Chapter twenty-eight: Into the Library

A vast space separates each bookshelf, yet they act like they’re compacted against each other. It all looks so formal and superficial with the clean tile floor beneath us. The multiple domes that hover above us in the ceiling as a fancy structure to complete the setting. My curiosity causes me to stray from our current predicament for a moment.

“I would prefer to see your journey to the end,” Uncle announces while he shows us where to seat Dad, “But I have an important meeting to attend, so Kaif should be here soon.”

“Who’s that?” Father sits comfortably in a big chair with lots of cushions surrounding it. He just might take a nap on it.

“He’s a servant of mine, he should be able to guide you through the Library and bring you back to Fupum.” Uncle peers his gaze around for said person.

Zaru steps forth to question my uncle’s legitimacy, “Why not just take us there now?”

“Vensen can sense anything in the void, which is practically everywhere. If you stay here for a while and then jump back into your world, you’ll have a better chance of him losing track of you. It should work because it’ll be a sudden change in your location from being in an abstract world to a more physical one.”

Zaru’s stare switches to me with obfuscation. “Vila, what is he talking about?”

Another soft breath of frustration suspires from Uncle. “I have to leave now, I can’t be late for this meeting.”

“Um, hello.” A faint voice barely projects to our ears.

Uncle Kakashin turns to the delicate sound to find a young boy hiding behind one of the book shelves.

He looks maybe about fourteen years of age with red hair, kind red eyes behind the rectangular lenses of his glasses, some freckles, and a green shirt with a fishnet underneath. His yellow-ish skin speaks of his possible Aishin relations. The boy comes closer from his hiding place behind a bookshelf. “Uh, hello Master.” He acts timid and reluctant to approach us any closer.

“Hello Kaif,” Uncle directs to the boy. “Keep them company, and make sure they get back to Fupum number 2G47. You may also answer any questions that they have, just as I went over with you during the debriefing.”

“Yes Sir.”

Number what?

Uncle Kakashin brings his attention back to us. “You three remain safe. I must depart now.” He then walks away and then disappears into the shadows.

Zaru and I then go back to staring at the boy named “Kaif.”

“Uh, hello; Kaif is it? I’m Vila.” I bow to him out of habit.

Still being shy, he makes a nod of his head before Zaru introduces himself.

“And I’m Zaru.” He also greets Kaif by bending his back.

A nervous grin only lives for a second on Kaif’s lips. “Oh, hello, it’s nice to meet you,” he says in a barely audible voice.

We all then hear a snore and look over to my dad. His head lumps back on the chair with his arms and legs spread out. The rumbling in the back of his throat is muffled by his closed mouth and we can’t help but stare at him.

Feeling embarrassed, I walk over to him and start tapping his shoulder. “Dad,” I say gently as to not wake him up aggressively. “Father, wake up.”

Father jumps with his eyes opening and becomes fully conscious. His eyes dart back and forth to look at the others and then he relaxes again. “Oh, you guys must be ready to start moving again.”

I lean in closer to mention the true reason of waking him up, “Dad, you were snoring again.”

He looks down with red on his cheeks. “Oh…”

We all chuckle in good spirits and then he tries to get up from the fancy chair.

I reach a hand out for him to grab, but he does it with no trouble. Father manages to stand up on his two feet like there’s no problem without my help. “I just needed some rest. Are we ready to roll?”

“Dad, I thought you were in pain?” Was that just an act so we would feel pity for him?

His oh-so-familiar smile reassures me of his renewed strength. “Remember when Roukuu mentioned how quickly you were healing earlier?”

I nod.

“Wait a minute.” Zaru steps in to make sure he understands what he just heard. “You got hurt, from what?”

My eyes dart to the floor bashfully. “Yeah, I fell from the edge back in the dungeon.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, the scars went away quickly. I’m fine now.”

Father clears his throat a little to bring us back to his side of the conversation and give me a look of disapproval to my lie. With an obverse of stating that he understands the relationship I have with Zaru, he proceeds, “As I was saying, every member of the main line in our family, including servants, has the ability to rebuild themselves and others rapidly. You weren’t able to heal as quickly before you activated your tsavi, besides, it takes a while before your body gets used to this sort of power, so worse injuries might take longer.”

What about the time I fell from the hill back in Kai?

My memories immediately go back to that incident when I was freaking out about him missing. The noise of Zaru and Father hardly reverberate to my ears in the background as I focus on this incident that shouldn’t make sense. I subtly feel the back of my head to touch where the wound was. It’s gone. It went away so quickly that I almost forgot… Was that Vensen that I saw? That-figure-with the tenebrific eyes. Was that my grandfather?

“Vila.”

My attention snaps back to Dad and Zaru.

“Is something wrong?” Zaru’s eyes peer at me with worry.

“Oh, I’m fine.” I start to scratch the back of my head. “My scalp was just a little itchy, that’s all.”

“Um,” Kaif mutters to let us know that he still exists. “If you’d like, I can give you a tour of the place before I send you back to your planet.”

The three of us look to each other before nodding in agreement to Kaif’s kind offer.

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We follow behind as he gives a quick pre-tour so we don’t get into trouble or something, “Please try to stay out of the shadowy areas, that’s what Lord Vensen does when he wants something in the Library to be off limits.”

“What happens if we happen to step into the darkness?” I ask with curiously.

“You just go off into a patch somewhere in the void,” my father puts in sporadically.

“Dad,” I whisper to him in a disciplinary tone. He doesn’t need to answer questions that weren’t directed to him.

“It’s alright, I actually didn’t know the answer myself until now.” Kaif looks back to us with a smile of shyness.

While Kaif goes on with his tour, a peculiar object catches my eye. I turn my head to examine a great carpet on the wall. My feet stop to look at the plaque that titles the artifact as “The Genealogy of the Stuki Clan.” I look up again to the giant cloth and scrutinize the patterns. The fabric is so big that I have to step back quite a distance to see the whole thing. My focus becomes dedicated to this newfound knowledge of the family.

At the top is a sewn portrait of Vensen sitting on a throne and showing his left side. His name is also embroidered beneath him to confirm that the depiction is indeed of him. Next to my grandfather is a black splotch of a shadow covering the person on the underside. I can only assume that’s his wife, but it’s also interesting that the prohibitions in here can be so specific. A line guides me under the two and shows Roukuu who has his own offspring with a girl named “Ari.” Next to my cousin Omen, he seems to have children, but they’re blocked out as well to be as “off limits” like Kaif was talking about. However, I do remember Uncle Kakashin mentioning their names. Darting back to Uncle Kakashin, he has a woman named Gree next to him as he has stated, and then comes the line of Duahe after them. Kron and Ruri are next to each other, then came Uren and Ketsu. Uren had a child with Lili named Shila, knew that. Ketsu and Leilei had a child named Tumma, knew that. I also recall that Tumma had a child with someone named Kupo and named the kid Urak. I wonder how old Urak is. And of course, back to directly under Vensen is my mother, Kyyu. Next to her is my father, Sommi, and then me. No duh, I already knew that before this thing was in my presence.

“Vila, what are you doing over there?” Zaru walks up to keep me company.

I turn to him in reaction and then notice something strange about the material. I look back at it to find a black dot near my embroidered portrait. It completely covers the person behind and hides the man whom I’m betrothed to. Vensen already picked someone for me? Too bad, I’ll marry whoever the hell I want!

“So, is this your genealogy?” Zaru Oversees the textile with me.

Another splotch is beneath me and my “Future husband,” but this time the name of our child is revealed. Kimni… What kind of name is that?

“What the?” Zaru captures my full attention with his bewilderment. “Why is the Konohaka family in here? Kron was Danton’s son, not your tight-fitted uncle’s.”

“He was actually adopted by Danton because Uncle Kakashin was trying to run away, or something, and Danton found him by coincidence. That’s what my uncle told me.” Hopefully my quick explanation is enough for him. “And I won’t tell him that you called him ‘tight-fitted’,” I say with a giggle.

“There you are.” Father keeps a good span away from the artifact and persuades us to come back. “We can’t be here for too long, so let’s try sticking as one group; alright?”

“Yes, Father.” I trod along up next to him as Zaru follows behind with one last glance at the large piece of fabric.

We track behind Kaif and this time pay attention to his insight. “I want to show you this before you leave,” he says with excitement as his feet patter along over to the designated spot. Kaif takes us to this fancy futuristic-looking table with a glass substance covering it and has us gather around it. “You’re probably wondering what Master Kakashin was talking about when he mentioned getting you to Fupum number 2G47.”

We all look to each other and then nod to him.

A little sigh of enthusiasm huffs out of his mouth. “Here, I’ll show you what he was talking about.” He holds his hand over the table thing and a picture of the universe with a strange translucent texture pops out from the glass. It forms as a sphere with the stars and other planets orbiting around Tethalia. “This here is your galaxy, and Fupum should be this little orb here next to Tesh and Hathgaar.” His finger points to the very sphere that is our planet.

I knew about these two planets from school, and the others are historical objects, but I don’t think any astronomer knows about the rest of what space has to offer.

He goes on with his hands shrinking the galaxy to make room for more stars, “These are the other galaxies that accompany ours.” Kaif shrinks the range and lets in even more galaxies to fill in the space until the picture refuses to broaden the stage anymore. He then flicks out a square with random scribbles on it (may be a language that I don’t know about) and taps on one of the doodles that’s possibly a word. Most of the stars and planets dim out of sight, leaving only a few to glimmer. “These are all the Fupums that we know of so far, and there’s probably more.” Kaif smiles in adoration of the little specks that represent duplicates of our planet.

“Wait,” Zaru tries to contain his outrage, “You’re telling me-that there’s more than one individual, like, there’s two of each of us?”

Kaif’s eyes grow slightly from understanding his question. “Oh, I see what you mean. There are two of the same individual, but they still have differences. Another Zaru might have red hair instead of your brown or he could instead be a girl. The differences can vary to an astounding extent, however, Vila’s case is a little different from the rest of us.”

“How is that so?”

“Because she came directly from Vensen’s blood-line.” Father makes himself a part of the group again by answering another query of Zaru’s.

How come no one ever answer mine?

Dad elaborates his reply, “As far as any of us know, including the ‘man’ in question, there’s only one Vensen because he is the manifestation of the void. Since there’s only one of him, there can only be one Roukuu, Kakashin, and my wife Kyyu; as they are his offspring aided by his spouse, whoever the hell that is.” He shows some annoyance to the mystery itself. “Anyway, if you keep going down the line of people who have been born into the family, then eventually you have my daughter here because there is only one version of her mother. Did that make any sense?”

Zaru ponders over it for a little while. “I think so. If I have this correctly, there is another you out there as well because you were born as a regular person; right?”

Dad smiles to the success of his short lesson. “That’s indeed the case.” A realization erases his joy for a short moment. “Oh, I guess we haven’t introduced ourselves officially. My name is Sommi, please forgive my late greeting.” He bows his head slightly.

Zaru does the same politely. “I’m Zaru, Vila has told me about you, Sir.”

My father examines Zaru from head to toe and then quietly mentions his opinion over to me, “I approve of him.”

“Dad.” A rosy red color over shadows my cheeks.

“He knows,” Kaif’s shaky revelation snaps our attention back to the surrounding library.

The shadows are closing in on us.

“He knows we’re here.” Poor Kaif cringes in fear.

“I’m still too weak,” Father tries to mutter to himself. “Kaif, do you know where any of the qaauko* are?”

“This way!” Kaif bolts off and we all keep up with him.

We come up to a set of glass tubes and head for the biggest one that will fit all of us at once. As we jump in, Kaif stops at a control board and readies the system with the darkness ever-so creeping up behind him like a snake. It comes closer to his backside and creates a burning flame of anxiety inside of me. Kaif manages to set the program in time and sprints to the machine towards us. He jumps for every piece of him to pass through the glass door just before it shuts on us. Zaru catches him as he sticks the landing just in time. The void shrouds the tube and covers us like a thick blanket. A jolt disrupts the container and sends a visible shock all over it, but not touching us.

Father pulls me in and holds me tightly to protect me.

We now stand here in the black, waiting for our fate to be revealed.

The void fades out, patch by patch, and slowly exposes our new location.

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Qaauko-From the same language as "khri," this word simply means "portal" or any other form transporting across worlds/dimensions in a short period of time.