“Knowledge is never free. The price is often your name, your sleep… or your sanity.”
The morning haze over Austère was thinner now, washed pale by the rising sun. Yet Lucien Varro found no comfort in daylight. Not after the message whispered by the Oracle of Cinders.
“The world will end not with fire, nor flood, but with a whisper.”
That phrase looped endlessly in his mind as he made his way toward the Bibliothèque Noire, the library buried beneath the city’s oldest cathedral — a place sealed off from the public and the divine alike.
The Forbidden Repository
No one walked near the cathedral at this hour. Its steeples loomed like iron spears stabbing into the morning sky. Gargoyles with melted faces crouched above the entryway, as if hiding from what lay below.
Lucien reached the side entrance, a rusted metal gate hidden behind dead ivy. He pressed a gloved finger against a worn symbol — a glyph etched in invisible ink that responded only to the Initiated.
Click.
The gate creaked open, revealing a stairwell descending into shadow.
The deeper he walked, the colder the air became. The echoes of his footsteps bounced strangely, as though the stone absorbed the sound only to whisper it back in reverse.
Finally, he reached the threshold: a thick wooden door covered in iron runes. He muttered an incantation, one learned from a tome that no longer existed in official archives.
The lock clicked. The door groaned open.
Vaults of the Mind
Inside, the Bibliothèque Noire resembled more a labyrinth than a library. Shelves curved, split, and folded in ways that defied geometry. Books floated above pedestals. Some whispered. Some wept.
Lucien passed the familiar rows of the Known. Then the Suspect. Then the Condemned — where books were chained shut with silver bindings.
He stopped before a sealed display case. Inside was a small volume wrapped in aged black leather.
No title.
No author.
Just a sigil on its cover — one that twisted the mind if stared at too long.
Lucien reached into his coat and pulled out the monocle again. The runes etched into its lens shimmered as he placed it over his eye.
The book’s sigil shifted.
“Welcome back, Lucien Varro.”
The voice came from nowhere. Or perhaps the book itself. His jaw tightened. “I never gave you a name.”
“You didn’t. But names are echoes too.”
With a trembling hand, he opened the case and picked up the book.
Secrets and Sanity
The moment his fingers touched the cover, a thousand images flooded his mind — temples sunken in blood, skies torn by ink-black lightning, a throne made of mirrors and bone.
He clenched his jaw and forced the hallucinations away.
Opening the book to the first page, he read:
“The Forgotten Path is not walked. It is remembered.”
More pages followed. Not ink, but burnt impressions in the parchment — as if the words had branded themselves into the paper.
He flipped faster. Diagrams of sigils, rituals, names of long-dead gods whispered across the margins. One passage made him stop:
“Three shall awaken the Cycle:
The Seeker who Sees Without Eyes,
The Hollow who Bears the Chain,
And the One Who Remembers the Name He Never Knew.”
Lucien underlined the last phrase.
“That’s me.”
Interruptions
A sudden gust extinguished his lamp.
Lucien stood still, surrounded by a silence too complete to be natural.
Then — a noise. Not footsteps, not whispers. Something… crawling.
He replaced the book in its case and stepped back slowly.
From behind the nearest shelf slithered a shape — humanoid in silhouette, but made of shifting, inky strands. Its face wore no features, only a reflection of Lucien’s own.
“You shouldn’t be here,” it rasped, in Lucien’s own voice.
He didn’t hesitate. Pulling a vial from his belt, he hurled it against the floor. A sharp flash of light burst forth — radiant salt, blessed by a forgotten rite.
The figure screeched and recoiled, its form unraveling into strands that retreated into the shadows.
Lucien backed away, heart pounding. “Not again… not this soon.”
The Keeper’s Warning
He rushed toward the exit, only to be met by a tall figure in a crimson cloak. Face obscured by a brass mask carved with symbols, the figure stood unmoving.
Lucien stopped.
“You let it out,” the masked figure said.
“No,” Lucien replied. “It followed me.”
“That is worse.”
The Keeper tilted his head. “You touched the Echo again. You shouldn’t have.”
“I had to. The cycle is accelerating.”
The figure raised a hand. “Then you have until the third moonrise to find the second name.”
Lucien frowned. “Whose name?”
The Keeper said nothing. Instead, he stepped aside, letting Lucien pass.
🌒Beneath Two Moons
That night, Austère slept restlessly. Dreams twisted, and windows rattled though no wind blew. In an attic apartment lit only by candlelight, Lucien sat hunched over a table.
Maps. Glyphs. Fragments of prophecy. It covered the surface like a tapestry of madness.
In the center: the Echo’s sigil, drawn in his own blood.
His hand trembled as he wrote:
“The second name hides where the mirror meets the flame. Beneath the city. Beneath the truth.”
He looked up.
Outside, two moons hung in the sky — a phenomenon that had no place in natural astronomy.
“The cycle begins,” he whispered.