To the Stone City

[Magus]

Magus walked with purpose down the narrow aisle between towering shelves of old books. They looked old enough to be covered in a layer of dust so thick it would never wash off, but these books were, aside from their obvious wear and decay, pristine. Covers had faded but not from exposure; they’d simply been handled so many times over so many years that the color had been worried away from where hands had touched them the most.

He felt as though, in his hurry he would blow these ancient tomes open, loose leaves of knowledge ages old scattering in his wake, and it took every ounce of his will to keep from breaking into a full sprint. He considered what he’d do if someone entered the aisle. Would he slow down?

…No.

The Bellator Arcanum, the arcane warrior, looked ahead but didn’t see. He was too busy running events through his mind. How easily Sif had set him off. How… extreme his response had been.

He would have shivered in disgust if he hadn’t already done considerably worse things. Magus knew what he was, but he took no pleasure in it.

Schala,

The thought that Sif might hurt her. The knowledge that Sif could hurt her. Or at least, that Magus was not sure he couldn’t. It was the first time he’d felt something since slaying the mighty Lavos.

He stifled a sneer. He’d hoped to feel vindicated at the fall of the monster he’d spent his whole life obsessing over. He yearned for absolution. He hoped saving the world would convince the Universe to take pity on him for the things he had done and return his sister to him.

Fate chose not to be so kind. The monster slain, but the princess still lost. Magus had intended to search all of space and time, until he died, if he had to, and then found himself here. Not precisely ‘here.’ The Nexus.

The Omniverse.

Magus stopped a moment, heart racing and breath short. Stress, he thought. Perhaps that’s all it was. Perhaps Sif was the unfortunate outlet for the intense stress of the last few days.

Perhaps he was just rationalizing the terrible things as he had always done in the past. How he’d believe the lies he spun, fooled by his own carefully crafted deception, or at least enough to cloud the truth.

He wondered what to do about Link. It was obvious he’d seen everything. Not everything, but enough. It shook him that the Hylian pressed him, and he had snapped at the boy. He ran a hand through a lavender tuft and sighed, defeated.

Telling Link the truth, explaining to him why Magus had been so upset, it was the right thing to do. It surprised Magus that he felt a twinge of guilt at the knowledge that he couldn’t tell Link anything. A pang of regret that the young warrior would probably look at him as a monster for what he had done.

That he would look upon you for what you are, he reminded himself. It didn’t matter anyway. The kid was interesting only because of the strange magic he possessed. That his artifacts possessed. Link wasn’t even part of the equation. Magus clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

Traveling with that band of deranged, bleeding-heart adventurers had just made him soft. Being thrown into a new reality had made him weak. Here, more than ever, things needed to be as they should be. He did best on his own; he could not afford companions or protégés.

“Fiendlord,” he breathed. He’d earned that name. It was part of him now. He had accepted that. He could never be like Link now. Like Crono, Lucca, or Marle. Like Glenn.

With a grunt of annoyance, he pressed on, moving more quickly than last time. Dwelling on what had been or could have been was pointless. Right now, he needed to find a way to the Oververse.

The aisle suddenly ended and Magus found himself in a small rectangle of open space, surrounded by rows and rows of shelves. A table and four chairs sat at the center of the reading area, and two couches faced opposite each other, one on either side of the table.

And nobody was here. The practitioner of arts arcane rolled his eyes and stepped into the aisle he’d come from, retrieving the book. He stepped into the reading area again and flicked the book haphazardly across the room. It fell on the floor next to the couch and burst into glowing blue light and a dull puff of motes, and then it was gone.

Magus leaned against the side of the couch and waited. If he was right, he would soon have an irate (and possibly, dangerously powerful) librarian to deal with. If he was wrong, then nothing would happen. Well, either nothing, or possibly two or three or five of those Battlemages might show up. He considered that nothing would probably be more desirable.

Suddenly, an orangutan swooped in overhead. At first, Magus hadn’t seen what it was, just that a big, hairy, thing was racing toward him, swinging in from overhead, atop the stacks.

It landed in front of him, the book that Magus had thrown in hand. It went to the spot he’d taken the book from, and returned it there. The orangutan had just about leapt back up into the stacks when Magus opened his mouth and shouted.

“Wait!!”

The orangutan angrily shushed him and ambled up to him. Magus looked down into piercing, intelligent eyes. “You’re no ordinary orangutan, are you?”

It shook its head ‘no.’

“I’m looking for a librarian or curator. Could you help me?”

It pointed to itself.

“You will?” Magus asked. It pointed to itself again. Over and over again, emphatically, it would point at itself. “…You. You’re the librarian.”

The orangutan grunted as an affirmative.

“I see…” he found himself struggling for words. This orangutan must have been a victim of transformative magic of the kind he himself had used to transform a man into an anthropomorphic frog. This magic was more refined, however. The Librarian, since Magus had no other thing to call him, looked like a real orangutan and was only human in its eyes. “I was… pointed here in search of a way to confront Omni. A way to the Oververse.”

The orangutan seemed to glare up at him.

“I need to get there. I need to see him. You must help me,” Magus glared right back down at the Librarian.