Mysteries of Anguish

Unlike most denizens of the City he found himself skulking through, the imp had a name. It was a glorious name, full of twisting turns and sharp edges. It was a name that frothed lips and left weaker men broken. It was a name that had been passed on from one spawn to the next since the elder stars first crawled into the sky. It was also one that his manling master couldn’t be bothered to remember, and so the imp went by “you,” “slave,” or “Imp” in equal measure, though it made his limbs curl in irritation. Still, Master fed him secrets and had the favor of the old ones, so the imp did what he was told without complaint, even if the effort sometimes made his needled teeth ache.

It had taken weeks, but the imp’s hard work was finally paying off. He’d finally found the entrance to the forbidden section. Though the stairs pulsed like the skin of a giant beast and the walls were wet and watching, he slowly made his way down the spiral staircase into the depths of the Nameless Library. Every tome in the library had power of course, from the ones scrawled on whispering leaves to the records frozen in screaming glass, but the truly dangerous—and therefore truly valuable—tomes lay below.

The deep darkness stretched like a giant cat, curling and twisting around the fitful light held aloft by the imp. Even when the stairs finally ended, the darkness circled from all sides, ready to pounce. It was all the imp could do to make out the faint shelves that spread out like a maze into the horizon. He laid his hand on a dark shelf to get his bearings.

His fingers brushed a book’s spine, and pain shot through his arm like a thousand angry needles—like something was squeezing his brain with barbed wire—but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to let the tome go. Flames began to leak from its pages as it roused from its slumber, and candles flickered to life across the forbidden section in sullen warning. By all the slime-spawned fleshlings—well, he’d found a dangerous one alright. He bared his teeth in an agonized grimace as faceless guards swarmed from between the shelves and pointed accusingly at the thieving imp.

“Mnahn’hlirgh,” he spat. Time to run.

He dashed back towards the stairs, book held aloft, pain lashing through him with every step. His flight was a torturous blur, dodging grasping hands and outraged cries as he climbed the living staircase three fleshy steps at a time. He just needed to make it to the thin space where his master was waiting.

There! A shimmer. The imp readied himself to jump when a nameless hand clamped down on his tail. He wriggled and struggled, fighting like snakes were writhing under his skin. So close—too close to fail now!

Suddenly, the guard let go with a hideous shriek. Blue blood spilled from his hand. Three of his fingers glistened wetly in the candlelight, muscles rippling grey and red. Somehow they’d been stripped of all flesh, and by his keening howls, the agony must have been intense.

The imp wasted no time. Claws scrabbling, he threw himself back into Entrath.

As the veil parted, he found himself at his master’s feet, book still clutched in his hands. The Librarian’s yellow robes swirled gently in an otherworldly breeze as he gazed down at the imp with a skull-like grin.

“Ahhhh, Imp. Whhat have wwwe here?”

Squirming tentacles gripped the book and brought it to face level. They smoked and blackened where they touched the tome, but The Librarian didn’t flinch. He turned the tome this way and that to reveal the title: Mystères de l’angoisse. Charred flesh flaked down like ash.

“Powerful, yesss. Gggood job, slave.” The Librarian chuckled wetly. “Ssssuitably dangerous…. Perhaps too dangerous.” His long, pale fingers tapped thoughtfully against his bony cheek. “I mmmust read, mmmust know, but it hurtsss… it burrns.”

He spread his hands wide and grabbed the book with his mind. Injured tentacles slunk back into his robes as the book spun in the air in front of him. “I cccannot risk destabilizing the pppath to The Library. Not yet. Nnnot until we know it wwworks. Sunken eyes flashed a deep blue. “We nnneed a test, Imp, and I have just the thing.”

The air twisted around him. Like turning a page, The Librarian stepped into another library. Soft, white candles dotted the shelves, and the gentle weeping of the Luminaries echoed through the vaulted halls. The Librarian smiled.

“The bright ones arrre weeak, reeeling… they arrre perrrfect.” He slid the malevolently glowing tome onto the shelf. “Now we wwwait, Imp. And we wwwatch. And when we are rrready, we tttake it back.”

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