Trouble in the Library
"Out, damned spot."
Astinus scowled at the dark spot on the parchment, his aged brow knitting over his severe nose that pointed as if accusingly at the offending ink blot. The historian hmphed in displeasure. The page now read: "On this day, of the Restful Hour rising 29, a young bard is trying to woo the young waitress Ania by singing odes to her (blot)." Astinus reached for another piece of parchment, sighing. A historian's work was never done. History was always in the making. For instance, the afore-mentioned bard was now becoming the first man on Krynn to be suffocated to unconsciousness on the waitress' (blot). It was Astinus' job to record all events on Krynn, and that truly meant all the events. It was a full-time job that only Astinus was able to handle. He did not age, never needed sleep, and was rumored to be a god himself. More specifically, he was rumored to be Gilean, the referee, accountant, record-keeper, and passive neutral god of Krynn.
There was no more parchment on the desk.
The Great Library of Palanthas was silent and waiting in trepidation.
"BERTREM!" The ageless chronicler of Krynn drummed his fingers on his desk. Angry thuds thundered through the oak table. Astinus hmphed again in impatience, scowled at the spot, played with and fingered the now-imperfect parchement, and picked invisible dust off his robes. He waited for Bertrem to stumble into the room, all breathless and quaking to ask humbly what his master wanted, to apologize profusely for his oversight, then rush off to get more parchment.
But Bertrem did not come.
And time was wasting away, history was passing unrecorded as the chronicler sat here in his room waiting for his aide to bring him more parchment. Astinus frowned again. This lack of adequate parchment on his desk was happening more and more frequently of late. Bertrem had been relating wonderingly to Astinus just this afternoon that parchment seemed to disappearing faster than new shipments were being brought to the library. Perhaps, Bertrem had suggested, the other Aesthetics in the library were making more mistakes than usual. If so, the master chronicler was now going to give those incompetent Aestherics a piece of his mind.
Neatly, quickly, his motions brisk and efficient, Astinus pushed his chair back, stood up, walked to his heavy oak door, opened it and walked out of the room. He strode down the well-lit stone hallway to the grand scriptorium, where the other Aesthetics usually worked, helping Astinus keep records, file the writings, add footnotes, catalog, and all the other dry library tasks. Though it was late in the night now, soft murmurs and parchment-scratching could still be heard as Astinus approached the room. He had insisted that some assistants always be at work around the clock. After all, history was always happening..for example, the afore-mentioned bard was now having home-made ammonia held to his nose by his friends in a bid to revive him. Astinus' lips pursed, his eyes squinted, and folded his arms as he came to the open door of the study room. Warm fire- and lamplight washed over his stern countenance and made him look like a shining, vengeful god. He cleared his throat.
Gasps, and shuffling paper. A pen fell into the floor, and there was a clumsy shuffle to retrieve it. Astinus watched stonily as a gangly young Aesthetic and trainee historian tried to reach for his pen, fell out of his chair, and bumped his head on the edge of his desk. The other two Aesthetics in the room were rearranging their papers, guiltily and quickly slipping the parchments they had been working on under other parchments, and then bending over new parchments, hands shaking as they tried to pretend they had been working at their proper tasks all this while. This odd behavior did not slip by the observant eyes of the master historian. Aesthetics just weren't good actors. Astinus narrowed his eyes in suspicion and stepped into the room, walking almost casually around the many, neatly-arranged work desks.
The young gangly one was still blindly groping for his pen under his desk. Astinus took a look at the work on his desk, found nothing suspicious there, then helpfully kicked the young man's pen towards his searching hand. Then the old chronicler walked slowly to the other two Aesthetics. Their shaking was now pretty obvious, and sweat was pouring from their brows onto their desks in a room that had gone suddenly cold. Astinus kept his arms folded and towered over the shaking Aesthetics. "Show me what you've been working on," he said.
The older Aesthetic of the two, the one who was just starting to bald, Vernan—Astinus recalled the name, shakily showed Astinus a blank page. "I-I...j-just st-started on a new page, master.."
"Apparently," said Astinus dryly. "But what have you been working on?"He glared.
Bravely, the Aesthetic lifted the blank, topmost piece of parchment and shakily revealed another page, this one with a long, involved article about the marriage customs of Silvanesti elves.
"Very good," said Astinus, scanning the page quickly with his eyes, and the shaking Aesthetic seemed to breathe a small sign of relief. "Now show me all the pages."
"I-I can't, sir."
"Mmmm? Why?"
"Erm...I-It isn't f-finished—"
"No matter."
"You can't see it, sir—er, m-m-master. It has some research blanks..."
But Astinus had scooped up the stack of parchment and was thumbing through the pages, reading them quickly. What he found among the last few pages caused the eyes of the usually expressionless, stern chronicler to widen. Quick as lightning, he snatched the stack of parchment of the other erring Aesthetic—Siskun—and scanned through that too. Astinus looked speechless, but the reddening of his face implied some powerful, fearful pressure building up behind the usually cold facade, threatening to explode...
"You've been writing F-FICTION!!!!!!" Astinus stuttered and sputtered as he thundered in righteous indignation.
"N-No, Master! I-I'm not—it's not—I'm sorry!"
Astinus shook the stack of parchments at Vernan angrily. "You have! What is this? Tanis Half-Elven and Sturm Brightblade saving the world and battling dragons and draconians five years before the War of the Lance?!" Astinus' face reached the shade of beetroot. "You must be kidding me! This is—" A pause, then the master chronicler spat out the word— "FICTION! F-fiction!" He made the word sound as tasteless as amateur bardic serenades about waitresses' physical assets. "Fiction!" he screeched again. "What use do I have of people in my library wasting time writing and spinning untrue, ridiculous kender tales that do nothing for the real cause?! We are historians..n-not..bards!"
Vernan had now sunk to his knees before Astinus, hands clasped as if he was praying for his life. If Astinus was the god he was rumored to be, perhaps he was. "I'm sorry, m-master!"
Astinus shook the parchments at his Aesthetic again. "Explain this!" His ageless, unnerving eyes glared unblinkingly, giving one the disturbing feeling of having one's lie found out without having said anything yet.
"I—t-the library—w-we..t-thought that we could at-ttract m-more of a f-following—I mean, readership if-ifff we embellished y-your s-stories a b-bit m-m-more...I m-mean, the real hi-histories were kind of boring, m-m-maste—" The Aesthetic struggled over the title, failed, gave a shaky, tortured moan, and hugged the floor at Astinus' feet, having decided that begging for mercy was now the best course.
"Why wasn't I aware of all this?" Astinus barked to no one in particular. The question, though he did not want to admit it, troubled him. His eyes were supposed to see everything as it happened...
"W-well, perhaps because hardly anything ever happens in the library, master," Siskun spoke up bravely and quickly when Astinus' eyes were not on him. "W-we're s-so boring that you might only have us in the back of your m-mind..besides, we s-still looked like w-we were working..." The younger Aesthetic's voice trailed off as Astinus turned towards him and stared.
There was a pause.
"You," said Astinus coldly, "are even worse." To make his point, the chronicler of Gilean shook the parchment at the Aesthetic again. "This...is all a bunch of crock. What on Krynn were you rambling about? A world without magic, ruled by a handful of big dumb dragons, old companions dying and coming back again..this-this 'Age of Mortals'... it doesn't even exist! We haven't reached any 'Fifth Age' yet! Or are you trying to tell me you can see the future?" Astinus asked coldly.
Siskun stared at his empty desk, pouting like a child who had been chastised for spilling his food. "It...It is s-science-fiction, master."
"What?"
Siskun bit his lip, then blurted out, "I-It's just s-some ideas for a story I-I had, set in a p-possible future...I thought it was a good idea," the younger Aesthetic finished petulantly. He even raised his eyes to Astinus', but was no match for the ageless historian's heavy stare. Hurriedly he turned his attention to his work desk again, studying the swirls in the wood.
"Vernan," said Astinus coldly as he stood over the two cowering Aesthetics, "your punishment is to stop this silly endeavor and to keep all the shelves in the library spotlessly clean for six months. Siskun—" he turned, and narrowed his eyes in extreme displeasure, "for your even worse 'fiction'—though it was hard to judge between the two of you...you're also to stop, and to scrub the floors of the hallways for six months."
Siskun groaned. Vernan quaked on the floor. Astinus turned to leave the study. The youngest, lanky Aesthetic was diligently working on his desk trying to pretend he had not heard a word. Astinus pursed his lips and strode purposefully out into the hallway. His attention now tuned to the happenings in his library, he now knew where to go to find his assistant, Bertrem. As if on cue, the thud of a book and a cowardly whine was heard from the direction of the great room of the bookshelves. Astinus arrived at the room to find his assistant pressed up against a bookshelf, a book lying on the floor near his feet, with a feather duster being threateningly held at his nose by another Aesthetic, Aron.
"M-master!" cried a pained Bertrem in relief. Astinus believed it was the first time in history anyone had ever sounded happy to see him. The other Aesthetic gasped, dropped the feather duster, and turned his back on Astinus, pretending to be perusing the bookshelves around him, and trying make Astinus disappear by not looking at him, perhaps.
"M-master!" cried Bertrem again, in thankfulness. "He tried to stop me from reporting to you!"
"You're welcome. I'm honored to have saved you from the feather duster," said Astinus wryly. "It would have wreaked havoc with your allergies. Pick up the book, Bertrem."
His assitant nodded shakily and picked up the book from the floor. Astinus noticed that it was not a book that had been penned by himself, although they were all standing in a section of the library that was supposed to hold only Astinus' own works. Astinus took the book from Bertrem's hands and flipped through it. More fiction. His eyes noted the presence of more fiction books on the shelves, mixed in among the volumes of the true histories he'd written. His eyes narrowed in anger.
"Aron." It was only one word, but the chronicler made it sound like it was laced with all the dwarven steel that had been forged for a hundred years for the purpose of killing only one target.
"Aron." The Aesthetic was still standing with his back to Astinus, but at the second mention of his name, he turned and cast his gaze to the marble floor, his face pale as chalk, and now slowly but surely looking like he would throw up.
"Explain these books on my shelves..." Astinus lazily ran his finger over the spines of the new fiction additions, then folded his arms and graced Aron with a full-blown stony stare. No one was ever able to resist the force of that blow.
"I-I—" Aron held his chest and stumbled against a bookshelf as if he was going to be violently sick. "I was p-putting the books on t-their shelves, m-master."
"These are not my books. Their contents are not true and are not histories. They are not supposed to be here, Aron."
"B-but...they're more exciting... And V-Vernan and Siskun w-wanted t-them to b-be here...T-they said they w-wanted some measure of f-fame, saying they n-never get any cr-credit f-for anything..."
Wordlessly, Astinus opened the volume in his hands to a page where Aron's own name had been signed as the writer of the story. Aron looked at the page, gasped loudly, grabbed his chest again, and tried to stop the floor from moving beneath his feet. He groaned. Bertrem watched silently, his stance that of a person who was now trying to look brave and dignified.
"I want the orginal volumes of mine back on the shelves," demanded Astinus coldly. "No matter if the truth was boring. I want no more embellished kender tales on my shelves. Those are not Krynnish history!"
"I..." squeaked Aron.
"What?"
"I c-can't, master. The...books...they're lost." Aron wiped sweat from his forehead off on his sleeve. The motion seemed to make him sicker,and he leaned groaning against a shelf.
"WHAT?"
Aron groaned again.
"Don't you dare throw up on the books! Now what happened to the books? MY books?" Even Bertrem cowed beneath his master's anger, even though he was not it's target.
"I was t-taking the books from the library to my brother's for safe keeping..." The Aesthetic's voice momentarily lapsed into a frightened whine, and then he continued, "when I was accosted b-by a k-kender, m-mas.."
Astinus gasped loudly in anger and disbelief. "Kender? You lost my books to kender??" The chronicler was speechless. He sputtered. Moments passed as Aron groaned and held the chest of his robes, Astinus stood dumbstruck, and Bertrem wrung his hands at his master's displeasure.
When Bertrem finally spoke first, his voice soft and tentative. "I'll go inform the authorities of the city, master. We'll search every kender in Palanthas, and throw them in jail." He waited for an answer from Astinus, and received none. Then in a rare stroke of wisdom, he decided discreetly to bow and leave to carry the task out anyway.
"Kender," said Astinus in disbelief.
"I-I'm sorry, master. I-It will never happen again. I will remove the new books from the shelves..." Aron offered.
"Kender," said Astinus again. "Forget it," said the chronicler with a sigh. "Leave them on the shelves for the moment. Better to have them there than gaping holes on my shelves..."
Aron nodded, then asked in a panic, "May I leave now, master? I am going to..." He heaved, clapped his hands over his mouth, and swayed on his feet.
"Throw up," sighed Astinus. "I know. Go," he finished coldly. The Aesthetic rushed fom the room, his robes fluttering behind him. Astinus stood alone among the shelves of books. He thumbed through the volume in his hands again, reading the pages quickly. Awful, awful. And now he needed to get back to work, to finish that story about the bard and chronicle what had just happened in his own library.
A historian's work was never done. History was always happening...
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