Beyond the Void

Chapter 88, The thousand questions

AERIN

Five moons, three tens and some since the Mark of the Other One blossomed.

The three kept walking for quite a while. Down cramped stairways, through tight tunnels. Bassor looked more unhappy each time the outlander opened a sealed gate. He had stopped talking while the outlander had started to mumble to himself. Aerin thought she heard him say, talk to me, damn it. Now she did not want to be the one to break the silence. So, they walked. The damp and muddy bricks continued for a while. Most of the time it was freezing cold. Here and there were small pools of water and all the staircases leading deeper were submerged.

"What's down that way?" The outlander asked sharply. He had stopped and knelt to rub mud off the landing of one of the staircases. He still looked unhappy.

"No idea." Bassor grunted.

"Why do you ask?" Aerin summoned her courage and opened her mouth. This could not go on. "You found something in the mud. What?"

The outlander did not reply immediately. He paced around and wiped more muck and grime off the floor and walls. "The floor isn't made of bricks. It hasn't been built."

"What do you mean it hasn't been built?" Bassor demanded.

"Let's go." Was the outlander's only response.

"Hey! What did you mean by that?" Aerin now asked.

"Don't bother yourself with my problems! I told you before." He growled. "I meant exactly what I said. The layers above us have been built. Below us, not." The man added after the three had started walking again.

"Huh. Never noticed that." Bassor raised his eyebrow. Aerin had a dozen questions on her tongue again.

It did not take long now before the three were standing before a small dome erected in the middle of a slightly larger tunnel. The outlander immediately marched up to the twin doors but then he stopped. He looked puzzled. And Bassor let out a satisfied grunt.

"This one's ours." Bassor produced a large key from the inside of his jacket and opened a large padlock on the wooden doors.

"The door has been built later. But not the dome." The outlander mumbled.

"What? So this vault didn't have a door?" Aerin asked, dumbstruck.

"Looks like it." Bassor called from within the doorway. Inside, he had lit sconces on the walls with his torch.

"I thought you said this was filled with scrolls?" Aerin asked. The view inside the room was rather pathetic. There were a few ancient bookshelves and a lectern in the room. The bookshelves looked like toothless smiles.

"See the dust on the floor? It was at one time. Most of it has decayed." Bassor shrugged. "I figure if it didn't last, it wasn't important anyhow."

Meanwhile, the outlander had started picking up random books and scrolls. None of them stayed in his hands for too long. The rate at which a new one was picked up was getting faster and faster. Then the man got down on his knees and rummaged through the remains and dust on the floor. It looked like he was trying to clean the centre.

Then his gaze fell on a few lone soul gems. He hurried towards them. Those didn't last long either. He had barely looked at the first one in his hands when he grabbed another. And another. He threw the last one against the wall in anger. It shattered into dust and the outlander redirected his anger at the lectern and kicked it. Pieces of ancient wood came loose. It looked like he wanted to topple the few bookshelves that had been spared thus far.