Aan and the Darkness

The Discovery

The dark night froze Aan's fingers. The sky was cloudy and yielded no stars. There was not even the moon in the sky. The wind howled against Aan's face as he slowly made his way to the tall black castle. He was right against the base of the castle, and he could smell the stench of evil.

He quietly wrapped a black cloth around his face leaving only a slit for the eyes. Then he reached to his belt and grabbed his climbing stakes. He was worried that the castle's rock would be too hard for his small stakes to dig into. The stakes dug in just fine. Pulling himself up the side of a gigantic castle to the nearest window two hundred feet above with just two iron rods and his arms was harder than he thought. He had to focus all of his energy into pulling the entire weight of his body up by one arm so that he could dig his other arm's stake into the side of the castle to pull himself up from that one.

Finally, after an hour of hard work, thinking of nothing but driving one stake above the other, he reached the window. He climbed in silently pulling himself in from the wall. As he sat there heaving he looked down. "I am sure lucky that I didn't fall."

Aan assessed the situation. He was in what appeared to be a long hallway with the walls covered with swords and spears and other violent weapons that he couldn't even describe. It was dimly lit with torches. He saw no one. He decided that the Dark Lords were probably asleep, if beings like that ever slept at all. Aan creeped quietly down the hall and came to a door. It was labeled in a language that Aan could not make head nor tail out of.

Aan decided to open it anyway. He turned the knob to open it. It was locked. So he pulled his long thin wire out of his pouch. He ran it gently through the keyhole. He wiggled it up and down. Eventually, the lock clicked. He could open the door. He stepped inside into the total darkness.

He couldn't see anything. He lit a candle. It was a kitchen. Over to the left he saw shelves of plates, cups, knives, and bowls, all made, not of wood or stone, but of a lovely white ceramic with beautiful designs along the edges. To the right he saw cabinets full of the finest breads, fruits, and meats.

Unfortunately, this room was not what he was looking for. He was looking for the library. Still, he grabbed a bag out from his pouch and grabbed three loaves of bread from the pantry, two large sides of beef, a few assorted fruits, two silver forks, two silver knives, two plates, and two bowls. He then quietly closed the door behind him and left the room.

He extinguished the candle in the hallway fearful that the light would travel down the hall and alert one of the Dark Lords. So he crept down the hallway for quite some ways until he came to another door. This door too was labeled in a strange language. He picked the lock and walked into the large space.

Aan lit one of his candles and jumped back in shock. There hanging against the wall was a human skeleton. It had its hands chained high into the air and, obviously, it was bone white. It hung there limp. Its feet were dangling above the ground. It was grinning in that eerie way. Next to the first skeleton was another, chained in the same way. This one's bones were of a slightly yellower color. The line of skeletons went on and on.

Regrettably, they also got fresher, until the end they weren't just skeletons they were rotting corpses. The stench of rotting flesh and rats filled his nostrils. He took one look at the bodies and ran in horror, not even closing the door to the dungeon. He ran until he could run no more, which wasn't long because he was still exhausted from his climb. Aan was quaking with fear and horror. He stopped to rest in front of a door that was heavily padlocked.

Aan thought that if it was locked that heavily than something important must be behind it. He was painstakingly careful not to make any noise so that made the job take nearly an hour. Eventually, though it was worth it when he walked into the library filled with every single book in the entire world.