The demon of the Cold Valley

Chapter 1 Part 13

For this is the thing that I love and cherished the most, more than anything in the world, these books regale me with tales and tragedies, grief and torment, victories, and defeats, wisdom, and philosophies, written and translated to words by far better man than me. Thus, they become my guide so that whenever there is a problem or crisis in my life, or to the people around me, or the people that I truly cherish.

My solution to any crisis or problem always had been to consult upon these books, for every problem and crisis had a solution ,and that crisis or problem someone somewhere might have already faced, and they might have been translated into these words , thus these were already present before me, all one needs to do is to follow a written template and map that was constructed by men and women more competent than me, who have suffered far more problems than a mere boy of twenty one summers could ever have faced.

Thus, reading these books, reading their works and tales provide me with strength. it provides me comfort. not to mention it also consumes better part of my day leaving me with little option to control myself and my anger till the conclusion of dusk.

I do not know the time or the definitive reason when my love for the books, and the pursuit of knowledge began. But I am glad that it did, because when struck with hard days like these where violence and anger were inches away from being unleashed upon my adversaries, it buys me time and with that time a little bit of clarity and level headedness will occur. so that the situation and the problem can be addressed logically instead of dealing with them emotionally.

The three of us were used to this-me, Arvil and the guard, this routine of hard labour, keeping our mind and body busy to such an extent, that all the energy will be drained out of us. and it was not an easy thing to do of course, at the end of the day, we would all be tired to such an extent that we had little choice but to put our head above a pillow and go to sleep. Today was not an exception as well.

For all three of us one after the other began to untie the satchels and collect and place the book on the shelves, as we worked silence comforted and covered us. we did not think of the passage of the time, we did not think of the men and women who would come inside and visit the library. ignoring all else we simply worked, till the sweat behind our back prickled, till our fingers were callused and bruised, we worked-in ritual, forging our own ceremony.

once the last of the satchels were untied and the books were placed, all three of us forcefully exhaled after what felt like eternity to me. in the passage of the real world, it would be no more than ten minutes, which was as well.

proceeding that we began to tidy the place, collecting all the discarded satchel and the untied rope, and placing all of them into a single pile, concluding that all three of us split as Armon went to plant himself in the wooden chair and the guard nodding once to me collected the satchel of apples and exited the premises of the library, while both of my palm opening wider collected the pile of the satchels and the rope and exited out of the library and throwed the entire pile in the trashcan placed at the door.

Stretching either of my elbows and my palms, my legs, and my body, all the dusted muscles and bones began to slightly recognize the presence of pain. all the while my feet entered the library and marched towards my left side, where one of the entire column of shelves has been filled with the fresh set of books from the empire, as soon as my feet reached the column, the wonderful aroma released by the books began to violate the nostrils and my body and mind willingly embraced that aromatic smell.

Seeing all the books before me, fingers of my left palm began to caress the middle row, passing from one book to another, while my eyes closed, my feet marched forward carrying till the end of the row, after reaching their my feet stopped for facing me was the wall, whose paints and crumbs were fallen, then opening my eyes, gazed at the wall before me, and shifting my body, moving a step backward, facing the shelf again, my arms picked the books one after the other.

Starting with the True history of the empire written by Sir Aristotle, then the earth and the wider galaxies-written by Sir Galileo Galilei. the laws of physics written by Sir Isaac Newton. the nature of the human psychology written by Sir Fredrick Nietzsche, and lastly the art of governance written by Sir Chanakya.

The hair on the back of my head and on my arm suddenly erected in anticipation of reading these great individuals. of understanding and deciphering of what was said and what was not said between those lines. My mind could not wait for these to be devoured, wait for them to understand chapter by the chapter.

For the great library of the empire truly had exceed my expectation, they had provided me with an arsenal of knowledge-of the true history of the empire, of scientology, of psychology, of astrology ,and of the governance of the empire, and my mind was going to read every line and every paragraph of it.

My eyes wondered to the rest of them hosted on the entire shelf, and all of them were powerful, and worthy in their own right, and just as this my mind too would devour those pages as well for this was just the beginning.

Thus, ignoring all else, picking all the five books, my feet marched forward, reaching near the cluster of table and sofas at the centre, my feet took to the last of them. for behind my back was the wall, and starting above my back was the glass window from that glass window was the sunlight pouring in, while facing before me was the entrance, and picking the one on the first of my pile my legs crossing one after the other opened the book and began to read.

Before my eyes could read the page my gaze tracked the man facing me at the entrance, the man who had comfortably seated on the wooden chair of his own, his desk facing before him, as Armon looked at me ,and our eyes met, a thin smile of genuine warmth sparkled on the face of the man, whose chin cleanly shaved, whose hair on his pate cleanly oiled and combed, and parted on the side, his bushy eyebrows falling before his eyes, his rectangular and dented face slightly withdrawn, his nose slightly dented and bended, his greyish skin sparkling under the sunlight nodding once to the man, my eyes tracked and devoured the book before me.