As The Snow Falls

Chapter Ten - Divide and Conquer

They had elected to return to the library, as they agreed it the safest place at the moment.

'What should we do now?' Apphia asked.

'We should look for others that might help us,' Raphael said, 'any ideas?'

'Why don't we ask the librarian?' James suggested.

The familiar barn owl appeared before them.

The wise old owl morphed into a wise old man, with a greying beard and balding head, his skin the colour of someone who'd recently been somewhere sunny.

'Hello,' he smiled at them, 'my name is Joshua, how can I help you?'

'Do you know of any who might side with the wearers of black?' James asked.

'I'm afraid I don't have anything on that,' as he spoke, the gentle gliding of a book could be heard, coming towards them, 'but I do have a book on powerful beings? Might that be of use?'

The book floated into his hands, and he passed the book to James, who began to flick through.

'Maybe when we find something,' James began, a look of intense concentration working its way to the forefront of his features, as if choosing his words took great effort, 'we should form two groups?'

Raphael nodded in approval of his suggestion.

'That's a good idea,' he said, 'James, when we find something, you can take the first group to wherever they need to go, while the second waits here and finds another.'

'Makes sense,' Nadia said, not looking up from her book, 'I think I'll try Biographical Myths and Legends next.'

The library was the first sanctuary for the Guardians, it served as their dwelling before they needed to guard. It has no physical location, if someone were to ask you where it was, the most useful thing you could do, would be to draw a mind map, as its location is now metaphysical. The protection the library offers to those of black is not truly understood, very few know of the power the library holds.

'Who should go in the first group?' Lei asked inquisitively.

'James would go, and three others,' Raphael said, 'leaving three here, I don't think we should split up more than that.'

'I want to go!' Lei announced excitedly.

'Me and Apphia volunteer!' Kai beamed, enthusiastically hugging Apphia, who didn't look too impressed.

'Let go of me, or I'll break your arm.' Apphia said monotonously.

'You don't mean that! Best buddy!'

'You're left handed, right?' Apphia said coolly, moving her hand towards his arm.

Kai quickly slunk away and shuffled closer to Samson.

'It's settled then,' Raphael announced, 'James, Lei, and the besties can go.'

Apphia seemed happy at the possibility of scaring Kai further.

The library's extensive collection is due to the fact that the works to be found within are there because the librarian know them; the books exist as manifestations of the memories of the librarian, as such, some books may be incomplete at the time of reading, requesting the librarian to reread the text in question will present you with a completed works.

'This looks promising,' Nadia suddenly said, after an intense skimming session, '"The Electric One, here known as Coulok, is the champion of all empowering energies, as such, his existence is devoted to maintaining balance. Legend has it, that the great Coulok, after exactly seven hundred years of protecting the world, the immortal decided that it was not worth saving, as what was saved became the next problem. This continuous, unrelenting cycle caused Coulok to leave this realm, he now resides in the Nether Plane." sounds like somewhere to start to me.'