draethym’s walls

I grew up here, in the library with books instead of parents and stories instead of friends. I have spent the past twenty years of my life in the Draethym and yet I still have not mapped out the entire library, and that isn’t due to lack of effort. Although I have gotten close, I still don’t know if the end might even be near. I don’t even know if there is an end.

This was a gamble that could cost me a lot. This was also a gamble that might just tell me more. 

Eight-hundred and ninety-two passages and hallways in Deidre’s Library, not including the few window alcoves near the front of the building, that I have counted. It really doesn’t count as a building; it is a palace, a fortress, a never ending maze of shelves and books that is my home. 

I grew up here, in the library with books instead of parents and stories instead of friends. I have spent the past twenty years of my life in the Draethym and yet I still have not mapped out the entire library, and that isn’t due to lack of effort. Although I have gotten close, I still don’t know if the end might even be near. I don’t even know if there is an end.

How very scary, yet very comforting. 

I will never be lonely and I will never run out of books. Two things that have been as constant in my life as the stars are to the sun. On the other hand, there is this humane feeling of unease knowing that everyday I am walking into a never-ending labyrinth of books that I may never walk out of.

But I have made my peace with Draethym, I have put my trust in his long, knotted fingers. Of course, he has a whole kingdom in his gentle hands, what’s one more little girl who doesn’t have a home?

Almost nine hundred years ago, Deidre Ruscai was crowned Empress of Thane, after a quick but vicious war against the nearby kingdom of Midain. History says that the entire war was based on a misunderstanding, a loss of trust, and a lack of knowledge. It is said that the entire war was short lived and really, only ever lived for misinformation and a well-spread lie among scribes. 

Regardless of how the war started, it ended within three days by Deidre Ruscai, a woman of no heritage from a place with little wealth. But she had one thing. Knowledge. 

In a haze of panic and desperation, the royal family of Dolos let Deidre in, giving her a chance to speak her worth. Stories say that she told the guards of the palace their names, their legion numbers, and the names of their mothers. They say she squeezed herself in with the words of her scrolls. 

When the Dolos emperor of that time heard what she said of the war, he took it immediately to Midain, and the war was over in minutes.

Supposedly outside of Deidre’s all-knowing knowledge, the empress had died a month before she showed up due to illness. According to most sources, Dolos fell in love with Deidre, the Savior of Thane and the All-Knower. He begged Deidre on his knees to marry him and to live with him in the palace, and Deidre had said yes. The royal family had an heir by the end of the year. 

And at the start of the next year, Dolos was dead. Sickness, they said, ailment of health, they murmured. The history books brushed over the topic, emperors die every other day. Besides, they still had their relatively newly crowned empress, Deidre, and the newborn heir, Draethym. 

A few paragraphs after that, any mention of Dolos’ name is stripped off the text and the only thing left is Deidre’s building of the library. A library, in name of the All-Knower to spread knowledge. It’s said that she spent her whole life collecting books and recording information, and that she spilled every word into this library. 

Almost sixty years later, it was still being built on the day of her death and it was finished the day her son died. It’s why we call the library the Draethym. Draethym supposedly enchanted it with one of wishes from the god of Tyche. It’s touched with ancient magic to always have the right, real information from any point in time as long as you have the right heart looking for it. 

That was how Deidre Ruscai did it. 

So, according to every one of the history records and every book covering that time, Deidre was a queen-born-scribe who saved the kingdom with her scrolls and miraculously landed herself a seat as the Empress of Thane. 

According to me? She was a spy, a liar, and a well-equipped user of knowledge. 

There are a lot of things that the history books don’t say, but, most of the time, you can always still find the information. You just have to skirt around your actual topic. 

So when I started researching about Deidre ten years before she actually entered the picture, I found out a few things. 

For one, there is absolutely zero mention of her name or the family line Ruscai in all of Thane’s long and elaborate history. She it not present whatsoever. 

Quickly after that, I jumped to when she did start showing up in the books and looked into some other perspectives, other writings. Ones that don’t focus on the grand story of our savior Deidre. 

In Cleone’s Records of the Golden Age, I learned that in all of her life, Deidre was never questioned. Even before they fact checked her with the agreement of Midain, no one in the court ever suggested otherwise. At every single well-timed death throughout her time in history, not a single negative line was uttered. I supposed that the entire library I’d been finding this information in was largely built by her and her son, but she centered her life around knowledge. I believe there is truth in her library. 

And yet, every word from her mouth was taken as true. How odd. 

After some more digging, I found a dozen or so short passages from the Golden Age that spoke of Empress Deidre. I spent ages looking for any written information of Deidre that wasn’t written by scribes, Dolos, Draethym, or Deidre herself. I only found a few, and yet something really uncanny was uncovered. 

In An Autobiography of Iason, there are four short stories that focus on the ruling family during the Golden Age. Iason spends a good three of those stories describing the good Deidre brought on the education system of Thanos. Much of his informal writing was spent praising her action. In the last few lines of his account though, it mentions that she had vibrant green eyes and coily brown hair.

And yet, in another farmer’s account, it said that Deidre wore brown eyes. 

Alright, small mixup, especially because it’s a farmer. None of these sources are a hundred percent reliable in the least. 

Except in Draethym’s journals, he described looking up at his mother’s long black hair. Every single one of Dolos’ poems on his all-knowing wife describe a woman with olive skin and jet black hair and icy blue eyes. 

That day, I concluded three things: History is unreliable, the seventy-ninth ruler of Thane appeared out of thin air, and Deidre Ruscai was not a human.

Carefully, I gather the folds of my bronze robe and pull it up to my chest as I walk through one of the more familiar hallways in the Draethym. This one is part of the history archives, one of the oldest too. It’s why I’ve spent so much time here. It’s also one of the farthest corners the librarians know of, so no one would ever find me all the way back here. 

I walk silently, with my arms to my chest and my hood pulled up. Technically, I am a low-ranked scribe which means my face is never to be shown and my voice never to be uttered. I’d been recruited almost a decade ago, when I was just a little orphan girl, to become a scribe for the Emperor because of some historian potential some elder scribe saw in me. I’d been too young to be officially recruited, so instead they just pulled me from the orphanage and made the Library my home. Soon, I’d been forgotten, and to this day there are no official records of me. 

I just stay away from the people. It’s really not that hard, in a labyrinth like this one.

Today, I’d decided was a research day. Well, to be fair, every day was a research day. But today was one of those days you sat down and just started reading. No analysis, no reason, no thinking, just intaking the information.

Walking decisively through shelves of history books, I thumb the spines of each one as I go. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what the title of the book is, or what it’s about. Sometimes, it just need to have the right feeling. Draethym will push it towards me.

The thick red book with rusted gold lettering has that feeling. It falls out easily and I huff it into my arms, peeling the pages open. 

The Unabridged Edition to the Golden Age of Greece by Matala Anchaeon. 

A smile perks on my lips and I breath in the scent of a book like an old friend. This one is the real deal. 

I pull out a few books near this one that are published by the same author and haul them over to one of the few comfortable alcoves in the library. This place isn’t really the most comfortable of places, but when I’d first started spending nights in the Draethym, I’d needed a home base. I needed somewhere to retreat to, sleep, and research. I’d found this wooden ledge in one of the two story bookshelves, where the bookshelves didn’t line up and so left about a five foot ledge. It looked down into a long, rustic hallway overfilling with books and on the ledge, your back faced another wall of books. I’d emptied out a few of the shelves in my corner and filled it with a few pillows and blankets, my most recent books, a small stash of food, and my extra robe. It was cozy, it was sweet, and it was home.

I stifle out a sigh as I finally stumble into my little nest of pillows, blankets, and books. Pulling my sleeves down, I open the first red book and let my mind settle into its researching mode. 

Almost four hours later, I’ve poured through all of the books I’d brought up to my alcove, created a timeline on one of the scrap scrolls in my alcove, and started to run some conclusions. Not even two hours in, I’d lost all sensitivity to exactly what my information was, so now looking back… these conclusions are revolutionary. 

For one, Matala is one of the only female historic writers who even brushed on the topic of Deidre Ruscai, and she is certainly the one one who was so blatantly clear about her opinion. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I’d even read a male historian be so bold about their opinions. It is kind of refreshing. 

And for two, Matala really, really did her research. There was one record of Deidre as a teenager. The only record I have ever found in this library that covers Deidre before she publicly announced herself. The only one. 

It was a short account of how she and one of her friends had wildly gone into a bakery late at night and grabbed as many pastries as they could. They’d run off into the night only to be dragged back by a few of the bakers and one of the town guards. 

I assumed it was a story recorded by one of the bakers, because there was a lot of description on how these two unmannered women stormed into their innocent little bakery in a wild whirl of arms and nails and whipping hair. The two girls had been wearing brown school dresses that looked like they were no longer worn to school, and they were barefoot. 

Honestly, the amount of hate and rage expressed by the baker was rather dramatic, and he’d seriously exaggerated most of it at least sevenfold. 

“Get lost! I hope you lose your head to the devils, xemyali!” The baker had cried, with even more gruesome depictions of how much violence he’d wanted inflicted upon the two rebellious little girls. 

Not much to learn from this story through my first read, honestly it was more entertaining than it was helpful. 

And then in my word searches and fact checking, I found something. While xemyali was sometimes used as just Greek slang, it also meant temptress.

Almost a month later, I’d gone further into the Draethym than ever, and had gotten lost more times than I can count. It’s always a spike of panic into my blood thinking I might never be able to find my way back, and that I might be stuck wandering aimlessly through the library till my death. There have been people who got lost in the uncharted areas of the never ending library. They never return, and sometimes I think I see bones between the books. 

Regardless, I’d finally found some valuable information. 

Deidre Ruscai had actually never been seen the entire year she was pregnant up until her sone Draethym had turned one. She certainly was still present and there are still records of her in the court, but no one outside of the castle had any account of seeing her whatsoever. Strange. 

And then I found a servant's journal from when Deidre’s Library was being built. According to the text, the Empress became obsessed with her library, working on it and staying in it day and night for months. Years, even. It was her hobby, her pet, her masterpiece. Some say she left her soul there, because it had no where else to be. 

And my last piece of information? Deidre’s body was never found. A year after her first grandchild was born, she died quietly of a heart disease according to history. It was a somber, expected death for the previous empress, who had reached the age of eighty-one. Except afterwards? No mention ever. Her burial site is nowhere to be found. 

Today, I’ve decided to try something. A month ago I’d reached the ends of the Draethym lengthwise, meaning I had a rough estimate of the east and south walls of the library. However, no one had gone deep enough to reach the north wall of the library. Although, based on my current maps of the library, it feels like a maze. A labyrinth with a center. 

So, dividing the length by two and walking straight forward gives an estimate of where the center would be. I found a squiggly path that should hopefully end up somewhere near there. 

This was a gamble that could cost me a lot. This was also a gamble that might just tell me more. 

I’ll tell you now, I am a scribe at heart, a finder and seeker of knowledge. And Draethym? My only friend, he would lead me right. There really was no choice. 

I’ve been trekking through the walls and walls of books for almost an entire day. I’d had gotten lost by now, if not for my intricate and carefully made maps. I was deeper in than I’d ever been before, but the architecture of the library had a pattern. A complicated, specific pattern that did repeat. If I had that figured out, I could get anywhere. 

I really hope I’m getting somewhere. 

Holding my oil lamp higher with sore arms, I follow the dimly lit hallways of the library while making short notes on my map. That’s another thing. No one knows how the library is lit, with small candles dotting every hallway. Some believe there’s an oil path running through the stone with fuel and a time system running. I could believe that, but others say Deidre invited some of the enchantresses from around the kingdom to enchant the lights. Maybe it was one of the other two wishes Draethym received from Tyche. Who knows. 

Huffing a breath and hitching my rucksack higher up on my shoulder, I reach the end of another hallway and make a turn, marking it on my map. I’m so close. I suck in a breath as my feet move and the lights flicker for a moment, the air holding it’s breath. It almost feels like I’m being watched.

The next pathway is dark. I raise my oil lamp even higher and squint, my eyes adjusting to the dimness. Biting my lip, I walk slowly to the end of the hallway. Each step echoes with whispers across the floor, it’s so quiet I can hear the settling of the dust. How strange. How real it feels now, off the page and outside the realm of words. 

At the end of the hallways, is a vault. A large, oxidized copper door in the shape of an elaborate clock, with Greek inscriptions. It’s rusted and turned a beautiful turquoise color. The clock doesn’t have an hour hand or a minute hand, but the seconds had has started to tick every so slowly. Definitely not every second. 

I fight with myself for the next two minutes. 

I could open the door and find something awful, or amazing, or really, really valuable. Or I open the door and am fairly disappointed with a ton of bones and skulls. That’s what I’m arguing about, but I think something inside me knows that this isn’t a game anymore. There’s a lot more at stake than me finding a lot of skulls. 

I open the vault just as the second hand hits twelve again. 

The door slides open too easily and my breathing hitches when I catch a glimpse at what is inside. Hundred of statues. Hundreds of turquoise stone statues of hundreds of different people, too real to be made. So many statues, in rows and rows in various different poses. All dying in some way. 

“Ah. And the labyrinth restarts again.” 

I whip my head around to catch the eye of a woman, one who has dark brown hair and olive eyes. And then she doesn’t. And now she has icy blue eyes and raven black hair–and oh. She’s flickering in and out and the only thing consistent through all the different features is that she is beautiful. Stunning, pretty in a sickening way. It makes me want to throw up and yet everytime she changes I swallow my vomit. God, she never died.

How strange. I bite my tongue. 

“The labyrinth?" I stutter out the words. 

“Magic is a cost, young wanderer. Knowledge is a temptation.” She strolls slowly towards me between the statues, and I’ve realized that the entire floor is covered in papers and books and scrolls. Deidre is still all-knowing. “Draethym stays alive somehow. After all, Tyche’s wish only lasted so long.”

“Cost?” A whisper escapes my lips. 

“You.” A small smile. “The labyrinth is much more alive than you think, little knowledge-seeker.”

A hiss at the end of her words, and then all I can see is icy gray eyes that keep changing color and the clock hitting twelve with all three hands and turquoise stone.