Hidden Darkness

Chapter 9

Warning DoctorWho references! =P

Chapter 9

"My clever friend," she said, "You've come back."

I smiled as I tied the mare to a post nearby.

"At least I wasn't tied up this time."

Altantsetseg smiled and nodded her head in agreement.

"What are you doing back here?"

"I have nothing to do, and you're my only friend here in Mongolia."

"My friend, your tongue has slipped," she said as she smiled wider.

"What do you mean?" I say, but I had let her known about it deliberately.

"You came from overseas, perhaps from somewhere as far as America!" she exclaimed, as she gestured towards the general direction of the western world. "Let's see, you have nothing to do and I'm your only friend here... We can go enjoy what I have left of my limited freedom! Let's go to the library, trust me, it's not as boring as it seems. And do try to keep out of sight. I'm not ashamed of you, just that there would be questions raised if you were seen, ok?"

"Of course!" my face immediately lit up. How I love the libraries! I gathered some dry grass from the ground and piled it up in front of the mare, in case it got hungry and wanted to eat, and went off with Altantsetseg.

Her tribe, as well as mine, was decorated inside out. Lucky symbols were all over the place, and the sign of happiness was hung on every door. Ribbons, lights, and paper chains connected each of the different, diverse tents the tribe had together. Some even had flower chains, possibly made by the younger girls of the tribe, draped upon it.

Soon, we entered an extremely large tent. At the time, I guessed that it was the main tent, with lots of other separated spaces hidden from view. That was one of the major differences from my tribe. The Zaya tribe was known for its traditional views and ways, and had gained some money from the few tourists that come to visit as well. Our main tent was where all the people would gather, but the poor and lowly were not allowed in it unless they had a job which included being in the main tent, such as the serving maids and boys. They would only be there at less formal times, like at dinners for example. Most of the time, that was where the ruler of the tribe, like my Father, would listen to all the issues raised within the community and manage the tribe this way. With him would be his personal guards and some of the highest ranked generals, soldiers, advisers, and scholars. At times, when Bolor was feeling pleasant enough to 'grace' her servants and those below her with her presence, she would be sat in the seat behind Father, and covered by an almost see through sheet (or curtain). At major festivals, such as the New Year, the whole tent would be made available to people of all ranks - they were the only time when the higher ups mixed with the lowly. Unlike I had thought, the library was not connected to the main tent. It was behind the tent and the library itself was huge, almost as big as the main tent.

Looking at my confused expressions, Altantsetseg explained to me that the library she was taking me to was only available to the royal family and a few others.  The books in there are extremely precious, as they were dated from a few hundred years ago. Some compartments are buried deep underground, even the Crown Prince's foreign friends don't know about it. In those compartments were the even older books, many of them are written so long ago that it was unable to be read, due to some other less known types of traditional Mongolian writing, but it was still valuable. The library itself is guarded very closely and is considered one of the most important places in the tribe. Even the librarians would have to get some kind of permission from the King to enter it.

"Keep your head down at all times, and try to act like my personal maid. No one except for Father knows about her, so I guess it would be possible for you to pretend to be her for the time being. If there were any books that you wish to take a look at, please feel free, but don't do anything too suspicious if there are other people around. As for the deeper compartments, would you like to have a look at them as well? I'm sure it'll be alright, considering that no one understands any of it, even Father doesn't!" Altantsetseg said to me before going in to the library.

If anyone was inside the library and they saw me, I would really be in big trouble. In the western world, there was something called the doughnut mouth, or the 'O' mouth. I was doing that, literally. The sudden memory of a well-known TV series came into my head when I couldn't find any suitable words to describe what I was seeing. It was like the Tardis, from Doctor Who. Whilst it looks small on the outside, it was actually very big on the inside. Anyone who entered the Tardis was shocked by the mere size difference of it.

"Well, do you like it?" the princess asked me as she twirled around with her hands out, signalling to all the books on the shelf. She was visibly pleased from the fact that she had been able to surprise me with the library.

"It's beautiful." I say, still attempting to recover from the shock. The word 'beautiful' wasn't a strong word to describe the library, but my face described it for her.

Looking around to see if anyone was there, I walked to the nearest shelf and took a book out of it. Thing was, it didn't come out. Like in the old fashioned spy type of movies, the book remained titled at the position it was in and the shelf and its neighbouring shelf separated apart.

"Are these the compartments you talked about?" I asked the princess.

She looked confused, which then made me confused as well. She was the princess of the tribe, not me. She should know what and where everything was, including secret levers and doors and stuff.

"No..." she said, then turned around to examine the door she was about to open. "This door is the one that leads to the secret compartments, I've never seen that one before..."

I look at the darkness beyond the gap between the two shelves, it seemed like a hole had been ripped in the tent and led to nothingness.

"Shall we go inside it?" I said to Altantsetseg, and dragged her with me inside the unknown space. We walked down the stairs and once we were at the bottom, the light from the library couldn't be seen anymore. Down here, it was pitch black.

"No going back now." She whispered beside me in Mongolian.

Altantsetseg grabbed onto my arm for support. For a princess to carry round torches and matches would be a disgrace, for me, a princess from another tribe dressed as a homeless, carrying anything else but a little handy sword would be simply weird. We had nothing with us that could help us in the dark, not even the glow in the dark clothes Altantsetseg had shown me on the way here. We looked round us, without any light reaching where we were, we couldn't even figure out which direct was the stairs. The princess trembled at the thought, and I patted reassuring on her back to tell her to stay strong. She was scared of the dark, I wasn't.

I was attracted to the dark.

What do you think? Should I write more?

I didn't originally plan to writre about this, but I wrote this late at night yesterday so I guess we can add more to the plot =P.

Comment, vote, add to library, spread the word about it! =)

Kryx, hope you like it