putting ourselves in a lot more danger instead of just keeping ourselves and the Library from being overrun."

He let go and turned on the ledge to face the center of the pool. Mera's body pressed against him and she took his hand once again under the water. They both sat in silence for a bit. When Mera spoke up, her fear was still there, but it had diminished and was continuing to fade as her mind started reacting to his words. She moved to sit back in his lap.

"I want to say yes too," she started, "but I have a few other worries. You were right when you said "if she's telling the truth". How do we know she is who she says she is? The power coming off of her is astounding and all of this," she waved a hand around to indicate their surroundings, "could simply be a ploy to get us to let her into the Library. For that matter, why is the Library so important anyway? I'll admit that the Well has a great deal of power, but there are greater sources out there. I've come across a few of them. Why us?"

Ashur shifted his weight to rest his elbows behind him.

"I'm not sure," he replied. "I guess we could ask Xakelle, but how do we trust her? She knows about us and has a lot of power, so she could have just smashed our defenses and taken what she wanted. On the other hand, it's possible that she has just enough power to create this house, but not enough to get past the Library's outer shell. If that's the case, then she'd need us to let her in before she could take over. As much as I appreciate the food, the bed, and the bath, this could all be a ploy. Is there any way that you can think of to prove she is who and what she says she is?"

Mera shook her head. "I really don't know. But if she's trying to trick us, what can we do? We're not strong enough to beat her in any case. For now, we have to take her at her word simply because we have no other options." She leaned back and rested her upper body against his. Her exposed skin had chilled slightly, but the heat between them soon warmed her. His arms went around her and he playfully cupped each of her breasts in his hands. She swatted at them, but without any real force. "Stop that," she laughed.

"So we tell her yes?" he asked, wanting to confirm her half of the decision.

"We really don't have a choice," she nodded. "I'm not getting any feeling of malice or deception from her, but she could be masking that. I hope this works out."

"Me too," he agreed. The big man shifted his weight forward and made to stand up. Mera resisted for a moment until he pinched her nipples. With a squeak, she jumped off his legs and moved away before turning back to him with a grimace that promised retribution later on. Apparently they were both feeling better having made their choice.

Letting Mera stay warm, Ashur stepped from the water and followed Xakelle's instructions. He stood for a moment watching the other bedroom doorway, but the immortal woman didn't appear. He called again and jumped a few inches into the air when her voice sounded in his ear.

"I'm right here, silly man. Why do you keep calling?"

He pivoted quickly to find their hostess right in front of him. To his chagrin and brief pleasure, he found she was still quite naked when his arms and chest brushed her breasts as he turned. "Oops! Sorry!" he stammered, but she appeared not to mind. Her smile was bright and hopeful.

"So! Have you decided?" Xakelle pushed up against him in her exuberance and curiosity. It was interesting to see her bubbly again since she had been so somber during their earlier discussion. He took a firm grasp on her shoulders...and his libido...and nudged her backwards a foot or two. She was really soft in some really nice places.

"For the most part," he responded, "but we have some questions." He walked around the pool and sat down on the edge where he could see her and the door. Mera joined him, but remained standing in the water. "First off, how do we know that you are being honest with us? This could be an elaborate ruse."

Xakelle waved away his question with a grin. "That's easy! Your Library could tell you that. Didn't you know that? It can tell if I'm a threat or not. That's why it started looking for help...namely me!" After a momentary thought she waved at the human. "Well, you too, obviously, but mostly me. It's been trying to connect with me and my places for almost a year now. That's why you kept intersecting so many more random realities lately. It's been trying to find me! Just ask it!"

Ashur gave her a confused look. "Umm. How do we do that?"

Mera answered for Xakelle. "Remember the control panel in the Well? That's how. We'll get an answer that way." She turned to the other woman. "What is it about the Library that makes it so desirable? The power that's generated isn't really all that great and if it were to stop gathering, it would drain out pretty fast. Why would anyone want it?"

In answer, Xakelle waved a hand toward the air above the water between them. A general layout of the Library's main floor appeared. Reminiscent of the ever changing maps that Ashur carried, he could see that this diagram covered the entire floor plan. The lines which delineated the Shelves were glowing slightly brighter than the walls and other structures.

"You may have heard that phrase "Knowledge is power"? Well, in this case, that actually holds true a little more than you know. When you and your godlings created this," she waved at the picture, " you wrote in a power structure that you didn't realize.

Knowledge, or to be more precise, information creates a certain order to the space around it. In small instances, this really doesn't make a difference or influence anything. A single book or even a normal library won't contain enough ordered data to be even remotely noticeable. However, you and your friends built the largest collection of information in any reality. Add in your particular form of magic and the eventual possibilities of what you can accomplish are almost endless."

Ashur raised an outward palm to stop her. "Wait. Her form of magic? I'm getting a little lost here."

Xakelle nodded and waved at the image. It was replaced by a flat white sheet. "Think of this as the nature of reality. Most forms of magic influence it without changing it much." Ripples and waves moved throughout the sheet like water. "Some are more influential than others." Now shapes with hard edges formed out of the image material but, while they moved back and forth, they still gave the impression of a wooden block pushing up from underneath a blanket.

"Mera's godlings were more clever than most and her Lexicon rewrites reality." Now the sheet folded and unfolded on itself in various directions. The hard shapes formed once again but separated from the sheet to hover across as it continued reshaping over and over. Even the size of the sheet was changing.

After a moment, he nodded. "Okay," he drawled. "I think I understand. Now where does the information from the books come in?"

The layer flattened out again and Ashur's viewpoint seemed to zoom in. Eventually, he was able to see what looked like strands of cloth or fiber. Their pattern was haphazard. Some were longer than others and most overlapped. All of them undulated in every direction.

"Think of this as how the fabric of reality is formed. It is normally without pattern, even when changed by magic. However, the inordinately large amount of information in your Library alters its nature." Now the random strands started to straighten out and line up. Row upon row of threads ran parallel to others until the entire area looked like the warp and weft of a weaver's loom. Once that happened, they all began to vibrate in harmony.

"The ordered pattern you see makes the Lexicon's reshaping easier but, more importantly, the vibrations create a power that can be tapped into. Right now, your "Well" is collecting most of its energy from your world. That's useful and stable, but inefficient due to how you connected it. If you were to rewrite that collection script to take power from this," she pointed at the vibrating threads, "you would need a much bigger Well and I can help with that.

"Unfortunately, this is what makes you a target. The beings that are noticing you are starting to comprehend the nature of what is inside your little bubble and they are going to want access to that."

Xakelle gazed steadily at each of them in turn then looked back at her image. The map of the Library floor reappeared.

"To return to what I was saying about power structures, Mera, when you built this, your team wrote in an expansion ability."

The blue woman nodded. "Yes. It was so that we could keep folding space to make room for future generations."

Xakelle pointed at her demonstration. "Well," she said, "you included the entirety of the building in that script, but primarily the bookshelves. I'd like you to take a look at the pattern of your design." She let Mera study it for a moment, then changed the view to the next floor "down", then the next, and the next. Ashur was totally lost, and, this time, Mera was too.

"I don't..." the Caretaker started. Suddenly, her eyes went wide and she stumbled back to plop down on the underwater ledge. "How did we miss that?"

"What?" Ashur asked. "Ladies? Maybe a hint for the new-ish guy here?"

Xakelle smiled at him gently. "What your partner has just realized is that in the architecture design of the bookshelves and the way they expand is an infinitely repeating pattern that ultimately focuses the energy of the ordered vibrations to a single point which isn't the Well. It's the center of the statue. Or, to be more accurate, the male statue. Your statue."

Ashur looked to his partner for confirmation and explanation. Mild shock battled with speculation, contemplation, and hope on her face.

"Mera..." he started. Xakelle held up a hand to forestall him. She was watching the Caretaker's mind as it ran through all of the choices, opportunities, and options that would be available to her, her partner, and, most importantly, her Library. Eventually, Mera stood up and took the other woman in her arms.

"We'll help," she announced. "You have our support."

Now it was Ashur's turn to be shocked. "Mera! What?" He was floored. Whatever his lover had figured out or realized was beyond him. Worse yet, she had thrown them in with Xakelle and all the extra danger that would be involved without asking him. What was going on?

Mera spun in place to him and clasped her hands in front of her chest. The joy and excitement in her eyes rivaled that of when she had realized that he had been chosen to be the new Guardian.

"Don't you see? Can't you see it?" She realized that she was addressing her "barbarian" and laughed. "Of course you don't. I'm so sorry. Uh. How can i explain this..." She looked to Xakelle for help but only found a faint smile.

"Why the male and what does the focus mean?" he asked. That stopped her up short for a minute. She turned back to the image and studied it. Then she gasped and put her hand to her lips. "It changed! The design changed! Is this accurate?" She turned to Xakelle for confirmation who nodded. Mera reached out and ran her hand through the image. "The Library did this, didn't it? Oh, Gods!" She glanced briefly at Ashur before turning back. "It really did pick him," she said quietly to herself. Their hostess nodded again. Mera faced her partner.

"Ashur, when we first built the Library, the focus of this would have been the Well, even if we didn't see it at the time. All that power would have been channelled to the center of the Librarians and the conduit there, but it's moved. The Library altered itself so that your statue, The Guardian, will be the focus." She looked to the immortal once again. "It knew that the days when it needed a Caretaker more than a Guardian were ending, didn't it? It knows that it needs a powerful Guardian to keep us safe and it chose..." She turned to fully face her partner. "You."

"My love, once we implement the revisions that she is talking about, you will have access to more power than the Gods who helped us build this."

Ashur shook his head disbelievingly at her then looked to Xakelle accusingly. "You said you wouldn't be making us like you."

She returned his gaze with a level look of her own. Over the course of their conversation, she had reverted to serious again.

"And I won't," she said. "You will, eventually, have access to a great deal of power, but you will not match me and mine by a long shot. Your gods are small and constrained to their world. They are children playing with toys. You will still be a man; one with maturity and experience which will guide you to use that power wisely. You will also have the help of your other half." She waved one hand towards his lover. "Her experience eclipses yours many times over. Perhaps in a few thousand years, you will start to catch up. In the meantime, however, it would behoove you to trust in her counsel on most things while staying true to your heart."