Chapter 8: The Library of Thorns – Where Forbidden Knowledge Bleeds Through Every Page
Zayan stepped forward into the mist-drenched vale, his boots sinking slightly into the soft, moss-laced ground. The path behind him—twisting, worn, and swallowed by shadow—was now an echo. Before him stood a sprawling structure, neither ruin nor fortress, but something ancient in-between: alive, brooding, covered in vines that moved ever so slightly with a will of their own.
This was Bayt al-Ashwāk—The Library of Thorns.
The tales he had read in the faded scrolls of Qarya As-Sirr whispered of this place. A sanctum forged not by hand, but by will—a living archive of secrets and scriptures so powerful they had to be imprisoned within sentient stone and bleeding parchment. Its halls were bound in riddles, its gates sealed in sin, and its librarians... not quite living.
As Zayan neared the jagged gates, which resembled clenched teeth more than doors, the vines recoiled, revealing an arched inscription carved in both Ancient Qaari and the forgotten tongue of Bāni Uzza:
"He who seeks knowledge must first offer ignorance as sacrifice."
A whisper slid into his ear—no voice, no mouth. Just presence.
"Enter, bearer of the Echo Brand. But know this: books here bleed truth, and truth is never clean."
The library's interior was impossibly vast, impossibly dark. No torches burned. Yet he saw. Faint blue veins of energy pulsed along the walls, illuminating millions of scrolls, books, tablets, and even carved bones arranged like spines across infinite tiers.
Each shelf... was alive.
Some breathed. Some blinked. Others groaned softly as if nursing memories too heavy to bear. The silence was sacred. But underneath it, an invisible choir hummed a hymn of madness—low and slow like wind through a grave.
Zayan's steps echoed with a cadence that wasn't his own. As if the library was walking with him. Or within him.
The Librarian
In the center of the atrium, beneath a canopy of thorns that reached into an unseen sky, stood The Librarian.
She was tall, shrouded in pages stitched into robes—each leaf fluttering with prayers, curses, and equations beyond time. Her face was veiled, but from beneath it, a faint light seeped like moonlight through clouds.
"You seek the cure for what is not a disease," she said without mouth, without breath. "You chase echoes, Zayan ibn Zahr. But echoes only lead to where the sound died."
"I seek the Codex Al-Aghmār," he replied firmly. "The Grimoire of Hidden Origins."
The Librarian tilted her head. A book floated between them, bound in rust and weeping ink.
"Then answer the question: Do you wish to know the truth... or understand it?"
Zayan did not blink. "Both."
The librarian extended her hand, and the book's pages opened, revealing black script that rearranged itself constantly—as if afraid to be read.
The Trial of Understanding
The pages pulled Zayan in. Not metaphorically. Literally.
He fell—spiraling into words, syntax, and syllables that wrapped around him like serpents of memory. Symbols etched into his skin, burned with histories he had never lived but now remembered:
A city that predated light.
A disease born not of biology, but of ideas—viral truths.
The first being to forget its name, birthing the first lie.
A forgotten people who sang their souls into glyphs, locking their emotions in stone so they could never feel pain again.
He gasped. Every truth was a wound.
When he awoke, the Librarian stood over him.
"You have seen some," she whispered. "Not all. The Codex will only reveal what you are ready to destroy within yourself."
Zayan clutched his chest. The brand on his forearm—a spiraling sunburst—now shimmered darkly. The Echo Mark had awakened. But with it came burden.
"What must I do?" he asked, voice ragged.
The Librarian pointed to a door veiled in thorns thicker than any before. Upon it was carved a warning:
"Beyond this door lies the name you've forgotten, and the sin you've inherited."
She spoke once more, "To heal the world, you must first unmake your own story."
Zayan stepped forward, heart trembling.
Beyond the Veil
The chamber behind the door was not a room, but a reflection—of himself, of his ancestors, of something older. Voices cried out in languages he once knew in dreams. Figures shrouded in time, faces blurred by memory, all turned toward him.
And then... a mirror.
In it, he saw Zayan not as he was—but as he might have been. In robes of ash. Eyes glowing with runes. A crown of branches on his head.
He looked into his own soul and saw war.
He looked deeper and saw... choice.
A voice—his own yet not—asked: "Will you be the healer, or the herald?"
To Be Continued ...