The shelves and floors below were accessed by a spiral of stairs.

They headed down it

The epicenter of activity, they found on a floor two down from the ground level.

And it was not of carnage.

It was what appeared to be a great frenzy of books pulled from shelves, opened, pages torn or smeared with blood.

“They’ve found what they wanted, and they’re gone,” Mars murmured.

The men scabbarded their swords.

Elena and Silence bent by the pile of books.

“This is a desecration!” the priest shrieked, and Mars watched as he indicated his words did not share his feelings about the gruesome deaths of his brethren when he threw himself down to the volumes close to Elena, holding his hands above them as if afraid to touch them. “The word! The art! The history!”

“You passed at least fifteen of your brothers, torn to bits on your way to this location,” True pointed out, and the man whipped his head around and back to glare up at True.

“There is nothing more important than the tomes,” he snapped.

“What are these particular tomes about?” Mars asked.

The priest looked down at them, but was apparently so beside himself, he couldn’t answer.

Thus, he didn’t.

“They are, many of them, in the old or ancient tongue,” Silence said.

“They should not be touched unless your fingers are protected. They are old and ancient for they are of the Collected,” the priest stated.

“The Collected?” Ha-Lah asked.

“They are not ours, of the Go’Doan. We did not write them. They were written before the true gods were worshipped. We saved them from the other realms and keep them protected here,” the priest answered.

“Shite,” Cassius muttered.

“Have they been translated?” Silence asked.

The man reared back in offense. “All the Collected were painstakingly translated.”

“Get us those,” Mars ordered.

“You still do not even have approval to be here,” the man spat.

Mars was about to move, but True did it before him.

Thus, the man scuttled back on his hands and feet, True in pursuit. The priest eventually smacked his head into the leg of a desk and stopped before True leaned deeply over him to come face to face.

“He said,” True whispered. “Get…us…those.”

“I love it when he gets like that,” Farah said breathily, and at a glance, Mars saw it was to Ha-Lah.

Ha-Lah was eyes to True and grinning.

“True, calm,” Elena called, straightening. “I’ll go to the catalogue, discover what these were about and locate the translations.”

She then walked right to and up the winding staircase with Cassius dogging her heels.

“Isn’t there someone you should report the massacre of your brothers to?” Aramus asked the priest.

“I can’t leave you alone with the tomes,” he retorted in horror.

Aramus looked to Mars.

Mars shrugged.

It was not long before they heard a loud whistle.