The Last Library

Glad that he had taken his time to build to a decent climax last night, he felt better prepared to be near his hostess without embarrassing himself further.

He slipped into the bathroom for his morning routine, but spent extra time enjoying the rain-shower in the tub. The heat and flowing water gave him a better feeling of being clean than any spring or bathing tub had ever done. He was disappointed that he wouldn't remember this after Mera returned him to the world above. As he dressed himself afterward, he renewed his personal promise to give her happy memories before that happened.

Ashur stepped out into the common area to find that Mera had completed her preparations and was just sitting down at the table.

"Good morning!" she greeted him and gestured to the other place setting. A plate with eggs, toast, and some sort of meat was waiting for him.

"Thank you! Good morning yourself." He gave her a bright smile as he sat. The food smells made his mouth water before he even picked up his utensils. "This looks amazing!"

"Well," she laughed, "you really didn't get a proper breakfast yesterday and I felt I owed you something for cutting short yet another evening." Her wry smile made his own grow on his face. Remembering his speculations on why she had left so suddenly and the sounds he thought he had heard, he inadvertently grinned around a mouthful of egg. Feeling himself blush just a bit, he pointed his face down toward his plate. From the corner of his eye, he could see her hand pause and stutter before lifting a forkful of her own food.

Getting himself under control, he looked back up at Mera and tried to find a safe topic of conversation.

"So, I'm assuming you are going to show me what's behind the other door today?"

From the fleeting look Mera had, she was also glad for the change.

"Um, yes. Since we didn't get a chance to yesterday. Behind that door is how I keep informed of what is going on the world. I really haven't been paying much attention in the last few centuries, but I thought you might like to check in on your friends and loved ones.

"I held off for today because the mechanism takes time and practice to use and starting so late in the day yesterday wouldn't have been advisable."

Ashur quickly and firmly stomped on his emotions when she mentioned loved ones. He had been the eldest of four children, but now, due to the wars, accidents, disease, and old age, he was the sole surviving member of his family. To make matters worse, army life had made relationships difficult. He felt a flash of guilt for not thinking of them in a long time, but swiftly suppressed that feeling as well. There would be time for explanations when she was showing him around and the mood they were both in right now was too nice to ruin.

They kept to small talk while finishing their meal and he insisted that it was his turn to clean up. Once he was done, she walked him to the door and started to lead the way to their destination.

He paused in front of the black statue and reached out his hand to feel the material it was made of.

"Stop!" Mera's shout was close enough to his old instructor that his hand had frozen in place before his brain had reacted. "On your life, do not touch either of these statues."

Returning his hand to his side, he turned to ask for an explanation.

"It would take too long to explain. Suffice to say that while I am the caretaker of this place, they are the guardians. There are more of them around the Library, but usually where someone browsing the shelves can't reach them. These are the only two that are within arm's length and will only allow themselves to be touched be someone connected to the Library itself."

Ashur took another safe step away from the obsidian beast.

"What happens if I accidently touch it?" he asked warily.

"Umm..Just don't," she replied. "It's best that way."

Giving the statue even more distance, Ashur joined Mera in front of the door. She pushed it open to reveal an enormous chamber that held row upon row of seats arranged in large, half-circle tiers. They were centered upon a stage with a podium. In the center of the first and lowest set of seats was a ten foot long table that looked to be part of the structure of the room itself. Set into the table were dials and levers the like of which he had never seen.

The doorway itself opened up against a wall to the side of the stage and Mera led him away from the wall towards the long table. He looked around; trying to take in as many details as possible. Estimating the ceiling to be nearly thirty feet high, Ashur felt himself grow smaller with every step into the room.

Mera reached the table, sat down in a chair behind it, and motioned him to sit beside her. Once he had taken his seat, she reached across him to pull a large red handle near the center of the table. The heat from her skin and a small tickle from the strands of her hair that brushed his arm broke through his amazement of the room and made him take a firm grip on his libido.

The caretaker seemed oblivious to his predicament, but also refused to make eye contact with him as she moved some of the dials and levers that covered the table surface. Once she was satisfied with her settings, she turned back to him as an amorphous image started to form above the stage.

"The administrators and teaching staff used this hall for meeting and presenting. This machine uses some of the power of time itself to bring us views of the world. From here, we can set the viewer to display any moment from the last forty-five or so days to the present. We originally tried to tune it to see the future, but it blew out the entire mechanism and we had to build a new one from scratch."

Shaking her head, Mera looked up at the stage where an image had started to form; completely missing the goggled-eyed look pasted across her audience's face.

Time?! They had harnessed time! Ashur's heart dropped in his chest at her matter-of-fact explanation. When she tapped him on the arm, he jumped and followed her gaze to the now complete image and jumped again.

It was him! The soldier could see himself in his tent, gearing up for the battle in the forest. His squad had been assigned near what would be the leading edge of the oncoming troops. The image followed around behind him as he started to remove his traveling uniform in order to don his battle clothes and armor.

With a start he remembered that he had taken the opportunity to change his worn, travel stained under-things at the time and quickly turned to Mera when he saw his own hands reaching for the short's waistband.

"Ah! Um!" He managed to get out before she got a full view of his naked backside in the vast image above them. She was frozen with her hand reaching for another dial and he shook her shoulder to break her out of her shocked state. Her head turned toward him and she brought her hand up to her mouth. In the corner of his vision, he saw that his image had turned slightly towards the viewer giving anyone looking a side view of his manhood. For the life of him, he couldn't tell if she had looked at him in time to miss that.

"I'm so sorry! I...!" She quickly returned her attention to the dials on the table and the image moved away to show the outer canvas of his tent. The caretaker's face was flushed a full rich purple and her irises were almost completely pink. As she moved more levers, he saw that she had taken her bottom lip between her teeth and kept shooting him furtive looks.

Grimacing, he looked back up at the image. For some reason, he wanted to look around the room to make certain that no one else had witnessed his body displayed despite knowing that they were the only ones there.

"I set it for six hours before you passed through the entrance! I am so sorry! I just wanted to show you how it...!" She had obviously reset the dials and, with his eyes still fighting from looking around, he saw the image shift to follow him as he joined his troop and traveled with them to their assigned station.

They watched for a while as his squad shuffled in wary boredom.

"Not much happened for another hour after this," Ashur informed Mera. She moved three levers and two knobs and the image rapidly moved forward in time. When he thought they were getting close to the beginning of the battle, he held up his hand. "Not long now."

She slowly reversed a dial and time slowed down. The soldier watched as enemy troops charged through the thick forest and collided with his own forces. He saw his squad brace themselves and race forward to engage them. Stabbing and cutting with the skills he had helped them to sharpen from their basic sword training, they stalked through the Earl's lines; cutting a strip that other squads used to follow deeper into the mass of opposing soldiers.

Then he saw it happen. Further along the line, the enemy had flanked Oudromore's forces and begun to roll them up; forcing fighters to turn to face their foes on all sides. Frustrated that he could only witness, he watched his fellow troops taken down singly and in groups. His own squad was one of the last to fall and he watched helplessly as his own body fell from the blow behind his ear.

He felt Mera's hand come to rest on his forearm as the battle continued. The Earl's troop's flanking maneuver had backfired on them when the Kingdom's reserves were called forward. In the thick woodland, it was hard for the now tightly packed invaders to meet a full fresh line of battle and they were soon ground down and slaughtered almost to a man. Once they were certain of their victory, the reserves had moved on to another part of the massive battlefield.

Ashur watched horrified at the carnage. His eyes began to water with the effort to see more and he almost missed the moment that his own wounded body started to rise.

Mera pulled another lever and the viewer followed his stumbling path through the woods. They observed his random meandering for almost an hour. After the first twenty minutes, his steps had become less wobbly though he still need to lean on tree after tree.

Finally, they saw him stop and look around as though trying to figure something out. His image turned and shuffled forward again. When the tree crumbled under his hand, Mera quizzically tilted her head and winced along with him when his image struck the rock which had knocked him unconscious.

The viewer tried to follow him down the hole, but his body faded and vanished quickly; leaving an image of the hole which inexplicably filled itself in.

"Huh," was all Ashur could say. His trek through the woods had captured his attention enough that he hadn't noticed that the blue hand was still resting on his arm. He turned to look at her and saw sympathy and understanding in her eyes. He wondered if she had seen him staring at the bodies of his friends but decided that he would mourn for any that had been killed later in privacy.

"Why didn't it keep going?" he asked. "Why didn't it follow me down the hole?"

She gazed at his face for another few seconds before giving a small nod and answering his question.

"Even though it is traveling alongside the rest of the world in time, the Library is cut off from reality except for a few tethers that drag it along. Without those, our planet would have moved on through the universe and left the Library behind. Those tethers are the entrances and exits. When you fell through that hole, you fell along one of the tethers to the outermost levels of the Library's space. That tether collapsed after your passage which is why it is taking time to send you back. The Library must build up power and energy to reinforce and open the tether again. Once you travel back through, it will do so again, but gradually over the next few hundred years. The viewing machine is anchored in the world and transmits its information along a different tether line so it can't see what is going on in the Library's space. Colphon set it up that way to minimize detection by whoever was causing the explosions."

She stood and stretched her arms up and out. Still seated, her breasts were directly at his eye level which he could not help but notice. He was trying to drag his gaze away when she released her stretch and looked down at him.

"At least I know how to get your attention," she mused. His face flushed a bright red and he shot to his feet.

"Ahem. Sorry. I really didn't mean to...," he stammered.

She patted the side of his arm and started moving towards the entrance.

"I don't think I can really complain after earlier," she quipped with a quick glance to where the viewer image had been. She looked back over her shoulder at him. "How about some lunch?"

His face, which had just started to regain its normal color, flooded again. He shook his head and started to follow after her.

As they passed the statue again, he wondered what it was about her that made him blush so easily. Before coming here, he hadn't blushed in years. A soldier's life spent in taverns and brothels had virtually wiped away any lingering innocence or modesty. Yet here he was, acting like a raw recruit on his first night with a woman.

Setting the problem aside for another time, he joined her in selecting food for their midday meal.

The afternoon was spent learning the function of the various knobs and levers. Although he would be leaving soon, she wanted him to be able to use the viewer without her as there were things she needed to attend to alone.

By the time Mera called a halt for the evening, he felt as though he had a general grasp of the machine but would need more practice later on.

***

They repeated the previous evening's events(minus his accidental erection) and enjoyed each other's company yet again. This time, however, he insisted on cleaning up, explaining that she had been cleaning up for several thousand years and deserved a break. Mera chuckled at him and waved her acquiescence. She watched him work while cupping her hands around a glass of red wine.

They chatted for another hour before Mera declared that she was ready to sleep. Feeling inexplicably restless, Ashur stated that he would stay up for a while longer. He pulled out the book that he had started the previous day and bid her good night.

He tried to read for several hours but couldn't seem to calm himself. Something was niggling at the back of his mind and he put the book down and began to pace. Realizing that the room, though larger than the foyer, wasn't big enough for him to stretch his legs, he made his way to the viewing room instead.

Once there, the tall man gave his legs over to long strides and his mind to itself in an effort to puzzle out what was bothering him. He knew it had something to do with the viewer but couldn't quite tickle the thought out. Sitting down at the table, he tried to bring up his fall; intending to reverse his journey through the woods. His inexperienced fingers fumbled a setting and he cursed as the battlefield came up on the giant image. He reached out to try again but stopped with his hands halfway to the controls.

During Mera's demonstration, they had followed him after the battle. Now, he let the viewer proceed where it was and watched the aftermath of the carnage. He had seen such scenes before. Years of wars had left thousands dead after such engagements but somehow this one was different to him.

Ashur finished his reach and stopped the viewer's movement. Whatever was bothering him was right on the edge of his awareness.

Crews started moving through, picking up the dead and wounded. The dead were stripped of their armor and tossed into the carts while stretchers hauled the wounded to the medical tents. Seeing the kingdom's emblem on the crew's coats let Ashur know that his side was the victor, but whatever was bothering him dimmed any celebration.

It wasn't until one of the carts headed away from the viewer that he realized what it was at the back of his mind. He doubled over as though gut punched and grabbed the edge of the table. He quickly moved controls to reverse the events he saw before him; cursing loudly when he made a mistake and had to try again.

The stricken soldier's eyes widened as he played the scene forward again. He watched the stretchers collect their cargo then started it over again. And again. Hoping to see something different each time, he was disappointed to see that not one of his friends were carried away on stretchers.

Reaching out one last time, he kept his blurry gaze on the carts of the dead and, one by one, saw the last few people he had known and loved in the world be carted away to be unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave.

Ashur stopped the viewer and slumped back in his chair. He had lost friends in war before but had always had others to join in a victory celebration and toast lost comrades. However, staring at the static image in front of him, he saw the sallow and immobile faces of not only his platoon, but of others he had known looking back at him.

He zoomed the image around the battlefield in an effort to prove himself wrong. As he gained confidence with the controls, he was able to move faster and faster. After an hour of effort, he gave up. He had searched the entire battle and watched his mates be killed one after the other.

With shaking fingers, he returned the viewer to his squad where they had been waiting for the fight to start. They had joked and boasted with each other. Ashur paused again with the image of his brothers' laughing faces glowing brightly above him. He stood and moved around the table to be closer to them one last time.

Reaching out, he tried to touch the men in front of him. They were vivid and close and he reached out to touch them one last time. When his hand passed through them and felt nothing, he broke.

Curling down onto the floor, his chest heaved as he sobbed. He mourned for lost friends and brothers; for voices he would never hear again and happy times that were now forever gone.

And in the middle of it all, he realized that he was now alone. With his family long gone and his friends slaughtered on the battlefield, he had no one. He was alone.

The recognition of that hit him almost as hard as the loss of his comrades and he broke all over again. Rocking slightly, he poured out his loss to the empty and uncaring room.

He wasn't sure how long he had been crying when he felt her arms around him. She lifted his head into her lap and held him while he wept. He threw his arms around her and held on as though she was the only thing keeping him from falling into oblivion.

Finally, the worst of his sorrow had washed away and he looked up at Mera. Her skin was a deep sapphire and tears matching his had left their tracks down her cheeks. In that moment, he knew that she understood. She knew the pain he was suffering for she had endured the same for so much longer.

How long had she lived with the memory of her own lost companions? How had she survived the many years without losing her sanity? His heart swelled and went out to her. His own pain felt small and petty in comparison.

Mera's expression was that of someone who had seen ages come and go and she shook her head slightly at him. She stroked his sweaty hair back from his face, leaned down, and kissed his lips.

When she drew away, he opened his mouth to ask how she stood so much pain, but she cut him off by kissing him again. Drawing him up to face her, she put her arms around his body and held him to her with his face nuzzling into her neck. They stayed that way for some time before she pulled them both up to stand again.

Taking his hand, she led him back to the house and into her darkened room. He had never seen the inside, but right this minute, his eyes were only for her. Even though she had led him through well-lit rooms on their way here, he only now grasped that she was clad in a light nightshift that drifted against her as she moved.