Infinity Glyphs

Chapter 5 - The Knights

Chapter Five - The Knights

The library of the Pyramid was a vast circular chamber which encompassed the lower half of the round building. Not even a shred of the stone wall was visible from the inside, for the circumference was completely filled with bookcases, which piled up to impressive heights. The only gap free of shelves was dedicated to a wide blackboard, with chalk drawings and equations spread all over its surface. In the center, a stairway seemed to sprout from the dark stone floor; it ascended in a spiral to the beautifully adorned concave ceiling. Comfortable wine-colored armchairs, accompanied by old-fashioned lamps on little desks, encouraged reading on several spots across the room, while a single large couch was the invitation for group studies. This knowledge sanctuary was accessed through the left-hand side door of the entrance temple.

Kevin was admiring the library, relieved. He had just hung up his video chat with his grandparents. They were extremely tense in the beginning, which was quite comprehensible, given that their grandson had been disappeared for hours. Kevin explained how he had applied for a famous school and wanted it to be a nice surprise, but then he received a last-minute call and had to come right away for enrolment, with no time to explain. He deliberately used the bookshelves as the background to his conversation, in order to inspire confidence; however, there had been a tense moment: his grandmother was shooting so many specific questions he was about to crack, and Stella had to take charge. She tamed her hair in a ponytail and put on round spectacles to talk to them. Her persuasive educational speech seemed to have convinced Norah and Gregor, and the call ended under a lighter, congratulating mood.

'How many books do we have here?' asked Kevin, wondering if he would have to read all of them to learn "the most powerful secret of all time".

'We never took the time to count,' answered Stella, removing her spectacles and freeing the red hair. 'The vast majority consist of alchemical registers. They were extremely empirical, the alchemists. They experimented restlessly in their quest to transform any metal into gold and discover the elixir of immortality, and never failed to write down their findings.'

'Then the truth about the Universe takes all these volumes to be described?' Kevin had to ask.

'Of course not. The large amount of work, paper, experiments, trials and errors are the path to unrevealing the secret. The final truth itself must be simple and elegant, otherwise there's no point looking for it.'

'But ... what if the answer is not that simple?'

'Then you haven't really found it yet.'

Once again, Kevin had no arguments to contradict her profound statement.

'Ok ... so, at this point, Aurum has definitely deciphered the great mystery?'

'He was able to reproduce the Universe on your phone, wasn't he?'

Kevin looked at the Pyroglyph icon on his phone again. He hadn't really considered the situation under this perspective until now: having access to ... everything. It was so empowering and scary at the same time; he thought for a moment about memory issues ... how could that little Hard Drive store all the existent information regarding space? But then, he remembered that this was exactly where the beauty of the app resided: it didn't have to save the data; the algorithm carried a code capable of calculating them whenever required.

'I believe some of our dwellers are already eating breakfast. Let's meet them, shall we?' called Stella.

She walked towards the far end of the library, closely followed by Kevin. He was attempting – with no success – to identify a door, passageway or any means of leaving the room, when they stopped in front of a bookcase. Stella picked up a heavy leather-bound copy and placed it in a vacant spot. There was a loud click and the bookcase swung open as though it was a regular door. The dazzling sunlight inundated every inch of the dark floor that was accessible through the doorway.