Phoenix: The nuruk beast.

Chapter Eight: The Librarian

 Even though it was a second time, the castle hadn't lost its appeal to Aldrich. The glamour the castle posed to him was still in all ways fascinating. Something in him thanked the gods for no further instructions by Evelyn, he could only imagine what would have happened if she ordered him to wear his usual over-sized clothes to the castle. He pushed those thoughts from his mind now trying to guess where the library could be, he couldn't rely on the directions the people in the castle had given him. Considering how large the castle was, given vague directions like 'just the largest door you see after going down that hall' would have probably gotten him lost. He wandered the main hall for what felt like decades to him before he noticed a short boy with frizzly auburn hair carrying a lot of training equipment. Aldrich realized who it was after one look at his dull green eyes which was most certainly taken from his mother, Bridget.

"Alston?" Aldrich called to him; Alston turned around trying to peer through the equipment he carried. He saw Aldrich looking at him with a smile of relief on his face,

"Aren't you Archer's lad?" Alston asked in a voice much like Aldrich's, a bit deep yet gentle.

"Yes I am."

"What are you doing in the castle?"

"I was just looking for the library."

"Frankly I'm surprised you called out to me."

"Why?"

"Well, you always pretended I didn't exist."

"Sorry about that, so do you know how to get to the library?"

"Hmm no not really, frankly I haven't been to every part of this castle. But you can follow that guy over there." he pointed at a young man in a cobalt silk robe carrying a stack of books. "There's no way he isn't going to the library."

"Thank you." Aldrich breathed as he rushed after him. The librarian didn't seem to notice Aldrich following him from behind. He made his way to the library with seemingly hurried steps. Aldrich didn't need to see through his robes to know he was a very skinny person.

They entered an enormous room with shelves each larger than Aldrich's entire house, all filled with books of different colours. Unlike the main hall of the castle, the roof was a large arc holed piece of glass which had silver bars to hold it together. "How father would kill to see this." Aldrich thought to himself, he noticed the librarian's curly brown hair as it bounced with every step he took. Aldrich was surprised that he still hadn't noticed him.

"Perhaps people come here often." he said to himself. "Um excuse me." Aldrich said to him, he turned around obviously wondering when Aldrich got there. Aldrich almost felt pity for him when he saw the bags under his pale blue eyes and how pasty his skin was.

"I'm looking for a friend of Evelyn's." Aldrich said to him trying not to stare too much,

"Are you Aldrich Slage?" he said in a timid whisper-like voice.

"Yes I am."

"Evelyn told me about you." he said as he shook his hand impatiently, "My name is Zeldicuss." he said in excitement with a wide grin on his face as his eyes scanned Aldrich's body. Aldrich tried to hide his discomfort when he handed him the letter.

"I was asked to give you this" he said, the librarian opened the letter and started to read it.

"How splendid" he muttered, he then tucked the letter in his pocket and started moving through the shelves as he placed the books, he held in them. As he passed each shelf, Aldrich heard him mumbling the names of books and their genres and every once in a while, he would stop and hand Aldrich a book. Something about his behaviour put Aldrich on edge, he continued mumbling the names of books in a song like manner handing Aldrich more and more books. When they finally stopped, Aldrich found himself holding almost ten books stacked on top of each other.