Splitting a Soul~Chapter 17

So now we were running through possibly the biggest library in creation being chased by a giant owl that would most likely eat us if given the chance. In other words, this wasn’t the best night I’ve ever had. I didn’t even have any weapons I could use, as we had left them all at the front entrance. I wasn’t even sure if I could find my way to the front entrance anymore, as our owl had lead us through several twists and turns of the library. If at any point we made a wrong turn, we could be stuck in this library forever, or at least until we were eaten by a very angry owl.

“This is possibly the strangest day of my life!” Jack called out as he kept making quick glances behind him. The owl was moving with incredible agility for its size, not even causing the pages of open books to flutter as it moved past him.

“Maybe I can talk to it,” Aisling suggested. She stopped running for a second and turned to face the charging bird. “Oh great owl, we didn’t mean to break the rules of the library, but that guy was being such a μπάσταρδος.”

The owl let out another loud cry that shook the shelves of the library. I wasn’t sure what it said, but Aisling instantly ran to the front of the group. We rounded another corner and ducked behind a filing cabinet. For a moment, I wondered if a card catalog system would work for a library this big and who even uses the Dewey Decimal System anymore, as most libraries had computers to do that for you. However the thought of a giant owl trying to eat us quickly brought my attention back to where it should be. I took a quick glance under the filing cabinet and saw the owl round the corner. It shifted back and forth and I assumed he was looking for us. It took a few steps forward and I could feel the floor shake with every step it took. It moved in our direction and seemed like it was only a few feet away when I heard a book fall a few rows down. The owl lifted its large head right over our hiding spot before moving over.

“Over here,” I heard someone whisper and saw the librarian calling us over. She looked nervous as she kept looking around for the large owl, but kept beckoning us to her. “Hurry, I don’t know how long that will distract him.”

“Better than waiting around here,” Jack agreed and got up, almost running to the librarian. We all followed soon after and she began walking briskly through the rows and rows of books. I was getting dizzy from all the different turns she made and for a second I wondered if she herself knew where she was going. My fears were realized when we had hit a dead end, with the row ending in a large circular room with only one exit; which was how we had entered the room in the first place. I heard the owl again, swiftly moving between the rows and rows of books that made up the library.

“Now where is it,” the librarian asked herself as she walked over to one section. She began running her thin fingers over the books one at a time, reading the spines of the books. I wondered how any book could help is now, but we were running out of time.

“We need to slow it down,” I said, but it wasn’t like I had a plan. We had no weapons or anything.

“Don’t worry, I got this,” Jack said as he walked to the exit. He rubbed his hands together for a moment and I felt the air get colder, so cold that I could see my own breath. Jack’s hair went completely white as he charged himself up and he extended his hands to either side of himself and blasts of ice and snow erupted from his body. The next thing I knew, a thick wall of ice began to seal off the entrance and it kept going. Just past the wall, I saw the owl turn the corner and look at us. The wall then shot up faster and I could no longer see it, but I felt it running toward us and then it collided with the ice wall. The entire thing began to crack and I was surprised it held at all. The owl then began to smash the wall, hitting it repeatedly with his wings or maybe his beak, but I didn’t know. All I knew was that the wall looked like it was about to shatter. “Ok, maybe I don’t got this.”

“Found it,” the librarian said and pulled a book, causing a small section of the wall to move to the side and reveal an old stone staircase. “Hurry, down this way!”

Kimi and Aisling ran down first, I was about to follow, but Jack looked like he was about to faint. I quickly ran to him and put his arm around my shoulder for support. As we walked, his hair returned to its usual black, with a few strands of white here and there. We entered the staircase and the librarian followed us. As soon as the bookcase closed behind us, I heard the wall of ice shatter and the very angry cry of a large owl. As we stood in the darkness for a few seconds to catch our breath, the librarian snapped her fingers and torches that ran along the length of the wall began to light themselves.

“Follow me,” the librarian said as she pulled one of the torches off the wall and began to descend down the staircase.

“Why are you helping us?” Aisling half asked, half ordered, causing the quiet librarian to stop in her tracks. “We broke the rules of the library and I’m pretty sure that owl isn’t going to be happy when he finds out you’re helping us.”

“Not to mention you look really familiar,” I added. There was something about her that rang a bell, but I still couldn’t figure out what it was. “Especially those eyes.”

“I’m sorry, but I am just a simple librarian,” she protested, trying to usher us down the stairs before the owl figured out where we had gone. “Now we should get going before…”

“You’re right Ash, only children of Athena have those grey eyes,” Aisling agreed as she got a closer look at our host. “You’re not a demigod, I know that so it isn’t like you are immortal.”

“How do you know she isn’t a demigod, even an immortal one?” Kimi asked, obviously surprised by Aisling’s statement. Even I was a little shocked; we all were as all the attention shifted from the librarian to Aisling. Obviously this made her a bit uncomfortable.

“Because…” she began before clearing her throat. She then looked over at Jack and I. “Well, for awhile now I have been able to see the blood and ichor in your bodies. With the librarian over there, she is like pure energy, look a god.”

“Or a Titan,” the librarian said, lowering her head and covering her face in shadow.

“You’re Metis aren’t you? You’re the mother of Athena,” Aisling said, placing a hand on her chin and lifting her head, looking into the lady’s grey eyes. “You’re my great-grandmother.”

“Yes,” Metis admitted, turning her face away and continuing down the stairs. We all followed her down, our way illuminated by the light of the torches. Aisling looked like she wanted to ask a million questions, but didn’t know which to ask first. Luckily, she didn’t have to ask first.

“Didn’t Zeus eat you or something?” Jack asked, scratching the back of his head.

“That is true; when Zeus discovered that I would bear a son that would take his place as king, he overreacted a little bit,” Metis explained as she took us deeper down the staircase. She turned around for only a moment and looked at me. “You see I already had one son, your father actually. But after seeing that their actions had done to him during the Titan War, Zeus had sealed him away and hoped that would be the end of it.”

“But you became pregnant again with another child,” Aisling said. “Zeus became paranoid and tricked you into becoming a fly and ate you.”

“Yes, that is also true; but Zeus never seemed to learn from his own father that eating an immortal doesn’t kill them. It is however the same as being trapped; your powers fade and you can’t even fight back. I knew that even if it cost me my life, I would save my child. All the power I had left in me I transferred to my little one and she was born as a full grown goddess; my power becoming her armor and fueling her knowledge. Once her powers were at their strongest, she saw me in my weakened state and couldn’t just leave me there to exist forever in Zeus’ stomach,” she said sadly, but then a smile came to her face. “As her gift to me, I used my remaining power to turn back into a fly and she hid me under her helmet. She then climbed all the way to Zeus head and banged her spear and shield until Zeus asked Hephaestus to split his head open.”

“Then Athena came out of his head and you escaped as well,” I concluded.

“You are a smart lad,” she smiled as we hit the bottom of the staircase. “Once the war with the Gigantes was over, the world entered a time of piece and Athena used that time to create the world’s greatest library. As her final gift, she hid me inside the library as the head librarian so I could read for all eternity.”

“And the owls?” Kimi asked.

“They are like the security system. Knowledge is power, and power always needs to be guarded from those that would use it for evil,” Metis stated very matter-of-factly.

“And yet you let guys like the Collector into your library,” I stated, a bit more malice in my voice then I meant.

“I personally never trusted that man. I may be trapped in this library, but the owls still collect newspapers, including those published by Camp Half-Blood and Eris,” Metis said. “So I have some idea of what is happening outside these walls.”

“Eris publishes newspapers?” Aisling asked.

“Camp Half-Blood has a newspaper too?” I questioned. I had never seen it, but I guess even our camp had a news letter.

“Eris mostly works on the gossip columns, always causing fights between the gods and always causing problems,” Metis said jokingly. “The Camp Half-Blood Gazette on the other hand is written by my grandchildren, the Athena campers. They are much better at information gathering and stating the facts, but no imagination with their writing.”

“That would explain why I never read it,” I said. “I have a hard enough time reading books for fun; can’t imagine what informational reading would be like.”

“It doesn’t hurt to pick up a book every now and then,” Aisling insisted and I knew she was right, but I wouldn’t admit that. Then we finally reached the bottom of the stairs and I saw three long hallways so dark that I couldn’t see the end.

“This is as far as I can take you I’m afraid. I can no longer leave the library or Zeus will know that I still exist. I do not wish for that to happen,” Metis said sorrowfully as she looked at her feet, not able to take another step as she was standing on last stair before the hallways. “Maybe after today I can convince the owls to no longer let Lawrence into the library.”

“Who is Lawrence?”   I asked her, as it wasn’t really a name I heard too often.

“He’s the man you met upstairs. From what I’ve read, he’s been giving you quite the problem. Didn’t you even know his name was Lawrence III?” Metis asked with a puzzled expression. Before that moment I never even thought that the Collector even had a name to speak of. Actually hearing that he had a name made him seem even stranger for some reason.

“Why do you even let him in here?” Jack questioned. “I mean this library has rules, right?”

“It has rules for gods and demigods. Mortals on the other hand rarely visit the library, as only those with clear sight can find the entrance to enter and normally those blessed with clear sight are good in nature. They are ignored would be the best way to put it, but we have never run across someone who could trick the Mist,” Metis explained. Before we could ask anymore, she pointed to the hallway to the right. “If you follow that tunnel all the way to the end, you will find yourself outside the library. I’m sorry, but I can’t offer you anymore help then that.”

“What about our weapons?” I asked. I wondered if we left, would be ever get them from the enchantment of the library.

“Don’t worry, once you leave the library, your weapons will instinctively return to you, I will make sure of that,” Metis explained and I couldn’t help but trust her.

“Thank you Metis,” I told her as I stepped into the hallway. “And don’t worry, we won’t tell Zeus anything about this.”

“The pleasure was all mine,” Metis said and turned to Aisling. She ran her hand through Aisling’s long brown hair before giving her a kiss on the forehead. “And you take care of yourself. Come visit me sometime and maybe I’ll tell you some embarrassing stories about your grandmother.”

“That sounds amazing and don’t worry, I’ll be fine; I’m sure of it,” Aisling smiled as she gave her a hug. Then all four of us left down the hallway and gave Metis one final wave as we departed. Just like any trip to the library is supposed to do, it left me with a lot to think about.