#Scraps of Past III: The Old Man And My Research part II

[damian-palendryl]

Scraps of Past III: The Old Man And My Research part II

In a state of utter confusion I woke up in a bed I didn’t recognize, my upper body patched up in bandages, my left arm elevated and hanged on a bandage with two sticks attached to my forearm, my other extremities felt a bit foreign but to my surprise, I wasn’t in pain.

I sat up slightly and looked around myself. It was a small, cosy looking room with a big window on my left side, but the view was mostly blocked by huge old trees outside the house. According to the amount of light, it was either a later afternoon or morning but the shades were rather warm and so I was inclined to believe it was the last of the afternoon light.

I looked around the interior of the room. The house itself was probably big, this was a second or third floor afterall, and by no means was this a wooden house so I would guess a mansion but in the middle of the forest...? I’ve never heard of anyone living in these parts... aside from the village. The room itself was small but well stocked on bookshelves with tons of books in various languages. It was too tiny for a guest room, but too fancy for a room of a mere servant. So maybe a book-worm butler lives here...?

I reached towards the bedside table and looked inside with curiosity. There was nothing, no personal belongings. So maybe no one lives in this room now? I spotted my clothes on a chair next to my bed. They were tattered but clean and next to them, there was also a fresh change of clothes I didn’t recognize but guessed, I was supposed to wear these.

Changing into the clothes took me about half an hour with my left arm disabled and I also noticed huge bruises all along my body, a leftover from the fall. It was a miracle, my legs seemed to have survived the fall without a fracture.

After a short rest when I finished changing (it took out almost all of my energy), I decided to go find out what was going on. And also to find the rest of my belongings, namely my research notes, drawings of peculiar wild-life species and fauna I didn’t know, 2 books about this forest and 1 trashy romance novel about a wizzard and a dragon hunteress, and all the other stuff I took with me on the road, including Arind’s stone without which I was quite powerless.

The house was huge. There were three floors and a ladder to the attic. Most of the rooms on the third floor were bedrooms. The left wing, where my room was situated at, seemed to have been a servants’ quarters but completely uninhabited, right wing had three major bedrooms and only one of them seemed to have had an owner but the owner himself was nowhere in sight, yet.

The second floor and first floor wings where full of necessary rooms like a kitchen, a bath, store rooms, a study, a dining room... But the main part of the house... There was a library. A library even bigger than the one in the Academy and the librarians there always prided themselves in the fact that theirs was the third biggest library in the kingdom. With a circle structure of the whole thing, it stretched throughout all the three floors, connected by wooden circular stairs on four sides, richly engraved with heads, tails and paws of mythical creatures and gods.

I headed towards the nearest section, at once. “Philosophy”. I looked through the titles and could see that they were books in all sorts of languages, some of the books I’d managed to recognize, I’d only ever heard of, due to them being extremely rare. I browsed through the various sections and finally, I found myself in front of the section “Spiritual Beings”. Second floor on the Western side. I pulled out a few of the books and sat to a nearby table.

I’m not sure how much time has passed, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and at last, there stood the person who saved my life. I wanted to get up to greet him but he made me sit down again and instead, took another chair and sat next to me. It was an old man in his late 60s maybe, with a huge built and muscles that still seemed strong. His face was hidden by a thick but short beard for the most part, his eyes looked fierce, at first, but at second glance you could see a bit of kindness somewhere deep inside.

His clothes were simple but neat, in the same style as the ones I was wearing just then.

“I... I’m sorry, I took your books without permision. I didn’t see you anywhere around, sir, and this library just looked so tempting...”

The man smiled a little at me and spoke in a deep hoarse voice: “How are you feeling, little traveller?”

“Well... Actually... pretty good. Nothing hurts. How did you do that?”

He pointed towards a section called “Health and Medicine”.

At the moment, I thought that books are simply amazing.

Then he looked at me again. “So what is a youngling like you doing, wandering around such a dangerous forest. Besides you’re clearly not from around here. Did you get lost all the way from the Fey Wild...?”

I laughed slightly and felt my upper body disagree with the sudden shaky movement. “Ugh...! Oh... No, you see... I am 18 years old and I am Eladrin only from my mother’s side, so I’m actually an adult already. And I’ve never been to Fey Wild, really. I was born and raised in Narradian lands.”

“I see,” nodded the man, “you are quite far from your homeland then. But we should introduce ourselves. I am the Master of this place. And this place is “N’Attallon”. A forgotten library in the middle of the woods.”

The introduction of himself seemed rather vague but I didn’t intend to pry as I wasn’t going to reveal my origins that easily as well. “I am Damian, a shaman in training.”

“A shaman! I can see why you took the interest in this wildreness. Yes, yes... the nature around is rather spectacular, I guess. It is nothing new to me anymore but I do remember when I came here for the first time, I was astonished.”

“Tell me, Master... Why is there a “library in the middle of the woods”? I saw here some ancient books, very rare... And very inteligent, shouldn’t more people have access to jewels like these...?”

Old man’s brows furrowed slightly and his answer came with a short pause. “Most people have no desire to take interest in reading these. Besides...!” He got up and walked towards one of the shelves, eyes searching through the titles randomly. “Lots of these books were saved from being burnt by ignorant fools. There might be only these exemplars left, so why risk these artworks being destroyed and forgotten forever? This is a private collection, it was never meant to be shown to public.”

He went silent after that and I searched for a different topic. “The people... the people in the village didn’t mention this place. Are we close to the village?”

“Hmm... We are maybe a day’s distance from the village and the village is the closest settlement to here. Not even the elvish folk come that deep into the woods.”

“But then...” The information surprised me, I was sure I didn’t wander that far away and... How the heck could anyone build such mansion when there is no way they could bring the materials here...

Master turned to me again. “Do you feel well enough to have a dinner with me or would you rather go upstairs and rest?”

“I... I think I will go rest. Ouch... I am finally starting to feel the injuries.” I got up and started to limp towards my room.

Seeing my struggles with the stairs, the old man swiftly picked me up and got me safely to my room again, leaving again to prepare some more of the herbal analgetic medicine for me.