Wind Blown Ashes: Episode 6 Into the Library

Getting into the Library of Kematree present Ashes with challenges she didn't expect

A goblin approached as Ashes rested in the shade of the city wall. “Master Ammes has your reply and will give it to you now, or read it to you for an additional silver bit.” The voice was deep, purring and masculine, the voice of a powerful warrior. It didn’t go with that scrawny body and green wrinkled face. Non-human ethics, with all the hidden charges, were troublesome. Reading the response should have been included. Did the human woman that sent her to the half-elf get a kickback?

Ashes closed the text she was studying, put it in her pack, and went to the table of the half-elf. To the untaught, people might confuse half-elves with elves, but once you have seen any elf of any type, you never make that mistake again. Twice elves had bought from Golden Needle. No human can mistake something without a soul, such as an elf, for something with one, as half-elves have.

Village elders taught that races that do not have souls were inherently evil and those with souls were inherently good. Her mistress corrected that thinking. While devils don’t have souls, demons did. That was one of the several souled races that were evil. The belief that soulless were evil came mainly from how different they were. She handed the half-elf the silver bit.

“Excellent news. The library sent you a pass and granted you an interview at once. For a silver bit, Kick will act at porter, and show you the way.”

She sighed and handed him one of her few remaining silver bits.

Kick was a different goblin than the one who had fetched her, older and bent over. “Is he up to carrying my pack?” she asked.

“As a general rule of thumb, the older the goblin, the stronger he is. His bones might pain him some. But he can defeat every other gobbling here with no problem.”

**

Ashes found out what the half-elf meant about the gate guards not eating his runner. Hellhound guarded it. This library was exclusively for those that followed the Gray Path, and those Hellhounds would attack on sight any followers of the white path. They hated the dark path almost as much, but could be trained to allow certain ones to pass unmolested, such as a goblin slave.

Ashes took a breath. If she had drifted too far into the black, one of those hellhounds would kill her when she passed within its chain’s length. It appeared that two hellhounds covered every entrance. Kick looked back at her, grinned, then walked between the two beasts.

Despite her fear, she followed.

Both growled at her as they had a Kick but didn’t move.

The spell barrier they crossed walking under that arch, one designed to kill any dark mage powerful enough to pass the hellhounds, made goose bump crawl up her arms.

Kick walked through the next barrier that had the appearance of a pool of water.

Ashes swallowed and followed.

Her ring burned her hand. Once through, she looked down and part of the barrier covered her finger.

She heard a voice. “Should you trigger that ring here, you die and that within gets your soul. You must agree to this or leave.”

Ashes took another deep breath. “I agree.” Magic settled over her of a type she could not unravel.

“Unwise,” Kick said. She wanted to know more, but Kick just walked on.

Only then did she realize the voice she had heard had been that of her mistress. A barrier of blackness blocked the next arch. This and the last barriers her mistress had mentioned to her. As the last one neutralized items of evil, this one neutralized holy items and a powerful devil lord had put it in place. Had a demigod put the one before it in place? Neither light nor dark wanted the other to gain access to this place, so the lords of each had been called on in the protection of it.

Kick set down her pack beside a door. “In here is your interview.”

***

The gray-haired, dark-skinned fat woman behind the desk gave Ashes a disdainful look as she walked into the woman’s office, carrying her books under one arm. In a voice both icy and condescending, the woman spoke. “Most westerners are barely literate. You need to convince me you are not wasting our time allowing you access to knowledge you have no use or need of.”